Free Angel of Europa by Allen Steele Page A

let him know where I was. Because if you hadn’t, someone might wondered why you there, and maybe figured out that what happened to me wasn’t an accident at all.”
    “Otto … no.” She shook her head. “That’s not … you know I couldn’t have …”
    “Stop it, Evangeline. Just … stop.” He slowly let out his breath. “I know better now, and so do you.”
    For several long seconds, she didn’t say anything. Then she reached up to push back her hair, and Danzig saw that her face had changed. All the previous warmth and sexual hunger had vanished, to be replaced by an emotionless mask.
    “Just so you know,” she said quietly, “I’m sorry I almost killed you.”
    Danzig felt a chill. He’d expected Evangeline to continue asserting her innocence, but apparently she’d decided that any further pretensions of innocence were futile. Which made her even more dangerous than she’d been before.
    “Why did you do it?” he asked.
    “You shouldn’t take it personally,” Evangeline said, unmindful of the macabre horror of her words. “It was necessary, that’s all. I figured that, since you’re the ship’s arbiter, you’d be the person most likely to investigate what happened to John and Klaus, so I had to take care of you before I did anything else. But once I got to know you a bit better—” a shrug of her narrow shoulders “—well, I came to like you.”
    “Really? Be honest.”
    Evangeline sighed, shook her head. “No … no, you’re right. I just figured that I could manipulate you just the way I did with those two.” A smile appeared, both sensual and cunning. “I’ve always been able to play men this way,” she continued, playfully laying a forefinger upon his chest and slowly moving it down his stomach toward his groin. “When it comes right down to it, there’s only one thing guys really want …”
    “So you planned this from the very start of the mission.” Danzig pushed her hand aside; she responded with a soft laugh that was both amused and mean. “First you slept with John, then …”
    “No.” She absently tossed back her hair as she looked away from him. “I slept with John because I wanted to, period. I didn’t want to get bored on the way out here, and he was a lot more interesting than anyone else aboard. But when we were in bed, he’d tell me about what he expected to find once we got to Jupiter, and after awhile I realized two things. First … as you said … whoever found life on Europa would be rich and famous once we got back to Earth. Vids, books, lecture tours …”
    “What was the second thing?”
    “He and Klaus had already worked things out. Between the two of them, they’d agreed to share credit for any major discoveries, along with any profits. But as for me …”
    Evangeline’s eyes narrowed as her mouth tightened into a scowl. “Nothing. I was to be the bathyscaphe pilot, that’s all. Oh, I’d be mentioned in the book the two of them planned to write. Maybe even get my picture in it. But John let it slip that I wouldn’t have a share in anything if they made a major discovery out here.”
    Her hand returned to his chest, fingers absently playing with the soft fringe of hair at his sternum as she gazed out the nearby porthole. “That made me angry, I took up the matter with Klaus. I wasn’t going to sleep with him at first, but …”
    “You changed your mind when you thought doing so might help change his mind.”
    “That was the general idea, yes.” A sly smile appeared on her face. “Klaus was more than happy to have sex with his colleague’s girlfriend … I don’t think the two of them really liked each other that much, really … but the deal had already been made, and neither of them wanted to split the proceeds more than they already planned.”
    “So that’s when you decided to kill them.”
    “I figured that, if we made a major discovery while on Europa, I’d fake a communications breakdown, then jettison the