Losing Mars (Saving Mars Series-3) (3 page)

“No, you wouldn’t have,” said Lucca. “I don’t make a habit of including just anyone in my top-secret investigations of inciter activity.”

Casale’s holographic image flushed. “Well, this is most unwelcome news, Madam Chancellor. Inciters! I had no idea.”

“Indeed. I shall require your attendance upon me here in Budapest so that we can discuss how you will follow the trail of tellurium leading back to the thieves. Make the arrangements with my secretary. Chancellor out.”

Casale’s horror at the idea of a global inciter plot had been clearly written upon his face, thought Lucca. How much nicer to make certain everyone was properly motivated to do the research she needed them to do.

Now, of course, anyone who did have an extra bit of the rare-earth metal lying about would be reluctant to part with it for fear of being accused of associating with terrorists. Only those who had
no other choice
would use the metal. That should unearth the rogue Martian and her business associates quickly enough.

Lucca smiled.

4

IRREGULARITIES

Brian Wallace rose to turn off the newsfeed following the announcements made by Malcolm Bonhoeffer, the Head of Global Consciousness Transfer. Bonhoeffer had said nothing of any irregularities in the Rebody Program, addressing only rumors of tellurium shortages.

If Harpreet suffered disappointment when the man she’d known in New Timbuktu failed to keep the second of his promises, she did not allow it to show.

“Perhaps Dr. Bonhoeffer will yet turn toward the path of balance and harmony,” she said quietly.

Jessamyn angled her face away from Harpreet to deliver a spectacular eyeroll to Pavel. He looked down quickly. Jess could tell he admired Harpreet. But then, who didn’t? And who was Jess to judge the soul of another? If anyone knew how to read people, it was Harpreet.

“He has evidently determined not to make such a turning at this juncture,” said Ethan.

Jessamyn smiled to hear how her brother had taken in Harpreet’s very
non-
concrete language and followed it perfectly. Instead of confusing Ethan, it seemed to Jess as if constant exposure to those who made no allowance for his preferences must be helping him. It made her heart swell with pride. Ethan had overcome so much to function in a world that ran counter to his internal wiring. She’d been dead wrong about the rebody setting him back. She shook her head, certain she would have done much worse in the body of another than her brother was doing. He had strengths she would never understand.

“I wonder what angle the Head of Consciousness Transfer is playing with the so-called shortage of tellurium?” asked Dr. Kazuko Zaifa. Kazuko, a former employee at the Mars Containment Programs facility, spoke rarely—and usually only to Ethan. She now assisted Ethan in his efforts to access and control the deadly satellites circling Mars. “Does he believe the shortage is real?” she asked.

“My aunt is behind the shortage,” replied Pavel. “That announcement has Lucca’s fingerprints all over it. Only my aunt would announce a shortage when she’s just taken in enough to pay a king’s ransom.”

Jessamyn felt her face flushing bright red: that Pavel’s aunt now had access to a surplus of tellurium was her fault. She’d crashed the
Galleon
thanks to the weight of the tellurium sequestered in its hold by those who wanted Mars Colonial to begin trade relations with Earth again.

“Perhaps the Chancellor wishes to tighten her ability to control her citizens,” said Harpreet. “If some were to be denied the opportunity to rebody because of a tellurium shortage, whom do you think would be the first to be denied?”

“Dissenters and those who have lost rebody credits for undesirable behaviors,” said Pavel.

“Me own self, certainly,” said Brian Wallace.

“Look on the bright side, Brian: your body’s worth something at an off-grid facility, at least, now you’ve lost so much weight,” said Pavel.

Wallace patted his shrunken belly sadly. A life on the run followed by life in a desert had not been kind to him. “Aye. I’m but two-thirds the man I used to be.”

“So Lucca’s hoarding tellurium and trying to control people,” said Jess, yawning. “Wake me up when something interesting happens.” She rose and began to shuffle toward the sleep chamber she shared with Kazuko Zaifa and Harpreet.

She knew her attitude was selfish. But she couldn’t help it. While she felt gratitude to the denizens of Yucca for accepting her so readily, Jessamyn could not find it in her heart to care deeply for Earth or its inhabitants. She yearned to return to Mars. To help Mei Lo ensure for once and for all that relations with the miserable Terran world were severed completely. Only, she was
stuck
on said miserable Terran world. And even the people she cared for most here in Yucca seemed to be urging her to think of Earth as
home
.

She didn’t want to settle down and accept that Mars was lost to her. Earth would never be home. And she certainly didn’t want to be Yucca’s guardian of secret-tea-ingredients. She flopped onto the bed she’d been given and kicked at her boots, sending them sailing across the room. She knew she ought to get up and retrieve the footgear, to stow it neatly away. Both Kazuko and Harpreet were tidy. But she just couldn’t make herself care.

The chance to fly a special supply run had been the one thing toward which Jessamyn had looked with anything like eagerness. And that had been canceled for today—the entire settlement was grounded. She missed flying as though it were a physical part of her that had been excised. Jessamyn was not finding life on Earth to be an improvement over life on Mars.

5

ANOMALOUS PATTERNS

Chancellor Brezhnaya was not having a good morning. Johnston, the agent she had appointed through the recommendation of the Head of Global Solvency, was a dullard. But more to the point, he was an
unsuccessful
dullard.

“As I have attempted to explain, Madam Chancellor, there is no difference between tellurium processed on the long-ago Mars Colony and tellurium processed here on Earth,” said the slow-wit before her.

“Yes, yes,” said the Chancellor, tapping her nails on her glass-topped desk. She’d kept the secret of Mars’s
recent
visit to herself, asking Johnston the question about tellurium in hopes Mars’s tellurium would be …
different
somehow—identifiable.

“Well, what headway have you made, then? Surely, Johnston, with the resources I’ve placed at your disposal in the past week …” The Chancellor’s brows rose in an unspoken question.

“Yes, Madam Chancellor,” replied Johnston. “We have indeed noted anomalous patterns in the usage of tellurium as we’ve analyzed circulation for the past several months. But we are having difficulty pin-pointing the origin. Whoever has been spending the metal, or trading it, rather, has done an excellent job of covering their tracks.”

Lucca scowled. “Well, then, we must do a better job of
uncovering
those tracks.”

“I have all my best people on it,” replied Johnston. “Rest assured, we will find something sooner or later.”

“I want
sooner
!” The Chancellor rose and paced out the length of her office. “The current shortage ought to be bringing the rats out of hiding. They can get more credits for the metal, surely, at this point in time?”

“Your own recent legislation has made that …
dangerous
, Madam Chancellor.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Her heels clicked in rapid succession as she retraced her steps back to her desk and Johnston. “Perhaps we should attempt to draw out those with large surfeits by offering a better rate of exchange.” Lucca frowned.

“We could make the attempt,” admitted Johnston. “Greed can drive a certain sort of person to exercise less caution.”

“No, no. I have something better in mind.” The Chancellor smiled. “I will make the suggestion that it would be patriotic to turn in sheltered amounts of the metal in question. We’ll offer rebody credits to those who empty their coffers—create a civic
duty
to turn in whatever is lying about. If we offer rebody credits, we can avoid changing the actual exchange rate while increasing the perceived value.”

“Yes, Madam Chancellor,” said Johnston. “Those holding
unusual
quantities of tellurium might be motivated by such an offer, if they are operating in the open market. And those operating in the black market would be able to command favorable rates of exchange with this incentive in place as well.”

“And once the tellurium begins to flow more freely—”

The dullard interrupted the Chancellor. “The trail will be easier to follow.”

Perhaps he wasn’t so dim-witted after all, thought Lucca, a smile forming upon her visage.

6

UNDER THE RADAR

The enforced week on the ground had passed and Jessamyn was once more allowed at the helm of a ship, flying Pavel, Harpreet, and Brian Wallace to the Republic of Chicago.

Brian Wallace told Jessamyn she would need to keep low to the ground to avoid detection.

“I love a challenge,” she said, grinning.

“It’s a flying technique used extensively by those engaged in black market activities,” Brian explained.

“Is it really?” asked Pavel. “Last year, I took off a lot without telling my aunt. I figured out by accident that so long as I hugged the ground, I never got stopped or reported.”

“Aye,” replied Brian. “But Lucca probably knew where ye were, lad. Ye’re only
truly
safe if ye remove the tracker that communicates with Air Safety.”

“Which you did on this ship, right?” asked Jessamyn.

“Which we did,” replied Pavel.

Jess nodded happily. She didn’t want a repeat of her encounter with the Central African Air Control, exciting as that had been.

“You look happy,” said Pavel, seating himself beside her.

She
was
happy. Sitting in the cockpit of Pavel’s Hercules-class ship transformed life on Earth from drudgery into something with promise and hope and joy.

Firing up the ship, she grinned at Pavel. “I got called out for hazardous attitudes for flying low to the ground back home,” she said. “This should be fun!”

She circled the ship just meters above the ground, doing a quick fly-by of the Gopher Hole. Jess noted that Harpreet, though perpetually calm, was gripping both the armrests at her side.

“I’ll exercise caution,” Jessamyn said, for Harpreet’s sake. “Earth’s gravity makes everything here trickier. But a lot more fun, too.”

“How very comforting, indeed,” said Brian Wallace. He had placed a sort of sleeping mask over his eyes, perhaps sleepy, perhaps preferring not to watch Jessamyn’s under-the-radar flying.

Jessamyn laughed and winked at Pavel. “We’re fine,” she said. “No dust-storms, no snow-storms. And the ship is in really excellent condition. Having access to replacement parts like you do here on Earth—well, Crusty would gladly sacrifice an arm or a leg to have what you take for granted here.”

“Aye,” replied Brian. “There are compensations to life on Earth, lass.”

The merriment drained from Jess’s eyes at his comment.

Pavel saw this and reached over to place his hand on hers, murmuring, “We’ll get you home, somehow. Someday.”

Jess nodded.
But would it be soon enough?
She feared for Mars’s future if Mei Lo couldn’t maintain control of Mars Colonial.

Jessamyn felt anxious as she thought of hearing news from Mars, something they hoped to be able to do by taking this trip. They were on their way to purchase parts the Marsians needed for deep-space communication with MCC. With the high-power radio transmitters in Chicago, the group of Marsians and sympathizers would at last be able to speak with MCC.

Jessamyn gathered her thoughts back to the navigation panel, her fingers flying across it. “It’s going to get rough,” she said. “We’ve got mountains ahead.”

Brian uttered a resigned sort of groan.

Harpreet murmured to him that perhaps she would take the sleep-patch he’d offered earlier. “If you truly don’t mind giving up your last one?”

Brian sorted through his satchel for the med-patch. Finding it, he passed it over. “It’s the least I can do,” he said.

“My friend,” said Harpreet, “You have done much already.”

From her peripheral vision, Jessamyn saw the Scotsman shrug.

“Well, if I’m to get yer CEO to accept me as ambassador,” said Wallace, “I should think no kindness would be too great or too small, eh?”

Jess didn’t entirely approve of Brian Wallace’s latest wish: to be a liaison between the two worlds. But she definitely approved of his interest in bankrolling the Marsians’ activities on Earth. Equipment was expensive. Travel was expensive. Brian was wealthy. Hoping as she did for an independent Mars, Jess felt reluctant to promote Earth-Mars relations in the future. However, she kept this as much to herself as possible while depleting Brian Wallace’s stores of tellurium.

As they neared Chicago, Brian placed a call and discovered the party which had previously agreed to trade transmitters for
tellurium
now insisted upon cold hard
credits
. He wheedled and joked, but the supplier stood firm.

“Well,” said Brian to the merchant, “I hope ye don’t mind waiting an extra day, in that event. I’m not carrying credits in that quantity.”

The Chicago supplier did
not
mind waiting, and the upshot was that Jessamyn had to fly onward, past where she’d planned to bring her craft down.

“There’s an off-grid consciousness transfer hospital outside of Toronto,” said Brian Wallace. “We can convert tellurium to ready cash there.”

It was night when the small craft touched down in a gritty suburb of Toronto. Pavel was eager to visit the hospital, out of curiosity about anything off-grid
and
medical, but Brian insisted the three remain safe in the ship while he make the transaction himself.

“They know me and trust me,” said Wallace. “It’s best I give them no reason for suspicion. And if ye go sniffing about the hospital asking questions, well, lad, I think ye can see that would be unappreciated.”