High Justice

Out beyond, in the dark of the inland hills, a green light stabbed upward; more capsules fired into orbit, raw materials for the factories in the satellite, structural materials for expansion, fuel, oxygen, the expendables that ate so much profit despite recycling. The sun was long over the horizon and Heimdall wouldn't be visible; but soon it would be coming overhead. The supply pods were always as close to the satellite as her engineers dared.

"It's time for our talk, then," Aeneas said. "Is there anything to talk about? You're what I've opposed all my life."

"Yes. But you love me. And if you fight me-who are you fighting for?"

He didn't answer.

"I love you, Aeneas. I always have, and you've always known it. Tell me what to do."

"Will you-would you throw all this away if I asked you to?"

"I don't know. Will you ask it? Remember, Aeneas. You can't destroy power. You can fragment mine, but someone else will move into the vacuum. Power doesn't vanish."

"No." And she had a dream. A dream that had been his.

"You don't trust me with all this. Would you trust yourself?"

"No."

"Then someone else. Who?"

"No one, of course."

There was no change in her pose or voice, but he sensed triumph.

"Then tell me what I should do," she said.

This time she meant it. He felt that whatever he said, she'd do. She knew him well. She was taking no chances, because she knew what he must say. Forty billion dollars was ten dollars for every human on Earth-or the key to the planets. "I can't."

"Then join me. I need you."

"Yes."

There were no longer barriers, and sixteen years vanished as if they'd never been.

For a week there were only the two of them-and Miguel, silent, invisibly near. They slipped away from Cabo San Lucas and its power plants and factories, to find still lonely beaches where they swam to brilliant coral reefs. Afterwards they made love on the sand and desperately tried to forget the years they'd wasted.

One week and a little more; and then the phones in the camper buzzed insistently and they had to return.

She told him what she could as they drove back. "Captain Shorey has been all the authority I have up there," she said. "The station depends on the ground launching system to survive, but there's nothing I can do to control it."

"You think there's mutiny on Heimdall?" Aeneas asked incredulously.

"I don't know. I only know Shorey is dead, and Herman Eliot says he can't meet the manufacturing schedule. Without the finished goods from the station I can't pay the syndicate. I'll lose Heimdall."

There would be any number of people who might benefit from that. With over a hundred men and women in space, the odds were good that several organizations had agents aboard the satellite factory complex. "How do you select crew for Heimdall?" Aeneas asked.

The Jeep camper bounced across rutted roads toward the main highway. Ten kilometers ahead they'd meet a helicopter.

"I try to pick them myself," she said. "The pay is good, of course. Almost two hundred thousand dollars at the end of a two-year tour in space. We have plenty of volunteers, but not just for the money. I choose generalists, adaptable people, and I try to keep a balance between the intellectuals and factory people. There's a lot of construction work, and production runs mean repetitive labor that bores the big brains. I also look for people who might want to go on to the Moon colony, or be crew aboard Valkyrie. So far it's worked, but Captain Shorey was the key to it. Now he's gone."

"Tell me about Herman Eliot."

"He's been second in command. A mechnical genius. He's in charge of production and research."

"Do you think he's loyal to you?"

"I'm almost sure of it. He wants to go with Valkyrie. But he didn't tell the ground station much. Maybe he'll tell me directly. Aeneas, if I don't keep the manufacturing schedule, I'll lose the station and everything else!" She was near panic; and he'd never seen her frightened before. It upset him more than he'd thought possible.

The Jeep bounced through a dust bowl laced with a myriad of ruts. Wind blew a torrent of fine powder across the windshield, and Miguel had to start the wipers to remove it. The dust ran like rivulets of water.

Dr. Herman Eliot was nervous. It came through in his voice as he reported to Laurie Jo. "We have a nasty situation up here, Miss Hansen. Captain Shorey was murdered and the crew knows it. There's been sabotage all along, now this. Some of the engineers are saying that the Equity Trust is going to gain control of this satellite, and they'll remember who their friends were. There's even talk that people who won't help the Equity cause will be stranded, or have accidents on reentry."

"Tell them Equity will never control Heimdall!" Laurie Jo shouted into the microphone.

"I can tell them, but will they believe it? I repeat, Miss Hansen, Captain Shorey was murdered, and we all know there's no chance the killer will be punished. Who's next?"

"Do you know who did it?"

"I'm fairly sure it was an engineer named Martin Holloway."

"If you know he killed the captain, why don't you do something?" Laurie Jo demanded.

"Do what? I'm no policeman. Suppose we put Holloway under arrest. Then what? We have no jails here, and there's no court that will take jurisdiction over him. I doubt he was the only man involved in this; what if he won't go when I order him down? It could start a mutiny. The crew thinks Equity will gain control here; nobody wants that, but there aren't many who'll risk their necks for a lost cause."

"If you meet the delivery schedules, I keep Heimdall! Don't they know that?"

"If you were only fighting the Equity Trust, Miss Hansen, we could believe you'd win. But not against the United States as well."

She was silent for a long time. Since the United States had thrown away her investments in space, or had them stolen and sold out by corruption, Heimdall had been the key to regaining that position… . "Will you try?" she asked.

"I'll do what I can," Eliot said. The speaker went dead.

Tears welled at the corners of Laurie Jo's eyes, but her voice was firm. "I'll go up there myself with a squad of company police!"

Aeneas shook his head. "If things are that bad, they won't even meet your capsule; you can't afford to provoke an open break. Besides, you have to stay here. No one else can control your partners. With you out and away up there you'd certainly lose the station."

"Then what will I do?"

Aeneas drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was time to repay the Saracens for their hospitality… "Send up Holloway's file, to begin with. Let's see who we're up against."

He took out the photographs of Martin Holloway as Laurie Jo began to read. "Five feet eleven inches, 175 pounds, hair brown, eyes green, graduated from-"

"It will be lies," Aeneas said. "His name is David Hindler."

"You know him?" Laurie Jo asked.

Aeneas smiled wistfully. "Long ago. Before Greg was President. You remember that Greg's enemies tried to have him killed… David was very valuable then. He saved my life." And I his; we have no debts to each other. But once there was a bond… "Dr. Eliot implies that the Equity Trust is behind your difficulties. David is Greg Tolland's man. He wouldn't kill for anyone else."

She said nothing, but there was concern in her eyes; not hatred for Tolland, although that was deserved; but sorrow because she knew the pain Aeneas must now feel. He could never convince himself that Greg Tolland hadn't known…

"Have your people make me a space suit and whatever else I'll need," Aeneas said.

Hope came to her-then it was gone. "You've never been in space. How can you stay alive there?"

"I'm a careful man, Laurie Jo. And I think I see what must be done."