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Synopsis

In the wake of the Asteroid Wars that tore across the solar system, Victor Zacharius makes his living running the ore-carrier Syracuse. With his wife and two children he plies the Asteroid Belt, hauling whatever cargo can be found. When the Syracuse stumbles into the middle of a military attack on the habitat Chrysalis, Victor flees in a control pod to draw the attacker's attention away from his family. Now, as his wife and children plunge into the far deeps of space, Victor has been rescued by the seductive Cheena Madagascar. He must do her bidding if he's to have a prayer of ever seeing his family again.

Elverda Apacheta is the solar system's greatest sculptor. The cyborg Dorn was formerly Dorik Harbin, the ruthless military commander responsible for the attack on Chrysalis. Their lives and destinies have been linked by their joint discovery of the alien artifact that had, earlier, profoundly affected industrialist Martin Humphries. Similarly transformed by the artifact's mysterious powers, Apacheta and Dorn now prowl the Belt, determined to find the bodies of the many victims of Harbin's atrocities so that they can be given proper burials.

Kao Yuan is the captain of Viking, owned by Martin Humphries, who's determined to kill Dorn and Elverda because they know too much about the artifact and its power over him. But Viking's second-in-command, Tamara Vishinsky, appears to have the real power on board ship. When Viking catches up to Apacheta and Dorn, their confrontation begins a series of events involving them, the Zacharius family, and Martin Humphries and his son in the transformation of the human solar system...

Excerpt

Chapter One

Ore Ship Syracuse:
Main Power Bay

"Don't touch that switch!"

"Ow!"

His father's shouted warning made Theo Zacharias jerk upright. He banged his head painfully on the steel shelf that jutted out over the power bus recess set into the floor plates of the cramped compartment.

"You could trip all the breakers on the power bus," Victor Zacharias admonished his son. "The whole damned ship would go dark."

Fifteen-year-old Theo sat there surrounded by relays and circuit breakers, his knees poking up from the recess like a pair of folded ladders. He rubbed his throbbing head with one hand and glowered sullenly at his father.

"How many times do I have to tell you to be careful?" Victor demanded. "Do you have any idea of how many megavolts are in those circuits?"

"Twenty-two point six," Theo muttered. "You've told me often enough."

Victor offered a hand to his son and helped to pull him out of the recess. "I'll handle it," he said, climbing down to where the teenager had been.

"Yeah. Right," said Theo, thinking he knew what his father had left unsaid: Never send a boy to do a man's job.

Nearly an hour later Victor clambered out of the recess and hunched beneath the low overhead alongside Theo.

"That ought to hold until we get back to Ceres," he said. "Come on, Thee, help me put the deck plates back in place."

Theo skinned his knuckles wrestling with the heavy deck plates, but he avoided mashing his fingers, as he'd done once before. The fingernail on his left ring finger was still black from that one. They finished and crabbed out into the passageway, where they could at last stand erect. Theo stretched to his full height, several centimeters taller than his father. While Victor was thickset and bullnecked, his once-trim midsection had spread, stretching the fabric of his coveralls. Theo was tall and slender, but youthfully awkward, all gangling arms and legs. Victor's hair was jet black and thickly curled; Theo's was a light sandy brown, like his mother's.

"How's your head?" Victor asked gruffly as they started back toward the living quarters.

Theo rubbed the spot he had whacked. "No lump," he said. He flexed the fingers where he'd skinned his knuckles; the hand stung, but not badly.

"This old vessel needs a lot of tender loving care," Victor said, more to himself than to his son. "We've got to nurse her along until we put in at Ceres for a major overhaul."

Theo started to reply, but his mouth went dry. He knew what he wanted to say, but found that it wasn't easy to speak the words. At last, working up his courage, he tried, "Dad, when we get to Ceres... " But the words dried up in his throat.

His father's expression turned hard. "What about when we get back to Ceres?"

Theo blurted, "I don't want to spend the rest of my life taking care of this rust bucket."

"Neither do I, son. I thought we'd spend a year or two out here in the Belt and then cash in. But it hasn't worked out that way. The years just seem to slip past."

Theo had heard the sad story many times before. "I don't want to be a rock rat all my life," he said.

"You don't want to be like me, is that it?" Victor asked, his voice suddenly sharp.

Feeling miserable, Theo replied, "It's not that, Dad. It's... jeeze, there's got to be more to life than running around the Belt picking up ores and delivering them to Ceres, for cripes sake."

"Don't let your mother hear that kind of language. She expects you to be a gentleman."

"Yeah, I know," Theo sighed.

More softly Victor said, "Theo, this ship is our home. It's our whole life - "

"Your life," Theo muttered. "I want something more."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm getting good grades in my science classes."

"High school classes over the ednet are a far cry from real science, Thee."

"The guidance program says my test scores are good enough for a scholarship."

"Scholarships pay tuition. Who's going to pay all the other expenses?"

"I can work, support myself. Selene University scholarships include transportation, at least."

"Selene?" Victor stopped in the middle of the passageway, forcing Theo to stop and turn to face him. "You want to go to the Moon?"

"Just long enough to get a degree in biology."

"And then what?"

"Maybe I could go to the research station at Jupiter. They need biologists to study the life forms there."

"Jupiter," Victor murmured, shaking his head. He clutched at his son's arm hard enough almost to hurt. "A biologist. At the Jupiter station."

"If I'm good enough to make it."

"You'll have to be pretty damned good," Victor told his son. Then he chuckled and added, "If you don't kill yourself first trying to keep this ship going."

Theo did not laugh.

Ore Ship Syracuse:

Galley

Let's face it, Mom," Theo mumbled into his bowl of yogurt and honey, "Dad doesn't trust me. He thinks I'm still a kid."

His mother, Pauline, stood at the one microwave oven that was still functioning and smiled understandingly at her son.

"I don't think that's true, Theo," she said gently.

"I'm fifteen!" Theo burst. "Almost sixteen! And he still doesn't trust me with anything."

"Your father has an awful lot of responsibility on his shoulders," Pauline replied. "This ship, our lives... there's a war going on out there, you know."

"And he doesn't trust me."

Pauline sighed, wondering if the microwave was functioning properly. Syracuse was an old, creaking bucket of an ore carrier. The family spent most of their time on maintenance and repairs, just trying to keep the vessel going on its lonely circuit through the Asteroid Belt. The galley was a tight little compartment, its bulkheads and deck scuffed and dulled from long years of use.

Theo sat hunched over his bowl, muttering...

Copyright © 2007 by Ben Bova

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