Judas Unchained

He opened the apartment door and gestured her inside, but not before making a furtive glance along the empty landing. “Augusta has several orbital factories for electronics and exotic micro-gee materials. They have spaceplanes and more importantly: inter-orbit tugs.”

“Yes?”

“I looked up the specs and did some calculations. It felt good using my astronomy background for something practical. If we hired one of the inter-orbit tugs, and filled the reaction mass tanks, and carried no cargo except ourselves, it could take us to the Regulus system’s outer gas giant.”

“And why would we want to go there?” she asked. The couple next door was shouting at each other again. Thankfully, it was silent upstairs.

“That has to be where Ozzie Isaac’s asteroid habitat is,” Dudley said. “An asteroid that size is extremely unusual. Trust me, it is far more likely to be a small moon.”

She almost launched into her usual chastisement, but leaving him alone to work on some new obsession would actually reduce the amount of time she spent worrying about what he was up to. So instead she said: “I don’t know…” her voice cautious.

“I’m convinced it’s in the Regulus system. That would provide easy access to Augusta, which is where the construction systems must have come from. Everyone automatically assumes that CST and Augusta belongs solely to the Sheldon Dynasty; they forget that Isaacs was a cofounder, he has an equal share.”

“I suppose so. But I doubt we can afford to hire a spaceship. I don’t have that kind of money.”

“The Michelangelo show would pay. Once we reach the habitat, we can gain access to Isaac’s wormhole. We can take Morton and the motile off Elan.”

Which is what this is really all about, Mellanie knew. Ever since Dudley had heard about the strange alien motile he had been consumed with meeting it. She was thankful he despised the navy and completely distrusted Admiral Kime, otherwise he would have gone straight to them asking for the motile to be recovered. “It would have to be a really good proposal for them to come up with that kind of money,” she said. “You’d have to be very sure of the spaceship performance.”

“I am. We can do it.” Dudley stroked his ear. “A few more upgrades like this, some memory skill implants, and I’ll be able to pilot us myself.”

“All right. If you collect some figures, very detailed figures, Dudley, I’ll think about it.”

“Yes!” He punched one hand into the palm of the other, smiling broadly.

“I’ll get onto it right away.”

Mellanie slipped the T-shirt dress straps off her shoulders, and let the garment slide down onto the ancient floorboards. “I didn’t know Ozzie owned half of CST.”

“Oh, yes.” Dudley was staring at her as if he’d never seen her body before.

“They started the company together. Sheldon was always the director, the commercial half of the partnership. So he’s the one the public and the media always see making statements. It’s an association thing.”

“Interesting.” She unhooked her bra.

It was the signal for Dudley to struggle out of his own shirt, desperately trying to get it off over his head and getting badly tangled up in the hurry.

“You know, he hasn’t been seen for years.”

“Who? Ozzie?”

“Yes. I found that out when I was researching this. Not that it’s unusual—he’s always traveling through the Commonwealth. They say he’s visited every planet, and had a child on each of them.”

Mellanie stepped out of her panties and walked through into the bathroom. She turned the shower on, grateful the water was mildly warm. “If he’s so important, it’s strange he hasn’t said anything about the Primes. You know, there was a lot of pressure on the Baron show not to mention the asteroid habitat. I wonder what’s happened to him.”

“That’s Ozzie for you: one crazy dude.” Dudley was trying to get his pants off; he had to grip the door frame to stop falling over. “I’d like to be like him.”

“If he’s as rebellious as everyone says, he might let us use his wormhole anyway.”

“We’d have to find him first.”

“I’ll ask around the office. Somebody there might know where he is.”

Dudley finally got his pants off, and made for the shower.

“Wait there,” Mellanie said sharply. He came to a halt in the middle of the small bathroom.

She started to rub the thick soapy gel onto her body. “Watch me first. I’ll tell you when you can join me.”

Dudley sucked on his lower lip and whimpered.

***