Between the Strokes of Night

De Vries leaned far back, gazing up at the ceiling. He shook his head. “Judith, put in those terms I see where you are heading — but I must admit that it would not have occurred to me if you had not waved it in front of my nose.” Judith Niles regarded him grimly. “Be specific, Jan. What’s wrong with it?” “It’s too simple. When you set the explanation out on a plate, as you just did, it’s clear that we should not be needed to solve the problem. Remember, you told me you thought you knew the answer when you first looked at the suits and the case histories. All the medics on Salter Station had to do was a minimal amount of background reading, and a few well-designed experiments. At the very least they would have noticed the correlation between the new suits and the onset of the problem.”

“Exactly. So why didn’t they?” Judith Niles stopped her pacing and stood in front of de Vries. “Even if they didn’t catch on as fast as we would here at the Institute, they should have deduced it after a while. Jan, I’m very worried. We have to go up to Salter Station. Our own experiments require it, and anyway I’ve burned too many bridges here in the past few days to stop now. But I feel that things are out of control.”

She suddenly lifted her left hand and began to rub gently at her eye, her forehead wrinkled.

Jan de Vries looked concerned. “What’s wrong, Judith? Headache?”

She shook her head. “Not any sort I’ve ever had before. But I’m getting blurring from this eye — very off-putting. Not quite seeing double, but not far from that. Odd feeling.”

De Vries frowned. “Don’t take chances. Even if it is no more than the strain of too much work, let a specialist take a look at it.” De Vries did not say it, but he was astonished. Never since he had known her had Judith Niles shown any sign of strain and fatigue, no matter what pressures she had worked under, no matter how she forced herself along.

“I’ll be all right,” she said. “Sorry, Jan, what were you saying?” “I agree with you that things may be out of control.” The little man wriggled forward in the armchair so that he could stand up. “And let me give you, as Salter Wherry quoted in his speech on the space colonies, ‘naught for your comfort.’ I’ve been doing the follow-up work you asked for on Salter Wherry. Did you know that most of his expenditures are not on development of the arcologies at all? They go into two other areas: efficient, spaceborne fusion drives, and robots. He is rumored to be many years ahead of anyone else in those areas. I believe it. But what do our projects have to do with either of those research endeavors? If you can see the connection, I beg enlightenment. And then there is the question of the breadth of Wherry’s influence, and his sources of wealth. Do you remember my telling you that insurance rates for Station personnel have gone up greatly in the past year?”

“Yes. Because of the increased accident rate.”

“So we had assumed. But this afternoon I obtained and examined the financial statements of Global Insurance — the organization which issues the policies for Salter Station personnel. It turns out that a single individual owns more than eighty percent of the stock of Global, and exercises complete control over corporate actions.” De Vries smiled grimly. “You are permitted one guess as to the identity of that individual. Then, my dear Judith, we should perhaps discuss who is manipulating whom.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

The fish were nervous. Moving in regular array, they darted to and fro through the fronds of weed that curled across Workwheel’s great tanks. As the schools of fish turned in the cloudy water their silvery scales caught the green-tinged sunlight, filling the interior with flashes of brilliance.

The two human figures, naked except for light breathing masks, swam slowly around the perimeter of the tank, driving the fish along before them. The outer edge of the wheel was a filled lattice of transparent plastic, admitting perpetual day to the four hundred meter cylinder. Far above, near the hollow central axle, oxygenation pumps sent a faint thrumming through the sluggishly moving liquid.