by Jaine Fenn
I threw my phone across the tiny room. It bounced off the wall. I retrieved it, and, because I had to pick the scab, checked the data-file. Sometime during Shiv’s speech I’d got it into my head that his ‘greatest heist humankind has ever seen’ would be about Project Rainfall. That he was going to try and steal the water-rich proto-comet Everlight were currently braking into a stable orbit around Mars. I wouldn’t have put it past him to try, given he’d trained as an engineer, back before he’d taken up the family trade. But I was wrong.
He wasn’t planning to steal a comet.
He was planning to steal the most valuable gem in the universe.
I returned the chip-reader on my way out. Time to get laid again.
Two
Mr Lau spent most of the next day closeted with his visitors. It gave me far too much time to think.
Shiv had ended up on Mars eight years ago after a dodgy mining operation that went south when he tried to play the Russians off against the Australians whilst simultaneously screwing the Chinese – over-reaching himself, again – leaving him broke and under threat of multiple lawsuits if he ever came back to Earth. I could imagine him kicking around, moving from scheme to scheme in the Martian underworld (such as it was) waiting for the big break that was always just around the corner. When he’d been offered a chance to steal an object so legendary that Mum used to joke about it when we were growing up, something that in the shady world I knew too well was a byword for the ultimate score, of course he’d taken it, no matter what the risk.
I knew my brother. All that bravado was a front: Shiv had been scared when he made the recording. And his fear had been justified. I should just burn the chip.
When Mr Lau re-surfaced that evening, he looked harassed. I asked whether I could be of any assistance. He managed a smile for me and, in an uncharacteristic lapse in his façade, said, ‘This project will make or break us all, Ms Choi.’ I didn’t have to ask which one. Since they wound up the last of their operations in North America, Europe was Everlight’s least prestigious division, run more for politics than profit. With so many eggs in one – off-world – basket, Mr Lau was fighting hard to keep hold of his small part of the corporate empire here on Earth.
I wondered if the universe was messing with me: I’d ignored Mars for most of my life, and now two things in one week made me think about the place. I dismissed the thought as unhelpful going on self-obsessed.
Even so, that night I did some research. Just background, I told myself.
The next morning saw more meetings, after which the delegation got to have a few hours fun before going home. Mr Lau’s part in the visit was over and I was careful to give him space. He appeared, if anything, more uneasy than he had the day before; knowing him as I did I put this down to embarrassment at showing his concerns before an underling.
When he called me into his office ‘for a private chat’ I was more relieved than concerned. He was doing me the favour of telling me to my face that my pay-rise was off the cards.
He invited me to sit before he spoke. Not a good sign. This was serious. ‘I am afraid, Ms Choi, that the situation is not favourable to you.’
‘Ah.’ I wasn’t sure what else I could, or should, say.
‘Certain factions within the company feel I should let you go.’
What? ‘Really? I’m a great administrator and you know it!’
He raised an eyebrow at my immodesty, but said, ‘You are exceptionally good at your job. Your attention to detail is remarkable, your foresight faultless. In operational office matters, I would not want anyone else to, as they say, have my back.’ That last phrase was in English, which I knew from previous experience meant he was trying to put me at my ease.
‘So what is the issue here?’ I had an idea. I’d just been too busy worrying about everything else to join the dots.
He cocked his head a fraction. ‘Some of my more traditional colleagues in Head Office put a high value on heritage. Specifically, on one’s family.’
‘Family?’ I said, as though I didn’t know. This wasn’t just about me and Ken.
‘Yes. You have criminal connections, Ms Choi.’ His tone didn’t accuse so much as observe, pointing out something socially awkward, like having spinach in one’s teeth.
‘Criminal connections.’ I kept my voice flat. My original application to join Everlight nine years ago had included the usual box for listing any convictions; thanks to a mixture of luck and care, I had none. ‘You’re saying my family contains criminals.’ There hadn’t been a box for that.
‘Yes. Your mother...’
‘My mother?’ Today’s orchid was, I noted, perfect.
‘You have recently become the registered next-of-kin of a certain Maria Kowalski.’
Of course Everlight kept tabs on their employees, and something like that would get flagged up. ‘Yes. Yes I have. For my sins.’ Lunan law allows you to divorce parents as well as partners, so if I’d had the money, I could’ve made the distance between me and my mother formal, rather than relying on our default state of estrangement. But I hadn’t. ‘I hope and believe, Mr Lau, that you can see beyond a person’s initial circumstances to what they may achieve for themselves.’ Creep, said a small, rebellious part of me I thought I’d excised.
‘It would be easier to overlook these circumstances had you declared them when you first joined us.’
There had been a box on the application form to add Any Other Pertinent Information and I had agonised about using it to declare my ‘criminal connections’ at the time. ‘My apologies, Mr Lau. I should have done so.’ But then I probably wouldn’t have got the job. Plus, it was just an office admin post and if they really cared they’d do a background check. I assumed they had, before I reached my current, somewhat more important, position. Apparently not. Or they had, but when Mum had no legal hold on me, they’d been willing to ignore her. My face felt hot.
‘Suspension pending an investigation is the minimum you can expect, I fear. However, I will fight to the best of my ability to retain you as an employee of Everlight.’
I believed he would. He got good work out of me. And, for a half-gwailo, I made the effort to fit in. Which just made me more angry with the company, and with myself, and with Mum. And anger makes you do, and say, stupid things. ‘Thank you.’ Don’t thank him, creep. ‘Given the situation, I would like to request a formal sabbatical from Everlight.’ Even as I said it, I was stunned at myself.
His eyebrows went up. ‘That is an interesting proposition.’ Then lowered, as his initial surprise settled. ‘Possibly a sensible move though. How long would you wish to take?’
My subconscious had already done the maths. ‘Three months.’
I like space travel. Granted it’s potentially dangerous and often uncomfortable, and the cramped conditions on the cut-price flight I ended up on were grim, but I travelled enough when I was younger that I don’t puke when gravity goes away, and I love the sense of going somewhere, towards something better, a place where things would go right. Mind you, when I was younger we were more likely to be running away from something that’d gone wrong.
Even taking the budget option, I had to sell most of my remaining possessions to buy passage to Mars. A return, because when I’d worked through this upwelling of the past I’d be back, returning to what was left of the life I’d built on Earth; by then Mr Lau would have smoothed things over, and be really missing his star admin, and I’d be able to go back to my old job. That’s what I told myself, as I boarded the flight.
I should have spent the journey working out my options but my thoughts just went round and round, tumbling in the near freefall, and coming back to two facts: nine years ago I’d decided to miss out a detail, a simple declaration on a form, and now it was coming back to haunt me; then a few days ago I’d acted on a crazy impulse, and in doing so risked undoing the chance at a normal life that form had bought me.
Stepping off the shuttle into Martian gravity, seeing people as tall as I was, gave
a brief, comforting illusion of coming home. But this wasn’t Luna. The sky beyond the dome was red, not black, and the air smelt of dust, ozone and something sweet – orange peel, perhaps?
By the time I’d queued for, and been crushed into, the lift down from the crater rim and queued for, and been glared at by, customs and joined the even longer queue for immigration, the scale of my potential mistake was sinking in. I was on an alien planet, with little money and no plan.
The walls in Arrivals were covered in the usual combination of adverts, infomercials and warnings about contraband and contagions. One image showed the Eye of Heaven floating, like some round shining god, over a hyper-real and lightly animated – or possibly real-time – depiction of the Olympus region, with the caption, Peace and Prosperity For All; the Everlight logo at the bottom left was subtle enough to miss if you weren’t looking for it. On Earth, Everlight were a major player; on Mars, they were top dog. The last two decades had seen a meteoric rise in their fortunes on the red planet as every major decision turned out to be right, every gamble justified.
The Arrivals hall also contained discreet niches with actual gods in; the nearest contained a happy jade Buddha. The orange peel smell was stronger here: dry incense, for when you wanted to appease the ancestors without clogging the air scrubbers.
One wall had a flatscreen newsfeed – very retro, or possibly normal, for Mars – and I distracted myself by watching it while I queued. On screen, a thin-faced young man was complaining about Project Rainfall, saying Everlight had no right to hold people to ransom with the promise of rain. The comet’s water belonged to all Martians, he insisted. Something about that phrase, ‘all Martians’, lifted my spirits. No one ever says ‘All Earthers’. Okay, so Mars is just a bunch of semi-independent enclaves and habitats, as is Luna, but hearing someone speak like that made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I just couldn’t escape that early communal upbringing. As a caption appeared at the bottom of the flatscreen, I realised I wasn’t so far from the truth: this was a spokesperson for the Deimos Collective. Somewhat ironic, talking about ‘all Martians’ when he didn’t even live on the surface of Mars. Still, the Deimons did claim to speak for the ordinary folk of the planet below them and they had the height and weight – physically, morally, financially – to make statements like that. And the Chinese had the temporal power and self-assurance to ignore them. The queue moved, and I looked away.
Once through the formalities I used the public comm service to book into the cheapest accommodation I could find; it called itself a hotel but was more like a person storage facility, and made my accommodation back on Earth look downright spacious. Then I paid a visit to Shah, Shah & Needlam. I didn’t call ahead in case the lawyers refused me an appointment, and I had to sweet-talk their receptionist and wait for an hour before I got to speak to Mr Shah, junior. He was predictably surprised to see me. When I made my request, his face fell further.
‘Your brother’s remains? I am sorry Ms Choi, but he had no stated religious beliefs or relatives in a position to collect said, ah, remains. Therefore he was, well…’
I knew the drill. ‘He was resyked.’
‘The phrase we use is “physically reintegrated”.’
‘I understand.’ On Luna the official term was ‘returned to the system’. I’d half expected this, and I wasn’t sure what I would have done with Shiv’s body or ashes anyway. But I had to ask. It was an attempt at what the Americans used to call closure. His final mark on the world.
It didn’t have to be, of course.
Three
‘Tea, Ms Choi? I have jasmine, green, chai or English.’
The available selection implied considerable resources, which was no doubt the point. But I hadn’t had a decent cup of tea since I left Earth. ‘English, please. White no sugar.’ Though I preferred Western tea I usually drank Eastern teas in social situations, but I didn’t have to worry about fitting in here. Besides, I was curious to see whether the perfectly turned out young woman sitting opposite me had access to cows as well as decent hydroponics.
She waved a hand at the boy who’d shown me into her office-cum-parlour. He drew back from the threshold, pulling the painted screen-door closed behind him. A subliminal hum started in the roots of my teeth.
‘So,’ she drew the word out with care, ‘you are Shiv Neru’s sister.’
‘I am. And your own sister runs the Moonlit Joy Escort Agency?’ I kept my tone lightly quizzical without being critical. Who was I to judge anyone by their family?
‘She does. Using a back room in her premises provides additional discretion for my own business.’
‘Which is what, exactly?’ Shiv’s recording had provided me with a name – Ika – a contact number – which I had done a directory search on, along with as much other research as I could without spending serious cash – and his assurance that ‘Ika’ was ‘doing a great job of bringing everything together’. And that was all I knew.
‘I am a facilitator.’
As I thought: a fixer with pretentions. ‘Excellent. And what, exactly, were you facilitating for my brother?’ I suspected she’d done more than facilitate him; she was in her twenties, mixed heritage (I’d guessed some Japanese from the name, but looking at her now I’d say mainly Indonesian), petite, stylish and possessed of a weaponised smile. Exactly his type.
‘A unique endeavour which, I believe, you know something of?’
Did she know about Shiv’s recording? ‘Something, yes.’ With a job like this you had to strike the balance between compartmentalisation and coordination. Tell your people everything they might need to know – but no more. When I say ‘you’, I mean the money. But Shiv wasn’t the money. His recording had implied he was the brains behind the job, but a lot of the mental lifting, could be – probably should be – done by an individual like Ika. ‘Before I go any further, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask some direct and searching questions.’
Ika’s expression tightened, but she simply said, ‘I would expect nothing less.’
First things first. ‘Did you sleep with my brother?’
Her expression tightened further, then loosened. ‘Yes. Once.’ The shark-smile settled back on her face. ‘Will that be a problem?’
‘Not necessarily.’ If it was just the once, then probably not. If it was more than a one-off then whatever he knew, she probably did too. ‘Do you know what the target of the job is?’
Not a waver in her expression this time. ‘The financier behind this operation has been most insistent on confidentiality and discretion.’
Which didn’t answer my question. I tried another tack. ‘Did this individual approach you directly about the job? Or did you hear about it through Shiv?’ I looked up at a slight sound, and the humming I’d almost tuned out stopped. The boy came in with a tea-tray. As he unloaded it I took a more thorough look around the room. It exhibited the characteristic Martian obsession with Feng Shui; I’d seen more Tara Mirrors, and breathed more flavours of incense in the last three days than in a year working at Everlight Europe. I put it down to spiritual over-compensation: bringing the familiar to an alien world. It was an odd juxtaposition with Ika’s expensive and discreet comms equipment.
As the boy positioned the tea-pot – genuine china, or an impressive fake – Ika said, ‘The blend is mainly Assam, so don’t let it brew too long. Thank-you, Mani.’
When the boy closed the screen on his way out the hum re-started. I’d placed it while he was serving, as I’d been the one serving the tea during some delicate meetings back on Earth: Ika had jammers built into this room to stop eavesdropping, physical or electronic. She went up in my estimation.
Ika picked up a large but delicate-looking mug. She was having chai, from the smell of it. She blew on the drink, took a sip, then said, ‘I have been honest with you. May I now expect the same courtesy in return?’
‘Of course.’
‘I was not aware Shiv had a sister, and after your call this morning I did a little researc
h. Imagine my surprise to find you are an employee of Everlight, and have only recently arrived from Earth. Given this, I must ask: why are you here?’
I poured myself a cup of tea, and I took a sip. The leaves could have brewed a little longer, but it was a quality blend, and if that wasn’t real milk it was an expensive substitute. Another point in this woman’s favour.
Ika was still waiting for an answer.
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. Might as well have laid down on her sumptuous five-elements rug and bared my throat. ‘I’m still thinking it through. You’d be within your rights to refuse to cooperate with me, under the circumstances.’
She nodded, and put down her mug. ‘I have been trying to think what your agenda might be, what you might hope to achieve in coming here, and the most likely answer is that you want to take on the job.’
‘Or to find out why my brother died.’ That had been what I’d told myself when I called Ika to arrange our meeting.
‘A noble motivation. It was a flyer accident, I believe.’
‘And do you? Really believe that, I mean.’
‘I have no idea. I don’t go outside the domes if I can help it.’
‘But you appreciate the sort of things that can go wrong, and the sort of people who can make them go wrong.’
‘That’s my job, but without knowing exactly what Shiv planned, I couldn’t offer any meaningful suggestions.’
I could almost believe she hadn’t known what Shiv was up to. Almost. ‘If I did take this on it would require specialists. Shiv mentioned a couple but we’d have to recruit more.’