The Precipice (38 page)

She saw that the ringwail mountains of Alphonsus were almost below the horizon behind them.

“Where are we going?” she asked again, knowing it was useless.

Beside her, Frank Blyleven was no longer smiling. He sweated inside his spacesuit as he drove the tractor. When he'd made
his deal with Martin Humphries, it had been for nothing more serious than allowing Humphries to tap into Astro Corporation's
communications net. A good chunk of money for practically no risk. Now he was ferrying a kidnapped woman, a Nobel scientist,
for the lord's sweet sake! Humphries was going to have to pay extra for this.

Blyleven had to admit, though, that Humphries had smarts. Stavenger wants to search for Dr. Cardenas? Okay. Who better to
spirit her out of Selene for a while than the head of Astro's security department? Nobody asked any questions when he showed
up at the garage already suited up, with another spacesuited person alongside him.

“Got to inspect the communications antennas out on Nubium,” he told the guard checking out the tractors. “We'll be out about
six hours.”

Sure enough, three hours into his aimless wandering across the desolate
mare,
he got a radio signal from Humphries's people. “Okay, bring her back.”

Smiling again, he leaned his helmet against Cardenas's so she could hear him through sound conduction.

“We're going back now,” he said. “They'll have a team to meet you. You behave yourself when we get to the garage.”

Kris Cardenas felt a huge surge of gratitude well up inside her. We're going back. We'll be safe once we're back inside.

Then she realized that she was still Humphries's prisoner, and she wasn't really safe at all.

* * *

Dan felt simmering anger as he watched George's report on the wallscreen of the ship's wardroom.

“I was in on th' search of Humphries's place. It's big enough to hide a dozen people. We din't find Dr. Cardenas or any trace
of her,” George ended morosely.

“She must still be alive, then,” Dan said. Then he blew out an impatient huff of breath as he realized that George wouldn't
hear his words for another twenty minutes or so.

Pancho was sitting beside him in the wardroom, looking more puzzled than worried as George's image faded from the wallscreen.

“If they haven't found her body,” Dan said to her, “it means she's probably still alive.”

“Or they've stashed the corpse outside,” Pancho suggested.

Dan nodded glumly.

“Why would Humphries want to kill Dr. Cardenas?” Pancho asked.

“Because she found out something that she wanted to tell me; something that Humphries doesn't want me to know.”

“What?”

“How should I know?” Dan snapped.

Pancho grinned lamely. “Yeah, I guess that was a pretty dumb question.”

Dan rubbed his chin, muttering, “Humphries knew the security people were coming to search his place so he just moved her somewhere
else until the search was over. I'll bet a ton of diamonds she's back inside his house now. He'll want to keep her close.”

“Prob'ly,” Pancho agreed.

“I wish there was a way we could get somebody into Humphries's place without him knowing it,” Dan mused.

Pancho sat up straighten “There is,” she said, with a sly smile.

* * *

George counted it as a sign of Doug Stavenger's respect for Dr. Cardenas that he agreed to a private meeting.

“Invisible?” Stavenger looked shocked. “A cloak of invisibility?”

“I know it sounds nutty,” George said, “but Dan told me that—”

“It's not nutty,” Stavenger murmured, steepling his fingers before his face. “I'm stunned, though, that Ike Walton told anyone
about it.”

“You mean it's real? A cloak of invisibility?”

Stavenger eyed the big Aussie from behind his desk. “It's real, all right. But I doubt that it comes in your size. We're going
to have to put the loose-lipped Mr. Walton back to work.”

The worst part about this, Dan fumed silently, is being so far apart that we can't talk in real time.

He had paced the length of the crew module several times, from the bridge where Pancho and Amanda chatted amiably while monitoring
the ship's highly automated systems to the sensor bay at the far end of the passageway, where Fuchs was bent over the sample
of superconducting wire.

George's last message had an almost fairy-tale quality to it. “Stavenger's got the guy who made the cloak enlarging it to
fit me. He's over in th' nanotech lab now, doin' it. He says I'll be able to sneak into Humphries's place sometime tomorrow
morning, if he doesn't run into any snags.”

Rumpelstiltskin, Dan thought as he prowled along the passageway. No, he was the guy who spun straw into gold. Who had the
cloak of invisibility?

Pancho, he answered himself. Of all the sneaky con artists in the solar system, she's the one who comes up with a cloak of
invisibility. Well, chance favors the prepared mind, they
say. Pancho was smart enough and fast enough to use what chance offered her.

He found himself at the sensor bay again. There wasn't room for a chair. Fuchs was standing, staring at the same display screen
he'd been staring at the last time Dan had looked in at him.

“Anything interesting?” Dan asked him.

Fuchs stirred as if being awakened from a dream. But from the worried expression on his face, Dan thought it might have been
a nightmare.

“What is it, Lars?”

“I've found what created the hot spot in this section of wire,” Fuchs said, his voice grave, solemn.

“Good!” said Dan.

“Not good,” Fuchs countered, shaking his head.

“What is it?”

Pointing to the curves traced across the display screen, Fuchs said, “The amount of copper in the wire is diminishing.”

“Huh?”

“The wire is superconducting only if its composition remains constant.”

“And it stays cooled down to liquid nitrogen temperature,” Dan added.

“Yes, of course. But this length of wire… its copper content is diminishing.”

“Diminishing? What do you mean?”

“Look at the curves!” Fuchs said, with some heat. Rapping his knuckles on the display screen he said, “In the past two hours
the copper content has gone down six percent.”

Dan felt baffled. “How could—”

“As the copper content dwindles, the wire goes from a superconducting state to a normal state. It begins to heat up. The hot
spot boils off some of the nitrogen coolant. The hot spot grows. It was only microscopic at first, but it eventually became
large enough for the monitoring sensors to detect it.”

Dan stared at him.

“There is only one agency that I can think of that could selectively remove copper atoms from the wire.”

“Nanomachines?” Dan squeaked.

Fuchs nodded solemnly. “This length of wire was seeded with nanomachines that remove copper atoms and release them into the
liquid nitrogen coolant Even now they are removing copper atoms and letting them flow into the air of this compartment.”

“Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle,” Dan said, his insides suddenly hollow. “That's why Humphries grabbed Cardenas. She's the nanotech
expert.”

“We are infected,” Fuchs said.

“But you caught it in time,” Dan countered. “It's only this one length of wire that's infected.”

“I hope so,” Fuchs said. “Otherwise, we're all dead.”

G
eorge stood to one side of the walkway leading into Humphries's house. It had been eerie, riding down the escalators wearing
the enlarged stealth suit that Ike Walton had cobbled together for him. George couldn't see his own feet. At one point, he
nearly tripped and tumbled down a night of escalator stairs.

Walton had looked like a naughty little kid caught peeking at dirty pictures when Stavenger had confronted him in his office
and ordered him to enlarge the stealth suit to fit George.

Red-faced, Walton had stammered that he'd need help from the nanolab technicians, and that would ruin the secrecy that had
shrouded the stealth suit since he'd first invented it.

“That can't be helped,” Stavenger had replied tightly. “Secrecy's already been breached.”

In the end, Stavenger himself went with Walton and George to the nanolab and asked the chief technician to clear out the lab
and work with Walton by herself. In total secrecy.
Once she understood that Dr. Cardenas's life might be at stake, she quickly agreed.

“I'd heard rumors about a stealth suit, off and on,” she marveled, once Walton explained what was needed.

“Don't add to them,” Stavenger pleaded.

Walton had the programs for the nanomachines buried in his personal files. Within hours, he and the chief technician were
watching a spread of darkly-glittering stealth cloth growing on a lab table. George stood slightly behind them, eyes goggling
as the invisible virus-sized machines busily turned bins of metal shavings into his new suit.

Now he stood at the entrance to Humphries's house at high noon, trying to figure out a way to get through the front door without
being detected. The huge cavern was in its daylight mode, long strips of full-spectrum lamps shining brightly. Wondering if
the people inside the house came out for lunch, George edged closer to the door.

It swung open, surprising him, and a pair of Humphries's research scientists came out, deep in earnest conversation. George
knew they were scientists from their costumes: the guy wore a shapeless open-necked shirt and faded jeans; he had a long ponytail
down his back as well. The woman was in a light sweater and loose, comfortable slacks. They were talking about the life cycle
of some Latin-named species.

George slipped behind them as the door started to close and held it halfway open with one extended arm. The two scientists
went on their way, chattering intently. George pushed the door open a little more and peered inside. Two hefty men in blue
security uniforms stood inside, looking bored. George slipped through the door and then let it swing shut. The two guards
never noticed. They were talking about last night's football tournament, videoed Uve from Barcelona.

An older man in a dark suit came out of a doorway halfway down the hall. He had the frozen-faced expression of a trained butler.
George tiptoed past the guards, peeking into each open doorway as he went. He could hear voices
from his left, and found a doorway that opened onto a long corridor, with plenty of people shuttling from one office to another
along its length. That must be where the research staff works, he thought Don't they break for lunch?

It was difficult to pick up odors from inside the suit's face mask, but George caught the unmistakable scent of steaks on
the griddle, something he hadn't smelled since he'd been on Earth. Steaks! he thought. Humphries doesn't mind spendin' his
fookin' money on hauling steaks up here.

The hallway ended in a busy, stainless-steel kitchen big enough to keep a good-sized restaurant going. The staff eats in,
George realized. At least they do for lunch. Cooks and assistants were scurrying back and forth, pots were boiling steam,
and an industrial-sized grill was sizzling with thick steaks. George counted eleven of them. A banker's dozen, he said to
himself.

One of the dark-uniformed maids was putting together a much more modest meal on a large teak tray: a crisp salad, a small
sandwich, a slice of melon and a pot of tea. A woman's lunch, George thought

He followed the maid as she carried the tray past him, down the hallway, and up the stairs to the second floor. One of the
doors along the upstairs hall was guarded by a bored-looking young man in a gray business suit He saw the maid approaching
and opened the bedroom door.

“Lunch is here, Dr. Cardenas,” he said.

George stopped as the maid went through the bedroom door and came out again less than a minute later, the tray empty at her
side. She closed the door. George heard the lock click. The guard gave her a smile and she smiled back, but neither of them
said anything as she headed back for the stairs.

George leaned against the wall a half-dozen meters from the lethargic guard, who sat on a wooden chair and pulled a palmcomp
from inside his jacket. From the beeps and peeps, George figured the guy was playing a game to pass the time.

Okay, George said, folding his arms across his chest. Cardenas is in there. She's still alive. Now how do I get her out—alive?

He spent the better part of an hour prowling along the upstairs hall, checking out the stairway, studying the lone guard.
Humphries apparently insisted on a dress code for his servants: the guards wore suits, the maid and the kitchen help wore
uniforms. The scientists stayed on the other side of the house. They'd be no problem, George decided.

The maid returned with the empty tray, went into Carde-nas's room, and came out with the lunch dishes. George thought Cardenas
might be on a hunger strike; she had hardly eaten anything.

Shortly afterward, Humphries himself came up the hall. He was dressed casually: a white velour pullover and navy blue well-creased
slacks. The guard snapped to his feet and stuffed his still-beeping palmcomp into his side pocket. Humphries frowned at him
and motioned impatiently for him to open the door.

The door's kept locked, George realized, as Humphries stepped into the room. He waited until the door was almost shut, then
tiptoed to it and pushed it slowly open. The guard paid no attention, engrossed once more in his video game. George let the
door swing halfway open, then deftly slipped into the room.

Humphries noticed it. Frowning, he marched to the door and snapped at the guard. “Can't you close a goddamned door properly?”
Then he slammed it shut.