Mars Prime (24 page)

The ship slowed as the navcomp matched velocities with the moon and Deimos grew to fill the forward viewscreen. Though rather busy, the ship's onboard computer still had enough excess processing capacity to provide Dan with a running commentary. So, between that and his own ability to monitor the ship's read-outs and displays, Dan had a pretty good idea of what was going on.

"Okay," the navcomp said, "we have a match. Spike, she's the pilot, will put us through a slow three-sixty with all the recorders running. Gotta make a record for the suits, you know. In the meantime, I'll scan the radio frequencies and watch for infrared. If she's there, we'll find her."

But thirty minutes went by without a sign of life. And, given the fact that Deimos had a diameter of seven miles, it was possible to examine every square foot of the moon's surface. There was no doubt about it. Doctor McKeen was missing, and on Deimos, that meant dead.

Dan felt genuinely sorry because he had liked the scrappy little scientist.

The next part of the mission was relatively easy. It consisted of placing the shuttle in an appropriate orbit, opening the cargo hatch, and deploying the satellite via a robotic arm. A simple operation that had been successfully carried out hundreds of times in both Earth and Mars orbit. In fact, the whole thing was so routine that Dan asked only the most lackadaisical of questions.

"So, what's the satellite for anyway?"

"It's to replace the one that disappeared," the navcomp answered matter-of-factly.

Dan brought his entire processing ability on-line. "Disappeared? You're joking."

"Not hardly," the other computer replied, as it fired the shuttle's steering jets and placed the ship in the proper orbit. "I've seen the control tapes. One minute it was there and the next minute that sucker was gone."

"So it blew up."

"No, I mean that it was
gone—as
in disappeared, vanished, and totally somewhere else."

"So how come nobody's heard about this?"

"Are you kidding? You think Peko-Evans, Fornos, and that crowd wants something like that to get it out? Hell, no they don't."

Dan thought it over. A missing scientist
and
a missing satellite. He couldn't see a connection between those events and the murders in Mars Prime, but that was the point wasn't it? To find some pieces and hope they fit together somehow?

Kim would be pleased. The A.I. wasn't sure why that mattered but knew it did. Suddenly, and much to his own surprise, the Big Guy felt good about himself.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Seventeen

 

 

Corvan pulled the jack from the side of his head. Electronic reality fell away as physical reality rose to enfold him. Suddenly he could
feel
the sweat-slicked metal under his fingertips,
smell
Kim's stale cigarette smoke, and
taste
the dryness of his own mouth.

The digital clock in Kim's console assured him that the meeting had lasted little more than an hour. It felt like ten times that and he wondered how she could hack it. Sitting there all day, talking to computers, herding words and images from one place to another. It would drive him stark raving nuts. But she was good at it, very good indeed, as the meeting had demonstrated.

The computers liked Kim, that much was clear, and had busted their drive units to do what she wanted. Leads, lots of leads, more than Corvan knew what to do with. Computer hackers, deactivated robots, and a missing scientist. He didn't know where to start. He needed help and was amused to find himself admitting that.

What had happened to old "lone wolf" Corvan anyway? The Cyclops, the one-eyed monster, the terror of suits everywhere? He was getting soft, that's what, or old, or a combination of the two.

But someone or something was killing people that he
knew—
good people like Dr. B. That and the fact that, like it or not, Mars Prime was his home. He couldn't distance himself from it, couldn't ignore it, and couldn't flee to some other city. The journalistic distance that he had prided himself on, the dispassionate objectivity, none of it worked on Mars. The choice was simple: help solve the problems or pay the price along with everyone else.

"A penny for your thoughts."

Corvan turned. His wife wore shorts, a sweat-stained T-shirt, and a cigarette. She looked beautiful.

"This is Mars. What would you do with a penny?"

Kim smiled. "I'd use the copper for something. So what did you think?"

Corvan pushed himself up and out of the chair. "I think you hit the bull's-eye, hell, a whole lot of bull's-eyes. You're one smart lady."

"Of course I am. Are you going to tell Scheeler?"

"Yup, first thing. Want to come along?"

"No, thanks. I have work to do. The evening newscast, remember? One thing though ..."

"What's that?"

"I love you."

 

Scheeler listened without interrupting. The silver pen wobbled between thumb and middle finger. Finally, when Corvan was finished, she tapped it against the side of her head.

"So let's see . . . Somebody named Dubie Long is messing around with Mars Central, two of the people presently listed as 'missing' might have been murdered, some robots were beaten to death ala Ochoa and Wu, while others were 'zapped' with a mystery beam. And then, just to top the whole mess off, a scientist
and
a satellite are missing."

"Yeah," Corvan replied. "That about sums it up. You don't believe me?"

Scheeler frowned as she uncrossed long, shapely legs to stand up. "Oh, I believe you all right, which just goes to show how screwed up this place is."

Corvan frowned. "Huh? I don't get it."

Scheeler took her gun belt off a hook and strapped it on. "The hacker, the missing people, and the robots. We missed that stuff, and given the work load, I can live with that. But the scientist and satellite, well, that pisses me off. How the hell am I supposed to do the job if the suits keep me in the dark and feed me bullshit?"

Corvan stood. He was surprised. "You didn't know?"

Scheeler's lips were compressed into a hard thin line. "Damned right I didn't know . . . and somebody's gonna pay. Come on."

Corvan activated his implant, got a tight shot of the security chief's rather shapely posterior, and hurried to catch up.

 

W.K. Julu heard Scheeler long before he saw her. Her boots made a rapid clacking noise as they hit the surface of the corridor. The sound was so distinctive that he'd learned to identify it with her. He hoped she was wearing shorts and was elated to see that she was.

The administrative assistant's enjoyment was somewhat shortlived however, since the security chief seemed headed for the double doors located behind him and showed no signs of slowing down. That and the tact that she had Rex Corvan in tow.

Though not personally opposed to Rex Corvan, Julu was well aware of the fact that the executive council held him in rather low esteem, which didn't bode well for an unannounced intrusion. He rose to block the way.

"Chief Scheeler . . . what a nice surprise."
 

Scheeler's stiffened arm hit Julu at the same time as her words. "Shove it, Julu. I don't have time for your ass-kissing bullshit.''

Julu fell backwards, hit the desk, and skidded across the top. He was still in the process of falling toward the floor when he heard the double doors bang open.

The meeting had been in progress for a couple of hours, and Fornos was just about to make what he thought was a brilliant point, when the doors burst open. Scheeler entered followed by Corvan.

The administrator came halfway out of his chair. Peko-Evans, Jopp, Hobarth, and various assistants stared in open-mouthed amazement.

"How dare you! What's the meaning of this outrage?"

Scheeler stood across from him with hands on her hips, "Spare me the hot air and sit the hell down. As for 'the meaning of this,' well, you tell me.

"This colony is coming apart at the seams while you people sit around and jerk each other off. We've got a nutcase preaching to people out in the desert, a murderer on the loose, and a satellite that vanished into thin air."

Corvan kept to the background. He would get the whole thing on tape and never be allowed to use it.

Scheeler looked from one person to another.

"Doesn't any of that worry you? Aren't you just a little bit concerned? Or is it more important to sit around counting rolls of toilet paper and dividing them by the total number of assholes on Mars?"

"We're counting first-aid kits,
not
rolls of toilet paper," Hobarth said resentfully.

Jopp gave him a look that would have killed anyone with an I.Q. over fifty, told him to shut up, and turned her attention to Scheeler. The military officer's voice was deceptively sweet and calm.

"Speaking of assholes, why is yours here, instead of out solving those problems? Most of which fall into
your
jurisdiction and have been around for quite some time."

But if Jopp had hoped to intimidate Scheeler she'd picked on the wrong person.

"Well, Colonel, let's talk about that for a moment. Last I heard,
you
had responsibility for everything above the atmosphere. And that includes the shuttles, satellites, and both moons. So why wasn't I told that a scientist had disappeared from Deimos? And a satellite had vanished right out from under your nose?"

Peko-Evans frowned and made a steeple with her fingers. "An interesting question, Colonel. Why wasn't she told? And come to think of it, why wasn't
I
informed as well?"

Fornos said nothing, and his silence made it clear that he had known.

Now taking fire from two directions, the military officer started to babble, and for the first time since he'd met her, Corvan saw Jopp come apart. He found it rather enjoyable.

"Well, it seemed like a minor problem, and given all the..."

Peko-Evans cleared her throat but it was Scheeler that spoke.

"You consider the unexplained disappearance of a scientist and a satellite to be 'minor problems?' "

"My people are investigating the situation," Jopp said defensively, "and I resent your tone. Who the hell are you to question my actions anyway?"

The room was silent for a moment, and then like a boil that had been waiting to burst, pent-up emotion flooded the room.

"I'll tell you who she is," Peko-Evans said thinly, ''she's the one who hit dirt a full year and a half before you broke orbit. She's the one who lived in Zone One and sweated out endless nights in her E-suit until Mars Prime could hold pressure. She's the one that has killed people in the line of duty, survived three blow-outs, and has been around too long to take shit from a newbie."

Corvan was surprised and knew that he shouldn't be. The executive council was made up of people just like everyone else. Smarter maybe, better educated probably, more ambitious certainly, but people nonetheless. And that meant they were susceptible to the same emotions as everyone else. Initiates and non-initiates. Us and them. Firsties and newbies. After all she'd done, all she'd been through, it had rankled Peko-Evans to treat Fornos and Jopp as near equals. Now it was coming out. And the fact that she'd been on the wrong side of the issue, and needed a way to switch, didn't hurt either.

"So," Peko-Evans continued calmly, "you will give the chief of security all the support she needs. And that's an order."

 

The shuttle's landing jacks hit the surface of Deimos with a solid thud. Ancient dust spurted upward, then fell slowly toward the ground. The moon's gravity was a good deal less than that found on the surface of Mars. That meant that one wrong move, one over-enthusiastic jump, and Corvan would find himself waiting a long time to come down. If ever.

The reop worked his way into the lock, waited for Redfera to join him, and closed the hatch.

"Ready?"

Frank Redfern was one of Scheeler's people, a newbie but a capable one. He had brown skin, a hooked nose, and white teeth. Like most of the newbies, with the exception of Corvan and Kim, he had commissioned some artwork for the front of his suit.

It featured a fanciful planetscape, an exotic-looking wolf, twin moons, and the motto: "Born to howl."

The owner of this masterpiece grinned. "I'm ready and waiting. Let's do it."

Corvan nodded, sealed his visor, and ran a systems check on his suit. All systems were green. He waited for a nod from Redfern, saw it, and slapped a large plastic button.

Air was pumped out of the lock as the men turned their attention to the gear that had been strapped to the deck.

There were air tanks, power paks, food, water, and a high-powered com set that could reach the surface of Mars. The plan was to search the moon's surface, assure themselves that Dr. B had actually disappeared, and try to figure out why. Redfern was a logical choice for the mission but Corvan wasn't. He
wanted
to be there, however, and given the current political situation down on Mars, that had been sufficient. The reop's efforts to be cooperative, combined with Jopp's fall from grace, had lifted him up to something like insider status. A fact that he both despised and took advantage of.

And so it was that the two men opened the lock, hauled their supplies out onto the moon's rocky surface, and radioed the shuttle.

"We're clear double-ought-five. Thanks for the lift."

"That's a roger," the woman named Spike replied. "Give a holler when y'all wanta leave."

"Roger that," Redfern replied evenly. "See you then."

Corvan started to activate his eye cam, remembered the visor, and went to the robo cam instead. It perched on his shoulder like a high-tech parrot. Dust fountained as the shuttle lifted, rolled to port, and fell away. Mars was a huge semi-circular backdrop. The shuttle arrowed across it, dwindled in size, and disappeared from sight.

The shuttle's departure bothered Corvan far more than he had imagined it would. The sight of Mars, hanging there like a luminescent pumpkin, served as a constant reminder of where he was—on a moon, a long way from home, with two days' worth of supplies to sustain him.