Marlowe and the Spacewoman

by Ian M. Dudley

  Obedere always reminded Marlowe that medical science still had room to advance. Obesity, for one, had yet to be abolished. Nano probes had no problem breaking down fatty deposits, but they did have a problem disposing of the broken down byproducts. Hydrogen was one of them, and if one wasn’t careful and that hydrogen was released as a gas, a person could become a very large, very flammable dirigible. Not an insurmountable problem, but in the case of very obese individuals, it was like trying to empty the contents of a lake with a tea cup. It could be done, if you had enough tea cups, but the cost and effort would be enormous.

  High cost and allergic reactions were two other obstacles that medical science needed to overcome. Installing and maintaining a set of nano probes tended to be very expensive. Even Marlowe could barely afford it, though in his line of work, he couldn’t afford not to have them. And some people had an immune response when the nano probes were introduced into their system – their immune system attacked the nano probes. This kept the nano probes so busy fighting off white blood cells that they didn’t have time to deal with other issues. The only known solution to this issue was to wipe out the patient’s immune system and replace it with the nano probes. Even Marlowe, an early adopter who embraced most new technologies, was reluctant to go that far. It involved targeted radiation treatment to destroy bone marrow. The process was apparently very painful, yet another deterrent if you didn’t already have the nano probes in place to block the pain.

  Marlowe had managed to learn, after a great deal of trouble and expense, that Obedere didn’t have any nano probes. While he’d never managed to get a peek at Obedere’s medical records, he couldn’t imagine Obedere forgoing the nano probes except if he was allergic to them. This meant Obedere needed to be taken to a medical facility if he ever died and wanted to be resurrected. And not being a man to take chances, Obedere made sure a medical facility was always nearby. In addition to a state-of-the-art mobile facility that always traveled with him (at a discrete distance), Obedere had covert emergency medical centers dotted throughout the City.

  Marlowe’s stomach lurched into his throat, but this time it wasn’t fear. It was the elevator descending.

  “There was some wreckage in the center of the crater. Actually, wreckage might not be the right word. The vessel from which our young lady emerged was actually fairly intact. We’re planning on moving it soon, but for now we’re leaving it to preserve any evidence.”

  The elevator stopped and they exited into a dimly lit hallway of concrete and brick walls. At the far end a round, bright orange DuraPlast blast resistant door waited. Obedere took the lead in his chair, speeding down the hallway. The chair wobbled dangerously to the left and right, struggling with his mass. Marlowe idly noted that the chair’s ability to function down here meant that somewhere in the floor was magnetic conduit. Obedere skidded to a stop just outside the door, nearly hitting it, and then waited for Marlowe to catch up.

  “Her name, if no one’s told you yet, is Nina Minari. She claims to be some sort of ‘astronut’ or something from the past. A very colorful story. And fun to watch her tell. She gets so, what is the word…agitated, yes, agitated, when you ask her to tell it again.” Obedere cracked a crafty smile and his eyes twinkled, almost certainly his iris implants.

  “Now what is that access code,” Obedere asked himself as he surveyed the console next to the door. “I can never remember what it is.” He rotated the chair so he was facing away from Marlowe, but because the hover chair continued to wobble a bit, Marlowe managed to see Obedere sneak a surreptitious peek at the palm of his right hand, which had something scribbled across it. Obedere clenched his hand into a fist and rotated back. “Ah yes, now I remember.”

  He never did have a very sharp memory, thought Marlowe. At least not for numbers. Slights, on the other hand, he never forgot.

  “We had some problems when we initially detained her.” Obedere raised the chair up until his eye was level with the retinal scanner, which briefly flashed red over his left eye. “She’s,” and he paused again to lower the chair so he could rest his hammy palm on the hand scanner, “hehehe…a feisty one.” He licked his lips and smiled like the cat that caught the parrot.

  The door hummed, shifted in color from orange to gray blue, and sank diagonally into the floor. The cell was bright, clean, and small. Inside Marlowe noted a bunk, attached flush to the wall with an olive green blanket stretched over it, a toilet with one of those awful cushiony seats, and a Virtu-window. It displayed the same green pastures as the screen in the Governor’s private office, but this view had prison bars in the foreground.

  By far the most arresting feature of the cell was its occupant. She was sitting cross-legged on the bunk, hands resting on her knees, palms up. Her eyes were closed, and she looked calm, almost blissful. She had wavy black hair, cut short and with veins of gray running through it. Marlowe could not help but admire her strong jawline and sharply defined cheekbones. A slight dimple on her chin and a perfectly proportioned nose rounded out an altogether pleasing face. She had a raw, natural beauty Marlowe rarely saw anymore, a beauty that stood out in the sea of cookie-cutter good looks everyone else got from the the plastic surgery shops.

  She wore a simple unisex jumpsuit, maroon in color, and covered with zippered pockets. A circular patch on the left shoulder of the jumpsuit depicted two stars with a gas giant in the foreground, and the words ‘Odyssey I’ across the top and ‘55 Cancri’ across the bottom. Over her left breast was a name tag. It read ‘MINARI’. Clasped around both feet were some seriously heavy-duty, made for stomping boots. They put the standard issue constables’ boots to shame; Marlowe decided he’d hate to meet up with the business end of them.

  The possibility that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen crossed his mind, and when she opened her eyes, that possibility became certainty. He momentarily misplaced himself in her deep, penetrating eyes, warm gold like a well browned pie crust. What had his brother gotten him into? This was, without a doubt, going to lead to nothing but trouble.

  “Your Most Blessed Highness, Queen of the Solar System, you have a guest. It is to my everlasting shame that I must present this humble peasant of little worth.”

  The woman sighed, blinked her eyes a few times, and stood up. She glared at Obedere first, then her eyes stopped on Marlowe.

  “OK, I’ve died and gone to Hell, I’m dreaming, or you guys have put something in my food. What is Humphrey Bogart doing here?”

  Obedere looked genuinely confused, Marlowe pleasantly surprised; she was the first person who actually recognized the man he’d modeled his most recent face after.

  “The name is Marlowe, sweetheart,” Marlowe said in his best imitation Bogie voice. “I’ve been put in charge of figuring out who you are, where you come from, and how you got into the City.” Marlowe liked that. ’Put in charge’ made him sound more important, like he was the head of a task force or something.

  Nina laughed, but not a comfortable, friendly laugh. More an on-the-edge-of-hysteria laugh. “Phillip Marlowe is in charge of investigating me. This can’t get any more absurd. Is John Wayne going to lead the cavalry in at the last moment to save me? Oh Christ, I’m going to have to go through my story again, aren’t I? I’m so tired of telling it. And what’s the point? This floating freak here has recorded every telling of it. Can’t you watch the tape and then come back?”

  Tape? What would adhesive tape have to do with her story? Marlowe didn’t know what she was talking about. Another point in the loony bin…well, bin.

  “First, I look like Humphrey Bogart because I had my face surgically altered to look like him. I’ve looked like a lot of fictional detectives in my day. Just a sort of hobby of mine. Second, I would prefer to hear your story in person rather than viewing a recording. If it’s any incentive, afterward I’ll be taking custody of you and we’ll relocate you someplace a little more hospitable than your current situation.”

  She sighed again, sat back down on the bunk, cro
ssed her legs, closed her eyes, and launched into her story.

  “My name is Nina Minari. I’m the commander of the FSEP Odyssey I mission, Earth’s first voyage to another star system. I’m also the sole survivor.”

  Marlowe interrupted. “FSEP?”

  Nina opened her eyes long enough to roll them, a very fetching maneuver. Obviously this was a question she’d heard before, many times. “Fess-ep, F-S-E-P. The Federal Space Exploration Program. It replaced NASA in 1974.”

  “Ah,” said Marlowe, still completely in the dark.

  House piped in, a soft whisper in Marlowe’s ear. “Big Fed space programs, first NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and then FSEP. Underfunded mandates to explore space and expand the boundaries of human existence. Both came to dire ends, NASA after the lunar landing deceptions came to light, FSEP after a funding misappropriations scandal involving, coincidentally, the second lunar landing program.”

  Nina continued, unaware of House’s interruption. “We left Earth on August 11, 2007. Our destination was the 55 Cancri B system. Relative travel time was thirteen months until arrival, with a sixteen month stay for surveying and scientific exploration. Then another thirteen months to return, also relative.”

  “I’m confused. What do family members have to do with this?”

  “Do they not teach anyone physics these days? Not relatives. Relative. As in relativity. Relativistic effects?”

  Obedere broke in. “That’s the real kicker of her story, old friend. Their ship was traveling at nearly the speed of light, so time passed more slowly for them, or more quickly for us, or something along those lines.”

  “Ah ha,” said Marlowe without conviction.

  “Obedere’s explanation, although rudimentary, is accurate,” House reassured Marlowe.

  “We experienced a time dilation. While time on Earth passed ‘normally,’ time for us during transit passed more slowly. The relativistic effect of traveling at more than half the speed of light.”

  “So how much time passed on Earth while you were gone?”

  She answered in a tired, frosty tone. “I left in 2007. Take the current year and subtract 2007 from it and you have the answer to that question.”

  “2007, that’s the old calendar, isn’t it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Well, this is 8 HMHG, the 8th year of His Most Honorable the Governor’s reign.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve missed out on what you would call recent history. The original PAT, wait, don’t ask, I know, Planned Absence Time, was one hundred and thirty eight years. But we didn’t stay the full sixteen months.”

  “Oh, this is where the tale gets all weepy,” chortled Obedere, rocking back and forth in his chair, eyes intent on Nina.

  “When we entered the system, we passed through a debris field orbiting 55 Cancri. In the early stages of the mission planning, the scientists swore up and down that there was no debris field, that what was actually being seen was background radiation misinterpreted as a sphere of debris orbiting the star. Apparently the math was pretty convincing, but they were wrong. The impact of thousands of grains, pebbles, rocks, and boulders severely damaged the ship. If we hadn’t almost completed the braking maneuver when the collisions occurred, the ship would have certainly been destroyed. As it was, the rest of the crew, my executive officer, engineer,” and then Nina choked up for a moment, “and doctor were all killed. Only I survived arrival.

  “We had planned to survey the entire system, focusing most of our effort on a probable Earth-like planet named Hare in orbit a quarter AU from the star. However, after the damage suffered upon arrival, I was barely able to get into orbit around the large gas giant, Tortoise. The supply ship sent ahead of us was supposed to be in orbit there, and amazingly enough, it was. Also damaged, but intact for the most part. I managed to repair Odyssey’s drive system using parts from the supply ship and raw materials harvested from some of Tortoise’s moons.

  “The repairs weren’t perfect. I had to reduce the amount of mass returning in order to achieve the necessary acceleration. I dumped all of the equipment, entire sections of the ship, anything that could be safely jettisoned. Then I fired up the engines and came back. I miscalculated on the deceleration, though. I entered Earth’s system too fast. I abandoned Odyssey in the escape vehicle and managed to slingshot my way around Jupiter, then Mars, then Venus, consuming the extra delta-V in their gravity wells, until I was traveling slow enough to enter Earth orbit. Almost four months in that cramped lifeboat with nothing to do but wait for orbital insertions and perform course corrections.

  “It’s been a long, painful, lonely journey, and upon my much anticipated arrival home, I’m arrested and treated like an escaped inmate from an insane asylum.”

  Marlowe leaned against the round frame of the cell door. It was quite a tale.

  Obedere laughed throatily. “And she has an answer for every hole in her story. For example, she put up a valiant, and initially successful struggle against the constables who first tried to arrest her. Not bad for someone wasting away in the zero gee of space.”

  “Gravity was always at a constant 1.5 gees, first while accelerating towards Earth, and then at the halfway point when I turned around and started decelerating. When you’re traveling near the speed of light, you don’t stop on a dime. It takes a long time to slow down.”

  “You see, old friend? An answer for everything. And this one also nicely explains away the lack of de-calcification in her bones. In fact, she has slightly elevated levels of calcium. If she’d been in zero gee for a prolonged period, her bones would have weakened. And having to jettison everything before she left this other star system, well, that’s why she doesn’t have any pictures or survey data.”

  “I do have proof, but it’s on the Odyssey, which is in an extremely large and elliptical orbit around the Sun right now, assuming it didn’t escape the gravity well. I didn’t have much room on the escape vehicle, and had to be selective about what I brought back. Actually, if you want proof I’m telling the truth, the Odyssey should be visible from Earth, spewing a very bright, very long vapor trail as it decelerates. Just have your astronomers look. I have a good idea where they should direct their telescopes.”

  “Ah, we seem to have elicited new information from you!” Obedere smiled expansively. “And you feel these repetitive sessions are a waste of time.”

  Nina closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. “Will anyone answer my questions now? I think I’ve been very patient, considering the number of times I’ve answered your questions.”

  Obedere spun his chair around to face Marlowe, ignoring Nina. “Are you taking custody of her now?”

  Marlowe nodded.

  “Then I’ll need you to sign the appropriate paperwork.”

  “Mail it to me.”

  Obedere’s gaze grew distant for a moment, then returned. “Done.”

  House’s voice piped up in Marlowe’s ear. “I have received the document, and stripped away the multitude of viruses, worms, and trojans embedded in it. All of them appear designed to thwart any attempt to use your id box for resurrection. I’ll do a more thorough investigation of them as time permits. Forwarding a plain text version of the transfer documents to you now.”

  Marlowe waited a moment, and then the data flooded in. It was a fairly long file, the usual boilerplate about taking custody of the prisoner, being responsible for the prisoner’s safety and appearances at all inquiries, court dates, and tribunal sessions, if any. The standard forfeiture of life should any of the terms not be met, which would explain the extra goodies Obedere had included in the file. The state could execute Marlowe, but then the id box would be used to restore him. The only lasting effect of the execution would be the shame and stigma associated with suffering capital punishment, and the loss of the ability to vote. With the booby traps Obedere had included, Marlowe might have found such an execution a lot more permanent. It also suggested that Obedere was going to work ov
ertime ensuring he caught Marlowe in some sort of violation of the agreement.

  Marlowe sighed, shook his head, and affixed his digital signature to the document. “Sending back the signed copy.”

  Obedere waited, grunted when he received it, and nodded. “Very well, she’s all yours. Try not to abuse her too much.”

  Nina cleared her throat. “Do I have any say in this?”

  Obedere spun around again, clearly unhappy that his latest toy was slipping through his fingers. “No, not really. But I’m sure Marlowe will take good care of you.”

  Obedere positively sulked as his chair wobbled him back down the hallway, Nina and Marlowe in tow, to the elevator.

  “Now remember, Marlowe, Ms. Minari is your responsibility. It’s up to you to make sure she stays within the law during her stay in the City. Any violations incurred will result in both of you being punished.” He giggled at that point, the effort overloading his vocal chord enhancers so it came out as a high pitched squeak.

  CHAPTER 6

  THOSE WHO DON’T KNOW THEIR HISTORY

  (AND CIVICS) ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT

  The march out of the Ministry of Policing went uneventfully, although Marlowe’s heart didn’t stop pounding until he was back in the Studebaker. Nina sat beside him and stared around in, well, not exactly awe, but certainly wonder.

  “I come back to Earth one hundred plus years in the future, and people are driving Studebakers again? I have to say, a lot has changed in my absence.”

  House interrupted. “I have detected several tracking devices installed in the car. The repair weevil has been programmed to seek out and remove them. Please keep your speed below 50 kilometers per hour until it is finished.”

  “Thanks for the tip, House.”

  “I beg your pardon,” asked Nina.

  “Oh, I’m talking to my House. Via my PDI.”