Alien Gifts

by Sherry D. Ramsey

  At the end of the hall was a "sunroom"—sunlight seemed to flood in through the windows, although I knew the view outside them was holographic since we were ten stories underground. The sunlight was piped in via super-reflective solar collectors, or some mix of sunlight and artificial, anyway. As long as the customer thinks it's real, right? This room was just as elegant and imposing as the rest of the suite. Olara closed the door behind us but didn't offer me a seat in any of the blue and white toile-covered chairs.

  "The Ambassador's death was unfortunate but natural," he said abruptly. "I don't know what game you're playing, but there's nothing in this for you. Nothing."

  My right hand itched to smack him across the face, but I held back in the interests of punching him with something that might hurt more.

  "The Ambassador's shattered staff is locked in a drawer in my office," I said. "I believe there are bloodstains on it. I thought that might be of interest to someone here. If not, I'll be on my way." I turned to go.

  "Wait," he said in a thin voice.

  I turned back, my face carefully neutral.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I had the wrong impression. Please sit down, Detective—?"

  "Thompson," I said. "But just Miss Thompson. You only get to call yourself 'Detective' if the police department is paying you."

  "Miss Thompson," he repeated. "We're all understandably upset here. The Ambassador—well, he was a great man. The whole embassy staff is devastated."

  "I can see that," I said, although Olara didn't look devastated. He looked stressed and disgruntled, but not brimming with grief. "I'm only here because I thought the staff would be important to someone. It's a mystery, and when there's a mystery, I tend to investigate." I flashed him a smile. "It's an occupational hazard."

  He twitched his lips but didn't smile. "Of course. The Ambassador lost that staff yesterday, after his speech. You might have seen him speaking on the tri-V. He was distraught about the staff, but somehow in the crowds—you know how these things happen. This entire trip, it's been one problem after another. But it wasn't something he cared to cause a fuss about, so we didn't report it or anything like that. I expected someone would turn up with it eventually, looking for a reward, but with all that's happened, I simply forgot about it."

  "What else has gone wrong?" I asked. I didn't really need to know, but I've found that if you keep people talking, about anything, interesting things sometimes turn up.

  Olara ticked items off on his stubby fingers. "The Ambassador's luggage was mislaid somewhere between Orion Station and here—it wasn't on the shuttle when we arrived and they still haven't tracked it down. The suite here wasn't as large as we'd been expecting, so I had to scramble to make alternate arrangements for several functions we had planned. There were protesters waiting at three of the Ambassador's speaking venues—he had to cancel the last one yesterday because of them—and he wasn't feeling well into the bargain, and then losing the staff—" He shrugged and sighed. "That all seems so trivial now."

  "And was there a reward?" I asked, because it was what I'd promised Seeth I'd find out.

  Olara shrugged. "I'm sure the Ambassador would have paid one, had the staff been returned intact. But if it's broken, as you say, and with the Ambassador gone..." He left the sentence hanging.

  "He doesn't need it back," I finished for him. "I understand. I had to ask, on behalf of my client."

  He looked at me more sharply. "You have a client? I'm not sure I understand."

  "My client is the one who found the staff," I explained.

  "Oh. Well. I assumed you intended to return the staff here regardless," he said severely. "To go back to Mars with the Ambassador's things."

  "So I should tell my client that there may be a reward after all?"

  Olara tried to stare me down, but I wasn't looking away. If he wanted the thing back, it seemed fair that he give the kid something for his trouble. Seeth could have left it lying in the street, after all, and no one ever would have known what happened to it.

  "I'll have to get back to you about that, Miss Thompson," he said finally.

  "No problem," I said. "Of course you have to consult with others about it." I handed him one of my cards and told him he could reach me, or my avatar, at the number on it anytime. I could tell he didn't like my implication that he couldn't make a decision about the reward on his own authority. That was okay—I'd only said it to get under his skin anyway. I just didn't like the guy.

  I decided to find Seeth and break the bad news that there was probably no reward in sight for the pieces of the staff. I stopped at my office and changed into scruffier clothes. You didn't want to attract undue attention out in the Crops.

  The Crops were what might once have been called a shantytown, one of the outermost rings of the spaceport. Some of the houses were scrapped spacecraft, propped up on blocks and sporting haphazard additions; some were ancient mobile homes; some seemed to be not much more than lean-tos constructed out of castoff cargo pods and sheet metal.

  But they all had the dignity of an address, and I found the one Seeth had given me without too much trouble. It actually wasn't a bad-looking spot. The base of the house was formed from an old payload module that was a pretty good size, with a big porch of aluminum sheathing hammered on to the front. Whoever had fitted the windows had scrounged them from a low-orbit shuttle and done a good job of setting them in. It would be weather-tight at least, a definite consideration since our winters swung down as low as -55° sometimes now, in sharp contrast to the 40°+ days of the summers. Cape City used to have a more temperate climate, but that's just one of the many things that have changed since my grandfather's time.

  There were a few people on the street. I had the eerie sensation of eyes on my back, but I didn't try to figure out which curtained window they might be behind. If I lived in the Crops, I'd be wary and curious about strangers, too.

  I stepped up and knocked on the door. It was answered after a few moments by a woman I assumed to be Seeth's mother. She was perhaps my age, quite possibly beautiful once, but her face was gaunt and her breath came in painful-sounding rasps. Her eyes were suspicious and she opened only the inner door. "Yes?"

  I smiled. "Good afternoon, I'm just looking for Seeth. Is he at home?"

  "He's not in any trouble." It wasn't a question. She was telling me something she knew with certainty. Even living out here in the Crops, her boy was a good boy. Period.

  "No, he's not." I showed her my license. "Seeth is my client, and I wanted to report to him."

  She raised one eyebrow and drew a wheezy breath. "Come in, Miss Thompson," she said, pushing open the outer door and stepping back to make room for me.

  "Please, call me Rachel," I said. The place was nicer inside than I'd expected. Whatever had happened to the Warren family to land them out here, Mrs. Warren was obviously determined to make a home for Seeth. Every surface was clean, the furniture old but not scruffy, and the walls hung with bright tapestries of paint and threadwork. A small tri-V flickered in the corner, although the sound was muted.

  She motioned me to a table in the kitchen area. "I'm Sally. Will you have some green tea?"

  "That would be great," I said. I hoped she wasn't going to ask me what Seeth had hired me for, since I had to keep confidentiality. If he'd told her about it, that would make it easier, but she'd have to bring it up.

  She moved slowly making the tea, her breathing slow and labored. I itched to offer to help but sensed that would be an affront to her dignity. I wondered what kind of Herculean effort it took her to keep the house this clean.

  "I expect it's about that staff Seeth found," she said. "He was hoping there might be a reward."

  I nodded. "I spoke to one of the Ambassador's people earlier. He wasn't sure what they'd do about it."

  "Probably denying the man had ever been in the Crops," she said, setting the tea on the table next to a pair of delicately painted cups. "Sorry I'm so slow," she added. "Vacuum burn in my lungs when Seeth was
just a baby."

  "Wow. How did that happen?"

  She shrugged. "My husband and I were crewing on an asteroid miner. Same old story, company not following the regs, health and safety procedures not enforced." Her face hardened as she poured the tea for us. "At least I made it back to Earth alive. My husband wasn't so lucky."

  "I'm so sorry. What about compensation?"

  She shook her head. "Blamed the accident on my husband, so they wouldn't pay anything for him. Me, I got my back pay and a settlement, but hardly enough to support the two of us. I couldn't do much for a long time." She glanced around the room. "We've managed, but it hasn't been easy. That's why Seeth was hoping there'd be a reward for the staff. He's already working two jobs and going to school."

  I sipped my drink, savoring the pleasant swirl of sweet honey over the slightly bitter tea. "You guessed they'd deny that the Ambassador had ever been in the Crops. You're right. I was told the staff disappeared after his speech yesterday morning."

  "I suppose it doesn't much matter, then, if that's their story." She shrugged. "I thought they might want to cover something up, and they might pay to do that."

  I looked at her curiously. "You think they're lying? That the Ambassador actually was here? Why?"

  She looked out the window for a long moment, staring through the thick pane at something that I couldn't see. "My husband," she said slowly, "was a Leveler, Miss Thompson. A mind-Leveler. You know what that is?"

  "I've heard stories," I said slowly. "A handful of people react to Level differently from everyone else."

  She nodded. "The government would like to keep that quiet. In mind-Levelers, the drug makes them smarter, more charismatic. They're stronger, faster, better problem-solvers, better at almost anything."

  "So...Level really makes them the way the other users just feel," I said.

  "You could put it that way," she said with a humorless chuckle. "The cost is just the same, though. After the effects have worn off they crash just as hard as anyone else."

  "But while they're under the influence of the drug—"

  "They can achieve almost anything," she finished for me. "And that Ambassador...from the first time I saw him on the tri-V, I said to myself, that man's a mind-Leveler."

  "But how could he hide it? In the kind of position he held?" I protested.

  Mrs. Warren sipped her tea. "They're good," she said simply. "I know—I lived with one for ten years. And if the Ambassador had a few trusted staff members, just one or two—"

  "To run interference for him when he needed them to—"

  She nodded again. "It could be done. And anyone looking for Level in Cape City, they'd likely end up out here."

  I still couldn't quite get my head around the notion that the Martian Ambassador could have been a Leveler, but I didn't want to argue with her. It also wouldn't really explain why he'd be out in the Crops trying to score a hit of the stuff. He'd bring his own with him, or send someone out to get it for him.

  I finished my tea. "Thanks for telling me all this, Mrs. Warren," I said, and stood to leave. "Will you tell Seeth I was looking for him?"

  She nodded. "Drop by if you find out anything else," she said, and for just an instant I saw in her eyes how hungry for company she was.

  The air was still warm outside but I shivered as I walked back towards the inner rings. If that was what going off-world could get you, maybe I'd made the right choice after all, staying on Earth.

  Still, in a way, I envied Mrs. Warren. She'd had a chance at life beyond the planet, working in the dark reaches of space with her husband. Me, I'd been too scared to take the chance.

  I took a deep breath of the warm spring air and thought of her raspy, painful breathing.

  ~o~

  I stopped for some supper and it was late by the time I got back to my office. I spent the evening scouring the Web and HUDnet for every available scrap of news footage covering the Ambassador's visit, watching vid and HUD images until I had a headache. It paid off in the end, although I almost missed it.

  Olara had mentioned one appearance the Ambassador had to cancel because of protesters—the last one of the day, he'd said. I found a few brief images of the Ambassador leaving the venue, looking slightly pissed and being hustled into a waiting limo by anxious-looking security guards.

  Because of the camera angle, it wasn't easy to see, but in one fleeting shot, the Ambassador's staff was clearly still in his hand. This would have been hours after Olara claimed it had been lost.

  So Olara had lied to me—but why?

  I could confront him with that in the morning, but even if he'd let me in, I'd need more information first. I wanted to know if there was anything in Mrs. Warren's ideas about the Ambassador being a Leveler, and there was one person who might know. I'd go to her first. If, after our last meeting, she'd even speak to me.

  Porsche Violetta wouldn't be anywhere I could find her until at least noon, so I spent the next morning catching up on paperwork and tidying the office. Okay, so that took about fifteen minutes, and the rest of the time I spent in a VR sim exploring faraway worlds. If I ever did get up the courage to go off-world, at least I'd already know what it looked like.

  A little after one I left the office, looking considerably different than I had for my visit to the Crops yesterday. Porsche was big on appearances, so I paired a bright red turtleneck with my best black leather jacket and black jeans, boots with silver toecaps and a pair of red-framed sunglasses that screamed "diva." I walked, because it was only two rings in toward the center. It was still a world away from my office.

  The doors were locked at Porsche's club, Xeviosity. What doesn't happen at Xeviosity gets talked about there, and Porsche pulls a lot of strings in Cape City. I'm not on the end of one anymore, which was why I wasn't sure of my reception.

  I knocked and waited. Finally one of the lugs Porsche employs to watch the rabble opened the door a crack. "She in yet?" I asked.

  He stared at me for a minute with eyes that were all iris in the dim light. I caught a glitter behind one that could have been an implant, but I didn't want to stare, even behind my own dark lenses. I could almost hear his brain trying to match my face with some internal file. "Office," he said finally. I wondered what might be in that file.

  Two more goons stood outside the office but they let me in without any questions. Porsche had likely been watching me on hidden vids ever since I got within half a click of the place.

  She was at her desk. Her long, tiger-striped hair was loose around her shoulders and she twisted one silky strand around her crimson-tipped fingers. Her eyes, smoky and mysterious, watched me cross the room. Porsche knew the art of wearing makeup so that it didn't look like makeup, just perfect, perfect skin.

  I flipped off my shades and sat down in one of the big faux croc chairs facing her desk. "Thanks for seeing me, Porsche."

  She leaned back in her chair, still silent, then shrugged. "I stopped being mad at you for turning down my offer," she said. "And if you're here, it must be important. Which could also mean interesting. And you know how I love interesting."

  "Hope I don't disappoint. I'm really here for asking, not telling." She merely raised her eyebrows, so I continued. "The Martian Ambassador."

  Porsche nodded. "He was more interesting when he was alive."

  "You knew him?"

  She pulled a half-smile. "Not personally. Xeviosity's not exactly the Embassy. No matter how well he might have fit in here."

  I pursed my lips. "The man seemed pretty squeaky clean, to all appearances."

  "Maybe you should just tell me what you want to know," she countered. She might not be angry any more, but she wasn't going to make my life easy, either.

  "Okay, straight," I said. "I think the Martian Ambassador was a Leveler, and that he didn't die peacefully in his sleep at his hotel. I think he was murdered, and I want to know if Level had anything to do with it."

  Porsche flipped her hair away from her face and sat back, smiling. "
And you think I'd know. I'm flattered."

  "Flattery aside, can you help? I know you don't deal, but you know who does."

  "You on a case?"

  I shrugged. "Sort of. I'm helping a kid from the Crops, and I smell something wrong in this business with the Ambassador."

  "And you can't let it go now that your nose is on the scent. The faithful bloodhound," she teased.

  I grinned. "Woof, woof. Any answers?"

  She traced an intricate design on the desktop with one long red fingernail for a moment. "The Ambassador was definitely a mind-Leveler. You familiar?"

  "I know a little. The drug actually makes you as good as most people only think they are on it."

  Porsche nodded. "It was the Ambassador's ticket to greatness. I have it on good authority from a Martian...business acquaintance. The man got where he was thanks to Level, and that's what kept him at the top."

  It was almost shocking to have my suspicions confirmed so easily. But it didn't give me all the answers I needed. "So why would he be out in the Crops looking for a score? If he was completely dependent on it, he wouldn't go anywhere—let alone off-world—without an adequate supply."

  "Well, you're the detective," Porsche said with a shrug, "you'll have to figure out that part. Something must have gone wrong, some problem he didn't anticipate. Seems like there's always some kind of screwup when you travel. I guess even ambassadors aren't immune to that."

  "You're right there," I agreed. "Apparently he was having one of those trips where everything goes wrong—" The words died on my tongue as something Olara had said came back to me. Just one more problem in the litany of things gone wrong, too-small hotel suites and protesters making things difficult—The Ambassador's luggage was mislaid somewhere between Orion Station and here—it wasn't on the shuttle when we arrived and they still haven't tracked it down.

  Would he carry his supply of Level in his luggage? Of course he would. An off-world ambassador wouldn't have his baggage searched, wouldn't be suspected of bringing anything contraband with him...but if it got lost, he'd be just as helpless and frustrated as any other traveler.