by Mel Odom
Despite the ten meter high walls, iron oxide dust swirled around me the whole time I worked. If I required respiration, I would have suffocated within minutes as much from my lungs filling with the particulate matter as from the lack of oxygen. The wind was also a constant factor, requiring that all crates were secured at all times.
Getting Khloe offloaded and reloaded took forty-six hours of constant work. During that time I downloaded more and more of the local culture that I could, putting together a better picture of Gullivar colony and the outlying colonies.
Starport Authorities came by to question Captain Angstrom, but he said nothing of me or what I had done to keep the ship free of the space jumpers. According to his official statement, the space jumpers had missed us by centimeters and Khloe had eluded them. Since matching up objects in space, especially when neither of them was locked into a particular orbit pattern like a real or artificial satellite, the story was believable.
However, I recognized that the senior investigator had some doubts. He even insisted on a physical inspection of Khloe’s hull, and he had paused at the fresh scuff marks where bullets had bounced from her. Angstrom had insisted that he didn’t know what the marks were from, and furthermore that he had seen many strange scars left by micro-meteorites.
The man could lie extremely well. I did not catch so much as a twitch in his blood pressure or flaring in his pupils to indicate the presence of a falsehood.
Not entirely satisfied, the Starport Authority team left. I had the impression that if they could find time in their busy schedule, the senior officer wanted to return for further questioning.
Clad in an envirosuit, Angstrom walked over to me and put his face shield against my face. I could read his lips as well as feel the vibration through his helmet.
“That guy’s not happy with what he sees.”
I nodded understanding.
“You’re going to be better off if we’re gone—and you’ve gotten out of here—before he returns.”
I nodded again.
“Do you have a way to get through Starport Authority? Because if you need it, I can arrange a temporary messenger pass to get you into Gullivar.”
I accessed his suit’s frequency to respond. “If you do something like that, you will put yourself and your ship at risk.”
“Only if you get caught doing something highly illegal.”
Angstrom waited long enough for me to respond. I didn’t.
“Whatever you’ve got planned, I don’t think you’re going to get caught at it until I have enough distance between me and this planet. And if you do get caught, I don’t think blaming whoever brought you here is even going to show up on the radar. All the other trouble you cause is going to be too big.”
“He’s got a lot of faith in you,” Shelly said with a smirk. “Of one kind or another. And he doesn’t even really know you.”
“Thank you, Captain, but your involvement will not be necessary. I do not wish to put you or the crew at any further risk. I have already got a way through Starport Authority.”
The captain grunted in acknowledgement and I judged that he was not surprised. “If I don’t see you again, I wish you luck in whatever you’re doing.”
“Thank you.”
Angstrom pulled his head back from mine, turned, and walked away. He opened a comm frequency and started negotiations for a shipment of Martian silicate that was used in Earth-based art supplies. Several art galleries in New Rio de Janeiro had developed new lines that were currently making small fortunes for artists that had learned to work in the medium. The profit potential for shippers wasn’t great enough to interest the corporate cargo lines, but boutique businesses like the galleries in New Rio helped keep independents like Khloe operating in the black.
I finished storing the last of the goods making the trip back to the Moon, and to Challenger Planetoid, then headed off without saying goodbye. As I went, I downloaded the new e-docs that changed my identification from Frank 5DE7CE to…
Chapter Seven
Norris 1JA5NU?”
I stepped forward to the security gate where three heavily armed guards lounged around scanware. They wore the black coveralls of Starport Authority and looked like a seasoned crew. “I am Norris 1JA5NU.”
The man at the starport sec board searched the documents with a practiced eye. He was in his late forties and Hispanic with a full face and cropped salt and pepper hair. Sergeant chevrons glinted in blue metal against his collar. Even though his gaze was on the screen, I knew he had not fully removed his attention from me.
“Says here you’re a trade goods scout for Lono Ag.” He looked up at me. “That right?”
“Yes.”
He scanned my cargo jumpsuit. “You don’t much look like a trade goods scout.”
“I was contracted out as a cargo labor unit to defray my travel cost. I ate no meals. I breathed no oxygen. I drank no water. I made no waste products that had to be accounted for.”
“And when you got here, you unloaded crates.”
I nodded.
The other two security guards grinned knowingly. The taller one muttered, “Try doing that to a human.”
The older man raised his voice in irritation. “Knock it off, Mullins. Bioroids have got rights too, and I’m not going to let you demean a unit capable of understanding mockery.”
“I take no offense,” I said.
The man looked at me with a level gaze. “I do. I worked security with a Rocky unit that gave his life to protect me.” He hiked up his pants leg to reveal a cybernetic leg. “Cost me a leg, but I wouldn’t have made it through without him.”
Rocky units were security units designed to protect people and property. They were a few steps below my capabilities, not having the more complete understanding of humans that I did.
The sergeant looked meaningfully at his tall subordinate. “And I said he because Rocky 2ST3AL was more man than a lot of you uniformed wannabes have ever thought about being.”
“Sarge.” Mullins shifted, his face darkening with anger and embarrassment. “You can’t talk to me like—”
“Stow it.” Without expression, the sergeant faced the bigger man. “One more word, Mullins, and you’re on cavity search for a month. Scrubbing anuses for trace evidence of contraband.”
“Right, Sarge.” Mullins looked away from his superior and me.
The sergeant returned his attention to me. “What’s Lono Ag?”
I knew he had the information in front of him, but he wanted to hear it from me. “Lono Ag, Inc. is a Hawaiian megacorp dedicated to providing fresh foods on Earth, the Moon, and Mars.” I turned up a palm and juiced a holo ad that ran familiar advertising footage of the main offices on Oahu. Most of the footage showed the pineapple fields there, which was easily Lono’s most recognized product. The mascot, an animated Lono in traditional dress, walked among the fields. “From a grass roots company in Oahu, Lono gradually bought up Dole Pineapple, BerryFields in Colombia, and several other…”
The sergeant held up a hand. “Enough. What is your job here?”
“My assignment is to tour local producers and begin preliminary negotiations concerning adoption and labeling of products consisting of soybeans, melons, and berries, as well as to investigate the potential for establishing canneries.”
“You’re here to cannibalize local growers, you mean?” The woman asking the question stood behind me. She was tall and thin, dressed in a fantasy bikini outfit based on a character in a Planet Stories short novel that left most of her body exposed. Science fiction and fantasy element clothing styles remained popular on Mars. I noted that the attention of the two younger sec officers was locked on the woman. Her hair was dark black and hung past her shoulders. Her eyes were light purple, obviously modded because no color like that existed naturally in human DNA.
“Lono Ag is not here to cannibalize anyone,” I replied evenly. I turned to face her because that was more acceptable to humans. With my 360-degree vision, I h
ad no problem seeing her. “We are here to revitalize dwindling gene pools and hopefully build a better business model between Earth and Mars.”
The argument, as well as the party line I had responded with, was from several sheet articles I had read in preparation for the secondary identity Rachel Beckman had arranged for me when I reached Gullivar colony. As a trade goods scout, I could go many places without drawing too much attention. Especially since I was traveling alone. Disguising an entourage would have been much more difficult.
“Not only that, but as a bioroid I am incapable of negotiating an arrangement that will hurt a human,” I continued. “I am here for the betterment of the ag business. Given present parameters, with the degradation of gene pools for vegetables and fruits—”
“A degradation which has been caused by Earth ag-corps choosing not to sell seeds without licensing arrangements, or seed crop that doesn’t replicate past one growing cycle. You people manufacture failure as much as you do crops.”
“Ag-corps are entitled to safeguard their licenses. Creation of new seed stock genegineered for specific environments is costly. Every licensed seed stock comes with a guarantee of success. You will not find that out in the wild, and on Mars, you won’t find that at all.”
“That’s a lie you sold to several peoples in Africa, peoples who were not educated enough to protect themselves. I was working in Cape Town when BountifulGene Corp created the famines there six years ago. The tribes seeded crops that BountifulGene promised would deliver a greater and healthier crop than they’d ever had before. That crop got loose from the ag domes where they were being grown and mutated with the local plant life, which in turn contracted a disease that could not be pinned on Persephone Futures, Inc., a rival corp. Those people faced starvation. I watched malnourished children die.” Her voice broke at the last.
I remembered the occurrence. It had been a dreadful thing. Thousands had perished before arrangements had been made by the World Health Organization, which was almost as malnourished as famine survivors. According to the media, the resultant death toll was a “perfect storm” of bad events. Gene-modified plants did not have the resiliency of natural species allowed to thrive without interference. Bananas, in their original incarnation, had disappeared in much the same fashion, bred down to a basic design that could no longer adapt to changing environment and infections.
“She’s right,” Shelly said at my side. “Your job cover isn’t exactly awe-inducing. Or even respectable.”
I knew that, but that was the price paid for mobility. Norris 1JA5NU wasn’t going to be welcomed by many.
“Norris.”
I turned to face the sergeant. “Yes?”
“Maybe it would be better if you kept moving along.” The sergeant cleared my e-visa. “I don’t have anything against bioroids, but ag-corps are a different thing. You’d get more respect as a dockworker.” He shrugged. “Except from Human First, who still insist it would be better to risk flesh and blood in envirosuits than put you guys out there.”
“I understand, Sergeant. Thank you for your time.” I passed through the sec gate and stepped into my life on Mars.
* * *
As I walked through the starport, images of other Martian starports swirled through my thoughts. I believed that some of them came from vid, perhaps all of them, but I wasn’t sure. Some of them seemed too real, too immediate. I couldn’t help but wonder if Simon Blake had walked through Gullivar at some point. The colony was definitely old enough for him to have been here, but only just.
Several of the humans and clones around me, as well as a few of the bioroids, wore Martian dress in the manner of science fiction novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline, Leigh Brackett, and others. People, bioroids, and clones filled shops, bars, and eateries on the lower level cantina, standing alongside others dressed in the more familiar currently popular film noir and zoot suits I had seen in New Angeles and on the Moon.
Most humans had a desire to be someone else, if only for a short time, while out amongst the public. On Mars, at least in Gullivar on the day I was in the starport, the theme tended more to the science fiction realm. Several gene-modded pets that ran the gamut of tentacled things to small apes with bleached white fur and eight-legged mammals covered in lizard skin whined and snarled and oozed around their masters. The licenses for such pets were exorbitant because resources were dear on Mars.
I continued along the upper deck, heading for the exit to public transportation. As I wound through the humans, clones, and bioroids, I watched the Martian princess I had encountered at the checkpoint stride toward me. I thought another encounter was in the offing and searched for a way to avoid it.
Instead, the woman linked her arm through mine. “Hello, Norris.”
I tried to stop, but she dragged me forward.
“Keep walking. We need to talk.”
I fell into step with her because she didn’t desist pulling. “What do you want?” I checked my 360-degree view to see if I could spot someone else obviously with her. I found no one.
“Rachel sent me.” She turned her head up and gazed at me with those strangely colored purple eyes.
“I do not know who you are talking about.” I was not about to admit to Rachel Beckman’s culpability in my arrival on Mars. She had put her freedom in jeopardy by taking part in my escape from the Moon.
“Sure you do. But let me go first. She said you would be protective.”
I kept walking because I didn’t want to draw attention from the security people.
“You’re going to need an untraceable line of cred while you’re here, Norris.”
That was true, but I’d had some ideas about working off the books somewhere to accrue cred. Such work was available outside of the megapolis, but it was also risky. A bioroid who wanted to occupy himself or herself rather than shut down between shifts could supplement income. Likewise, people who held contracts for bioroids could farm those bioroids out to make more cred as well. “Rachel didn’t mention helping out before you left the Moon because she wasn’t certain she could make it happen,” the woman continued.
I let her talk. Rachel Beckman was not financially solvent at all times. I had seen her background check and her financials were all over the place. She got paid well when she had jobs, but she played expensively as well.
The woman looked at me. “Rachel is a friend. A good friend. If you know her, you know she isn’t always flush with cred, so what she’s making available is a windfall to you, but I don’t know what she’s had to do to provide it.”
Trusting the woman’s words and the sincerity of her tone, plus the fact that while she was touching me I could easily read her bio signature, I nodded. “Tell her that I appreciate the effort, but it is not necessary.”
She looked at me for a moment. “Rachel didn’t tell me why you were here in Gullivar, or why you were on Mars for that matter, and it’s none of my business, but I know that she’s concerned about you.”
“She has no need to be. Please relay that to her.” I did not intend to contact Rachel Beckman again. The minutes-long delay between Earth and Mars communications left too much exposure for interception by other parties that would be looking for me. Since Rachel had been assigned to me on the Moon by the NAPD for my protection, I knew that detectives would be keeping a watch on her. I also knew that close circumspection would be difficult for her to continue some of the jobs she routinely handled. She sometimes crossed over into semi-illegal activity.
“This is your first time on Mars?”
“Yes.” Even though I knew that was the truth about myself, the answer still felt somewhat like a falsehood.
“Then you have plenty to learn and plenty to look out for. Rachel has every right to be worried.”
I thought about that but didn’t have any response. “Please return the cred to Rachel.”
The woman shook her head. “Can’t. This was a one-way ride for the cred. You find a use for it or it’s lost forever.�
� She slipped an unmarked credstick from her black tresses and offered it.
I hesitated.
“Either you take it or I keep it. Whichever it is, Rachel’s out the cred.”
“You could pay it back.”
The woman smiled. “She told me you would probably say that. She said you were the boy scout type. So she told me to tell you that I would keep the cred for myself.”
“Would you do that?”
“Yes.”
“And she’s your friend?”
The woman leaned her head against my shoulder and we drew little attention from the passersby. I assumed that whoever was mildly interested in our relationship figured that one or the other of us was getting paid as an escort.
“That’s funny,” Shelly said as she walked beside us.
“Rachel is my friend,” the woman assured me. “But I left some business on the Moon that means I can’t go back for a while. A good long while.” She sighed and I judged the reaction to be truthful and subconscious.
“Rachel could come here.”
The woman smiled. “Cute, but you don’t know enough about Rachel, evidently. She’s currently being investigated by Mars Security Force for a couple of bodies left out on the red plains.” She shrugged. “If you bury them deeply enough, they don’t show up again. An industrial terraformer plows right over them and scatters the DNA so thoroughly that an ID will never be confirmed.”
I hadn’t known that, and I was curious as to how the woman came by the information. “Was Rachel involved in those matters?”
“Involved, yes. Did she drop those bodies? No. That was…someone else.” She waggled the credstick at me. “So. You or me? I’ve got my eye on a couple outfits that I wouldn’t mind picking up.”
I plucked the credstick from her hand. “When you talk to Rachel again, tell her that I will pay her back as soon as I am able.” I ran the credstick across my palm and read the digital information. The available cred wasn’t prodigious, but Rachel must have dug deeply to provide it. I could pay her back.
