Mars Plus

by Frederik Pohl, Thomas T. Thomas

  Day or night did not shape these periods of brain rest; Roger Torraway was not a diurnal creature. But sometimes it happened that he went into slowdown when the stars came out and the majority of nonadapted humans on that side of the planet were also at rest, asleep. This night was one of those times.

  Roger’s feet plodded rhythmically up the face of a volcanic ridge. The ground rushed before his eyes, like the view from a low-flying jet. Largish, upright stones seemed to graze his cheeks and then vanish into shadows under the feeble light reflected from farther Deimos. At some point his internal sensors determined that the angle of ascent was too steep for Roger’s gyros. Rather than bring the hands into play in a four-part monkey-climb, the feet turned to trace switchbacks up the hillside. So now his jet-driven view wobbled back and forth across the terrain, like a rattlesnake s triangular head seeking the thermal whisper of mouse.

  With a jumble of motion, the scene came apart. The headlong beauty of the night dissolved into a sudden focus on this loose rock, on that gap in the footing. Roger Torraway was instantly awake and back in real time. His human brain tried to take over the effort of walking, and the world reeled. He found himself teetering on the edge of a thirty-meter sheer drop. It was not deep enough for the fall to kill him outright, in Mars’s shallow gravity, but with the impact he might sustain embarrassing damage to his mechanical frame.

  “What the hell?”

  Roger swung his arms sharply inward, toward the slope, and bent his knees. He collapsed in an awkward, loosely jointed judo roll into the hillside, clattering his elbows and shins against the wind-smoothed obsidian. But he kept himself from sliding off the edge.

  His brain was attempting to reconstruct the malfunction’s origins before he noticed a pair of slender, pale feet in open-toed sandals. The toenails were trimmed into perfect arcs and painted with pink gloss, Roger noted.

  “Dorrie!” he gasped internally.

  “Roger, there is a communication for you from Demeter Coghlan,” the silvery voice informed him. “As she is now on your list of—”

  “I know. What does she want at this ungodly hour?”

  Before Dorrie could process an answer, her image faded. A new voice came through his head, followed by a construct at approximately the same locus in the volcanic rabble: the plump form of Demeter Coghlan.

  “I couldn’t sleep, Colonel. There’s a technical question that’s been bugging me, and I figured you were the one who could answer quickest.”

  “Is this on our retainer?” Torraway asked, remembering his bargain with this offworld person.

  “Uh…sure.”

  “So go ahead,” he growled.

  “Can you communicate through solid rock?”

  He waited for her to amplify on that. Maybe she was having reception problems on her end. Maybe she was worried about the signal quality from his present position on a mountain of volcanic glass. But no, she just stood there, expecting an answer.

  “Come again?” he asked.

  “Do your radio-frequency transmissions—say, between your backpack and its supporting cybers, or with the grid nexus here in the tunnels at Tharsis Montes—do they go through the ground?”

  “No need to. After all, I live out in the open where it’s all line of sight. When there is an obstruction, such as a mountain between me and the transmitter, or if I’ve wandered off into a pocket valley, then we can usually bounce the signals around with relays.”

  “Suppose you were underground. Like under forty meters of solid rock?”

  “Oh. When I’m inside the complex, the grid has its own RF repeaters built into the walls. They’re pretty widely spaced, though, so Cyborgs and Creoles all have hardwired jumpers for—”

  “Not in the tunnels,” she insisted. “Suppose you, um, walked into a cave?”

  “Then I would be out of touch. But that’s not a problem, really. My system has its own internal resources for making linear projections and conducting error checks until I can re-establish a link.”

  “Thank you, Colonel.”

  “That’s it? You woke me up for—?”

  But the woman’s image had vanished.

  Golden Lotus, June 18

  Demeter disconnected from Colonel Torraway with a glow of personal satisfaction. She might make something as a spy after all.

  Sure, a secret was a secret, and Demeter had sworn to keep Mitsuno’s information confidential. But even that much commitment didn’t mean she was automatically buying into everything Lole had told her, file and line. Some items she wanted to check for herself, such as his estimate of the security arrangements for the secret society’s meeting rooms and its “clean” cyber. Demeter was delighted she’d discovered a way to verify all this by referral to a man who lived through radio transmissions and could, for all she knew, read by the light of microwaves. She had found out what she wanted to know without violating Mitsuno’s confidence. And nothing she’d said to Roger Torraway would create suspicion within the grid’s circuits that communicated between Tharsis Montes and wherever the Cyborg happened to be now.

  Still warmed by the glow of her own cleverness, Demeter decided to submit her nightly report to Gregor Weiss—even if it was rounding toward morning.

  “Terminal, shift to interrogation mode.”

  “Yes, miss…Where have you gone in the past twenty-four hours?” the terminal dutifully asked.

  “Lole Mitsuno met me outside the room here,” she began sleepily, “and we went to the—”

  Oops! Nothing like handing Lole’s secret to the grid on a silver disk. And Demeter had just been congratulating herself on being such a clever little spy.

  “Um,” she temporized. “Instead, let’s take some new vectors for your questions.”

  “Very well,” the machine said impassively.

  What could she tell it—how could she steer it—to avoid references to Mitsuno’s cave?

  Well, she had learned some interesting facts about the Canyonlands development in the past twenty-four hours. For one, its power satellite was too large for projected needs. Had Mitsuno told her that? No, it was from Sun Il Suk. But Lole had told her about the station’s unusual configuration, with nacelles or pods or something on the outside. That was probably a safe subject for her report.

  “Ask me about the Number Six power station.”

  “Yes, have you heard anything about the new orbiting solar collector?”

  “Sure. The Korean agent, Sun, informed me today that its rated capacity…”

  As usual, she seemed to drift off before completing the thought.

  Ingot Collection Point 4, June 18

  It had been ten days since Jory den Ostreicher last cleared this area of von Neumanns, and now the shallow valley was fairly squirming with the blind machines. He quickly set about picking the top ones off the pile and cracking their shells open, dividing up the lumps of raw material inside and saving the least damaged carapaces for possible Stage 2’s.

  This work brought back pleasant memories. The last time he was out this way that Earth woman, Demeter Coghlan, had come along by proxy and helped him collect ingots. Jory hadn’t seen her since their last encounter in his private nest, which had turned a little…well, rough. Since then, he knew, she had been avoiding him. Jory was sensitive enough to understand that. He had hurt her and she didn’t want to see him again. That made sense.

  But almost a week had gone by already, and Jory wanted some more of what she gave so freely. By this time, Demeter must be feeling better about him. After all, nobody could carry a grudge longer than a week, could they? She had probably gotten all over her sore spots and would be feeling frisky again.

  Den Ostreicher checked with the grid to see if she was still assigned to the Golden Lotus. And, yes, she hadn’t left her room yet this morning. Now, if he could just pick up the pace…

  Jory’s fingers flew with superhuman speed and precision: taking, breaking, picking, and placing. While the idle ten percent of his mind studied out what he wanted
to say to his girlfriend, the other ninety percent focused on the job at hand.

  The pile of mechanical organisms melted—and the stacks of shells and bags of recovered commodities grew—like steamers at a clambake.

  The Russian Tearoom, June 18

  Brunch at the supremely fakey, pseudo-St. Petersbourgeois bistro was becoming a habit with Demeter. But this was the place for keeping an eye on her competition, or confreres, or whatever you called spies who spent more time bumping into each other than digging out government secrets. No sooner had the mechanical maître d’ seated her than Nancy Cuneo bustled up to her table.

  “Have you tried the caviar yet, dear?”

  Demeter worked up her best smile. “Made with real fish eggs?”

  “Of course not.” Cuneo sat down and studied the flat display of choices. “But the protein content is the same. Good for your skin, or so they say.” She glanced at the waiting machine. “Chai, pozhalusta.”

  The server beeped at her and trundled off.

  “At my age,” she said to Demeter, “all I can drink is black tea. Put anything in it—lemon, cream, Drambuie—and my stomach goes off like a Roman candle.”

  “I’m sorry,” Demeter offered, mentally noting the information for a possible assassination attempt. “A Roman—what did you say?”

  “A brand of fireworks, dear. Before your time…You wouldn’t think to look at me, but I’m very old.”

  “Oh, no,” Demeter lied.

  “Oh, yes! Why, the pieces and parts I’ve shed over the years. I’m simply propped up by technology, a dab of plastic skin here, a bit of electronics there. Why, do you know my pacemaker’s been kicking up recently?”

  “Really?” Demeter studied the menu and rang for service. A tank-shaped waitron cycled by and she ordered buttered toast—or at least toast thoroughly oiled—with jam of any flavor so long as it was red, and coffee with lots of cream and sugar.

  “Really,” Cuneo replied. “I get a stutter and a buzz until I think I’m fibrillating. It must be all the electronic interference in these tunnels, I guess.”

  “Interference?”

  “Of course. Electronic sensors every couple of meters along the walls, public cyber terminals on every corner, smart machines like our friend here—” She nodded to the rolling waitron. “—they just clutter the air with emissions…What I wouldn’t give for a place with a little shielding. Some place I could relax and take a deep breath.”

  “Take a walk outside.”

  “Then it’s even worse. What with signal relays, microwave fields, sunspots. No, if there was only some place, here underground, that was truly isolated.” For emphasis, Cuneo put a hand weakly to her chest, the dying Camille.

  “I’m so sorry. But if I hear of such a place, I’ll let you know.”

  “You’re such a comfort, dear.”

  Golden Lotus, June 18

  Jory didn’t even pretend to be fixing anything this time as he waited outside Demeter Coghlan’s door. Eventually, she had to return here, and he intended to confront her when she did.

  As a Creole, Jory had complete control of his time sense. He could speed it up or slow it down as needed. So it didn’t matter, subjectively, when she passed by this point. He would be waiting with just as much eagerness, whether it was in the next ten minutes or forty-eight hours from now. Fortunately for the foot traffic in the corridor—and for the Golden Lotus’s management—Demeter appeared at her hotel room sooner rather than later.

  “Demeter!” he said, stimulating all his circuits.

  “Oh, Jory!” A look crossed her face that was less than ecstatic, but never mind.

  “I missed you, Demeter.”

  “I know. But things…came up.”

  “I really missed you.”

  Damn, he thought, his words weren’t coming out right.

  “We probably shouldn’t try to see so much of each other,” she said quickly. “We got into…in a little over our heads. I need time to get to know a person before I…you know. We just went too fast—”

  “Didn’t you like my place? Wasn’t it private enough?”

  “Place? What are you—?”

  “If there’s someplace you’d rather do it, Demeter, more isolated, with less interference, then just say the word. I’ll go anywhere with you. You know that.”

  “Jory…” Her face positively clouded over.

  Den Ostreicher could feel the rejection coming off her like waves of infrared from a burned-out bearing.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, backpedaling. “I just need—”

  “I know, Jory. But I’m not the girl you need. Believe me.”

  The young Creole put a hand up to his eyes, turned away, and ran back up the corridor. Even though his tear ducts had been excised long ago, he could still feel the pressure building inside his head. He barely made the turn through the next hexcube without slamming into the wall.

  Airlock Control, June 18

  After Wyatt docked the walker, Lole Mitsuno gathered his geological samples and headed for the rear of the vehicle. The lock cycled open, and there stood Demeter Coghlan, looking like cold death.

  “You’ve got a hole in your organization,” she announced.

  Mitsuno resisted the temptation to ask what Coghlan meant by that. Instead, he looked over her head at the ever-present video pickup, with the earjack in the wall beside it.

  “Let’s get a drink,” he offered.

  “I’m serious about this, Lole.”

  “So am I.”

  He took her by the arm and started down the ramp into the tunnel complex. Maybe, if he could just keep Demeter moving, the grid wouldn’t think to track them, piece together what she was saying, and thereby learn something incriminating. The Hoplite was one level down. It was the logical place for them to go.

  “So far this morning, two people have approached me about—”

  “Who?” he cut her off.

  “Nancy Cuneo, who’s from North Zealand and is actually a paid spy for their economic development organization, and our friend Jory.”

  “What did they want?”

  “To know if I could take them someplace private. Cuneo even mentioned radio interference. Someone in your rebel group has a pair of really loose lips.”

  “Not since we talked last night,” Mitsuno protested, working out the timing in his head.

  “Well, then, from before. I don’t know. It’s all very fishy.”

  The entrance to the Hoplite was right ahead, around the next hexcube. Once they got inside, the grid’s monitoring would be nearly continuous.

  “Look,” he said quickly, “why don’t you invite Jory to come to the room? Tomorrow night would be good.”

  “Invite him? But don’t you want—”

  “Tell him it’s a party. Jory likes parties.”

  “But…” Demeter’s brows curled in on themselves as she tried to understand. “But…”

  “Just do it. Jory’s an old pal.”

  “All right, but I thought—”

  “Here we are,” Mitsuno announced, changing the subject. “I should call Wyatt and tell him to have Ellen meet us here. Are you hungry?”

  Chapter 16

  Head Fakes

  Eastern Reserve Overflow Storage Facility, June 19

  “Boy, it’s wet down here.”

  Demeter Coghlan listened for the Creole’s footsteps behind her on the walkway, light and deft, like a dancer’s.

  “The damp won’t harm your, um, systems?” she asked.

  “Naw, I get into worse than this lots of times.”

  “Good.”

  Persuading Jory to come to the secret room, as Lole had suggested, wasn’t a problem. Once Demeter made contact with den Ostreicher, via the grid, he was more than willing to meet her anytime, anyplace. So she had specified a tunnel junction not far from the reservoirs, and he had been there well ahead of her, waiting.

  As they approached the plain door, Demeter heard a sound above the background drip of wa
ter: the chuckling of many voices, mixed and echoing in a small, tight space.

  Jory drew back before she could completely identify it.

  “Hey! I thought you wanted things private.”

  “It’s all right. Lole’s holding one of his parties.”

  “But we were going to be together.”

  “We will be.”

  “I mean, alone.”

  Demeter reached for his arm, hooked it above the wrist, and practically dragged him up to the door. She thudded on the panel with the heel of her hand.

  Scree!

  Demeter peered into the brighter interior of the secret room. The furniture had been pushed against the wall to make space. The bed with the leaky stuffing seemed to be gone. She fast-counted half a dozen faces, with Lole Mitsuno’s lighter coloring standing out among them. Ellen Sorbel was there, too. And that Dr. Lee from her medical visits. The other people she had never seen before.

  “Hi, everybody! This is Jory.” She turned to her reluctant companion. “Jory, you know Ellen and Lole, of course. Everyone else…”

  “Hello, Jory!” one of the strange men boomed, coming forward eagerly and putting out a big hand. He was heavily built, athletic for a Martian, and Demeter thought he might be drunk or on drugs.

  With the speed of a striking snake, the man’s pale hand jabbed the center of the young Creole’s chest, doubling him over with a whoop! Before anyone could react, the same hand rose up to somewhere near the ceiling, stiffened into the shape of a falling axe blade—

  “Not the head!” Ellen called from behind the man.

  —and landed across the back of Jory’s neck.

  He collapsed like a sack of bones.

  “Jesus!” Demeter breathed. “Why would you want to—?”

  But already the man was walking away, rubbing his hand.

  Two others detached themselves from the crowd—Wa Lixin was one of them—and picked up the felled body. Dr. Lee pressed two fingers into the base of Jory’s throat, nodded, and let the second person slide a black hood over the Creole’s head. Together they dragged him to the far end of the room, lifted a fold of the hanging, bent down, and pulled him through.