Well, there’s a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us flat one time or other.
—Miguel De Cervantes
Inside the Iceman, Josef and Pavel were watching the old man. Tears streaming down his face. He looked suddenly very old.
“You and I know, Comus, don’t we. We’ve looked into the heart of it. The bleakness. We’ve sent people to their deaths before. What’s the difference, one way or another?” Josef, the hard man. Josef, the up-and-coming. Josef, Comus’s heir.
“It’s just a girl, man. A girl you never met, right?”
A sob, a bitter sob.
“Want to talk about her? Tell us who she is?”
Jesus, the man was coming apart.
“You do see, don’t you, that had you left her alone, she wouldn’t be dead.”
Bitter irony. The horror in the man. The terrible accusation for Comus to live with.
“What the hell was so special about her?”
The old man looked up out of his tormented soul.
“She was my daughter, Josef.”
“Oh hell.”
“His daughter?”
“Jesus, why didn’t he tell us right away?”
“His daughter,” Pavel repeated.
“Go figure.”
They had left the old man in the bulkhead while they decided what to do. He at least seemed calmer. Staring blankly at the wall. Maybe it was the drugs.
Sven appeared.
“What you got there?” said Josef to the Swede.
“Coupla messages.”
“And?”
“The watchers have forwarded a Mayday request from the Johnnie Ray.”
“We’re not picking anybody up. This is a secure operation.”
“They think you’ll make an exception when you see the passenger list.”
Josef glanced at the signal.
“Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
“What?” said Pavel.
“She’s alive!”
“Who?”
“The Wallace woman. Look here, aboard the Johnnie Ray.”
“She survived? I thought they shot her full of Corazone.”
“A tin man pulled her out.”
He read on. “There’s a report from a deskbot who worked at the Rialto. One of our mechanicals.”
He swiftly scanned the document.
“Took her aboard the Johnnie Ray.”
“The deskbot tapped them,” said Sven. “Got a bug aboard their ship. Stuck it on her shoe when it helped the tin man carry her from the Rialto.”
“Now that is wonderful,” said Josef. “Send that brave ’bot some flowers. Or what do we send tin men? Oil? A new hard drive?”
“Bit late for that. He went up with H9.”
“Good for him.” He thought for a second. “Well, they know way too much. We simply can’t take a risk. Activate the bug.”
It was hard, metallic, and cylindrical, no more than three inches in length. It looked like a strange stick insect. It had crawled off Katy’s shoe and along the corridor and entered the games room of the Johnnie Ray. It was a mechanical bug. A third-generation minibomb. Four spidery legs lifted the cylinder off the ground, and two tiny antennae sniffed the air, searching for electricity. It could sit silently for weeks, years even, until it was activated, and then it would begin to do something very extraordinary: it would give birth. Right now it was one puzzled parasite. All these wires and all these games should be fully powered, but it could find nothing. Not a watt. Must be some kind of temporary outage. It decided to sit and wait.
“We have a problem with the bug,” said Sven. “It needs to tap into a source. They have no power on the Ray. It can’t start until they get their power back.”
“Okay. Let me know the minute they do, and meanwhile I want you to monitor their signals traffic, Pavel. I want to see who they communicate with.”
“Shall we tell Comus?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But she’s his daughter.”
“It’s too late for sentiment. The bug is already on board.”