by Brian Smith
Local law enforcement in Lone Star normally amounted to a locally elected sheriff and a half dozen deputies, augmented by drones and technology. They were all in evidence today, suited up and armed as heavily as they could manage, glowering at anyone who looked the slightest bit unruly. Fortunately, those who felt threatened enough to head this way from Nuevo Rio weren’t those carrying the torch for Martian independence. Consequently, they weren’t causing much trouble beyond showing their frustration at the lack of accommodations and facilities.
Ashburn started keeping his eyes peeled when he got close to Lucky’s; judging by the throng on the streets, it didn’t look like he would even set foot in the door, much less get a table or a spot at the bar. He lifted his privacy seal temporarily; he already stood out in his black-and-crimson Barsoom Traders exosuit.
He was about ten meters from the door and dubiously eyeballing the line outside when he saw two women suddenly focus in on him and begin making their way over. One was in a stained navy jumpsuit uniform; she was a little older, a chief warrant, and frankly looked like she’d been through the wringer rather recently. The other was in a fresh-looking black combat suit, wearing a pair of cheap government-issue snoopers and sporting the rounded badge of a deputy U.S. marshal. She looked a little careworn too, walked with a limp, and also carried a particle-beam weapon identical to those taken from his would-be hijackers. The women took note when Ashburn’s eyes locked onto the particle beamer; they appeared to sense him suddenly tensing up.
Ashburn’s first thought was that they were Omnisynths and this was an ambush. He was reaching for his sidearm when the marshall called out to him in a clear voice, loud enough to carry but not so loud as to cause too many heads to turn—a good “cop” voice, as it happened. “Captain—don’t! We’re friendlies!” Hutton cried, raising her hands and pointing the muzzle of the particle beamer straight up. In Ashburn’s moment of indecision, Ayers got close enough to him to casually place a hand on his forearm and lean in somewhat intimately.
“Don’t say anything, captain. We’re the good guys. Colin Harper sent us to meet you. Turn off your snoopers and your eardots and follow us.”
“Hand me that weapon and maybe I’ll believe you,” Ashburn replied in a low voice.
Ayers looked at Hutton, who shrugged in annoyance and reversed the particle beamer with an expert flick of her wrist, holding it out grip-first to Ashburn. He took it from her, looked her in the eyes for a long moment, and then handed it back—he doubted a pair of synths would look as tired and beat up as these two did, and they probably wouldn’t be limping, either.
“Where’s Harper?” he asked.
Ayers tapped herself under the eye meaningfully. “Not here.” Ashburn nodded that he understood. He reached up and switched off his snoopers, removed them, and deactivated his eardots. Hutton and Ayers led him away from Lucky’s, back outside the habitat dome itself, in a random, meandering path around dozens of parked rolligons, until they finally retraced their steps to a rover marked with the Aberdeen Astronautics logo. Ashburn began to relax a little when he saw the rolligon.
Once all of them were sealed up inside, they removed their helmets and seated themselves in a small triangle, facing each other. There was a fourth person in the vehicle, who introduced himself as Rico Takeshi, one of Harper’s security team. He apologized to Ashburn and explained that Harper himself couldn’t be there, for reasons that would be made clear.
Introductions were made all around, and then everyone got down to a rather illuminating exchange of information. Hutton called Ashburn out on recognizing the particle-beam weapon for what it was; he explained how he knew about it and why. Ayers was able to confirm for him that, as business concerns, Aberdeen Astronautics and Federov Propulsion had been effectively destroyed and that their chief executives were dead.
“So, old Dmitri is really gone, along with Boss Forester, and Campbell too,” Ashburn breathed, rubbing self-consciously at his eyes as he felt a turmoil of emotion welling up inside him. Hearing this news in the wake of everything else—it just felt like the death of the entire future. “Bill Campbell,” he added, almost to himself. “You know, I never liked that son of a bitch. Not a bit. But I never would have wished anything like this on him, not in a million years. It’s like the end of an era. When Harper told me he was dead, he said Campbell had asked him to do something for him. Harper asked for my help with whatever it was, which is why I’m here now instead of halfway to Earth. Where is Harper?”
“Back in Nuevo Rio, for now,” Takeshi offered from farther back in the rolligon’s cabin. “As far as we can tell, he’s the senior surviving company officer and the only division chief left. He’s trying to pick up the pieces and safeguard what’s left of Aberdeen’s personnel and assets. He wanted me to tell you that he simply couldn’t drop everything for this under the circumstances—that you’d get it.” Takeshi shrugged, adding: “Hell, if the MIM moves north off the south spaceport complex, Harper may be headed this way soon anyhow.”
“Okay, that makes sense,” Ashburn replied. “What is it he needs, and how do you two factor in?”
Ayers said, “Sometime back, Bill Campbell secretly entrusted four quantum data cores to Harper. He asked Harper to take them, hide them, and safeguard them. Even Campbell didn’t know where they were, once he turned them over. His instructions to Harper were to get them to someone who could—and I quote—‘Make use of what’s on them’ if the circumstances ever warranted it. We’re at that point now, obviously. Harper planned to send them to the TOA, on Earth, and he wants you to get them there. He gave me the coordinates for their location. They’re a few hours’ drive from here, just buried out in the regolith in the middle of nowhere.”
“What’s on these cores?” Ashburn asked. The two women exchanged glances.
“Actually, captain, we were hoping you could tell us,” Ayers said.
“Harper didn’t know?”
“No. Campbell never told him. He thinks it’s probably technical data of some kind.”
“Well, then, how in the hell should I know?” Ashburn retorted irritably. He was running short on both sleep and patience. “Harper worked for Campbell—I didn’t.”
Ayers sighed. “Harper said you did some sort of favor for Campbell, something outside of his normal company business. He thought maybe you’d know more about what this was all about. To your knowledge, was Campbell involved with the MIM somehow?”
“No, he wasn’t, and that’s flat ridiculous,” Ashburn replied immediately. “He was a member of the Crandall Foundation board. The foundation is totally apolitical—”
“Not necessarily,” Hutton interrupted intensely. “There’s some evidence that Carter Drayson had ties with either the Ares Freedom Alliance or the Martian Coalition—that he helped mediate the formation of the United Martian Federation.”
Ashburn looked a little blank at the declaration. “That’s the first I’ve heard of anything like that”, he said. “When did that allegedly happen?”
“About a month ago?”
“A month ago I was on Earth, on a short vacation between runs,” he replied thoughtfully. “It’ll be easy enough to find out, though. We can just ask him.”
“Captain, all the members of the Crandall Foundation board are dead! Drayson is the only one still unaccounted for!”
Ashburn chuckled grimly. “No, he’s not! I can set you straight on that one right now: he barely made it out of Schroeter ahead of the bombing. He narrowly escaped an attempt on his life by another one of those damned Omnisynths, and he’s in hiding at the moment.”
“Well, where is he?” Hutton demanded.
“We’ll come back to that in a tick,” Ashburn replied. “For now, let’s just say he’s safely out of danger and not involved with the MIM.
“Not involved with the MIM, but he was at Schroeter, the seat of the newly proclaimed Mars government, when Halsey and Yang Liwei stations were destroyed,” Ayers said flatly. “Bit of a coincidence, isn�
��t it?”
Her use of the word brought Ashburn up short.
“Coincidence—I’m really, really starting to hate that word. If he’s part of this, I’ll find out, believe me,” he promised her. He felt this was starting to feel more like an interrogation than a meeting between equals.
“Let’s get one thing straight right now: I’m a torchship captain for Barsoom Traders, and a reserve USN officer,” he added, with a nod at Ayers. “Before yesterday, I had met Carter Drayson once, at a Crandall Foundation symposium. Other than what he claims, I can’t speak to his politics and motivations. But whatever he is, he’s also the chairman of the foundation. I knew Bill Campbell a little better. He was involved with something out on Titan that was separate from Aberdeen Astronautics. There was another company involved: Janus Industries. It was on a run to Titan, when I was first officer of Dejah Thoris, that we moved almost an entire hold full of blank quantum data cores for Campbell. I have no idea what they were for, but not too long ago he came clean with me and told me that Janus was some kind of highly advanced AI computer facility he’d commissioned to aid in designing the first interstellar-capable torchship. I’m not sure how much you know about the Crandall Foundation’s work, but Campbell and the board were laser-focused on getting a ship built that could make the crossing to Alpha Centauri. They pretty much had it licked, too, before all this went down,” he added somewhat bitterly.
Ayers leaned in slightly, her eyes narrowing. “Back up a second—did you say Dejah Thoris? The ship that went missing?”
“She didn’t just go missing,” Ashburn replied. “Well, she did, but she was hijacked, right? Her captain had recently taken delivery of some of Campbell’s Omnisynths, and I think they were used to commit the crime.”
“Why do you say they were Campbell’s Omnisynths?” Hutton asked.
Ashburn suddenly looked thoughtful. “Actually, that’s a good question. I never really thought about it. They just . . . seemed to be his. Ty Forester—my boss—said that Campbell had ‘offered them up’ for us to use at Barsoom Traders. I was offered some for my own ship. I said no, which I think may be the only reason I’m still breathing.”
“Why did you say no?” Hutton asked.
“They gave me the creeps.”
“According to the Marsnet, Campbell had no affiliation with Omni Systems,” Hutton added.
“You can’t trust the Marsnet,” Ayers reiterated to her, speaking quietly.
Ashburn nodded. “In hindsight, I doubt he would, at least not publicly. He didn’t officially have any affiliation with Janus Industries either. He used a fake identity—went by the name of Kevin MacDonald.”
“Tell me more about this computer facility. Why did he build it on Titan and go to the trouble of keeping it a secret?”
“He didn’t tell me about it until after it was shut down. He said it was probably illegal. Too much capacity, and it was a self-learning AI, or something like that.”
Hutton looked at Ayers. “Do you think that could be the computer the MIM is using to hack and control the Marsnet?”
Ayers’s face screwed up in frustration. “I don’t see how. Titan is way too far away. The signal delays would make it impossible. Campbell was definitely up to something, though,” she added.
“Like I said, he told me that the computer on Titan was all shut down. And yeah, he was ‘up to’ something,” Ashburn added, feeling decidedly odd at coming to Campbell’s defense. “He was an astronautical engineer, and he was designing the next-generation torchship. That’s all he cared about, ladies. Campbell wasn’t a ‘people person’, believe me, and he was a British citizen. He didn’t care about Martian politics, he wasn’t involved with the MIM, and he certainly wasn’t involved in any plot to blow up Halsey Station. Harper could have told you as much.”
“I think we’ve safely established that the late Mr. Campbell wasn’t always forthcoming with the truth,” Hutton countered. As a law-enforcement officer who hunted fugitives for a living, her view of other people’s character was much more cynical and less forgiving; in many cases, a veritable monster could live right next door to you for years and you’d have no idea what sort of crimes he’d committed elsewhere.
“No, he was definitely up to more than just that,” Hutton said. “He had to be. There are too many separate elements here that keep on mashing into each other. You said it yourself: he was using at least one fake identity to hide the fact that he was involved in something illegal. Somehow it all ties in with the MIM and this sudden Martian revolution. We need to figure out how, and why.”
“Maybe the answer is on those cores,” Ayers suggested hopefully.
Hutton scowled. “I’d rather get my hooks into Drayson and interrogate his ass,” she retorted. She gave Ashburn a hard look. “Drayson’s an American citizen, you know.”
“On paper at least,” Ashburn replied. “If you have evidence that he’s caught up with the MIM or the UMF—”
“—Then he might be guilty of treason,” Hutton cut in harshly. “The point I was about to make is that he’s an American, you’re an American, and I’m a deputy U.S.-fucking-marshal. I want to know where he is, right now. I’m not asking anymore, I’m telling you. Give me his location or you’re officially obstructing a government investigation and we go from there.”
“Are you serious?”
Ayers sighed. “She’s serious, lieutenant. So am I. I know you’ve been a civvie for a while, but you do have a duty here, sir. You might tell from looking at us that we’ve been through a bit of a grind to get this far, especially in the past twenty-four hours.”
“I came here as a favor to Harper, not to be ambushed with the third degree! Whoever is behind all this tried to destroy my ship out in the Trojans. . . . Did you know that? You aren’t the only ones trying to piece together what the hell is going on here!”
“I’m well aware of the case histories of both Thuvia and Dejah Thoris,” Ayers informed him. She turned to Hutton. “Let’s cool things off a bit, here. We still need those data cores, too. In the end they might be more important than Drayson.”
“Can I make a suggestion?” Ashburn asked.
“As long as it involves telling me where Drayson is,” Hutton replied, crossing her arms.
“Okay. He’s in a small independent habitat about fifty klicks from here. He’s not going anywhere, either,” Ashburn added. “He was planning to hitch a ride with me back to Earth, and I was going to accommodate him. Does he know more than I thought? Maybe, based on what you two have said. What I was going to suggest is that we go get those cores and then go straight to where Drayson is, and my ship’s spaceplane. You can either escort him to Earth or take him into custody right on the spot, unless you just want to question him and then go your separate ways. It doesn’t much matter to me, other than from the angle that Drayson represents what’s left of the Crandall Foundation. In the meantime, maybe we can compare notes a little more closely during the trip and see if anything becomes clearer. Would that suit you, Marshal Hutton?”
“Are you in contact with him?” she asked. “I want to make sure he stays put.”
Ashburn shook his head. “Theoretically, yes, but we’re all under a self-imposed communications blackout. There’s more to tell you about what’s going on, but we can cover it on the way. The short version is that someone, whether it’s the MIM or not, is after my ship, my ass, and probably the life of my best friend as well. I don’t intend to surrender any of them. Now that I’m here at Lone Star, I have one call I need to make before we get going. Is it safe to make it from here?”
“No,” Ayers replied. “There’s more we need to tell you as well, but the most important thing for you to know is that any information or communication that goes through the cloud is immediately compromised. You have to assume that the MIM is monitoring everything you say and do—especially if you think they might be gunning for you. If you have to make a call, ’lock out and go do it over by the garage. Don’t network in until you�
�re over there, and then shut down all your gadgetry before you come back here. As soon as you return, we move.”
“I’ll be back in half an hour,” Ashburn promised. He forced a sour grin at Hutton. “Want to tag along? Just to make sure I don’t run away?”
Hutton flushed darkly—no mean feat given her mocha skin tone. As she started to open her mouth to make a scathing retort, Ayers put a calming hand on her forearm.
“Harper told me how he met you, Dakota Ashburn. Just get back as quick as you can, please. Sir.”
“Thanks. I will,” he replied.
***
Ashburn made another quick stop as well. With the knowledge that communications were nonsecure, he didn’t call Kusaka Yoshi, but instead made his way back to where the latter was parked. He told him to head back to Kasei Echigo and to expect another rolligon to show up probably early the next morning. Ashburn also passed on the warning about staying off the Marsnet for anything they didn’t want the bad guys to know and sent Yoshi on his way.
As Ayers had instructed, Ashburn then moved back over to the habitat garage to make his call. The current general overflow of people meant there was a corresponding saturation of communications channels. It took Ashburn a while to reach Thuvia. When his call was finally routed through, it was transferred immediately to his first officer.
“Gina here, captain,” Jackson said by way of greeting. “I can see from the signal that you’re calling from Lone Star. How are things going down there? Trying to sort it all out from up here is nearly impossible—everyone has a different take on things.”
“It’s a bit chaotic,” Ashburn replied. “How are things up there?”
“Stable for us, less so for others. Olvia Marthis, Janai, and Issus have gone dark, with no telemetry. They’ve dropped off the network just like the Deety did when she first went missing. Everyone else seems fine for now, but nobody knows what the hell to do. Speaking of Dejah Thoris, she finally stopped calling us several hours ago. I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or not. Have you been able to find out anything about HQ down there?”
