Red Planet Blues

by Robert J. Sawyer

  I shrugged amiably and then pressed the barrel even tighter against her artificial head. “Aren’t we all?”

  “Shoot her,” said Pickover. I looked at him. He was still holding her upper arms, pressing them in close to her torso. If he’d been biological, the twisting of his torso to accommodate doing that probably would have been quite uncomfortable. Actually, now that I thought of it, given his heightened sensitivity to pain, even this artificial version was probably hurting from twisting that way. But apparently this was a pain he was happy to endure.

  “Do you really want me to do that?” I said. “I mean, I can understand, after what she did to you, but . . .” I didn’t finish the thought; I just left it in the air for him to take or leave.

  “She tortured me. She deserves to die.”

  I frowned, unable to dispute his logic—but, at the same time, wondering if Pickover knew that he was as much on trial here as she was.

  “Can’t say I blame you,” I said again, and then added another “but,” and once more left the thought incomplete.

  At last Pickover nodded. “But maybe you’re right. I can’t offer her any compassion, but I don’t need to see her dead.”

  A look of plastic relief rippled over Cassandra’s face. I nodded, and said, “Good man.”

  “But, still,” said Pickover, “I would like some revenge.”

  Cassandra’s upper arms were still pinned by Pickover, but her lower arms were free, and they both moved. I looked down, just in time to see them jerking toward her groin, almost as if to protect . . .

  I nodded in quiet satisfaction.

  Cassandra had quickly moved her arms back to a neutral, hanging-down position—but it was too late. The damage had been done.

  Pickover had seen it, too; his torso had been twisted just enough to allow him to do so.

  “You . . .” he began slowly, clearly shocked. “You’re . . .” He paused, and if he’d been free to do so, I have no doubt he would have staggered back half a pace. His voice was soft, stunned. “No woman . . .”

  Cassandra hadn’t wanted to touch Pickover’s groin—even though it was artificial—with her bare hands. And when Pickover had suggested exacting revenge for what had been done to him, Cassandra’s hands had moved instinctively to protect—

  It all made sense: the way she plunked herself down in a chair, the fact that she couldn’t bring herself to wear makeup or jewelry in her new body, a dozen other things.

  Cassandra’s hands had moved instinctively to protect her own testicles.

  “You’re not Cassandra Wilkins,” I said.

  “Of course I am,” said the female voice.

  “Not on the inside you’re not. You’re a man. Whatever mind has been transferred into that body is male.”

  Cassandra twisted violently. Goddamned Pickover, still stunned by the revelation, had obviously loosened his grip because she got free. I fired my gun and the bullet went straight into her chest; a streamer of machine oil, like from a punctured can, shot out, but there was no sign that the bullet had slowed her down.

  “Don’t let her get away!” shouted Pickover, in his high, mechanical voice. I swung my gun on him, and for a second I could see terror in his eyes, as if he thought I meant to off him for letting her twist away. But I aimed at the nylon strap restraining his legs and fired. This time, the bullet only partially severed the strap. I reached down and yanked at the remaining filaments, and so did Pickover. They finally broke, and this strap, like the first, snapped free. Pickover swung his legs off the table and immediately stood up. An artificial body has many advantages, among them not being dizzy after lying down for God-only-knew how many days.

  In the handful of seconds it had taken to free Pickover, Cassandra had made it out the door that I’d pried partway open, and was now running down the corridor in the darkness. I could hear splashing sounds, meaning she’d veered far enough off the corridor’s centerline to end up in the water pooling along the starboard side, and I heard her actually bump into the wall at one point, although she immediately continued on. She didn’t have her flashlight, and the only illumination in the corridor would have been what was spilling out of the room I was now in—a fading glow to her rear as she ran along, whatever shadow she herself was casting adding to the difficulty of seeing ahead.

  I squeezed out into the corridor. My flashlight was still in my pocket. I fished it out and aimed it just in front of me; Cassandra wouldn’t benefit much from the light it was giving off. Pickover, who, I noted, had now done his pants back up, had made his way through the half open door and was now standing by my side. I started running, and he fell in next to me.

  Our footfalls drowned out the sound of Cassandra’s; I guessed she must be some thirty or forty meters ahead. Although it was almost pitch-black, she presumably had the advantage of having come down this corridor several times before; I had never gone in this direction, and I doubted Pickover had, either.

  A rat scampered out of our way, squealing as it did so. My breathing was already ragged, but I managed to say, “How well can you guys see in the dark?”

  Pickover’s voice, of course, showed no signs of exertion. “Only slightly better than biologicals can, unless you specifically get an infrared upgrade.”

  I nodded, although he’d have needed better vision than he’d just claimed in order to see it. My legs were a lot longer than Cassandra’s, but I suspected she could pump them more rapidly. I swung the flashlight beam up, letting it lance out ahead of us for a moment. There she was, off in the distance. I dropped the beam back to the floor.

  More splashing from up ahead; she’d veered off once more. I thought about firing a shot—more for the drama of it than any serious hope of bringing her down—when I suddenly became aware that Pickover was passing me. His robotic legs were as long as my natural ones, and he could piston them up and down at least as quickly as Cassandra could.

  I tried to match his speed but wasn’t able to. Even in Martian gravity, running fast is hard work. I swung my flashlight up again, but Pickover’s body, now in front of me, was obscuring everything farther down the corridor; I had no idea how far ahead Cassandra was now—and the intervening form of Pickover prevented me from acting out my idle fantasy of squeezing off a shot.

  Pickover continued to pull ahead. I was passing open door after open door, black mouths gaping at me in the darkness. I heard more rats, and Pickover’s footfalls, and—

  Suddenly something jumped on my back from behind me. A hard arm was around my neck, pressing sharply down on my Adam’s apple. I tried to call out to Pickover but couldn’t get enough breath out . . . or in. I craned my neck as much as I could, and shined the flashlight beam up on the ceiling, so that some light reflected down onto my back from above.

  It was Cassandra! She’d ducked into one of the other rooms and lain in wait for me. Pickover was no detective; he had completely missed the signs of his quarry no longer being in front of him—and I’d had Pickover’s body blocking my vision, plus the echoing bangs of his footfalls to obscure my hearing. I could see my own chilled breath but, of course, not hers.

  I tried again to call out to Pickover, but all I managed was a hoarse croak, doubtless lost on him amongst the noise of his own running. I was already oxygen-deprived from exertion, and the constricting of my throat was making things worse; despite the darkness I was now seeing white flashes in front of my eyes, a sure sign of asphyxiation. I only had a few seconds to act.

  And act I did. I crouched as low as I could, Cassandra still on my back, her head sticking up above mine, and I leapt with all the strength I could muster. Even weakened, I managed a powerful kick, and in this low Martian gravity, I shot up like a bullet. Cassandra’s metal skull smashed into the roof of the corridor. There happened to be a lighting fixture directly above me, and I heard the sounds of shattering glass and plastic.

  I was descending now in maddeningly slow motion, but as soon as I was down, Cassandra still clinging hard to me, I surged forward a
couple of paces then leapt again. This time, there was nothing but unrelenting bulkhead above, and Cassandra’s metal skull slammed hard into it.

  Again the slow-motion fall. I felt something thick and wet oozing through my shirt. For a second, I’d thought Cassandra had stabbed me—but no, it was probably the machine oil leaking from the bullet hole I’d put in her earlier. By the time we had touched down again, Cassandra had loosened her grip on my neck as she tried to scramble off me. I spun around and fell forward, pushing her backward onto the corridor floor, me tumbling on top of her. Despite my best efforts, the flashlight was knocked from my grip by the impact, and it spun around, doing a few complete circles before it ended up with its beam facing away from us.

  I still had my revolver in my other hand, though. I brought it up and by touch found Cassandra’s face, probing the barrel roughly over it. Once, in my early days, I’d rammed a gun barrel into a thug’s mouth; this time, I had other ideas. I got the barrel positioned directly over her left eye and pressed down hard with it—a little poetic justice.

  I said, “I bet if I shoot through your glass eye, aiming up a bit, I’ll tear your artificial brain apart. You want to find out?”

  She said nothing. I called back over my shoulder, “Pickover!” The name echoed down the corridor, but I had no idea whether he heard me. I turned my attention back to Cassandra—or whoever the hell this really was—and I cocked the hammer. “As far as I’m concerned, Cassandra Wilkins is my client—but you’re not her. Who are you?”

  “I am Cassandra Wilkins,” said the voice.

  “No, you’re not. You’re a man—or, at least, you’ve got a man’s mind.”

  “I can prove I’m Cassandra Wilkins,” said the supine form. “My name is Cassandra Pauline Wilkins; my birth name is Collier. I was born in Sioux City, Iowa. My citizenship number is—”

  “Facts. Figures.” I shook my head. “Anyone could find those things out.”

  “But I know stuff no one else could possibly know. I know the name of my childhood pets; I know what I did to get thrown out of school when I was fifteen; I know precisely where the original me had a tattoo; I . . .”

  She went on, but I stopped listening.

  Jesus Christ, it was almost the perfect crime. No one could really get away with stealing somebody else’s identity—not for long. The lack of intimate knowledge of how the original spoke, of private things the original knew, would soon enough give you away, unless—

  Unless you were the spouse of the person whose identity you’d appropriated.

  “You’re not Cassandra Wilkins,” I said. “You’re Joshua Wilkins. You took her body; you transferred into it, and she transferred—” I felt my stomach tighten; it really was a nearly perfect crime. “And she transferred nowhere; when the original was euthanized, she died. And that makes you guilty of murder.”

  “You can’t prove that,” said the female voice. “No biometrics, no DNA, no fingerprints. I’m whoever I say I am.”

  “You and Cassandra hatched this scheme together,” I said. “You both figured Pickover had to know where the Alpha Deposit was. But then you decided that you didn’t want to share the wealth with anyone—not even your wife. And so you got rid of her and made good your escape at the same time.”

  “That’s crazy,” the female voice replied. “I hired you. Why on—on Mars—would I do that, then?”

  “You expected the police to come out to investigate your missing-person report; they were supposed to find the body in the basement of NewYou. But they didn’t, and you knew suspicion would fall on you—the supposed spouse!—if you were the one who found it. So you hired me—the dutiful wife, worried about her poor, missing hubby! All you wanted was for me to find the body.”

  “Words,” said the transfer. “Just words.”

  “Maybe so,” I replied. “I don’t have to satisfy anyone else. Just me. I will give you one chance, though. See, I want to get out of here alive—and I don’t see any way to do that if I leave you alive, too. Do you? If you’ve got an answer, tell me. Otherwise, I’ve got no choice but to pull this trigger.”

  “I promise I’ll let you go,” said the synthesized voice.

  I laughed, and the sound echoed in the corridor. “You promise? Well, I’m sure I can take that to the bank.”

  “No, seriously. I won’t tell anyone. I—”

  “Are you Joshua Wilkins?” I asked.

  Silence.

  “Are you?”

  I felt the face moving up and down a bit, the barrel of my gun shifting slightly in the eye socket as it did so. “Yes.”

  “Well, rest in peace,” I said, and then, with relish, added, “Josh.”

  I pulled the trigger.

  TEN

  The flash from the gun barrel briefly lit up the flawless female face, which was showing almost biological horror. The revolver snapped back in my hand, then everything was dark again. I had no idea how much damage the bullet would do to the brain. Of course, the artificial chest wasn’t rising and falling, but it never had been. And there was nowhere to check for a pulse. I decided I’d better try another shot, just to be sure. I shifted slightly, thinking I’d put this one through the other eye, and—

  And Joshua’s arms burst up, pushing me off him. I felt myself go airborne and was aware of Joshua scrambling to his feet. He scooped up the flashlight, and as he swung it and himself around, it briefly illuminated his face. There was a deep pit where one eye used to be.

  I started to bring the gun up and—

  And Joshua thumbed off the flashlight. The only illumination was a tiny bit of light, far, far down the corridor, spilling out from the torture room; it wasn’t enough to let me see Joshua clearly. But I squeezed the trigger, and heard a bullet ricochet—either off some part of Joshua’s metal internal skeleton or off the corridor wall.

  I was the kind of guy who always knew exactly how many bullets he had left: two. I wasn’t sure I wanted to fire them both off blindly, but—

  I could hear Joshua moving closer. I fired again. This time, the feminine voice box made a sound between an oomph and the word “ouch,” so I knew I’d hit him.

  One bullet to go.

  I started walking backward—which was no worse than walking forward; I was just as likely to trip either way in this near-total darkness. The body in the shape of Cassandra Wilkins was much smaller than mine—but also much stronger. It could probably grab me by the shoulders and pound my head up into the ceiling, just as I’d pounded hers—and I rather suspect mine wouldn’t survive. And if I let it get hold of my arm, it could probably wrench the gun from me; multiple bullets hadn’t been enough to stop the artificial body, but one was all it would take to ice me for good.

  I decided it was better to have an empty gun than a gun that could potentially be turned on me. I held the weapon out in front, took my best guess, and squeezed the trigger one last time.

  The revolver barked, and the flare from the muzzle lit the scene, stinging my eyes. The artificial form cried out—I’d hit a spot its sensors felt was worth protecting with a major pain response, I guess. But Joshua kept moving forward. Part of me thought about turning tail and running—I still had the longer legs, even if I couldn’t move them as fast—but another part of me couldn’t bring myself to do that. The gun was of no more use, so I threw it aside. It hit the corridor wall, making a banging sound, then fell to the deck plates, producing more clanging as it bounced against them.

  Of course, as soon as I’d thrown the gun away, I realized I’d made a mistake. I knew how many bullets I’d shot, and how many the gun held, but Joshua probably didn’t; even an empty gun could be a deterrent if the other person thought it was loaded.

  We were facing each other—but that was all that was certain. Precisely how much distance there was between us I couldn’t say. Although running produced loud, echoing footfalls, either of us could have moved a step or two forward or back—or left or right—without the other being aware of it. I was trying not to make a
ny noise, and a transfer could stand perfectly still, and be absolutely quiet, for hours on end.

  I’d only ever heard clocks ticking with each second in old movies, but I was certainly conscious of time passing in increments as we stood there, each waiting for the other to make a move. And I had no idea how badly I’d hurt him.

  Light suddenly exploded in my face. He’d thumbed the flashlight back on, aiming it at what turned out to be a very good guess as to where my eyes were. I was temporarily blinded, but his one remaining mechanical eye responded more efficiently, I guess, because now that he knew exactly where I was, he leapt, propelling himself through the air and knocking me down.

  This time, both hands closed around my neck. I still outmassed Joshua and managed to roll us over, so he was on his back, and I was on top. I arched my spine and slammed my knee into his balls, hoping he’d release me . . .

  . . . except, of course, he didn’t have any balls; he only thought he did. Damn!

  The hands were still closing around my gullet; despite the chill air, I felt myself sweating. But with his hands occupied, mine were free: I pushed my right hand onto his chest—startled by the feeling of artificial breasts there—and probed around until I found the slick, wet hole my first bullet had made. I hooked my right thumb into that hole, pulled sideways, and brought in my left thumb, as well, squeezing it down into the opening, ripping it wider and wider. I thought if I could get at the internal components, I might be able to tear out something crucial. The artificial flesh was soft, and there was a layer of what felt like foam rubber beneath it—and beneath that, I could feel hard metal parts. I tried to get my whole hand in, tried to yank out whatever I could, but I was fading fast. My pulse was thundering so loudly in my ears I couldn’t hear anything else, just a thump-thump-thumping, over and over again, the thump-thump-thumping of . . .

  Of footfalls! Someone was running this way, and—

  And the scene lit up as flashlights came to bear on us.

  “There they are!” said a high, mechanical voice that I recognized as belonging to the bootleg Pickover. “There they are!”