"We were set up from the start," Balmer said darkly, standing at the sliding glass door at the rear of the living area, unable to keep still. Outside was a small conservatory with tropical flowers and plants, and beyond, a reinforced picture window presenting a stunning view over the roofs of Embarcadero and along the canyon toward the main Marineris rift. "Probably since before the experiment. Obviously, you couldn't have been involved, or you would remember it. So it has to have been Elaine. This double cross was never her doing. It was the work of professionals who know the business. So they must have been involved from the beginning."
"Before the experiment?" Sarda repeated. "So what are you saying? The whole line of hers about using you to keep me around was part of the scam? She had something like this figured out all that way back?"
"Of course she must have." Balmer turned from the window. His eyes glared across the room from beneath the huge eyebrows. "She sold you the idea in order to create a victim figure they could work on. Then she must have poisoned your mind with fears, and resentments toward the other Sarda, who would risk nothing. Well, didn't she?"
Sarda nodded at the suggestion. He had to have been put up to it. Already, he was sure, he could remember her provocative words and sultry urgings for him to claim what was rightfully his. "And I walked right into it," he muttered blackly.
"I always knew she'd latched onto me for what she could get out of it," Balmer said. "But I have to admit I didn't see all the way through her either. An opportunist, yes; but I never realized she could be that much of one."
Sarda showed a hand. "And this pained, moral high tone she put on, suggesting it was me who was being unethical . . . when all the time she was working to clean out both of us."
Balmer breathed heavily. "It almost makes you want to lose faith in—" The chime from the front door interrupted. "Who's this?" He raised his voice slightly. "House manager. Door view." The wall screen opposite the couch activated to show two figures standing outside. One, tanned, suave, was Lee Mullen, a local "facilitator" engaged by the syndicate to help with its inquiries. The other was dark-skinned and bearded, also expensively dressed in a suit. Balmer didn't recognize him. "Function, door open," he said, moving in the direction of the hall. Mullen and the other man stepped inside just as Balmer came through the doorway to meet them.
"Hi, Doc," Mullen greeted. He looked past Balmer, into the living area, where Sarda had risen from the recliner. "Well, say, the other guy's here too. That makes it easier. We've got a few things to discuss," he told them. "But first, I just wanted to let you know that we've come up lucky on the guy with the dog. Seems like he's a doctor too—going under the name of Thane. He took off a week ago with a party that went out in the desert to dig up rocks. We're sending some friends out there to bring him back for a talk. So don't you two get any ideas on going anywhere, okay? We want you around to make sure he gets asked the right questions. People back at the Firm are getting very anxious about this. . . ."
Low and sleek, like a blue-and-white shark out of water, the Guardian Angel stood in front of the workshop behind the office at Alazahad Machine, where Solomon Leppo had towed it to be fitted with its automatic cannon from Mahom's miniature armory. Phil Verlan, the sales manager, stood, arms folded, contemplating it alongside Mahom, while Leppo and Mack, an avionics-specialist friend of Mahom's, finished installing the fire-control box inside an access hatch forward of the driving compartment.
"So what do you reckon, Phil?" Mahom asked, giving Verlan a picket-fence grin of pearly teeth. "Sol says there's gonna be a big market one day."
"Who with?" Verlan replied. "Are we planning on expanding into the military supply business?"
"Private security," Leppo said over his shoulder as he held the cover panel while Mack gunned in the fixing screws. "There's no Mars law here yet that everyone agrees on, and the place is filling up. People who matter are already organizing their own protection and alliance deals. Five years from now they'll all be wanting one."
"Is that the way it's gonna go, Phil?" Mahom asked Verlan. "Should we be thinking about taking options?" All prospective business ranked equally in Mahom's estimation. Passing judgments on what ought or ought not to be didn't figure into his way of calculating.
"Let me sound out a few contacts before I answer that," Verlan said. He glanced at his watch. "Speaking of which, I'm supposed to be meeting a couple of guys, and I'm running late already. I need to pick up some things from the office, too."
"I'll walk back in with you," Mahom said.
"Keep at it, Sol," Verlan tossed back as he and Mahom walked away. "You could be onto something there, all right. I'll start doing some sounding around on it, like I said."
"We can't lose. You'll see," Leppo called after them confidently.
Mack began replacing items in the toolbox from his truck, parked a few yards away. "That should be fine when the sights are calibrated. We'll fly it out to the range at Stony Flats tomorrow for some test firings. Suppose I stop by at ten?"
"That'll work fine," Leppo said. "I'll get Casey over. He works out that way anyhow."
"A couple of boxes of tracer and one minipack of live should be enough. Mahom's got them in the back. I already checked."
"Will do. I'll square it with him as soon as you're gone."
"Okay." Mack closed the toolbox and straightened up expectantly. "What was it we said . . . ?" Leppo felt inside his jacket and took out the envelope that had been delivered from Mullen. He opened it and peeled out four inner-system fifty-dollar bills. Mack checked them, then folded and stuffed them into a back pocket of his jeans. "Okay, Sol. So we'll see you here again tomorrow."
"Ten."
"On the dot." Mack hoisted up the toolbox and walked over to his truck. Leppo watched while he climbed in, started up, and drove off along Beacon Way.
The envelope was still in Leppo's hand. He stared at it for several seconds before returning it slowly to his inside jacket pocket. It was money, yes; and he had long considered money to be the key to everything else that was desirable. But blood money, very possibly? The thought wasn't comfortable at all. He was still wrestling with it when the sound of a motor started on the far side of the office shack; moments later, Phil Verlan's auto came into sight and turned onto Beacon Way, heading in the opposite direction from the one Mack had taken. Leppo felt the envelope in his jacket again. Then he walked up to the office and let himself in by the side door.
Mahom was fiddling with the adjustment of a drawer in his desk that wasn't closing properly. "You got Phil thinking now, Sol," he chuckled. "Whatever gave you the idea of getting involved with people who wanna start private wars?"
Leppo shrugged. "I just think protection is going to get big around here."
"Well, you came to a good place to do your apprenticeship. Was that the idea?"
"Hey, what you pay me for always comes first. You know that."
"Oh, I'm not complaining. You do good work. It sounds like pretty sharp thinking to me. I never held that against anybody. That's what you need to do to get along."
There was a short silence. Leppo walked over to the water fountain and poured himself a cup. "What happened to that blue Kodiak that was out front?" he asked without looking back. "I haven't seen it around. Did we sell it?"
"Rented it. Someone might be interested in one of the lux DH models coming from the lunar plants. The Kodiak'll give him a taste of DH and get him around in the meantime."
"Anyone we know?" Leppo forced his voice to remain casually curious.
"Oh, a real good friend. One of the best."
Leppo's stomach tightened. "Oh, really?"
Mahom nodded his massive, frizzy mane. "They call him the Knight. He comes and goes, gets involved in all kinds of situations you wouldn't believe. Real smart—but always straight. Sides with what's right, especially when it's some little guy who needs help. Has fun getting a piece of the action from the big takers. A while ago, long before you started here, I was being leaned on by a hea
vy-style protection operation who would have cut me down to being a rent collector for my own place. It was the Knight who fixed them then." Mahom cackled again at the recollection and drew the drawer out experimentally. "Fixed 'em so good that they ain't around anymore. I don't know where he is right now, but maybe when he's back this way you might want to talk to him about private security. He'd give you some angles you never thought of." Mahom nodded, satisfied, and slid the drawer home again. "One of the best," he said again. "You won't ever meet a better friend than that one, Sol."
* * *
Leppo had a date that night with a girl called Mitzi, whom he had known casually for a while. Partway through the evening, she remarked that Leppo didn't seem to be his usual talkative self. Was there something wrong? Leppo replied that it was nothing to do with them. He had a business problem that was worrying him.
10
The atmosphere in the inflatable triple cabin was stuffy with the unusual number of bodies crowded inside, and heavy from the sense of uncertainty hanging over the expedition. After a strained night during which Banks was no doubt awaiting instructions, he had retaken possession of the two shacks left by Zorken and moved the Mule alongside them. The cluster formed its own small camp apart from the scientific expedition's, enclosed inside a perimeter of metal stakes linked by infrared beams to detect intruders. There could be no real argument, since the shacks were unquestionably Zorken's property. Hence, the expedition had seen no option but to concede and vacate them. The next challenge would probably be to contest their access to the Hole. Accordingly, in case worse should come to worst, Hamil had gone down there with Juanita to photograph and record the findings to date. In this, Kieran noted, Hamil had also removed the most fierily disposed member from the immediate scene while a chance remained of working something out diplomatically. To this latter end, Trevany and Jean had gone across to the Mule with the aim of establishing some grounds for reciprocal accommodation. Hamil's reasoning was that Trevany's standing as an investigator come specially from Earth might underline the importance of the finds. Harry Quong and Chas Ryan were outside, reinstalling the electrical and air recirculation equipment displaced from the shack in one of the two trailers. The rest of the expedition, doubtless reflecting the human tendency to group together in anxious times, had collected in the messroom of the inflatable-frame shack to await events. They were Kieran, Dennis, Rudi, Katrina, and the five site workers. The need for the services of the latter was effectively suspended for the time being.
"Harry told me once that Pierre was a good friend of you and Jean," Kieran said to Dennis. They were sitting a little apart from the rest, who were immersed in a discussion of legalities and land rights.
Dennis nodded. "Jean knows him from way back. They used to belong to some European student club."
"Apparently, you know something about the work Pierre's involved with in Lowell—some kind of nano-scale biological research."
"Self-assembling artificial molecular structures. Why?"
"Oh . . . I'm just curious about everything, I suppose. Harry said something about pieces coming together inside body cells. Is that where the self-assembling comes into it?"
"Right. The components are small enough to be taken in through ingestion or inhalation, and get transported into the body cells via the regular mechanism." Dennis paused with an inquiring look that asked if the concepts were familiar. Kieran nodded for him to go on. "There, they use the cells' metabolic machinery to assemble into protein synthesizers."
"You mean like artificial ribosomes?"
"Exactly. But the unique thing is, they can be directed remotely," Dennis said. Kieran looked puzzled. Dennis explained, "As to what proteins to synthesize. Part of the structure is actually a resonant molecular circuit that decodes externally applied electronic signals. So the kind of proteins that get made inside the cell can be programmed from the outside."
"That's a new one on me," Kieran said.
"Neat, eh?"
"So what would you use it for?"
Dennis made a tossing-away gesture. "They're not sure of all the possibilities yet. One might be remote-directing a regimen of medication. Instead of having to hope you've got all the right drugs with you for whatever problems you might run into, the instructions to make whatever you need can be transmitted from a diagnostic center far away. Think how useful that could be with people scattered around the Solar System getting themselves into all kinds of messes."
Kieran was intrigued, and sat back to see what other lines he could think of. But before he could come up with anything, Rudi turned and called across from the long table where the others were gathered. "Hey, Sir Knight, you tell us—how do things like this work here? If there's no overall authority to issue land titles, then Zorken can't actually own this site." He made a careless gesture with an open hand. "So they were here before us and sank a few shafts. What of it? That doesn't sound like much of a case to me. They went away and left it. You can't have people going around making claims on anywhere, just because they happen to have been there before."
"They filed a certificate stating that the area was being productively used," Kieran replied. "It's a bit loose, but the various forms of governing authorities and what-have-you around Mars generally recognize it."
"What did Banks mean when he told Hamil that Zorken would back his claim with force if need be?" Katrina asked. "Surely it can't work as a free-for-all?"
"You said you were looking at properties to buy recently," Rudi said to Kieran. "Okay, who controls those rights? If you pay a real estate agency for a place somewhere, who enforces your claim if somebody shows up one day and says it's theirs because they were there first?" He showed both hands. "It's ridiculous. That would be chaotic."
"Most of the time, people manage to muddle through," was all Kieran could say. It didn't sound very satisfying but there was no neat and tidy answer to give. "You have to be here for a while to get a feel of how it works. There's no easy way to explain it."
"But what about when being reasonable and understanding doesn't work?" Rudi persisted. "Do they bring in the paid security agencies that we hear about, and it turns into a private war? Is that what Banks was talking about? I came here as an archeologist, not to join somebody's infantry."
Lou, the black man on the work team, said, "There might have been a few scuffles and differences now and again. But there's never been any real attempt to stake out a big slice of territory by force. . . ." He glanced at his companions. "None that I've ever heard of, anyhow."
"That's only because there's a lot of empty space out there, yet," Zeke said. "When there's plenty of everything for everybody, that's when folks can get along. The bickering starts when something or other they all want gets in short supply. I seen it all before in other places. Either some kind of system has to come out of it all that can lay it down for everyone as to what's what, or else there's gonna be a lot of trouble one day before it straightens itself out."
"Took long enough to get a world system back on Earth," Shayne pointed out. "And even now it isn't as complete as they wanted it. They managed somehow for a long time before that, though."
"Right, and look at the amount of trouble they went through doing it, too," Zeke countered. Rudi looked at Kieran, as if for a verdict.
"That might not be the only way," Kieran said. "There are lots of experiments going on all around. I'd say to wait a bit longer and see what happens."
"That doesn't do a lot to help us in the meantime," Rudi observed. Kieran couldn't argue.
"So what are we supposed to do?" Katrina asked. "There isn't any kind of ultimate police or court system that we can appeal to. I think I agree with Rudi. It's ridiculous."
"Perhaps you wouldn't want to," Kieran cautioned. "Squatters' rights mightn't apply. You could find that Zorken has the better case."
"So are we supposed to organize some kind of credible counterthreat—raise our own army?" Rudi demanded derisively. "That's preposterous!"
"It d
oesn't strike me as Hamil's way in any case," Katrina said.
"And it might be a waste of time wondering about it," Kieran told them. "Why don't we wait first, and see what Walter and Jean have to say when they come back?" From his initial assessment of Banks, he didn't expect very much—but it had to be tried. And assuming that Banks would be acting under orders from his principals, the brief amount of research that Kieran had been able to do via the net didn't lead him to hold out much hope for any change of attitude from that direction either.
The headquarters of Zorken Consolidated's vastly spread operations was a large artificial structure called Asgard that cycled in an eccentric orbit between the Belt and a perihelion that precessed between Earth and Mars. Currently it was approaching and would cross the orbit of Mars quite closely within the next two weeks. Zorken had a predatory history of acquisitions and hostile mergers, and in the free economic conditions that reigned beyond Earth's region of influence, hadn't shrunk on several occasions from employing armed force in dealing with inconveniently active rivals. Once, they had invaded and permanently taken over an asteroid holding of a customer they deemed wayward on payments. Now, they had evidently set their sights on developing this location at Tharsis, and Kieran couldn't see them altering their policy out of goodwill towards a shoestring-funded scientific group whose work held no prospect of any benefit relevant to Zorken's interests.
"Well, I don't see that anyone can expect us to stick around if it's going to turn into some kind of range war," Shayne declared. "Our contracts didn't say nothing about anything like that."
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