Eros at Zenith: Book 2 of Tales of the Velvet Comet Read online

  “None,” said Bello firmly. “I surrendered to the authorities fifteen years ago, and they betrayed me.”

  “Possibly because you betrayed 11,000 citizens who were under your protection,” remarked Crane caustically.

  “I did not—and no jury of my peers would ever convict me!”

  “Probably not,” agreed Crane.

  Bello looked surprised. “Then you know the story?”

  Crane shook his head. “No, but I imagine any jury composed of genocidal maniacs is pretty likely to let you off the hook.”

  Bello stared at him for a long moment, his face an inscrutable mask. Finally he spoke.

  “Sit down, Mr. Crane.”

  “Only if you will,” said Crane. “And I've got to sit closer to the door.”

  Bello nodded, and walked to one of the sofas.

  Suddenly he turned to the Black Pearl, who had been standing silently by the doorway leading to her Night Crystals. “Won't you please join us?”

  “Why not?” she said with a shrug.

  Bello moved over to make room for her, but she walked to Crane's sofa instead.

  “I may save your neck,” she said, “but I'd rather not sit next to you.”

  Bello nodded, seated himself, and waited for Crane to do the same. Then he leaned forward at stared intently at the detective.

  “What, exactly, do you know about New Sumatra, Mr. Crane?” he said at last.

  “I know that you were the governor of the planet for seven years, I know that some kind of mutated virus came along and started wiping out colonists by the thousands, I know that they finally developed a vaccine to cure the disease—and I know that you ordered air strikes on two hospital camps just before the vaccine arrived, killing more than 11,000 citizens whose welfare you were there to protect.”

  “And that is the extent of your knowledge?” said Bello.

  “Just the highlights,” said Crane. He ordered the computer to give a complete readout on the Bello Affair.

  Bello watched emotionlessly, as the details of the affair appeared on the screen, then turned back to Crane when the computer had finally emptied its library banks on the subject.

  “As I suspected,” he said. “Half-truths and misinterpretations, nothing more.”

  “There's a native of New Sumatra onboard the ship right now who will be only too happy to corroborate what you just read,” remarked Crane.

  “I'm sure he will,” said Bello.

  “Are you saying that the computer's account of what happened isn't true?” asked the Black Pearl.

  “It's entirely true,” said Bello. He paused. “As I pointed out at my trial, it's also completely wrong.”

  “You don't find that just a little inconsistent?” asked Crane.

  “What do you know of it?” exploded Bello. “You weren't there! The disease was decimating the colony. 12,000 people were already dead, and 11,000 more were dying!”

  “Are you trying to say that this was a mercy killing?” asked Crane incredulously.

  “No!” said Bello impatiently, the muscles in his jaw twitching spasmodically. “It was a decision that was made to benefit the greatest number of people!”

  “Perhaps you'd care to explain how killing 11,000 colonists benefited anyone,” said Crane.

  “The virus was airborne, wildly contagious, and absolutely fatal,” said Bello, his eyes fixed on some spot in space and time that only he could see. “Very few people who contracted it lived more than 20 days, and most of them died hideous deaths; no drug we possessed could alleviate the excruciating pain of the final few days.” He paused and sighed heavily. “We did everything we could, but we couldn't come up with a cure. The best we could do was try to contain it. I moved all the sick into two huge hospital camps, and put lethal electric fencing around it. Most of the doctors volunteered to keep working in the camps, since they had already been exposed to the disease.” His voice softened. “And then we got word that someone on Sirius V had isolated the virus and developed an antidote. It was rushed into production and shipped out to us. The trip was supposed to take 15 days.”

  He fell silent for a moment, still staring blankly into space, then focused his eyes on Crane.

  “Four days before the ship was due to arrive, we lost all radio contact with it. 36 hours later the Republic decided that it had broken down, and immediately dispatched another ship loaded with the antidote, on the assumption that it would take them too much time to find a ship that had malfunctioned at light speeds and whose cargo might well be beyond salvage.”

  He paused once more, searching Crane's face for some emotion, but finding none.

  “Every shred of information I possessed convinced me that we could expect no help for another two weeks,” he continued. “As far as I could see, not a single person in the hospital camps would survive until the arrival of the second ship—but the longer they lived, the more likelihood there was that we couldn't continue to contain the disease. No matter how isolated the camps were, they had to be supplied with food and medication. Sooner or later the thing had to start spreading again, so I carried out the proper procedure: I sacrificed those who were already lost in order to save the remainder of the colony.”

  There was a moment's silence.

  “And then the ship arrived,” said Crane.

  Bello nodded. “Two days later.” He frowned. “Their communications system had gone out.”

  “But they arrived,” repeated Crane.

  “Damn it!” snapped Bello. “No one could pick them up on sensing devices, and even the Republic pronounced them lost and presumed dead!”

  “But they weren't.”

  “No, they weren't,” agreed Bello angrily. “But I did what I had to do. I made the prescribed decision to achieve the greatest good—and given the information I had, I'd do it again!”

  “It sounds reasonable,” said the Black Pearl. “Why didn't the jury acquit you?”

  “Because the Republic needed a scapegoat after news of what happened got out,” said Bello. “And like a fool, I expected justice at their hands and gave myself up.”

  “And escaped,” Crane pointed out.

  “Not without help,” said Bello. “Not without the aid of people who knew I'd been unjustly accused and convicted.” He took a deep breath, released it slowly, and stared defiantly at Crane. “I won't go back, not until you can find a jury of twelve military governors who understand what the situation was.”

  “Military?” asked Crane, surprised.

  Bello nodded. “There had been some initial trouble with the native population.”

  “During your tenure?”

  “Long before I got there,” replied Bello. “They were pacified, but it was felt that a military presence was necessary to remind them to leave human beings alone.” He grimaced. “Wouldn't you know those little red bastards were totally immune to the disease!”

  “You should have demanded a military trial,” said Crane.

  “I did. My request was refused, and the transcript of my trial was never released.”

  “Well, you can try again this time,” said Crane.

  “You still plan to arrest me?” asked Bello, unsurprised.

  “I'm not a judge or a jury; I'm just a detective. You're an escaped felon who by his own admission killed 11,000 innocent men and women.”

  “11,000 doomed men and women,” Bello corrected him.

  “That's not the way it turned out,” replied Crane.

  “I made my decision based on the best information I possessed,” said Bello. “I won't apologize for it.”

  “Have I asked you to?”

  “And I won't play the scapegoat for it, either!”

  “We all have our problems,” said Crane. “This one happens to be yours. “What would you have done?” demanded Bello.

  “I don't know,” admitted Crane.

  “Then how dare you condemn me!”

  “I'm not condemning you” said Crane patiently. “But I sure as hell inten
d to arrest you.”

  “I happen to know that you are not armed,” said Bello ominously.

  “Are you threatening to kill an unarmed man?” asked Crane. “I thought that was how you got into this mess in the first place.”

  Bello sighed and leaned back on the sofa.

  “No,” he said, “I'm not threatening to kill you. But I tell you again, I will never go back to jail.”

  “There are worse fates,” commented Crane. “I could tell Pagliacci you're here, and you'll face the biggest kangaroo court you ever saw.”

  “Pagliacci?” repeated Bello. “Is he a clown or an opera singer?”

  “Neither. He's a killer, and he's pretty good at his job.”

  “He's the New Sumatran?”

  Crane nodded. “You killed his wife and his daughters.”

  “For all he knows, they were already dead,” said Bello.

  “For all you know, the antidote would have cured them,” replied Crane.

  “It wasn't that simple!” exploded Bello. “And I won't have you make it that simple! There was the rest of the colony to be considered. If I hadn't done what I did, there might not have been a person left alive three weeks later—not me, not this Pagliacci, not anyone!”

  “If the ship hadn't arrived,” noted Crane.

  “I made the right decision based on the facts at hand!” stormed Bello. “It was the only decision under the circumstances, and I'd do it again!”

  “So you've said,” replied the detective.

  Bello stared at him for a moment, then sighed. “I should have known better than to think you would understand,” he said at last.

  “You'll forgive me if I cling to the assumption that any man who slaughters 11,000 people is more sinning than sinned against,” said Crane dryly.

  Bello shook his head sadly. “Fool,” he said. Then he sighed again. “We're both fools, Mr. Crane,” he added wearily. “You for not comprehending what happened, and me for thinking that you might.”

  “Mr. Crane has other things on his mind just now,” interjected the Black Pearl. “Parades through the streets, official commendations, promotions, pay raises...so many wonderful visions.”

  Both men turned to her.

  “Mr. Crane,” she continued, “is destined to be disappointed.”

  “You think so?” said Crane.

  She nodded. “Mr. Bello has already promised never to mention his brief excursion aboard the Comet if I let him go. Can you make the same promise if I let him stay?”

  “I already told you —” began Crane.

  “I know what you told me,” interrupted the Black Pearl. “But you haven't told me how you're going to shut him up once he gets into court—or did you plan to kill him right here on the Comet?”

  “This is more important than the Comet,” said Crane.

  “Don't you understand that we're talking about Quintus Bello?”

  “Nothing is more important than the Comet,” she replied firmly. “You show me how you can arrest him without harming our reputation and you can have him. In the meantime, he stays with me.”

  “And if he tries to escape?”

  “May I point out that I don't have the means to escape?” interposed Bello. “I came here on the assumption that a ship would be waiting for me. It isn't.”

  “Not good enough,” said Crane. “I could book passage on an outbound ship. Why can't you?—and please don't ask me to believe that you're traveling under your own name.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, then?”

  “I give you my word,” said Bello.

  “You've already given me your word that you'll never go back to prison,” noted Crane. “Which one should I believe?”

  “The two are not necessarily incompatible,” replied Bello. “Simply let me go back to my headquarters on Deluros.”

  “Not a chance,” said Crane.

  “Then we're at an impasse,” said Bello.

  “Until I get my gun, anyway.”

  “I won't allow you in here again if you're carrying a weapon,” said the Black Pearl.

  “And I won't allow him out of here unless he's under arrest,” replied Crane. “So Pagliacci and I will take turns sitting in the corridor watching your door. How long do you suppose it'll take before some of the patrons notice?” He could see concern on her face, and he pressed his advantage. “And while we're on the subject, what do you suppose it'll do for business if I announce that you're harboring a fugitive named Quintus Bello in your apartment and won't turn him over to me?”

  She relaxed suddenly.

  “You should have quit while you were ahead, Mr. Crane,” she replied calmly. “You won't do anything that will jeopardize your job. Having Mr. Bello's presence inadvertently discovered is one thing; announcing it to 500 patrons is another.”

  “Don't be so sure of that,” he said. “The man who captures Bello can write his own ticket.”

  “Not if you cost the Velvet Comet a few billion credits due to the publicity,” she answered. “Oh, you'll be able to latch on somewhere else, but you'll have a black mark on your record, and my reading of your character is that you have every intention of going through life without any black marks.”

  “Sometimes they can't be helped.”

  “True. But this isn't one of those times, so you'll have to excuse me if I don't take your threat very seriously.”

  “You're not dealing just with me,” said Crane. “If the Dragon Lady and Pagliacci don't know he's on the ship yet, they soon will. She's just a few years from retirement, and he's fighting a holy war. How are you going to keep them quiet?”

  “I'll worry about them when the time comes,” said the Black Pearl. “You're my problem at the moment.”

  “You're sitting in a room with a mass murderer, and I'm your problem?” said Crane with a bitter laugh.

  “He never harmed my ship. You might.”

  “You've got a funny sense of values.”

  “Perhaps—but I didn't fuck five thousand totally forgettable men and women and claw my way to the top of the heap just to let some egomaniacal detective's ambition bring the whole operation tumbling down.”

  “Were getting nowhere,” announced Bello. “Mr. Crane, what do you propose do to?”

  “Arrest you.”

  “Like hell you will!” snapped the Black Pearl.

  “Do you plan to arrest me right now?” persisted Bello.

  “This minute?” asked Crane. “No.”

  “Then,” said Bello, rising to his feet, “I think I'll take my leave of you. I don't like your company very much.”

  He walked, proudly and erectly, to the door at the back of the office, ordered it to open, and passed through into the room that contained the Night Crystals.

  “Confident son of a bitch, isn't he?” remarked Crane. He turned to the Black Pearl. “Doesn't it bother you that he killed all those people?”

  “No more, I think, than it bothers you,” she replied “Besides, he has a legitimate justification.”

  “So did Hitler and Caligula,” noted Crane ironically. “Of all the people who survived New Sumatra, perhaps a dozen are loyal to him and there are thousands who want to kill him. Has it occurred to you that you've just heard a very subjective account of the whole affair, that the facts may be totally different?”

  “If you knew he was telling the truth, would it make a difference?” asked the Black Pearl.

  He shook his head. “I've been waiting for an opportunity like this all my life.”

  “Even if he's innocent?”

  “He killed them, didn't he?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Like I said, it's just my job to arrest him. Someone else will pass judgment.”

  “It won't work that way,” she pointed out. “No judge who wants to live out the day will release him.”

  “That's not my problem, is it?” he said irritably.

  “In a way, it is,” she replied. “If you arrest him, it wil
l be the same as condemning him to death.”

  “Perhaps—but if I arrest him, I'll be turning him over to the law. If I don't, I'll be taking it into my own hands. Besides,” he added, “you're no more concerned with whether or not he's guilty than I am. My job is to arrest him, and yours, it seems, is to try to stop me.”

  “You make it sound very stark.”

  “It is.”

  She stared at him for a moment. “I could sweeten the pot.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “How?”

  “Let him go and you've got a free pass to my bedroom for as long as you want it. We'll do it whenever you want to, any way that you want to, as often as you want to.”

  He smiled at her. “Who suggested that—Cupid?”

  “Have we got a deal?” she said, grinning confidently.

  He shook his head, still smiling. “Not a chance.”

  “But —”

  “You're asking me to trade the chance of a lifetime for something you give away every day,” said Crane. “That's not much of a deal from where I sit.”

  “If you'd have Cupid show you some of the entertainments I've appeared in, you might feel differently about it.”

  “There are more important things in life than a roll in the hay.”

  “If everyone else aboard the Comet felt that way, I'd turn Bello over to you in a second,” she said seriously. “But they don't, and I can't let you bring us so much adverse publicity that it frightens them away.”

  “How do you know it won't attract even more of them?” he replied. “People have always been fascinated by flirting with danger.”

  “Not these people,” said the Black Pearl. “Even the poorest of them is a juicy target for kidnappers. The jewelry that's on the ship any given day would probably make a hefty down payment on the Comet itself. We guarantee security, and we don't allow weapons or bodyguards. Danger is just about the last thing our patrons are looking for—and if they are seeking it, they go to the fantasy rooms, where they can have all of the thrills of danger without any of the risks.”

  “Maybe,” he acquiesced with a shrug. “But no matter what you and I decide, you're still not going to be able to keep a lid on this situation.”

  “You're referring to the Dragon Lady and Pagliacci?” asked the Black Pearl.

  “Yes.”