The Goliath Stone Read Online Free PDF Page B

all out right away. We cut it pretty close.”
    “No, he made allowances for other people not getting stuff … which makes me suspicious of the timing of those marshals.”
    “You think they were fake?”
    “Hadn’t thought of that. I was wondering if he was the one who tipped them off. It would mean my apartment is bugged.”
    “Would he do that?”
    “I am goddamned if I know. I would have said no, but the coincidence is…”
    “Are you okay?”
    He’d gone online and Lilithed his name, and the first hit was about Target One. The asteroid had become next to invisible years before, when light collectors finished covering its surface, but something had been spotted displaying a plume of fluorescing oxygen, and decelerating. If it kept up its thrust it would match course with Earth in a matter of weeks.
    The hard part was sifting through the media hysteria.
    The issue of getting a full body scan seemed fairly unimportant at this point.
    *   *   *
    The tickets were for a private cabin for six on an Aero Transcielo Rukh. The Rukh was the biggest aircraft ever built. May should know; she’d built it, to carry a hybrid orbiter to the edge of space. It had been sold and downgraded from full hypersonic capability after Wyndham’s clients went toes-up, but the thing still worked. The private attendant—who also looked like a teenage Indian—brought them drinks and left them alone. Toby sipped his, looked at May, and said, “Grape soda and apple juice, pinch of salt.”
    “Eeuchh.”
    “Barbarian. How’s yours?”
    She tasted it. “Long Island Iced Tea with a twist of lime peel. We’re still being managed.”
    “Yeah. GISS.”
    “Huh?”
    “‘Gosh, I’m So Surprised.’ Fannish term.”
    “I never heard it.”
    “We used it all the time at Littlemeade. What now, I wonder?”
    His phone was playing a tune from the Planets Symphony. He turned the speaker on.
    “This message is being sent from the plane,” said a voice that was almost unfamiliar. It sounded sort of like Connors, but healthy. “If you’re hearing it, the diversions worked long enough. Sorry I was so slow on the uptake, I’d stopped watching the rock years ago. Only noticed what was going on there when the computers showed paper on you. Then today they moved quite suddenly. You’ll be met in Quito. I’ll see you as soon as I can, but I’ve got other stuff going on there. Meanwhile, enjoy the Olympiad. Be seeing you. —And Bernard Fox played Dr. Bombay in the original show.” The phone shut off.
    Bewitched had had a revival in the twenties. They looked at each other. “The witch doctor,” May said.
    “Could have been worse,” Toby said. “Could have been Jonathan Harris.”
    “Ouch. —Hang on. That was Connors, right?”
    “As far as I could tell, yes.”
    “So he’s into the U.S. attorney general’s system. It flagged the warrant on you.”
    “Oh Christ,” Toby said, and dialed rapidly.
    “What?” said May.
    He held up a hand and said, “Wait.” He typed at high speed, hit Send, and said, “I thought I’d better tell the Factory Team to divvy up the petty cash and get to shelter. Mass mailing. We made contingency plans.” He hove a sigh. “Yeah, hacking the Feds sounds like something he’d do if he could. Didn’t know he could, though.”
    “Bear with me. It must have happened yesterday, right?”
    “I guess so.” Toby was trying to see where she was going.
    “So, D.C. is six hours earlier than Bern. Probably got word around the time I walked into your clinic. That means he set everything up—including a legitimate U.S. passport and an expert contact to deliver it!—in the time it took us to eat dinner! And he apologized for being slow ?”
    “I told you he had no patience with stupidity. That included his own. —I was sure Briareus was dead. It was supposed to put Target One in orbit around the Earth, years ago. Our instructions … I thought they’d gotten lost or scrambled. I wonder what