Remains

by Mark W. Tiedemann

“He was in there?” Mace asked.

  “Yes. I—could we go, please?”

  Mace nodded, then looked at Cambel. “What’s Reese’s connection to him? Did he come up in our security checks?”

  “No, he didn’t. But like Reese said, he doesn’t always follow recommendations. Someone must have brought him. Or just used a different name.” Cambel shrugged. “Reese is a magnet for Lunessa activity in the Heavy. If they end up here after passing through InFlux, they eventually come into his sphere.”

  “So Toler ended up down here? What’s the conduit?”

  “Please,” Nemily repeated.

  Mace nodded. “Sure. This can wait. I’ll talk to you later, Cambel.” “You call me,” she said, her tone mildly sarcastic. “I wouldn’t want to interrupt.”

  The Heavy wore all its scars and stains in the calmer view of her synthesist. The restlessness of the circuits distracted attention from the age and abuse. People pushed and darted, aimlessly hurried.

  Cambel drifted away from them then and Nemily quickly lost sight of her in the crowds. Mace tucked his hands in his pockets and sauntered toward the lift. They stepped into an empty car.

  Mace pressed to stop at level two. “The gondola won’t be waiting for us,” he said. “We can pick up a shunt.”

  The doors opened on an empty circuit with almost featureless walls. Their steps crunched delicately and Nemily saw a fine layer of debris, like charcoal and chalk, scattered over the floor. In the dim light the blank walls took on a fine delineation of shading: mold, dirt.

  “Ponies,” Mace said, quietly as though in a temple or a mortuary. They walked on silently for a time. Nemily felt herself absorbing tension; knowing it was self-created did not alleviate it. When Mace spoke again, she flinched. “The first time I travelled—in space, I mean—it was a maintenance tug heading for Ceres, my first job off Mars. I never could get over the feeling that the ship didn’t move. I couldn’t feel it move. When I off-loaded at Ceres I imagined that what had moved was space that I had stood still and waited while outside space rearranged itself and instead of Mars now it was Ceres.”

  “Just a series of rooms,” Nemily said, “connected by places where you wait.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I—”

  Ahead the circuit widened to make room for a two-meter-wide staircase leading up. A poorly effaced graffito at the landing declared “This way to Dreamland,” followed by an arrow aimed at the interior.

  Mace hesitated on the third step and leaned over the railing to peer down the circuit. Then Nemily heard the sound of many feet walking quickly toward them, punctuated by a few soft-spoken voices. From ahead, then, came a troop of children, a long line, three abreast, led by a woman in a dark blue robe who, upon passing, gave Mace and Nemily a disapproving glare. The children, all in short-legged togs similarly cut but differently colored, looked up at them with expressions ranging from awe to embarrassment. The troop filed by and two more adults brought up the rear, dressed like the leader, who also graced them with clear disapproval.

  Mace continued up the stairs, which led onto a tube platform.

  “I never get over this,” Mace said. “There are nearly half a million people on Aea and you can still find empty space. On Mars the only place you don’t find people is out on the sands. Even then... it’s against the law to go out alone.”

  “Two people can be alone.”

  He only nodded and went to the schedule board. Nemily wanted to change the mood; this one felt too fragile, too easily broken with nothing to replace it. It was difficult to look at him, uncomfortable to look away. It annoyed her like a bruise and attracted her like a deep cut; she did not know what it was and was afraid to imagine what it might be.

  “Half a million,” he repeated. “Over a million on Mars.”

  “Two million in Lunase.”

  He blinked at her. “Really?”

  “Not officially I suppose not all in Lunase, either, but about that on the moon.”

  “Hmm. Another quarter million maybe spread throughout the system?”

  “That many?”

  “Maybe. I’m being liberal, I suppose. Three to four million people. Five at the most.” He shook his head. “Where did they all come from?”

  “I don’t know,” Nemily said. “Is it enough?”

  “For what?”

  “To survive.”

  The question seemed to startle him. The shunt arrived and he broke loose from his brief trance to board with her. He sat down and stared at the opposite bench. Nemily sat beside him.

  “I always wondered,” she said, “why Aeans put their children in nurseries in the outer rings. In Lunase they’re everywhere.”

  “Mars, too. But that’s not the way Aeans want to live.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She saw him grin crookedly, as though both amused and disgusted. “Children tend to break things. The interior is full of things they could break.”

  “Well, sure they do. But... oh.”

  “Uh-huh. Oh. Have to keep things neat.” He shook his head. “Fastidious neuroses.”

  “Is that why nobody likes immigrants here?”

  “Partly” he admitted.

  “What else?”

  He shrugged.

  “What do you think that was we saw?” she asked.

  “Hmm? You mean that presentation at Reese’s? I don’t know You hear rumors about what’s happening on Earth, but...”

  “So you really think that was from Earth?”

  “From what Cambel has told me, Reese never lies to people about that sort of thing.”

  “No, he doesn’t. So if it’s from Earth, that means—it sounds like things are falling apart down there.”

  “Sounds like it.” He frowned thoughtfully.

  “You talked to him while I was collating,” she said. “What did you ask? What did he say?”

  “Business. Cambel and I designed security for him. We were interested in where he got that material. Among other things.”

  “Oh.”

  Nemily watched the time internally and after two minutes of silence, she sighed loudly.

  “I don’t do this,” she said.

  Mace frowned. “Do what?”

  “This. You’re being introspective, either because you’re upset or because you don’t understand. In either case, you sit in silence and what—expect me to think you’re profound or that maybe I’m at fault for something and I should realize that you’re being more than tolerant for not bringing it up? Or maybe there’s something about the fact that I know Reese that you don’t like or something else concerned with Glim Toler and you don’t trust me? I don’t do that. It’s a game.”

  “I don’t—”

  “There are certain limitations to the way I’m made and one of them is that I don’t grasp a lot of subtlety. People play these little attitude shifts off each other all the time and I watch them and when it’s done it seems that somebody won and somebody lost or an agreement was made, but I understood none of it. When it’s done to me I end up going home feeling completely stupid and angry. You’ve been... what?... detached ever since we left Reese’s and the way you’re doing it is making me feel responsible. Am I?”

  “...No....”

  “You don’t sound sure. The evening didn’t go the way I expected it to, but most of it was wonderful. If the last hour ruined it for you I’m sorry, but don’t work your disappointment out on me by playing stoic and leaving me with the guilt.”

  “You became upset when you saw this Glim Toler. I didn’t change the mood.”

  “So it is my fault? Do you want to know about Glim? You haven’t asked yet, I don’t know what to expect.”

  His hand moved absently to his chest where his fingers traced the shape of the pendant beneath his clothes. The gesture infuriated her.

  “How do I compare?” she asked.

  “I haven’t—I don’t see women regularly.”

  “I meant to your wife.”r />
  Mace jerked his hand from his chest as if shocked. Color left his face, worsening his injured expression. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, clasped hands dangling, and fixed his attention on the opposite window.

  “I don’t want to explain any of this,” he said.

  “Then how am I supposed to know you?”

  “Why do you want to?”

  “I have no idea.”

  He glanced sidelong at her, surprise and disbelief livening the abandoned features.

  “Want comes as a total package for me,” she said. “It doesn’t have a reason, there’s no why to it.” She laughed sharply. “I don’t think there is for anybody but people claim they have reasons to want things all the time, as if they need permission. I think they’re lying, but I don’t know. If I tell the truth am I revealing a big secret everybody knows about?”

  The surprise in his face eased into curiosity. “You don’t want everything. Something makes you want one thing and not another.”

  “That’s a cause, not a reason.” She shook her head impatiently. “Look, I don’t want to analyze this. I’m just talking now because I’m afraid, but it’s just delay. I want to know you. I think I want more than just that, but I don’t know yet. I do know that I don’t want to negotiate it. And I’m afraid other things could complicate it before I get the chance.”

  “Glim Toler?”

  “Yes.”

  “You knew him in Lunase?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “No...he tried to.”

  “You came here to get away from him.”

  “I came here to get away from Lunase. Glim is a good example of everything that’s wrong with it.”

  He sat back then, nodding slowly She watched the tip of his tongue trace his lips. His hand shook slightly as it went to his face and methodically massaged his eyes, his cheeks, and came to rest on his jaw.

  “All right “ He nodded again, a decision made. “Would you come

  home with me? Now? I’ll show you...”

  “Show me what?”

  He smiled tentatively. “You have to come and see.”

  “All right. Yes.”

  He offered his hand.

  “No,” she said. “Not yet.”

  He did not look hurt this time. He nodded and withdrew the hand.

  The dom resembled a keep, sort of like those she had seen in the history archives when she had set about constructing her workspace diorama, an ancient fortification. But the walls were smooth and large sections of them were given to transparencies and it glowed pearlescent in the ambient light of nightcycle. A short path through dense shrubs led to the deeply recessed entrance.

  I’m back,” Mace said at the door. A moment later it swung open and he waved her through.

  Sconces brightened along a spiral stairway up toward the skylight, through which the glitter of the opposite arc shone. Despite its graceful coil and space it seemed austere. A single bonsai stood against one wall, between two of the three doorways that opened from the main floor. The place seemed to be waiting, elegant and empty, for a life to contain.

  “Feel free to explore,” Mace said. “Then tell me what you think. I’ll be just through here.” He indicated the door to the right of the bonsai, smiled, and left her alone.

  She craned her neck to look at the skylight above, then mounted the stairs to the roof. At each of four landings she found a door and a plant on a waist-high pedestal.

  Every keep, she recalled, supported a parapet, and she expected this one to be no different. Even so it surprised her to walk through the last door at the top of the coiled ascent and find open air, a chest-high wall, and an unobstructed view downshaft through Aea.

  She had never noticed before just how dark the bottom of the world became...

  The opposite direction gave no such perspective. The upshaft cap rose and rose till it appeared to fall away, only to suddenly arch back to join with the interior wall. Lights all across the expanse made it appear as if it sweated, the beads trapping light, holding it against the skin.

  For a panicky instant Nemily felt as though she stood on the edge of a great height, about to fall toward the dimmer mirror. She made herself look down at her feet until the vertigo passed and then descended back into the dom.

  The next door opened on a bedroom. Plain and nearly impersonal, the partially opaqued window transparency washed it all in spectral, chill light. Nemily backed out after only a few seconds. No one slept here, it seemed to tell her, certainly no one other than Mace. She went down to the next door. Another bedroom; smaller bed, even less disturbed—a guest room? The next one down was an office space, with a large desk supporting a flatscreen and a case full of discs.

  One level from the main floor she stepped into a room that differed from the others. He used this place, often and intensely. Benches contained equipment that pulsed with activity, clutter strewn between monitors, half-drunk cups here and there, the disordered signs of time and project. Nemily walked a little way in, drawn by the machines and the sense of his presence. She recognized a lot of the gear, data-cracking equipment, recorders, collators. She saw a row of cyberlink augments in a case before a stack of boxes that she thought might be data scrubbers.

  As she stepped back onto the landing she heard faint voices, muffled to incomprehensibility, and remembered that Mace possessed a domestic personality. She wondered if she was being watched, room by room, and reported on.

  On the main level, the kitchen led to a transparent-walled breakfast nook. The next door around the circle opened onto a plain-walled room with a single chair in the center—a sensorum? Through the last door she descended a short flight of steps into a utility room. A closet stood open, revealing neatly racked gardening tools. She continued on through the opposite door into a greenhouse.

  The air smelled of loam and damp; she felt the humidity on her face and arms. Counters of flowering plants stood to her right, planters of new shrubs to her left, and at the far end she saw Mace, seated by a long bench, working on a small tree. He looked strange, still dressed in his evening clothes, an apron over them, too tall not to hunch over the diminutive plant, large hands performing delicate work with wires and small shears.

  “You said earlier that you weren’t really rich,” she said and immediately wished she had said something else.

  “Helen’s insurance enabled me to do a lot. I receive a small pension from PolyCarb. I’ve made a few fortunate investments—nearly lost it all once with a bad one—and I still do work for a few clients.” He placed the shears on the table and turned toward her. “I sued PolyCarb two years ago to get them to release Helen’s files to me. The official version of her death is a lie and I wanted them to admit it. They started throwing more money at me. At first, they didn’t come out and say that it was a bribe for me to go away. Investments Helen had made that turned out to be part of a survivorship trust, another insurance policy they had overlooked, things like that. Then it became explicit and they laid an offer on the table. It has turned out to be a great deal of money. I don’t really have to work anymore, at anything. But...”

  “What do you do with the augments?”

  “Ah. Well, that’s... complicated.” He looked at the tree he had been tending. Then he stood and removed his apron, brushed bits of dirt from his sleeves.

  “I killed my wife. I signed her death certificate and declared her deceased. Her body was never found.”

  “You don’t believe she’s dead.”

  “The first year or so afterward, I kept expecting her to just show up. I tried to put myself in her path by doing volunteer work for InFlux. I still do, but I hardly ever go to the offices anymore. Then I started trying to find out what actually happened. There were.. .irregularities. Along with the suit against PolyCarb, I started gathering data. The augments ... I sift them for anything they might contain relating to several topics in a dynamic search program. When I’m done with them, I clean them out, fix them
up, and sell them to Everest or some other place that uses a lot of them.”

  “Reese?”

  “I imagine he’s bought some of them, yes. Tonight was the first time I’ve met him. Most of it goes through an agent; I never deal with it directly.”

  “You deal with Everest directly.”

  “Yes, I—yes.” He shrugged. “I do security. Mostly just systems now, every once in a while I’ll do a job as bodyguard or on-site watchdog. Not often, just enough to stay aware.” He hesitated, then added, “Sometimes I do a commission for Structural Authority or the Council.”

  “Do you still expect your wife to come back?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “But you’re still looking?”

  “I want very much to know what happened. I want to know why she died. She was on Mars, doing some work—I don’t know what kind. I know she was there, I spoke to her. Something happened and a lot of people died. She was with them. But the company—PolyCarb—says she was never there. But they insist she’s dead. They’ve never actually told me where they think she died. I want to know.”

  “So you deal with Reese because he’s a source of vacuum.”

  “Among others. Not just any kind of vacuum. Information. Like we saw tonight. Information that’s very hard to come by.”

  “You sound like you blame yourself for your wife’s death.”

  “Not her death “ He shook his head. “You like to think that when

  you love someone that it really means forever, that the causes and feelings will never fade. But they do. I wanted to find out what happened to Helen and why I had to do what PolyCarb made me do—sign off on her death. I thought—I imagined myself—pursuing it until I learned the truth. I didn’t think it would take so long or be so hard. When I realized that I was losing interest, I tried to automate the process so I could do other things and not be concerned with the day-to-day grind. But—the fact is, things changed. I feel... guilty... but it’s not enough to keep me interested. I don’t know anymore what I’d do if she turned up. I don’t know what I’d do if I found out what happened. It would be simpler if that day never came.”

  He looked at her curiously. “Now, though, it seems PolyCarb has recovered its interest. Linder Koeln wants to talk to me about Helen.”