Isla gave him a sidewise stink-eye. “So, not exactly thinking anything useful, ye div? And thanks, now ye got me wanting coffee, too.”
“I will think on the container and energy profile ideas,” Ignatio said over the comm. “Coffee has no relevance, no.”
“Ey really are an alien,” Isla said as Ignatio closed the connection.
“Ultimately, aren’t we all?” Fergus asked, then realized that might be a more pointed statement than the glib answer he’d intended. “Looks like the bridge over the western end of Noctis Labyrinthus is ahead, and then we’ll turn off further west toward Arsia Mons. It’s a rougher road, but we should be there in a few hours. That gives us plenty of time to check in, then find coffee and a late breakfast before our meeting.”
Isla nodded, and leaned her elbow on the sill of the sealed passenger-side window to watch the reddish-brown Martian landscape bump and roll by. The dunes around them became more pronounced, and the summit of Arsia Mons in the hazy distance now visible, when they reached the wide, yellow-painted bridge over the fissures of Noctis Labyrinthus.
An all-black buggy, armored, with the blue-and-red logo of the Mars Colonial Authority was parked at the near side of the fissure. “Uh-oh,” Fergus muttered.
“Trouble?” Isla asked.
“I hope not.” Fergus slowed to a stop as a suited MCA officer walked out toward them. He wished he’d had time to make fake credentials for Isla; if they got through this, he was going to do it at the first opportunity. If, he thought. He had never had much good luck when it came to the MCA.
This once, he did. The officer scanned the front of their buggy, then stepped aside and waved them on before cycling back into their own vehicle to wait for the next dust cloud to spit someone out at their feet. “Either someone greased our wheels—Harcourt or his associates, no doubt—or they’re looking for someone specific and it’s not us,” Fergus said. He put the buggy back in forward and headed over the bridge and gratefully away.
A half-kilometer past the bridge, there was a dust-coated waymarker, and the road to the hotel split off to the west. Unlike the main road, this one was made of nothing more than compacted Mars dirt, left rough and rutted by sandstorms and the passage of other vehicles. There were long stretches where it was only the blue reflective beacon poles every quarter-kilometer beside the road to tell them they were still, mostly, on it.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” Isla asked. “There doesn’t seem like there’s much of anything out here.”
“There isn’t. Just the hotel,” Fergus said. “It, and a small area of territory apportioned to it, fell through a legal loophole which means the MCA has no jurisdiction there, and which also means there’s a lot of . . . well, unsanctioned activity that goes through there. Not to mention it being the go-to destination for a fair number of aliens wanting to visit Mars but not entirely trusting the Earth occupation government. Which is the MCA’s own fault, really, by constantly doing untrustworthy things.”
“So, it’s dangerous?” Isla asked.
“Not all the time,” Fergus said. “I mean, probably not.”
“How about right now?”
He shrugged. “We’ll see when we get there. But it might explain the checkpoint back at the bridge, keeping a wary eye on who might be coming or going.”
The road wound down through some low, rocky hills, and the road markers changed over to red reflectors. “I think we’re getting closer,” he said.
Isla pointed. “There it is.”
At first it looked like a mirage, a yellow-gray bubble on the sand shimmering faintly in the mid-morning light. As they drew closer it resolved into something more surreal: a sprawling, scarlet-and-purple Victorian Earth-style building, complete with wide porch and turrets and a detached carriage house–style garage some distance away, all enclosed inside a near-transparent dome. From this distance, the dome supports—there had to be some, Fergus figured—were invisible, bringing him right back to the bubble analogy. “That’s . . . quite the architectural non sequitur,” he said.
“Ye could just say it’s weird,” she said.
“Okay, it’s weird.” As they drove closer, he could make out tiny glints of gold accents on the eaves. “I like it, though.”
“Me too,” Isla said. “I think.”
They drove in through a double-arch vehicle envelope near the carriage house, and Fergus could feel the tingling sweep of scanners as they crossed. He expected an automated greeter system to give them additional instructions, but instead there was a sign just inside the gate advising them, in a static rotation of languages, that the buggy garage was restricted to registered guests and to park in a side lot if just arriving.
He complied, shutting their rented buggy down, then eyeing the hotel across the sand. He could now see the thin supports that kept the dome aloft, and the very faint translucence that meant a gel canopy above protecting from particulate debris, but it still felt tenuous and untrustworthy.
Isla was eyeing it as well, then her gaze shifted downward and she pointed. “At least there’s proof there’s air,” she said, and he followed her gesture to see, of all ridiculous things, a small herd of some kind of long-horned antelope slowly emerge into view from behind the hotel itself. “Or I’m hallucinating.”
Fergus had to admit he couldn’t quite rule that last bit out. Still, better safe than sorry. “You ever put on and sealed up an exosuit?”
“We got to watch someone demo putting one on in class,” she said. “That’s it.”
He had grabbed a spare from Whiro before they took the shuttle down, and now hauled it and his own out of his overstuffed pack. “Since we’re not in a hurry and not in danger, this is a great time to learn,” he said. “If you’re lucky, you’ll have it down before you find yourself having to suit up in an emergency.”
“If I’m lucky, I won’t be in any emergencies,” she countered.
He laughed as she unwrapped her suit and shook it out. “Hanging around with me, you better not count on that.”
They walked through running an integrity and systems check on their suits first, and then after pulling them on, he showed her how to check the seals, check that her air bottles were properly attached and full, and then how to access various controls, checks, and comms from the forearm vambrace panel. She paid attention intently, silently, until he showed her how he had to tuck his beard scruff under his chin to get his own faceplate closed. “I don’t think I’ll have that problem,” she said, and deftly gathered and twisted up her long hair and tucked it behind her head before closing her own faceplate. The motorcycle helmet had been good practice, it seemed.
Seals good and triple-checked, they left the buggy and walked across the path toward the hotel itself. Beside him, Isla bounced in the low gravity, figuring out her gait and footing by trial and error with obvious delight. The antelope, their mostly sand-colored bodies almost invisible against the ground, raised black-and-white faces to watch them approach, with inscrutable expressions.
A small, wooden sign with faded gold lettering above the door proclaimed that they were indeed at the Rosley Hotel, established MY 158.
“MY 158?” Arelyn asked.
“Martian year. They count the first crewed landing in 2094 as MY 0. Remember, Martian years are almost twice as long as Earth standard.” Fergus did the math in his head. “So, the hotel was built around 2390, seventy-five standard years old. Not looking too bad for it, either—not a lot of things survived the incoming occupation fully intact.”
They stepped up onto the porch and through the wide wooden doors into the hotel lobby, and the sense of the unreal did not fade. The lobby could have been transplanted with the rest of the building from nineteenth-century Earth, with its brocade wallpaper, fabric-upholstered sofas and crystal chandeliers. All of it was faintly dusty and looked its age, and as Fergus popped open his faceplate and met the s
emi-curious gaze of the teenage girl with bright pink hair sitting behind the old wooden front desk, smelled 100% of Mars.
“Welcome to th’ Rosley,” she said, in a thick Bounds accent, as she doodled on a worn, raggedy-edged old sheet of velopaper. “You th’ buggy what jus’ rolled up?”
“Yes,” Fergus said, as Isla opened her faceplate and turned in place, taking it all in. “We’d like a room?”
“Frowlong?” she asked.
Fergus frowned. “Pardon?”
“Frowlong yer gonna stay?” she repeated.
“Oh! Um. Two nights?” Fergus had no idea how long it might take to convince Harcourt’s contacts to help him out, especially since he didn’t have a lot in the way of payment he could offer other than saving their planet, which he probably couldn’t explain to them anyway. If they didn’t just laugh in his face and walk out on him in the first ten minutes of the conversation . . .
“Know ’bout the rules?” she asked.
“Rules?”
She leaned forward over the desk and pointed up at a small sign posted, the lettering tiny, and he read through it. No weapons, no parties, no out-of-period tech beyond the lobby. “Our suits?” he asked.
“Yep, no suits,” she said. “Problem?”
“You’ll recharge our air, since we won’t be able to?”
“Yep, an’ power,” she answered. “Keep ’em spiff for you, ready to go, jus’ not in th’ hotel. Y’ can keep your handpads, if you got ’em.”
This place was an exercise in the ridiculous, which suited the overall tenor of his errand no end. “No problem,” he said.
“Smokeydokey,” she said. She stood up, not much taller than when she’d been sitting on her stool, and pushed a big paper book across the desk to him, and held out a pen. “Sign in.”
Fergus took the pen and wrote Angus Ainsley in the line and a bogus address on Lunar Three that matched his cred chit. He had to assume the hotel took those; if they insisted on physical currency, they really were several centuries too late. He hesitated before handing the pen to Isla, realizing he had never discussed identities with her, but she took it from him and smoothly wrote below it Aoife Ainsley.
The girl took it. “Couple?” she asked.
Both Fergus and Isla answered in unison, “Siblings.”
The girl chuckled. “I’m Sofi,” she said. She pointed over toward the couches. “That’s Goom.”
Three eyes, each on its own long blue- and yellow-striped stalk, peeked up from behind the couch, and a quartet of whip-thin antennae waved around them. Isla made a squeak of surprise and took a half-step backward, which seemed to amuse the desk girl. Fergus put both his hands up high in the air and waved them side to side overhead, and moments later, the alien’s antennae followed suit. “Happiness!” Fergus shouted.
“Happiness returning!” the alien shouted back, and then fully vanished back down out of sight.
“You know Goom?” Sofi asked.
“I’ve met other Goom,” Fergus said. He slipped off his boots and his exosuit, and folded the suit neatly before placing it on the counter, and his cred chit next to it.
She took the chit, scanned it, and handed it back, then slid him an old brass key on red ribbon. “Room twenny-six bee,” she said. “Lunch at noon in th’ dining room. Coffee is most all th’ time. Vader’s ’round the corner.”
“Thanks,” Fergus said. He smiled at Isla. “See? I didn’t lie. Coffee!”
* * *
—
They came down to the dining room after dropping off their stuff, and Isla picked out a small table near a large window looking out toward Arsia Mons and its two sister volcanoes to the north while he poured them both coffee from an old-fashioned silver urn near the back of the room. The sky behind them was turning brown, and Fergus knew that meant one of the ubiquitous Martian sandstorms was blowing in. His brief delight at the oddness of the hotel turned with the approaching storm toward worry, and as he set Isla’s cup in front of her, she caught his expression.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Is it ever?” he asked, then sighed at his own trite pessimism and took the seat opposite her, where he could also watch the skies. “How can I save the entire solar system—as if that’s a task that should ever be put on any one person, much less an unreliable idiot like me? We need experienced, professional help on our side, but the more serious Harcourt’s contacts are, the more likely they are to take one look at me and turn right around and walk away again before I can get more than three words out of my mouth. Unless—”
Something soft but heavy hit him in the back of the head, and he slopped coffee from the cup in his hand all over the table. He rose up out of his chair, his internal bees instantly awake and his fingertips tingling with electricity, and turned toward the doorway just as a second bagel arched through the air toward him. He barely managed to duck it in time.
Standing in the doorway to the dining room, leaning against the doorframe a thousand light years from where she should be, was Mari Vahn. Beside her, a third bagel in hand, was Arelyn Harcourt.
“We’re doomed,” Fergus said, and sat down to finish what was left of his coffee.
Chapter 5
“After the MCA took a bribe to let Gilger’s Luceatans into my dorm to kidnap me, my sympathy for the Free Mars movement got a lot stronger,” Arelyn said. “I mean, I was already inclined that way because of my dad and his history here, but that was his thing, you know? Thanks to them, now it’s mine, too. So, you asked him for a contact, and I’m who you got. Don’t blow it.”
They were sitting in a gazebo out in the sands behind the hotel, which Arelyn was of the opinion was one of the most private spots on all of Mars. Fergus could feel the faint network of electricity around them but nothing beyond what he’d expect; he was certain the hotel had to have a lot of safety systems and a mindsystem of some sort to run them, or it wouldn’t have survived so many attempts to destroy it, but if so, it was unobtrusive to the point of invisibility. Which was also as he would expect, given the hotel’s obsession with appearing antiquated in all ways it could manage despite its physical setting.
Goom had brought them out a tray of sandwiches and tea. Fergus took a cup of tea and leaned back in the wicker chair, still rather amazed to have found these two people there. One of them in particular. “And you, Mari? I didn’t expect to see you this far from Cernee.”
Mari smiled. “Just your rotten timing; I’m heading back home tomorrow. How’s the tea?”
“Really good, actually,” Fergus said. “Maybe I’ve been drinking coffee too long.” He picked up one of the lopsided triangular sandwiches from the platter and peered under the bread. “I think this is just radish slices and mustard.”
“The resident cook is off on an errand,” Mari said. “They’re still training Goom. And mine is pickles and mayo. Want to swap?”
“I don’t know,” Fergus said. “That feels like the sort of question where there’s no good answer.”
“Speaking of answers,” Mari said, “why the hell did you never mention you had a sister?”
“Because I didn’t know,” Fergus said.
At Arelyn’s look of incredulous horror, Isla spoke up. “I was born almost six months after Fergus left home.” She had been examining her own sandwich but closed it up, shrugged, and took a bite. “Cinnamon, too, in mine, I think. Weird choice with radishes. But anyway, Fergus had no way of knowing about me.”
“And he’s already dragged you into one of his messes?” Arelyn said. “That’s not very brotherly.”
“I invited myself along,” Isla said. “Insisted, even.”
“And in my defense, the mess I’m in? We’re all in it,” Fergus said.
“Oh, no,” Arelyn said, and stood up from the table fast enough that Mari had to catch her chair to keep it from falling. “I haven’t agreed to any s
cheme of yours, and you can’t pull me into it without my explicit permission.”
“I wouldn’t. And anyway, that’s not what I meant,” Fergus said. “The only ‘scheme’ I’ve got is saving your lives, if I can.”
“You’ve already put us in danger?! I should have expected no better from you.”
Mari looked up at her friend. “Ari . . .” she said gently.
Arelyn sat again, arms folded across her chest, and glared.
Isla nudged Fergus. “Show her,” she said.
“What?” Fergus said. “You know we promised—”
“Ye don’t have to go into details, but ye have to show her if ye want their help,” Isla said.
With a sigh, Fergus reached into his pocket and pulled out the fragment. It was Mari who held out her hand, and Fergus set it gently in her palm. “It’s a piece of something?” she asked.
“Yes,” Fergus said.
She studied it for a moment. “It’s not that interesting,” she said at last.
“Turn it over ninety degrees in your hand,” Fergus said.
Mari did. “Shit!” she said, and dropped it on the table as if she’d been burnt. After leaning in more closely to peer at it, Mari picked it up again and slowly turned it around. “Okay, that’s fucking bizarre,” she said, and handed it to Arelyn. “What is it?”
“Death,” Fergus said.
“Don’t be melodramatic. Give us facts,” Arelyn snapped.
“So, there’s a lot I can’t tell you, either because I don’t know—mostly because I don’t know—or because I’m not supposed to know and neither is anyone else. But this is part of an ancient alien object that was fragmented into multiple pieces—”
“How many?” Arelyn interrupted.
The Scavenger Door Page 8
