Red Planet Blues

by Robert J. Sawyer

  Fernandez got a tool—like pliers, but with oddly shaped jaws—and he attached it to one of a pair of cylinders positioned more or less where the lungs should have been. The tool seemed to unlock something; there was a loud click, and the cylinder came free. Fernandez pulled the cylinder out and placed it on the table next to the body. The cylinder was covered with lubricant, which he wiped off with a green cloth, and then he got a large magnifying glass with a light attached and looked at the metal casing. “This is a ballast unit,” he said. “Gives heft to the torso. We don’t advertise the fact, but they’ve got serial numbers on them.”

  He said the word “Keely,” then spoke a string of numbers into the air.

  His computer responded in a pleasant female voice. “Transfer completed—” and it named a date two years ago.

  “Where was the transfer done?” Fernandez asked.

  “The body was assembled here,” said Keely, “at this NewYou franchise.”

  “That was before I started working here,” Fernandez said to me. He spoke to Keely again. “And what’s this person’s name?”

  “Unknown,” said Keely.

  Fernandez frowned. “There has to be a record of the transference,” he said—but whether he was telling me, or reminding his computer, I didn’t know. He tried rephrasing his question. “Who came in for a transfer that day?”

  “Nobody.”

  I frowned, thinking of what Trace had said: “I’m nobody.”

  “There had to be a source mind copied into this body,” Fernandez said into the air. “Whose mind was scanned that day?”

  “No one’s.”

  “Then how was the transfer made?”

  “I don’t know,” said Keely.

  “You’re sure it was done here?” Mac asked.

  “That ballast unit was taken from our stock,” the computer replied.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” I said, looking at Fernandez. “You said the face was off-the-rack, so to speak. What about the rest of the body? Did it have any special modifications?”

  The female voice answered. “Option package five selected: superior strength. No other modifications to standard body.”

  “He said he was hired muscle,” I said. “I guess he was. But who hired him?”

  “Who indeed?” asked Mac. He looked at Fernandez. “What do you do with a dead transfer? A funeral for a transfer seems like an oxymoron.”

  “Yeah,” said Fernandez. “Transfers do get destroyed every once in a while, of course, but not often; I don’t think we’ve had more than a couple of cases here on Mars.” He paused. “Well, with no record of who transferred into this body, there’s no way to contact next of kin. I guess I’ll just strip him down for spare parts.” He looked at the body stretched out before him. “Although I gotta say, I rarely need any so big.”

  * * *

  When Mac and I went back through the sliding door into the showroom, I was surprised that not only was Pickover gone, but so was Reiko Takahashi.

  Fernandez, who came out a moment later, was angry; he didn’t like that his shop had been left unattended. Then again, it wasn’t as if anyone was going to steal a transfer body; there was nothing you could do with one until it had had a consciousness moved into it, and that was hardly a do-it-yourself affair.

  I asked my phone to get hold of Pickover. He didn’t answer, which could mean he was in trouble, or it could mean he was indeed getting it on with Miss Takahashi; even I had eventually learned that you don’t answer your phone when you’re in bed with a lady.

  Reiko had been anxious to see her grandfather’s body, but I doubted Pickover would go to the descent stage without me, and only teenagers went to the shipyard to make out. I looked around the showroom for any sign of a struggle; there couldn’t have been a loud one or we’d have heard it in the next room. But there was no indication of anything amiss—excepting for the missing miss.

  I looked at Fernandez, who was using his own phone, presumably to call Reiko. “No answer?” I said.

  “No.” He shook the phone off. “She wouldn’t just disappear. She’s not like that.”

  “Alex,” said Detective McCrae. “What’s going on?”

  I took a deep breath; I needed to give him something so he wouldn’t shut me down. “Reiko Takahashi is Dennis O’Reilly’s granddaughter.”

  Fernandez’s eyeballs looked like they were going to pop out. I went on. “Dennis O’Reilly didn’t die when his ship burned up on re-entry. Rather, he was marooned here by Simon Weingarten. Reiko had a hard copy of a diary written by her grandfather, which he transmitted back to Earth before he was marooned, but she loaned it to Lakshmi Chatterjee, who is the writer-in-residence here in town.”

  Mac sounded incredulous. “We have a writer-in-residence?”

  “That’s what I said! They have to advertise these things better.”

  “So, this Lakshmi person has the diary?” asked Mac.

  “No. Not anymore. It’s somewhere safe—but that big bruiser, Trace, thought I had it; that’s why he broke into my apartment.” I turned to Fernandez. “I was told during the Wilkins case that there were no security cameras upstairs.”

  “That’s true,” he said.

  “But do you have them down on this floor?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Can we see a playback?”

  “This way.” He led us through the sliding door again; beyond the workshop there was a small office. He turned on a wall monitor and spoke to Keely. “Camera two playback, quad speed, starting thirty minutes ago.”

  The camera was obviously mounted above the cash desk and showed the transparent door that led outside. The door slid open and—well, the expression “I thought I saw a ghost” perhaps didn’t apply when a transfer was involved, but there, in the doorway, illuminated rather dramatically from behind, was Trace—or rather an exact duplicate. There wasn’t just one Moose; there were Meese.

  “Well,” said Fernandez, “it is an off-the-shelf face. Keely, normal speed.”

  I’d been so intent on the mug’s mug I hadn’t initially noticed that he was packing heat. But Miss Takahashi clearly did, for she froze in the video. Moose the Second rapidly closed the distance between him and her and signaled for her to be quiet.

  Pickover had initially been oblivious, but he soon spotted the man and then the gun. The big transfer couldn’t do much to Pickover, but he could kill Reiko, and Pickover clearly realized that. He looked back at the door to the room we’d been standing in, as if wondering whether to call for help, but after a second he decided against it. The camera had recorded audio, too, but none of them said a word. Pickover was flexing his legs ever so slightly; now that his ankle was fixed, I think he was trying to decide if he could leap across the room and tackle the other transfer.

  But just then the door slid open again, and a third transfer with Dazzling Don Hutchison’s face came in. That was enough to make Pickover think better of trying to be a hero; either one of the giants could rip his metal skull off his titanium spine. It was galling that all of this had been going on just meters away from me. The transfer who had entered first gestured with his gun, and Reiko headed out the door, followed by Pickover.

  Mac was already on his phone, calling the police station to see if the strange party—two giant twins, a transferee paleontologist, and a hot little biological—had been seen by any of the public security cameras, but, of course, most of those had long ago been smashed.

  “Who’d want to kidnap Professor Pickover?” Fernandez asked.

  “Maybe they wanted Miss Takahashi instead,” Mac said.

  “Why would anyone kidnap her?” asked Fernandez.

  “Ransom?” I suggested. “If they knew she’s Denny O’Reilly’s granddaughter, they might have figured there was money to be had.” I turned to Fernandez. “Did you know?”

  He crossed his massive arms in front of his chest. “Are you accusing me?”

  “No. No. I’m just asking. You looked surprised when I m
entioned it.”

  “I was surprised. I mean, she’s Japanese; he was Irish. I’d never even suspected.”

  “Right,” I said. “I doubt anyone did. But she told me.” I walked closer to the wall. “And she told me when I was standing right about there.” I pointed to a spot in the image, which now showed the empty showroom. “Which means a record of her telling me was made, by the same security camera that made this picture. You could have reviewed it and found out.”

  “I had no reason to go over the security recordings,” Fernandez said.

  “Does anybody else have access to them?” asked Mac. “Any of the other employees able to call them up?”

  “Well, the Wilkinses could, of course—the previous owners. But Cassandra’s dead, and Joshua has gone off to be a fossil hunter.”

  “Anyone else?” asked Mac.

  “Reiko has access, too, but she’d hardly be spying on herself. None of the other employees can unlock the security footage, though, and I swear I didn’t know who Reiko’s grandfather was.”

  Mac pulled out a handheld sensing device and headed into the showroom. Transfers didn’t leave behind DNA, but they might still shed cloth fibers or have unusual dirt in their footprints that could be useful. While he busied himself with that, I gestured toward the staircase. “Horatio,” I said, “there’s something I want to see up in the scanning room.”

  Fernandez shrugged. “Okay.” I let him lead the way to the second-floor landing. He went into the left-hand room, and I followed him, closed the door behind me, pulled out my gun, and, as he turned around to face me, I aimed it at the middle of his chest.

  THIRTY

  All right,” I said to Horatio Fernandez. “Spill it. Where is Rory Pickover?”

  His eyes were wide, but he was showing commendable composure for a guy with a gun trained on him. He spread those massive arms. “I have no idea.”

  “You know what he does for a living, right?”

  “Sure. He’s a paleontologist.”

  “And you know he recently came into some wealth.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Little academic suddenly had the money to transfer.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess.”

  “And you just opened up his chest to do repairs.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And while you had him open, you put in a tracking chip.”

  “That’s illegal.”

  “Yes, it is. But you did it.”

  “Why would I?”

  “You figure he’s found the Alpha Deposit, or some other major cache of fossils, and you want to know where it is. Rory had himself scanned for tracking chips after he initially transferred, but he’d all but told Joshua Wilkins that he was going to do that, and so Wilkins hadn’t put one in. And he could clearly see what was in your hands as you worked on his face before, so you couldn’t put one in when you were doing those repairs—but he had himself checked, just to be sure. But this time you were working in his torso, and he hasn’t had a chance to be scanned since leaving here, which means the chip you just put in is active. So where is he?”

  “I tell you, I did no such thing.”

  “You may, or may not, give a damn about Dr. Pickover. But Reiko was your coworker, and maybe your friend. Tell me where they are.”

  “Mr. Lomax, honestly, I swear to you—”

  “This argument ends now. There’s no security camera up here, is there? That’s what you said. So, I’ll tell the NKPD that you went nuts and came at me, and I had to shoot you in self-defense. It’ll get sticky for a while, sure, but I’ll get off—and you’ll be dead. Unless you tell me right now where Dr. Pickover is.”

  I let him think for a few moments, then cocked the hammer. “Well?”

  He blew out air then spoke over his shoulder. “Keely? Locate Rory Pickover.”

  A portion of the wall nearest us changed to a map of New Klondike, with the radial avenues in red and the circular roads in blue. It took a few moments, but soon a set of crosshairs appeared over the map, with a glowing white point at their center. Rory—and presumably Reiko and the two meese—were located on Sixth Avenue and heading south. “Zoom in,” Horatio said to Keely, and the view expanded to show just the single block of Sixth Avenue between the Fourth and Fifth Circles. The dot was moving quickly; they must have been on a hovertram.

  “Do you have a portable tracking device?” I asked.

  Horatio went to a cupboard and got a small disk-shaped dingus. He made a few adjustments on it and handed it to me. One of its faces was a viewscreen showing a miniature version of what was on the wall. “All right,” I said. “You stay up here for five minutes, do you hear me? Start counting Marenerises, and don’t stop until you’ve hit three hundred.” I backed away, opened the door while keeping my gun on him, closed it behind me, and headed downstairs.

  Mac was bent over, running his scanner along the floor.

  “Pickover has a tracking chip in him.” I held up the device that Fernandez had given me.

  Mac straightened. “Is that a fact?” he said, in a tone that conveyed he knew there was a story to tell.

  “Aye,” I said, imitating his brogue. “’Tis.”

  Mac had left the disruptor disk leaning against the cash counter. He retrieved it, and he and I headed out of the shop.

  The little one-seater police car Mac had returned here in didn’t have a place for me, but it did have a rear bumper and a couple of handholds on the back that could be used to transport a standing person. I positioned myself there, Mac placed the disruptor in the little gap behind the seat, he got in, and we took off down the street, Mac navigating using the device I’d gotten from Fernandez.

  From my perch at the back, I couldn’t see the tracking device, and I pretty much had to concentrate on holding on for dear life as Mac sent us careening along. But from what I’d seen on the display before I’d given Mac the tracking device, Rory, and likely Reiko and the meese, were heading toward the south airlock—or some point between it and here. The three transfers could just walk right out onto the Martian surface, but Reiko would have to be stuffed into a suit, and that would take time; if they’d actually wanted Rory instead of Reiko, I suspected they’d dump her before reaching the airlock.

  Mac could call ahead to the airlock station and ask the guards there to try to detain the meese, but there wasn’t a lot biologicals could do against two giant transfers programmed for super strength, and Mac’s principal job was protecting Howard Slapcoff’s investment; the last thing old Slappy would want is the airlock station being wrecked.

  Pedestrians were gawking at us, and at one point when we had to pause to avoid hitting a recycling truck, I gave them a jaunty wave.

  The road we were on took us by the shipyard. It was possible that that had been the meese’s destination, but Mac was giving no sign of slowing down. I looked over at the sea of dead hulks—shattered dreams, broken lives, abandoned hopes. I just barely made out the descent stage we’d recovered off in the distance.

  Mac hit the siren just then, and it startled me enough that I almost lost my grip. But as soon as the vehicle in front of us got out of the way, he shut it off. The dome was never far overhead anywhere in New Klondike, but it had now dipped quite a bit lower; we were at the outer ring where only one – and two-story buildings were possible.

  Mac brought us to an abrupt stop. I hopped off the bumper and came around to the side of the car. The gullwing door rose, and Mac clambered out. He retrieved the disruptor, and we headed over to the complex of airlocks.

  “They’re stationary,” Mac said, holding up the tracking dingus so I could see its circular display. “Outside—about half a klick southeast of here. I tried calling for backup, but the other three cops who are on duty today are dealing with a small riot over by the east airlock—somebody accused somebody else of claim-jumping, and it’s gotten out of hand.”

  I nodded and started making my way to the suit-rental counter when Mac motioned me th
rough a door labeled “Official Use Only.” Inside was a change room for the police, with four suits hanging from racks. Two were navy blue and bore the initials NKPD across the back and had the police crest on each shoulder; the other two were nondescript plainclothes affairs. We suited up. Mac opted for one of the blue suits, and I took one of the plain ones, in a drab gray.

  We went through a personnel airlock and came out on the Martian sands. The sky was dark, and the stars were out in all their glory. Off in the distance was a spaceship, lying on its side. In the dim light, it was hard to make out its contours, but it was a small vessel—a hibernation ship, not a luxury liner with cabins like the Skookum Jim, and—

  Of course. It was the Kathryn Denning, formerly the B. Traven, the infamous death ship, recently returned to the Red Planet.

  And, judging by the display on the tracking device Mac was holding, the meese had taken Rory Pickover right to it.

  THIRTY-ONE

  If a ship needed dry-dock repairs it was hauled inside, but most vessels that came to Mars were never brought into the dome—rather, they were prepped for turnaround out on the planitia. Mac and I started walking the 500 meters to the Kathryn Denning. Bertha had said earlier that the ship’s cargo—which presumably consisted mostly of people in hibernation units—was being offloaded. It looked like that had been completed; we could see the wheel ruts made by the vehicles that had been involved.

  Also visible in the dust were footprints. There were two sets of large running shoes and a smaller set of work shoes, but no space-suit boots. The meese had indeed disposed of Reiko at some point; I hoped she was okay.

  From the look of the tracks, Rory had been walking in front, with a moose behind and to either side of him. I doubted he’d been leading the way, though; rather, they’d been propelling him along, and—