Remains

by Mark W. Tiedemann

  “You’re very generous, Reese,” Mace observed.

  “I am. I’m glad you noticed.”

  “Is that because PolyCarb signed an agreement with you for your illicit datafeed?” Koeln asked.

  Reese frowned. “That’s not public knowledge.”

  “It’s not even knowledge through most of PolyCarb,” Koeln said. “My clearance runs high, though.”

  Mace whistled. “That was fast.”

  “Yes, it was fast, but I started negotiations that night with a PolyCarb representative. A very good offer, excellent terms. And it’s all legitimate.”

  “There could be complications with that,” Koeln said, “if I’m too disappointed.”

  Reese’s mood darkened at once. He stared speculatively at Koeln, as if trying to divine his nature. “You know, I have always made it a policy to do business with my own people whenever possible. In your case I would make an exception.”

  Mace glanced at Koeln to see if he reacted. Koeln maintained a calm demeanor.

  “It’s very simple,” Koeln said. “If you see, hear of, or find either Patri Simity or Glim Toler, I want to know. Immediately. Then—no complications.”

  “Stat check?”

  “Stat check.”

  “Done. Next time I see you here... well, I’d rather not. As for you, Mr. Preston, you’re welcome anytime, even if you do keep bad company.” He leaned back. “By the way, how is Nemily? She didn’t call me like she promised.”

  “She was preoccupied. I’ll pass on your concerns.”

  “No concern. I miss her, that’s all. She’s a good person.”

  With that he touched a button and the screen rose out of the desk again. The interview was over. Mace stood to leave.

  “I’m curious,” he said. “The arrangement with PolyCarb—it will be for distribution?”

  “Oh, yes. They aren’t fools, they know if they tried to buy me to sit on it I’d just vacuum the thing on the side.”

  “Which you might do anyway, of course.”

  “That’s unfair. You should ask your partner if she thinks I’d do that. I have a reputation to maintain.”

  “Of course. Forgive me.”

  “Not at all, Mr. Preston.”

  Coif let them out the same way Outside, in the main circuit, Mace leaned against a bulkhead, watching people pass by. Koeln waited.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “We can’t arrest Reese for no cause,” Mace said. “Or can we?”

  “I would prefer not to risk alerting Toler.”

  “What did you think of Reese’s opinion, that Toler is just a low-grade vacuum dealer?”

  “I think he doesn’t know the man well.”

  “What do you think he is, then?”

  “I would rather not speculate for your convenience.”

  “Do you think he had anything to do with Cassidy?”

  Koeln frowned. “In what way?”

  Mace snorted. “Just speculating. Whoever sponsored him into Aea did it for a reason. I wondered if you had any idea what that reason might be.”

  “Frankly, I’d hoped you would answer that question.”

  “Me.”

  “Your wife—”

  “Oh, right; when she was alive she confided everything to me.”

  Koeln raised his eyebrows skeptically “I have details to tend to. What will you do now?”

  “Now? Go back to my dom. I have some things to take care of, too.”

  “Then thank you for your time. I wish to talk to you further. Until then “ Koeln bowed and walked away.

  Mace watched him head down the circuit, through the shifting crowds, toward the spoke lift. When he was out of sight, Mace scanned the crowds passing before him, as if by glancing quickly some detail previously hidden might be visible for an instant, caught extruded while his back was to it. A face, a shadow, a door that had not been open when he looked before, anything that called attention to itself that might offer direction. In the absence of a clear way, he fell back on the instincts learned early, on Mars, that allowed him to take advantage of chance. It meant waiting for things, watching to catch a

  glimpse of the important sign, and doing nothing till then because there was nothing to do. Usually, when he looked, there was nothing to find.

  Koeln bothered him. After teasing at it for a few minutes, he went back to 5555.

  Coif did not question his return, only let him in and took him back to Reese’s office.

  “It’s been so long, Mr. Preston,” he said.

  “I won’t keep you, Mr. Nagel. I wondered how long you’ve known Koeln.”

  “Practically since he came here. Four, almost five years ago.”

  “Has he been here before?”

  “Not in some time, but he once frequented my establishment quite often. If you’re wondering whether or not to trust him, I can only say that I’ve never liked him. He’s efficient and aloof. He’s in many ways a walking cliché—everything a good Lunessa is supposed to be.”

  “Except for neglecting Temple.”

  “Most Lunessa give that up after they come here.”

  “You really don’t know where Simity is? Or Toler?”

  “No, I really don’t. I would appreciate knowing that she’s all right. Patri Simity is a good influence in the Heavy. She makes it a better place just by being here.”

  “Toler came here under a different name. Kev Eiler. Mean anything to you?”

  Reese shook his head slowly

  “Eiler is missing, too,” Mace said.

  Reese frowned. “I really would like to help you, Mr. Preston, but....”

  “Things are complicated enough without taking on more?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Thank you again for your time.”

  “May I ask a personal question?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Are you involved with Nemily Dollard?”

  “What if I am?”

  “She worked for me once. She’s a kind person, but with certain obvious handicaps. I’d like to know that she’s being cared for.”

  Mace stared at him, startled. It was not the question he had expected.

  “She’s missing, too,” Mace said. “I have to go find her now.”

  Reese only nodded, but he did not look pleased.

  “Thanks again,” Mace said. He followed Coif out once more.

  Fourteen – AEA, 2118

  “A NEW CAFE OPENED IN THE MALL, Spengler’s. We’re all going to initiate it for lunch.”

  Nemily’s collation completed and she popped out the augment. The words Tara had just spoken seemed to echo suddenly, sound-shapes without content, repeated aural modulations looking for a place to make sense. Nemily quickly inserted her synthesist and the echoing stopped.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t retain that. You caught me between—”

  “A new cafe,” Tara said, with exaggerated care, as if Nemily were unfamiliar with the language. Though she knew that in Tara’s case it came out of short-term frustration and not prejudice, it still scraped across her nerves. “In the Mall. Spengler’s. Lunch, initiation, us, going. Do you want?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Nemily said more sharply than she intended. She saw Tara frown. “I’ve got things to take care of. Maybe another time.”

  “Can I help?”

  Nemily looked up in surprise. She never got used to the occasional failure of her rebuffs on Aea. In Lunase, her words, her tone, her body language would all have been sufficient to turn anyone away. But “leave me alone” did not seem to mean the same thing to Aeans. She knew that, but it still startled her when instead of solitude she received solicitude.

  “You never take days off,” Tara continued. “I don’t remember you taking any personal time. You weren’t here yesterday and it was on short notice. Melissa was caught off guard by it and Melissa never gets caught off guard. So...”

  Reflexively Nemily glanced back toward Melissa’s office. “So?”


  “So now you’re acting like this and I wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help. I’m sorry if the offer’s unwelcome.”

  “No, it’s not—Tara, thank you, I appreciate that. It’s just...”

  “Does this have to do with whoever you disappeared with from Piers’ party the other night?”

  “Guilty,” she said.

  “If he’s hurting you—”

  “Just the opposite, actually And I’m not sure how to take it.”

  “Ah.” Tara smiled as if she understood perfectly and nodded sagely. “Take it as it comes, any way it’s offered. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

  “Lasts?”

  “Never expect it to last more than a day, but don’t let it go if it doesn’t. Let him set the schedule. Unless you get bored.” She reached across Nemily’s desk and patted her shoulder lightly “We’ll be at Spengler’s. If it’s as good as I’ve been hearing from the people in allocations, we may close the place. If you want to talk, you can find me there. Or I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Thanks....”

  Tara strode across the room with slightly more bounce in her step, as if she had just been given a stipend increase or a merit citation or a genuine compliment. She paused at the door and gave Nemily a coy wave, then disappeared.

  While it lasts...?

  Nemily believed that dialogue with the unaugmented contained inbuilt limits that could not be exceeded without prolonged and diligent effort. Meaning came shaded too subtly for easy exchange between two such different forms of wetware, and while she found no problem with the daily level of communication that moved primarily on the surface, when it came to complex interactions she was less confident, convinced that she and they spoke distinct languages with only a coincidentally shared vocabulary and grammar.

  Then there was Mace...

  There are levels and then there are levels, she thought.

  She looked around. She was alone in the office, everyone apparently having gone down to the Mall. She checked her time chop and saw that it was a little past twelve hundred, beginning of midcycle. She had been here a little over four hours already She had arrived early, deciding to come directly to work from Mace’s. She had been a little surprised that security had let her in; she had assumed that her detention would have put her on a list to be kept out, but everything had gone as it always had and no questions were asked.

  She kept a change of clothes in her locker for those occasions when she accepted after-hours invitations from coworkers. The oblique glances she drew as she made her way through the corridors of PolyCarb dressed in her evening wear had added to her anxieties. Her scheduled assignments had been rather full and she realized that no one had done any of her work from the day before. She had linked quickly and been inside the system since.

  Now she was finished.

  Lunch sounded appealing, but the thought of more of Tara’s misdirected concern blunted her appetite. She drummed her fingers idly on the desk, staring at the blank monitor. Before recognizing the decision, Nemily began tapping commands into the keyboard.

  Then she was gazing at a sharp-featured woman with a flat chin, wide, thin-lipped mouth, and large blue eyes widely spaced, separated by a long, straight nose. Her hair was short and very blonde and her nostrils very wide. A strong face that seemed to reveal nothing beyond that strength.

  “Hello, Helen,” Nemily said and began scrolling through the file.

  It ended abruptly with a notation of her death, giving a month and year but no day and no location. Beyond that, the file contained little more than a list of dates and places and supervisors, with none of the usual detail found in PolyCarb personnel jackets. All Nemily knew from this was that Helen had been born on Aea, grown up, took employment with PolyCarb IntraSolar, worked her way up from entry-level duties to project management, married Macefield Preston, worked on various projects all through Signatory Space and died of unknown causes in an undisclosed location. Her educational records, merit citations, and promotions flowed by in a smooth, unbroken register of implied substance.

  Dismayed, Nemily wondered what to do next. She made a few careful queries until suddenly a prohibition icon came up on the screen.

  “So there is more...”

  She played with the system for a time, but it quickly became apparent that she needed to be inside to get around the block. It might, she knew, cost her her job... but then if she was being watched anyway, just doing what she had been doing would do that.

  Without further thought, she popped out her augment and jacked in.

  She made her way almost by instinct. She was outside her diorama, in the system directly, floating among its own virtual iconography—shafts, spheres, cubes, multifaceted constructs with no name. The block resembled a shifting mass of gelatin, roughly spherical, pale green and azure. The moment she connected to it she knew it had a back door. She found it, thrust a feed in, and began loading the contents to a disc. She did not pause to examine any of the data that flowed out. She kept a watch for system securities, but the back door evidently had a protect that shielded access from the system at large. She wondered briefly who had installed it. Nothing responded to her invasion. She felt fragile and invincible at the same time, as if committing suicide in the face of a murderer. You can’t touch me....

  Done, she withdrew and disconnected. She replaced her augment, retrieved the disc, and shut her system down, then left the office and went to her locker. She stuffed the disc in her evening clothes, then packed them into a small bag.

  Feeling jittery, she made her way to the Mall in search of Spengler’s, vaguely wondering if she would be picked up by security. She glanced up at the balcony, overlooking the patulous arena where she imagined Linder Koeln at his desk, searching for people to question.

  She spotted the cafe near the end of the concourse. Laughter punctuated the din of conversation spilling from it. Nemily veered off, entering another place with fewer people. Self-conscious as she was, she could not cope with solicitous coworkers, who by now probably knew all about her personal dilemma, thanks to Tara.

  She took a table near the entrance. No one would notice her sitting alone. Another one of the differences between Aeans and Lunessa in the rules of conduct was that people who sat alone necessarily wanted to be alone. Aeans did not intrude unless they perceived an invitation. Lunessa never left each other alone, despite the nurtured desire of every one of them to be and do exactly that. Watching the easy interactions of

  the other patrons around her, Nemily saw her transformation from Lunessa to Aean as little more than admitted honesty, a painless abandonment of a lifetime of self-denial. Here she could be what she wanted to be and no one would tell her no. It was easy for them, of course. They risked nothing, because they also did not care. In Lunase, people hid their secret selves for fear of others seeing and disapproving, but here people hid nothing since no one would look anyway unless asked, and then they would only look a little.

  Is that what love is? When someone really sees you... ?

  Hiding in full view, she imagined herself a spy, studying the habits of a community alien to her own. Invisible, she could observe with impunity, search for the public soul of her hosts and steal their valuables while they failed to see her. Unloved, but allowed, she would flee with her spoils and become rich by selling secret tolerance through the vacuum in Lunase.

  Lunase? The perversity of her fantasy corrupted its pristine utility, reminding her of what she most feared, that she might have to return to Lunase, where they taught you that mistakes kill and therefore bear the highest penalties.

  “Ms. Dollard?”

  She flinched involuntarily and looked up at the man standing across from her, his hands resting lightly on the back of the opposite chair.

  Not Koeln, she told herself, studying him. He looked familiar. Her heart raced. “Yes?”

  He seemed uncertain for a moment, but he smiled. “Piers Hawthorne.”

  “Piers... oh! I’m so
rry, Mr. Hawthorne, I—forgive me, I was...”

  “Somewhere else?”

  “... daydreaming. I’m sorry. Um... would you care to sit down?”

  “Only if I’m not intruding.”

  “No, not at all. Please.”

  He pulled the chair out. “Have you eaten yet? I was coming down to see the new place further down and I saw you come in here.”

  “No, I—if you want to do that instead—”

  He waved a hand. “I don’t think I’d be able to hear myself eat, from the sound of it.” He glanced around until he caught a waiter’s eye and motioned him over. “I’d probably just stop in for a drink and leave in five minutes. I can do that after I eat as easily as before.”

  The waiter arrived and took their orders.

  “So,” Piers said, “why aren’t you at Spengler’s with everyone else?”

  “I’m not in an especially sociable mood right now.”

  He nodded. “After Reese’s little soiree the other night I can imagine you’re thoroughly full of crowds. I am, certainly. I was rather surprised to see you there.”

  “The other night?”

  “In the Heavy? 5555? I was more surprised to see Mace. Did you bring him or did he bring you?” He laughed. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry, but I’m very curious. Mace isn’t usually the most sociable of people. Just getting him to show up at my party was a minor feat. Seeing him in the Heavy was a shock, but a pleasant one.”

  “I didn’t know you were there... We’d been to dinner. Reese had told me about a special event, so—”

  “You know Reese personally?”

  “He helped me when I first came here.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Not personally, just by reputation. I was there with an acquaintance. What did you think of his ‘special event’?”

  “I suppose I wonder if it was real—”

  “Oh, it’s real. Sly move on his part. As a matter of fact, PolyCarb has just negotiated a distribution deal with him.”

  “Really? But... why? Wouldn’t it be more profitable for him to—?”

  “Not really. He would run into problems. What he did wasn’t illegal in any strict sense, but it needs better management than it would get in Reese’s hands. Everybody’s interests will be served by our administration. Tell me, did it frighten you, what you saw?”