Free The Venus Belt by L. Neil Smith

dropped it on my head. What’s the big secret?”
    “I—Win, it’s a perfectly legitimate operation, and we can’t tell you any more. As you pointed out, unsecured communications, and so forth. Sorry.”
    “I wish you’d reconsider. Maybe I should lean a little harder, but your business is your business. I don’t promise to leave it at that.”
    “There’s certainly no harm in asking. Nothing personal, old friend.”
    “Right.” I switched off. “Well, what do you think about that, Koko? Koko?”
    She lay, propped up against those goddamned windows, snoring ene r getically. Well, my shoulder ached, I could stand some z’s, myself. I gently got her somnambulated toward the elevator. Room service charged a phil o sophically impossible amount for the soup and sandwich which arrived a few minutes later. I settled into the sack with my meal and a fresh cigar, no t ing it was news time out on Ceres.
    And somehow, I’d gotten entangled in the headlines.
    “Tonight’s special report concerns the mysterious privately held co m pany known as Aphrodite, Ltd.”
    Voltaire was at his authoritative best this evening, lean, gray, pate r nally disapproving. “Just what is Aphrodite, Ltd., and who are its pri n cipals? We endeavored to find out.” Following was a chronicle of futile attempts to interview one J. V. Tormount at his Ceres office. Or her Ceres o f fice—Malaise couldn’t even find out that much. Whatever gender, Tormount wasn’t in.
    Tormount, it appeared, was never in.
    He’d been a busy little dickens, though, buying up hundreds of hom e steaders in the isolated Sargasso asteroid cluster, importing unspecified heavy machinery—and sophisticated paratronics. “The privacy of business is s a cred in our society,” lamented Voltaire, “yet the people have a right to know.” (Where had he picked that up?) “Our attempts to pen e trate this new but powerful and well-financed firm will continue. It may well be that ‘Ap h rodite’ conceals something sinister in her bosom. At least that’s the way it looks, Monday, March first, 223 A.L. This is Voltaire Malaise, Ceres Ce n tral, good night.”
    I wished him better luck than I was having, put out my cigar, set the Gigacom (fanfare, angel chorus) for morning, and crawled between the c o vers onto my good shoulder.
    In her bosom ? C’mon, Voltaire, that one went out with honest la w yers!
    ***
    “ Yaaawp! Yaaawp! ” The Gigacom awoke me— proximity alarm! A giant shadow hovered overhead, striking downward. I snatched the de s cending blanket away from my face before it landed, and lashed out for the wrist—the furry wrist!—controlling it, planted a foot in somebody’s midse c tion, and pushed ! The figure whirled away in a flap of ill-gotten bedclothes, stu m bled backward, and rebounded off the windows as I fumbled vainly for the light.
    The intruder leaped again, damn near crushing my ribs in the process. We thumped to the floor, thrashing in the darkness, my face suddenly e x ploding in painful collision with a misplaced elbow. I grabbed a handful of pelt, hoping for an ear or something else to bite. My other hand found the pommel of the Rezin, fallen from the nightstand, and flung away the sheath, to— Ungh! The stranger’s knee had found a place I couldn’t disregard.
    I doubled, slashing blindly in confused shock. The blade caught som e thing, sliced and grated. A terrifying scream—and I was free! Light blazed briefly into the cabin from the hall and shuttered off again. I wrenched u p right, blood from my nose streaming down my chin, and staggered out into the corridor.
    Empty. I glanced at my watch; it wasn’t there. Neither were my clothes.
    Just as I turned, the cabin door swung shut with a positive click . The knob wouldn’t move. I wiped my face, left hand coming away sticky cri m son. The right still gripped a foot of gory steel. Trying not to drip on Ca p tain Spoonbill’s hall carpet, I focused with difficulty: yes, a trail of