Miranda's Demons

by Ian Miller

  While the settlement was intact, clues soon became obvious in the centre of Tarsis that the settlement's finish had been violent. Close examination showed score marks in the walls of major buildings, with splashes around them and dribbles below, places where the M'starn beam weapons had struck, melted and splattered the steel. The floors had been cleaned by maintenance androids, but some of the walls showed streaks of red brown. At each such spot, the men would lower their eyes and observe a minute of silence in memory of those who had died.

  As the party wandered through the centre of Tarsis, anger levels rose. Yes, people had died, and perhaps the party had expected that. Settlers dying at the hands of aliens, while not desirable, was at least understandable, for aliens might regard humans in the same way humans regarded lizards. What they had not expected was the looting. Things that had been stolen were items for personal use, and so-called valuables, but only to humans. The goods for maintaining the settlement, and for exploration and mining largely remained intact. The medical centre was essentially unharmed, while the entertainment section, and shops containing 'valuables' were thoroughly looted. This was clearly not the work of aliens, but of those wretched collaborators. That required retribution. They would work, and work, and work.

  Haruhiko, now with nothing to do, decided to stroll through the deserted residential areas. These streets were clear and tidy, a tribute to the tireless work of the cleaning androids. Pot-plants still flowered on balconies, and bees, which had now adapted well to the lower gravity, and would probably be useless on Earth, were still going about their tireless work. The scene, for a Martian, seemed idyllic. All that was needed were settlers. The wear on footpaths, and even more so on the occasional unofficial short cut, made it clear they had been there, but there were no signs of the force that had removed them. Buildings were undamaged, although there were the occasional signs that the removal of the settlers had been hurried. Over there was a door that had not been closed on departure.

  On impulse, he decided to walk over to it and go inside. As he entered, he gaped. A Martian Marie Celeste! This family had been removed almost immediately. Half-eaten meals, now beneath layers of mould, with mould-covered forks, glasses with half-drunk beverage, now somewhat the worse for age, remained on the table. In one corner of the room a television remained on, but because it was tuned to the Tarsis channel, only the pattern of background noise was available.

  Haruhiko sought out the maintenance android. Most people programmed their androids to leave things like meals on tables alone, otherwise they could sit down to a meal, receive a phone call, and return to find their meal "tidied up". Such people seldom included a programming instruction to tidy up after a meal had been left unattended for a given time. When the android was found, Haruhiko keyed in the 'Tidy Everything and Close Down" command. One family, at least, could return to a tidier house.

  After visiting three houses in similar situations, depression overtook him. He could take no more, so he wandered back to the centre of Tarsis. He would send a message, or at least try to, so he strode directly to the communications centre. To his surprise, the communications centre was undamaged and the records were intact. He set his party to work on the laborious task of correlating all messages in and out of Tarsis for a period of six months prior to the M'starn takeover. As he reflected as he left the party to their exceptionally boring task, a leader should not allow himself to be blunted by tedious detail; instead he should blunt his ambitious subordinates.

  * * *

  It was a weary subordinate who eventually reported. "I think I may have a clue," he said. "I've got about a dozen messages which were not logged, and hence officially not recorded."

  "If they weren't recorded, how come you found them?" asked a puzzled Haruhiko.

  "Not too difficult," came the superior reply. "No message log was entered, but time spent on the Deimos repeater is automatically recorded there. So all I had to do was to get the computer to subtract the logged messages from the total."

  "Well done!" Haruhiko smiled, then he added, "and it took you this long to do that?"

  "I didn't actually think about it straight away," came the slightly sheepish reply.

  "But you got there," Haruhiko nodded. "And where do these messages go?"

  "Most to C4," came the reply, "and some to H5."

  "H5?" Haruhiko said thoughtfully. "The Hellas transport centre. You know what I think?"

  "No, sir."

  "I think we may have found out why Enrico Baromei spent so much time there."

  "But why him? It could have been anyone!"

  "The messages were initiated here?" Haruhiko asked.

  "Well, yes, but I don't see . . ."

  "They weren't standard signals," Haruhiko explained, "which means anyone with regular signals work somewhere else is probably excluded. Now, Enrico used to spend quite a bit of time hanging around that centre, and the fact that Enrico could come and go more or less as he liked after the occupation makes me feel his role was more significant than we think."

  "With all due respect, sir, that's hardly proof."

  "Of course it isn't," Haruhiko laughed, "but it's somewhere to start looking. Look, I want you to do a couple of things for me."

  "Sir?"

  "Get me a bat for tomorrow morning. I'm going to check out Chryse four. Also, get a link to Misako for me as soon as either Phobos or Deimos is above."

  "Misako?"

  "Councillor Shibatu. You do know where the Council centre is?"

  "Oh yes sir. Sorry sir. Right away sir."

  "I'm sorry," Haruhiko smiled reassuringly. "I should have been more explicit. You've been doing a good job."

  "Thank you sir," came the reply, with genuine pleasure.

  * * *

  At first sight, the inspection of Chryse four was disappointing. "I'm sorry sir, but at the times you mention, this centre was closed and locked. Security shows no sign of forced entry, so you must be mistaken"

  "I am not mistaken," Haruhiko replied sternly. "Don't mess around with me."

  "The doors were locked," came the exasperated reply, then came the slightly scornful suggestion, "Perhaps you've got the wrong time zone?"

  "I've got the Mars central time," Haruhiko said angrily, "as recorded by the Deimos translator. As I see it, there are only three possibilities. Either the Deimos system can't keep proper time, you are mistaken, or you are being deliberately obstructive. Perhaps you might illuminate me as to which?"

  "Sir, I –"

  "Get the doors open, get the records searched properly, and get a signals engineer here as quickly as possible. I want to check out systems interference."

  "Yes sir!" came the subdued reply.

  * * *

  Once again, the records showed no trace of activity at the specified times, and the records showed no signs of having been tampered with.

  "All of which is no surprise to me at all," Haruhiko snorted. "Keep looking."

  "Sir, you're on the wrong track," came an irritated reply. "In fact, over one thirty-five day period when four long messages were supposed to have come through here, the centre was closed down. There was no activity at all over that period. You must be mistaken."

  "I don't think so," Haruhiko replied firmly.

  "Look here," the older signals manager said harshly, "The centre was closed down. You can feel what you like, but it won't alter anything. I suggest you go back to your desk and stop trying to make out you know things you obviously don't."

  "There's a record of something coming in," Haruhiko replied. "I want to know where to."

  "Then your record's wrong," the manager shrugged. "Come on men. We're packing it in. Nothing ever went out of here in that period."

  "Sir, that may not be –" a young engineer started.

  "Quiet, you!"

  "No, let him speak!" Haruhiko ordered.

  "He's got nothing to say," the manager scowled.

  "I'll be the judge of that, and if you interfere once more you can jo
in the collaborators planting cacti at Isidis. Now," he added more encouragingly as he turned to the young engineer, "what is it?"

  "During this period when the centre was supposed to be shut down there was significant power consumption at the times you mentioned."

  "Nonsense!" the manager scowled. "Those meters aren't very accurate."

  "Sergeant!" Haruhiko called, and when the soldier appeared, he pointed at the manager, "Arrest this man! I want to interrogate him later, but in the meantime I want to know everything about him."

  "You can't do that," the manager protested. "What's the charge?"

  "I can," Haruhiko assured him. "Rather appropriately, this planet's still under martial law. The charge is obstruction of a military investigation, but I expect it will end up as an accessory to treason."

  "Treason?" came the frightened reply.

  "Yes, and I would think very carefully about making a full and free statement before I see you next," Haruhiko warned. "At the moment, I rather suspect you were bribed to keep quiet about a few private signals, which you thought to be harmless enough. Well, it wasn't! If you keep quiet, you're an accessory to what those signals were about, and that's treason. There's only one punishment for treason on Mars, and that's evacuation. Think about it! Now," Haruhiko said, turning back to the young engineer as the manager was taken away, "is there anything more?"

  "Just one thing," the engineer said quickly, as if he were intent on making a good impression. "The time of this third message, or just before it, there was an emergency call-out for a repair robot to free up the dish. It appears that sand damage had frozen it. I wouldn't think there would be any emergency call-out if the centre was non-operational."

  "Neither would I," Haruhiko smiled. "Who called out the robot?"

  "A George Marshall. Here's his address, sir."

  "Good work," Haruhiko said approvingly. "Now, maybe, we'll get somewhere."

  * * *

  A promise is a promise, Haruhiko thought, even if it seemed a frightful waste of time. A preliminary check on George Marshall indicated that this man was not to be feared. Still, he had promised Misako that he would do nothing without checking in with either her or Lawrence Baxter. It was a good move to have the second contact too, Haruhiko wryly thought, because it seemed Misako was determined to thwart him by not being available. At least Baxter's Comscreen was activating.

  "Hello, Lawrence," Haruhiko smiled, "I was thinking Misako was determined to see that I was kept safely in mothballs."

  "Very sensible of her too."

  "Come off it, Lawrence. All I'm going to do is check out this Marshall character. He's about as harmless as they come."

  "That's exactly where you're wrong. The man could be highly dangerous."

  "Have you seen his record?"

  "No, and neither have you."

  "Hey! Come off it! I sent it to you!"

  "You sent me George Marshall's records from Earth," Baxter said, "but your man is not the George Marshall of those records. The real George Marshall died back on Earth, no more than four days before he emigrated."

  "That doesn't make sense!" Haruhiko snorted.

  "It does when you consider that someone took George Marshall's identity, presented himself as George Marshall to the Earth space centre, presented documents fully consistent with George Marshall, then came to Mars. Prior to doing this, he had to be sure the real George Marshall wouldn't try to claim his booking, so he had him killed."

  "Then maybe this lead's real," Haruhiko said enthusiastically. "Maybe –"

  "The man's extremely dangerous," Baxter warned. "I want you to leave it until you have back-up."

  "You can't back me up. You can't just break into someone's rooms. It's against the law."

  "Neither can you," came the simple reply. "The law applies to you as well."

  "Nobody'll know," Haruhiko shrugged.

  "There's nothing you can find you can use as evidence," Baxter warned.

  "I'll get some clues, though," Haruhiko grinned. "Look, it's not that dangerous. I'll wait until he's out."

  "If you insist," Baxter shook his head in despair. "Look, I'll tell you what. If you must get in there, find something he's touched, scan a fingerprint with that device I gave you, transmit it back here, then get out, straight away."

  "What good'll that do?"

  "We'll find out who he really is," Baxter said, almost in exasperation, "or failing that, we'll know he's not George Marshall. Proof that he's an illegal would be justification for a proper search."

  "You'll get your prints," Haruhiko promised.

  "And you'll leave immediately afterwards?"

  "OK!"

  "Promise!"

  "God, you're as bad as Misako!"

  "Promise!"

  "All right. I promise," came the reluctant reply.

  * * *

  Entry to the room had been relatively easy for Haruhiko, and it took no time to find a suitable print. This was quickly scanned, and sent through the Comnet to Baxter's designated computer system. As Haruhiko was about to leave, he looked around the room again. A very ordinary room, but in the far corner was a steel desk. All the drawers were locked, but Haruhiko was reasonably convinced they could be opened. Of course, he had promised he would leave straight away, so . . . But this would only take a few minutes. What harm could there be in that? Of course Baxter was right. The desk could wait until the scans gave enough evidence for a proper Justice search. He should get out, just as he'd promised. But the desk was tempting. What the hell, he could just try one drawer.

  The lock was more difficult than he thought, and when the drawer was finally open, it was a disappointment. There were a lot of personal financial documents, far more complex than would be expected for the real George Marshall. Unfortunately, the documents gave him no real idea as to who the mystery man was. Perhaps he should try another drawer.

  The drawer he tried next was one of the two double-locked drawers at the bottom of the desk. This was quite difficult, but eventually he was successful. Again, the drawer was disappointing. The drawer contained what was essentially an intelligence survey of Mars, and it confirmed Haruhiko's impression of what this man was doing, but it told him almost nothing about who the man was. It was just as he was about to give up, he flipped through one of the books, and thought he noticed something on the front flyleaf. He checked, and there it was, almost totally erased but still visible. A GenCorp library seal. He quickly put the book back in the drawer, closed the drawer, and was about to get up.

  "Finished, are we?"

  Haruhiko jumped, then spun around to see a man standing a meter inside the door.

  "Who are you?" Haruhiko asked.

  "I could ask the same of you," the man who was nominally George Marshall said dryly, "but I won't, because I really don't care in the least."

  The man raised his right hand, which contained a rather odd looking pistol.

  Haruhiko looked nervously at the pistol. "Look, I can explain –"

  "Don't worry," the man said. "Don't trouble yourself. I won't believe you anyway."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Kill you," the man said off-handedly. "What else?"

  Haruhiko glanced at a table between himself and the man. There was a moderately large knife there, and in the instant Haruhiko realized the man meant what he said, he launched himself at the table. His plan was to overturn the steel table and use it as a shield, and risk everything on being able to throw the knife. Even as he launched himself, he knew he had a low chance of success, but he had hardly moved when he felt something hit him in the cheek. He fell to the table, and his muscles somehow seemed to turn to jelly.

  "Poor move," the man commented, "not that you had any good ones. For what it's worth, you are dead. Shortly, your functions will stop, then I shall take your body out into the desert. You will be found in a pressure suit with a broken face visor, and your body will have evacuated. Nobody'll notice the small mark on your cheek, and the poison'll have
gone. Goodbye."

  Haruhiko made one last effort for the knife, but his hand refused to rise. He pulled as hard as he could, but nothing happened. His eyes felt so heavy, and the table was not even in focus. A searing pain passed down his neck, his eyes felt like bursting, and he closed them for relief. Then he could not open them. He could not support his weight, he could not feel the floor.

  Chapter 12

  Misako Shibatu paced two times across the room. The status of this meeting was unclear, but nowhere nearly as unclear as to where it would lead. The room was a cleared warehouse, with bare concrete floor and three sparse steel walls. The fourth wall was solid concrete, and as some wit had commented in front of the accused when he had been forcefully required to sit on one of the two chairs, it would make a good wall for a firing squad once he was found guilty. Groza had already made some comment about the end of innocence. This was grossly unfair. She did not want these proceedings: she wanted the matter to go before the court, but Baxter had over-ruled her. According to Baxter, if she took this case directly to a court, the judge would probably be bribed, or if not the judge, certainly a jury. The best method to ensure that Haruhiko's murderer received justice was to put the accused before a military tribunal. As supreme commander of the revolution, her position at the head of the tribunal was quite appropriate. The trouble was, she was not the right person. She had no idea what to do next, which was why she had got up and begun pacing, while requiring the accused to remain seated.