By a twist of the legs, the rider made a 360-degree sideways flip - not entirely unlike a water-surfer on Earth.
"Look, Keaton," Moravia said, pointing excitedly at the wall monitor in the shuttle's sickbay. "She made your trademark flip, the one we taught her. And your board is doing great! Everybody will remember Golan-Norris after this race."
Keaton's smile turned into a wince, and his entire frame shuddered. In the weightless, stable orbit the shudder created a rippling, wave-like movement across his free-floating layers of fat.
"Is the heart-bot working?" Foss asked him. "Are you feeling better?"
Keaton nodded, almost imperceptibly, and as he spoke his phrases grew shorter and fainter, on dying batteries:
"Yeah. Fine. But. It's not me. Her. She did it. Best pupil. I ever. Had. Sorry guys. Shouldn't have. Taken those. Shots. You're. The. Be -"
Again he screwed up his hairy, rotund face. It froze up in an expression like worried embarrassment - as if he hadn't wanted to offend his company with this unexpected, fatal heart failure.
"I knew it'd happen one day," Moravia blubbered, clutching his dead comrade's arm. "He was too deteriorated from the long flights and tried to drug himself into shape with bad growth homrmones. I warned him, the fat dumb..."
Sugar hugged the stony-faced Foss and the sobbing Moravia; a skin-display simulated tears on her pale plastic cheeks.
"Look," she said after a while, "Venix is on the screens."
27: Burn, Cyborg, Burn!
Sports fans throughout the Solar System, following the tryouts by satellite cameras, quickly noticed the Golan-Norris board. Its previously undistinguished rider "Kolya Keaton" - seemingly out of nowhere - made all the other skysurfers look like amateurs.
Mad Mort Southlee on the Moon, retired Mutilation Fighting champion turned sports pundit, made a more than usually gravel-voiced running commentary.
" This is new! Keaton's track record been a no-show until now. Can that really be him on the Golan-Norris XL? Oh my Goddess, he made a double dip at the 1-K temperature mark! Watch the replay - so fast my Microsony eye can barely follow."
From the Martian capital, the stalwart radio voice of Barking Bart Mahir saluted the new surfing star with his trademark howl.
" Waa-ooou! Roll over, Big Mack Hansen! There's a new champ in orbit and his name is Kolya Keaton.
He seems impervious to heat - edge of his board almost white hot, and he pushes the angle of descent even steeper - look at the also very promising contender, also Terran, on the orange-and-green Barton board... he's trying to push his board steeper to catch up... can he..?
Noooooo! The poor man on the Barton pushed it too steep and burned up... let's see if the rescue team can pull him out of the molten ball... he'll be the first casualty this year... but hey, watch that Keaton go!"
The Fleet's own official long-time commentator, the pneumatic Olga Oh , hired to promote Terran athletes, made this another occasion to trumpet the supremacy of the motherworld.
"The Terran rider is magnificent, truly the pride of Mother Earth... there, Keaton broke the official speed record! A Terran broke the universal skysurfing speed record! His board is still glowing red from the heat, but he keeps pushing on! Every true Terran is behind him, the new coming Solar Champion!
The judges are telling him to slow down, if he's going to land safely... he's braking to subsonic speed now... no wait, he's off course... Keaton's heading away from the landing area, but it won't change his splendid victory... what's this? The satellite cameras can barely follow, he's zigzagging like crazy... his helmet's come off! He's got... a white suit and a red helmet, it seems... he's getting out of the suit, but - what?
The board turns up riderless! Where'd he go?"
***
Venix dived through the thin Martian air. By now the friction of atmospheric re-entry had faded off, only the cold air cooling her body.
At the worst part of her surfboard dive, her skin temperature had risen to 300 degrees inside the spacesuit - but her previous experience of running into a burning forest made her confident. And the transparent plastic helmet inside the suit had prevented her coppery hair from melting.
Now she took off the helmet as she glide-dived through the air, and let the long hair flutter freely in the wind. Static electricity built up in her flowing hair, and she felt a faint tingle in her scalp.
Venix noticed that some of the static charge was being absorbed by the receptor-membrane in her skin and charged her batteries. Good. She had a feeling she'd need all the energy she could get after she landed. She let herself body-glide for a few minutes in the low Martian gravity, slowing down the fall.
The skeleton and muscle alloys made her heavy and dense; she strained outward, tried to stretch herself out until she feared her metal bones would pop out of their sockets, and it actually hurt, for the nerve threads were being stretched.
Venix looked below for some sort of lake or stream to dampen the impact. Humidity she could see, but no glitter of water, only ice sparkling on the ridges and peaks. She measured her velocity as she strained, and the seconds seemed to pass much faster than usual...
Finally, at a low altitude, she dared to open her strap-on parachute. The transparent chute, near-invisible from a distance, folded out effortlessly. The winds tugged hard at it, but it held. Venix steered the chute with its old-fashioned hand controls. Though she had no previous training, it was quite easy.
Barely three hundred meters below, many miles from where Keaton's race should have ended, lay a valley, several kilometers deep. She took a course toward one of many deep canyons that connected to the major valley.
She had to hide the chute, then follow the great Vallis Marineris on foot until she reached the Martian capital. If the MSF didn't find her first...
She tried not to think of how slim her chances were.
***
The MSF monitored the race. A whole two weeks earlier, Fleetcom AIs had informed them of Venix' most likely escape route - and the Foss Fastline flight to Mars ranked among the suspect ones.
Every high-ranking Fleet security officer and commander was under orders from the Kansler's deputy to arrest Venix on sight and in complete secrecy.
Despite this, it was with great surprise that the MSF commander watched the live, classified surveillance footage of a woman wringing herself out of Keaton's scorched skysurfing-suit. 300 meters above the Martian surface, she took off in a transparent gliding-parachute. It seemed more like a bizarre publicity stunt than an actual escape.
The civilian cameras lost track of her as they traced the disintegrating board and suit instead. Zodong-Petain tracked the falling figure with his own restricted-access satellites and zoomed in on her face.
It really was the wanted woman, Venice Cherkessian. He couldn't believe it.
Zodong-Petain hesitated for a minute, until he realized he had to beat his security-officers to it and announce the discovery first. He switched on the secure laser-link and reported the discovery directly to the Kansler.
It took a good while for the light-speed message to cross several million kilometers and reach the flagship in Jupiter orbit.
The Kansler spent just five seconds to come up with a reply. After another long delay, the secured transcript of his reply arrived to the commander's screen-implant:
Your lack of initiative has been noted. The woman must be restored to the Fleet at any cost. Send everything you got to capture her alive. She must not get in touch with Martian government officials or other subversives.
You're in line for great privileges if you succeed, Commander. If you fail, you and your entire bloodline will be sterilized permanently, according to the Fleet's Genetic Security Act. Report to me and only to me whenever there is a development.
One more thing: the woman's name and identity are top-secret. She will be referred to as "Kolya Keaton" and nothing else. No troops or civilians are allowed to take pictures of her. We have activated the Fleet scrambler probe, an
d will jam any video transmissions or recordings of her escape.
Commander Zodong-Petain began to sweat heavily.
Every MSF officer was now put on alert. Zodong-Petain screamed threats and orders at his squad leaders over the internal communications link.
"I want to see every squad, every man on their way down to arrest a woman called Kolya Keaton and bring her to the station, as of now! The Kansler wants her alive. So no shots to the head! If anyone else - anyone - attempts to stop you, shoot to kill! If you fark up you'll be sent to the Triton outpost, all of you!"
One squad leader quickly objected that most of his men - all Terrans - were down sick with broken bones, or off-duty. Zodong-Petain screamed an order that surveillance-central personnel would replace the sick ones, and the sick ones would replace them in the surveillance centers.
A captain called in from the capital's brothel district: His men were off-duty to watch a benefit concert on Mars - and they would blankly refuse to chase a single runaway skysurfer until the concert had ended.
Zodong-Petain waited until the captain had ceased speaking, then demoted him to the rank of private.
He put his off-duty troops on standby for a new commanding officer, leaving them at the concert in the Martian capital. He figured they could easily be set in as a reserve, should the refugee make it to the capital (which he doubted).
Five minutes later, one hundred armed soldiers and officers of the Terran Fleet scrambled into their shuttles and were launched by EMP catapult into Mars' atmosphere. The remaining three hundred MSF troops, already on duty or leave on the planet's surface, prepared to be flown into the vast Vallis Marineris district.
Before Venix had even touched Martian ground, 400 of the ill-reputed MSF forces were in hurried pursuit to greet her. She could not possibly hide from them.
28: The Scarlet Letter
"Wake up, sir. You've arrived. You must wake up. Kolya Keaton - I mean 'she' - has been located."
Islington, visibly upset, shook Boulder Pi awake even as the little man was emerging from his stasis-bed.
It struck Islington as weird, that such a bright scientist as Boulder Pi refused to get the latest neural implants, so that he could sleep and stay conscious simultaneously - such time-savers were getting common, even Islington used one.
He told himself: Goes to prove that damned Jovian is a security risk and must be watched closely.
"Wait," Boulder slurred, and in his groggy state he reverted back to Jovian lingo. "Just got. Hate space-travel... tell Kansler can't work, give few hours rest..."
Against his faint protests, the Fleet personnel helped Boulder Pi into his leg extensions, and gave him some stimulants to counter the sleep-drugs that had kept him in a stable coma during the express journey. Islington guided - and pestered - Boulder toward his assigned quarters in the vast flagship E.S.S. Jefferson.
The artificial gravity was close to that of the Moon, except that the centrifuges caused mild nausea among newcomers. The Kansler's holo-presence haunted them with repeated e-requests for a plan to catch their fugitive.
Halfway to his quarters, Boulder Pi regained enough composure to make a spoken reply to the Kansler, who was still seated in the command center in another section of the ship. He addressed the hologram.
"Kansler... we cannot control Ven... her like we can with Argus. She was a prototype for civilian use. And I didn't design the Direct Control System. My specialty is cybernetics and biology. The prototype for Direct Control in her was, to my knowledge, never finished and never tested. Have you tried it on her when she ran away on Earth?"
The Kansler's holo-presence stood quiet, glaring at Boulder with cold, naked hatred. He sent back a text reply by e-mote command, being too preoccupied or upset to speak to Boulder.
YOU LACK THE SECURITY CLEARANCE TO ASK SUCH QUESTIONS, the text read in a speech-balloon across the hologram. Boulder smiled, almost imperceptibly, at the hologram; had he been fully awake, he wouldn't have been so bold. OUR TOP PRIORITY IS TO KEEP ARGUS UNDER CONTROL. "KOLYA" DID NOT SEEM SO IMPORTANT BACK THEN.
"Kansler, you yourself said several times, that she was of no military importance to the Fleet." A trace of malicious glee flashed in Boulder's otherwise so timid face. "Why the hurry to catch her? It's not as if she can stop Argus or tell the enemy how to destroy him. He's just the pilot. His ship is more important to the war effort, and she knows nothing at all about it."
YOU ARE AN IDIOT OUTSIDE YOUR FIELD, came the Kansler's quick text-reply. ARGUS AND "KOLYA" MAY HAVE CONNECTED DIRECTLY IN COPENHAGEN. CLASSIFIED FILES MAY HAVE BEEN TRANSFERRED TO HER MEMORY.
"And you figured this out just now?" the still grumpy, tired, post-stasis-nauseous Boulder dared to ask. "I don't think there is a significant risk. In any case, she wouldn't know what to do with the information, even if she had it. She's just a dancer."
The Kansler's real, direct voice replied in Boulder's and Islington's ear-mikes, and they winced.
"Had she been a scientist, I wouldn't have worried! You little Jovian creep, you're one word from being sent down to Earth! I'm warning you just once: Don't even try to play games.
"Now do exactly as I say... Islington, you will take the cruiser that Boulder came in on, and go to Mars at top speed to supervise the capture of our target. You are to proceed with Chancellor's representative authority and extreme prejudice. If the MSF commander gives you trouble, arrest him. I have redirected one division of fresh troops from Earth by Fleet orbiter, they will join you at the Phobos station in two weeks. These orders are to be executed now."
"Yes, Kansler. At once," Islington replied, nodding urgently.
Boulder Pi leaned against a wall, his breathing quick with exhaustion, and looked away from the Kansler hologram. The deputy seemed to receive his new marching orders with mixed emotions; he must have understood that he was sent from one war to another that was just beginning. Islington had never before commanded fighting troops outside Terra.
Boulder thought of Venix and an archaic phrase surfaced in his mind, from long ago. "'The face that launched a thousand ships,'" he muttered to himself.
Even the Kansler could not read Islington's face and infrared surveillance scans well enough to learn if the deputy had truly understood.
Go, go! Catch the stick, Fido! Boulder thought as he watched Islington hurry off to board the next shuttle to the waiting cruiser. You like them like dogs, don't you, Kansler. We had dogs too, in the early years. Good for sniffing out water and finding people after cave-ins. But then we had to kill them off... they grow too big out here, too wild. They bite the hand that feeds them.
I was a kid when we hunted down the last dogs on Ganymede. It was my idea to flood and freeze entire sections to get them. I was the top dog-killer of my class before I was 10.
How my big brother envied me the prize they gave me. My dear brother. How he must hate me now. It doesn't matter. I must play one last big dirty trick and then I can go home.
***
Argus received a wall-screen message in his personal quarters: a Class Red transmission was waiting to be opened. "For Your Eyes Only" - from Venix, back on Earth.
He asked to open it in the cockpit of his ship, and rushed to the hangar as fast as he could, zipping past crewmen like a greased shadow.
And there he saw Venix, in a 3-D transmission. She sat on a couch inside an old-fashioned British mansion, with a giant fireplace crackling in the background. Venix sat tense, with her white arms in her lap, staring straight into the camera.
"Gus..." she said, hesitating. "The Kansler allowed me to record this one-way message in this manner, security you know. I hope it isn't censored. I think of you constantly. I want you not to worry about me. I miss you and I want you to win this stupid war so you can come home and we'll be together again. I love you. Please come back in one piece."
She put her hand to her forehead and smiled to the camera: "The memories of us are safe in here and I never forget them. I'll try to get more messages th
rough as soon as I can. Bye. Love you." The recording ended. It didn't seem to have been cut or doctored.
"Navbutler... tell me you stored that message."
"Sorry, Argus, Class Red Mail cannot be stored after opening. The file erased itself."
"Okay... I got it memorized anyway. Isn't she lovely?"
"Pardon?"
"The girl in the message?"
"What message?"
"The one that was erased."
"I recall that a recent Class Red Mail was received. Its contents were erased from my memory."
"And if I repeated it to you from my memory?"
"Navbutler recommends: proceed with caution."
"Buddy, let me tell you what Venix said, word for word..." Just after Argus had repeated the message perfectly, Navbutler interrupted him.
"Warning: Personal appearance in Class Red Mail from sender 'Venix' does not match my profile."
"You're telling me I can't recognize my girl? Get outta here!"
Navbutler's reply came quick and relentless: "Pardon? Your previous descriptions of Venix are stored in my memory. I am programmed to create a biometric profile of every person I interact with, so that I recognize and identify them properly. The erased message does not match my profile of Venix. Sorry, Argus. The message you received was either altered, censored, forged, or it was not the same Venix you think you heard."
Argus raised his voice, angry and frightened: "What are you talking about? You're wrong!"
But he could not fool himself for long. So badly had he wanted the message to be true, he'd been duped. Obviously it was a fake. Venix didn't talk like that, and the figure in the 3-D recording sat without the dancer's grace and poise that Venix always had. But her face, her voice... perfectly copied. Deja vu. Is it possible that someone took her place, as I took Haruman Clarke's?
"Nav? Universal search. Locate all available images of Venix performing on Earth, when she was a performing dancer. Compare, and tell me if you find any images of Venix that do not match."
Yngve, AR - The Argus Project Page 19