Ten days. Ten days, to find and recruit five people.
That was only one every two days. It didn't sound bad—until you realized that when last heard from the men and women you needed had been scattered all over the solar system, everywhere from the sun-skimming Hades of the Vulcan Nexus all the way to the Oort Harvester, rolling along in its multi-millennial orbit half a light-year from Sol.
So you might as well tackle an "easy" one first. Chan cleared the final Link exit point, sited conveniently on an island close to the geometrical center of Marslake, and stood for a couple of minutes adjusting to the changed air and gravity. He reflected that before the Link system, even this undemanding destination would have been a challenge. During the first centuries of space exploration, travel times and access to moons or planets were decided less by distance than by relative orbital velocities and the strength of gravity wells. Earth was a major challenge. The old space traveler's complaint, "If you wanted to explore the Universe, you wouldn't start from here," had been coined for Earth. Venus, almost as massive, was little better. While as for Jupiter, you might fly down into the roiling clouds and eternal hurricane winds, but it would be a one-way trip. The planet's vast gravitational pull would prevent you ever getting out.
Even now, fast journeys around the solar system or beyond it were not cheap. The Link would never be cheap. The power for a single trip between points of widely different gravity potential could eat up the savings of a lifetime. Linkage of materials from the Oort Cloud to the Inner System consumed the full energy of three kernels aboard the Oort Harvester. It was a measure of the importance of Chan's mission to the Geyser Swirl that no one had mentioned a budget when he said he needed to travel by Link in order to recruit.
Actually, he needed a good deal more than a budget. He needed an argument powerful enough to convince some of humanity's most talented but skeptical individuals that they would like to be on board the Hero's Return when it linked out to the Swirl.
What was the local time of day? Chan looked toward the Sun. Much of what you saw at Marslake was misleading. That blue sky above his head was an illusion, an artefact of the same anosmotic thermal field that held a hundred-meter layer of breathable air like a comfort blanket over the whole of Marslake and for forty kilometers beyond. That air was at a comfortable twenty degrees Celsius, while two hundred meters above Chan's head the near-vacuum hovered at a hundred below zero. The island on which he stood was real Mars soil, but it had been mined from ancient sedimentary layers far beneath the surface, where hid the once-and-future Martian life forms. The serene blue lake itself was fifty kilometers across and listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the Solar System (low on the list, to be sure), but it was nowhere more than ten meters deep, and it held only a thousandth of the water of even the smallest of Earth's Great Lakes.
However, that bright Sun was no illusion. It stood high in the sky, as high as it would ever get at Mars latitude thirty degrees. That meant it was close to noon, much too early for Danny Casement to be in his office and fully awake. Dapper Dan, unless he had changed beyond recognition, put most nocturnal animals to shame.
Even a man in a hurry had to eat, and now was as good a time as any. Chan decided to have a meal before he went the rest of the way to Danny's office. He left Center Island and walked out along one of the many causeways that led in the right direction. The surface of Marslake was dotted with thousands of small islands, laid out on a regular grid and connected by roads wide enough for foot traffic or small wheeled vehicles.
The walking people were few and far between, and the only cars that Chan saw were slow and creaking. They, like the outside cafe that he came to at the end of the causeway, had seen better days. The cafe, Inn Paradise, could not even afford robot servers. Chan, the only customer, ordered his simple meal of bread and fruit jellies from a human. While he ate—Chan was not picky, but the food was dreadful—he heard the familiar tale of woe from the owner/waiter.
Marslake had been poised to take off as the solar system's greatest tourist attraction, ready to host multitudes of humans and Pipe-Rillas and Tinkers. Even the taciturn and mysterious Angels possessed plenty of negotiable materials, and they would be welcomed.
The quarantine had ended everything. Aliens had ceased to arrive. Humans from all around the solar system were affected by the general economic collapse and could not afford to come. And now . . . The owner waved his hand gloomily around. Old holo-images, with their advertisement of wondrous coming attractions, hung dim and translucent in the air, predictors of a false future that would never be. The only cheerful thing in sight was the Sun, which apparently knew no better.
"Where are you from?" The owner ended his mournful discourse and asked his first question as he gave Chan the credit slip.
"Earth."
"Ah. You're lucky. Not like here, I bet."
"No." Chan touched the payer ID unit and rose to leave. "Everything there is much, much worse."
Except, possibly, the food and waiters and restaurant owners. But Chan was already on the way out and he did not bother to say it.
He was able to pick out Danny's place long before he reached it. Unlike most other businesses scattered over the surface islands of Marslake, Danny felt a need for actual walls and a ceiling. Most enterprises found those to be unnecessary. With no wind and no weather, why waste time on structures? Only an occasional need for privacy demanded the use of enclosed space, and space for that could easily be rented.
Chan halted when he was still a couple of hundred meters away. He had come prepared. Dag Korin had made the portable Remote Observer available to Chan without question. Apparently the General found it quite natural that Chan would wish to spy on his own friends, which was something to bear in mind on the trip to the Geyser Swirl. Chan didn't think of the use of the R/O as spying or intrusive in this case. It was a way to save everyone's time if things were obviously not going to work out.
He took the R/O unit from his pocket and rested it on a railing at the side of the causeway. He adjusted the focus and inserted the tiny earphones. If this didn't produce the right result he would gain a working day but lose a team member.
Visual information was a more demanding technical problem than aural. The sound from inside a building was usually sharp and clear, while the image tended to be variable and slightly grainy. Chan also had the feeling that today the colors were a little off. It didn't matter. That, surely, was Danny Casement with his back to the viewing unit.
You could pick Danny out from his clothes alone. Today he was dressed, as in the old days, in a favorite combination of a high-necked shirt with fine green-and-white check and an ultra-conservative business suit with a herring-bone pattern of mixed brown and gray. As he turned, Chan made a confirmation. The R/O unit showed a small, neatly-built man, with the brown face, wizened features, and wide mouth of a trustworthy ape. It was Danny all right, debonair as ever. He had a tall, elegant woman in his office with him, and he was shaking his head at her with a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger expression on his face.
"It's a bad time to speculate?" Chan turned up the volume a fraction. "My dear, if your ex-husband says that, I must say I agree with Andrew."
"Arthur." The woman, hair piled high on top of her head, towered over Danny Casement.
"With Arthur. It's always a bad time to speculate. What we are talking of here isn't speculation. It's investment."
"But Hyperion is an awful long way from Mars."
"And what does distance have to do with the value of an investment? We are talking of a proven resource that has already made thousands—tens of thousands—of people rich. Leonora, if distance is the only problem, I will personally take you there so you can see for yourself. Just the two of us." He touched her arm and quickly pulled back, as though he had acted on impulse.
The woman gave him a nervous smile. "That would be lovely. But Arthur says that the Yang diamond was completely worked out, years and years ago."
"As I already mentioned, this is not the original Yang Diamond. It is a completely new formation, created by a different impact, which also happens to be on Hyperion. However, if your husband—"
"Not my husband. My ex-husband."
"My apologies. Your ex-husband. If Arthur is so reliable a source of information—"
"He's a jerk and a louse."
"Then perhaps his information—"
"But he's a smart louse. That's how he made so much money—not that he was willing to give me much. I can't afford to throw what I have away."
"Nor would I ask you to, or ever want you to." Danny reached out, and this time allowed his hand to stroke Leonora's forearm and remain there. "The final purchase price will be three hundred thousand, but I am certainly not proposing that you pay anything like that until we are absolutely sure that the return will be many times your investment. All that is necessary at the moment is that you make a small down-payment, in order that your claim can be certified and your rights of ownership confirmed."
"How much?"
"Just twenty-five thousand. After that you will have a year of steady income from the mine before you need to pay out another penny."
"I don't know. I'd like to." Leonora placed her hand on top of Danny's. "But Mr. Casement—"
"Please call me Daniel."
"Daniel. It still sounds like an awful lot of money. Even the down payment. It isn't that I don't trust you, I do. But if I could just be sure."
"I know exactly how you feel." He removed his hand from hers, stood up, and turned around to give the whole room a thorough inspection, as though someone might be concealed within a desk drawer or one of the small cabinets. He dropped his voice to a whisper. "Leonora, I'm going to do something that I am not supposed to do. In fact, if the mine developers knew about it, I would be in very serious trouble."
"What's that?" Her voice fell in volume to match his. "What are you going to do?"
"This. And remember, if anyone ever asks you, it didn't happen." He reached into a vest pocket and pulled from it a small pouch of black velvet. "Hold out your hand. Palm up."
She reached her hand out in slow motion. He placed the square on her outstretched palm and carefully unfolded it, to reveal a tiny glittering stone that caught and refracted every light in the room.
"There it is." Danny Casement spoke in the reverent tones of a man in the presence of divinity. "That is a fragment of the Yang Diamond. Just a little chip, of course—there are many tons more, free of all defects and waiting to be mined. I was shown this on my trip to Hyperion, when I made my own first investment. I asked to borrow it for a little while, just to marvel at its quality. Look at it closely, Leonora. Let the light fall on it from all sides. You will see that this is diamond of the purest water. There is none finer in the whole solar system."
"It's—beautiful."
"You can be the owner of many more, like this and far larger. Or you can sell them, for many times your investment. But please do not tell anyone else that I showed it to you."
He reached out his hand to take the diamond. She pulled back, and he frowned. "What's wrong, Leonora?"
"Nothing is wrong." She closed her hand around the stone and the pouch of black velvet. "If only—if only I could just keep this for a day or two."
"I see." His tone was chilly.
"Oh, Daniel, it's not that. Please don't think that I don't trust you. I do. But if I could keep the stone a little while, it might help both of us. I could have it examined by a professional in gemstones. Neither of us is that."
"I have been told that my own expertise in this field is far from negligible. But I suppose I could be wrong. I am not infallible." His voice remained cold. "However, the decision is not mine to make. What do I tell the mine developers? If I say I do not have another investor—not even the down payment from an investor—they will certainly want the stone back."
"How much did you say it is again? The first payment?"
"Twenty-five thousand."
"Do you think they would possibly take twenty thousand? That is all I have available in liquid assets."
"It would be irregular, but I can probably prevail upon them to accept twenty thousand rather than twenty-five. I have already given them a glowing description of your character and reputation."
"Then let's do it. We'll make the transfer right now." Leonora held up her hand, fist still clenched around the velvet and the stone. "And then can I take the diamond away with me for a couple of days?"
"My dear Leonora." He lost his worried look and smiled. "How could I—how could anyone—resist a lady as charming as you? Take the stone with you. Have your tests done—non-destructive ones, if you please. You will find, I know, that you are holding a diamond of the finest quality. However, I must insist on one other condition of this transaction."
Leonora handed over a trade crystal, which disappeared at once into a small ivory box on top of the desk. "That will transfer twenty thousand. And I must be off, I'm already late. But what is your other condition?"
The simian face remained serious, but a twinkle lit the warm brown eyes. "Oh, nothing to worry you. But you and I must take a trip together, Leonora, and . . . examine our holdings. You show me yours, and I will show you mine."
"Mr. Casement! You are a wicked, wicked man."
"I said to call me Daniel."
"Oh. All right. Daniel." She giggled, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and hurried out of the building. She passed close to where Chan was standing. He had already put away the earphones and the remote observing unit, and she didn't give him a second glance.
Chan waited five minutes, then strolled over to Danny Casement's building. He knocked gently on the solid paneled door, with its modest and tasteful inscription, Daniel Walsingham Casement, Investment Counselor.
"Just a second."
After a wait that was at least a couple of minutes, the door slid open. "Yes?" Danny Casement stood in the doorway with an inquiring expression on his face. Chan, peering past him, saw that the ivory box containing the trade crystal had vanished from the desk top.
"Yes?" Danny repeated.
"Yes, what?" Chan pushed past him into the room. "Dapper Dan Casement, that's no way to greet an old friend."
"Oh my God." Danny gave a howl of recognition. "Chan Dalton. You're the last person in the world I expected to walk in that door."
"It's been a long time."
"Nearly twenty years."
"But you haven't lost the touch, Dan. You're still the best in the system, and it's a pleasure to see you operate. Charm them, stroke them, scare them, soothe them, tempt them—and watch how they love you as they take the bait. Do you realize you told that lady that it was the Yang Diamond you loaned her, and also that it was not the Yang Diamond?"
"You've been spying on me." It was a simple statement of fact, not an accusation.
"Yes. I assume that wasn't a real diamond you showed her."
"Then you would be totally wrong. It was a genuine, first-class, defect-free natural diamond. When Leonora has it tested, as she surely will, she will learn that I told her the truth—and be suitably overcome with remorse for her lack of trust in me. The stone was even from the Hyperion mines, all one quarter carat of it. A man has his operating expenses. But Chan, why would you do a thing like spying on an old friend?"
"Because, as you say, it's been close to twenty years. People change. If you seemed different, in ways that matter, I would have saved your time and mine. I would have gone away and never knocked on your door. But you reeled that one in so smooth, it looked like anyone could do it."
"What do you mean, `reeled in'? Leonora Coslett is a business associate."
"And I saw you giving her the business."
"Not at all. I am truly fond of the lady. I have, let us say, aspirations."
"If she proves to be wealthy enough."
"Now that is an unfair accusation." Danny waved a hand. A chair folded out of one wall and a table from the top of the desk, while a tray of flasks and glasses appeared from one of the cabinets. "However, if you are done casting aspersions on my honesty and reputation, take a seat. This isn't just social, from the look of it, but we can have a drink while you talk the talk."
"Provided your drink isn't like the food at the Inn Paradise."
"Better known locally as Ptomaine Central. You ate there? I could have warned you. It accounts for your surly countenance." Danny filled two glasses. "This will make up for it. Genuine imported Santory single malt scotch, aged thirty days, from the Hokkaido deep cellars. Burn the hair right off your ass. Cheers!"
After a long pause, Danny went on in a strangled voice, "But what are you doing out here? Last word I got through the grapevine, you were Lord High Muckymuck to the Duke of Bosny."
"I was. Good job, but I had an offer I couldn't refuse. That's why I'm here."
Chan described his meeting with the Stellar Group, the appearance of the new Link point in the Geyser Swirl, the lost Stellar Group ships, and the upcoming human expedition. Danny Casement watched with shrewd brown eyes and listened intently. He did not speak until Chan, giving details of the expedition, added, "a big, powerful ship, but with your typical crew: military people and scientists."
Danny snorted. "And you thought, what will anybody get out of a dim bunch like that? Nothing. So why not give the old brigade, hand-picked and perfectly matched, a chance to do what we once planned? It's been twenty years, but if we can find the team and get it together, we have it made. It's even better than last time, because we don't have to scrape around to pay for a ship and crew. The government will provide us with a ship and a bunch of goons and gofers, for free."
"As usual, you're ahead of me. How does it sound?"
"Interesting. Another shot at the universe, the whole candy-bag, that sounds fine. Of course, compared with this"— Danny's wide-flung arms encompassed and dismissed the whole of Mars, quietly fading into futility as the once-open road to the stars remained blocked—"anything tends to look better than this. So it's tempting to close your eyes and risk your ass and hat. But I see a couple of big catches. First, your Stellar Group buddies say, no violence. That's all right when you're dealing with them, they don't do violence. But anyone else you meet might not agree. What are we supposed to do if some nasty comes at us with a meat-axe? Smile and get chopped?"
"That's probably what the earlier Stellar Group teams did. But they've made it very clear that they don't intend to go with us on this one. What they don't know about won't hurt them."
"Fine. They certainly won't hear it from me. All right, second problem. I don't see any fun in going all the way to this Geyser Swirl place, just to be wiped out when we arrive. And everybody who has been there so far, near as I can tell, got themselves knocked off. Why will we be any different?"
"For one thing, we'll defend ourselves, which the Tinkers and Pipe-Rillas and Angels wouldn't do. And as far as the human team goes, we're smarter. From everything that I've been able to find out, the man who led the human team was a rich idiot who couldn't find his ass with both hands."
"But the aliens aren't fools. And they're cautious."
"We will be cautious, too. And we will have new information. After the two ships disappeared with Tinkers, Pipe-Rillas, and Angels on board, the Angels did a survey—remotely, of course—of the whole Geyser Swirl. We will have that survey, every last image and data byte, so we'll know exactly where every star and planet and gas cloud is and what the possible dangers are. But look, before we get into details like that, I have to know. Are you in or are you out?"
"You ask me that, after seeing what it's like here?" Danny's thin eyebrows rose high on his wrinkled forehead. "After the big Q, the quarantine, everything on Mars headed straight down the toilet. Of course I'm in. I'm so far in you'd not get me out with forceps and a bucket of cold water. But you'll need more than just me."
"Sure. We need the whole team, or as close to it as we can get. We don't have much time, either—the Hero's Return leaves in less than two weeks. I've already started looking, but what do you hear about the gang?"
"Old news, mostly. Let's see." Danny leaned back on the rickety chair, closed his lips tight and puffed air behind them so that he looked even more like a chimpanzee, and held up his left hand, fist closed. After a few moments he lifted the index finger and went on, "Number one: Chrissie Winger. She's your best bet, even though it's a long journey. I saw a publicity release about Chrissie less than a year ago. She has her own magic show, big success, touring the Oort and making 'em gasp."
"One of us will have to make the trip out and talk her into coming. What else?"
"Number two: Tully O'Toole. I heard from him maybe five years back, he was on Europa doing God-knows-what. As much the dreamer and the wild man as ever, but Tully the Rhymer still picks up a new language as easy as I pick up a glass."
"Or a woman."
"I told you, Leonora Coslett is a business associate."
"I won't argue. Who else?"
"Well, there's Deb Bisson." Danny glanced uncertainly at Chan Dalton. "She's on Europa, too, easy enough to find. If you're willing to risk it. I mean, you and she . . ."
"We'll be fine. She and I got over that a long time ago." Chan grimaced. "I hope."
"Still a weapons master, is she?"
"That's not the sort of thing you advertise. But could you imagine a Deb who wasn't?"
"I could not. But I'll tell you one thing, I'll not be the one who visits her to find out."
"I know, I guess I'm stuck with it. All right, four and five. What do you hear about Tarbush and the Bun?"
"I can only help with one of them. Nothing on the Bun. Tarbush Hanson still does his strongman stunts and his talking-to-animals act, and last I heard, three or four years ago, he was out in the Oort, too."
Chan nodded. "He was. I'm a bit ahead of you on this. Tarbush and Chrissie Winger teamed up a few years ago and there's a good chance they're still touring the Oort Cloud together. Did you ever figure out how Tarbush does it?"
"No. So far as I'm concerned the easiest answer is the one he gives people: Tarbush can talk to animals. We never had the chance to find out if he can talk to aliens, too, the way he claims."
"Maybe we'll find out in the Swirl—if we get him that far. As for the Bun, I'm like you. I've drawn a total blank. I know he was at the Vulcan Nexus for a while, and that's not a place you can easily hide a man. But I sent a trace, and it came back name and identification unknown."
Danny sniffed and a frown grew on the wrinkled and tanned forehead. "Did you try his real name? I know he hates it, but he may be using it."
"Bonifant Rombelle? Yeah, I tried that. I also tried the Bun, and Bunnyfat Ramble."
"How about Señor Bonifant and Buddy Rose? I've seen him sign that way."
"I tried those too. Tried everything I could think of. All the old ones, plus a few variations. Nothing. The common view on the Vulcan Nexus was that the Bun went outside with inadequate thermal protection and frizzled. Half an hour at those solar flux levels would bake you down to the bones. All you'd find in the suit would be a mess of blood and liquid fat."
"Do you mind? I'd like to eat breakfast in a few hours, but I won't if you talk like that."
"Sorry. Anyway, I said that's the common view. I didn't say it's what I think."
"You have another theory?"
"Yes. There's one other detail you need to know. At the time that the Bun vanished he was close to big trouble. Someone had cracked the Nexus code for solar activity prediction, and been caught doing it. Does that sound like the Bun, or doesn't it?"
"Does indeed. Only man I ever heard of could make a working laser out of a dog collar, a grandfather clock, and the lower set of your Grandpa's dentures. He could fix anything. Be worrying, working without the Bun." Danny stood up. "I always thought someone like him was an essential part of our team—and there was no one like the Bun."
Chan stared at him. "You thinking of backing out?"
"Hell, no. You know what they say: There's nobody indispensable but thee and me; and I'm not too sure of thee. If we have to manage without the Bunny-man, we'll do it. But you were talking tight time schedules, and it seems to me we have to start lining up our other team members right now."
Chan nodded. "We do. So where do you think you're going?"
Danny Casement was moving toward the door. "To say my sorrowful goodbyes."
"To Leonora Coslett?"
"Her, and one or two others of my investors. Make that, three or four."
"And return their money?"
"Please! Let's be reasonable. Ask yourself, what could they possibly buy with their money as valuable as what I provide? Go ahead, make the travel plans." Danny sighed. "I can leave tomorrow, but don't look for me `til then. This is going to be one long day. And night."
Chan nodded without sympathy. "You can sleep all you want—once we're on the way to the Geyser Swirl."