by Allen Steele
“It’s an interesting theory,” she said. “Section Four has already looked into this and hasn’t found anything.” Gazing out the window, she added, “That doesn’t necessarily mean nothing’s there, though. The attempt on the president’s life sounds more like something Starry Messenger might do than the Sons, and if there’s a link between Ul Quorn and Senator Corvo—”
“Then it would mean that Corvo has ties to Starry Messenger.” Curt was mildly surprised that Joan was agreeing with him. Like Gurney, perhaps she was learning to trust him.
“Uh-huh.” Joan shifted a little in her seat, resting her head more comfortably against the pillow. “But it doesn’t explain why someone would try to get us on the way here, unless…”
She closed her eyes and pounded the seat beside her in exasperation. “Damn it, unless they knew we were on our way here to find Ul Quorn. The only way they could have learned that was if—”
“Someone heard us talking about it at Corvo’s house. I’d say it’s pretty obvious who that must have been.” Curt’s eyes turned toward the window again. “Maybe it’s Ul Quorn we’re going after, but as far as I’m concerned, he’s just a step toward taking down Victor Corvo.”
Joan said nothing for a few moments. Snuggled against the pillow, she quietly studied Curt as he watched the red desert rush by. “You’re really not out for justice, are you?” she said at last. “You’re out for revenge.”
“Same thing.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No, they’re not. It may seem that way, but they’re really two different things.” She paused. “I know Corvo killed your parents, and you’re right to want justice for this, but has it ever occurred to you that revenge is someone else’s agenda?”
He looked at her sharply. “Whose?”
“Simon’s, of course. After all, if Corvo hadn’t killed the only two people who could have given him a second chance, his brain would’ve eventually been transplanted into an artificial body much like Otho’s. His loss is nearly as great as your own, but there’s no legal statute covering Corvo’s offense against him. So he has to settle for revenge, and since he can’t do it himself—”
“Simon’s been like a father to me! He’d never, never—”
“Use you?” Joan raised an eyebrow.
“No!”
Joan returned her gaze to the window. For a few minutes she said nothing. “Try to believe me when I tell you this,” she said at last. “Revenge will never give back what you’ve lost, or Simon either.”
Curt didn’t reply. The atmosphere factory was no longer in sight. Now all they could see were boulder fields and low hills, with the occasional arroyo showing where water had once flowed and, perhaps one day, would flow again. What Joan said had made him angry, and watching the passing scenery helped him calm down. He’d always had good control of his temper, and the last person he wanted to blow up at was Joan.
—She’s mistaken, Curtis. The Brain had been quiet throughout all this, but his presence was there all the same. —I’d never manipulate you. You know that.
—Yes, I know, Curt replied, although he was no longer quite so certain.
After a little while, Joan spoke again. “When we find Ul Quorn, we may find Senator Corvo as well. We know he’s on the way here, and if you’re right, there’s some tie between them. But if that happens, I want you to promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?” He tried to keep his voice even.
“Remember what I told you. And also that, if you’ll let me help you, I can legally bring Corvo to justice. You can count on that.”
“I’ll—”
There was a tap at the door, then it slid open and Otho came in. “All right, we have reservations for three in the dining car at seven p.m.,” he said, sitting down beside Curt. “I looked at the menu, and it seems pretty good. A bit heavy on Latino-Asian fusion, though.”
“Goes with aresian culture,” Joan said. “Is that what took you so long? Checking out the menu?”
“No, not entirely. I was also watching the lady who’s watching us.” Otho nodded as Joan’s eyes widened. “Yeah, she’s here—the same woman we spotted on Deimos and again on the shuttle. She was in the dining car when I started to leave, so I made a detour to the observation car before I came back here, and she stayed behind me all the way.”
“Then Corvo has someone else on our trail,” Curt said. “Or Ul Quorn.”
“Or both.” Otho pensively played with his cap. “Funny thing is, she didn’t make any real attempt to hide from me. It was almost as if she wanted me to spot her. If that’s so, maybe she wants to talk to us.”
“No … not us.” Joan looked over at Curt. “You.”
III
The woman approached Curt when and where he expected, in the observation car shortly after dinner. Otho caught a glimpse of her while they were eating, and the fact that she immediately disappeared only confirmed Joan’s suspicion that she was waiting for a chance to speak with Curt alone. So once dinner was over, Curt went back to the observation coach while the others returned to their sleeper, and that was when the woman came to him.
By then, the train was traveling along the northern rim of the Mariner Valley, the setting sun casting amber twilight upon canyons vast enough to hold entire cities. The observation car was divided into two decks: the lower one heated and pressurized for the comfort of terran passengers, the upper level cooler and unpressurized in deference to aresian passengers. Curt decided to head upstairs, so he put on his airmask again before cycling through the revolving-door airlock and climbing up a short flight of spiral stairs. Here, the windows were replaced by a transparent dome running the length of the car, with padded benches facing outward along either side of a central aisle. The arrangement gave the illusion that one was riding on the train’s roof; it was an excellent way to see Mars, and Curt was surprised that the deck was vacant when he arrived.
He wasn’t alone for very long. The first stars were appearing in a sky slowly turning dark when someone walked down the aisle and stopped beside his seat. Looking around, Curt found an aresian woman of exceptional beauty. Mars natives were usually taller than most terrans, but even among her kind her height was unusual: six-six as a guess, perhaps more. The hooded traveler’s cape she wore couldn’t conceal a statuesque, full-breasted figure, and voluminous black hair that curled down around her shoulders and back framed a fine-boned, almost elfin face.
“Good evening,” she said, her voice deep and pleasantly smoky. “Care for a little company?”
“Certainly.” Curt did his best not to stammer as he waved a hand to the empty seat beside him. “I was even hoping that someone might share the view.”
“Thank you.” The woman gracefully alighted upon the bench, crossing her ankles and wrists together while arching her back. “It is a spectacular sight, isn’t it? I’ve seen this many times, and I never get used to it.”
The canyons were quickly vanishing. All that was left was a craggy horizon, with a few buttes still illuminated by the last rays of the sun. “Then you must travel this way quite a bit,” Curt said. “Do you live around here, Señorita…?”
“N’Rala … just N’Rala. And yes, I do. My home is Tharsis, at the Ascraeus tolou. Have you ever been to Mars before, Señor…?”
“Newton. Curt Newton.” Spontaneously, he made the decision to use his real name, not Rab Cain. If she was following him, she must already know who he was; there was no point in hiding behind a false identity. “Yes, once before. But never here.”
“Ah.” N’Rala nodded, smiling a bit as she looked straight ahead. “So what brings you back to Mars? Are you sightseeing, or…?”
She let her question trail off. Curt had the impression that she was playing with him, as if she already knew the truth and was daring him to tell her a lie. “The sights are beautiful,” he replied, never looking away from her, “but besides that, I have business here as well. I’m searching for someone.”
“I see.” Accepting the c
ompliment as her due, N’Rala favored him with a sidelong look beneath a delicately arched eyebrow. “And who may this gentleman be?”
“Ul Quorn.”
“Ah … I see.” Her gaze darkened, her face becoming solemn. “Ul Quorn is well known. The Magician of Mars, he’s sometimes called. Do you know why?”
“I’ve been told it’s because he can make people disappear.”
“That’s correct, but it’s also a measure of the respect my people feel for him. You would do well to avoid having anything to do with him, Señor Newton.” She nodded toward the Valles Marineris, now completely darkened by the coming of night. “The Martian deserts are vast, and it’s said that those who’ve annoyed the Magician have disappeared into them.”
“Still, I’d like to find him, as would my companions.” No sense in trying to hide what she already knew, that he wasn’t traveling by himself. “Do you think you could tell us how we might find him?”
N’Rala idly gazed up through the transparent dome, watching Phobos as it came into view. “Why do you wish to meet Ul Quorn?”
“I want to bring to justice the man who killed my parents. I’m hoping he will help me.” It wasn’t the entire truth, but he’d have to gamble that she wouldn’t already know the rest.
N’Rala didn’t answer immediately. Gazing upon her, Curt had the impression of a regal and enigmatic figure, a Martian princess from one of the old Edgar Rice Burroughs novels he’d absorbed when he was a child. Unlike Joan, there was a sense of mystery about her. Only once before had he ever met a female as enigmatically alluring, and that was the aphrodite girl Simon had forbidden him from ever seeing again …
“I believe I can help you,” N’Rala said at last. “Are you planning to get off the train when we reach the Ascraeus tolou?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Find the tavern called the King and Queen of the Desert. I’ll be there tomorrow evening, and I’ll introduce you to someone I know. If he likes you and your friends, he’ll tell you how you may be able to find Ul Quorn.”
“The King and Queen of the Desert, tomorrow night.” Curt nodded. “We’ll be there.”
N’Rala started to rise, then stopped herself. Seemingly on impulse, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, just above his airmask. “You should think twice about wanting to meet Ul Quorn,” she said softly. “You’re too young to end your life here.”
And then she stood up and, amid the swirl of her cape, glided out of the observation car.
IV
There was a game called catch that dogs liked. Even moonpups.
Grag found out about this when it did a quick Anni search for ways to keep dogs entertained. The long hours the robot was spending with Simon aboard the Comet as they waited to hear from Curt, Otho, and Joan were plainly driving Eek crazy with boredom, but there was an easy solution to this: a rubber replica of Mars purchased from a souvenir kiosk in the Port Deimos arcade. Once Eek learned to bring it back to Grag after retrieving it, both robot and dog discovered the sublime pleasures of such a simple pastime.
Deimos’s low gravity made catch a particularly challenging game, and Grag had just found that Eek could perform a midair catch of a ball ricocheted from the floor off the ready-room bulkhead when there was a knocking sound against the airlock’s inner hatch. Apparently someone had just entered the airlock through the unsealed outer hatch and now wanted to come the rest of the way in. Leaving the ball with Eek, Grag rose from its knees and turned to the inner hatch. The robot touched the intercom button and asked, “Who is there, please?”
“This is Marshal Ezra Gurney, IPF. Who’s this, the ’bot?”
“Yes, I am a robot.”
A long pause. Grag made no move to open the door. Eek whined impatiently, his tail thrashing back and forth as he held the ball in his mouth. Finally, Marshal Gurney spoke again. “Would you open the door, please? I’d like to come in.”
“Just a moment, Marshal.” Grag tapped the intercom button. “Marshal Ezra Gurney is here to visit us. He would like to come in.”
“Please let him in, Grag,” the Brain said from elsewhere in the ship. “Escort him up to the middeck.”
“Affirmative.” Grag twisted the lock lever to unseal the inner hatch and pulled it open, and Ezra stepped in.
Like all humans visiting Port Deimos, Ezra wore ankle weights while walking through the spaceport’s subsurface tunnels. He came in from the gangway that had been pushed against the Comet’s hull in the silolike hangar where the ship was currently berthed. He scowled as he looked up at Grag’s emotionless round eyes.
“Don’t you know what this badge means?” he demanded, pointing to the silver-plated shield on the chest of his uniform jacket.
“Yes, I do know. It identifies you as a senior officer with the Interplanetary Police Force.”
“Then why the hell didn’t you open up when I told you to?”
“First, I did not see the badge. Second, you did not give a specific reason why you wished to come in. Therefore, I was under no obligation to do so. I opened the hatch only after consulting with Dr. Wright, who is—”
“I know who he is. Take me to him.”
In the time it took Gurney to say these words, Grag accessed the legal database for the Libertarian Commonwealth of Mars Department of Justice and performed a search of the conditions under which a law officer like Ezra Gurney could enter a vessel docked at an orbital spaceport operated by the Solar Coalition. As it turned out, the officer could enter the ship only so long as he’d been invited aboard, which Simon had just done. However, unless Marshal Gurney was investigating a possible offense and had a warrant giving him specific authorization to do so, Grag could remove him at any time. Which it was inclined to do; the marshal was being unnecessarily rude. But Simon had told Grag to bring Marshal Gurney to see him, so Grag put the Brain’s instructions above its own desires.
“Very well, then. Follow me, please.” Grag turned to walk across the compartment, only to find Eek blocking its way. The moonpup clearly wanted to continue the game. The robot paused to bend down and lower its right hand, and when the little dog placed the ball in its palm, Grag lightly tossed the ball against the bulkhead farthest from him and Marshal Gurney.
Ezra Gurney watched in amazement as the moonpup went scampering off in pursuit of the ball. He recognized the dog as being the same one President Carthew had given away after being bitten by the little mutt. The last thing he’d ever expected was to see him playing catch with Curt Newton’s robot. It wasn’t the dog that astonished him, though, but the ’bot.
“Who programmed you to do that?” he asked. “Play catch, I mean.”
“No one did.” Grag paused at the foot of the ladder. “I needed to entertain Eek, so I learned the game myself, and then I taught Eek.”
“And this is something you figured out on your own?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s fun.” Grag regarded him with an unblinking red gaze.
“Fun?”
“Yes. Why, is that against the law?”
Ezra felt his mouth fall open. He couldn’t tell for the life of him whether the ’bot was being sarcastic or not. Which was a hell of a thing. Since when did robots become capable of sarcasm … or have fun playing catch with a puppy?
“Never mind.” Ezra closed his eyes and shook his head. “Just forget I asked, okay? Take me to see Dr. Wright.” He stopped, and then added, “Please.”
Grag responded by silently continuing up the ladder. Ezra climbed up behind it, and found himself in the Comet’s middeck wardroom. And there he met the Brain.
During the first conversation he had with Joan after she’d come aboard the Comet, she’d warned him what to expect from Simon Wright. It was one thing to learn that the scientist, once renowned in the bioengineering field but officially declared dead many years ago, had become a disembodied brain suspended within a modified drone. It was quite another to see the cyborg itself glidi
ng toward him, its eyestalks moving until they were level with his own eyes.
“Hello, Marshal Gurney.” The gentle voice that came from the speaker on the front of the saucerlike carapace was that of an old man. “A pleasure to meet you at last. Joan—Inspector Randall, that is—has told me so much about you. I’m Simon Wright.”
Even the robot wasn’t nearly as weird as this. “Ah … yeah, same here,” Ezra said. Out of habit, he started to raise his hand. Realizing that a handshake was probably futile, he dropped it. “I just … I mean, I wanted to stop by and … well, see if I could coordinate things with you, now that I’ve heard from Joan about … that is, since she—”
The sound that came from the speaker was nothing more than a polite laugh; nonetheless, it took Ezra a moment to recognize it as such. “No need to be flustered, Marshal—or may I call you Ezra? I long since discarded my mortal coil, but in some ways I’m still a man. In fact, in biological terms, you and I are just a few years apart in age. Or at least we were, before my former body had the misfortune of meeting a premature end.”
“I’m—” Ezra took a deep breath, tried again. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s just … first Newton, then the android, then the ’bot, and now you. It’s a lot to take, y’know what I mean?”
“I suppose you’re right. The four of us have been together for so long, perhaps we’ve forgotten what it’s like to be around those whom most people regard as ‘normal.’” Another laugh. “On the other hand, even when I had a human form, I considered normalcy to be rather overrated.”
“That’s an appropriate outlook, I guess.”
“Yes, I rather think so.” The Brain purred across the compartment to settle upon the wardroom table. “What brings us the pleasure of your company, Ezra? I trust your earlier suspicions of Curt have been alleviated.”
