Losing Mars (Saving Mars Series-3)

by Swanson, Cidney

  Pavel did not make that mistake.

  "Would you like to reconsider and allow Jessamyn to go free?"

  "My dear Pavel, do you think this is the first such storm I've had to weather? The first time my name has been dragged through the media mud?"

  "I think this would be a scandal even your public relations team would find challenging. I think there would be an inquest into your recent election at the very least."

  "It all sounds highly inconvenient, nephew."

  "And it can all be avoided if you release the girl."

  Lucca rose and activated a holographic image of Earth. She returned to her seat and gazed at the green and blue globe. "There are more important things at stake than your infatuation with a girl from another world, Pavel. The very safety of Earth is at risk. The two billion people in my care stand to face hunger, war, and poverty because of the actions of a handful eking out an existence millions of kilometers away."

  "Jessamyn is not here to wage a war."

  "Pavel," said Lucca, half a smile upon her face. "Oh, Pavel." She shook her head.

  "I'm telling the truth. Grab the Equidima and ask me again. Jess just wants to get home."

  "There’s no point in interrogating you. The girl has told you nothing of any true value. She's played you, Pavel. But make no mistake: she won't play me."

  "Then you will be exposed, Aunt. By this time tomorrow, your name will be reviled around the world."

  "Do you really think a setback like expulsion from office can stop me?"

  "It will take years for you to regain the credibility you'll lose."

  Lucca nodded. "It might. If I had a sentimental attachment to this body, to this identity."

  Pavel reeled from the revelation; his aunt was claiming she would jump bodies. Why hadn’t he thought of this? It was so obvious a solution, for someone as amoral as his aunt. And what good would it do to accuse whoever Lucca became? Who would win that battle? His aunt would beat him, as assuredly as she was doing right now. Pavel’s shoulders sagged forward.

  His aunt was not going to release Jessamyn.

  Lucca interrupted his thoughts. "Do you remember how I used to explain my job to you, when you were young?"

  Pavel’s voice was flat as he repeated the words she'd fed to him as a boy. "You said the world was like a vast garden and that you were the head gardener, directing others to keep out the weeds and the weevils." He sank into the seat he had refused earlier.

  "It was a very good analogy,” said his aunt. “I stand prepared to give up anything, to make any sacrifice, in order to preserve the beauty and order of this garden we call Earth."

  Revulsion kept Pavel from responding.

  "My dear boy, I always have an exit strategy for contingencies like the one you think you can threaten me with. I will not release the girl.” She paused for a moment to let the words sink in. “You have, however, shown yourself more resourceful than I gave you credit for. There will always be a place for resourceful thinkers within my inner circle."

  At that moment, a red light pulsed on the surface of Lucca's desk.

  "Ah," said Lucca. "Major Vladim Wu wishes to speak with me."

  Pavel knew Wu by reputation. He rose, expecting to be escorted from the room.

  "No, no," said Lucca. "You may remain. If I am not mistaken, you may find this conversation of interest."

  She tapped the flashing panel on her desk and a miniature Vladim Wu appeared, his back to Pavel.

  "My dear Vladim," said Pavel's aunt.

  Pavel clenched his fists tight. He had a few moments where his aunt's attention would be diverted. He had time to plan his next move. Think, he told himself. Focus on what you came here to do. How could he best help the girl he loved?

  Not by running away.

  He needed to stay close to his aunt, to await whatever opportunity arose. His first plan, negotiate, had failed. It was time to execute his second: cooperate.

  His aunt's conversation with Major Wu intruded upon his thoughts—he'd just heard the word "Yucca."

  "We are confident we have gathered the last of the dissenters,” Wu was saying. “Do you have instructions regarding their fate?"

  "Do you know, Vladim," said Lucca, making careful eye contact with Pavel. "With everything that today has brought, I haven't had the chance to decide just yet. I will contact you presently, when I've had a chance to think things through."

  "Very good, Chancellor. There are a few who suffered minor injuries—"

  "Treat them," said Lucca, interrupting him. "By all means, treat the injured, feed the hungry, and so forth. I will contact you as to their eventual destiny, once it has been decided. Chancellor out."

  Wu's image disappeared.

  Lucca smiled at her nephew. The expression caused a chill to run from the base of his spine up to the top of his head. "My dear boy. As I was saying, I admire your resourceful behavior. However, I cannot grant the request you have made. Cooperate with me, though, and I can, perhaps, grant other requests."

  "Such as allowing the villagers of Yucca to go free?"

  Pavel's aunt inclined her head in acquiescence. "We understand one another well. Let us be clear on a few other points, Pavel. I will treat you no differently than I would treat any other person in my service. I will, for example, make the assumption that your interests and my interests will only infrequently align. That you will, like others tending my garden, require regular motivations by either carrot or stick."

  Pavel sniffed indignantly.

  "My application of reward and punishment is not meant to demean. I have simply found it expedient. Do as I request and you'll enjoy the carrot. One or two times making the acquaintance of the stick is usually sufficient to persuade the intelligent that it lies in their best interest not to cross me."

  Pavel turned and strode to the far end of the room where an artificial fire blazed in a marble fireplace. As he placed his hands on the mantle, he fought the urge to shout that he would never, ever, serve her. To run to the hall and call to Zussman to flee. But more than he wanted these things, he wanted the opportunity to free Jessamyn.

  He took in several slow breaths before he turned back to face his aunt.

  “Call Major Wu right now and tell him to release the citizens of Yucca,” he said.

  Lucca smiled and placed the call.

  Pavel hoped they would know to flee as far as possible from the home now discovered and destroyed by the Chancellor.

  After his aunt finished the call to Wu, Pavel cleared his throat and made a second demand. “I want to be trained to take over as Head of Global Consciousness Transfer,” he said, his voice cold and hard.

  “You have some ambition after all,” said his aunt. She crossed the room to stand beside him. “You are young. There will be other girls, dear boy.”

  “I’ve lost her anyway.” He laughed harshly. “Didn’t your impersonator tell you? I destroyed her M-class transport. She didn’t like that.”

  “No, I don’t suppose she did.”

  His aunt stood quite close now. Close enough that his hands itched to strike or throttle her. It was with an effort that he resisted both impulses.

  “Pavel, you will find I can be quite reasonable so long as you are cooperative. Thwart me and I will find a way to hurt you, every time. You are soft. Too soft. It is a weakness in you to care for Zussman.”

  “Leave Zussman out of this,” said Pavel. “I’ll assist at the transfer.”

  “You will accompany me to New Kelen Hospital in the morning. As will Zussman, to ensure you remain motivated.”

  “I said I’d do it,” snapped Pavel. “Stop threatening me.”

  Lucca grabbed Pavel by the chin. “I will treat you as I see fit. Do not set your will against mine, boy.” She released him. “You will always lose,” she said coolly, turning to walk away. “I have other business to attend to. Until tomorrow, nephew.”

  Pavel stood for a long while contemplating the fire in his aunt’s office. He’d never mind
ed fake fire before when he’d lived here, but now that he’d spent evenings beside real fires underneath a sky shot with stars, he saw the blaze in his aunt’s fireplace for what it was: a forgery.

  48

  WHAT A WASTE IT WOULD BE

  Inside a small cell two floors below Lucca’s palace, Jessamyn waited as a fifth hour dragged by. Then, at last, she heard once more the voice she associated with her imminent and probably painful demise.

  Lucca had returned.

  “Well, girl, I’ve had a visit from my dear nephew,” said the Chancellor. “Most unexpected. Imagine, my nephew returned thinking to trade his life for yours. Is that not charming? Is that not noble?”

  Jess felt giddy—overwhelmed—at the miracle of his survival. And then a thought flashed through her like a warning: You must not let Lucca know he means anything to you. Jessamyn kept silent.

  “You seem less than grateful,” drawled the Chancellor. “Well, I had to refuse his offer, well-intended as it was.”

  “But he’s alive?” The question tumbled out, and Jessamyn cursed herself for her weakness.

  “Oh, did I say he was still alive?” asked Lucca.

  Jessamyn could not draw breath. She should not have spoken. She would not allow the Chancellor to have power over her, not again.

  “He thought you very pretty, you know.”

  Jessamyn gave no outward response. But she heard Lucca’s damning use of the past tense. He was gone then. Jess’s rage against Lucca doubled, trebled, a fiery heat roiling in her belly beside the ice-cold certainty of Pavel’s death.

  “However,” continued the Chancellor, “His admiration of you made me consider what a waste it would be if I were to interrogate you in your own body. I’m surprised it didn’t occur to me earlier.” Lucca leaned toward Jess in a way that suggested intimacy or camaraderie. “We’ll rebody you first, my dear. It would be a shame to inflict damage upon such a lovely first-body.” Lucca gazed into Jessamyn’s eyes with her own ice-blue ones. “Yes, it would be a shame. Perhaps I’ll save your flesh and wear it myself someday.”

  Jessamyn spat at the Chancellor.

  Lucca frowned and appeared about to strike Jessamyn, but then she seemed to think better of it. “Mustn’t mark that lovely form,” she murmured. “Until we meet again.”

  The Chancellor gave parting orders to transfer Jessamyn to a different location. Jess heard the words New Kelen: the same hospital where she’d failed to save her brother. She felt despair settling upon her like a dusting of carbon snow, freezing her internal landscape with the dread of what was to come.

  49

  A SMOOTH TRANSITION

  As she sat in the hovercraft, Jessamyn found herself mentally critiquing the sloppy flying of the pilot delivering her to New Kelen Hospital for her rebodying. Finding fault with the pilot was an anchor for her—a way to avoid thinking about what was coming. Her heart beat too swiftly and her pulse pounded in her ears, her adrenals sending messages of imminent threat.

  Think about the approach you would have chosen for this descent, she ordered herself. She watched the pilot’s clumsy fingers shift across his nav panel. Were those even his original hands? He was threebody age, so there was her answer. No wonder he couldn’t fly worth a ration bar.

  You won’t, either, once you’ve been re-bodied.

  A flare of rage washed through her.

  That’s right—be angry.

  Anger would serve to sharpen her eyes for escape far better than would despair. A hospital was a place full of things that could be used to end one’s life. Things that could be broken, leaving jagged edges exposed, things that could be swallowed, poisoning the system.

  She needed a plan. She’d been given the luxury of time out of Lucca’s hands. How could she use it to defend the world she loved?

  Her eyes darted, taking in her surroundings as she was led from the hovercraft. They had not restrained her feet, forcing her instead to march with only her hands secured.

  Looking up, she saw the remembered glass surface of the hospital. Someone was replacing a fourth floor window. From the fourth floor, she counted up eight more. The twelfth floor—that was where she would be taken to transfer bodies. They entered the building and approached the bay of elevators inside. Panic flashed in Jess for a moment as a pair of physicians joined them in the elevator. Were these the ones sent to rebody her today? They ignored her, though, lost in their own concerns.

  “I disagree,” said one of the doctors.

  “Tell that to the patient’s children,” came the retort. “Or their lawyers.”

  “He would have found another way to end his life. The ability to guide your own hoverchair is a basic human dignity for non-ambulatory patients.”

  The other physician remained silent.

  Jessamyn tried to puzzle out how a person could use a hoverchair to end their own life. How would you do it? Drive yourself in front of an oncoming vehicle? She remembered the broken window on the fourth floor, and then it occurred to her what must have happened. Someone must have rammed a chair through the window at high speed. Could she fly right through an upper level window? She didn’t have a hoverchair, but she had her legs.

  She squared her shoulders and added run through window on twelfth floor to her inventory of ways to end her life.

  The elevator emptied when they reached the eighth floor, leaving only Jess and her complement of two guards. As soon as the elevator doors opened, she would run at the first window she saw.

  But when the doors slid apart, a host of hospital and security personnel stood ready to receive her.

  “Jessamyn,” said a man whose face looked familiar, “I’ve been asked to accord you very special care.” His voice was low and soft and so like her father’s voice that it hurt to listen.

  As armored guards seized her and lifted her to strap her to a gurney, the doctor spoke in his calm and soothing tones. “I’m truly sorry for the additions to security. It’s not the way we like to operate under regular circumstances.”

  Jessamyn remembered where she’d seen him before. “You’re the Head of Global Consciousness Transfer,” she blurted out.

  The physician cocked his head to one side and gave a slight nod.

  Jess recalled, too, Harpreet’s disappointment the night the physician had failed to make a full confession of wrongdoings in the Rebody Program. Was this the same person who’d promised to lay white lilies on his wife’s grave? Perhaps Jess wasn’t even speaking to that person. Lucca might have replaced him again.

  “I’ll be handling your transfer personally,” said the physician. “I understand this is your first transfer?”

  Jessamyn felt a wave of revulsion pass through her and did not respond.

  “The Chancellor’s given orders to rush you through, but there are protocols to be observed on a first transfer, and I intend to follow them properly.” He offered a kind smile. “Please rest assured we will do our utmost to provide a smooth transition for you.”

  Jessamyn felt the familiar tingle of a med-patch on her forearm. She glanced at her arm.

  “Just a small dosage of a relaxant,” said the doctor. “To help keep you comfortable while we take measurements.”

  A flood of warmth seemed to flow just under her skin, radiating from her heart out along her arms and through her belly, her legs, down to her toes. It was like being warmed by the sun’s light on Earth. She sighed happily.

  No, she told herself. That’s wrong. This isn’t happy. They’re going to ground you, take away your license to fly anything more than the family get-about. She felt confused. This wasn’t about her having disobeyed Lobster’s orders. She was being grounded for something worse. Across her mind’s eye passed an image of the Galleon shifting out of sight as an escape pod carried Jessamyn to safety.

  Oh, yes, she thought, That would get me grounded for life, crashing the last raiding ship. Then she saw another vision, a different M-class transport. There was something wrong with the hover boosters.

/>   “No, no, no,” she murmured aloud.

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” said the Head of Global Consciousness Transfer at her side.

  She jolted suddenly back to the present. She was about to be rebodied. Followed by torture. She tried to speak. Her tongue felt thick and heavy in her mouth.

  “You have to bring me a scalpel when it’s done. Or poison. Don’t forget,” said Jessamyn. Speaking aloud was so … exhausting, but it was important. Knife. Poison.

  “There, there,” said the physician. “Try to relax. Don’t speak.”

  And so for a moment, or an hour—she couldn’t be sure about time just now—she did as the doctor ordered and lay still and quiet.

  But then she heard something. Something that made her happy. No, someone who made her happy. She knew that voice very well.

  “Pavel,” she murmured, too soft for anyone to hear but herself.

  Of course, Pavel was dead, wasn’t he? Jess couldn’t feel as sad as she knew she ought to. Even her feelings were sleepy.

  Pavel was speaking and it was very, very, very important that she listen. She couldn’t remember why it was important, but she could do the listening without the remembering-why. Even though Pavel was dead. Wasn’t he?

  “You didn’t say it would be her,” Pavel was saying.

  A woman responded.

  “No, I didn’t,” said the woman. “But I told you the consequences of disregarding my instructions, did I not?”

  It was someone Jessamyn didn’t like. Ms. Smith, she thought. Cavanaugh’s cohort. But that didn’t feel quite right. Was it the Secretary’s obnoxious event planner, perhaps? She didn’t think so.

  Pavel spoke again. “I’ll do it. Clear the room. That includes you, Aunt Lucca.”

  Oh, thought Jessamyn. Her. I don’t like her. I don’t trust her. Someone should warn Pavel she’s not trustworthy. Even if he’s dead.

  Jess fought against the weights holding her eyes shut. It wasn’t enough they’d strapped her down—they’d placed something heavy on her lids as well. She gathered her strength and fought to lift the weighty objects. Her eyes fluttered, attempting to open.