Robert Sawyer: Red Planet Blues

The door hardly budged. I tried again, pulling harder—and almost popped my arm out of its socket. Could the door’s tension control have been adjusted to require a transfer’s strength to open it? Perhaps.

I tried another pull and, to my astonishment, light began to spill out from the room. I’d hoped to just whip the door open, taking advantage of the element of surprise, but the damned thing was only moving a small increment with each pull of the handle. If there was someone on the other side and he or she had a gun, it was no doubt now leveled directly at the door.

I stopped for a second, shoved the flashlight into my pocket, and—damn, I hated having to do this—holstered my revolver so that I could free up my other hand to help me pull the door open. With both hands now gripping the recessed handle, I tugged with all my strength, letting out a grunt as I did so. The light from within stung my eyes; they’d grown accustomed to the darkness. Another pull, and the door panel had now slid far enough into the wall for me to slip into the room by turning sideways. I took out my gun and let myself in.

A voice, harsh and mechanical, but no less pitiful for that: “Please…”

My eyes swung to the source of the sound. There was a worktable with a black top attached to the far wall. And strapped to that table—

Strapped to that table was a transfer’s synthetic body. But this wasn’t like the fancy, almost perfect simulacrum that my client Cassandra inhabited. This was a crude, simple humanoid form with a boxy torso and limbs made up of cylindrical metal segments. And the face—

The face was devoid of any sort of artificial skin. The eyes, blue in color and looking startlingly human, were wide, and the teeth looked like dentures loose in the head. The rest of the face was a mess of pulleys and fiber optics, of metal and plastic.

“Please…” said the voice again. I looked around the rest of the room. There was an excimer battery, about the size of a softball, with several cables snaking out of it, including some that led to portable lights. There was also a closet with a simple door. I pulled it open—this one slid easily—to make sure no one else had hidden in there while I was coming in. An emaciated rat that had been trapped inside at some point scooted out of the closet and through the still-partially-open corridor door.

I turned my attention to the transfer. The body was clothed in simple black denim pants and a beige T-shirt.

“Are you okay?” I said, looking at the skinless face.

The metal skull moved slightly left and right. The plastic lids for the glass eyeballs retracted, making the non-face into a caricature of imploring. “Please…” he said for a third time.

I looked at the restraints holding the artificial body in place: thin nylon bands attached to the tabletop, pulled taut. I couldn’t see any release mechanism. “Who are you?” I asked.

I was half prepared for his answer: “Rory Pickover.” But it didn’t sound anything like the Rory Pickover I’d met: the cultured British accent was absent, and this synthesized voice was much higher pitched.

Still, I shouldn’t take this sad thing’s statement at face value—especially since it had hardly any face. “Prove it,” I said. “Prove you’re Rory Pickover.”

The glass eyes looked away. Perhaps the transfer was thinking of how to satisfy my demand—or perhaps he was just avoiding my eyes. “My citizenship number is AG-394-56-432.”

I shook my head. “No good,” I said. “It’s got to be something only Rory Pickover would know.”

The eyes looked back at me, the plastic lids lowered, perhaps in suspicion. “It doesn’t matter who I am,” he said. “Just get me out of here.”

That sounded reasonable on the surface of it, but if this was another Rory Pickover…

“Not until you prove your identity to me,” I said. “Tell me where the Alpha Deposit is.”

“Damn you,” said the transfer. “The other way didn’t work, so now you’re trying this.” The mechanical head looked away. “But this won’t work, either.”

“Tell me where the Alpha Deposit is,” I said, “and I’ll free you.”

“I’d rather die,” he said. And then, a moment later, he added wistfully, “Except…”

I finished the thought for him. “Except you can’t.”

He looked away again. It was hard to feel for something that appeared so robotic; that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it. “Tell me where O’Reilly and Weingarten were digging. Your secret is safe with me.”

He said nothing, but my mind was racing and my heart was pounding—those fabulous specimens the other Rory had shown me, the thought of so many more of them out there to be collected, the incalculable wealth they represented. I was startled to discover that my gun was now aimed at the robotic head, and the words “Tell me!” hissed from my lips. “Tell me before—”

Off in the distance, out in the corridor: the squeal of a rat and—

Footfalls.

The transfer heard them, too. Its eyes darted left and right in what looked like panic.

“Please,” he said, lowering his volume. As soon as he started speaking, I put a vertical index finger to my lips, indicating that he should be quiet, but he continued: “Please, for the love of God, get me out of here. I can’t take any more.”

I made a beeline for the closet, stepping in quickly and pulling that door most of the way shut behind me. I positioned myself so that I could see—and, if necessary, shoot—through the gap. The footfalls were growing louder. The closet smelled of rat. I waited.

I heard a voice, richer, more human, than the supposed Pickover’s. “What the—?”

And I saw a person—a transfer—slipping sideways into the room, just as I had earlier. I couldn’t yet see the face from this angle, but the body was female, and she was a brunette. I took in air, held it, and—

And she turned, showing her face now. My heart pounded. The delicate features. The wide-spaced green eyes.

Cassandra Wilkins.

My client.

She’d been carrying a flashlight, which she set now on another, smaller table. “Who’s been here, Rory?” Her voice was cold.

“No one,” he said.

“The door was open.”

“You left it that way. I was surprised, but…” He stopped, perhaps realizing to say any more would be a giveaway that he was lying.

She tilted her head slightly. Even with a transfer’s strength, that door must be hard to close. Hopefully, she’d find it plausible that she’d given the handle a final tug and had only assumed that the door had closed completely when she’d last left. Of course, I immediately saw the flaw with that story: you might miss the door not clicking into place, but you wouldn’t fail to notice that light was still spilling out into the corridor. But most people don’t consider things in such detail; I hoped she’d buy Pickover’s suggestion.

And, after a moment’s more reflection, she seemed to do just that, nodding her head, apparently to herself, then moving closer to the table onto which the synthetic body was strapped. “We don’t have to do this again,” said Cassandra. “If you just tell me…”

She let the words hang in the air for a moment, but Pickover made no response. Her shoulders moved up and down in a philosophical shrug. “It’s your choice,” she said. And then, to my astonishment, she hauled back her right arm and slapped Pickover hard across the robotic face, and—

And Pickover screamed.

It was a long, low, warbling sound, like sheet metal being warped, a haunted sound, an inhuman sound.

“Please…” he hissed again, the same plaintive word he’d said to me, the word I, too, had ignored.