Robert Sawyer - Red Planet Blues

“You masterminded it all.”

“You’d have a hard time proving that.”

I stole a line from Mudge the computer. “Be that as it may.”

“Regardless,” said Rory, “you booby-trapped the Alpha.”

“Even if I did—and I admit nothing—that’s outside the police’s jurisdiction.”

I gestured with the gun. “Walk.” I picked up my helmet and got him out into the brightly lit corridor, followed by me and then Rory. I continued to speak: “If I were you, I’d do a deal with the police. You said it yourself: you’ve only got a couple of years left. Don’t waste them in court. Cop a plea, pay a fine, forget about the Alpha, and get back to being on ice—and, who knows, maybe someday they will find a cure for cancer.”

The corridor switched from carpeted to uncarpeted as we approached the airlock, and our six footfalls were now making a fair bit of racket.

The airlock door was closed. I wondered how Mac had managed to get through; there’s no way he could have crammed himself and the two meese in all at once. It was a puzzle in logic—the kind Juan Santos enjoyed.

There were also three of us, but there was no reason we had to all go through at once. It was a toss of a coin whether Rory should exit first, or Van Dyke and I should. Of course, Van Dyke needed to get into a surface suit to do so, but there was a surface suit hanging by the door, and—

Ah, and it had the name Jeff Albertson on it. Well, he was part of the crew.

The light above the inner airlock door suddenly changed from green to red: someone was coming through from the other side. I supposed Mac could be returning, after having handed over the meese to other cops. Or it could be Bertha or someone else from the shipyard, or Beverly Kowalchuk or one of the local InnerSystem staff. Without knowing who it was, it seemed premature to get Van Dyke into a surface suit; maybe there was a moose out there named Cuatro, and having Van Dyke suited up would be playing right into his giant hands. “Don’t bother changing,” I said. “Not yet.”

I held my gun in front of me with both hands and aimed it at the airlock door. It wasn’t long before the light above it changed back to green, the door popped open that fifteen centimeters to reveal the recessed handle, someone pulled the door aside the rest of the way, and—

And a transfer with holovid star Krikor Ajemian’s face was standing there in front of us.

Berling?” I said, looking at the transfer framed in the airlock doorway. “Stuart Berling?”

He scowled. “Lomax? What the hell are you doing here?” But then his gaze shifted to Willem Van Dyke, and his brown eyes went wide. “My God,” he said shaking his handsome head. “My God, it’s true. You haven’t aged a day.”

“Do I know you?” Van Dyke replied. He gave no hint that he recognized the famous face in front of him, and, indeed, if he’d spent most of the last three decades on ice, he probably didn’t.

“I’m Stu Berling,” the transfer said.

Van Dyke spread his arms slightly. “Should I know you?”

“I was on the—on this damned ship.”

“When?”

“Thirty years ago. The last time it sailed under the name—” He swallowed, then managed to get it out: “B. Traven.”

“Oh,” said Van Dyke, softly.

“I’d had questions about that for decades,” said Berling. “But now I’ve got money—and money buys answers. A guy at InnerSystem’s office here in New Klondike told me you were aboard. I couldn’t believe it—couldn’t believe you were still part of the crew after all these years.”

“I don’t know who you are,” said Van Dyke.

“I’m the one who woke you. During the flight. All those years ago.”

“No, you’re not.”

Berling seemed pissed that this was being disputed. “I am, damn you.”

“I don’t know what that geeky kid—he was just eighteen or nineteen—grew up to look like, but you’re not him. You’re a damn transfer, a nothing.”

Berling’s tone was venomous. “I’m more of a man than you ever were. It was four days before I was able to get past that madman, get to your hibernation chamber, wake you up. And you didn’t do a thing to stop him.”

“There was nothing I could do,” said Van Dyke. “He had guns; I was unarmed.”

“You were the backup bowman,” snapped Berling. “You were the only other crew member. You should have stopped him.”

“I tried,” said Van Dyke. “That kid saw me try.”

“You had smuggled land mines aboard,” said Berling.

“The official report said it was Hogart Pierce, the primary bowman, who had done that.”

“Pierce was dead,” said Berling. He gestured behind himself. “They shot him as he came out that airlock here on Mars. When they found the land mines, they said he’d been smuggling them for some client here. But it wasn’t him; it was you.”

Van Dyke looked like he was going to utter a reflexive denial, so before he could, I asked Berling, “How’d you figure it out?”

“Like I said, money unlocks things. I started digging into this.” He pointed at the scrawny man, but looked at me. “Van Dyke had come to Mars once before that hellish journey, did you know that?”

“On Weingarten and O’Reilly’s second expedition,” I said.

Berling nodded. “And why didn’t he come back on the third?”

“He’d had a falling-out with Weingarten and O’Reilly,” I said, “over how to split profits, and—ah. As you greased enough palms to dig into Van Dyke’s past, you discovered—what? That he was a munitions expert? Former bomb-disposal guy?”

“Black-market arms dealer,” said Berling.

Van Dyke sneered, apparently offended by the term. “My expertise was in putting high-powered buyers in touch with those who had things of great value to sell. That’s why Simon and Denny brought me aboard… literally.”

“But then they double-crossed you,” I said. “Or you double-crossed them.”

Van Dyke said nothing.

“And, my God,” I said, taking a half step backward. “You—God, yes, of course! You sabotaged their ascent stage on the third expedition. You couldn’t have used the same model of land mine to do it—those were introduced after that ship left Earth. But an earlier model would have worked just as well—or some other explosive you had access to, as an arms dealer. You killed Simon Weingarten.”

“And Denny O’Reilly,” said Berling.

“No,” I said, “but only because Weingarten marooned O’Reilly here.” Berling looked surprised at this bit of news, but before he could speak, I went on. “So you’re a murderer,” I said to Van Dyke. “No wonder you’re in no hurry to meet your maker.”

“You could have halted the insanity,” Berling said, also to Van Dyke. Pickover, wisely, was staying out of all this.

“No, I couldn’t!” Van Dyke shouted at him. “The land mines were locked in a cargo hold; there was no way to get at them during the flight.”

“You could have detonated them by remote control,” said Berling.

“That would have blown up the ship!”

“It would have stopped him.”

“It would have killed us all.”

“It would have stopped him.” Berling was reaching his boiling point; he looked like he was going to explode.

“Stuart…” I said gently.

He wheeled on me. “That madman abused us. He tortured us. And Van Dyke could have stopped it. He could have stopped him. Instead it went on for another two months. Two months before we reached Mars, two months of horrific abuse.”