Mars Prime (11 page)

Well, things
weren't
fine, and Otis knew it. Corvan was alive, he still had the notebook, and the ship's computers had come close to canceling his ticket. The process was far from pleasant, especially the catheterization, but he got it done. Sleep came as a blessed relief.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eight

 

 

Like most computers, Martin had a tendency to view time as little more than a performance parameter.

But Martin was acutely aware that nine months had passed since Rosemary's death. The
Outward Bound
was in Mars orbit now, and he had very little to do but remember what had occurred and wonder if he'd done the right thing.

What if he had notified Big Dan? Would the Big Guy have listened to him? Taken action to stop the killer?

SIS, LES, and MOMS said no, but they were biased. They were on the Big Guy's shit list too. What would Kim say? Would she be disappointed in him? Wipe his memory so that he ceased to be? It would be a relief in a way. Better than the guilt that continued to haunt him.

Damn! Damn! Damn! If only Hydro's presentation had run five or ten minutes longer. If only Big Dan had given him a chance to explain. If only Rosemary was still alive. But she wasn't, and that was that.

And so it was that time passed and Martin waited.

Rex Corvan drifted slowly upward, like a feather borne on a light breeze, floating toward the light. And there was sound, too, like a great ringing of bells, filling his head to overflowing.

This seemed to go on for some time, with the light gradually becoming more intense and the sound dying away. Then, when the light was so bright that it seemed almost certain to burn a hole through his head, Corvan opened his eyes. A rather attractive woman looked down at him and smiled. She wore the jagged line of a life support tech over the left breast pocket of her ship-suit. A stethoscope drifted sideways from her neck.

"Welcome to Mars orbit. Stay where you are for a while. You may feel some nausea."

The woman's words quickly came true. The chemicals used to resuscitate him had some powerful side effects. A series of dry heaves convulsed his body. They seemed to last forever. But time passed and so eventually did the discomfort.

Corvan waited awhile to make sure that the nausea was truly gone, hit the harness release, and floated upward like a spirit departing for heaven. He saw that others, Kim included, were doing the same thing. He used the suspension chamber to pull himself vertical.

His wife looked thin and pale. Her previously short hair hung down around her shoulders in waves of black. Her nails were long and twisted. She held a hand up in front of her face.

"Yuck!"

Corvan grinned. "You look like hell."

Kim made a face. "Look who's talking!"

A quick check revealed that Corvan's hair and nails were as long as hers. Not only that, but he had a beard that touched his chest.

Corvan laughed, started to record what Kim looked like, and stopped when he saw her glare. "Don't you dare! Not unless you want to sleep with your robo cam for the rest of your life."

The reop held up both hands in mock surrender. "Yes, dear. No, dear. Whatever you say, dear."

Kim smiled. "That's better. Come on. Let's do something about the way we look."

 

"You're sure you don't know what this is all about," Corvan said, pulling himself down-ship toward the B-deck conference room. Most of the colonists were still sealed inside their chambers so the corridor was nearly empty. The two of them had just taken some much needed showers. Corvan's hair was still wet.

"Nope," Kim replied, "but Jopp was even colder than usual. I think we're in some kind of trouble."

"Trouble?" Corvan inquired. "How could that be? We've been asleep for nine months."

Kim made a face. "I don't know. But if anybody could do it
you
could."

Kim felt guilty about the joke, and the fact that if they
were
in trouble, the fault was probably hers. Especially if Martin had been discovered. What was the penalty for introducing an unauthorized computer entity into the ship's systems anyway? Kim wanted a cigarette in the worst way.

The conference room was just ahead. The hatch stood open. Corvan paused and gestured for Kim to enter. Her hair was short again, her nails were neatly trimmed, and her makeup was in place. She looked wonderful. He winked and she winked back.

Kim pushed her way into the compartment and Corvan followed. The room was smaller than an Earth-side counterpart would be. This stemmed from both the shipboard space restrictions and the absence of gravity. Gone were the conference table, chairs, and other furniture that one would expect to find, and in their place was a centrally mounted console and a series of wall mounted Velcro "hooks."

Hobarth and Paxton were both present but only one of them smiled. "Welcome to the inquisition," Paxton said wryly.

Corvan positioned himself in front of some Velcro and backed into it. His suit made contact and held him in place.

"It's that bad?"

Paxton looked serious and nodded. "I'm afraid so."

The security man looked as if he wanted to say something more, Hobarth produced a smug smile, and Jopp chose that particular moment to enter the room. Her expression was as cold as the vacuum outside. Fornos was close behind, and while he didn't look quite as threatening, he didn't seem especially friendly either.

The two of them took their places on the opposite side of the room from Corvan, Kim, and Paxton. Hobarth made a show of giving his slot to Jopp. Fornos touched the console and the hatch hissed closed. He looked first at Corvan then at Kim. There was no sign of the good-natured patience that the reop had encountered before. The administrator was angry and willing to let it show.

"There's something I want you to look at."

A child-sized finger stabbed something on the console. The room darkened. Video appeared on the ceiling. It took a moment to figure out what he was looking at, then Corvan saw a super-graphic flash by and recognized the B-deck corridor. The camera turned a corner and entered a well-lit room. The reop looked and looked again. Yes, it was the same room they were sitting in now. Two people could be seen struggling with each other. One was distinctly female while the other was disguised by a hood and over-sized ship-suit.

The camera paused for a second as if checking the situation out, then charged full speed ahead, and struck the hooded figure between the shoulder blades. He or she let go of the woman, bounced off a bulkhead, and looked around. The camera pulled wide. Corvan saw a doorway packed top to bottom and side to side with robots. All kinds of robots. The assailant dived straight at them. They held. Unable to push his or her way through to the other side the attacker pulled instead. It didn't work. The robots continued to bar the way.

Then something strange happened. The robots started to disperse. They backed up and left the room. The camera drifted from the assailant to the woman. She held up her hands as if objecting to something. Her face contorted in pain. Blood gushed from her throat. The picture faded to black.

Fornos touched a button. The lights came up. The administrator looked Corvan in the eye. "The victim was a life support technician named Rosemary Parker. The investigation is still underway, but it looks as if Parker used her specialized knowledge to arrange for an early release and was up and around when she shouldn't have been."

Corvan nodded. "And ran into someone else who was up and around when they shouldn't have been."

"Yes," Fornos agreed heavily, "and I think we know why." Corvan watched as the administrator unzipped a pocket and withdrew a small notebook. He recognized it right away. It was Havlik's book, the same one he had hidden away beneath his pillow and forgotten to retrieve. The other man's words suddenly acquired additional significance.

Fornos smiled thinly. "You recognize the book. Good. Denials are so boring. Perhaps you would care to explain why a clean-up crew found a book belonging to Dr. Havlik in your suspension chamber? Especially since said book may be evidence in a murder investigation?"

Corvan's throat felt dry. He mustered some saliva and swallowed hard. "I found the book in Dr. Havlik's suspension chamber, saw that it was written in some sort of personal code, and didn't have sufficient time to decipher it."

Fornos nodded understandingly. "So, rather than hand the book over to the proper authorities, you kept it, hoping to score one of the journalistic coups for which you are so famous."

Corvan's face felt warm and he could hear the pulse pounding in his head. Everything the administrator said was true. He forced himself to speak. "Yes, that's true."

Now Jopp took over. She made no attempt to hide her disdain.

"Corvan, you and your incredibly overblown ego make me sick. We may never know exactly what happened . . . but try this on for size.

"Somehow, some way, the killer learns that you have the book. Not knowing what it may contain, and fearing that it will give him or her away, the murderer makes arrangements for an early release. He or she plans to find you, do whatever's necessary, and recover the book.

"Meanwhile, in some other part of the ship, Rosemary Parker did much the same thing. I guess we'll never know
why
she wanted to roam around the ship alone, only that she did, and ran into someone else that shouldn't have been up and around either. And
wouldn't
have been except for your unbelievable arrogance."

Each one of Jopp's words cut like a knife. What she had said was clearly and undeniably true. Rosemary Parker's death was his fault. If only he had given them the book. They might have found a way to decode it, might have identified the killer, might have locked him or her away. His voice was little more than a croak.

 
''Did you decode the book?''
 

Jopp looked at Paxton. "Tell him, J.D."

Paxton looked sympathetic, as if he could imagine what Corvan felt and didn't want to make it any worse.

"Yeah, we ran the code through SIS and came up with a solution."

"Go ahead," Hobarth said smugly. "Tell Corvan what you found."

Paxton shrugged. "Nothing. Nothing important anyway. It seems Dr. Havlik had some rather unusual sexual fantasies and liked to write them down. He used the code to keep them private."

"Get it, Corvan?" Jopp asked coldly. "There was no opportunity for a scoop, to exercise your ego, or rack up some personal profit."

Corvan felt worse than he had felt in his entire life. He nodded miserably. ''Got it."

Fornos cleared his throat. "And that brings us to
Mrs.
Kio-Corvan."

Corvan looked at his wife, but she hung her head and refused to meet his eyes. Kim? What had she done?

"What?" Fornos said, correctly reading Corvan's expression. "You didn't know? How interesting. Well, it would seem that your wife shares your proclivity for irresponsible action. You noticed the part of the video where some robots block the doorway?"

Corvan
did
remember. The robots had tried to keep the killer in the conference room. What the—? He nodded.

"That was your wife's doing. Not directly, since she was sealed in her chamber at the time, but indirectly through the A.I. assigned to your department."

Thoughts raced through Corvan's head. The A.I. assigned to his department? No, not the Grass Valley, it didn't have enough chutzpah . . . Wait a minute. Martin could and would so something like that. Martin! That was it! Kim had dumped Martin into the com center's editing setup, and the A.I. was masquerading as the Grass Valley! The reop did his best to look amazed.

"Kim, what's he talking about?"

His wife looked up. Her eyes were cautious, signaling him to watch what he said, yet seemingly sincere. "I gave the Grass Valley some additional programming, that's all. I knew there was a murderer on the loose, knew that my husband and I could be in danger, and did what I could to provide us with some additional protection.''

"That's one way to put it," Paxton said, his eyes twinkling. "It seems that your A.I. circumvented Big Dan, gathered support from some lesser computers, and tried to rescue Parker. That's where the robots entered the picture. MOMS put them there to keep the killer trapped in this room. That's when the command and control computer stepped in, and not understanding the situation, released the killer."

"So where's the problem?" Corvan demanded. "It sounds as if our computer came damned close to nailing the killer."

"The problem," Jopp replied coldly, "is that your computer went around the chain of command. The killer would be in custody right now if Big Dan had been properly informed."

Corvan wasn't so sure, but knew better than to say so, especially if Martin was involved. Kim remained silent as well.

Fornos looked from Corvan to Kim. "Hear me, and hear me well. This is absolutely, positively, your last chance. One more mistake and you'll spend the rest of your life scrubbing out the recycling vats. Do I make myself clear?"

Corvan nodded and Kim did likewise.

"Good. Then get the hell out of here. This ship's in orbit around Mars. Billions of people are waiting to see and hear the story. Let's see if you can give it to them without messing up."

Corvan nodded once more, ripped himself free from the Velcro hook, and waited for Kim to clear the room. He was almost to the hatch when Fornos spoke again.

"And Corvan . . ."

The reop turned. Light winked off the eye cam's lens. "Yes?"

"Let J.D. handle the detective work. That's what we pay him for."

"Yes, sir."

The two of them made their way to the E-deck observation port without any agreement to do so. Soon it would be filled to overflowing with gawking colonists, just up from the long sleep and eager to see their new home.

But Mars was theirs for now, a reddish sphere that threw light against their faces and floated beneath the ship. They hovered side by side. Corvan was the first to speak.