Robert Sawyer - Red Planet Blues

“Thanks,” I said, opening the case in such a way that he couldn’t see inside. I then surreptitiously removed the bit of plastic I’d used to insulate the excimer battery from the contact it was supposed to touch. Without looking up, I said, “Are you married, Mr. Berling?” Of course, I already knew the answer was yes; that fact was in his NewYou file.

He nodded.

“Is your wife home?”

His artificial eyelids closed a bit. “Why?”

I told him the honest truth since it fit well with my cover story: “I’d like to ask her whether she can perceive any differences between the new you and the old.”

Again, I watched his expression, but it didn’t change. “Sure, I guess that’d be okay.” He turned and called over his shoulder, “Lacie!”

A few moments later, a homely flesh-and-blood woman of about sixty appeared. “This is Mr. Lomax from the head office of NewYou,” said Berling, indicating me with a pointed finger. “He’d like to talk to you.”

“About what?” asked Lacie. She had a deep, not-unpleasant voice.

“Might we speak in private?” I asked.

Berling’s gaze shifted from Lacie to me, then back to Lacie. “Hrmpph,” he said, but then a moment later added, “I guess that’d be all right.” He turned around and walked away.

I looked at Lacie. “I’m just doing a routine follow-up,” I said. “Making sure people are happy with the work we do. Have you noticed any changes in your husband since he transferred?”

“Not really.”

“Oh? If there’s anything at all…” I smiled reassuringly. “We want to make the process as perfect as possible. Has he said anything that’s surprised you, say?”

Lacie crinkled her face even more than it normally was. “How do you mean?”

“I mean, has he used any expressions or turns of phrase you’re not used to hearing from him?”

A shake of the head. “No.”

“Sometimes the process plays tricks with memory. Has he failed to know something he should know?”

“Not that I’ve noticed.”

“What about the reverse? Has he known anything that you wouldn’t expect him to know?”

Lacie lifted her eyebrows. “No. He’s just Stu.”

I frowned. “No changes at all?”

“No, none… well, almost none.”

I waited for her to go on, but she didn’t, so I prodded her. “What is it? We really would like to know about any difference, any flaw in our transference process.”

“Oh, it’s not a flaw,” said Lacie, not meeting my eyes.

“No? Then what?”

“It’s just that…”

“Yes?”

“Well, just that he’s a demon in the sack now. He stays hard forever.”

I frowned, disappointed not to have found what I was looking for on the first try. But I decided to end the masquerade on a positive note. “We aim to please, ma’am. We aim to please.”

Ispent the next several hours tracking down and interviewing three other recent transfers; none of them seemed to be anyone other than who they claimed to be.

After that, the next name on my list was one Dr. Rory Pickover. His home was in a cubic apartment building located on the outer side of the First Circle, beneath the highest point of the dome; several windows were boarded up on its first and second floors, but he lived on the fourth, where all but one of the panes seemed to be intact. Someone was storing a broken set of springy Mars buggy wheels on one of the balconies. From another balcony, a crazy old coot was shouting obscenities at those making their way along the curving sidewalk. Most of the people were ignoring him, but two kids—a grimy boy and an even grimier girl, each about twelve but tall and spindly in the way kids born here tend to be—decided to start shouting back.

Pickover lived alone, so there was no spouse or child to question about any changes in him. That made me suspicious right off the bat: if one were going to choose an identity to appropriate, it ideally would be someone without close companions.

I buzzed him from the lobby. A drunk sleeping by the buzzboard was disturbed enough by the sound to roll onto his side but otherwise didn’t interfere with me.

“Hello?” said a male voice higher pitched than my own.

“Mr. Pickover, my name is Alex Lomax. I’m from the NewYou head office on Earth. I’m wondering if I might ask you a few questions?”

He had a British accent. “Lomax, did you say? You’re Alexander Lomax?”

“I am, yes. I’m wondering if we might speak for a few minutes?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“But what?”

“Not here,” he said. “Let’s go outside.”

I was pissed, because that meant I couldn’t try the screwdriver trick on him. But I said, “Fine. There’s a café on the other side of the circle.”

“No, no. Outside. Outside the dome.”

That was easy for him; he was a transfer now. But it was a pain in the ass for me; I’d have to rent a surface suit.

“Seriously? I only want to ask to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Yes, yes, but I want to talk to you and…” The voice grew soft. “. . . and it’s a delicate matter, deserving of privacy.”

The drunk near me rolled onto his other side and let out a wheezy snore.

“Oh, all right,” I said.

“Good chap,” replied Pickover. “I’m just in the middle of something up here. About an hour from now, say? Just outside the east airlock?”

“Can we make it the west one? I can swing by my office on the way, then.” I didn’t need anything from there—I was already packing heat—but if he had some sort of ambush planned, I figured he’d object to the change.

“That’s fine, that’s fine—all four airlocks are the same distance from here, after all! But now, I really must finish what I’m doing…”

Of course I was suspicious about what Rory Pickover was up to and so I tipped Mac off before making my way to the western airlock. The sun was setting outside the dome by the time I got there to suit up. Surface suits came in three stretchy sizes; I put on one of largest, then slung the air tanks onto my back. I felt heavy in the suit, even though in it I still weighed only about half of what I had back on Earth.

Rory Pickover was a paleontologist—an actual scientist, not a treasure-seeking fossil hunter. His pre-transfer appearance had been almost stereotypically academic: a round, soft face, with a fringe of graying hair. His new body was lean and muscular, and he had a full head of dark brown hair, but the face was still recognizably his own. His suit had a loop on its waist holding a geologist’s hammer with a wide, flat blade; I rather suspected it would nicely smash my fishbowl helmet. I surreptitiously transferred the Smith & Wesson from the holster I wore under my jacket to an exterior pocket on the rented surface suit, just in case I needed it while we were outside.

We signed the security logs and then let the technician cycle us through the airlock.

Overhead, the sky was growing dark. Nearby, there were two large craters and a cluster of smaller ones. There were few footprints in the rusty sand; the recent storm had obliterated the thousands that had doubtless been there earlier. We walked out about five hundred meters. I turned around briefly to look back at the transparent dome and the ramshackle buildings within.

“Sorry for dragging you out here, old boy,” said Pickover. “I don’t want any witnesses.” There was a short-distance radio microphone inside that mechanical throat for speaking outside the dome, and I had a transceiver inside my fishbowl.