Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant (21 page)

“The dinosaurs had their moment, too,” he observed

“Meaning?”

“Nothing, Erik, nothing. Look, now it’s our turn.”

A man and woman in MetaPol uniforms greeted them as they left the terminal. One - a tall blond with a prematurely receded hairline - stepped up.

“Welcome to Mars. I’m Faren McCleod, and this is my associate Roxanna Durst.”

He indicated a thick-boned young woman with handsome cheekbones and green eyes.

“Pleased to meet you both. I’m Alfred Bester, and this is Erik Andersen!”

Polite bows went around.

“Well, once we get your luggage, we can move on to the briefing, if the both of you are up to it.”

“Absolutely,” Al said. “I’m eager to get started.”

Judit Uhl settled into her chair with a look of contemptuous amusement playing across her somewhat catlike face.

“So you know that the Stephen Walters is on Mars, eh, Mr. Bester? On Mars. On the planet somewhere. And that is the extent of your knowledge?”

“Almost. I will recognize my quarry, of course, by his signature. But I’ve studied Walters. If he’s here, he’s not alone. In fact, it’s a good bet that there is a large, highly organized resistance cell on the planet somewhere. That should be hard to hide, now that we know it’s here. Am I wrong?”

Uhl smiled with an obviously false sincerity.

“Yes, Mr. Bester, you are. And Geneva was aware of that when they sent you.”

“I’m sure they weren’t, or they wouldn’t have sent me.”

“Let me explain something to you, Mr. Bester,” Uhl said, motioning toward the window.

She came out of her seat as if propelled by springs and clattered to the view with staccato grace. Al rose and joined her in regarding the landscape. What looked like crushed brick spread to a horizon of low mountains. They were looking east, and a small, sickly looking sun was just starting to crawl through a long Martian day. The sky was a dark salmon-not that different from the land-bordered on the northern horizon by dirty red and black lenses that Al assumed were clouds.

“Looks forbidding, doesn’t it? It is, but people are not easily forbidden, Mr. Bester What we have here is a planet with more land area than Earth. To keep watch on that, we have forty trained Psi Cops. Forty”

“So few?” Al said. “Still, no matter how much land area there is here, the situation can hardly be the same as on Earth. After all, even the air isn’t free here. Your population is more constrained, by necessity. The places they can arrive and leave from are few in number-the spaceports, the city air locks…”

She interrupted him with a small laugh.

“Ah. Mr. Bester, it must be wonderful to live in such a dream-world. Ships land on Mars every day, all over the place, unmonitored and uncontrolled. We have three large cities, two hundred and thirty experiment and mining stations-most privately owned-and about three thousand registered hinterland colonists. Add to that at least as many unregistered squatters-religious extremists, utopianists, criminals, rugged individualists, cowboy-and-Indian wannabes. Oh, EarthForce stops transports and mining vehicles which try to slip things on and off planet without paying taxes and tariffs-but don’t imagine we have the same kind of satellite net that Earth does, or the same number of ships. Maybe a tenth of such illegal activity is discovered.

In other words, Mr. Bester, planetary security stinks, and no one really gives a damn. Marsies certainly don’t. Marsies like freedom. They like the sodbusters, even the squatters. People leave the cities and join them all the time, some with permits, some without. The fact is, settlement permits are so cheap, the government mostly looks the other way if you don’t have one. Mars is trying to attract settlers, not scare them off. “So your rogues could be anywhere out there. Anywhere. Unless you have some idea where you want to start looking, you’ve wasted your time and the Corps’ money.”

She waved dismissively at the landscape and returned to her chair.

“Well. I presume that you have at least a list I can start with, and transportation!”

She nodded, smirking, and pushed a stylus tablet across the desk toward him. Erik’s eyes widened as he stared at the list.

“There’s a hundred and fifty sites listed here. Scattered all over Mars. This will take forever.”

“Yes,” Al said, scrolling through another database. “I guess we can narrow it down, some. I mean, the Blips are probably disguised as the last group we would imagine, right? Like maybe the Adamists, or some other “Human purist“ organization.”

“Maybe. But there are still too many of them, and the local office won’t give us more than two or three men at a time. Suppose we do stumble on them, what then? We vanish into the Martian desert, you and I. And when we start searching, word will get out, so they’ll be ready. No, we have to pick the right spot the first time out, or get there darn quickly.”

“And how do we do that?”

Al leaned back on his chair, looking around their cramped quarters.

“Uhl talks as if there are hundreds of thousands of independent settlements out there. But there can’t be.”

“What do you mean? Here they are.”

He waved the tablet.

“They aren’t independent. They can’t produce everything they need, and they certainly can’t produce everything that they want. Have you ever studied central place theory?”

“Not that I know of…”

“Human beings don’t settle randomly. Central place theory is one way of modeling where people live. Here, let me show you something.”

He cleared the desktop and then took up a stylus. Erik leaned over to watch as Al drew a large dot and filled it in.

“This is a city-let’s call it Metro.” He labeled it. “Cities produce finished products. Computers. Phones. Stylish clothing. Art objects. Processed food. Entertainment. Anything you need or desire, you can probably find in the city.”

“Okay. But all of the raw materials for that stuff have to come from somewhere else, right?”

“Yes, but leave that aside for a moment. Just think like a consumer. In the universe of things you might want or need, the city is the center.”

“Okay.”

“Now.”

He drew four smaller dots in a circle around Metro, and labeled them clockwise - 1, 2, 3, 4. All were two inches from Metro, and about two inches from each other.

“These we’ll call towns. Each is about the same size. Let’s pretend each produces something different - this one iron ore, this one corn, this one cotton textiles. You live in town 1, which grows wheat. So if you want bread, you just stay home. What if you want the iron tools produced in town 2 or the textiles produced in town 4?”

Erik studied the diagram.

“Metro,” he said.

“Why?”

“Towns 2 and 4 are no farther than Metro, but they are in opposite directions. The other towns are even farther. I can make one trip to the big city and get everything, plus catch a show and eat a fancy meal.”

“Right. Now, in reality, you can still get lots of goods and services in your hometown - it’s small, but it still has grocery stores, shopping centers, and so forth. Now let’s add even smaller places.”

He quickly drew a series of even smaller dots around the town markers, four around each.

“Those are villages. They have fewer goods and services than the towns because they are smaller.”

“I get it. I go to town now and then for things I can’t get in my own village, and I go to Metro for the things I can’t get in town.”

“Yes. And if we add even smaller dots - call them hamlets - and smaller ones-homesteads - You get the picture. If you live in a hamlet you go to the village a lot, to the town less often, to Metro, which is farthest away, only when it’s really necessary.” He tapped the tablet.

“These are all hamlets and homesteads. But each one is connected through a hierarchy of larger and larger places to Metro - or MarsDome 1. And MarsDome 1, in turn, is connected to an even more cosmopolitan place, Earth.

In fact, on Mars, this model works even better. Consider the things each of these hamlets absolutely must have: the equipment to produce and maintain a breathable atmosphere and drinking water, and the parts and tools to maintain the equipment, for starters. Eventually, all of that must come from MarsDome I or Earth. Heavy metals aren’t readily available here. Food is hard to produce in quantity. Maybe some of that comes directly from Earth in smuggler’s ships, but the cost would be enormous, made even worse by its illegality. No, there must be a tight network of trade, and it all leads back here, to the Metro, the central place.”

“I get it. The trail to wherever the underground is hiding…”

“tarts right here. We don’t start with that list of settlements. We start in Syria Planum and work our way out.”

“Hold it. What about Olympus Mons and Solis Planum? Couldn’t one of those be “Metro“?”

“Sure. Three central places on Mars, which still makes things pretty simple. I guess we could throw in Xanthe Terra, too, though it’s too small and young to really compete with the big three. But we start here, because this is where we are.”

“So how do we find the outward trail?”

“Think of this. These people in the hinterlands-what do they trade for machined parts, for food, for new molecular filters, for power cells? There isn’t that much out there, is there? I’ve checked into it; most do some sort of mining or local processing-iron, aluminum, various rare earths. Others produce curiosities-the Mennonites make polished hematite bowls that are sold back on Earth to the very rich, for instance. But it’s hard going, very hard. Any valuable commodity you possessed would have to be used, simply to survive. Now, think. What commodity would the underground have to trade that would set them apart from everyone else?”

Erik got it. His eyes shone with understanding and admiration.

“Illegal scans.”

“Of course. So we don’t need a list of these hamlets at all. What we need is a list of persons in Syria Planum who need Psi services that Corps members are forbidden to provide.” He grinned evilly. “Which, I might add, I’ve nearly finished.”

“I am in awe, Mr. Bester.”

“I appreciate the compliment, but it’s only common sense. And Erik?”

“Yes?”

“We won’t mention this to the local office right away?”

“Surely you don’t think…”

“I’d rather leave nothing to chance,” Al said, dryly. “Anyone who actually lives on Mars should know what we just discussed without even having to think it through. Uhl didn’t even bother to point it out to me. For whatever reason, she wants us to fail - or at the very least have a difficult time.”

“Okay. Where do we start?”

“Shadiest element first. There’s a certain man who seems to win an awful lot at poker.”

“Look at that.”

Erik grunted, pointing across the crowded casino.

“It’s McCleod and Durst.”

“Yes,” Al agreed, spotting the two local Psi Cops.

“And that’s our man Cheo they’re questioning. Very interesting. They’re one step ahead of us.”

“But they aren’t sharing. Want me to eavesdrop?”

“I’ll do it. You keep us quiet.”

“Gotcha.”

Al focused his vision on Cheo, an overweight fellow with rather nondescript features and hair coiffed in intricately bound braids. He was sitting at a card table that everyone else seemed to have deserted— there were three other hands, in any event, all lying discarded. The hundred or so minds in the casino created a palpable murk, but as Al narrowed his attention, he began feeling the cadence of the man’s speech.

When Normals spoke aloud, their surface thoughts-that is, what they were saying-were strong enough to detect within line of sight without scanning.

…know nothing, he was saying.

With a stubborn expression, he then listened to the reply. It seemed to be Durst doing the talking; he could make out her fiercely determined features. Al couldn’t listen in on her, though. She would almost certainly notice if he did. And at this distance, without a direct scan, he couldn’t get the “reflection” of her words off of Cheo’s mind, only a sort of an impression.

It was like hearing only half of a phone conversation.

I’m just a lucky son of a bitch, la, Cheo said. I don’t need a ‘sicky to win, so I don’t keep one around. Besides, what’s it to you guys? You never cared about the ‘sickies before…

Al suddenly felt as if nails had been driven into his head, many of them. He gasped and clutched at his temples, closing his eyes. That shouldn’t have helped, but it did. Immediately the pain dimmed, which, after an instant, he realized meant that the brutal scan hadn’t been aimed at him, but at Cheo, and that Cheo’s pain had just run up his connection.

He resolutely forced his eyes open, renewing the contact. Cheo was jerking in his chair as if being electrocuted, and the patrons of the casino, already keeping a respectful distance, quickly drew even farther away. Al got it when they got it. A name, an address, the sketchy glyph of an appearance.

“Erik. Let’s go. Now!”

“You okay?”

“Yes. Come on, before they notice us.”

“So this is one of the `towns’ we’re going to?”

Al grimaced, hand on his forehead. He felt as if he had a monstrous hangover. The train gave little sense of motion other than acceleration, but when he opened his eyes it was to a chalky red landscape hurtling by with nauseating speed.

“Yes. A second - tier settlement. The next step on the trail.”

“What if Durst and McCleod beat us?” Al shrugged.

“I’m not sure what would get them there faster than a train. A hover-jet, maybe, but there aren’t many of those. Helicopters don’t work here, obviously. An ATV would be far too slow. My guess is that they’re on this train or will be on the next.” “This is crazy, working against other cops.”

“I agree. But we don’t know what’s going on. They did an illegal scan-a hard, deep, obvious one - on Cheo in full public view. If you did something like that on Earth-anywhere-you’d be up on charges, at the very least. It seems that the Psi Corps enjoys a somewhat different status here. Cheo also implied that the cops don’t normally care about Blips.”

“You think they’re in with them? That the cops here are traitors, helping the underground?”