Saturn

The phone screen on the wall opposite her showed an educational vid beamed from Earth: something about dinosaurs and the comet-borne microbes that wiped them out. Holly thought that it was safe enough to watch the program; no one could trace a passive use of the phone. It was only if she made an outgoing call that they could track her location.

The ed program ended as she munched on the cookies. A three-note chime a

Holly’s eyes went wide when the newscaster a

“You bastards!” Holly shouted, jumping to her feet.

Then the newscast showed a prerecorded interview with Malcolm Eberly, who was identified as the deputy director of the habitat. With convincing sorrow, Eberly said:

“Yes, Miss Lane worked in the Human Resources Department when I served as its chief. She seemed perfectly normal then, but apparently once she goes off her medication she becomes… well, violent.”

“You’re flaming right I’m violent!” Holly screeched. “Wait till I get my hands on your lying face!”

Dressed in a sky-blue blouse and slacks, Cardenas came back into the sitting room where Gaeta and Tavalera were talking together.

“Has her dossier come in from Atlanta yet?” Cardenas asked.

Gaeta shook his head. “Your message is probably just reaching them Earthside by now. We’re a long way from home, Kris.”

Tavalera got to his feet. “The rally’s due to start in half an hour.”

“Sit down, Raoul,” said Cardenas. “I want to see Holly’s dossier before we go.”

“We’ll miss—”

“The candidates won’t be making their final statements for another hour, at least,” Gaeta said. “All we’ll miss is a lot of noise: the marching bands and all that crap.”

Sitting back on the sofa, Tavalera said, “I’m worried about Holly. Those goons from Security can be rough.”

“Where could she be?” Cardenas wondered aloud, going to the sofa and sitting beside Tavalera.

Gaeta, in the armchair across the coffee table from the sofa, suddenly lit up. “I bet I know.”

“Where?”

“The tu

“Tu

“There must be a hundred kilometers of ’em. More. They’d never be able to find her down there. And she knows every centimeter of them; has it all memorized.”

“Then how could we find her?” Cardenas asked.

“I’ll look for her,” said Tavalera, getting up again.

Gaeta reached out and grasped his wrist. “Raoul, there’s just too much of the tu

Tavalera pulled free of his grip. “It beats sitting around here doin’ nothing,” he said.

“If you do find her,” Cardenas said, “bring her here. We’ll keep her safe until this all gets sorted out.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

With nothing else to do after Tavalera left, Cardenas and Gaeta watched the news broadcast that showed the crowd building up at the rally site beside the lake. The speaker’s platform was empty, but several small bands paraded through the gathering throng, blasting out marching tunes and working up the crowd. They noted that there were plenty of empty chairs spread out on the grass.

“We won’t have any trouble getting seats,” Cardenas murmured.

Gaeta got up from the armchair to sit beside Cardenas, on the sofa. They watched the video, close enough to touch. Despite everything else, Cardenas thought that within a week, two at most, Gaeta would be packing up and preparing to leave the habitat. His torch ship might be already on the way here, she said to herself. Should I go with him? Would he want me to?

The phone chimed. Cardenas displayed the message. It was the dossier of Susan Lane, from the files of the New Morality headquarters in Atlanta.

“They got the wrong Lane,” Gaeta said.

But then the file photo of Holly came up, unmistakable.

“She must’ve changed her name,” murmured Cardenas.

“Is that a sign of instability?”

They read the dossier, every word and statistic.

“No mention of mental or emotional problems,” Gaeta said.

“Or of medications.”

“The sonsofbitches have faked her dossier. They’re framing her.”

Cardenas recorded the entire file into her handheld. Then she popped to her feet.

“Let’s go to the rally and confront Eberly with this,” she said.

“Right,” said Gaeta.

But when he slid the front door open, four burly men and women in the dead black tunics of the security force were standing in the hallway, slim black batons hooked into their belts.

“Colonel Kananga wants to talk to you,” said one of the women, who seemed to be their leader. “After the rally. He asks that you stay here until he can get to you.”

Wordlessly, Cardenas slid the door shut and went back to the sofa.

“They must know what we’ve done,” Gaeta said.

“They’ve bugged this apartment,” said Cardenas, dropping back onto the sofa. “They can hear every word we say. And they know about Holly’s dossier from Atlanta.”

Feeling dazed, helpless, Gaeta said, “Then they know that Tavalera’s gone to the tu

THE FINAL RALLY

It was hard to talk with so many people pressing around them. Eberly and Morgenthau were walking side by side along the path that led down to the lakeside rally site. Vyborg was slightly behind them, Kananga and a pair of his biggest men up ahead, clearing a path through the thick crowd of people who lined the path, shouting and smiling and reaching for Eberly to shake his hand, touch him, get a smile from him.

He wanted to shake their hands, smile at them, bask in the glow of their adulation. But instead he virtually ignored them as he talked with Morgenthau.

“She’s in the tu

Morgenthau nodded, puffing hard despite the fact that the press of the crowd slowed their pace to little more than a snail’s pace.

“Cardenas’s assistant has entered the tu

“I hope he has better success than Kananga’s oafs.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said louder. “Never mind.”

“We’ve detained Cardenas and the stunt man. They have Holly’s original dossier.”

A shock of alarm hit Eberly. “How did they get it?”

“From Atlanta. The New Morality has dossiers on everyone aboard the habitat, apparently.”

Wringing his hands in frustration, Eberly said, “I should have doctored those files, too.”

“Too late for that.”

“This is getting out of hand. We can’t keep Gaeta and Cardenas locked up. I’ve been pushing Gaeta’s stunt as a campaign issue.”

“Vyborg thought it best to keep them quiet until after the election tomorrow.”

Eberly glanced over his shoulder. Vyborg. That sour little troll has been the cause of all this trouble, he told himself. Once I’m firmly in power, I’ll get rid of him. But then he thought, The little snake knows too much about me. The only way to be rid of him is to silence him permanently.

A brass band came blaring up to him, surrounded his little group and escorted them to the speaker’s platform. They were amateur musicians, making up in enthusiasm what they lacked in talent. They blew so loudly that Eberly couldn’t think.

Urbain and Timoshenko were already seated on the platform, he saw as they approached. The crowd was cheering wildly, already worked up to a near frenzy. Wilmot was nowhere in sight. Good. Let him remain in his quarters, as I instructed. I want these people to see me as their leader, no one else.

He climbed the stairs and took his chair between Timoshenko and Urbain. The several little bands clumped together into one large conglomeration in front of the platform and played a faltering rendition of “Now Let Us Praise Famous Men.” Eberly wondered how the women of the habitat felt about the sexist sentiment. The band was so poor that it didn’t matter, he decided.