Mars Prime (8 page)

The gong and the champagne made a great story and pushed the murder down into the middle of the end-cycle news show. It made the Earth nets too, all one hundred and sixty-three of them, and served to take the edge off Havlik's death.

The colonists, soon to be followed by the crew, would enter their suspension chambers during the next few cycles. Not an altogether pleasant experience, and one made even less so when the ship was haunted by mysterious sounds. So the champagne, and the party that surrounded it, turned what might have been a rather depressing moment into a festive occasion.

Fornos was overjoyed, Jopp was pleased, and Corvan was back in everyone's good graces.

Kim watched her husband float inside a circle of newly found admirers, sucked champagne from a bulb, and hummed Martin's symphony.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Six

 

 

Corvan entered F-dorm. The fetid smell lingered on but the noise and airborne garbage had all but disappeared. It was easier to keep things clean with more than ninety percent of the population out of circulation. He grabbed a hand-line and pulled himself forward.

The suspension chambers made a long slow curve to the right and left. Most were sealed, their occupants barely visible behind veils of cloudy white gas, their circulatory, respiratory, and digestive systems slowed almost to the point of death. Tubes conveyed nourishment into their bloodstreams and carried waste materials away.

Corvan activated his implant and scanned the colonists as he pulled himself along. Where they had gone he would follow.

What would it feel like? To be sealed inside a hightech coffin? To have drugs enter his bloodstream? To slowly lose consciousness? To surrender himself to the arms of a largely untried science? To become one of what the crew jokingly referred to as the corpse-sickles?

But it had to be done. Otherwise they would run out of air, food, and water long before they reached Mars, even with the recyclers, hydroponics tanks, and synthesizers running full blast. Three thousand people consume a lot of everything during a nine-month period of time, more than the ship could carry, and more than they could produce.

In fact, it would be many years before the Mars colony was self-sustaining, and many years after that before they could produce a surplus. So everything consumed aboard the ship was that much less for later on.

There were psychological factors, too. What would people do during a nine-month voyage? A lot of shrinks had spent a lot of time considering that very question. And their conclusions weren't all that optimistic.

Given the colonists' divergent cultures, religions, and languages, plus the lack of anything constructive to do, the shrinks had predicted everything from race riots to holy wars.

And, although the possibility of a skeleton crew had been given serious consideration, the idea was ultimately rejected. What if they went bonkers? Cut power to the suspension chambers? Or disabled the ship?

No, it would be better for everyone to take a nap and wake up ready to go. Providing they woke up, that is. It was a grim thought and Corvan pushed it aside.

He saw people up ahead. There were med techs, suspension techs, and at least one administrative type. They hovered like ghouls around an open coffin. They looked his way. One waved. Corvan grimaced and waved back.

Here it was, another interview with a carefully selected colonist, guaranteed to enter his or her chamber with a smile. His tenth or eleventh such interview in the last four cycles. All of which had been beamed back to Earth for consumption by the next shipload of starry-eyed dreamers.

They weren't lies exactly, since some people
did
crack jokes as they climbed into their chambers, but there were other stories as well. Stories that Fornos and Jopp wouldn't allow him to tell.

Like the woman who had been towed kicking and screaming to her chamber where she'd been sedated and strapped into place.

Like the man who had played hide and seek with Paxton's security people for two days before they found him in the hydroponics section and forced him into a chamber.

Like the woman who had entered her chamber calmly enough, but had gone crazy once inside and tried to scratch her way out. Corvan would never forget the bloody grooves that her fingernails had left on the inside of the canopy.

He had gone to Jopp's office, forced his way pasther functionaries, and requested permission to include a toned-down version of the woman's story in his report. Jopp had looked at him as if he were out of his mind, raised a well-plucked eyebrow and said "no." The way she said it left no room for further discussion.

The technicians said hello as Corvan approached, slapped the colonist on the back, and congratulated him on becoming a vid star. One man in particular, an administrative assistant named Hobarth, was especially effusive. He was tall, and in spite of the fact mat he was only slightly overweight, had three chins. All three of them jiggled when he spoke. The ridiculous tie that he wore drifted in front of his face. He pushed it out of the way.

"Well here he is! The one-eyed wonder! Colonist Gormley, I'd like you to meet Rex Corvan, slayer of journalistic dragons. Rex, this is Colonist Gormley."

Corvan drifted to a stop, took one look at Gormley, and shook his head in amazement. There were some poor specimens among the colonists, but Gormley took the cake. He was thin with malnutrition, had incredibly bad breath, and couldn't seem to focus his eyes. Gormley was ill or under the influence of drugs. Corvan assumed the latter. Not only that, but someone had fitted him out with an old-fashioned sleeping cap, complete with tassel. Strips of duct tape held in it place.

Gormley smiled an idiot smile. "Hi, Rex."

Corvan ignored him and looked at Hobarth instead. "And what the hell is this?"

The smile disappeared from the administrator's face. His eyes narrowed and nearly vanished into creases of pasty white flesh.

"This is what we pay you for."

Corvan looked from Hobarth to Gormley and back again. "Wrong. I get paid to provide information about colonists. If you want interviews with drug addicts then do 'em yourself. Who thought of the hat anyway?"

Hobarth flushed red. "I did. Colonel Jopp thought it was a good idea.''

Corvan shook his head sadly. "Tell Jopp she was wrong. Tell her it was a stupid idea. Tell her that this story is so big it doesn't need that sort of window dressing."

The reop turned to the colonist. "Hey, Gormley. Can you hear me?"

Gormley smiled serenely. "Sure Rex, I can hear you."

“What are you taking?''
 

"Taking?"

"What kind of drugs did you take?"

Gormley looked around then cupped his hand as if confiding something to a friend. "Green ones."

Corvan turned to a med tech. "That mean anything to you?"

The technician was small and wiry. A pair of chrome-plated bandage scissors drifted out to the extent of their tether and bobbed up and down. "Could be lots of stuff. Downers probably. That's the drug of choice on this tub."

Corvan gestured toward the open chamber. "You put him in there, the drugs wear off, then what?"

The technician shrugged. "Who knows?"

Corvan grabbed a fistful of the woman's ship-suit and jerked her in close. "Listen, and listen good. You have a choice. Put this guy through detox and load him clean, or I'll squirt the whole story dirtside."

Corvan let go and the woman pushed herself away. She was so shocked, so surprised, that her mouth worked and nothing came out. Not Hobarth, however.

"You wouldn't dare!"

Corvan smiled and looked him up and down. "Try me."
      

"I'll tell Colonel Jopp!"

Corvan laughed. "And what will Jopp do? Send me to Mars?"

 

Martin had spent the last four cycles hiding in the com center's computer modules. It was a tight fit, since he occupied a lot of memory, but it was better than going out unprepared—an action that would lead to almost certain disaster.

They key to Kim's plan was stealth, and given the fact that the
Outward Bound
was loaded with sentient and near-sentient computers, there were plenty of entities that could give him away. A whole hierarchy of them, as a matter of fact, starting with the artificial intelligence known as Big Dan and going all the way down to lesser players who were little more than blips against the electronic background.

Martin had spent years in Washington D.C. where politics, electronic politics included, were something of an art form. He'd been on top of the digital heap back then, along with his peers at the pentagon, FBI, CIA and NSA, and knew better than to go barging around without doing some research.

So the initial cycles were spent observing what went on. Martin gauged the jealousies that flourished where responsibilities overlapped, measured how deep loyalties ran, and probed the labyrinth of programmed relationships that tied everyone together.

Then, having spied out the electronic landscape, Martin made his move. The Grass Valley Ultima mat occupied the very top rung of the com center's miniature hierarchy was so new, and so inexperienced, that it was easy to dominate. Not overcome or destroy, since that would have violated Martin's code of ethics, but to influence and lead. It also allowed him to take over a legitimate slot within the ship's society of electronic beings.

That gave Martin a base of operations, allowed him to avoid the trap that had been laid for digitized invaders, and granted him a legitimacy that he could obtain no other way.

And so it was that Martin crept into the mainstream of computerized activity. For years the electronic entity had sat in the Oval Office and listened while President Hawkins handled the myriad details of political life. The deals, the compromises, the strategies, the guesswork, the wins and the losses. He'd seen and heard them all.

So Martin understood how to isolate opponents, build coalitions, and satisfy constituents. He not only understood, but relished the process and was good at it. That's why the game was nearly over before Big Dan had even started to play.

 

Kim emerged from the access shaft, waited for a cylindrical message bot to squirt itself past, and headed down-ship. Rex and she would be sealed into their individual suspension chambers and put to sleep in less than three hours. That meant there were a lot of things to do and very little time to do them in. But Rex had insisted that she come, so here she was.

The E-deck observation port was one of the many things that jutted out from the ship's skin and made it look something less than beautiful.

Kim followed the sign that said "OBSV-PORT" into a side corridor, found a good push-point, and sailed the length of the corridor. An airtight hatch sensed her approach, opened just in the nick of time, and closed behind her.

The colonists that usually lined up to look out of the port were gone now, sealed in their chambers, so the space was both empty and dark. Dark except for the pen lights that Corvan had rigged to take the place of candles and the light reflected from Earth.

The planet hung beyond the plastic like a picture in a frame, smaller than the last time Kim had seen it, but larger than a full moon. A small section of the southern hemisphere was blocked by the curvature of the ship's hull.

"Welcome," Corvan said with the flourish of a headwaiter. "Your table awaits."

Kim looked and sure enough, the pen lights sat on something circular, which if not a table did an excellent job of standing in for one. Whatever it was floated in midair but was held in place by a length of cord attached to a magnet.

Kim pulled herself closer. She saw that the table had been covered with white fabric. The cloth bulged here and there where things pushed up at it from below.

"What in the world?"

" 'What in the world' indeed," Corvan said smoothly. "Now, take a seat, and dinner will be served."

Kim laughed, pushed herself into position, and summoned a serious expression. "Thank you, Pierre. The salmon is fresh, I presume?"

"Of course," Corvan assured her, slipping into a terrible French accent. "The salmon is fresh from ze stream and wanting of you to eat it."

Corvan whipped the cloth off the makeshift table and threw it aside. It floated away like an errant ghost. Kim laughed when she saw the table setting. There were plastic knives, forks, and spoons, all held in place by pieces of tape. There were standard ration paks, held down by a dab of glue, and drink containers held captive by strips of elastic.

Corvan took the place across from her. He stood rather than sat, but it made little difference. "Dinner is served."

Kim looked across the table and found his eyes. One was blue and the other was black. The difference no longer bothered her. "I love you."

Corvan smiled and lifted his drink container. "And I love you. To us!"

"To us."

The rations were the same ones Kim ate every day, but something about the setting made them taste better. The darkened room, the pen light candles, the glow from planet Earth made a picture that she'd remember for the rest of her life. This was her husband's flip side, the part that television viewers never saw, the part that was hers alone.

The conversation focused on them at first, on their hopes for the future, but quickly returned to the present. The future was too uncertain, too chancy to discuss for very long.

Corvan's empty meal pak started to drift away. He grabbed the container and stuffed it into a mesh bag. "I made some progress on the murder."

Kim swallowed the last bite of her dessert. It felt the size of a baseball. Images flashed through her mind. She saw words blinking on the screen. She saw herself opening Martin's suitcase. She saw Havlik's battered face. Kim did her best to sound calm.

"Oh, really? What did you learn?"

"The murderer isn't one of the colonists."

Kim thought about that. If what her husband said was true, it would narrow the field, but there were more than four hundred crew members aboard the
Outward Bound,
and mat left a lot of suspects.