There were pleasures in seeing every hour of the day, to be sure. Few men saw as many sunrises, as many sunsets, as many of the midnight stars, as Gubber Anshaw. But the dawn gave him no pleasure that morning. Not with the terrible news.
He was in the solarium, his personal robot serving him breakfast, when he heard the first report. Almost before he knew it, he was rushing to the bedroom, bursting in on Tonya, still asleep.
Tonya. Tonya Welton. Even in that moment of horror and panic, there was still a tiny part of him that paused to marvel at the fact that the beautiful, hard-edged, tough-minded Settler leader loved him, lived with him, lived with a soft-spoken robot designer. There were not many Spacer-Settler couples in the universe, and there were good reasons for that. It was never easy living with Tonya. But it was always exciting, and always worth it.
“Tonya!” Gubber went to the bed and shook Tonya’s shoulder. “Tonya! Wake up!”
“Hmmn’? Hmm? What?” Tonya sat up in bed, yawning., ‘Gubber, what in the stars is it?”
“It’s Grieg! Governor Grieg! He’s been assassinated!”
“What?”
“Shot dead! Sheriff Kresh just announced it a few minutes ago. No real details yet-but Grieg’s dead!”
“Burning hell,” Tonya said, shock and astonishment in her voice. “Last night. I saw him, talked to him last night. And he’s dead?”
“Dead,” Gubber agreed.
“And they don’t know who did it?”
“I don’t think so. They said they were still investigating. But they aren’t going to say anything for a while, no matter what happens.”
Tonya reached for him, and they threw their arms around each other, held each other tight. “This is trouble, Gubber,” said Tonya, her voice a bit muffled with her face in Gubber’s chest. “Trouble for everyone.”
“Yes, yes.”
“But who did it?” Tonya asked, pulling back a little to look into Gubber’s face. “Some lunatic? Was it a plot? Why did they do it?”
Gubber shook his head and thought a minute. “I don’t know,” he said, forcing himself to settle down and think it through, forcing himself to be rational. “It doesn’t matter. The chaos will be the same. All sorts of people will try and take advantage of Grieg’s death. If it wasn’t someone trying to take over who killed him, then someone else is going to try taking over now that he’s dead.”
Tonya Welton nodded, her expression dazed and confused. “I’m sure you’re right,” she said.
“Maybe we should try and get away,” Gubber said. “Get off-planet. There’s going to be trouble.”
“No,” Tonya snapped. Her face took on a hard, set expression. “We can’t. I can’t. I’m here to lead the Settlers on Inferno, not to run off and leave them when there’s trouble. ” She stared deep into Gubber’s eyes, but then she seemed to be looking right through him, past him, at something else “Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?” Gubber asked, grabbing her by the shoulders, trying to get her attention. “Tonya, what is it?”
“The dust-up last night,” Tonya said. “I told you about it when I got in. The two men who got in a fight with me, and were taken away by the phony SSS agents.”
“Yes, what about it?”
“Don’t you see?” she said. “Don’t you get it? Kresh will assume-will have to assume-that the attack on me was part of it, part of the plot. A diversion, or something. That it was staged for some reason to do with Grieg being killed.”
And then Gubber did understand, and he pulled Tonya close and held her tight. He knew instantly that it would be impossible to talk her into leaving, that the Rangers or the Sheriffs Department would stop her from leaving even if she tried. Because he did understand, and understood far more than what she had told him. Kresh would assume the attack on her was staged because of Grieg’s murder: He would also assume that Tonya was one of the people who helped to stage it.
But far worse than that was the tiny bit of Gubber’s own heart. The part who knew how tough, how hard, Tonya could be. How she never flinched from doing what was necessary. She and Grieg never had seen eye to eye. Besides, Tonya and he had both been suspects in the Caliban case.
And Tonya Welton was a good actress. She could always convince Gubber of anything.
Never mind that Kresh would have to suspect Tonya of complicity in the Governor’s murder. The worst of it was that Kresh’s suspicion might even be justified.
Captain Cinta Melloy of the Settler Security Service was angry, and when Cinta Melloy was angry, no one else nearby was likely to find much peace and quiet-not that Kresh would have been likely to get much in any event.
She was leaning over Kresh’s makeshift desk in the ops center. I am shoving myself into your territory, her posture told him. You have slighted me, and I have to bully you to make sure you know to respect me in future. “Why the double-damned hell did I have to find out the Governor was dead off the morning news?” she demanded.
