“I use computers like everyone else. I don’t have to like them. And I don’t get sentimental about them.”
He pointed to the charm bracelet on her wrist.
“She’s just a machine, Lole. A tool.”
“‘She’? Does this person have a name?”
“Well, I call her ‘Sugar.’ But that’s just easier to say than ‘cellular activating wrist chronograph and transcribing stenographer.’” Demeter shrugged.
“I see.” Mitsuno was giving her that peculiar smile again.
Well, whatever for? Did he think she was hiding some kind of secret life as a cyber-witch? There were stories of humans who sold their souls to MFSTO: and then reaped unfair advantage in business and politics, love and war. Come to think of it, that was another way Demeter might try getting into Sun’s or Cuneo’s message files. She could just go to a nearby keyboard and make a midnight deal with the grid’s daemon. Sure! And then it would report her attempted invasion of privacy back to the referenced clients, just like the E-mail protocols specified. Not very smart!
Suddenly, Demeter wanted this handsome man to think well of her. He was fully human, integrated into his community, good at his work, admiring of her supposed cowboy origins. And he was currently unattached—she had that straight from the woman who ought to know.
“Look, I had a problem with a cybernetic device, once,” Demeter explained, deciding to play the sympathy card. “I got punched in the head by one—malfunction in a hairdressing unit that burned out and cut me. So I don’t expect our ‘silicon friends’ to always function perfectly. And…that’s part of the reason I’m up here. I needed a little rest and relaxation while I recuperate.”
“Oh! Does it—?” Lole looked properly compassionate.
“Hurt? No, I’m fine. Really.”
“Good…You hungry? How about some dinner?”
Demeter held her breath, to see if he would mention bringing Sorbel along.
He didn’t. “The Hoplite grills up a mean steak and beans,” Mitsuno offered.
“Real meat?” Her mouth was watering.
He shrugged with one shoulder. “Coloring’s right.”
“You’re on.” She unwound herself from the end of the couch. “Give me a minute to change.”
Chapter 10
End Games
Mars-U-Copia, Commercial Unit 1/5/9, June 14
After the engagements and excitements of her first week on Mars, Demeter rewarded herself with a day off to go shopping. The best place for that in Tharsis Montes was the Mars-U-Copia, a combination Moroccan bazaar and duty-free shop on the upper levels.
Most of the merchandise was junk: last year’s recycled fashions from Milan, but cobbled together out of chintzy, synthetic fabrics; evening-wear jumpers designed on a mock-spacesuit theme, with corrugated rubber inserts in all the wrong places; framed, amateur watercolors of the Martian landscape, two shades redder than the real thing; and a…wait a minute!
Demeter fingered the necklace that was lying out, unattended on the jewelry counter. It was either the real thing or an awfully good copy.
She picked it up. The necklace was strung with fleurs de vitrine, the hardy Martian groundwort that grew a silicon shell for protection against ultraviolet radiation. The hollowed-out beads had been sorted by size from tiny, button-shaped, two-millimeter caps to the big, flattened, centimeter-wide lenses. The artist had assembled only the rare, red-tinged shells, so much more delicate than the common blues and grays.
With slightly trembling fingers, Demeter turned over the price chip. Glassflower jewelry was a rarity on Earth, outrageously expensive, even by Tiffany’s standards. The numbers engraved on the chip came into focus. Demeter squinted away the phantom zeros that her fears and a momentary tearing of her eyes had added to the price.
Two thousand Neu.
It was a steal.
“It’s a copy,” said a voice at her elbow.
Coghlan glanced down. The woman was incredibly short, not much over 140 centimeters. She wore a plain suit of good, gray worsted wool and real leather hightop shoes. The woman’s hair was a naturally curly blond, cut short and combed with a rake. Still, she had the same square, flat face of a farmer’s wife, with wind-etched lines and a natural sunburn. It was the face Demeter had studied at odd moments in various settings over the past week. The hair must be a wig: nobody could bleach, dye, and rinse that often and get away with it.
“Why do you say?” Demeter asked, holding the necklace fractionally closer to her body.
Nancy Cuneo reached for it. Their fingers brushed as she took the artifact, and Demeter felt the hard edge of calluses. Probably from weapons practice. The Zealander turned the jewelry over, exposing the backs of the shells, where the tiny gold wires went through.
“See these radial creases?” A blunt, yellowed fingernail traced folds in the red-stained silicate. “That’s where the glass was crimped when the blower was rolling it out. Instead of lines, a real shell has rings here, just like on a tree. They, too, are a sign of seasonal growth.”
“I see.”
“It’s a pretty thing, but not worth the price.” The woman smiled up at her. Those obsidian-black eyes were harder than the glass beads looped over her fingers.
“Thank you,” Demeter said coldly, taking the necklace back and dropping it carelessly on the counter.
“You are Demeter Coghlan, aren’t you? From Texahoma State?”
Demeter was too intelligent to consider denying it or evading notice for even a moment. Cuneo would have access to the same grid resources and had probably been studying her as assiduously as she had been studying Cuneo.
“Yes, I am. And you are…?” Demeter allowed herself a last, tiny bit of subterfuge.
“Nancy Cuneo…but then, you knew that already.” The woman gave her a knife-edged smile. “I thought it would be nice for us to meet on neutral ground, as it were.” She waved a hand around at the hangings of the bazaar.
“Yes?” She couldn’t think of much more to say.
“I know why you’re here, of course,” the older woman went on, still smiling. “Your people in Texahoma are nervous about what we may be planning to do with the Valles Marineris. They sent you to check us out.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Then you are not concerned?”
“Well, sure, I’m concerned. What citizen wouldn’t be? After all, we have territorial claims going back to the first time Captain William Schorer of Houston, Texas, set foot in the valley. He set up a flag and everything.”
“You saw that in your schoolbooks, did you?”
“Yes, of course,” Demeter said stoutly.
“The flag of the United States of America—which is hardly congruous with the current state of Texahoma.”
“We cleave to the Texas part of the legend, ma’am.”
“But, of course, your concern is in no way official, is it?”
“No, ma’am. I mean, how could it be?”
“You’re very young, dear.” Cuneo put out a hand, touching her wrist. Only later did Demeter guess this one touch might be as good as a polygraph.
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“What can Alvin Bertrand Coghlan have been thinking?” the older woman asked, mostly to herself. “To send his granddaughter on a mission like this…You are what we call an ingenue, dear, a dilettante in the great game. Let me give you a word of advice for the next time you choose to dabble. You do not have to answer every question, nor meet every sally with a riposte. It makes you seem far too eager to prove your story, which in itself is damning.”
“I—!” Demeter wisely closed her mouth.
“Let’s lay our cards on the table, shall we?”
Coghlan thought about this offer for an instant. “My G’dad used to say that’s when all the aces get swept up somebody’s sleeve.”
Cuneo laughed at the joke. “A wise man, old Alvin Bertrand. But seriously, Demeter, we should join forces. All th
ose historic claims are hopelessly tangled, and you know it. North Zealand traces its ownership through the Potanter Trek, when the party camped out in the Valles for six months.”
“Before they perished in the mountains to the east of there,” Demeter reminded her. “And they never filed a formal interest.”
“Parry and riposte, again?”
Demeter Coghlan clamped her jaw shut on a response.
“Anyway, a piece of paper laid before the U.N. Commission on Mars is not the clincher you seem to believe. Our friend from United Korea would argue strenuously that they are entitled to the district for reasons of population pressure alone, regardless of the astronomical expense of relocating their people. Heavens, he does argue that point. Endlessly. And Korean claims are tied by the slender thread of a ten-percent interest in one unmanned Chinese rocket that made landfall on Mars, half a planet away from the Valles.”
“Is there a point to this history lesson?” Demeter asked sweetly enough.
“Merely that it would be a mistake to treat any of this minuet too earnestly. Even with N-ZED providing full financial backing for development work in the Canyonlands—isn’t that a charming name for the district, too?—we North Zealanders are hardly cementing our claim. And I’ll tell you something even your Alvin Bertrand doesn’t know: that our agency is behind the new power station a-building in orbit. That’s part of the overall package. But what does it matter, in the end?”
Cuneo looked at Demeter, as if expecting a response. Demeter did not give her the satisfaction.
“Nothing. Nothing at all!” the woman went on. “We’ll all be dead and dust before the Valles complex is worth more than a handful of paper credits. So why should we fight? There will be plenty of time to work out some kind of joint tenancy—if that’s what your grandfather is angling for?”
The pause drew out in uncomfortable silence.
“I’m sure I don’t know his mind,” Demeter said at last.
“No, of course. But then, Texahoma has much better claims down south, near the polar cap. That area is much more hospitable—better supplied with water, for instance.”
“But aren’t the caps predominantly dry ice?”
“Well, of course, but I’m talking about the permanent frost layer; the undercoating to the CO2 crust.” The woman waved the issue aside with one hand. “At any rate, a trade delegation is about to arrive from North Zealand. They’re reasonable people. I’m sure you’ll get along with them. There is no reason why our two nations should not cooperate—or at least agree to defer further dispute until we have something concrete to fight about.”
“I’m sure your traders are lovely people,” Demeter agreed. “But I still don’t see what that has to do with me. I’m just a college girl on vacation, recovering from a terrible accident, taking in the sights—and about to buy some native artifacts.” She touched the necklace once more, wistfully, then left it alone for good. “Until you offered to help me, that is.”
“An accident, did you say?”
“Certainly. You can check my records, if you want.” Demeter shrugged, convinced the woman already had. “Deep cover” is what G’dad chucklingly called it. “I had a run-in with an autocoif during my senior year. Deep lacerations all along one side of my head. My hair covers the scar now. But it was like to kill me.”
“You poor thing!”
Demeter preened in the satisfaction of having successfully defended her story.
“You want to take much better care of yourself, while you’re on Mars,” Cuneo went on pleasantly. “There are so many more opportunities for getting yourself killed up here…And maybe taking one of us along with you.” The woman’s saccharine smile did not extend to her eyes, which bored into Demeter like twin nine-millimeter gun barrels.
Demeter had to take an involuntary step backward.
“I won’t,” she promised.
Hoplite Bar & Grill, June 14
Ellen Sorbel was running late on the morning’s workload. She decided to take an early lunch break before the afternoon came around and crushed her. So she dashed into the Hoplite for a seafood handwich and mug of nonalcoholic ale—wet enough to wash down the krill cakes but with nothing to cloud her head. She found Demeter Coghlan at one of the tables near the back, picking at what looked like a salad but could have included some kind of farina noodles.
“Hey, Demeter!”
“Ellen!…Good to see you.” The Earth woman looked pleased, set aside her fork, and pushed the plate away. Sorbel settled into the free chair.
“Look, unh, about your request yesterday—”
“Oh, that! Forget it, please. It just never happened.”
“I’m grateful because, you know, I could lose my job if anything happened. Especially if someone complained. And honest work is hard to come by if you’re a cyber ghost.”
“I said, forget it ever happened.”
Ellen glanced over to see if Demeter was angry. The grin playing around the corners of her mouth said she wasn’t. Sorbel was relieved.
“Are you still seeing Jory?” Ellen asked, to change the subject.
“Not if I can help it.”
“Oh? I didn’t know you had a problem there.”
“Not really, he’s just—I’m sorry, he’s your friend and all.”
“An acquaintance, actually. Lole and I kind of took him under our wing, once, when he had some trouble with the Department.”
“All right then. You know what I’m talking about. He can be so immature and…well, demanding. Like he’s still fourteen years old.”
“In many ways he is,” Ellen said judiciously. “The process that makes a Creole does strange things to the hormones, not to mention the nervous system.”
“Yeah, but he can be fairly sensitive, too. Do you know, when he found out I don’t like doing it in front of the computers, he took me to this cave he had prepared. It’s not even connected to power and water yet, let alone cyber services.”
“Oh…!” Sorbel sagged against the chair’s arms. She was thinking furiously. How had Jory found out about the…? Or wait! Had he found out? “Where was all this?” she asked cautiously.
“I didn’t really make a map.”
“But in general terms—inside the complex? Outside? Up slope or down? Did you have to suit up?”
“Inside, and down a couple of levels. We crossed a big promenade that looked like a shopping mall.”
“A…‘mall’?”
“Sure, an indoor arcade, usually full of boutiques and eateries, with an anchor store or a hotel. Except this one was empty, still getting built.”
“Okay, and his hideaway was nearby?”
“Fifty meters away, more or less. It was where some kind of expansion work had been closed off—temporarily, at least.”
Then it wasn’t the site Ellen was thinking of. Thank Heaven, or that other place, for small favors.
“But, Demeter, he actually told you the computers couldn’t see or hear in there?” Suddenly the humor of it overtook her. Ellen tried to keep from laughing.
“Sure, no cables, no fiberoptic. The place was bare rock. Perfectly clean.”
“Yeah, but Jory was in there with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s hardwired for communications. The grid can monitor him on a private radio channel, twenty-four hours a day, waking and dreaming.”
“So he could—!”
Ellen nodded. “He not only could, he does. Automatically. All the time, and with stereo sound and full-motion video—better than your charm bracelet there.”
“That little creep! Does he know he does that?”
“He has to. It’s part of the price of cyberhood.”
“Damn him!”
“He only looks like a child, Demeter. Under that slick skin and elfin face, he’s actually quite intelligent. Just not…socially adept, if you take my meaning.”
“Perfectly.” Demeter picked up her fork, made a halfhearted pass at the noodle salad, th
en flung both fork and food at the far wall. The utensil went ting! against cold rock.
Boy, was she mad! Ellen made a private note against ever getting on this woman’s bad side.
Residential Unit 2/6/34, Apartment C, June 14
Kemil Ergun always returned home at the middle of the day. He had done this every working day of his life, as his father had before him, his father and his father’s father, too, going back to the Old Country. Ergun’s routine was always the same: a light meal, maybe a spinach salad and shashlik—or, within the culinary limits of this strange new world, hydroponic cress and braised lizard strips; one glass of homemade retsina; one hand-rolled, black-sobranie cigarette—and be damned to the air-filtration edicts; followed by a brief and feverish encounter with his wife Gloria; and finally a short nap. Only then could he go back to his work as a ballistics engineer with the space fountain, refreshed and relaxed. In civilized places, they called this ritual the “siesta.”
This day, however, Kemil Ergun found nothing relaxing at home.
The hummus salad his wife served was lumpy, with bits of bean husk still floating on unabsorbed oil. The retsina was a new batch and sour. And, crowning indignity, she had let the household supply of sobranie run out and made no effort to tell him so he could acquire more through his special sources.
When Ergun questioned her on this, all she would say was: “It’s contraband.” Meaning: “I don’t want it in the house.”
Gloria Chan was not a proper wife. Respectful enough, yes, when his face was toward her. Compliant in bed, to be sure. But like all Chinese she had a willful streak. Deep down, she thought she was better than her husband. Better than any non-Chinese.
Actually, she was quite ignorant. She knew very little about the proper seasoning of his food. Nearly nothing about winemaking. And nothing at all about the secondary businesses in which Kemil Ergun engaged, with contacts on the space fountain’s cargo dock, that allowed them a houseful of little luxuries. Her family was huge and raucous. They seemed to spread over half this level of the complex and had a finger in every other pie, none of which they would trust with a Turk. They thought he could afford everything the two of them had on an engineer’s salary. More fool they!
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