Voyagers III - Star Brothers by Ben Bova Read Free Book Online

body. Now his face sagged and there were pouches beneath his blue eyes. He was going to bloat, and even his hair looked a thinning, unhealthy graying blond.
    “So you want to know about Stoner, do you. That’s what this is all about?”
    The woman nodded, holding her snifter in both hands, where it caught a glint of afternoon sunlight.
    “Dr. Ilona Lucacs,” muttered Baker. “Doctor of what?”
    “Neurophysiology,” she said, in a voice that was almost sultry. “At the University of Budapest.”
    “And what’s your interest in Stoner?”
    Dr. Lucacs was clearly uncomfortable, but she forced a smile. Luscious lips, thought Baker.
    “My interest is purely scientific,” she said, with the trace of an exotic accent. “My research is in the area of cryonics, freezing people at the point of death so that they can be revived later, when medical science has learned how to cure the ailment that is killing them.”
    “Ahhh,” said Baker, reaching for the cognac bottle. “So Stoner’s still the only one to make it out of the deep freeze, eh?”
    “So far as I have been able to determine, no other human being has ever been revived successfully from cryonic suspension.”
    Baker splashed five centimeters of golden brown liquid into his snifter and downed half of it in one gulp. “Then An Linh’s mother is still on ice,” he muttered.
    “I beg your pardon?” Dr. Lucacs leaned forward slightly, a motion that roused Baker’s heart rate.
    “An old friend of mine,” explained Baker. “Her mother was dying of cancer so she had the old lady frozen—god, must be twenty-five years or more.”
    “Would this be Ms. An Linh Laguerre?”
    “You’ve met her?”
    “I interviewed her a few weeks ago, in Paris.”
    “How is she?”
    “Very successful. She is a vice president of Global Communications.”
    “So I heard. Haven’t seen her in more than ten years. She was a close friend of mine, back then. A very close friend.”
    Dr. Lucacs caught his meaning. “She is married now, and has two children. She appears to be quite happy with her life.”
    Baker grunted. “Global’s a subsidiary of Vanguard Industries, isn’t it?”
    “I wouldn’t know.”
    “It is. She’s working for Vanguard, same as me.”
    “You did know Dr. Stoner fifteen years ago…”
    But Baker was muttering, “We all work for Vanguard, dearie. You, me, An Linh, everybody. They own us all.”
    Ignoring his implications, Dr. Lucacs tried to get the conversation back on subject. “How well did you know Dr. Stoner?”
    “Not well. But too well, if you get my meaning.”
    “I’m sorry?” She shook her head.
    Baker gulped the rest of the cognac in his glass, then leaned his head back as if inspecting the high ceiling with its slowly-turning fans.
    “I knew him well enough to damned near get killed,” he said, bitter anger in his voice. “I knew him well enough to get kidnapped and tortured. Too damned well.”
    She said nothing, but glanced at the purse in her lap where a miniaturized tape recorder was hidden.
    “You don’t know about Stoner, not really.” Baker hunched forward in his chair, leaning both arms heavily on the table and bringing his face close enough to hers so that she could smell the liquor on his breath.
    “He’s not human. He can see right through you and make you do things you don’t want to do. I saw him make a bloke go blind, just while we were sitting at the dinner table. Made his eyes bleed, for chrissakes! Drove him dotty.” His words were blurring together now, coming out in a half-drunken rush, frenzied, urgent. “He turned the owner of Vanguard Industries into a basket case just by saying a few words to him. He never sleeps! He spent months with An Linh in Africa and never touched her—for sex, I mean. I think he can walk through walls if he wants to. He’s not human, not human at all!”
    Dr. Lucacs’s tawny eyes were glittering. “He spent several years aboard the alien spacecraft,” she whispered,