The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Vol. 1 Part 18

"Call the Corp."

The computer avatar that was their usual communication link with the Corp appeared, a young woman dressed in a black suit. She was pretty and imperious. "Your hab is destroyed? Do you have the funds to cover this?" This computer avatar was apparently programmed for heavy irony. The Smythes were so deeply in debt that only a major technological breakthrough would get them in out of the cold again.

Marcus sent a private message to Zora. "Think they know there's a problem? Their satellite imagers might have seen us carrying the bubble."

Zora exhaled sharply. "If the corp saw something like that, they'd think we were running, maybe planning to sell out to another corp. We'd be talking to a live human corpgeek, not this avatar."

Marcus unmuted the com and spoke to the corporation avatar. "We're in trouble, honcha. We need shelter and atmosphere."

The avatar smiled brightly. "We suggest you go back to the hab and see what can be salvaged. Of course the Vivocrypt Corp values you highly, but your laboratories contain priceless equipment s.h.i.+pped from Earth orbit."

"We'll be fried!" Zora hadn't expected quite this level of cold-heartedness.

"Corp estimates your life expectancy will be shorted only by about fifteen years, on the average. That's just a statistical average. One or both of you might sustain no more damage burden than you suffered in the trip to Mars."

"What about our son? What about our future children?" Marcus was shouting.

The avatar's smile broadened idiotically. These things were so badly programmed, Zora wanted to scramble the software that ran her. But the avatar was mouthing Corp policy. "No guarantees are made as to reproductive success in Corp hires, as you will find in your contracts. My memory provides me with a vid showing that you were advised of this policy when you originally sold your contracts to Vivocrypt Corp."

Marcus voice was low and dangerous. "Let us speak to a human corpgeek."

"Of course," said the avatar, nodding gravely, like a cartoon character. The image froze for fifteen seconds, then she came alive with renewed joviality. "I have consulted with Bioorganism Resource a.s.sistant Director Debs. She confirms the advice I've given you."

"We want to talk to this Debs geek."

"One moment, please." The avatar froze again. Then, "I'm so sorry, a.s.sistant Director Debs is on the toilet and will return your call tomorrow or the next sol. Thanks for calling the Vivocrypt Corporation. May Father Mars and the bright new sol bring you fresh inspiration to serve the Corp." The image vanished.

Zora fingertipped furiously to link again to the corp, but access was rejected.

"I hate that religious stuff about Father Mars," she said to Marcus. "Avatars don't believe in the supernatural, or in having a 'bright new sol.'"

"Corp doesn't either. Using spirituality as mind control. As if they need any more control over us."

"They hope we'll stop thinking, just go back and work until we die of cancer or radiation burns." She noticed that Sekou was listening to them on his com. "We gave them our time, our whole lives. They owe us at least shelter."

Marcus's tone turned flat and almost brutal. "Machine minds. Machine hate. Use us as if we were the machines. We run down, they dump us."

To her horror, she realized she was starting to cry. She turned her face so Sekou would not see it.

"Mama, I have to go."

Startled, she turned her face back to him. "Go where?"

"You know. Go potty."

"Darling, just wait."

Marcus seemed to be deliberately holding his helmet so she couldn't see his expression, but her guess was that it was grim. He said, "I'm calling Hesperson again."

The a.s.sistant answered again this time. "Mister Hesperson said he was working on your problem, trying to come up with some ideas. Meantime, he said to proceed as we discussed before."

"We have a child with us, Mister-" Zora couldn't remember the a.s.sistant's name. She stopped, took a deep breath and said, "We have credit, you know. And equity in the pharm and hab, because it's held on a lien in our names. Our Corp purchased twenty years of our labor for each of us, and that's gone to pay for the physical plant. We can borrow against that-"

The a.s.sistant held up a hand. "If it were only that, Dr. Smythe. But Mister Hesperson has information from Krona Centime that somehow you've contaminated or infected their pharm and labs."

"How could they know-?"

Marcus spoke up. "The Centimes must have remotely read the reading on their outermost airlock. But it was hot before we got here."

"Still, you seem to be carrying something-"

"What c.r.a.p," Zora broke in. "This is not an contagious agent. This is a problem with the coolant in our nuclear power plant. I don't know what the Centimes told you, but we are not 'carrying something.'"

Marcus said, "Get Hesperson. He will talk to us. He's no trifling fool to hide behind his hires."

Hesperson came on. "It's beginning to look like something happened back there, something to do with those Land Ethic Nomads you entertained overnight."

"Didn't want to think that," said Marcus.

Zora bit her lip. "Not all of them. That Valkiri woman."

"She may have done something to the nuke at the Centimes' pharm, as well, Dr. Smythe. You understand the implications of this."

Zora squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them and blinked to clear her mind. "Yes, Ombudsman Hesperson. There's a killer on the loose."

He grimaced and nodded. "Exactly. And it seems you are not her only victims."

Marcus said, "Then best shelter us until she's apprehended."

Hesperson continued smoothly. "And draw fire here? If this woman follows you into Borealopolis, several thousand lives will be at risk. The entire population of our city would be endangered." He leaned into the viewscreen. "Let me put a proposition to you, Drs. Smythe. Bring me this woman, give her up to us, and we will allow you shelter. Perhaps I can even persuade the Borealopolis city-corp to reward you somehow."

Marcus said, "How? How can we stop her?"

Hesperson made a cage of his fingers and looked over it at them "I a.s.sume you have the usual homesteader's aversion to visual monitoring of your hab?"

"We left Earth to avoid that kind of violation," Zora snapped.

Hesperson's mouth twitched. "Then let me remind you that you are the only ones who have seen her face."

ZORA FELT EXHAUSTED. The sols were short this time of year, and the sky had darkened several hours before. Sekou's whimpers cut her like little blades, and she herself was getting hungry. "My brain is shutting down, Marcus. What can we do? Land Ethic Nomads... many of them are unregistered. We don't know Valkiri's last name, or even if she was born in a place where she would be given one. Valkiri is probably an alias. We don't even know the legal names of the tribe members we've sheltered and traded with before."

"We've seen her face."

"Yes, briefly and in bad light." In respect for the Land Ethic Nomads' desire to conserve resources, the lights in the hab had been dimmed. Of course, that served Valkiri's purposes very well. "But we could download face reconstruction software and create a picture. Or-"

"Mama," said Sekou quite reasonably, "I really have to go now. Can we go home now?"

"No, honey."

"You promised we could go visit Mr. and Mrs. Centime and that little girl. Please, Mama. They have a bathroom, don't they?"

Zora turned to him. "You'll just have to hold it! This is an emergency, Sekou."

"Mama, I can't!"

"Well, then you'll have to go in your pants. We have more important problems."

"Mama-"

She turned to Marcus. "We can't pressurize the rover just to let him urinate. We just can't." The rover pa.s.senger compartment had no airlock. It took a long time to pressurize and they might have a much greater need later to pressurize, if for example they had to consume water or food. Of course they'd have to find water and food, which they hadn't had time to pack.

Marcus squatted down in his c.u.mbersome environment suit and looked at Sekou, bent in a cramped ball inside the bubble. "Listen, Sekou. Your daddy and mama understand. We ran into a problem and we're trying to solve it fast. Now, take a deep breath and tell me if there's enough air in there."

Sekou made a great show of inflating his chest as far as was possible while bent double, then blowing out. "I think it's okay, Daddy."

"Good. That's a good boy. Now close your eyes and keep trying the air in there. Breathe big deep breaths, that's right."

"But if I-?"

"If you have an accident, we can clean it up soon as we get where we're going. Okay? Are you a big guy?"

"No, Daddy."

"Oh yes. Big, brave guy. Breathe again, let's see you puff out those cheeks."

Sekou breathed in and out again, eyes closed.

Zora felt again the pang of being not very good with kids. When a girl leaves her family at fifteen and the Earth itself at nineteen, as Zora had, maybe she doesn't pick up the knack of being good with kids. "He'll pee himself if he falls asleep," she sent on a private channel to Marcus.

Marcus said, "Yeah, and what harm is there in that, considering the ice we're on?"

That crumbled Zora's sense of reality, and she began laughing, in a kind of relief at having let go some of the pettier fears of their situation. Then something occurred to her. "We could use the photograph that Sekou took."

Marcus turned his eyes to her. "Use-"

"To find her. If we have an image, we don't need to try to recognize her face. We can upload it to Marsnet and let their biometrics identify her."

"Girl, I thought I married you for your pretty face, but I'll love you forever for your brain. Wait, though. What if she's not registered?"

"She won't be, probably. But Earth shares biometric data with Marsnet."

"Still won't tell us where she is on Mars. I like the idea-"

"Even Land Ethic Nomads can't stay out in the sky forever. Send out biometrics, including the photo itself, and tell pharmholders to check when travelers seek shelter."

"Yes, yes, Daddy, Mama, we can go home then?" Sekou was not asleep, it seemed.

"Yes, little habling, yes, but close your eyes and go to sleep like Daddy said."

"Okay. But I have to go so bad!"

Marcus patted the top of the bubble with his gloved hand. "Remember what I said, now. Close your eyes. Mama and Daddy have to talk some."

Zora said, "There's one problem. I have no idea where that photo plate is."

"Ask Sekou."

Sekou heard his name and was instantly awake, sensing somehow that he could be part of the solution to the family crisis. "Mama! Mama! It's in my bedroom. I tried to show you when you read my story to me, only you made me go to sleep."

Zora felt a shudder of fear and hope. She knew Marcus would volunteer to go back into the hab and retrieve the camera and the photo plate. She knew it was dangerous, but she made an instant calculation. Life without Marcus would be h.e.l.l, and life on Mars without Marcus would be worse than h.e.l.l.

Marcus had already turned the rover around. She bit her lip. She was going to insist on being the one to go into that hot hab. But she wouldn't make her bid until the last possible minute. She'd surprise him, force him into letting her do it before he could think. The entire ride was silent. Maybe Marcus was making the same calculations.

As THEY NEARED the hab, Sekou's tired little voice piped up. "Can we go back in now?"

"No! Stop asking! Mama and Daddy are just trying to protect you," Zora snapped.

Marcus said, "Sekou, my big smart man, you remember about the radiation sensors? You know what bad rays do?"

"Yeah, Daddy. I just hoped maybe they went away."

"Not yet, son. We may have to move to a new hab."

"Can I take my toys there?"

"You'll get new ones."

"But you'll get my camera?"

"Yes, but I'll tell you straight up, we have to give it up."

Zora had been wondering why Sekou no longer clamored for a bathroom, but a glance at his overalls revealed a dark stain on the front. Sekou, noticing her glance, said. "It kind of smells bad, and it's all cold and wet."

Zora murmured, "Sorry, baby." And then, trying to think what Marcus would say, "It's okay. Don't worry about it."

Marcus stopped the rover about thirty meters from the hab entrance. He untoggled the rover door and began to open it.

"Marcus," she said.

"Don't, Zora. You can't do this."

She had thought very carefully about it. "You're stronger, I know, But that's exactly why I should go in and find the camera. If something happened to me while I was in there, you would be better able to care for and defend Sekou than I would be."

"Zora, suppose you're pregnant."

"I'm not. I'm having a period. It just started." This was not strictly true, but Zora felt like her period was about to start, and anyway, she used a colored-light cycle regulator that had never failed her, both in conceiving Sekou and in preventing subsequent conceptions.

"Zora," he said tiredly, "you playing me?"