Artifact

Artifact Page 5

"This is not open to debate, Paul," Frik said. "I want absolute secrecy. In fact, I don't want that thing to leave this room. And I want this room locked at all times. Is that clear? This is too important a find to rush into the public eye, especially in an incomplete state. Who knows what that fifth piece will do? For all we know it could transform the artifact into some sort of devastating weapon. No...we've got to proceed cautiously and weigh every move. Do you see what I'm saying?"

Paul nodded. He saw what Frik was saying.

Exactly what he was saying.

"Good." Frik thrust out his hand. "Then can I have your word that you will keep everything you've discovered here secret until I decide the time is right to go public?"

"Very well," Paul said, shaking hands reluctantly. He didn't see that he had any other option, but in his raging heart he held back from a true promise.

He's lying to me, so it's only fair that I lie to him.

"Good! After all, Paul, my men found it, so I feel responsible for it."

"Yes," Paul said. "A terrible burden."

In his peripheral vision, reflected in the shiny surface of the stainless steel door of a storage cabinet, Paul glimpsed the angry set of his own jaw. He was reminded of how his daughter had looked the day she'd turned her Ph.D. in physics into a paper boat and floated it off the dock. She'd resembled her mother so much that day, with the latte-colored skin of her mixed French-Arawak ancestry. As he'd stood with her and watched the breeze take away the piece of paper that had given him such pride, she'd announced her intention to go to Caracas and join a small group of like-minded people dedicated to the preservation of the environment, by any means necessary.

Much as he'd tried to dissuade her, much as he'd tried to tell her she'd be wasting her intellect, a part of him was proud of her. And wanted her to be proud of him.

"Keep working with it," Frik said, clapping Paul on the shoulder. "Write up your notes, but do it yourself - no secretaries involved. We'll talk tomorrow and decide our next step."

"Yes." Paul was afraid his anger would explode if he dared to say more than the absolute minimum. He clenched his fists at his sides; resisting the urge to throw something hard at the back of Frik's head, he settled for tossing out the word "Tomorrow."

When he heard the Hummer start up and drive away, Paul pulled out a plaster cast. He had made it to support earlier reasonably successful attempts to duplicate at least the look, if not the feel, of the artifact, which he'd wanted to study without always risking the original. Separating the device into its original four pieces, he used the largest of the authentic pieces as his base and constructed a polyurethane model of the artifact. Then he locked the two smallest real pieces together, put them in a padded envelope, and addressed it to himself.

The third, the one with the figure eight at one end, he packaged separately, along with a letter of explanation to the only person he could fully trust - the only person who, as a physicist, would understand what he was saying - his daughter, Selene. He wrote her name on the package. Nothing else. Since she'd joined that ecoterrorist group, Green Impact, she had given up on conventional addresses. His only route to her was through Manny Sheppard. The diminutive boat captain had been a friend of Paul's wife. When she'd been killed, Manny had helped raise Selene, teaching her the joys of the ocean, and how to be true to herself.

Turning back to the model, Paul checked that it was solid and placed it in the middle of the lab table, as if it were no more important than the beakers and tongs. That little bit of "carelessness" should drive Frik crazy, he thought.

He put the packages in the wide pockets of his lab coat, draped the coat over his arm, and glanced at his watch. It was after four. Manny should be arriving down at the dock, if he wasn't there already. Bone weary, Paul left the lab, making sure he heard the click as he pulled the door shut and it locked behind him.

Once outside the building, he walked to his Nissan, got in, and drove out of the parking lot. He followed the potholed, semipaved road for a few hundred yards, out of view of the labs, then turned onto a side road which wound down to the smaller of Oilstar's two docking areas. In quick glimpses between the hills, fruit trees, and palms, he spotted theAssegai 's tall masts. As he turned the final bend in the road, he saw Manny's small cargo boat and something that made his heart leap: Frik's Hummer, parked at the end of the dock.

Paul stomped on his brakes and threw the car in reverse. Using his cell phone, he dialed Frik's ship-to- shore number. What he didn't need was Frik walking in on his conversation with Manny.

He let the phone ring a dozen times. This was an emergency number that Frik always answered if he was on the boat. When Paul was convinced that his boss was not on board, he put the car back in gear and drove down to the dock. He had set up the duplicate device in the conviction that Frik would go back to the lab tonight to find it.

It suddenly occurred to Paul that maybe Frik hadn't answered the phone because he was moving sooner than Paul had anticipated. The Afrikaner could easily have walked the quarter mile from the dock to the lab while Paul was making his preparations. He could have been hiding in the bushes when Paul left the lab, waiting for the building to be empty.

He could be in the lab right now, which made it even more imperative that Paul find Manny and rid himself of the packages in his pocket.

To his enormous relief, as he parked he saw Manny sitting on a piling, a cigarette loosely held between two fingers of his left hand, which also held a Carib. The diminutive seaman waved as Paul approached.

"Good to see you. Get you a beer?"

The chemist shook his head. "I've got something to tell you, Manny," he said, "and a favor to ask. A large favor."

Paul told Manny everything that had happened, beginning with the call from Frik and ending with the Afrikaner's own words:Who knows what that fifth piece will do? For all we know it could transform the artifact into some sort of devastating weapon .

"The man's a ruthless bastard, capable of anything."

Paul nodded. "We both know why I'm working with him, but you? You have a choice - " He stopped himself. "I'm sorry," he said. "It's really none of my business."

"I work for Frik for two reasons," Manny said, ignoring Paul's last comment. "The first is obviously money."

"And the second?"

"I'd rather be in a position where I can keep my eye on him, and stay in touch with the few good people who work for him. Now, what's that favor you wanted?"

Paul held out the two packages. "I don't know where Selene is exactly, but I'm sure you do."

"I know how to find her," Manny said.

"I need you to get one of these to Selene and post the other to me. Wait a few days first." Paul paused. "If anything happens to me, make sure Selene knows about it and get the other package from my place. Don't risk keeping it yourself. Give it to someone you'd trust with your life, the way I'm trusting you with mine."

Grinning, Manny replied, "I know just who the doctor ordered."