I shook my head. “You know there is no such thing as just once. If we bury Jacob, we shall have to bury everybody, and the Commission has not authorized that yet here on Mars. And you know: we need the organics, and we cannot wait for them to come back in a natural cycle.” Maxwell City was growing rapidly. The initial settlers, fewer than a dozen, had been Nick and his crew when they had been stranded here on Mars and struggled to survive. Since that day, Maxwell City had grown to nearly fifty thousand people. But it had grown at such a fast rate that infrastructure development was still racing to keep up. And in particular, organics production lagged behind. Martians were starting to produce their own topsoil through dedicated nano plants; and water was turning up everywhere we looked, more than the twentieth century or even the early twenty-first had ever suspected. But still, for the foreseeable future, Maxwell City had a 100 percent recycling goal. All organics had to go through the city cycler for reuse. And that included human bodies.
This was no news to old space hands. Nick’s crew had had to recycle Shannon Lopez—the first person to die on the surface—plus the lower section of Fadila van der Ven’s leg. Space exploration was not for the squeamish. But the latest wave of Martian colonists were not trained astronauts. They were scientists, researchers, construction teams, and prospectors, plus administrators and merchants and families. A few were even tourists. And the new people just did not appreciate the importance of recycling, even after it had been explained to them over and over.
Mayor Holmes had found a compromise. One of the recyclers on the Services level at the bottom of the city had been modified to produce soil, or a reasonable facsimile of it. The Tomb was open to all faiths and burial traditions to bury their dead there and let them rest for a brief time in a biodegradable coffin, dressed in biodegradable burial wear, until finally the recycler was activated and the remains were broken down. The resultant rich soil was offered to the family for gardens, and to the community as well. Nick used some for his bonsai trees.
Adam nodded, but the look in his eyes was pleading. I inclined my head as well, but it was only a polite courtesy. Anthony Holmes could only change this policy with the whole city council on board. With the election coming, he was unlikely to rock the boat. His Libertist Party needed the support of the Saganists, a minor party, in a coalition against the Realist opposition; and the Saganists protested any new development, any growth beyond the limits of the Mars Compact. If they could, they would drastically reduce human presence on Mars, in order to protect undiscovered Martian life.
We reached the ramp down to the underground levels of Maxwell City. “I’ll see you at the service,” I said. I let them and Marcus proceed without me down Alfa Tube and into the main city. By now, I knew, Nick would be filing his first round of reports on the accident and our discovery of Jacob’s body. I might as well do the same. It is important to capture observations when they are still fresh.
I was glad Nick had left. He and Marcus would never get along well, and I hated to be caught in the middle of that storm—especially since I had created it.
I opened my comp, worked through my photos and notes and videos, and sorted them into piles. Then I pushed them over to my filing agent app, which knew how to process them from there.
Next I dictated more notes on what I remembered. I had learned that from Nick. Your perception on the scene and then hours later and days later are all different. But it is wrong to assume that your immediate perceptions are correct. The mind does not work that way. Sometimes you notice something at the moment, but you only get the context to make sense of it later. That is when it connects in your mind. So I dictated, and I tried to think about what I might have missed. Even though it was a routine accident site, it was good to go through the drill anyway. And it let me give Nick time to decompress in his own way.
When I got back to our apartment, Nick was in his closet workshop, trimming trees. I found things to busy myself while I waited.
Mars had grown wealthy compared to its founding days, but luxuries were still scarce and measured. Each family had to decide what to do with spare air, spare organics, and spare space. And spare time. Nick and I had an apartment in a residential district down on the third subsurface level of the city, just above the Services level. Friends found that odd: it was a working-class neighborhood, not up to their expectations for a founder of the city. But Nick hated to be treated as a founder, even if there was some truth to it; and the rent was lower that deep. That let us afford a little more space.
And that gave us room for Nick’s trees. And our small private hydroponics plots, of course, but the trees were most important. Few even of Nick’s friends ever saw his bonsai work. It was not a hobby, more a coping mechanism. He had learned from Emilia Oliveira Correia, a master from Bonsai do Campo, the leading bonsai firm in South America. In Nick she had found a willing, eager, meticulous pupil—as his duties in the Space Corps permitted. And in bonsai, Nick found peace. When he was angry or stressed, he poured that energy into bending and trimming trees, planting cuttings, even just cleaning the waste. The whole process was so precise, yet so organic.
And so private. After five years together, Nick tolerated me in his workshop; but after a day like this, I gave him his time alone.
When Nick emerged from the workshop at last, I wrapped my arms around him, and I felt him shake all over. I held him close, shaking myself. I felt sad, but at the same time, special. No one ever saw this side of Nick either. We had been together for years before I ever saw it. Nick is the bravest man I have ever met, in the moment, when it is needed. But that is only because he shoves the fear and the grief deep inside. After, he takes to his trees. And to me.
“Was it bad?” Nick asked.
I sighed. “No worse than I expected,” I said. “Althea is pretty strong.” I did not mention Marcus, of course.
“Yeah,” Nick said. “Jacob always told me that.”
We sat on the couch, holding each other. Staring at nothing, saying nothing, for nearly an hour before Nick stood up.
And that was it. He had had his release, and he was back to old reliable Nick. He recorded a voice report for São Paulo Mutual. Then he mixed up caipirinhas for both of us, and he started finding dinner.
While Nick prepared the Martian equivalent of bauru sandwiches—vat-grown roast beef with cultured mozzarella, but at least we had real tomatoes from our own garden—I sipped at my caipirinha. The lime juice was a chemical substitute, but the cachaça was good. The cool taste of lime and sugary liquor over ice soothed my nerves.
When I was sufficiently calm, I called Anthony. His face appeared on the screen quickly. I could guess that he already knew the news.
“Admiral,” he said.
“Anthony . . . ,” I said.
He held up a hand. “I’m sorry, old habits. Rosalia, I’ve heard the news about Jacob.”
“Yes, pretty much exactly what we feared. He was too eager to get work done, and he paid for it.”
Anthony looked down at his hands. “I wish we could force everybody to take a refresher course in Martian survival. People are getting sloppy.”
“You are the mayor. Couldn’t you get the city council—”
Anthony waved his hands in the air. “No, no, no. People are already riled up about one thing after another. They say we’re too heavy handed as it is. But still . . .” He smiled a little. “It would sure be nice to have Commander Adika give some of them a little remedial instruction.”
But Chukwunwike Adika, of course, wasn’t on Mars. Chuks was still in charge of security for the Aldrin, the cycler ship for which Nick and I had thrown away our careers. It had been a good trade, we were convinced of that. Aldrin City was the largest, safest route to Mars that humanity could take. Nick had an almost mystical conviction that the future of humanity depended on that ship. And when he talked about it, I could believe it myself.
“Well, we do not have Chuks,” I said. “But we do have the next best thing. There are few acciden
ts around here, thankfully enough, so Nick gets pretty bored sometimes. Maybe we should open up an advanced survival school.”
“Funny you should mention boredom,” Anthony said. “I’d like to talk to Nick, if I could.”
“He’s getting dinner, but he should be free in a moment. In the meantime . . .” I talked to Anthony about a real burial on Mars for Jacob, but it was strictly pro forma. I had known his answer before he told me no.
Nick came in, kissed me on the forehead gently, and handed me a bauru sandwich on a plate. Then he turned to walk away, but I grabbed his arm. “No, Anthony wants to talk to you.” I moved out of the camera zone, and I bit into the sandwich. The cheese was perfectly melted, flowing in and around the tomato wedges. My man had not lost his touch.
Nick sat down with his own sandwich and caipirinha. “So is this Mr. Mayor?” he asked. “Or is this Anthony the kid?”
Anthony grinned. “This is whichever one has the most pull with you, Nick. I need a big favor.”
“Oh?”
Anthony paused. “All right, here goes. This election’s tighter than I expected, Nick. The Realists are making a strong push, with big money behind them. Their candidate, Carla Grace, is the first real competition I’ve had since we started holding elections.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Nick said. “If you’re smart, you’ll bow out. Let Grace and the Realists have the headaches, she deserves them. You have no idea what a relief it is not to have to make all the decisions every day.”
I managed not to laugh at that. Yes, Nick had adjusted to life after the Aldrin, as an independent contractor with no one to order around. But I knew him too well. He had thrived as captain of the Aldrin, making sure that Earth–Mars transport was done properly and safely. Governor Carver of Aldrin City still ran things Nick’s way more often than not in all the major particulars.
Anthony wasn’t as reserved as me. He laughed. “Nick, maybe when I’m your age, I’ll be ready to retire to a nice, cushy contract job. But right now, if I didn’t make sure Mars was managed successfully and safely, I’d be a disappointment to my mentor.”
“Your mentor doesn’t give a damn,” Nick said. “I say run it the way you want.”
“Who said anything about you?” Anthony smiled. “I was talking about Chuks.”
And then I did lose my composure. I curled up on my end of the couch, laughing until my sides hurt. Even Nick managed a smile.
When my laughter subsided, Nick said, “So how can I help you in this?”
Anthony took another breath, and I knew this was something that Nick would not like. “Nick, I’m getting dinged a lot in the polls because of the rising crime rate.”
Nick snorted. “You get fifty thousand people in close quarters, you’re going to have crime. That’s as predictable as Phobos setting in the east.”
“I know, Nick. But I’m getting blamed for it anyway. I need to take a positive stand. We’ve been relying on Initiative Security for way too long, and they’re not really trained for policing, which is what we need. So next week I’m going to announce our new police department.”
“That is hardly news,” I said. “Many people are talking about it. They say it will be a new division of Public Safety.”
Anthony shook his head. “The rumor mill gets it wrong again. This will be a whole new department, separate from the Department of Public Safety. But we’re recruiting heavily from their ranks, and we’ve already started basic training.”
“So what does this have to do with me?” Nick asked.
“Rosie’s right,” Anthony answered. “It’s a pretty open secret; but I can’t make an official announcement until I can show a solid team that people can trust. I need a leader they’ll have confidence in. Nick, I want to announce you as my new police chief.”
Nick’s eyes widened. It was rare that someone surprised him, especially someone he knew as well as Anthony.
I thought of what a great idea this would be. It would give Nick more to do to prevent his boredom. And it would give us a more steady income than these insurance investigations did.
So I was surprised when Nick shook his head. “No, sorry. Pass,” he said.
Anthony held his hands out, pleading. “But why not, Nick? It would really help the credibility of our police force to have one of the founders in charge.”
“Well, that’s reason one right there,” Nick said. “I’ve got no patience with this ‘founders’ crap. I did a job, one mission, over twenty years ago. A lot more people have built Maxwell City since then, and they deserve the credit. You’ve done more to build Mars than I have. I get tired of feeling like I stepped out from some sort of legend. People have only recently stopped greeting me as ‘Founder’ everywhere I go. If you bring that all back up as part of some publicity campaign . . .”
“All right, all right,” Anthony said. “I’ll cut out any mention of founders in the campaign material. I can’t help what people say, though, and let’s face it: today, a lot of people know you as the founder of Maxwell City.”
“Yeah,” Nick said, “another reminder I’d rather not have. But that’s not the major reason. I wasn’t kidding, Anthony. It’s a relief not to be in charge of anything. All that burden-of-command rhetoric that you always read about? It’s real. I spent my time making sure two thousand people never made a mistake that could get the entire ship killed, or an entire Mars colony left with no supplies. I did a good job, and I’m proud of it, but I’m done. It’s a relief to wake up in the morning and know that I have to worry about me, and Rosalia, and our latest insurance contract, and nothing more.”
“Nick, no one could do this better than you,” Anthony said.
“No,” Nick replied, “but here’s something else you learn eventually as a leader: There’s someone else out there who will do it different than you, but good enough. And someday, they’ll be as good as you ever were. Maybe better. But only if you get out of their way. There comes a time to pass the baton. And I’ve passed mine.”
“I hope you’ll reconsider this, Nick,” Anthony said. “I have officers in training. I need you to shape them up.”
“There’s nothing to consider. Anthony, you’re a good friend, and I’m proud of the man you’ve become. And I really hope Maxwell City is smart enough to elect you mayor for another term, and beyond, if you’re determined to run. I’ll even”—Nick glanced at me—“I’ll even campaign for you as a founder, if you think it will help. But no. We’ve got our own life now. Mars doesn’t need me.”
The next time we saw Anthony was two days later at Jacob’s funeral. Anthony attended not as the mayor, nor as a candidate, but as a family friend. Althea worked in the mayor’s office.
Carla Grace, though, had less excuse to be there. She barely knew the Simons brothers, and she did not know Althea at all. I was sure she would deny it, but I was also sure that she was there strictly for publicity for her campaign. If there was any chance that Anthony was going to end up in the news, then Carla wanted to be there as well.
The service was held in an ecumenical chamber adjacent to the Tomb, down in the Services level at the bottom of the city. Some designer had really gone the extra kilometer on that chapel. Most of Maxwell City was finished in plastic, with much of the more recent plastic manufactured on Mars from local materials. The chapel, however, was carefully fashioned from raw Martian rock, diligently sealed to prevent air leaks. Even the pews had been carved directly from the native rock, all of one piece with the floor itself. On Earth, stone pews might have been uncomfortable to sit on; but in the low Martian gravity, they were more comfortable than any wooden pew back on Earth, even without cushions. And the simple, polished stone everywhere gave the chapel a sense of timelessness.
Althea sat in the front, squeezing Adam’s hand and weeping quietly. She and Jacob had had no children, and Ilse had left Adam two years ago. She had booked passage back to Earth, packed up, and left. Rumor had it she had told him that she loved him just as much as ever; and if he
loved her, he would return with her, but she could not take Mars anymore. Instead, Adam had stayed; and thus he was the only family Althea had within two AUs. With nothing else in his life, he had thrown himself deeper into the business he had founded with Jacob.
Althea had asked Anthony to sit in the pew behind her, and so Nick and I found ourselves there as well. Anthony had insisted that we join him. I scanned the rest of the room. In that sense, I am as incorrigible as Nick. We had first met in astronaut training back in São Paulo, where we had competed to see who was the best incident investigator. Nick usually won, because for me it was a game, but for him it was an obsession. He would always go one step further than was needed. But I had held my own, and that training had served me well in my career in the Space Corps. And you do not lose a decades-old habit just because you retire, especially when that habit is useful in our insurance contracts today. So scanning an area and making mental notes is second nature to me, even in a venue as inappropriate as a funeral.
I recognized a few friends, one or two of whom I had not even realized had known Jacob. Fifty thousand people is getting pretty large, so you cannot know everybody, but Maxwell City still had the feel of a small town. Everybody was still connected across just a couple of links. A few of them were Anthony’s supporters, prominent Libertists. Nick and I weren’t party members, but our sympathies lay with them. It was uncommon to find Mars surface explorers who were not Libertists, though some leaned more toward Saganists.
I also recognized a few who I suspected were more Jacob’s clients than friends. Maxwell City was home to a number of Martian scientific efforts: some pure research, some commercial, some government oversight bodies—though they seldom contracted individual firms like Simons Brothers Labs. The likely clients were all clustered near the rear of the chapel, whispering among themselves.
Also in the rear were Carla Grace, her entourage, and a small pool of reporters. I could not be sure whether Carla hung back out of respect, or just to be closer to the cameras. But I knew which way I would bet.
The Last Campaign (The Near-Earth Mysteries) Page 2
