Red Planet Blues

TWENTY-EIGHT





Mac and Huxley had come to my apartment in a police car, but it was much smaller than a prowl car would have been on Earth, and, try as the four of us might, we couldn’t get Trace stuffed into the back seat. My neighborhood was rough, but we had to go through classier parts of town to get to NewYou, and so just lashing him to the roof wasn’t going to do. Mac finally gave up and called for the paddy wagon. I had no fondness for that particular vehicle—twice people had thrown up on me inside it—so Pickover and I headed out on our own while Hux and Mac waited. Normally, I’d have hoofed it, but Pickover’s ankle was still a problem; we hopped on the hovertram.

They say you can judge a city by the quality of its public transportation. New Klondike’s trams were covered with graffiti and filled with garbage; things were nasty around the edges in a frontier town, and, frankly, I liked it that way. It took us about ten minutes, with all the stops, to get as close to NewYou as the tram would take us.

We hadn’t been able to talk about anything of substance on the tram—too many people listening—but now that we were out on the street, I said, “Any idea who the big guy was working for? Who ‘Actual’ might be?”

Pickover frowned, then: “The big bloke referred to him as ‘he,’ so it’s presumably not Lakshmi.” We were very near the center of the dome now. Overhead, all the supporting struts came together in a starburst pattern around the central column.

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s Lakshmi, either—but not because of that. Lakshmi knows where the Alpha is, and presumably Trace was after the diary because he doesn’t know where the Alpha is and thinks it might tell him.”

“Who else knows about the diary?” Pickover asked.

We continued along. “I only told you, but God knows how many people Miss Takahashi told.” There was a pebble in front of me. I kicked it, and it skittered ahead for most of a block.

We beat Mac and company to NewYou. When we entered, Reiko Takahashi was on duty. I would normally look at her with honest admiration; she was, as I have perhaps mentioned once or twice, quite lovely. But I found myself averting my eyes. She’d long known that her grandfather was dead; I didn’t have to be the bearer of that bit of news. But that her grandfather’s body was here, on Mars, would come as a shock. Pickover limped up to the counter Reiko was standing behind, and they spoke for a few moments. She said Mr. Fernandez was in the workroom and could doubtless make him right as rain; I frowned, trying to remember the last time I’d seen rain. Reiko pointed to the door to the back. Pickover looked over at me, I gave him a thumbs-up, and he disappeared.

Reiko crossed the floor. Her long hair was gathered into a ponytail today, so the orange stripes were only partially visible. “Hello, Alex,” she said, smiling. Her demeanor gave no hint that she’d heard anything from Lakshmi about my having made off with the diary.

“Hi, Reiko. I like your hair like that.”

She tipped her head demurely. “Thanks.” She indicated the doorway Pickover had gone through. “Does everyone who spends time with you end up in that sort of shape?”

“Actually, he got off lucky. The NKPD will be here shortly with—ah, here they are now.”

The front door slid open, and Mac and Hux came in. They’d gotten a stretcher somewhere along the way, and Trace’s giant body was on it, covered from head to toe by a thin gray sheet.

Miss Takahashi’s perfectly manicured fingers went to her mouth. “Oh, God!” she said, moving over to stand next to Mac. “What happened?”

“This gentleman,” Mac said, “attacked us, and we had to, um, deactivate him.”

Reiko’s eyebrows drew together. “Let me get Mr. Fernandez.” She hustled into the back, her high heels clicking. Moments later, she reappeared, followed by her boss.

“Detective McCrae?” Fernandez said. “What’s up?”

Mac repeated what he’d said to Reiko, and then he pulled back one end of the sheet, revealing Trace’s face. A transfer’s skin color didn’t change after death, and the eyes didn’t necessarily close; Trace’s green eyes were wide-open, although whatever the disruptor had done to his circuitry had caused one pupil to contract to little more than a pinpoint while the other was so dilated it looked like he’d just come from an eye exam. Of course, he was absolutely still, but he looked like he could leap back into action at any moment. At least with a human stiff, you knew they were out of the game for good.

“How’d this happen?” Fernandez asked. He looked ashen—worse than the dead guy; maybe he was worried about a liability suit if one of his uploads had failed.

“We used a broadband disruptor on him,” Mac said.

Fernandez nodded. “Right, right. I’d heard that you guys had a prototype unit.”

“Anyway, do you recognize him?”

“Sure,” said Fernandez. “That’s Dazzling Don Hutchison.”

I’d heard the name before, so I had another look. “It is?”

“Well, it’s not really him,” Fernandez said. “But that’s his face. Licensed and everything. The estate gets a royalty each time we use it. Don’t get much call for it, though—nobody remembers him anymore.”

“Who the hell is Dazzling Don Hutchison?” asked Mac.

I opened my mouth to reply, but so did Hux—and he had so little in life, I decided to let him beat me to it. “He was a football player,” he said. “With the Memphis Blues.”

“And he’s dead?”

“Twenty years, at least,” said Hux.

“But this isn’t him uploaded?” said Mac to Fernandez. “This is someone else who bought his face?”

“I’d assume so.”

“Can you identify who this is—was?”

“People who choose to use something other than their own face usually want to guard their anonymity.”

“Sure,” said Mac. “But you must have some way to tell who’s who, so you can see if they’re still under warranty or whatever. A serial number or something.”

Fernandez went into his back room and returned a moment later holding a small scanning device. He aimed it at the body. “No transponder, meaning he opted for an anonymizer package. I’ll have to open him up to have a look.”

“Do that, please,” said Mac.

“I’ve already got Mr. Pickover opened up. Let me finish his repairs then I’ll take care of this.”

“How long for an ID?” asked Mac.

“I’ll need another hour on Pickover.”

“All right,” said Mac. He turned to me. “A drink, Alex?”

“Another time.”

Mac looked at Miss Takahashi then back at me and gave me a knowing wink. “Right, then. Come along, Sergeant Huxley.” The two of them left the shop, and Fernandez went into the back room, closing the door behind him. Nobody had bothered to cover up Trace again, so I did—leaving just me and Reiko alone in the showroom, the two of us biologicals surrounded by unoccupied transfer floor models of various body types and colorations.

“Disconcerting,” she said, “seeing a dead transfer like that.”

“Yes.” I took a breath, then: “Reiko, I have something to tell you that—”

The alloquartz outer door slid open, and a filthy, ancient prospector came in. “You got a washroom?”

Most retail staff had a pat answer along the lines of, “Sorry, it’s for customer use only.” Apparently, NewYou had a canned response, too. “Sir,” Reiko said, flashing her brilliant smile, “we can set you up so that you never have to use a washroom again! Come on in and let me show you the very best that modern science has to offer!”

The old fossil hunter looked like he was going to call Reiko an unkind name but then he caught sight of me and thought better of it. He turned around and beetled outside.

“You were about to say, Alex?”

“You might want to have a seat.”

Her expression suggested she thought this was unnecessary—and, indeed, it probably was; even if you fainted on Mars, you likely wouldn’t break anything. But she went to the stool behind the cash desk, sat, and looked at me expectantly. “Well?”

“First, your grandfather is dead. Unequivocally so. I don’t want to say anything that gets false hopes up, so let’s be clear about that up front.”

She nodded.

“But,” I continued, “he did not die re-entering Earth’s atmosphere all those years ago. He died here, on Mars. I know, because Dr. Pickover and I have recovered his body.”

“My . . . God.” Her eyes were wide. “Are you sure? I mean, I don’t doubt you’ve found someone’s body, but—”

“I’m sure. Or, more to the point, Dr. Pickover is sure; he’s the one who identified the corpse.”

“My God. Where . . . where is the body now?”

“In the descent stage.”

“Pardon?”

“We found the descent stage that was left here on Mars at the end of their third mission.”

“Take me to it. I’ll rent a surface suit.”

“No need—or, at least, there won’t be any need shortly. We’ve moved the descent stage here, to New Klondike. It’s outside the dome now, but I’m going to get it hauled into the shipyard. You can come down once that’s done and have a look.”

She seemed dumbfounded and more than a little shaken; perhaps she was now glad she’d taken my advice to sit down. “I don’t get it,” she said, delicate hands folded in her small lap. “Why was he still on Mars?”

“It looks like he was marooned here.”

“By who? By—by Simon Weingarten?”

“Pretty much the only suspect.”

“Wow,” said Reiko. “Wow.”

I wanted to go take care of getting the lander brought inside. “I’ve got an errand to run. I should be back in time to hear whatever identification details Mr. Fernandez can give us.”

Reiko nodded, and I went out through the alloquartz sliding door. Just past it, there was a big wet spot on the wall; perhaps Reiko should have let the old prospector use the john after all.

I headed to the shipyard in the Seventh Circle between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, and made my way to Bertha’s shack. She was hunched over like an albino gorilla, looking at work orders. “Hey, dollface,” I said.

“Oh, Alex, I was just about to text you. The Kathryn Denning has touched down outside the dome. They’re offloading its cargo now.”

“Thanks,” I said. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a fifty-solar coin. “You’ll let me know when I can get aboard to poke around?”

She took the money and nodded her jowly head.

“Great,” I said. “Until then, I’ve got a ship I want hauled inside.”

She looked at me blankly. “You have a ship?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where’d you get a ship?”

“Found it abandoned. Salvaged it.”

“It’ll cost to have a tractor bring it in, and you’ll have to pay rent on a berth for as long as it’s here.”

“I have an alternative proposal,” I said.

She narrowed her pig-like eyes. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You haul it in for free, and you let me keep it here for free.”

“Funny,” she said. “I don’t smell booze on your breath.”

“Hear me out. You do that, and we’ll charge people to tour the ship—say, twenty solars a head, which we’ll split fifty-fifty.”

“Ain’t no one gonna pay to see some dead hulk,” Bertha said. She gestured out the shack’s tiny window. “We’re knee-deep in them here.”

“They’ll pay to see this one. It’s Weingarten and O’Reilly’s lander from their final expedition.”

“Holy crap,” she said. “Really?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Fifty-fifty, huh?”

“Right down the middle—with one condition. I get two days of exclusive access before we open it to the public.”

“What for?”

“I’m looking for clues.”

“I’ve always said you were clueless, Alex.”

I thought about asking her if she knew Sergeant Huxley; it seemed like a match made in heaven. But I simply smiled and said, “Do we have a deal?”

“Deal.”

“How soon can you have it hauled inside?”

“Portia—the gal who operates the tractor—is out getting a bite to eat. But I’ll get her to do it when she comes back.”

“Great, thanks. The ship’s on pad seven. You’ll make sure no one comes near it?”

“Yes, of course.” She gestured at the shipyard. “Keeping away looters is half my job; I’m good at it.”

“I know. Thanks.”

“Fifty-fifty, remember,” Bertha said, holding up her left arm and tapping the face of her wrist phone with a sausage-like finger to let me know that it had recorded the arrangement.

I feigned a hurt tone. “After all we’ve been through, you don’t trust me?”

“Would you?” she asked simply.

“I see your point.”