The Ganymede Club Read Free Page B

made Jason very glad that he had asked to be involved. As far as the doctor was concerned, Athene's body was no more than a piece of dead meat, to be examined with curiosity but no sympathy. Jason would treat her with proper reverence.
    He waited until Polk had gone; then he began. With the helmet off and the suit's seals released, it was simple to open the front completely and ease the body free. He had to take hold of her hands and feet to do so. Athene had been barearmed and barelegged within the suit. Lifting her, he noticed that the odd body stiffness he had felt when he had removed her from the shaft on Helene was no longer present. Her flesh was soft and smooth, and much warmer than he had expected from Polk's comment. Her eyes were closed, her face calm. He wanted to believe that her death had been as easy and painless as her expression suggested.
    He paused. There were silvery patches on her thighs and upper arms, and also on her hands. They were far more pronounced than those on her face. After a few moments he unzipped the front of her one-piece garment. It felt like an intrusion when he opened her clothing to examine her bare chest.
    More patches, and brighter. He ran his fingers along a big one on her lower rib cage, and found it slick to the touch. He knew Athene's body well. There had been nothing like this, as recently as twenty-four hours ago.
    Contamination.
    He had not believed it until this moment, but suddenly he was sure of it. Simone Munzer had been right to warn, for something in the interior of the planetoid had entered Athene's body and killed her.
    He had to get the corpse into a sealed container and report what he had found. But his fingertips were still on Athene's chest. Before he could remove them he felt a tremor, a movement.
    Jason jerked his hand away. The bare chest was moving, the first faint tremble slowing and strengthening to a regular up-and-down motion. She was breathing. A thin wisp of vapor was creeping like a pale-blue tendril from her right nostril.
    "Athene!"
    He reached out again, wanting to help, not sure what to do. Her eyelids were flickering. As he watched, they opened. She was trying to lift her head.
    He put his hand forward, intending to assist her. At the same moment he felt a wave of heat sweep over him. It began in his fingertips and spread rapidly through his whole body. With it came a tremendous feeling of strength and well-being.
    But with it also came dizziness. He found himself unable to breathe. As the cabin around him began to fade, he saw that Athene was sitting up, turning in his direction. Her eyes were bright and unblinking. The last thing that Jason saw was the streak of silvery skin creeping along the back of his own outstretched hand.

2
    Mars: 2063 A.D.
    A sales pitch was always the same; it hadn't changed in five thousand years. First the salesman—though this one happened to be a saleswoman—told you all the advantages: the spectacular view—from eighty kilometers up you could see the whole lower city and, beyond it, the broad curve of the planet; the amazingly generous amount of floor space, enough for a dozen people to live in comfort; the unique privacy, with no one but you living on the whole floor section; and the astonishingly low cost.
    And finally, the inevitable kicker: ". . . last one left, going fast, showing to three other people later today."
    Julius Szabo listened, nodded, and evaluated her performance: not bad for a beginner. But he had been in the game back when she was kicking her shapely little legs in the air and crying for a change of diaper—and he had played on a field a hell of a lot tougher than real estate.
    "I just don't know, Ms. Diver." He rubbed at his nose, put on his bewildered, worried look, and cut in when she was well into her windup and just five seconds before she was ready to state an inflated price. "It's very nice, but I can already tell that this place is way too rich for my blood. I'm retired, you know. I'm