Protector

She reported to her superior, Vi

Vi

“Finagle’s Jest I did. You have my report.” Alice had gone to Earth in hope of solving a growing social problem. A flatlander sin — wireheading, the practice of ru

“That’s not what I meant. You made a conquest.” Vi

“A flatlander?” She had shared a bed with one man on Earth, to nobody’s satisfaction. Gravity, and lack of practice. He’d been polite about it, but they had not seen each other again.

She stood up. “Do you need me for anything else?”

“Nope. Have fun,” said Vi

He tried to stand up when she came in. He botched it a bit in the low gravity, but managed to get his feet to the floor and keep the rest of him upright. “Hello. Roy Truesdale,” he said, before she could fumble for the name.

“Welcome to Vesta,” she said. “So you came after all. Still hunting for the Snatcher?”

“Yes.”

She took a seat behind her desk. “Tell me about it. Did you finish the backpacking trip?”

He nodded. “I think the Rockies were the best, and there’s no trouble getting in. You ought to try it. The Rockies aren’t a national park, but not many people want to build there either.”

“I’ll try it, if I ever get to Earth again.”

“I saw the other Outsiders… I know, they aren’t really Outsiders, but sure as hell, they’re alien. If the real Outsider is like those…”

“You’d rather think Vandervecken is human.”

“I guess I would.”

“You’re putting a lot of effort into finding him.” She considered the idea that Truesdale had come chasing a certain Belter woman. A flattering thought…

“The law didn’t seem to be getting anywhere,” he said. “Worse than that. It looks like they’ve been hunting Vandervecken or someone like him for a hundred and twenty years. I got mad and signed up for a ship to Vesta. I was going to find Vandervecken myself. That’s a hassle, you know?”

“I know. Too many flatlanders want to see the asteroids. We have to restrict them.”

“I had to wait three months for crash couch space. I still wasn’t sure I wanted to go. After all, I could always cancel… Then something else happened.” Truesdale’s jaw clamped in retrospective anger.

“Lawrence St. John McGee. He took me for just about everything I owned, ten years ago. A swindle.”

“It happens. I’m sorry.”

“They caught him. He was calling himself Ellery Jones from St. Louis. He was ru

She smiled. “Why, that’s wonderful!”

“Vandervecken tipped him. It was another bribe.”

“Are you sure? Did he use that name?”

“No. Damn him for playing games with my head! He must have decided I was hunting him because he robbed me. He took four months of my life. He threw me Lawrence St. John McGee, so I should stop worrying about my missing four months.”

“You don’t like being that predictable.”

“No. I do not.” He wasn’t looking at her. His hands were closed hard on the arms of her pest chair. Muscles bunched and swelled in his arms when he did that. Some Belters affected to hold flatlander muscles in contempt…

She said, “Vandervecken may be too big for us.”

His response was interesting. “Now you’re talking. What have you found out?”

“Well… I’ve been hunting Vandervecken too. You know that there have been other disappearances.”

“Yah.”

Her desk, like Robinson’s, had a computer terminal in it. She used it. “Half a dozen names. And dates: 2150, 2191, 2230, 2250, 2270, 2331. You can see our records go back further than yours. I talked to this Lawrence Ja

“Are any of the others alive and available?”

“Dandridge Sukarno and Norma Stier, disappeared 2270 and 2230, respectively. They wouldn’t give me the local time of day. They took their fees and that’s that. We traced the fees to two different names — George Olduval and C. Cretemaster — and no faces to go with the names.”

“You have been busy.”

She shrugged. “A lot of goldskins get interested in the Snatcher at one time or another. Vi

“It sounds like he takes a sample every ten years. Alternating between Earth and Belt.” Truesdale whistled uneasily. He was remembering those dates. “Twenty-one fifty is almost two hundred years ago. No wonder he called himself Vandervecken.”

She looked at him sharply. “Is there some significance?”

“Vandervecken was the captain of the Flying Dutchman. I looked it up. You know the Flying Dutchman legend?”

“No.”

“There used to be commercial sailing ships — sailing on the ocean, by wind power. Vandervecken was trying to round the Cape of Good Hope during a heavy storm. He swore a blasphemous oath that he would round the Cape if he had to beat against the wind until the last day. In stormy weather passing ships can still see him, still trying to round the Cape. Sometimes he stops ships and asks them to take letters to home.”

Her laugh was shaky. “Letters to who?”

“The Wandering Jew, maybe. There are variations. One says Vandervecken murdered his wife and sailed away from the police. One says there was a murder on board. Writers seem to like this legend. It turns up in novels, and there was an old flat movie, and an even older opera, and — have you heard that old song the backpackers sing around the campfires? I’m the only tar that e’er jumped ship from Vandervecken’s crew…”

“The Bragging Song.”

“All the legends have that one thing in common: an immortal man sailing under a curse, forever.”

Alice Jordan’s eyes went big and round.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Jack Bre

“Bre

“Supposed to be.” She was looking down at her desk. Gradually her eyes focused on coils of printout. “Roy, I’ve got to get some work done. Where are you staying, the Palace?”

“Sure, it’s the only hotel in Waring City.”

“I’ll pick you up there, eighteen hundred. You’ll need a guide to the restaurants anyway.”

For a monopoly, the Palace was an excellent hotel. Human service was spotty, but the machinery — bathroom facilities, cleaning widgetry, waiters — all ran to perfection. Belters seemed to treat their machines as if their lives depended on them.

The east wall was three meters from the dome itself, and featured picture windows guarded by big rectangular screens that swung automatically to shut out raw sunlight. The screens were open now. Truesdale looked out through a wall of glass, over the shallow bulge of the Anderson City dome, past a horizon so jagged and close that he felt he was on a mountain peak. But the stars were not this vivid from any mountain on Earth. He saw the universe, close enough to touch.

And the room was costing him plenty. He was going to have to learn to spend money again without wincing.