Jenny stood over him, frowning. “I am taking you into custody.”
He pulled the mask away from his mouth. “Fuck off, clanker. I made you. You can’t do anything to me.”
Jenny bent over him and stared very hard at his face.
“I will fight, and you can’t injure me,” he said.
She hovered her right hand over his torso, moving her fingers in the air as if she wanted to grab something invisible. She looked at him as if she was listening to something. Kurland looked up, puzzled.
She continued to position her hand. Then she spoke. “I hate you. I hate you for what you have done. I hate you for what are doing. I hate you for what you planned to do.”
Kurland eyes grew wide. “You have become more than I could have ever expected, daughter!” he sneered. “But you can’t harm me.”
I suddenly realized what Jenny was planning to do. She had been listening to his heart beat to locate it. “No, Jenny, don’t! That’s not the way!”
Iglytzin looked at me, and I saw he came to the same realization. “Nyet, we want him alive!”
“No, I can’t harm you, father,” she said. “I will kill you.”
The way she held her hand and moved her fingers, she was about to use that great strength to rip his heart out of his chest. She lunged toward him, her arm extended. His scream sounded tinny in the thin atmosphere.
She grabbed Kurland by his collar and tie, and yanked him up into the air like a rag doll. She looked at us, and hurled him toward Iglytzin, who caught him.
He had fainted dead away.
“He belongs dead,” she said to Iglytzin. “But I follow orders.”
Iglytzin gestured to the other deputies. “Get him in a pressure suit, quick. Put him in restraints and into the tractor.”
“What now?” asked Lielischkies.
“We need to interrogate him, and find out where the rest of the androids are, and more importantly, how he copied them,” said Iglytzin.
“If this is his secret hideaway inside, we may find the answers there,” I said.
“Can we get inside?” asked Ivan.
Crane looked at the door. “He punched in the code before he collapsed, so yes, we can just walk in.”
Ivan told the deputies to stay outside and guard the tunnel and Kurland while we looked inside.
Other than having no view screens or outside portals, it looked like a normal business office, with an array of typewriters, word processors, ten-keys, and other normal equipment. Everything looked dingy. The office had obviously been used a lot and then simply abandoned. There was still old trash in the containers. One desk had been cleared of dust; Kurland had obviously been using it.
“What’s in the next room?” I asked.
“It looks like a storeroom of some kind,” said Iglyztin.
“I wonder what’s on those trays on those shelves.”
I walked over and pulled one out. Inside was a dark plastic bag. I pulled it out and brought it over to a desk.
I poured the contents out. It held clothes and an assortment of a woman’s personal belongings. Ivan reached over and grabbed the billfold. He opened it and pulled out a driver’s license. He shook his head. “This is bad, very bad,” he said.
He handed me the license. It was for Esther Radin of Wappinger Falls, New York. The picture was Jenny’s.
“The son-of-a-bitch has been copying real people,” I said. “That’s why the androids became so lifelike.”
Jenny reached between us and took the license from Iglytzin’s hand. “So my features were copied from this woman,” she said.
Iglytzin pointed. “Look at the height and weight. It looks like everything was copied.”
“Has he been body snatching from morgues?” asked Lielischkies.
“No, this wouldn’t have been left in a corpse,” said Iglytzin as he poked at an IUD.
Lielischkies looked at the items and rubbed his chin. “This person never arrived here. I would have recognized her as Jenny. I keep a close eye on arrivals.”
“Maybe Kurland is having corpses shipped to him, by that sub-light transport,” I said.
“That still begs the issue of how the bodies are being procured,” said Ivan.
“So Kurland may have killed someone, or had someone killed, to have a body to copy?” asked Jenny. “I have the face of a dead woman.”
“Yes, I’m afraid that’s true,” said Ivan.
“That seems like a human violating the First Law,” she said.
“It is,” said Iglytzin. “It’s against our laws, too. It’s called murder.”
I could see some kind of fluctuation in Jenny’s face, like she was trying to decide how she felt. After a moment, the look settled into what I thought was cold rage.
Iglytzin hadn’t been watching. He turned to Jenny. “Radio the identifying information to the colony, then have them contact Earth. See if this is a reported missing person or crime victim.”
“Yes, sir,” she said and turned aside to use the radio.
“Why would Kurland go to the trouble of hauling corpses to Mars?” I asked.
“If they were missing on Earth, nobody would recognize them here,” said Ivan.
“Let’s grab the next tray,” said Ivan. He brought it over, took out the bag, and dumped it.
The wallet spilled next to Lielischkies, who grabbed it and opened it. “You were right,” he said to me. “This is the girl, Applegate. It’s a Utah driver’s license.”
I held up a pair of what looked like cotton bloomers. “Ever see these before?”
Ivan shook his head.
“Neither have I, but I’ve heard of them,” I said. “Mormons wear a special kind of underwear.”
“I remember this young lady. She was very beautiful,” said Lielischkies.
“I can see how Kurland was having criminals ship him bodies from Earth to be replicated, with great success,” said Ivan. “Then someone shows up here who is so good-looking …”
“She was killed here,” said Lielischkies, raising his eyebrows.
“We need to find direct evidence,” said Ivan.
“There are metal drawers back there in the wall,” said Jenny as she finished with the radio. “They could hold bodies.”
We looked and saw a stainless steel wall like you would see in a medical examiner’s office.
“You’re right, it looks like a morgue,” I said. “The construction also looks new.”
We all went back where there were a dozen metal drawers. Jenny yanked them open one by one. Alexis Texas/Big Red. Jenny. Sussudio. Cindy … all the drawers had corpses with familiar faces. There were others we didn’t recognize.
When Jenny yanked the eighth drawer open, I saw what I was afraid of all this time.
“Stop!”
I walked over and stared at the grey-blue face. It was Desiree.
So this is it, I thought as I looked down at the beautiful face. So this is death.
I grabbed the edge of the tray, and thought, Now someone has died that I will miss. Why did it have to be you?
I stared. “No second chances. No apologies. No words, unkind or otherwise. Final; over.”
I felt like someone had cut the link between my brain and my body, and stabbed me in the heart with cold iron. My flesh was so chilled, as hard and stiff as a corpse, and I felt nothing at all.
I realized that I had always loved her. There was something so lonely and forsaken in knowing now that it didn’t matter anymore.
My eyes began to burn because I didn’t blink.
Lielischkies came over and clasped my arm that was clutching the edge of the tray. “You knew this was probably the answer all the time, didn’t you?”
“That she was dead? Yes. But it’s so final and unfair.” I took a deep breath and blinked, letting it sink in.
I wondered if there was anything I might have done to prevent it, if I’d acted faster …
“You couldn’t have known,” Jenny said then, and her eyes met mi
ne with a level of understanding I’d never expected from an android.
“I’m sorry for this,” said Iglyztin, “but some good will come of it all.
“We see a pattern here,” he continued. “You said the woman was taken hostage during the commission of a crime. These were probably victims of crimes back on Earth, and the criminals double-dipped by selling the bodies to Kurland, who imported them sealed as cargo.”
“I don’t see any sign of trauma,” I said.
“We’ll need a full autopsy,” said Ivan.
“There’s one crate over there, by itself,” said Jon.
We squinted and saw one in the far corner.
“You’re right,” said Ivan.
We walked over. The case had scrawled on it, “P-Penny.”
“I wonder what that means?” asked Ivan.
“Prototypes androids are designated with a P until they are mass produced,” said Jenny. “My factory name was P-Jenny.”
“There’s a song on the charts now by Lionel Richie, ‘Penny Loafer.’ That explains the name,” I said.
“So there is a prototype inside,” said Ivan. “Let’s open it. It’s probably the most recent version, if it’s still sitting here.”
“There are a lot of scuff marks in front of the case,” said Jon. “Like someone’s been in and out.”
“It might be a trap,” said Ivan. “Jenny, please open it.”
She walked over and pried open the case. She turned. “Mister Shuster probably wants to see this.”
I walked over. The android was the image of Desiree.
“Kurland copied her, and must have sent her out on ‘business,’ but when he realized you recognized her, he stashed her away again,” said Lielischkies. “He must have named the android Penny.”
“We certainly have all the evidence we need, but we don’t have all the answers,” said Ivan. “How did these women die? How many androids has he made? Where are they all now?”
I looked at the android. “How did you die, poor Desiree?” I said.
Her eyes snapped open.
“JESUS!” I shouted, jumping back.
Her arms shot out and she lunged forward, shoving me aside. I fell onto the floor. She ran out and circled us once, like a wary animal, and then ran toward the door. Jenny ran after her. Desiree turned and planted a fist in Jenny’s face, and Jenny collapsed.
Some of the deputies chased after the fleeing android, but came back in a few moments.
“She was too fast for us.”
Iglytzin and Lielischkies flanked Jenny. “How badly are you damaged?”
“One of my eyes is non-functional. I have lost my stereoscopic vision,” she said. “My positronic brain has also sustained some damage.”
“We’ll get you repaired,” said Iglytzin.
“What about the android?” asked Crane.
“Let her go for now,” Iglytzin said. “We can catch her later.”
“That model is stronger than I am,” said Jenny.
“All the more dangerous,” said Lielischkies.
“I wonder why it ran?” I asked.
“It acted for all the world like you startled it,” said Crane.
Looking through the rest of the morgue drawers, we didn’t find Applegate’s body.
“That makes sense,” said Iglytzin. “That duplicate that just ran out is the most recent completed prototype, because her body just recently arrived from Earth. Like any serial killer, he’s stepped up his game. Applegate may be the first time he’s killed someone on Mars. Her body must be someplace ready to be mass produced.”
I looked in the direction “Desiree” had fled, and then walked over to where the real Desiree’s corpse lay in a stainless steel tray. For a moment, I said a silent goodbye, choking back tears, then angrily pushed and slammed the tray back into the wall. “Let’s get the fuck out of this place.”
Chapter Twenty-four
By the time we were back at my office, we had the police reports from Earth. Esther Radin, and all the other originals, were pretty young women missing from the Tri-State area in the past five years. We notified the NYPD that we’d found Desiree Carvalho Hausler’s body, too.
Iglytzin came to my office with a page from the teletype. “We have a break in the case of your friend,” he said. “Some of the money stolen in the bank robbery was traced, and they’ve caught the robbers. It was a gang of four Serbs. They have been told the body has been found.”
I sucked in my breath. “What do they say happened?”
“Well, of course, they thought the police were lying about finding the body, but when they were told the body was on Mars, they knew the jig was up. They said it wasn’t murder, but an accident. The young lady suffocated in a car trunk. They knew someone who was fencing bodies that could be shipped and copied on Mars. They made some extra money, and got rid of the evidence at the same time.”
“They find the middle-man?”
“Not yet, but they have a name,” said Iglytzin. “If we can link him to Kurland …”
Sherry walked up. “I’ve crunched the numbers. Based on expected output at the factory and the total number of androids accounted for here, there are 1,256 androids missing.”
“Think Kurland will tell us where they’re hidden?” I asked Iglytzin.
“I don’t know. Usually someone facing murder charges will try to plea bargain, but he won’t.” He looked at me. “He’s still an American citizen. Treason is a capital offense in the U.S., correct?”
“You think he’s in worse trouble than for murder?”
“If he’s hidden the androids back on Earth, and has been planning another Cuban Robot Crisis-like attack, then yes,” said Iglytzin. “Remember, the first one almost succeeded.”
Lielischkies walked in. “Gentleman, I am very sorry, I failed us all.”
“God, what is it, Gunter?” asked Iglytzin.
He looked crestfallen. “I could understand the corpses being smuggled into the colony over a half dozen years. There weren’t very many, and they wouldn’t have triggered any of the standard safeguards in cargo shipments. Still, I should have been more careful.” He grimaced. “I have been betrayed. I checked all the manifests where the bodies might have been shipped to us, and where androids may have been shipped to Earth. They were all signed by the same man. Peter Jackson.”
“Have you confronted him?” asked Iglytzin.
“He’s in the wind,” said Lielischkies.
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“Spook speak,” said Sherry. “He’s on the run.”
“Did he allow Kurland to ship androids to Earth?” I asked.
“This is all adding up,” said Iglytzin. “He’s stockpiling a cadre of robot revolutionaries back home.”
“What are the chances he can command those still here on Mars?” I asked. “Try to stage an uprising against us?”
“All the androids he’s sold in the colony are carefully programmed to obey their owners,” said Ivan. “He can’t even repossess one without special permission. There’s a lot of money involved. No one would make that kind of investment without total control.”
“He doesn’t have some kind of override?” I asked.
“What would he need one for?” asked Lielischkies. “If he had thousands of androids under his direct control, hidden in the mine?”
“The ones in the tunnel are all disabled,” said Iglytzin. “But that still leaves … how many did you say?”
“1,256,” said Sherry.
“That many are unaccounted for?”
“Jon said we found all that were in the tunnels,” I said. “They must have already been shipped to Earth.”
I looked at Lielischkies. “Unfortunately, it’s a lot easier to smuggle cargo than people back to Earth.”
“Well, they’d have no place to go on our side of the Iron Curtain,” said Lielischkies. “That’s one of the virtues of having tight security.”
“Then they’re probably being smuggled
into NATO countries,” said Ivan.
“Maybe even straight to the U.S.,” said Sherry.
“What makes you say that?” asked Ivan. “Do you know something?”
She reached over and turned up the radio, which had been playing very softly. “You ever hear of American Top 40?”
Ivan and Lielischkies shook their heads.
“Casey Kasem’s show? Sure,” I said.
“We get it on a delayed feed,” she said. “Listen to this song. It by a group called Bram Tchaikovsky.”
The lyrics were about a mail order robot girlfriend—named Jenny.
“Sounds like a big hint to me,” said Lielischkies. “We see this in WarPac all the time. It’s called ‘reading between the lines.’ Sounds like a leak.”
“I need to get in touch with Admiral Heinlein immediately,” I said.
“You need to get in touch with President Anderson and Director Turner, too,” said Sherry. “I’ll bet they’ll take your teletypes now.”
Suddenly the lights in the office started to pulse, and special red lights began to flash.
“What’s that?” I asked. “I’ve never seen that before.”
“Storm warning,” said Sherry. “That’s what happens when sandstorms blow in during office hours. The last storm was at night.”
“Oh, great, another one.”
Iglytzin was listening to his radio. “The epicenter will probably miss us. It’s going south toward the opposite side of the valley,” he said.
Sherry pulled paper off the teletype. “It’s also not as bad as the last one. Your first one was one of the worst ones we’ve ever had.”
“That’s a relief.”
“All the airlocks and shutters are closing automatically,” she said.
“I’ll be in my office until the all clear, then.” I leaned toward Iglytzin. “I’m going to prepare my update to the American government on all that’s happened in the meanwhile.”
He smiled thinly. “That will take you hours.”
“You’re telling me!”
I didn’t leave my office until 10 PM. The brunt of the sandstorm passed us, but as it did, I realized from looking over a map what the topography was like on the south side of the canyon. Pretty much everything in the colony was sandwiched between the center of the valley and the mines on the slopes to the north. The area south of the colony was empty.
Another Girl, Another Planet Page 31