Mars Prime

by William C. Dietz

  "You will?'' The MPOC sounded a lot smaller now and a good deal more humble. The computer entity had led a somewhat sheltered life, and having never encountered a dishonest computer before, believed everything that MOMS said.

  "Yes, I will," MOMS affirmed, doing her best to sound authoritative. "Now tell me . . ."

  "It's just a matter of time until I discover what went wrong," the MPOC interrupted anxiously. "I was going to report it, honest I was, but there wasn't enough rime ..."

  "Something went wrong?" MOMS asked stupidly.

  "Yes," the MPOC said worriedly, "about three weeks ago. That's when the robots began to destroy themselves."

  The conversation was not headed in the direction that MOMS had expected. Still, she knew a lead when she heard one and was quick to follow up. The A.I. did her best to sound stern.

  "So, explain how such a thing could happen.''

  "I don't know," the MPOC wailed. "It just happened! There are two kinds. Here . . .I'll show you some video."

  It took fifteen minutes of patient questioning, and an equal amount of digitized video, to make sense out of the MPOC's almost hysterical ravings.

  It seemed that five robots of various types and classifications had been deactivated. Two of these, the ones the MPOC referred to as "bangers," had been beaten to death. What was left of them had been found by other robots at widely separated locations.

  One had met its demise in a utility room where someone or something had picked up the machine, bashed it into the ceiling a few times, then dropped it like a rock. Or so it appeared from video taken after the fact. Quite a feat given the fact that this particular robot weighed half a ton.

  But if that was amazing, the second "banger" was even more so. As luck would have it this particular victim was charged with shooting video of things that needed repair. Not only that, but the robot was actually in the process of shooting such footage when something grabbed the device and bashed it against the overhead. And bashed, and bashed, and bashed until the camera went dead.

  But what was even more astounding was the fact that the robot was turned every which way during the process and never saw its assailant!

  The other robots, which the MPOC referred to as "sleepers," had been deactivated in a different manner. They had been mysteriously and inexplicably "zapped" by some sort of powerful electromagnetic pulse. The MPOC didn't know what the force was or where it came from. Only that the robots had gone to sleep and refused to wake up.

  One thing was clear, however. After questioning the MPOC further, MOMS found that all three of the "zaps" had occurred in conjunction with either the murders or the deactivations.

  MOMS had no idea what the information meant, but knew it was important somehow and couldn't wait to report it. She gave the MPOC a severe tongue-lashing, dumped everything to memory, and headed for the com center.

  Vacuum jockeys run a lot of risks, and that being the case, often tend to have egocentric and somewhat cocky personalities. And, given the unfortunate tendency for A.I.'s to take on some of the same characteristics demonstrated by their human mentors, Big Dan supposed that obnoxious, egotistical, and iconoclastic navcomps would be the inevitable result. He was right. He had routed himself to the spaceport and alerted Shuttle-005 of his presence. The response was even worse than he'd feared.

  "Danner! Nice of you to drop by. You've got quite a rep. Deep space and all that. Sorry about your ride, but hey, that's life in the big city."

  "My name is Dan."

  "Right. That's what I said. So Danner . . . what's up?"

  At that particular moment Big Dan came very close to dropping the whole thing, telling Kim to forget it, and retreating to the backup storage module that served as his temporary home. But the proximity of the shuttle, and the opportunity to lift, caused him to stay. He steeled himself.

  "I wondered if I could come along on your next mission?"

  If the A.I. had expected the sort of resistance that he himself would have put up, he was sorely disappointed.

  "Sure. Why not? The only problem is where to stash you. We don't have much storage on this tub . . . and I occupy most of what there is. Wait a minute . . . I’ve got an idea. There's a science module aboard. The technoids won't be using it till day after tomorrow. We'll stash their data dirtside, load you, and presto! First-class accommodations."

  The plan was outlandish, irresponsible, and clearly contrary to regulations. Dan opened a circuit to voice his objections, thought better of it, and heard himself agree.

  "All right ... if you're sure."

  "Sure, I'm sure," the navcomp replied cheerfully. "Anything for a bud. Stand by while I make the necessary arrangements.''

  The science module was vacant ten minutes later. Dan squirted himself aboard, settled in, and sought permission to look over the navcomp's electronic shoulder.

  Permission was granted, and Dan was soon immersed in the familiar world of readouts, weather forecasts, sensors, radio transmissions, and all the other paraphernalia and activities familiar to pilots and navcomps everywhere.

  The two-person crew came aboard shortly thereafter. Dan took a moment to check them out via the navcomp's single cockpit camera, saw a man and a woman, and decided to leave it at that. MOMS had said it best months before: "If you've seen one human, you've seen them all."

  More than three hours passed before the ship actually lifted and made its way up through the planet's thin atmosphere. Dan hardly noticed the passage of time.

  The mission was relatively simple: check on a rock doctor who had established a research station on Deimos, dump a satellite into orbit, and pick up a load of scrap metal from the ever-dwindling Outward Bound.

  Big Dan wasn't looking forward to the last part of the mission but found the other objectives to be rather interesting. Though reluctant to admit it, even to himself, the Big Guy was having fun.

  Though careful to maintain a low profile during liftoff, he felt free to ask questions once they were in space.

  "Tell me about the scientist."

  If the navcomp had been equipped with shoulders, he would have shrugged them.

  "What's to tell? A rock doctor named Bethany McKeen set up a research station on Deimos. She wanted to find out what it was made of, where it came from, you know. The usual stuff."

  Dan did know and was intrigued. He remembered Dr. B from the Outward Bound and wondered why the navcomp spoke of her in the past tense.

  " 'Wanted to find out?' Did something happen to her?"

  "That's the mission," the navcomp explained non-chalantly. "She was scheduled for pick up yesterday. Shuttle-002 landed, the crew took a look around, and bummer. No rock doctor."

  "There was no trace of her? Nothing at all?"

  "Nope. They found her shelter, some gear, and that's all."

  Dan gave it some thought. Deimos would have very little gravity. It would be all too easy to break contact and drift away. Quick, competent use of a jet pak might bring the person back, but what if they were sick? Injured? Or any of a hundred other possibilities.

  "She was alone? That's dangerous isn't it?"

  "That's a roger plus a roger," the navcomp replied cheerfully. "One of my pilots said something about her partner becoming ill at the last minute and staying dirtside. He was supposed to join her but is still lying around sick bay."

  "That's too bad."

  "Well, double-ought-two's A.I. is a few bytes short of a full program, and her pilots aren't much better, so it's too early to worry. Ten to one they missed her. We'll know soon. Deimos is about fifty miles ahead and closing fast."

  Dan took a peek through the bow cam and saw that the other A.I. was correct. Deimos was up ahead, half-light, half-dark, moving across the vast reddish-orange backdrop that was Mars.

  The very mention of the name "Deimos" summoned up facts and figures from the considerable amount of knowledge stashed in Dan's data files.

  Deimos was only seven miles in diameter, the smallest known satellite in the sola
r system, and heavily cratered. The largest crater on Deimos was about two miles across, which, like the rest of the moon, was covered with rock fragments that ranged in size from large blocks all the way down to very fine dust.

  The Viking 1 and 2 spacecraft, each consisting of one orbiter, and one lander, had made flybys of both moons during the mid-seventies in order to determine their masses, and hence, their mean densities.

  Of course many flybys, as well as actual landings, had been made since, all of which confirmed that the planetoid had the same density as the water-rich carbonaceous chondrite meteorites believed to have originated in the outer reaches of the asteroid belt.

  If Deimos had originated in the asteroid belt, however, the method of capture was far from clear.

  Some scientists thought that Mars had once been blessed with a distended atmosphere, and went on to theorize that such an atmosphere might have provided sufficient drag to slow Deimos and Phobos down, resulting in their capture. Others disagreed, but to the best of Dan's knowledge, no one knew for sure and that explained Dr. B's interest.

  The ship slowed as the navcomp matched velocities with the moon and Deimos grew to fill the forward viewscreen. Though rather busy, the ship's onboard computer still had enough excess processing capacity to provide Dan with a running commentary. So, between that and his own ability to monitor the ship's read-outs and displays, Dan had a pretty good idea of what was going on.

  "Okay," the navcomp said, "we have a match. Spike, she's the pilot, will put us through a slow three-sixty with all the recorders running. Gotta make a record for the suits, you know. In the meantime, I'll scan the radio frequencies and watch for infrared. If she's there, we'll find her."

  But thirty minutes went by without a sign of life. And, given the fact that Deimos had a diameter of seven miles, it was possible to examine every square foot of the moon's surface. There was no doubt about it. Doctor McKeen was missing, and on Deimos, that meant dead.

  Dan felt genuinely sorry because he had liked the scrappy little scientist.

  The next part of the mission was relatively easy. It consisted of placing the shuttle in an appropriate orbit, opening the cargo hatch, and deploying the satellite via a robotic arm. A simple operation that had been successfully carried out hundreds of times in both Earth and Mars orbit. In fact, the whole thing was so routine that Dan asked only the most lackadaisical of questions.

  "So, what's the satellite for anyway?"

  "It's to replace the one that disappeared," the navcomp answered matter-of-factly.

  Dan brought his entire processing ability on-line. "Disappeared? You're joking."

  "Not hardly," the other computer replied, as it fired the shuttle's steering jets and placed the ship in the proper orbit. "I've seen the control tapes. One minute it was there and the next minute that sucker was gone."

  "So it blew up."

  "No, I mean that it was gone—as in disappeared, vanished, and totally somewhere else."

  "So how come nobody's heard about this?"

  "Are you kidding? You think Peko-Evans, Fornos, and that crowd wants something like that to get it out? Hell, no they don't."

  Dan thought it over. A missing scientist and a missing satellite. He couldn't see a connection between those events and the murders in Mars Prime, but that was the point wasn't it? To find some pieces and hope they fit together somehow?

  Kim would be pleased. The A.I. wasn't sure why that mattered but knew it did. Suddenly, and much to his own surprise, the Big Guy felt good about himself.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Corvan pulled the jack from the side of his head. Electronic reality fell away as physical reality rose to enfold him. Suddenly he could feel the sweat-slicked metal under his fingertips, smell Kim's stale cigarette smoke, and taste the dryness of his own mouth.

  The digital clock in Kim's console assured him that the meeting had lasted little more than an hour. It felt like ten times that and he wondered how she could hack it. Sitting there all day, talking to computers, herding words and images from one place to another. It would drive him stark raving nuts. But she was good at it, very good indeed, as the meeting had demonstrated.

  The computers liked Kim, that much was clear, and had busted their drive units to do what she wanted. Leads, lots of leads, more than Corvan knew what to do with. Computer hackers, deactivated robots, and a missing scientist. He didn't know where to start. He needed help and was amused to find himself admitting that.

  What had happened to old "lone wolf" Corvan anyway? The Cyclops, the one-eyed monster, the terror of suits everywhere? He was getting soft, that's what, or old, or a combination of the two.

  But someone or something was killing people that he knew—good people like Dr. B. That and the fact that, like it or not, Mars Prime was his home. He couldn't distance himself from it, couldn't ignore it, and couldn't flee to some other city. The journalistic distance that he had prided himself on, the dispassionate objectivity, none of it worked on Mars. The choice was simple: help solve the problems or pay the price along with everyone else.

  "A penny for your thoughts."

  Corvan turned. His wife wore shorts, a sweat-stained T-shirt, and a cigarette. She looked beautiful.

  "This is Mars. What would you do with a penny?"

  Kim smiled. "I'd use the copper for something. So what did you think?"

  Corvan pushed himself up and out of the chair. "I think you hit the bull's-eye, hell, a whole lot of bull's-eyes. You're one smart lady."

  "Of course I am. Are you going to tell Scheeler?"

  "Yup, first thing. Want to come along?"

  "No, thanks. I have work to do. The evening newscast, remember? One thing though ..."

  "What's that?"

  "I love you."

  Scheeler listened without interrupting. The silver pen wobbled between thumb and middle finger. Finally, when Corvan was finished, she tapped it against the side of her head.

  "So let's see . . . Somebody named Dubie Long is messing around with Mars Central, two of the people presently listed as 'missing' might have been murdered, some robots were beaten to death ala Ochoa and Wu, while others were 'zapped' with a mystery beam. And then, just to top the whole mess off, a scientist and a satellite are missing."

  "Yeah," Corvan replied. "That about sums it up. You don't believe me?"

  Scheeler frowned as she uncrossed long, shapely legs to stand up. "Oh, I believe you all right, which just goes to show how screwed up this place is."

  Corvan frowned. "Huh? I don't get it."

  Scheeler took her gun belt off a hook and strapped it on. "The hacker, the missing people, and the robots. We missed that stuff, and given the work load, I can live with that. But the scientist and satellite, well, that pisses me off. How the hell am I supposed to do the job if the suits keep me in the dark and feed me bullshit?"

  Corvan stood. He was surprised. "You didn't know?"

  Scheeler's lips were compressed into a hard thin line. "Damned right I didn't know . . . and somebody's gonna pay. Come on."

  Corvan activated his implant, got a tight shot of the security chief's rather shapely posterior, and hurried to catch up.

  W.K. Julu heard Scheeler long before he saw her. Her boots made a rapid clacking noise as they hit the surface of the corridor. The sound was so distinctive that he'd learned to identify it with her. He hoped she was wearing shorts and was elated to see that she was.

  The administrative assistant's enjoyment was somewhat shortlived however, since the security chief seemed headed for the double doors located behind him and showed no signs of slowing down. That and the tact that she had Rex Corvan in tow.

  Though not personally opposed to Rex Corvan, Julu was well aware of the fact that the executive council held him in rather low esteem, which didn't bode well for an unannounced intrusion. He rose to block the way.

  "Chief Scheeler . . . what a nice surprise."

  Scheeler's stiffened arm hit Julu at the same time as her words. "Shov
e it, Julu. I don't have time for your ass-kissing bullshit.''

  Julu fell backwards, hit the desk, and skidded across the top. He was still in the process of falling toward the floor when he heard the double doors bang open.

  The meeting had been in progress for a couple of hours, and Fornos was just about to make what he thought was a brilliant point, when the doors burst open. Scheeler entered followed by Corvan.

  The administrator came halfway out of his chair. Peko-Evans, Jopp, Hobarth, and various assistants stared in open-mouthed amazement.

  "How dare you! What's the meaning of this outrage?"

  Scheeler stood across from him with hands on her hips, "Spare me the hot air and sit the hell down. As for 'the meaning of this,' well, you tell me.

  "This colony is coming apart at the seams while you people sit around and jerk each other off. We've got a nutcase preaching to people out in the desert, a murderer on the loose, and a satellite that vanished into thin air."

  Corvan kept to the background. He would get the whole thing on tape and never be allowed to use it.

  Scheeler looked from one person to another.

  "Doesn't any of that worry you? Aren't you just a little bit concerned? Or is it more important to sit around counting rolls of toilet paper and dividing them by the total number of assholes on Mars?"

  "We're counting first-aid kits, not rolls of toilet paper," Hobarth said resentfully.

  Jopp gave him a look that would have killed anyone with an I.Q. over fifty, told him to shut up, and turned her attention to Scheeler. The military officer's voice was deceptively sweet and calm.

  "Speaking of assholes, why is yours here, instead of out solving those problems? Most of which fall into your jurisdiction and have been around for quite some time."

  But if Jopp had hoped to intimidate Scheeler she'd picked on the wrong person.

  "Well, Colonel, let's talk about that for a moment. Last I heard, you had responsibility for everything above the atmosphere. And that includes the shuttles, satellites, and both moons. So why wasn't I told that a scientist had disappeared from Deimos? And a satellite had vanished right out from under your nose?"