The Ascension Factor

"No," he said, and his voice trembled. He was sweating heavily even though she was the one under the lights. "If a preempt signal was sent, I didn't see it. You went out live."

God bless Gus! she thought.

She turned to the security.

"Now, Captain. I didn't get your name. what was it you wanted of me?"

* * *

What then shall we do?

— Leo Tolstoy

"Trimmed and steady," Elvira reported. "No pursuit. Course?"

When Ben didn't answer, Rico said, "Victoria."

Elvira grunted.

It was obvious to Crista that Elvira trusted both Ben and Rico completely. She had seen loyalty at the Preserve, but never trust. She had manipulated the distrust rampant throughout Flattery's organization to open the hatch for her escape. That same distrust would bring Flattery down, once and for all. Of this she was certain.

"Flattery's people hoard information like spinarettes at the web," she told Ben. "It's barter to them, a medium of exchange. So no one has the full picture and rumor guides the hand that blesses or damns. That's why Shadowbox has threatened him more than anything else."

"There's food in the galley," Rico announced, and she saw the accompanying green indicator flash on the console at her right hand. "Ben, you two take a break. Bring me back some coffee. We're a few hours out yet. Elvira would like the usual."

Ben led Crista to the galley behind the cabin with a hand at her elbow. Her legs seemed wobbly in spite of the even-keeled submersible run of the foil. She had been hungry now for hours. Her head ached with it, and the memory of broiled sebet on the village air charged her stomach.

"We live in the galley," Ben told her. "When we're on a job, this room is jammed, it's where everything happens."

She stepped from the semidim cabin into a warm yellow glow. The galley was a bright room of wood, yellowpanel and brass. She could imagine a Holovision Nightly News crew spread out over the two tables with coffee and notes in the half-hour before air time. It was a clean, well-lighted space. Holo cubes of the crew in action on various assignments sat in a rack against the inboard bulkhead. Crista sat at the first of two hexagonal tables and pulled down a couple of the cubes to look at.

"These really stand out at you," she said, moving the holograms through different angles of light. "Nothing in Flattery's collection matches these for quality."

"Thanks to Rico," Ben said. "He's a born inventor. He'd be a rich man today if Flattery's Merman Mercantile hadn't jumped into the middle of things. Our stuff is good because Rico makes up the equipment himself. We always roll with the best."

"She's very pretty," Crista said, holding a scene of Ben and Beatriz with their arms around each other. "You two have worked together for a long time. Were you in love, the two of you?"

Ben cleared his throat and pushed a few buttons. She heard the whirr of galley machinery at work.

"Now it's hard to know whether we were truly in love or whether we'd just survived so much together that we felt no one else could understand — except maybe Rico, of course."

"And you made love with her?"

"Yes."

Ben stood with his back to her, staring at the backs of his hands on the countertop. "Yes, we made love. For several years. Given our lives, it would have been impossible that we didn't become intimates."

"But now you're not?"

She saw the slightest shake of the back of his head. "No."

"Does that make you sad? Do you miss her?"

When he turned to her she saw the consternation on his face, the struggle he seemed to be having with words. She thought perhaps he'd started out to lie to her, but with a sigh he changed his mind.

"Yes," he said, "I miss her. Not as a lover, that's past and would be too clumsy to rekindle. I miss working with her because she's so goddamn good at getting people to talk in front of cameras. Rico handled the techno stuff, and between us she and I could get to the bottom of most anything. I think she's in love with MacIntosh up in Current Control, but I don't think she's admitted it, yet. If it's true, it should make life easier for both of us."

"If one of you is in love, then that takes the heat off?"

Ben laughed. "I suppose you could say that, yes."

She lowered her gaze to the cube that her hands passed back and forth in front of her. "Could you ever be in love with me?"

He laughed a soft laugh and gripped her shoulder.

"I remember everything about you," he said. "That first day I saw you in Flattery's lab, when you looked at me over your shoulder and smiled. I had a feeling when our eyes met like I've never had before. I still get it every time I see you, think of you, dream of you. Isn't that something like love?"

Her pale skin flushed red from the neck of her dress to the roots of her shaggy white hair at her forehead.

"It's the same for me," she said. "But I have nothing to compare with. And how could I live up to whatever you've shared with. her?"