by R L Dean
Shultz made it a point to visit each quarter. The three smartest people on the planet resided here year round, leaving on rare occasions to attend symposiums and lectures at the college in Capital burrow. And they were the catalysts for his dream of a terraformed Mars.
The shuttle banked and he caught a glimpse of the research station, its central dome a dusty bulge on a smooth bed of oddly black rock, it was the only man-made structure within two-thousand kilometers in any direction.
"Landing now, sir," the pilot announced.
The landscape out of the window shifted quickly and he was looking at kilometers of melted rock and red sediment with patches of dust forming pools across its surface. The dull metal of a radio tower passed by and the shuttle settled with a thunk.
Shultz unbuckled and stood, stretched, then picked up the plastic container in the seat that was beside him. Walking to the airlock he saw the vestibule extending from the shuttle toward the small building that served as the station's dock. When the vestibule connected and airlock panel flashed green he stepped in, then opened the hatch and walked into the vestibule.
As he crossed the short distance from airlock to airlock the vestibule shuddered as a gust of wind swept across the valley floor. The average temperature in the daytime was -28, and feeling the wind rattle the vestibule under his shoes gave life to the cold— it wanted in.
The hatch opened and through the transparent plexi of the airlock Shultz saw Susan Bascom, the research station's short, blond xenogeologist. She was in her late thirties, and perpetually happy. In answer to his thoughts she smiled and waved as he stepped inside the airlock and the hatch closed.
When the lock cycled open Bascom said, "Hi Gov, come on in!"
"Hi, Susan," Shultz said, and smiled back at her.
"Come bearing gifts?" She asked, her eyes shifting to the container he was carrying.
He held it up. "Coffee beans, from one of the last plantations in the Chilean Regional Preserve."
Susan took the container, twisting the cap of and inhaling deeply. "Heaven. I can't remember the last time we had real coffee."
"Well, enjoy it while you can," he told her. "Modi might embargo it out of spite."
She snorted in derision, then said, "Come on, Des and Armand have been in the lab all morning." Turning, she led him through the small equipment room the airlock was attached to.
"Oh, something going on?" He asked.
"I don't know," she replied. "It's been boys only. But you know Armand, he always has something in the wind."
A pun, Armand Hessler was the team's coniologist.
They entered the access tube leading into the station. There was a layer of red dust and gray ash under the walkway grating, swept in from the equipment room. Keeping the place dust free was a monumental chore, one that scientists consumed with project work didn't often consider.
The air recycler in the tube was broken before Shultz was elected to office, and what money he was able to squeeze out of the UN Council to keep the station afloat was spent on more pressing needs. There had also been five members of the team, instead of only three— a medical professional with a biology degree and a geological intern from the college that functioned as a lab assistant. They were deemed an unnecessary redundancy by the Council. If Shultz wanted to keep them on, he could, but the money to support them would have to come from his own budget. He wanted too, but the proverbial needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. The money had other, necessary, uses.
They reached the lab's decontamination chamber and Susan waved him through the hatch. "I don't think we need white suits," she told him. "They'll run us out if we do."
He stepped inside and she closed the hatch, a moment later a UV light washed over him, then a blast of air from nozzles in the top of the chamber ruffled his clothes. When it was done the hatch opened and he stepped out into the adjacent corridor and Susan took her turn.
The lab took up most of the station's main dome, the rest of the space gave way to equipment storage. Most of which had been empty for years, Shultz knew. Or, contained parts and pieces in need of repair. The team here had been forced to become adept at scavenging for their needs. Again, a result of more pressing uses for resources and money.
When they stepped inside the lab Desmond Freud— the only bacteriologist on Mars— and Armand were hunched over a lab table on the other side of the room. Armand was scratching the back of his curly haired head and talking while Desmond un-huhed.
"Gov's here," Susan announced. When they both turned to look she held up the container of coffee. "And he brought coffee."
"Real coffee?" Armand asked, his eyebrows going up. He had the slightest trace of a French accent.
Susan nodded, smiling. "I'll go make us some, then we can talk about Paris." She turned and headed out of the lab.
Shultz walked to the table and reached out his hand. "Desmond ... Armand, it's good to see you again. What's this?"
The table had a large flat screen in its surface, and Shultz recognized the blobs, swirling colors, and lines of weather patterns. It was meteorological data from a weather satellite.
"Armand found something interesting," Desmond said with a slight smile.
Armand tapped the screen, expanding a portion if. "Have a look at this." To Shultz it still looked like blobs of colors, with small numbers and Greek letters here and there. But he saw a familiar feature.
"Elysium," Shultz said. "That much I recognize."
Armand nodded and pointed to a thin strip of red in the lower section of plains. "There's a small dust storm blowing across the plains right now, and this is dust coming from the east side of Orcus Patera. It's four degrees hotter than the surrounding dust."
Rather than display his ignorance, Shultz nodded and waited for them to explain.
"The question is why," Armand said.
Desmond chuckled. "He's leading up to his hypothesis."
"Which is?" Shultz prompted.
Armand smiled big. "A lava vent, of course."
"Lava vent?"
"Yes," Armand said, nodding. "There's a lava vent near the base of the patera's east side and the surface has finally eroded enough that we can see the temperature variation."
"You're saying we have an active volcano?" He asked, skeptical.
Armand shrugged. "I'm saying that there could be molten magma that's somehow made its way there. But, there may be another explanation."
Suddenly Desmond clapped him on the shoulder. "We like to theorize. And if it were true, well, heat and water on the Martian surface might make terraforming more substantial to the OSR scientists."
The terraforming project was what he was there to discuss. "Is this something we can include in the METI report?" The Martian Ecological Terraforming Initiative, a three-thousand page document that Desmond, Armand, and Susan prepared for him, was meant to be his appeal to the UN Council's Office of Scientific Research at the biennial meeting. Modi couldn't care less about terraforming Mars, but if he could get the OSR behind the project— the dream— they could apply pressure on Modi and the Council. Generating interest would be the key to kick-starting terraforming on Mars— it was the only thing that would overcome the money and greed equation. Science was as much a political game as running for election. The Earth, or Mars for that matter, could be flat or round, entering a new ice-age or flooding because of polar melt, depending on who was in office. Interest meant support, support meant power. And power guides money.
"Put what in the report?" Susan asked, entering the lab with a tray and four steaming cups.
"What we've been looking at all morning," Desmond said. "Active lava tubes in Elysium."
"What?" Susan asked, shaking her head and setting the tray down on a table. "There's no active volcanoes. The planet cooled down millennia ago."
"Well, there's a temperature variation ..." Armand started. But Susan waved her hand at him and said, "Gov, don't listen to them. Let's have this wonderful coffee you brought."
<
br /> They were like a family bickering, so used to one another. It reminded Shultz that the three of them had lived together in the station for close to fifteen years. What they did here was their life's work— watching Mars, testing soil and rock, compiling and correlating geological and atmospheric data across the globe. When he came in to office he co-opted them into his terraforming dream. They had readily accepted. After all, what was the goal of settling Mars, if not to turn it into a paradise?
Pulling up stools at the table they sat and sipped the hot coffee.
Susan reached back and picked up a large screen tablet from a counter and set it on the table, pushing it toward him. "The revisions are done. We cleared up a few points ... nothing new on the science side."
The report. He picked up the tablet and scrolled past the title page and foreword, looking at the text dense document with the same sense of wonder he held when they submitted the first thousand page draft three years ago. This was the first document in human history that lay out a plan to create a living biosphere on a dead planet. Or rather, a basis for that plan, as the three of them constantly reminded him. The technology did not exist yet to accomplish such a feat of engineering ... not yet. Worldbuilding was still a thing of fiction novels, and it would be for generations, but this report would set off a thousand more studies and reports. And that would lead to experiments and invention, a chain of events— a path— that would ultimately lead to a green Mars.
That was why Shultz always beheld it in such wonder.
"I gotta say, Gov. I'm not looking forward to Paris ... Earth," Susan said.
It had taken some humble pleading on his part to get them all to agree to make the trip to Earth. It was going to be hard on them physically.
"Is everyone still taking the pills, and keeping up the exercise regimen?" He asked. The pills were to increase bone and muscle mass. They were fit, for Martians, but the gravity of Earth would eventually take its toll. And they would need to be there for a week or more.
"Yeah," Susan said. "We've been taking the pills and Des won't let us slack off in the gym."
"You don't think the UN Council will cancel the meeting?" Armand asked, his eyebrows knitting together. "I mean with all that horribleness on the Moon."
Shultz shook his head. As far as he knew Modi never even considered it. "No," he said. "Business as usual. We're just one item on their agenda."
"I want a waterbed," Susan said, suddenly.
"What?"
"The hotel we stay in, I want a room with a waterbed," she clarified. "Standing around all day in leg and spine braces, talking to boring old men. My back will be killing me."
Shultz sighed inside. "I'll see what I can do."
16 - Tetsuya
Tetsuya turned from the crowded concourse of the second level into the access tunnel leading to the apartment. Coveralls and jumpsuits were a common sight on Butte, but today some part of his brain realized that the majority of them were wearing mining logos. Butte's permanent residents were always outnumbered by the mining and hauling crews, but with Pollard's announcement approaching this fact suddenly seemed important. Very important.
Every UNSEC soldier and cop knew what was going to happen tomorrow.
Keying the control pad to the apartment he stepped inside and rubbed his eyes before starting to shrug out of his jacket. Itsumi appeared and hurried to help him.
"Thank you," he said. "It's been a long day."
As he sat down on the couch she wordlessly smoothed out his jacket and hung it. After she was finished she asked, "Are you ready to eat?"
Tetsuya looked at his wife, then after a moment he nodded. "Sure."
He watched her walk to the kitchen. The woman he had married was still inside that pale shadow. You could see her in the shadow's eyes ... if only a glimmer.
Soba salad was one of Itsumi's specialties, she made the noodles by hand. Butte's limited produce and grocery selection had proven to be a challenge to her sense of food preparation, but she always found a way to make a healthy meal. She never complained about the commissary prices ... she always managed with what Tetsuya gave her.
He had married well.
"It was good," he said as she cleared the plates from the table. "Do you want some help?"
"That would be hard," she replied, quietly.
He nodded and left her to her business.
In the main room he sat on the couch and pulled up the Pendleton case files on his handcomm and stared at the menu selections. He had deliberately not looked at the case for the last several hours. It had been his experience that it could be a necessary step to solving a case. His mind needed to disentangle sometimes, quiet the competing voices, and with that clarity answers would come. He settled on reviewing his updates.
Misaki was a thread in almost every entry.
"Are you coming to bed, now?"
Tetsuya blinked and looked up. Itsumi was standing just inside the main room, looking at him.
"In a few minutes," he told her. "I just need to make some notes."
"Okay." She turned and left.
He lay his head back, rubbing his eyes, and when he opened them again Itsumi was standing back in the same spot, watching him.
"What is it?" He asked.
She frowned, then said, "You know where she is."
Tetsuya felt his breath catch in his chest. Itsumi's voice was quiet and soft, as always, but her words felt accusing. He swallowed.
"Itsumi, it's ..."
"But you don't want to tell me," she added.
He licked his lips, trying to form an answer. She stared him for a moment more, then said, "Tetsuya ..." Like she was trying to get an errant schoolboy's attention. "... bring Ori-chan home."
Itsumi had never demanded anything of him in the time they were married. Nothing. When the seasons came that other women wanted their husbands to take them on trips, or buy expensive them handbags, Itsumi remained quiet. Year in and year out, the latest fashions came and went and she never said if she wanted this or that. Content with her life. And now, the one thing she did demand of him he couldn't give her. A weight settled inside his chest as he watched her turn again and leave the room.
* * *
When Tetsuya was woken from his half-sleep by the handcomm his mind had drifted to an old case. Beneath a blue, summer sky he was running down the stairs of a dingy apartment complex on Kyoto-neo's south side. His gun was out and he was yelling. When the handcomm beeped from its place on the nightstand his eyes snapped open and he was breathing heavy. Beside him, he felt Itsumi rise, then settle again as she realized it was his handcomm and not hers. When he made detective this became a common occurrence, and while it hadn't happened many times there on Butte in his role as the Transit Authority team's Superintendent, she was accustomed to it. If he got up, so would she— to make sure he was dressed properly and had something to take with him for breakfast.
He rubbed his face and looked at the handcomm's screen. It was the duty sergeant. He tapped to answer it. "Takahashi."
By 0120 he was walking into El Zincos, a small bar at the end of a string of ethnically centric bars on level three. A last stop, or a first stop, depending on which side of the tunnel you came in on. The place was busy and noisy with conversation and music. And again, he was struck with the fact that what he was seeing huddled around the tables were mining crews.
Tetsuya walked in, weaving his way around and searching. Falk was face down on a table in a corner of the bar. He recognized him by his hair and the shape of his shoulders.
"Detective," he said, reaching the table and putting a hand on Falk's shoulder. "Get up."
Falk turned his head, squeezing his eyes and licking his lips.
"He wouldn't go," someone shouted near him.
It was a waitress. She walked up from behind him, carrying a serving tray under one arm and a rag in her hand.
"He got mean when I woke him," she said. "Then I found his ID and saw he was a cop, so I called the police."
>
"You mean when you were ripping him off you found his badge," Baldwin said, as she walked up behind the waitress.
The waitress made an ugly face at Baldwin, and left.
"What are you doing here," Tetsuya asked.
Baldwin started around the table, saying, "He always calls me." She grabbed Falk under his arm. "Come on, let's get you home."
They carried the semi-lucid Falk out the bar.
"He does this a lot?" Tetsuya asked.
Baldwin scoffed. "He's been with the Force almost thirty years and he's still a sergeant. You never wondered why? I thought you were a deeee-tect-tive."
Falk took that moment to lift his head and look at Tetsuya through slitted eyes. He licked his lips and asked, "Snitch, what'r you do'n here?"
Tetsuya gritted his teeth and almost dropped the man right there in the access tunnel.
"Shut up, Falk," Baldwin said. "I've got this, Superintendent."
He stopped and Baldwin hoisted Falk higher on her shoulder, then she carried him to the end of the tunnel and disappeared around the corner.
Tetsuya slammed his fist on an advertising board hanging from the tunnel bulkhead. Taking a deep breath he put his back to the bulkhead and sat down. To the people passing by he was just one more drunk.
After a few minutes he got up and left.
When he reached his apartment his handcomm beeped. He stopped in front of the hatch and pulled it out of his pocket. It was a message from Baldwin.
Falk's less than a year from retirement. Butte's his last chance.
It was a request not to write Falk up for disrespecting a senior officer, or report his conduct to Long.
Tetsuya had spent his share of time in cop bars in Kyoto-neo's inner city. He had ... said some things from time to time he wished he could take back. Things he wouldn’t' have said if the alcohol wasn't in him. Falk had made him angry, but he wasn't going to put the man's retirement in danger over a foolish remark.
But it was starting to get to him. The ambush at the saké bar still stung.
Your own stubborn, self-righteousness did this, a voice whispered in his head. You did this to yourself.
