by Devin Hanson
“I didn’t think it could be done,” Marcus allowed thoughtfully. “Let’s get the potatoes going then we can discuss other options.”
Dr. Bannister held out a hand for Marcus to shake. “I couldn’t agree more. Marcus, it’s been a pleasure. I look forward to our business in the future.”
“Likewise, Andrea.”
Marcus left the hydroponic farm in a soaring good mood. Things couldn’t be working out better. He had enough water. There would be no problems growing the crops he needed. Six weeks to grow the potatoes. Another two weeks to harvest, ferment and distill the alcohol. In nine weeks, he would have the first flow of income on the new planet.
Nine weeks was uncomfortably close to the deadline given by the doctors on Earth. If things grew truly desperate, though, he could start the treatments and hope everything worked out with the distillery. The thought gave him a chill. Starting the Womack Process treatments without a guaranteed source of income was the worst kind of risk. And yet, what was the alternative? Death. If he started the treatments before the distillery started turning a profit, the absolute worst case scenario was he would have extended his life by an extra month.
That was worth gambling on.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
The December Protocol triggered the first true extra-planetary exodus of the human race. Hundreds of thousands of individuals had received treatment in the Womack Process. A smaller, but still substantial, number had received the Helix Rebuild. Neither group was allowed to remain on Earth.
Venus, at the beginning of the 22nd century, had only just started expanding its fleet of floating city platforms, and could not support a sudden, massive influx of new settlers. The details of the negotiations between Dr. Annette Everard and the Venusian colony were never made public, but the results were announced one week after the December Protocol became the new law of Earth.
Those who had received the Helix Rebuild would find a new home on Venus. The recipients of the Womack Process were forbidden, on pain of death, to set foot on any structure owned or operated by the newly formed Council of Matriarchs.
With nowhere else to turn to, those who had received the Womack Process flocked to Mars. Conditions on the so-called Red Planet were barely hospitable to life, and it took decades before the system of Martian clusters grew robust enough to make life bearable for the new arrivals.
Perhaps it’s for the best that the majority of those fledgling immortals perished on Mars.
Min Yang returned to his office in Olympus Cluster. This triumphant return with the body of Sarah Esperalda had warranted a celebration party, during which the bounty reward had been ceremoniously delivered. Min was happy, but tired. He had been up for twenty-four hours: first the long, tedious drive to get to Arsia Cluster, then the equally long, but much faster trip by tram to Olympus.
He threw himself into his chair and leaned his head back, closing his eyes for a minute. His feet were tired and his back was still stiff from the long tram ride, but his bank account had a healthy number of zeros in it. If he were subsisting solely on his bounties, bringing in Esperalda would have let him vacation for over a year.
Min wasn’t one to take long vacations, but he was looking forward to a few days at home and some low-key assignments to fill out the week.
A knock sounded on his door jamb and he opened one eye. An attractive gweilo wujin was leaning against the open door. She had finely sculpted features, with a slight tilt to her eyes suggesting distant Chinese heritage.
“Inspector Min Yang?”
Min swung his chair around and sat up. “That’s me.”
“I’m Lieutenant Shun Ruu.”
Min nodded absently. Now that he looked, he could see the insignia on her shoulders. She wasn’t familiar though, she must be from a different division. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”
“I have a job for you.”
“Sorry,” Min said, “you’ll have to go through Lieutenant Rickers. He’s my CO.”
“Not any more. He got transferred out while you were away to the south.”
“Then Captain Jiahao will be able to help you.”
“Ah, perhaps I should start over again. I’m you’re new CO, transferred in to replace Lieutenant Rickers.”
Min suppressed a sigh and stood. “I see.” He gave her a salute, but his heart wasn’t in it.
If Ruu was bothered by the lack of enthusiasm, it didn’t show on her face. “Like I said, I have a new assignment for you and your partner.”
“I don’t have a partner. I prefer to work alone. Look, I just got back from a month-long investigation. Have Walters or Ying take the case.”
“They’re otherwise assigned. Captain Jiahao put your name on top of the shortlist.”
“Did he.”
“If it’s any consolation, there’s a bounty attached to the case. Captain Jiahao has led me to understand you prefer those.”
“Normally, yes.” Min looked at his new lieutenant. She looked young, a ladder climber. Her Womack treatments made it hard to guess at an age, but she seemed to have the energetic idealism of someone new to authority. He sighed and didn’t bother to hide it this time. “What’s the case?”
“Kidnapping. It’s already a day old, so you don’t have much time.”
“Great. Which cluster?”
“Vastitas.”
Min closed his eyes. It was late in the evening now. If he got on a tram in the next hour, he could get to Vastitas before the sun came up tomorrow. With a kidnapping, if the trail wasn’t picked up within the first forty-eight hours, there wasn’t much hope. Most marshals would write it off as a loss and do the paperwork. That there was a bounty on the case made him a little more interested, but kidnappings were difficult to resolve. In all likelihood, he’d spend the next week chasing down leads onto to have the body turn up in some random cluster with the girl’s ovaries cut out and a bullet hole in the head.
“I can’t talk you out of this?”
“I’m afraid not.” Ruu gave him a tight smile. “Welcome back, by the way.”
Min shook his head. “Wonderful. Remind me to thank Captain Jiahao later.”
“I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”
Min Yang stepped off the tram in a foul mood. Vastitas Cluster, for all its charms, was not home. He hadn’t been able to board the Olympus tram until late in the evening, and it was mid-morning now. Almost his entire forty-eight hours was already used up.
Irritably, Min made his way from the tram to the local police station. Every cluster had a law enforcement branch that dealt with local crime, and whose jurisdiction ended at the tram station. The marshals operated above the police, with a global enforcement writ that superseded the locals. Inter-cluster crime, habitats and stations that operated outside the umbrella of a cluster, and the trams themselves were policed by the marshals.
The law enforced by the marshals was swift by necessity. There was no space or resources on Mars for a prison. Crimes were punished by community service, time served in the ice mines, or execution.
To say there was inter-divisional rivalry would be putting it lightly.
Min pushed open the door to the police station and stepped inside. An aging desk sergeant lolled his head around the tablet he was absorbed in. The sergeant’s eyes flicked over Min, then did a double take when he saw the pale cast of Min’s skin. Then a triple take as he belatedly registered the pistol hanging off Min’s belt.
The sergeant surged to his feet, got tangled up in his chair and toppled out of sight with a curse.
Min let out a compressed sigh and held out his marshal badge. Eventually the sergeant got his feet under him and got his head up above the level of the desk. Min made sure his badge was in clear sight and his free hand was far away from his gun.
“Who the fuck are you?” the sergeant demanded.
Min waited, his patience wearing thin, until the sergeant took in the badge and understanding bloomed across his face. Closely following the unders
tanding, embarrassment, anger and stubbornness merged together into a scowl. “What the fuck do you want?”
“The captain,” Min said shortly.
“He’s busy.”
“Then fucking get him,” Min snapped.
“Look, you. There ain’t no reason for the marshals to get involved around here. We can take care of our own without you lot butting in.”
Min put his badge away. “Evidence is to the contrary, Sergeant. Are you going to get your captain, or do I have to go find him myself?”
The sergeant sneered. “Like I said. He’s busy, down at the algae vats. Some girls went missing.”
“I know,” Min said and turned to leave.
“We’re handling it!” the sergeant bellowed after him. “We’ll have this case wrapped up by–”
The door swung shut, cutting off whatever the sergeant’s timeline was. Min pinched the bridge of his nose. He was starting to feel the beginnings of a migraine form. God damned locals.
Min reached the level where the cluster’s algae vats were kept, stepping off the escalator as his watch beeped noon at him. Vastitas had a large population, and the atmosphere processing plant was scaled to match. From the escalator platform, the vats were visible through a panoramic half-circle of window glass.
The vats were heavy, squat, stainless steel cylinders, ten feet in diameter and five feet tall, that narrowed down to a funnel on the bottom. The tops were open, showing the roiling, thick soup of the blue-green algae cultures. Glaring halogen lights shone down on the algae, reflecting off the polished steel with blinding highlights.
Every child growing up in the clusters learned the function of the algae vats. Air in the cluster was cycled through surface-level chillers that cooled compressed atmosphere. The carbon dioxide in the air came off as a liquid, condensing before the oxygen or nitrogen did. The liquid carbon dioxide was piped down to the algae vats, where it was carefully bubbled through the culture. Using the illumination of the bright halogen bulbs, the algae photosynthesized, pulling in carbon dioxide and water and releasing oxygen.
The vats always made Min feel slightly uneasy. He knew, vaguely, that there had to be enormous storage tanks full of pure oxygen somewhere, saved up for certain periods of the day when a rise in general activity increased oxygen demand, and stored during the night when most people were sleeping and using the least amount of oxygen.
But more than the dangers inherent in storing enormous quantities of oxygen, it bothered him that his life depended on an unseen government employee in charge of keeping the algae happy. The fact that the process was largely automated did little to ease his concerns.
He hadn’t died yet, and the vat system was robust enough to survive a partial culture collapse. In fact, now that Min took a moment to think about it, he had never heard of a cluster having an oxygen emergency. Still, just because it hadn’t happened yet didn’t mean it wasn’t going to happen someday.
A knot of people exited the vat area. Most of the people were gweilo, but two of them were shorter, only one or two generations away from Earth. Min recognized their faces from his dossier: Zhen Chow and his wife Nuon. With them was a collection of other men.
Min discounted the blue-coveralled vat worker and focused instead on the overweight gweilo of middling age wearing a police uniform. The Martian physique rarely ran to obesity, and when it did, the fat gathered in odd proportions. The man was rail thin except for his paunch, which hung out to an impossible extent. In Earth gravity, Min thought it might hang all the way to his knees, but on Mars it just protruded from his waist like an enormous tumor.
Ignoring the feelings of misgiving, Min approached the gathering. The fat man turned to him and Min got a look at the rank bars on his epaulets. This was the police captain, Giovanni by his nametag. Before Min could introduce himself, the captain rumbled out a gruff dismissal.
“We’re not giving quotes to the press.”
Min fought the urge to sigh and presented his badge. “Inspector Min Yang, Colonial Marshals. I’ve been assigned to the Chow case.”
“Look, Yang,” the captain started, but was overridden by Nuon Chow rushing forward and throwing herself on her knees in front of him.
“It’s my daughter!” she wailed, “My precious baby girl! Marshal, you have to find her!”
Min knelt down and pulled Mrs. Chow to her feet. “Rest assured, ma’am, I will do everything in my power to find your daughter.”
“She’s started her periods,” Nuon continued. “You know what that means, right? Her life is in danger!”
Min shot a glance at Zhen and he stepped forward, catching his wife’s arm and pulling her back into an embrace. “He knows, dear.”
“We’ve got the investigation well under control,” Captain Giovanni insisted, once he saw an opening. “There’s no call for the marshals to get involved.”
“Do you even have a Womack clinic in Vastitas?” Min asked. Nuon wailed at the question, and the captain reddened.
“Yes,” he protested. “And we’ve no reason to believe the girl is not still in the cluster.”
“Even if she is still in Vastitas, it’s a kidnapping, and that makes it a marshal case.”
Captain Giovanni scowled.
“I’ll be wanting your department’s assistance in dealing with the locals,” Min said. “I don’t want a panic started by rumors of a marshal asking after a missing girl.”
“I’m sure you will,” the captain grumbled. “Fine. I’ll assign someone to you, but it won’t be until tomorrow.”
“Captain, the girl’s life is in danger,” he said calmly. “Tomorrow is far too late.”
“Then maybe you better get started.” Captain Giovanni hitched up his belt. The buttons on his shirt strained against his protruding stomach. With a last scowl at Min, he marched toward the escalators, his swaying bulk giving him a waddling gait that ruined any dramatic storming-off attitude he was trying for.
Min watched him go with a sense of disgust mingled with relief. The man’s petty spite would set him back to the very beginning of the investigation. It was possible he could pull rank and force the captain to cooperate under duress, but if anything, that would only slow down his investigation even more.
He sighed and fixed a pleasant smile on his face before turning back to face the Chows. “Is there a place nearby where we could have a bit of privacy? I have a few questions to ask you.”
“We don’t live too far away,” Zhen offered. “We could go to our home.”
“That will do nicely.”
The Chow domicile had the mismatched splendor that comes when a family has recently acquired wealth but was raised frugally and so is loath to throw things away. In the spacious great room, the couch was of middling quality and too small to fit the space. Opposite, a gleaming state-of-the-art entertainment center occupied the majority of the wall.
Other details Min noted briefly and filed away for future reference. There was a marked lack of childish artwork about the place. It felt odd for parents apparently so devoted to their child to not have anything marking the detritus of childhood. There were no children’s toys scattered about, no crayon on the walls, no stuffed animals.
Min let himself be steered to the couch, and Nuon bustled into the kitchen, returning after a moment with steaming cups on a tray. Min accepted his and was astonished to find real, fresh-brewed tea. He took a sip and closed his eyes, savoring the complexity of the taste and aroma.
“Thank you, Mrs. Chow. This is a real pleasure. Why don’t you tell me about your daughter. How old is she?”
“Jasmine is fifteen,” Zhen said. “She goes to school here in the cluster.”
“How is she in school? Does she get good grades?”
“The teachers don’t understand her,” Nuon said, sipping her tea. “She does well enough, but we think she is too smart for the curriculum.”
“Does she get in trouble often?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” Zhe
n said stiffly.
“I’m sorry. My intention is not to make you uncomfortable, but it will help to track your daughter down if I understand her better.”
“He’s trying to help, dear,” Nuon interjected. “To answer your question, Marshal, the teachers have notes to send home on occasion, but nothing out of the ordinary for a strong-willed child.”
“Does she have a history of running away or playing truant? Is it possible she took it into her mind to travel to a different cluster?”
Nuon brightened. “Do you think she wasn’t kidnapped?”
“I honestly don’t know, Mrs. Chow. For her sake, I hope not. Has she ever left school before closing hours?”
“Once or twice.”
Min nodded. “Does she have a boyfriend?”
“She’s fifteen!” Zhen protested.
Min looked to Nuon and she shook her head. “I would have heard about it, I’m sure.”
“Alright. Is Jasmine an only-child?”
Nuon nodded and dropped her eyes.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Min said, beginning to suspect how the Chows had come into their wealth, “what do you do for a living?”
“We made our money through the clinic,” Nuon said evasively.
So. A young woman could go to a Womack clinic and have her ovaries removed. The harvested eggs would make the woman quite a bit of money, depending on her fertility and the number of usable eggs recovered. Several hundred thousand credits was an average payoff, and Min had heard the numbers go as high as several million when the market was in demand.
Nuon Chow had opted for the surgery after giving birth to Jasmine. There would be no more children for the Chow family.
“I see. Can you walk me through Jasmine’s day? Help me get an idea of what her routine was.”