Martian Knightlife Page 5

  "Is it a permanent residence or somewhere occasional that you're looking for, Mr. Thorn?" Yinge asked, standing a pace back as Kieran surveyed the living and dining areas. On principle, Kieran didn't like his correct name to be put in computers everywhere to be registered, tagged, sorted, and listed. The place was a little cramped, and the view from the veranda outside the sliding glass doors was of indoor pedestrian galleries and a shopping precinct with a maglev line; but the location was conveniently central, with all amenities close at hand. A possibility, Kieran decided.

  "I travel around a lot, so it would be somewhere to use from time to time. Also as an investment."

  "I understand. You do have the advantage of better security here in the city, as opposed to somewhere remote. And the value here is solid. It can only go up."

  "But that's going to be true of just about everywhere for a long time."

  "Yes, of course."

  Kieran sauntered through to the main bedroom, and then back to the spare room again. They had false windows with variable graphics. Right now, one was showing a scene of forested mountains with a waterfall, the other, a vista of Antarctica. Plenty of closet space, and the bathrooms were sensibly located. A pity that the kitchen on the far side of the wall tapered at such an awkward angle—a result that derived from the external shape of the structure. Kieran thought for a moment, then pointed at the wall and dragged it in a few feet, at the same time pivoting it about the far corner. It meant that the room they were in was no longer rectangular, but the change squared up the kitchen on the far side and created extra space there. Walking through the wall, he studied the kitchen again and repositioned the sink and its adjacent work tops, autochef unit and breakfast bar into the new layout. "What do you think?" he asked Yinge, who had followed him.

  "Much better. You'd be happy with the angle in the bedroom?"

  "Oh, I think so. I'd probably only use it for storage anyway."

  "That's fine." Yinge gazed around in a way that said that should settle everything. "Does any other party need to see it or get involved?"

  "No. Just me and my dog."

  "So, is there any reason why we shouldn't start an application?"

  Kieran smiled at the choice of term. It was through habit. Kieran had already said he'd be paying cash. He changed the colors of the walls and carpeting to orange and maroon to see the effect. "Not just yet. I'd like to see a couple of places farther out, just to compare them."

  "Of course."

  The apartment vanished. Kieran took off the VR goggles to find himself back in the office of J.J. Hamblin Properties, standing in one of the showerstall-like cubicles with roller-pebble floors, where wall sensors registered suggestions of body movements more faithfully than the old body suits had—and without the hassle of getting into them. He emerged to find Yinge removing his own goggles and Guinness evidently relieved to see his master acting normally again. Kieran and Yinge sat down to coffees while they selected several more offerings and then reentered the simulations to "visit" a new development on the outer fringes of Lowell—better appreciation prospects but a bit far out; a more spacious unit intended for family occupation in Osaka, on the north side toward Tharsis—not bad, but set in surroundings too uniform and regimented for Kieran's taste; and a not-yet-complete complex at a fast-growing city called Zerolon on the far side of the planet above Hellas, where the proposed synchronous sky elevator would be built if the project went ahead—surprisingly comfortable and well situated. Kieran said he'd like copies of the files available for review later.

  "Just for the record, what kind of timescale do you see yourself on with regard to firming something up?" Yinge inquired as he keyed in the appropriate codes.

  "It's elastic at the moment. In any case, I'd need to go there physically before concluding anything—among other things, to let Guinness check it out."

  "Guinness?"

  "The dog."

  "Oh yes, of course."

  "You'd be amazed at some of the things he can turn up."

  Yinge looked taken aback, if not mildly offended. "Surely you're not suggesting there might be anything not aboveboard," he protested. "I assure you, Mr. Thorn, our virtuals are completely as-is, untouched and unedited from the original scans."

  "Yes, of course," Kieran agreed, smiling disarmingly.

  * * *

  Kieran had just emerged and was standing, considering which direction to head next, when his phone sounded its call tone. He drew the unit out and raised it to his face. The caller was Leo Sarda.

  "Mr. Thane, how are you fixed? I need to talk to you right now." Sarda sounded strangely agitated after the self-assuredness that Kieran had observed yesterday at lunch and in the labs the day before.

  "I'm free," Kieran said. "What's happened?"

  "I can't go into it now. Let's meet somewhere away from here. Where are you right now?"

  "In the Trapezium area. I'm looking at realtors."

  "Fine. Look, there's a small pub and eatery kind of joint up on one of the levels over the main square. It's called the Mars Bar. Can I meet you there in, say, half an hour?"

  "I'll be there."

  "Fine," Sarda said again, and hung up.

  7

  Kieran found the Mars Bar without difficulty. It was on a balcony looking down over the main commercial precinct. Not having eaten yet, he ordered pâté and salad with a glass of chablis for himself (from home-grown grapes—a bit on the dry side but not bad), and a couple of thick burgers, a biscuit, and a dish of cold tea for Guinness. There was plenty of time, and he ate at a leisurely pace, taking in the scene. A band was playing in the court below, where figures on roller blades and skateboards maneuvered expertly among the shoppers and strollers. On a level above, members of some kind of sect wearing hooded green robes formed part of an audience listening to a speaker delivering a harangue about something. Farther on, a group of elderly people who had stopped to sit on some benches by a fountain were talking loudly and laughing among themselves. Kieran wondered what would possess a person to uproot and come all this way at such a stage in life. To stay with families who were moving out, he supposed. The changes and necessary adjustments would be all the more difficult for them. He hoped the laughter and the joviality were not too forced.

  The compact scale of the architecture increased the density of color and movement, making everything seem more intense and teeming, more alive—like some of the Asian cities he had been to. Or was he registering subliminally the restless new breed of humanity that seemed to go about everything it did with such urgency and purpose? There was serious talk already of launching the first missions out to the stars to follow the unmanned probes.

  Many said that the human race was perking up again. As with just about every other form of human endeavor contained in the turmoil bursting outward from the home world, science was no longer an establishment-administered conformity as had decreed Truth on Earth, but a rugged diversity of competing, frequently squabbling, beliefs. A vigorous school of growing currency held that the line taught for generations, of humankind evolving sedately over hundreds of thousands of years through progressively higher stages of development from primitive, ape-related ancestors, was wrong. The past had been much more convoluted and complex. An advanced civilization of a still-disputed nature, possessing amazing knowledge of geography, astronomy, mathematics, and other skills which in many ways were still a mystery, had existed long before the previously-supposed cradles of civilization in Egypt and Sumer. Referred to nonspecifically as the "Technolithic" culture on account of the huge stone structures erected in various parts of the world—now generally accepted as the work of the same, or closely related, builders—they had been wiped out in a planet-wide cataclysm that had devastated the Earth some time around 10,000 B.C. According to the proponents, current human civilization was not the result of a steady improvement from barbarism; it was recovering toward a grandeur that had once existed, and which in some ways might even have surpassed anything seen since.
As he looked around, Kieran could feel himself as being a part of it. After millennia of confusion and strife, the human race was coming alive again and getting its potential back after something had come close to destroying it.

  He saw Sarda's shaggy yellow mane appear up a stairwell from a lower level. Sarda saw him, came over, and sat down. A waitress came across from the counter to take Sarda's order. Yet again, Kieran was awed that the person he was looking at—talking, gesturing, acting normally in every way—could have been just a collection of recipe-book ingredients four days previously. But the sun-scorched face behind the straggly mustache was looking grave this time; the eyes beneath the bushy brows, troubled. Kieran's thought again was that some delayed problem with the experiment might have surfaced. But if so, why would Sarda bring it to him?

  "Kieran . . . Is that okay?" Sarda began.

  "Sure."

  Sarda hesitated, making a vague gesture, as if not quite knowing how to begin. "At lunch yesterday, June said that one of the things you do is investigate strange and mysterious things. What did she mean? To me, that sounded like someone who looks into paranormal things—ghosts and psychics, stuff like that . . . Is that what she meant?"

  Kieran made a so-so face. "Not really—although sometimes the difference can get debatable. All kinds of things are going on these days that a lot of people might consider strange. They often involve extravagant claims that others are tempted to put a lot of money into—your own work at Quantonix is a case in point. Some claims are genuine; some are frauds, or maybe cases of sincere but deluded people fooling themselves. The would-be investors would very much like to know which are which. And sometimes, yes, they pay me to find out for them."

  "I hope that isn't what brought you to Quantonix," Sarda said, looking alarmed. "I promise you that we're genuine."

  Kieran held up a hand. "No, if that were why I'm here, I'd hardly have told you what I just did. But if you want my opinion anyway, I think TX is genuine." He sipped from his wineglass and raised his icy blue eyes back to Sarda to treat him to a look that was both candid and challenging. "But now that you've brought it up, out of curiosity, if I were of a suspicious nature, and say I was considering putting a big wad of money into it, how could I be certain that the you who walked out of the chamber in the R-Lab wasn't the same unprocessed you who was supposed to have been put into suspension downstairs? I mean, it wouldn't be the first time we've seen something like that, would it? Conjurors with boxes do it all the time. You see my point?"

  "You have a cynical turn of mind, Mister . . . Kieran," Sarda said, sounding mildly admonishing.

  "I told you, I'm paid to have. I just can't get out of the habit."

  "Then I'll set your mind at rest. A big trans-system like Three Cs employs some pretty hard-boiled, cynical people too. They wouldn't put money into something like this until they were certain, either." The waitress came back, and Sarda paused to take his glass. He took a draft and looked back at Kieran. "There was what I guess you'd call a macabre kind of ceremony conducted down in the T-Lab yesterday. It involved several independent scientists and medical people, a legal notarizing official, plus representatives from Three Cs and their main interested funding organization. We—"

  Kieran raised a hand to spare Sarda having to go through the details. "You went down with them while they opened up the door in the T-Lab. And they verified that the item being kept on ice down there . . ."

  "It's more of a field-induced suspension these days."

  "Whatever. But they verified that it's an authentic original of you."

  Sarda nodded. "Documents to that effect are available for anyone having an appropriate interest from now on." The purpose, Kieran could see, would be to avoid having to keep two of them around forever as proof that the process worked.

  "When did this happen yesterday?" Kieran asked curiously.

  "In the afternoon. That was why I had to get back after lunch. It was one of the things we wrap up under `tests.' "

  "And it all went okay? Everyone was happy?"

  "Just fine."

  None of which explained Sarda's agitation that morning. Kieran eyed him questioningly. "So?"

  Sarda shifted position, taking a moment to collect his thoughts. "Exactly what the deal is with Three Cs doesn't really matter. But let me tell you something about my own arrangement with Quantonix. That was something of an experience I went through. Even after all the rats and monkeys had come out of it okay, it's still not exactly the kind of thing you have to deal with every day."

  "You don't have to tell me, Leo," Kieran agreed with feeling. "Even after hearing your spiel yesterday, I've been telling June that I wouldn't buy it."

  "And the Quantonix directors understand that." Sarda waved briefly with a hand. "Oh, sure, I know that traditionally the inventor is supposed to be his own guinea pig, but this is in a different ballpark than some new vaccine or a headache pill. So they agreed to some additional remuneration—a bonus for taking the risk."

  "But payable only upon a successful demonstration of the process," Kieran guessed. That was how he would have stipulated it.

  "Yes. Payable yesterday, on satisfactory completion of the certification documents that I just told you about."

  "And it was paid as agreed?"

  "Oh, sure."

  "Can I ask how much?"

  "Two million initially. More later when certain conditions are met." Kieran nodded in a way that said Sarda could have done worse. "And then there are advance options on certain movie rights and media exclusives—the word was discreetly leaked in the appropriate places. The first guy to do this is a guaranteed celebrity when the whole thing breaks publicly."

  Kieran nodded again. "And that makes you another . . . what?"

  "Oh, you're getting close to about another three."

  "Million?"

  "Right."

  So five in all. That could add considerably to one's quality of life, Kieran supposed. "So what's the problem?" he asked.

  "It's gone."

  Kieran had one of his rare moments of not being immediate on the uptake. "What has?"

  "The money. All of it. I've been cleaned out." Sarda waited, but just at that instant Kieran could only blink. Sarda spread his hands. "It's impossible, but it happened. It was lodged in a secure account that I'd set up for the purpose at the Lowell Barham Bank, with personalized passwords and identity codes, all the usual ID procedures that banks insist on. But none of it did any good. This morning it was gone in untraceable withdrawals. The bank insists everything was processed legitimately, with authenticated signatures and authorizations. They're denying any responsibility."

  Kieran stared at him disbelievingly. His mind had resumed working again; already, the germ of what could be an explanation was suggesting itself, but it seemed too bizarre. Check out the alternatives first, he told himself.

  Sarda went on, "With the deal just about to close, we can't afford word getting out that there might be any kind of problem. We want to keep the regular authorities and agencies out of it. So my question is, is this the kind of `mysterious thing' that you investigate?" He drank from his glass and sat back, giving Kieran as long as he needed to think about it.

  Kieran looked down at Guinness, stretched out by the table in an attitude of having decided there was nothing of immediate interest going on in the world—but with an eye left open just to be sure. Kieran flipped him a pretzel. Guinness snapped it out of the air, moving just his head, then settled down again with a few contented thumps of his tail against the floor.

  "Some dog you have there," Sarda commented.

  "Oh yes. He can be a good friend to have around." Clearly, someone had known a lot about Sarda's affairs. Someone he had confided in too much, possibly? Finally, Kieran said, "I can imagine a lot of stress, a lot of fear, to put it bluntly, in facing the thought of going through something like that."

  "Well, yeah . . . Like I just said. They didn't offer that kind of compensation for nothing."

&nbs
p; "Was there anyone you can think of that you talked to about it?" Kieran asked. That would have been a fairly common reaction. "Someone that you confided in about how you felt?"

  Sarda seemed about to answer, and then looked puzzled, as if suddenly finding he had nothing to say. In the end he just answered vaguely. "I don't know. You'd think there would have been. . . . But no, I really can't think of anyone."

  "You just bottled up the fears and doubts? Kept them to yourself?"

  Sarda shrugged. "Uh-huh. I guess I must have."

  "It seems a little odd. I could see that of an introvert. You don't strike me as that type."

  "What else can I tell you?"

  Kieran drank slowly, all the time looking across at Sarda, inviting him to see the obvious. When no response seemed forthcoming, he said, to help things along a little, "Only one person could have known those codes and passwords, passed all the ID checks, Leo."

  Sarda shook his head, refusing to consider it. "It's too crazy," he insisted.

  "Is it? The original was . . . what, at midnight last night? How is it deactivated?"

  "Plasma decomposition. It's virtually instantaneous."

  Kieran asked the question that he had been wondering. "Who presses the button or whatever?"

  "It's automatic—the final phase of a timed sequence that I initialized myself when we commenced the process four days ago," Sarda answered.

  So that was how they had gotten around the problem. Kieran noted that Sarda referred unhesitatingly to "myself."

  "So there's nothing left now, right? No way of knowing what got vaporized," Kieran said.

  "Uh . . . right."

  "How convenient."

  Kieran let the implication speak for itself. Sarda might have had an erratic component, but he was no fool. He had probably arrived at the inevitable conclusion himself already but needed to hear it from somebody else before he could accept it. The original was still alive and well, loose in the city somewhere. And it had a grudge.