Martian Knightlife

by James P. Hogan

  Casey regarded the rear body section as he chewed. It was opened to expose the just-installed six-shot reloading mechanism. "The tail baffles need adjusting for more clearance," he commented.

  Leppo went on, "I mean, do you think I plan on crawling about in grease traps like this place for the rest of time? That's not what gets the classy chicks interested, Case. The secret is living with style. . . ." Leppo paused to sip from his mug, then added absently, "Some guys like that showed up at the lot the other day."

  "Guys like what?"

  "With style—you know, living a cool act, man. Looked like they hang out in the best places, probably with chicks everywhere just itchin' to be a part of the scene. They showed up in a big shiny Metro—suits, manicures, clips and rings loaded with ice. One of them stopped by the shop."

  "What did they want?" Casey asked.

  "They were looking for some guy—said it was business, but I think something heavier was going on. He'd been in Wuhan a couple of days before with a big black dog, driving a rented Kodiak from the firm. That was why they came there."

  Casey thought back, then turned his eyes toward Leppo curiously. "Big guy? Lean, tough-looking. Friendly smile, but could probably tear you apart if he had to?"

  Leppo looked surprised. "That'd fit. Why?"

  "I saw him. He came out to Stony Flats, it must have been, aw . . . about a week ago. Had a dog like that with him. Dark-colored Kodiak—kind of a funny purpley blue?"

  "That's it." Leppo was interested. "What was he doing out there?"

  "He came out to see some scientists who were fitting out a rig for a surface trip somewhere. I don't know what it was about. Then he showed up again just before they were due to go, and left with them—didn't have the dog that time, though. Somebody said he was some kind of doctor."

  Leppo blinked. Life didn't come up with breaks like this every day. "A surface trip?" he repeated. "You don't know where they were going, do you?"

  "No. But I could probably find out by making a call. Why the big interest?"

  "Oh . . . I just promised the guy I'd let him know if anything turned up," Leppo replied vaguely. "And yeah, Case. I'd appreciate it if you would make that call."

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, as Casey began preparing brackets to mount the firing circuit control, Leppo said there was something he needed from his car parked in the alleyway outside. He went out to it, got in and closed the door, and used his comset to call the number on the calling card that he retrieved from his wallet. A man's voice replied unilluminatingly, "Enterprises." Leppo recognized it.

  "Mr. Mullen?"

  "Who wants him?"

  "This is Sol Leppo. I talked to you when you were at Alazahad Machine out on Beacon Way. You were asking about a man with a dog. I said I'd get back if I heard anything. Okay, I think I can tell you where he went. . . ."

  8

  A mood of exhilaration gripped the camp, infecting even the work detail hired to handle the brunt of the digging and clearing. In addition to Zeke and Lou, they were Shayne, a burly Canadian, Nailikar, of some distant Asiatic ancestry, and Chas Ryan, the crew's foreman. When they weren't at work down the "Hole," bringing up the excavation debris, playing cards, or catching up on movie fare over chilled cans of Olympus home-brewed beer, they asked questions of the scientists about background to the work and listened with widening interest to accounts of ancient Terran constructions and their mysteries, and theories concerning Earth's turbulent history in recent times. They even came up with speculations of their own. Chas wondered if the Technolithic culture might have had foreknowledge of whatever had befallen them, and erected their huge, virtually indestructible monuments as a testimony of who they were and when they had existed, written in language that any advanced race coming later would eventually be able to decode. Hamil confirmed that many scientists thought the same thing and believed they had made beginnings in unraveling the code. Zeke thought that the "gods" of Biblical and other ancient creation stories might have been space beings. But that wasn't really original. From time to time, the media would air some new angle or other on notions heard for years that the tussles between good and fallen "angels," or the Greek Olympians and Titans, and so on, were accounts of ancient power struggles and rebellions involving other-worldly visitors, described by early humans who had no other way of interpreting what they were witnessing. Kieran had expected a comparatively drab interlude of staying out of circulation while the heat died down in Lowell. On the contrary, in every aspect, the company and the subject were proving a new source of fascination for his ever-restless curiosity.

  * * *

  It was a variation of an old puzzle, guaranteed to split opinions down the middle and generate controversy at a vicarage afternoon tea party. Kieran laid three cards facedown on the long table in the messroom of the inflatable-frame cabin. "Okay, it's simple," he told Chas Ryan and Harry Quong, sitting opposite him on the bench seat that ran along one wall. "Just one of them's a king. Which one?"

  "You mean just make a guess?'' Harry checked.

  "Yes," Kieran said. He hadn't shown the faces and then made elaborate passes or flourishes; this obviously wasn't the classic three-card trick.

  "And you know which one, right?" Chas queried.

  "Of course."

  Harry shrugged, ran his eye over the row, then pointed. "That one."

  Kieran looked inquiringly at Chas. "Good enough for me," Chas responded. "I'll say that one too."

  "Fine. Well, I know it isn't this one." Kieran turned over one of the other two cards to reveal it as the three of diamonds. "The question is this: For the best chance of being right, what should you do? Stay with your choice? Change to the other one? Or doesn't it matter?" He sat back to let them ponder. Juanita was in a foldaway chair in the corner, going through some papers. The others were either away down the Hole, busy in the Juggernaut lab, or otherwise out on some chore around the camp.

  "It can't make any difference," Harry said. "There's two cards left. It's fifty-fifty. Stick or change. It doesn't matter."

  Chas hesitated for a moment longer, than nodded. "I agree. It's not gonna change your odds."

  Kieran gave them a few seconds to reconsider, smiling waggishly. "Actually, it does," he said. "You should change your bet. The odds of winning are twice as good." This was where the fun part started. Even mathematicians often couldn't see it—and they tended to be the most belligerent in defending their view. The interesting challenge, Kieran had found, was picking the right way of explaining it, depending on his judgment of the personality he was dealing with. An argument or analogy that made the answer immediately clear to one person would be unfathomable to another.

  Chas shook his head. "I can't see it. Like Harry said, you've got two left. It's either one or the other. We don't know which, even if you might. So how can anything we decide make a difference?" Harry seemed less sure, but at the same time completely unsure why. He rubbed his chin and stared at the two face-down cards as if waiting for a revelation.

  Kieran studied their faces, as if divining the way to play a poker hand. "When you made your choice, the odds were one in three that it was the right one," he offered. "That can't have changed. So the odds for the other card here—the one you didn't pick—must be two in three. Change your choice and you double your chances."

  Chas brooded, then shook his head again. "That was then. This is different. We've got two cards. It's fifty-fifty."

  From the entry chamber that served the cabin's three rooms came the sound of the pump starting up to fill the outside lock. Juanita had pushed her glasses down her nose and was following the conversation over the paper she had been reading. "Think of it this way," she suggested. "Suppose your first choice had been out of the whole pack instead of just three cards. Kieran knows which is the king. He's used that knowledge to throw out fifty for you and left just the king and one other. Do you still think the king is likely to be the one you picked?"

  Light dawned in Harry's eye
s. "Ri-ght! Now I see it!" It was Chas's turn to look uncertain.

  Before it could go any further, the sound of boots stamping and dust being brushed off a suit came from outside the room. Then the door opened and Dennis came in, already removing his helmet. He was in his early thirties, sandy-haired with a fresh, open face, the kind of pragmatic academic who preferred getting out in the world and doing things rather than theorizing. His preoccupation with his work left him with a total disinterest in politics, which with his generally amiable nature meant he got along with just about anybody. Dennis had worked with Trevany previously on Earth. For the past couple of years, however, he and Jean Graas had been exploring various parts of the Martian surface with Hamil and Juanita.

  "How are things going?" Juanita asked him.

  "Steady. Shayne and Zeke have cleared the top of the E-2 object. It's definitely a gate. The amazing thing is, it's monolithic. Walter estimates that on Earth that one piece would weigh over two hundred tons. And places we know back there have designs just like it."

  Chas leaned back from the table and spread his hands. "So how did they build with things like that? I mean, I've worked on enough construction projects to know what it takes. I've heard these stories about how they were supposed to have done it with lots of guys hauling ropes, but with me it doesn't wash. Once something like those things is down, it's down. So how could they end up with them put together like stacking toys?"

  "There was an Inca king who wondered the same thing," Juanita commented. "So he decided to see if he could emulate it by bringing just one boulder of comparable size to add to the citadel at Sacsayhuaman in Peru. According to a Spanish account from the sixteenth century, he had twenty thousand Indians hauling it across the mountains. It broke loose over a precipice and crushed something like three thousand men. That was the end of the experiment—their only known attempt to duplicate the feats they're supposed to have achieved all over the area. Not very convincing, you see."

  "You mean that whatever the original techniques were, the Incas of that time had no knowledge or experience of them," Kieran translated.

  "Exactly," Dennis said. "And now this. It gets more interesting, doesn't it?"

  Just then, the call beep sounded from the c-com unit on the wall near where Juanita was sitting. She reached across to accept. The screen showed the head and shoulders of Walter Trevany, inside the Juggernaut, which was now drawn alongside the cabin and connected by a short, flexible-wall tunnel to avoid the hassle of suiting up every time somebody needed to get from one to the other. His expression was uncertain, with a hint of worry. "Just to let you know, we picked up something approaching on radar a few minutes ago," he announced. "It looks like we might be having visitors. I don't know who. Hamil's on his way up from the Hole. If anyone else wants to show their face, we'll see you outside."

  * * *

  Clad in a light-duty surface suit, Kieran stood with Dennis and Juanita on the edge of the open area next to the huddle of shacks and vehicles. Trevany and Jean Graas were nearby with Hamil. All heads behind the helmet visors were gazing upward at the "Mule" transporter circling now after interrupting its descent, presumably on seeing the signs of occupation. It was a dark metallic gray, with a boxlike, square-sectioned body, high tail assembly with triple fins, and stubby wings situated amidships carrying large engine nacelles at their ends—a standard model used for hauling people and freight all over Mars. A voice came through in Kieran's helmet on the local air-traffic channel that they were all tuned to. His wrist-screen showed the smooth-skinned face of a man in his mid to late thirties, hair light yellow, with the neck ring of a flight EV suit visible below his chin. He hadn't introduced himself.

  "This area has been retained under the terms of a use registration certificate filed by Zorken Consolidated. You are in violation of the generally acknowledged code. Identify yourselves and state your purpose here."

  Hamil answered. "This is Hamil Hashikar speaking, professor of archeology. We are an independent archeological research expedition supported by a diversity of private and academic interests. Your activity here has been suspended. The pilot diggings that were left offered an invaluable opportunity of a kind that science doesn't get very often." All typical of the way he could imagine Hamil working, Kieran thought to himself. Easygoing and genial, never stopping to doubt as he sauntered through life that the things that mattered to him wouldn't automatically hold the same significance for everyone else. Unless he absolutely had to, Hamil wouldn't sacrifice available field time getting approvals from inflated bureaucrats or bogging down under pedantic and irritating procedures.

  "You've got the rest of the planet to go exploring in," the voice on the channel said. "This area has been declared a retained territory. We're here to prepare for the resumption of work by Zorken. You will be required to vacate."

  "I have a feeling that might change if we could talk to you," Hamil replied. "But it's not exactly convenient at this distance."

  The Mule banked into a turn and came lower, straightening out to make a slow pass over the camp—low enough for Kieran to feel the pulsations of its engines and make out the white-on-orange ZC logos painted on the tail fins. The occupants were no doubt checking for signs of weapons or anything out of order in the surroundings. "Very well," the yellow-haired man answered finally. "Keep clear of the landing area."

  The craft slowed into a vertical descent immediately in front of the camp, its engine note rising, though still sounding distant in the rarified air, and settled amid swirls of dust and sand. The sound and the flurries died. There was a short pause. Then the Mule's access steps hinged down with a section of the hull, and three suited figures emerged. They stopped at the bottom of the steps to look around and assess the party waiting for them, and then came over. The yellow-haired man was in the center, leading. With him were a thin-lipped, pallid-faced woman with straight, gray-streaked hair cropped short, and an Asian with a short, pointed Charlie Chan beard. Hamil, looking characteristically jovial, extended a gloved hand.

  "Hamil Hashikar."

  The yellow-haired man ignored it and remained unsmiling. "I don't think such displays would be appropriate to the circumstances. My name is Banks. I represent Zorken Consolidated. My exact capacity doesn't matter. As I have already informed you, these workings are certified under a use registration. Under the adopted Martian codes, you have no claim here. There is nothing more to discuss."

  Hamil made a placatory gesture. Kieran had already written off any attempt to reason at this stage as pointless, but Hamil was missing that fact. He went on, "But you don't understand, Mr. Banks. What we have found here could rank among the most important archeological discoveries of the century. We need to get in touch with whoever has ultimate responsibility for your project here."

  Banks closed his eyes and sighed. "I think it's you who doesn't understand. A whole new space complex is going up here. Do you think someone's going to stop that so you can dig up rocks to argue about?"

  "Hardly. But how about a whole lost civilization?"

  "How much is it likely to add to our profitability account? I can't see anyone getting wildly interested."

  "But what I'm talking about could have profound connections with our own origins on Earth too. . . ." Hamil's voice was rising with incredulity. He looked from one to another of the three faces regarding him stonily through their visors. The futility of trying to get anything across that might evoke a more receptive attitude finally registered with him. He shook his head, at a loss for how to continue. A strained silence persisted for several seconds. Jean moved closer to Dennis.

  Then Juanita exploded. "Philistines! Barbarians! Is that all you can think about—your precious accounting balances and profits? Don't you understand what he's telling you? We're talking about events that may have determined the beginnings of the human race!"

  "Information that's priceless," Trevany put in, sounding bewildered. "Priceless . . ."

  "Really?" Banks sneered. "In that case, if en
ough people agree with you, you shouldn't have any trouble raising a figure that'll buy us out. We're always open to offers." He shot a look at Juanita. "You see—perfectly reasonable people." His face darkened. "In the meantime, I want you and your equipment out of here. We've got work to do, and you're in the way. If you refuse to leave peaceably, we'll be forced to resort to employing stronger measures."

  9

  Henry Balmer lived in a small but luxurious condominium contained in a system of glass-walled levels spanning the canyon above where the Trapezium joined Embarcadero, and known collectively as "Crystal Bridge." The search to trace Sarda's missing money was being conducted by the Investigative Department of Lowell's Administrative Congress, which kept their attention away from the real problem. The syndicate that the deputation sent to the Zodiac Bank represented were demanding the return of the quarter billion they had advanced for what the industry buzz was now dismissing as a technology too plagued with problems to be worth the investment. Although finding it was technically Balmer and Sarda's problem, the syndicate was making its people and resources available to the task. Given the choice, it preferred cash in the bank to bodies on mortuary slabs—at best a deterrent of debatable efficacy to others when all else failed.

  Leo Sarda sat in the corner recliner, tugging at his mustache with a thumb and forefinger. At Stewart Perrel's suggestion, he was taking a week's convalescent leave from Quantonix, not least because as far as anyone else could tell, the therapy with Balmer seemed to be working, albeit still with some remaining gaps in Sarda's memories from the period immediately following the experiment. That, of course, was because the events he was supposed to remember from that time had been experienced by the other Sarda—the one who had gone missing—whom nobody at Quantonix knew about. Hence, the syndicate had a pretext for the time it needed to find out what had happened to the other Sarda and Elaine. So far, it had drawn a complete blank, even with Balmer's numerous and diverse contacts to draw on. Whoever had engineered the pair's disappearance had done a thorough job.