Robert Sawyer - Red Planet Blues

“Ah,” I said, by way of reply.

“I know you aren’t just in from Earth,” said Pickover, continuing to walk. “And I know you don’t work for NewYou.”

We were casting long shadows. The sun, so much tinier than it appeared from Earth, was sitting on the horizon now. The sky was already purpling, and Earth itself was visible, a bright blue-white evening star. It was much easier to see it out here than through the dome, and, as always, I thought for a moment of Wanda as I looked up at it. But then I lowered my gaze to Pickover. “Who do you think I am?”

His answer surprised me, although I didn’t let it show. “You’re the private-detective chap.”

It didn’t seem to make any sense to deny it. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

“I’ve been checking you out over the last few days,” said Pickover. “I’d been thinking of, ah, engaging your services.”

We continued to walk along, little clouds of dust rising each time our feet touched the ground. “What for?”

“You first, if you don’t mind,” Pickover replied. “Why did you really come to see me?”

He already knew who I was, and I had a very good idea who he was. I had my phone on the outside of my suit’s left wrist, and it was connected to the headset in my helmet. “Call Dougal McCrae.”

“What are you doing?” Pickover asked.

“Hey, Alex,” said Mac from the little screen on my wrist; I heard his voice over the fishbowl’s headset.

“Mac, listen, I’m about half a klick straight out from the west airlock. I’m going to need backup.

“Lomax, what are you doing?” asked Pickover.

“Kaur is already outside the dome,” said Mac, looking offscreen. “She can be there in two minutes.” He switched voice channels for a moment, presumably speaking to Sergeant Kaur. Then he turned back to me. “She’s north of you; she’s got you on her infrared scanner.

Pickover looked over his shoulder, and perhaps saw the incoming cop with his own infrared vision. But then he turned back to me and spread his arms in the darkness. “Lomax, for God’s sake, what’s going on?”

I shook my phone, breaking the connection with Mac, and pulled out my revolver. It really wouldn’t be much use against an artificial body, but until quite recently Joshua Wilkins had been biological; I hoped he was still intimidated by guns. “That’s quite a lovely wife you have.”

Pickover’s artificial face looked perplexed. “Wife?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t have a wife.”

“Sure you do. You’re Joshua Wilkins, and your wife’s name is Cassandra.”

“What? No, I’m Rory Pickover. You know that. You called me.”

“Come off it, Wilkins. The jig is up. You transferred your consciousness into the body intended for the real Rory Pickover, and then you took off.”

“I—oh. Oh, Christ.”

“So, you see, I know. And—ah, here’s Sergeant Kaur now. Too bad, Wilkins. You’ll hang—or whatever the hell they do with transfers—for murdering Pickover.”

“No.” He said it softly.

“Yes,” I replied. Kaur was a sleek form about a hundred meters behind Pickover. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Back under the dome, to the police station. I’ll have Cassandra meet us there, just to confirm your identity.”

The sun had slipped below the horizon now. He spread his arms, a supplicant against the backdrop of the gathering night. “Okay, sure, if you like. Call up this Cassandra, by all means. Let her talk to me. She’ll tell you after questioning me for two seconds that I’m not her husband. But—Christ, damn, Christ.”

“What?”

“I want to find him, too.”

“Who? Joshua Wilkins?”

He nodded, then, perhaps thinking I couldn’t see his nod in the growing darkness, said, “Yes.”

“Why?”

He tipped his head up as if thinking. I followed his gaze. Phobos was visible, a dark form overhead. At last, he spoke again. “Because I’m the reason he’s disappeared.”

“What? Why?”

“That’s why I was thinking of hiring you myself. I didn’t know where else to turn.”

“Turn for what?”

Pickover looked at me. “I did go to NewYou, Mr. Lomax. I knew I was going to have an enormous amount of work to do out here on the surface now, and I wanted to be able to spend weeks—months!—in the field without worrying about running out of air or water or food.”

I frowned. “But you’ve been here on Mars for six mears; I read that in your file. What’s changed?”

“Everything, Mr. Lomax.” He looked off in the distance. “Everything!” But he didn’t elaborate on that. Instead, he said, “I certainly know this Wilkins chap you’re looking for. I went to his shop and had him transfer my consciousness from my old biological body into this one. But he also kept a copy of my mind—I’m sure of that.”

“That’s…” I shook my head. “I’ve never heard of that being done.”

“Nor had I,” said Pickover. “I mean, I understood from their sales materials that your consciousness sort of, um, hops into the artificial body. Because of that, I didn’t think duplicates were possible at the time I did it, or I never would have undergone the process.”

Kaur was now about thirty meters away, and she had a big rifle aimed at Pickover’s back. I held up a hand, palm out, to get the cop to stand her ground.

“Prove it to me,” I said. “Prove to me you are who you say you are. Tell me something Joshua Wilkins couldn’t know, but a paleontologist would.”

“Oh, for Pete’s—”

“Tell me!”

“Fine, fine. The most-recent fossils here on Mars date from what’s called the Noachian efflorescence, a time of morphological diversification similar to Earth’s Cambrian explosion. So far, twenty-seven distinct genera from then have been identified—well, it was originally twenty-nine but I successfully showed that both Weinbaumia and Gallunia are junior synonyms of Bradburia. Within Bradburia there are six distinct species, the most common of which is B. breviceps, known for its bifurcated pygidia and—”

“Okay!” I said. “Enough.” I held up fingers to show Kaur which radio frequency I was using and watched her tap it into her wrist keypad. “Sorry, Sergeant,” I said. “False alarm.”

The woman nodded. “You owe me one, Lomax.” She lowered her rifle and headed past us toward the airlock.

I didn’t want Kaur listening in, so I changed frequencies again and indicated with hand signs to Pickover which one I’d selected. He didn’t do anything obvious, but I soon heard his voice. “As I said, I think Wilkins made a copy of my mind.”

It was certainly illegal to do that, probably unethical, and perhaps not even technically possible; I’d have to ask Juan. “Why do you think that?”

“It’s the only explanation for how my computer accounts have become compromised. There’s no way anyone but me can get in; I’m the only one who knows the passphrase. But someone has been inside, looking around; I use quantum encryption, so you can tell whenever someone has even looked at a file.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how he did it—there must be some technique I’m unaware of—but somehow Wilkins has been extracting information from a copy of my mind. That’s the only way I can think of that anyone might have learned my passphrase.”

“You think Wilkins did all that to access your bank accounts? Is there really enough money in them to make it worthwhile? It’s gotten too dark to see your clothes but, if I recall correctly, they looked a bit… shabby.”

“You’re right. I’m just a poor scientist. But there’s something I know that could make the wrong people rich beyond their wildest dreams.”