The Last Campaign (The Near-Earth Mysteries)

by Martin L Shoemaker

  “Controlling development to preserve the environment,” I said.

  “Bingo. The Saganists, the few scientists who still care about Mars, are obsessed with Mars’s nonexistent biosphere. They think if they can find evidence of life, they can bring attention back to Mars, and things will be run properly as they see it. They don’t have a lot of influence, but what they have is loud and connected. Just enough that the Initiative and everyone in the Compact has agreed to the development restrictions. No new permanent development anywhere without certification by areologists that there is no impact on Martian life or evidence of the same.”

  “Which is ridiculous,” I said. “If there had been any such evidence, we would have found it by now.”

  “Ridiculous is normal in politics,” Nick said. “Somewhere out there”—he looked around—“somewhere right here in Maxwell City, probably, is someone who’s bankrolling another city.”

  “I hate to repeat myself,” I said, “but this is crazy. There is a hidden city in the chasma?”

  “I am sure of the location,” Gale said. “Because of my experience, they put me on some surface duties. I was out at night enough times to identify my location, give or take maybe thirty kilometers. I could have done better with more time.”

  “But this . . .” I stopped, trying to make sense of what I was hearing.

  “Think about it, Rosie,” Nick said. “We’ve seen the numbers before. We know the theoretical argument: one of the biggest things keeping Mars from being self-sufficient now is arbitrary limits to growth imposed by the Compact. There’s enough wealth being generated here to make massive investments in growth. Some of that wealth is going back to Earth, but maybe not as much as we think. They say they’re just waiting for Free Mars where we can write our own rules. But maybe they’re not waiting. Maybe they’re making the investment now, in preparation for the political change.”

  “They cannot buy their way out of the Compact,” I said. “There are too many interested parties involved. But . . .”

  “But they can buy an election,” Nick said. “Swing more of the city, of all the settlements, toward the Libertist camp. Push us closer to declaring Free Mars. And when we do . . .”

  “They are ready,” I said. “Fait accompli. The settlement is already built, ready to mine resources, grow food, drill for water, and build infrastructure on top of what they already have.”

  “You see why I’m afraid,” Gale said. “This . . . It’s like a tsunami. I saw the water rushing out, and I see it rushing back. I just wanted to run for high ground and ride it out. I figured once your election was done, what I knew wouldn’t make me a threat anymore, and they’d leave me alone.”

  I shook my head. “But Gale, why are you on the run in the first place? You had a job, suited to your abilities, paying you air and water and food, right?”

  “Right,” Gale answered. “If I’d been smart, I’d have kept my mouth shut. I’d have been on the winning side, it looks like, instead of a loser again. The Gale luck, one more time.” He drained his glass. “But I couldn’t stop asking questions. I . . . had to understand. I get restless when I don’t know something.”

  Nick smiled at that, a rarity for him. “You’re an explorer, Horace. You always have been. Even when you were a toady.” I was surprised. For years when Nick had used Gale’s first name, he had exaggerated it: HORace. It had been a subtle form of needling, prodding at Gale’s sense of self-importance. Now Nick pronounced the name plainly. He sounded almost supportive.

  Gale did not seem to notice, he only chuckled. “I had a good teacher.” He turned back to me. “I got nosy. At first I was just looking for ways to make myself more valuable, get better assignments and better pay.”

  “Pay?”

  “Absolutely! This wasn’t slave labor. It wasn’t even unskilled labor. They were selective. They wanted useful people, and they paid for the skills. Better than I’ve been able to get hopping around job to job across Mars. Anonymous payments, blockchips; but the rumor was that the payments came from the Red Planet League.”

  “The League!” I said. That was trouble. I felt the web of politics tightening around me.

  Gale nodded. “And there were people getting paid better yet, people in higher positions.”

  It was my turn to laugh. “And your ambition bit you again,” I said. “You are never satisfied if you are not climbing.”

  Gale spread his hands. “It’s true. I can’t change my spots. But can you blame me? Look at you, Ms. Morais. No disrespect, but you’re just the same. You’re . . . you’re thriving in this new office. You’re getting a chance to really change things, make a real difference. You grabbed it. You won’t let go. Are you really that different from me?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came out. I had no answer.

  But Nick did. “The difference, Gale, is she’s getting there only through her accomplishments, not by playing the politics game. You were accomplished, but that wasn’t fast enough for you. And apparently it still isn’t.”

  “No . . .” Gale looked back and forth between us. “I’ve changed, Nick. In Boomtown, I wasn’t trying to climb the social ladder, I was trying to be as good a spacer as I used to be. And find chances to prove it.”

  “And that made them nervous,” Nick said.

  “It did,” Gale agreed. “One of the project managers, Merrick, finally decided he wouldn’t work with me. I think he thought I wanted his job.” Gale grinned. “I did, and I’d have been better at it. So he transferred me to another shift, with harder work. I didn’t make an issue of it, I just dove into the new assignment. Soon enough, I was assigned outside work again, and I was able to narrow down the location. But I kept quiet about it.”

  “Oh?”

  “Development restrictions weren’t the only thing they were lax about,” Gale explained. “They weren’t that big on civil rights either. Three times, I saw workers hauled away for no discernible reason. The word among the workers was that they were spies of some sort, or maybe thieves. No one story was accepted by everyone, but everyone seemed to agree that we were being watched closely, and we should be careful to stay in line. I didn’t really believe it until they took Jerry away.”

  “Who is Jerry?” I asked.

  “I never got his last name, and I don’t know if Jerry was his real first name. Names were a little fluid in the work rooms. Because of my reputation, I was stuck with my real name, but I might have been the only one. Jerry was . . . a friend, I guess. A bit of a dreamer, and curious like me. Not very bright when it came to keeping his mouth shut. He kept pestering me with questions about where we were and why we were doing this. He couldn’t stop speculating.

  “And the thing is, he was a believer! He wasn’t sure what was going on there, but he was sure it was a good thing. A noble thing for the future of humanity. That was why I couldn’t get him to shut up, no matter how many times I tried. He . . . he had the vision. And he had to know more.

  “And then one morning, he just wasn’t in his bunk. His roommates said one of the managers had called him out for a night assignment and hadn’t brought him back. And that was it. We never saw Jerry again.”

  “He might have gotten reassigned,” Nick said.

  “Or . . . ,” I said. “Or promoted. If he really was a true believer, maybe they rewarded that.”

  “I told myself that for a week,” Gale said. “I kept an eye out, hoping to see Jerry in one of the manager jobs. But it just wasn’t happening. And our work group stopped talking about Jerry.

  “That was when the whole thing started to smell foul to me,” Gale continued. “If they would disappear somebody as gung ho as Jerry because he knew too much, what would they do to me? I was smart enough not to show it, but I had a lot more answers than Jerry did. Enough answers to get disappeared, I was sure.”

  I nodded. “So you disappeared yourself.”

  “Exactly,” Gale said. “But first, I hid some air tanks and filters and scrubbers. I had a
long walk ahead, and air would be my limiting factor. Fortunately their inventory control systems weren’t as secure as they thought, so no one noticed my scrounging. A few items at a time, I stashed my supplies in caches every time I had surface duty. I also socked away some valuables that might serve as trade goods. Or even . . .”

  “Even bargaining chips,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “That was in the back of my mind as well. But I wasn’t sure how to put them to use. I knew the Libertist coalition controlled Maxwell City, so I thought maybe I could get the evidence to the Realists and tell my story.”

  “But you didn’t,” I said. “Hogan’s people arrested you in the Well.”

  “Yes,” Gale said. “But I’m getting ahead of myself there. Back in Boomtown, I built my stash, and I kept my mouth shut. But still they seemed to be keeping an eye on me. I’d been too friendly with Jerry, I think. I started getting dirtier, lower-level assignments, not things that would utilize my skills as I had proven them. I stopped getting surface duty entirely. I was afraid I’d missed my chance; but then I heard the news I’d been waiting for: a storm was coming. There had been an accident, and they lost three of their exterior team. Four more were laid up in the clinic. They couldn’t afford to be choosy, and I was assigned to the exterior again.

  “Once I was out on the surface, I volunteered for a surveying assignment, as that would take me farthest from the lot. I went out, taking mineral assays and locator sightings, doing exactly what I was supposed to do up until break time. They worked us longer and harder than on most jobs, but they were smart enough to know that you can’t go forever without breaks. They stretched as long as they could, trying to beat the storm.

  “But eventually they had to call a break. When they did, I checked the sky, and I remembered the meteorology lessons that Van der Ven had taught us. The storm would hit soon. I turned off my locator, and I also turned off the second locator hidden in my water recycler that we weren’t supposed to know about. Then I turned off my suit lights, and I marched toward the storm front.

  “The clouds moved quickly, making a dark Martian night; but I’ve seen darker, back when we on Nick’s team were the only humans on Mars. Dark didn’t scare me. Mars didn’t scare me. Using dead reckoning, I found my caches before the sand completely buried them. Then I found my way to some rocks I had memorized, and I sheltered from the sand as best I could. When the storm let up, I started walking again.”

  Nick interrupted. “And Boomtown was far enough away that they couldn’t expect anyone could walk from there to Maxwell City.”

  Gale grinned. “Exactly. Not just walking, climbing out of the chasma. I’m sure they didn’t expect that. They probably thought I was lost in the storm; but even if they sent out search vehicles, I’m sure they didn’t think anyone would try to evade them, or be smart enough to get away with it. Boomtown may have had some money behind it, but what it needed was some Mars experts.”

  Nick continued, “So you marched at night, and you dug into the sands by day, just leaving your solar collector out to help your batteries. You scavenged subsurface water, put it into your purifier, and let your suit turn some of it into oxygen. That wasn’t even a challenge for you, Gale. You could walk halfway across Mars that way, and they’d never find you.”

  Gale shook his head. “I didn’t have rations for that long, nor enough power for my assist suit; but I had more than enough to make Maxwell City. Well, Port Shannon, that is. Then I hung out by a field maintenance lock, and I waited for a service bot to go out to fuel up a lander. While the bot was focused outward, I came up behind it and then dashed in before the lock closed. That got me into the port, and it was easy from there. I’d heard about the Well, so I tried to look like I belonged until I could get into the common areas. From there I found the Well, and I traded a couple of items for a meal and some credits.”

  “So you had more than Hogan picked you up with?” I asked.

  “I did,” Gale said. “Don’t worry, I have pictures and serial numbers. If anybody will believe me.”

  I did believe. I absolutely believed. Gale’s story fit so many facts. I wished I had Wagner and his network analysis graph to plug this into. Maybe now it would pinpoint the people behind Boomtown.

  But I could not draw anyone else in. Like it or not, this was not my call. I had agreed to Gale’s terms, or I would not have known any of this. Sometimes you could bend the rules, but you did not bend trust.

  Yet I was still on a deadline. Gale had been talking for over two hours. With that plus my morning and afternoon with the team, nine of my thirty-nine hours were gone. I had thirty left. What were we going to do?

  26. RAIDS

  If my life had been a vid, our next move would have been for Nick and me to lead an assault on Boomtown, with my whole squad behind me. Maybe the whole police force, the cavalry to the rescue, taking down the forces of darkness.

  What rot!

  We were a police force, not an army. We had not even trained in surface maneuvers, which would make us liabilities on the surface. And make us dead.

  Instead Nick and I convinced Gale against his instincts that it was time to trust someone outside the embassy. I vouched for Hogan, and Nick did as well, if not as enthusiastically. Between us, we persuaded Gale to tell Hogan his story and give him the coordinates for Boomtown. The Initiative had the army, let them get shot at.

  If it came to shooting. I was going to try to prevent that.

  But suddenly I had a new appreciation for Nick’s ethical dilemma. Between us, we now had a more complete picture than Nick had had when Gale had first taken him into his confidence. Complete enough to act; but also complete enough to possibly destroy Anthony. And Gale still did not trust Anthony, despite my assurances that Anthony was a good man. Gale conceded only this much: he let me call Anthony and promise him that I was doing the right thing, whatever happened.

  “What do you mean?” Anthony asked.

  “Mr. Mayor, I cannot say. But this is the right thing to do. I hope someday you will see that.” I was prepared to go one step further: to call in Nick to back me up if I had to.

  But instead, Anthony said, “Rosie, I trust you. You’ll do the right thing.”

  He trusted me. This was not about Nick, it was all me. It warmed my heart, which was a nice way to feel as I headed out on what might be my last duty as police chief of Maxwell City.

  The Steering Committee was too large. I had heard Alonzo say that before. Too many people to make the tough decisions, too many opinions on trivial matters. They were large enough that they met in the auditorium in the Admin Center. It was a gray area in terms of the administration’s official neutrality between the parties, but no one had ever turned down the Realists for using the facility. Of course the Realists had never asked.

  My spotters told me there were at least fifty in the room. Alonzo was right: that was not a committee, it was a crowd. And my investigations had revealed that a significant chunk of that crowd were on the board of the Red Planet League. This was tangled, but I was starting to find the loose ends.

  The bulk of my force was gathered at the main entrance—which was locked, of course. Private committees were not subject to open meeting rules. My other squads were gathered outside the side entrances, the Admin anteroom, even the service entrances. No one was getting in or out without me knowing.

  We were not alone. Nick was with us. I had not even tried to argue with him about it. I was too tired for that; we could argue later. And as I promised, Pat Knighton was right behind me. “I sure hope this explanation is going to be good, Ms. Morais,” he said.

  “Trust me,” I said. “It will be a ratings sweep. When the time comes, you start your monitor, and do not stop transmitting for anything.”

  And then we waited, until at last I got the comm signal from Chief Hogan: In place.

  “All right,” I said on my command channel. “Backup squads, watch your exits. We are going in.” I keyed in my police chief code, the do
or popped open, and my police force entered the auditorium where we had debuted a month ago. This time, space it, we marched. I was sure it was a beautiful sight on Knighton’s video.

  Alonzo was up at the rostrum making some sort of speech. Again the holographic Mars globe hovered behind him. I did not get a chance to hear what he was saying, because he stopped at the sound of our boots. “Ms. Morais!” he said. “This is—”

  Stehouwer walked up from the side of the stage. “This is outrageous, ma’am. Get these police out of here immediately.”

  “I cannot do that, Mr. Stehouwer,” I said. I used the old command voice that I had not needed in years. I could still project, even in a room that was getting noisier by the second.

  “Ms. Morais,” Alonzo said, “you are ruining everything! I was just explaining why we needed to postpone the vote on your job for one more day. Now . . .”

  “Now I think a vote is obviously in order,” Stehouwer said. “I move that we vote to remove Ms. Morais from office immediately. Do I have a second?”

  “You do not!” I said. “I do not serve at your pleasure. I was appointed by Mayor Holmes, with the backing of the city council, and only they can remove me.”

  Thomas came onto the stage from the other side. “The council will do what we tell them to do.”

  “I do not think so,” I answered, “not once they learn that this entire committee is under arrest.”

  “That’s outrageous!” Thomas said.

  “You can’t arrest all of us!” Stehouwer added.

  “Maybe,” I said. “Maybe only some of you, but we need to hold all of you for questioning, at least until I get my reports from Boomtown.”

  Stehouwer’s face grew pale. Thomas was a better actor. “Boomtown? What’s that?” But I did not buy it. These two had “ringleader” written all over them.