Angel of Europa Read online

  “Welcome back,” Dylan McNeil said. “Glad to see you made it in one piece.”

  “How dare you slander me?” Kevin replied in mock protest as he pushed himself through the hatch. “You’re insinuating that I’m an unsafe pilot. I should sue for libel.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Dylan helped his friend come aboard, then reached back through the hatch to offer Danzig a hand. “How ’bout it, Otto? Are you willing to arbitrate this dispute, or should I get a lawyer?”

  “Sorry. You’re just going to have to work this out on your own.” Danzig grasped Dylan’s hand and let the chief engineer pull him into the airlock, then he took hold of a ceiling rung and waited for Evangeline to follow him. He noted that Dylan seemed more than willing to help her come aboard; only a few days ago, he’d pointedly snubbed Evangeline when she and Danzig were about to leave the ship.

  Dylan wasn’t the only expedition member who’d had a change of attitude. During the long flight back from Europa, Evangeline had used the comlink to speak with various people aboard the Explorer about what she’d found. Captain Diaz, Margaret Harris, Rita Jimenez … all wanted to know more about the extraterrestrial, conveniently forgetting that they’d previously called her a murderer, a slut, or even worse. Which only figured. It hadn’t taken very long for word to reach Earth, and since Evangeline was the only surviving member of the team that first sighted the creature — tentatively called a pseudocetacean for the time being — she was being credited as its discoverer. Once the Explorer returned to Earth, she’d become one of the most famous members of the International Jupiter Expedition. Her former adversaries knew this, and also that it didn’t pay to make enemies with a hero. Better to bury the hatchet than continue carrying a grudge.

  For now, though, she’d have to settle for no longer being under suspicion. Danzig could see the relief in Evangeline’s face as she let Dylan help her through the hatch. Once she was aboard, though, she left the chief engineer behind and pushed herself over to Danzig.

  “So … what now?” She smiled at him as she took hold of the same rung he was using, her fingers lightly touching his own.

  Danzig shrugged. “Life goes back to normal, I suppose. At least I expect it will, once I deliver my report to the Captain … and I’m sure you know what it will be.”

  “I’m sure I do.” Evangeline let herself drift a little closer to him. “Thank you, Otto. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me.”

  “Yes, well …”

  “Do you remember what I said to you? How I’d be grateful for any help you could give me?” He nodded, and her smile became more suggestive. “Come down to my quarters in a little while,” she said, her voice a near-whisper. “After you’ve seen the Captain, I mean.”

  Danzig felt his face grow warm. Kevin had already left the docking port, but from the corner of his eye he could see Dylan pointedly looking the other way. “If you’d like me to …”

  “I would.” Evangeline pulled herself closer, and her lips briefly touched his own. For a moment he felt the sensual tension of her body against his, then she pulled herself away. A meaningful wink, then she disappeared through the airlock hatch, heading for the hub carrousel.

  Danzig looked over at Dylan. The chief engineer’s back was turned to him as he sealed the port hatch, but the grin on his face made it obvious that he’d witnessed the whole thing. “I see your job has its own rewards,” he said quietly.

  “Um …” Danzig floundered for the right thing to say, then he remembered some unfinished business. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you … thanks for saving my life. During the blowout a few months ago, I mean.”

  “Sure. No problem.” Dylan pushed himself away from the hatch. “If you really want to thank someone, though, you can tell Evangeline how much you appreciate what she did. That way, you’ll be even.”

  “Huh?” Danzig shook his head. “Sorry, but I don’t understand. What do you …?”

  “She never told you?” Dylan stopped at the docking port’s inner hatch. “I would’ve never known you were in the main airlock if Evangeline hadn’t told me.”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t know?” He raised a querulous eyebrow. “I was on my way down to Deck B when I found her coming the other way. She told me she thought someone was trapped in the airlock and that she was on her way to get help. So I headed for the airlock and —” a shrug “— well, there you were.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Danzig hesitated. “Was there anyone else on Deck B at the time?”

  “No. Just her.” Dylan pushed himself through the hatch. “Anyway … so now you know. You owe her a kiss for that, at least.”

  Danzig didn’t reply. He waited until Dylan was gone, then left the docking port and pushed himself down Hub Deck 2’s passageway. The docking port was located on the same level as the airlock in which he’d nearly lost his life. Up until then, he’d avoided visiting the place, but now it was important that he see it again.

  There was a small control panel on the bulkhead outside the airlock’s inner hatch. Opening its safety cover, Danzig studied its buttons. He’d already known that the airlock’s outer hatch could be closed from this panel; that was how Dylan saved his life. However, Danzig hadn’t realized what should have been obvious: the outer hatch could be opened from here as well.

  He lingered in the passageway for a few minutes. Then he went to see Captain Diaz.

  IX

  THE DOOR TO MARGARET Harris’s quarters clicked softly as it slid shut. Danzig glanced about to make sure that he was alone, then he knocked on Evangeline’s door.

  No response. He was about to try again when the door slid open a couple of centimeters. Evangeline peered at him through the crack. “Hello,” she said quietly, smiling at him. “Come in … I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Opening the door a little further, she took Danzig’s hand and pulled him into the room. The lights had been turned down low, but he could see that she wore an oversized Zeus Explorer T-shirt that fell down around her hips … and, so far as he could tell, nothing else.

  As Evangeline closed the door behind him, Danzig opened his mouth to speak. Before he could say anything, though, she slid her arms around his neck and, standing on her toes, planted her lips firmly against his. Her mouth was as soft as it had been in the airlock, but this time the kiss lasted much longer. He could the warm, supple strength of her body, and when he placed his hands upon her waist, a single touch was all it took to confirm his suspicion that she was naked beneath the T-shirt.

  “I was hoping you’d come to see me,” Evangeline whispered as she pulled her face away. “I owe you something.”

  “Evangeline …”

  “No. Enough talk.”

  Resting a hand against his chest, she gently pushed him backward. Even though it had been nearly a week since he’d been revived from hibernation, Danzig was still too weak to resist; the firm but insistent pressure was all it took to make him fall back upon her bed. Its covers had already been pulled aside. In the next instant, Evangeline was on top of him, her legs straddling his body as she reached down to rip open his shirt. Then, as she placed her hands on either side of his shoulders, she descended upon him, her long brown hair falling down around her face as her eager mouth found his own.

  Danzig didn’t love her, and he knew that she didn’t love him. This was a transaction as pragmatic as the payment of a bribe, with flesh as the preferred currency. The sex was dishonest, but it was all too tempting to believe the lie. It had been a long while — too long, really — since the last time he’d been with a woman, and it would be easy to let her take him.

  All he had to do was forget what he knew. But he couldn’t. When she sat up to remove her shirt, he finally had a chance to speak.

  “Why did you murder them … and try to kill me, too?”

  Evangeline had lifted her T-shirt enough for him to see her naked thighs and the bottom of her breasts. She froze, her hands still grasping the shirt’s hem.
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  “You killed Klaus and John,” he went on, trying not to look at her body. “I know that now, even if I didn’t before.” He paused. “You also attempted to kill me, back when you voided the main airlock while I was inside. I don’t have a good memory of what happened … the doctor says it’s because of shock … so I didn’t catch on to what you did. But now I know better.”

  “Otto …” Letting her shirt drop, she stared at him in disbelief. “How can you say that? You saw the pseudocetacean for yourself. You know it exists …”

  “Yes, I do … but that’s really beside the point, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “Or maybe it isn’t. I had the whole thing mixed up. The creature wasn’t your alibi … it was your motive, the reason why you decided to murder Connick and Werner.”

  Danzig felt an involuntary shudder pass through her body. Her mouth twisted as if she was trying to find something to say, but he wouldn’t let her interrupt him “With them out of the way,” he went on, “you won’t have to share credit for its discovery. Oh, the textbooks will probably mention them, but once we’re back home, you’ll be the one who stands to gain the most. There’ll be a lot of fame coming to the person … the living person, that is … who discovered the first alien, and a lot of money to go with it. You knew this would happen. That’s why you killed them.”

  Evangeline shook her head. “I don’t … I didn’t …”

  “Oh, yes, you did. You practically said so yourself, while we were making the dive.” Danzig gazed up at her, searching for her eyes amid the shadows of her hair. “I almost didn’t remember it. Maybe I really wanted you to be innocent. But when Dylan told me what I hadn’t know before, that you’d let him know that I was in the airlock … that’s when I realized that what happened to me wasn’t an accident at all. You’d opened the outer hatch while I was in the airlock, but then Dylan ran into you as you were leaving the deck and so you had no choice but to 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 bathyscaphe’s lower half and tell everyone that there had been an accident. And it almost worked …”

  “Except no one believed you’d found something down there. You cut the comlink too soon, and so you didn’t have enough evidence to back up your side of the story.”

  “No.” She looked down at him again. “But then I got lucky. You’d survived the airlock blowout, but I hadn’t expected that the Captain would ask Martha to revive you. But when they did …”

  “You figured you could manipulate me. Just as you did John and Klaus.”

  “You don’t need to think of it that way.” An indifferent shrug, a wry smile. “I told you I like you … you wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t.”

  Evangeline bent closer, bracing her arms against the bed on either side of him. “We can work this out,” she went on. “After all, you were with me. You saw the pseudocetacean, too. Once we’re back home, we’ll be very rich and—” her voice became very quiet “—you’ll always have me.”

  Looking up into her eyes, Danzig saw that they’d become as cold as Europa’s ocean. “Yes,” he said, “yes, I suppose I could.” The smile reappeared, and she leaned forward to kiss him again. “But then,” he added, “I’d have to explain everything to Captain Diaz.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” she whispered.

  “Yes, he would,” Diaz said.

  Evangeline jerked her head up to see the captain standing on the other side of the room. Danzig had no idea how long she’d been there; Diaz had been very quiet when she entered Evangeline’s quarters through the bathroom she shared with Margaret.

  Evangeline stared at Diaz, her mouth agape and her eyes wide. Then she must have realized that the captain must have heard the entire conversation she’d had with Danzig, because something snapped within her and she lunged forward to wrap her hands around his neck.

  She was still screaming when Diaz hauled her off the bed and slugged her.

  X

  THE NEXT TIME DANZIG saw Evangeline was when he went to the infirmary.

  Except for the bruise and a couple of scratches her hands had left around his neck, he was unharmed by her attack. Diaz wanted him to see Martha, but instead he’d gone straight to his quarters. He was exhaus
ted, both physically and mentally; there was nothing the doctor could do for him that a few hours sleep wouldn’t accomplish just as well.

  Yet all he did was lie in his bunk, staring up at the ceiling while his mind replayed the events of the last few days. He’d already told Diaz everything he knew, even before he’d gone down to Evangeline’s room to confront her. In hindsight, it was fortunate that the Captain had insisted on coming with him. If Diaz hadn’t been hiding in the bathroom, it was possible that Evangeline might have killed him. She’d been stronger than Danzig expected, and he was too weak to fight her.

  But he could have done something else instead, and it was the realization of what he might have done that finally prompted him to reach over to the intercom and call the command center. He’d intended to ask the captain’s permission to see Evangeline, but he was told that Diaz had taken her to the infirmary. Knowing why they’d gone there, he got dressed again and went upstairs to the med deck.

  Danzig found them in the hibernation compartment, along with the doctor and a couple of other crew members. Diaz was surprised when he came in, as was Martha, but Evangeline seemed to have been expecting him.

  “Hello, Otto,” she said. “Come to gloat?”

  She wore the same sort of thin cotton smock Danzig had found himself wearing when he’d been revived. She stood off to one side of the windowless room, with Kirstin Bigelow to her left and Jim Kretsche to her right; they were apparently there to make sure that she didn’t do anything violent. Yet Evangeline was beyond that; her shoulders were slumped and her hair was bedraggled, but it was the hopeless look in her eyes which told Danzig that she knew she’d been defeated.

  “No, not at all.” He paused, trying to figure what to say. “I figured you were going to be here,” he added after a moment, “so I thought I’d see you off.”