Issue 11

© Wyrm Publishing, 2015
wyrmpublishing.com
forever-magazine.com

Introduction

Neil Clarke

Welcome to the eleventh issue of Forever Magazine!

Not much to report this month. I’ve finished making the selection for The Best Science Fiction of the Year and should be releasing the table of contents sometime later this month. It’s been an eye-opening project and I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to say about it after I’ve had a chance to recover from the massive reading marathon it took to wrap it up. I suspect I’ll be publishing some of the Honorable Mentions here in Forever. In some ways, it’s nice to have this magazine as an outlet for those stories.

If tradition holds, this month will be nothing short of hectic for me. The approach of the holidays usually means a lot of social obligations and time visiting family. That’s far from a bad thing, but all the running around can be draining. If you’re dealing with similar, I hope you find the time to relax and give yourself a break. Enjoy the holidays, even if it just means a few days off for you. And if you are doing some holiday shopping, remember, the gift of short fiction is always a good one.

Until next month . . .

-Neil

Murder on the Aldrin Express

Martin L. Shoemaker

“Are you sure about this, Riggs?”

Midshipman Riggs nodded. “The micrographs don’t lie, Chief Carver. There are nanos all over that cable.”

I scratched my neck under my stiff white uniform collar. It was hard to keep my uniform clean within the water rations on the ship. Besides an inescapable slight stink—inescapable because the whole ship had the same stink of bodies confined for months—I was developing a bit of a rash. “But are you sure? We’re going to have to take this to Captain Aames.”

I saw the young British astronaut turn pale, almost as pale as his close-cropped blonde hair, and I managed to conceal my amusement. Riggs was new to the Aldrin, but already he lived in fear of Nick. Half the crew did the same, while the other half would never dare go to space without Nick in command. Some days I wasn’t sure which half I was in.

Riggs was understandably nervous: being challenged by the Chief Officer was bad enough, and bringing bad news to Nick would be even worse. But the midshipman hesitated only briefly before he swallowed and answered. “Yes, sir. Take a look. The micrographs don’t lie.”

I did take a look, pulling Riggs’s report onto my comp. I wasn’t an expert in nanomachines any more than Riggs was, but I could read the computer analysis easily enough. The frayed S3 cables were infested with dormant nanobots.

Well, I had been hoping for a distraction so I could stop thinking about Tracy. I had managed to avoid her even in the close confines of the Mars cycler, but I couldn’t avoid the memory of her without some distraction. This would certainly fit the bill. “All right, then. No sense in delay. Let’s go see the Captain.” I stood from my desk chair, automatically correcting to avoid rising too fast in the ship’s quarter gravity. As we headed out of my office, I noticed that Riggs still moved with exaggerated care. Eventually he would adjust—if Nick didn’t break him first.

Nick had broken more men than any three other commanders in the Corps. He loves to push a crew in drill: “Again. Again. Do it again, and get it right this time.” Sometimes that seems like the only word he knows: “Again”. Again and again until you break; but those he doesn’t break, we know our stuff. We have to. Being the best is the only way to get Nick to shut the hell up.

Probably Riggs would break, but I hoped not. He was a good kid, endearingly eager to be in space even if only as crew of a Mars cycler. We would never make planetfall, just follow a complex pseudo-cometary Solar orbit that took us back and forth between Earth and Mars every eleven months. We orbited the Sun; but as we got close to Earth, she grabbed us, swung as around a couple of times, and then tossed us back toward Mars; and then Mars grabbed us and tossed us back in a complicated dance that took only trivial amounts of fuel for occasional course corrections. It was a mathematically elegant and efficient way to travel; but it was about as exciting and eventful as driving a subway train. Most in the Corps saw cycler service as pretty low duty for an astronaut, tantamount to punishment. And working under Nick didn’t make that duty any more popular, which added to our attrition rate. I couldn’t guess whether Riggs would last or not. Nick couldn’t, either, which was why he insisted on testing people until he found out. Nick hated not knowing.

We walked through the ship as I ruminated, passing through one brownish-gray corridor after another. I had seen pictures of the ship when she was new, all orange-yellow (“ochre” the designers called it) and with the Holmes Interplanetary logo prominently displayed in most rooms. It had been a bit ostentatious, but it had looked polished. Then Holmes had gone out of business and Mission Control had scooped up their assets and repurposed them for government missions. One of the first things they had done was to paint over the ochre with government-issue gray; but because they had skimped on the gray, the result had a brownish tinge that looked grimy even when we cleaned it as best we could. We got used to the grimy look eventually, but we prized any little bit of color that broke up the dullness.

Eventually we arrived at Nick’s outer office—empty, since I was the one who usually manned the desk there—and passed through to the command office. The door opened as I approached. I ushered Riggs in and we stood before the display desk. Where most of the ship was brownish-gray, Nick had had his office painted in darker tones, mostly black. He also kept the lights low, except for the glow from his computer desk. He liked the room dark, with one giant window behind the desk showing the star field outside.

A chair was behind the desk, its high back facing us, and it didn’t budge as we entered and the door closed behind us. Nick was staring at the stars and probably ignoring us, but it was possible he hadn’t heard us. As usual, the office was filled with mellow Brazilian music. Many of us in the Corps have trained in Brazil and picked up a little Portuguese; but Nick had thoroughly adopted the country and its culture. I recognized “Brigas Nunca Mais,” one of Nick’s favorites. I always found some irony in that: the title translated roughly as “Never Fight Again,” and Nick was a tenacious fighter.

The chair back swayed slightly. Despite the music, I was sure Nick knew we were there. He was just ignoring us. Fine. I would wait him out.

Finally the song ended, and Nick’s voice came from behind the chair. “Are you going to stand there all day, Chief Carver? I know you didn’t leave.”

“How did you know it was me?” Did he analyze the sound of my walk? I couldn’t see how over the music.

“Elementary, my dear Carver. After Margo Azevedo’s breakdown at last month’s maudlin dinner, I would rather avoid any unnecessary contact with our passengers. That door is currently programmed to open for only one other person on this ship besides myself; and that one other person is you, Chief.”

“Someone could have broken your lock program and entered that way.”

“True. But there’s only one person on this ship whose programming skills are up to that task. And that person is also you. Ergo, if someone intrudes on my solitude, it could only be you. Oh, and Mr. Riggs, of course.” I saw Riggs flinch when Nick said his name. He looked at me and mouthed the word “how,” but I didn’t respond. I didn’t want to give Nick the satisfaction. Besides, he likely had a camera hidden in his office, so it wasn’t any big mystery.

Over the years I had learned the value of having more patience than Nick. It’s not easy, but I’ve done it. He has nearly zero patience when he wants something from you, but nearly infinite when he’s avoiding someone. So I just stood silently and waited him out. At last he spoke again. “So what is it, Chief Carver? More of the incessant mourning? Have our passengers decided they want to regale us with yet more stories of the late, great Professor and his botched expedition?”

“No, sir, but it does involve the expedition. Riggs has found evidence that Professor Azevedo’s S3 cable was sabotaged.”

It’s rare that I get to surprise Nick, even with bad news; so I took a secret, perverse delight in the way he spun the chair around. Instead of his usual casual slouch, he leaned intently forward: a medium-short man, fit and wiry with bushy red-gray hair and short beard. When he got like this, his energy seemed likely to burst out in a random direction on the smallest provocation. Again Riggs flinched as if Nick might leap at him or throw something at him; and I had to admit, it had happened to others in the crew.

Nick fixed Riggs with his best contemptuous stare. “Mr. Riggs, Synthetic Spider Silk breaks. It is incredibly strong, but it also breaks when not properly maintained over time. And Paolo Azevedo was notoriously sloppy—exactly as I warned his backers before the expedition, not that anyone listened to me. Half of his maintenance reports never got filed. So I have no doubt he fell behind on S3 inspections, and the cable broke as a result. Why would you suggest otherwise?”

Riggs straightened to attention under Nick’s stare, and he stood his ground. I could really get to like the kid. He had spunk. “Captain, I was performing the quarantine inventory, as per Chief Officer Carver’s orders.” We were less than two days away from Earth orbit, so it was standard practice to scan all transported gear for contaminants—including nanos, since many Earth jurisdictions have pretty strict laws about unlicensed nanomachines. “I inspected Professor Azevedo’s S3 cable, and I found a small colony of scavenger nanos. If I may, sir?”

Nick nodded, and Riggs swiped his finger across the comp in his sleeve, pushing his report to Nick’s display desk. Nick gestured us closer as he leaned over the electron micrograph, an image of several parallel gray tubules dotted with miniscule magenta specks. Riggs tapped his comp, and several circles zoomed out of the image for more detail. The tubules began to show as a fine matrix; and the specks became a number of small structures, false colored in shades of magenta to stand out against the gray background. “There they are, sir. Scanner says they conform 99.993% to the structure of standard scavenger nanos, one of the same lines that the expedition took along for scavenging raw materials. This particular line scavenges salt ions and fixes them to a substrate, manufacturing salts and salt-based compounds. And these—” Riggs tapped the comp again, and small flecks were highlighted in yellow. “—are salt ions trapped in the glycine matrix.”

Nick sneered at Riggs. “And why are you wasting my time over a bunch of salt ions?” But I knew that sneer from long experience: it meant that Nick was testing Riggs. Nick already knew the answer, and he suspected that just maybe Riggs wasn’t a complete incompetent. If Riggs could just keep his cool and make a thorough, professional report, he might actually impress Nick. And I knew as well as anyone how difficult it is to impress Nick.

Riggs held up under the sneer and continued his report. “Captain, the salt ions depolymerize the glycine, reverting it from a fibrous state to more of a gel. The silk becomes liquid again, Captain, and it stretches like taffy. It pulls thinner and thinner until it just wisps away. If the Captain is done with this micrograph?” Nick waved his hand dismissively, and Riggs brought up the next image. “This is the same zone, zoomed out by a factor of ten.” There were a number of gray strands, too small now to see the magenta specks; but the strands became progressively more yellow as they approached the upper right corner. They also narrowed dramatically. When the strands had diminished to roughly half their width, they started to bend and warp. And suddenly, almost in the corner of the image, they became a knotted yellow tangle, and they reached no further.

Nick turned one wide eye up at Riggs. “So, Mr. Riggs, you’re telling me that although Azevedo was an utter fool who had no business leading that expedition, he wasn’t at fault in his own death? You’re telling me that I was wrong?”

Riggs swallowed before he spoke. “Yes, Captain.”

“Good!” Nick looked back down at the desk. You would have to know him as well as I did to see the slight edge of a smile at the corner of his mouth. Riggs had impressed him. “Riggs, it is my job to be right. This ship and all aboard depend on that. It is your job to tell me when I’m not doing my job. I will tear you into small bloody bits when you do, because I’m never wrong; and I expect you to do so anyways, because sometimes I am wrong, and I will not tolerate that. If you can accept that, you might have a future on this ship. Can you?”

Riggs didn’t hesitate again. “I don’t know, Captain. We’ll find out.”

This time Nick even let his smile show. “Honesty. Another mark in your favor. Don’t ever lie to me, Riggs, and we’ll get along fine. So I trust you did research on these nanos. You know how they’re activated.”

“Concentrated UV light, Captain, of specific frequencies. The light excites certain outer electrons in the structure, ionizing the nanos and initiating a chain reaction that starts them in motion. I’m afraid chemistry isn’t my best subject, Captain, so I can explain how to activate them but not the details. The frequency and intensity required are such that they don’t occur naturally in the solar spectrum.”

“So they can’t activate by accident. Someone has to use an emitter.” Riggs nodded. “And that’s why you believe the break must have been sabotage.”

I decided Riggs had had enough of Nick’s attention, and it was time to draw some fire of my own. “Yes, Captain, and that’s why we had to bring this straight to you. Until we reach Earth’s gravipause, you are the highest legal authority aboard this ship.”

“Much as it chaps Lee Klein’s ass.” Nick had negotiated that clause in his contract with Holmes Interplanetary before he had accepted command of the Aldrin: while the ship was in free fall around Sol, Nick had nearly the sovereign power of an old British sea captain. Oh, he couldn’t have you flogged, but he had pretty broad authority to run his ship as he saw fit. When Mission Control bought out Holmes, Director Klein discovered that Nick had fashioned the contract with all of his trademark attention to detail. Nick’s autonomy survived the end of Holmes unless the new owner wanted to dismiss Nick and pay him his full wage for five years plus bonuses while Nick sat on a beach in Brazil and drank caipirinhas. Klein was not about to do that, and so Nick’s authority was pretty much total until Earth’s gravitational force acting on us exceeded Sol’s.

Nick didn’t continue, so I did. “And so it is your responsibility to investigate, Captain. Secure the evidence, prepare a report for the authorities on Earth, and make sure whoever is behind this isn’t a danger to our passengers and crew.”

“My responsibility?” Nick turned one glaring eye upon me.

“Yes, sir. And I guess this changes at least one thing.”

“Oh?”

“You were wrong about the expedition. The failure wasn’t their fault.”

“Oh, really?”

“Well, clearly, it was deliberate. It wasn’t an accident.”

“Oh, really? And what does that change?”

“Well . . . everything!” Nick exasperated me. As usual. I think exasperating was one of his primary joys in life. Defying expectations and challenging beliefs was one of his many ways of testing people.

“Does it change the fact that they didn’t plan for adequate backup water? Does it change the fact that they didn’t plan for the possible temperature extremes? Does it change the fact that they were completely unprepared for a Category V dust storm? Does it change the fact that they had no plan for what would happen if they lost their orbital platform like we lost ours?”

“Nnnnno.” I had intended to needle Nick, but I hadn’t expected him to react so strongly. Riggs was squirming. The crew didn’t usually see Nick and I duel like this.

“Then I wasn’t wrong! They had a poorly planned mission from start to finish. Though I grant you there’s one failure even I overlooked: they didn’t plan for a criminal on board.”

I saw my opening. “And that’s another reason why only you can investigate this murder. You understand their expedition and you know what to look for.”

Nick sighed, and I knew I had him. “Very well, then, Chief Carver. I guess I must end my exile here and deal with the members of the expedition. Interview them and find out who might have a motive for this crime.”

“So should I bring them in, sir?”

“Oh not all at once, one at a time. That’s all I want to deal with. Let us start with . . . I think we’ll start with Ms. Wells.”

Tracy! I tried to stall. “Nick, surely you don’t think she had anything to do with this.”

“What I think is none of your concern. Has she already messed up your head so much that you’ve forgotten how to follow orders?”

Damn it, Nick, get out of my head! “No, Captain, if that’s your order, I shall carry it out, sir.”

“That’s good, man, because I need to know if you’re going to have a problem with this. I need to know if you’re thinking with your brain, or somewhere lower.”

I had manipulated Nick into taking charge of the investigation, and he was going to make me suffer for that; but I wasn’t going to let that impair my performance of my duties. “Sir, I shall carry out my responsibilities exactly as expected.”

I left, Riggs in tow, and the door closed behind us. Facing off to Nick must have emboldened Riggs. Normally I wouldn’t expect personal questions from such a junior crewman, so his next question hit me by surprise. “Is there a problem with Ms. Wells, sir?”

“No, we just have a . . . history. I’ve been avoiding her. Too many uncomfortable memories.”

“He knows this? And he’s putting you in this bind deliberately? He’s a right bastard, isn’t he?”

“That he is, Mr. Riggs. That he is.” We reached the tube to the berthing ring, and I turned off while Riggs continued back to his post. Under my breath, I echoed Riggs. “A right bastard he is.”

I had dreaded that encounter, but I couldn’t put it off. Three months ago I had looked up the cabin number where Tracy bunked with Arla Simms, another member of the Azevedo expedition. I had managed to stop myself from going there, but the number was lodged firmly in my brain.

And now I stood before 32-A and held my finger on the door buzzer. Nearly four years . . . Too soon, and far too long. I pressed the buzzer.

Arla opened the door: a trim young woman in a simple blue jumpsuit from the expedition, her blonde curls cut functionally short. We had met several times during the voyage, but never for very long. I had avoided prolonged contact with the passengers almost as thoroughly as Nick had. Arla seemed surprised to have a visitor. “Yes, Chief Carver?”

I straightened to attention, hiding behind formality as best I could. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but the Captain has sent me. He has asked me to fetch Ms. Wells—” I managed not to stammer at her name “—so that he may ask some questions about the expedition.”

“The expedition? Is there something wrong?”

“Nothing I can speak of, ma’am. The Captain is just thorough.” It wasn’t precisely a lie. Not that I would hesitate to lie to keep the investigation under control, but I would stick as close to the truth as I could.

“Well, come in, Chief. Tracy’s in here.” Damn. I had been afraid she would invite me in, and I hadn’t figured out a polite excuse to refuse. Arla stepped aside, and I entered the cabin.

Instantly my eyes were pulled to Tracy where she sat on her bunk, a desk folded out from the cabin wall. She was editing expedition videos, and she paused them as I came in. Tracy wore a blue jumpsuit like Arla’s, but she had altered the legs to thigh-length shorts. She had always liked her legs free, and I had never minded the chance to see them. She looked just as I had glimpsed her in random moments since the expedition came aboard: a little older than when we had parted, and a little thinner from the tight rations on Mars, and somehow that made her even more beautiful than the day we had met. Her face was the same cocoa shade that I remembered. Her hair was the same black that I knew so well, but pulled back in a bun to keep it out of ship’s air systems. The auburn highlights that fascinated me so were only visible when she let her hair flow free, so I was safe from them for the moment. Her eyes . . . Her deep brown eyes looked up at mine, and I looked just a bit away.

And her scent . . . It wasn’t possible, but the cabin smelled of lilacs. After months on Mars and more months on the trip there and back, she couldn’t possibly still have any of the lilac water she liked so much. I concentrated, and the odor faded away. It had been only a memory.

Tracy still knew all of my tricks, too. She shifted her head to meet my eye line. “What is it, Anson?” My pulse leapt. Practically no one called me by my first name, and no one at all since we had broken up.

I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to. I had to—but I couldn’t. “The Captain is conducting an investigation of the accident, and he has asked me to escort you to his office so that he may ask some questions.” There. I had gotten out a whole sentence.

“Certainly, Anson. Anything I can do to help.” Tracy folded up the desk and stood from her bunk. I managed not to analyze how her body moved in the low gravity. “If you’ll lead the way. I have no idea how to find the Captain’s office.”

Glad of the excuse, I turned on my heel and faced the door. I touched my cap. “My apologies for the intrusion, Ms. Simms.”

I left the cabin. I heard Tracy’s soft tread behind me, and then the door closed. I waited until she was almost beside me, and then I set off through the passageway.

I knew the silence wouldn’t last forever, but I still felt a stab when Tracy broke it. “You said there’s nothing you can speak of; so I assume there’s something you can’t speak of?”

I never could fool Tracy. “I’m sorry you heard that.”

“‘I’m sorry you heard that, Tracy.’ It’s okay to say my name, you know.”

I missed my stride, but only by a fraction of a second. I tried for casual: “Why waste words? We both know who I’m talking to.”

Tracy sped up, edged around me in the narrow passageway, and stopped in front of me, forcing me to stop as well. “You’re not talking, not really. You’re avoiding talking.”

Before I knew what was happening, I answered: “We talked four years ago. That didn’t turn out so well.” I should’ve let it rest, I knew I should’ve. This could only get worse.

And it did. “And you’re still angry? After four years?”

“Still angry that you left me? Absolutely!”

“I left you for Mars! My chance to film the documentary of my dreams! I couldn’t pass up that opportunity! You should know, you did the same to me when you left on the Bradbury.”

“That was different!” I tried to control my emotions, but they were building higher.

“Different? Different how?”

“We barely knew each other then. We had only been together for a couple months. We hardly meant anything to each other then. Not like . . . Not like breaking our engagement.”

“I had to break it! It wasn’t fair. I was going to Mars for nearly four years, with training and travel. I couldn’t ask you to wait that long!”

“You couldn’t . . . ?” And suddenly my restraints broke. “You couldn’t ask me? Why not? That made me angry, the way you just decided without asking me. But oh, I got past angry.” That took nearly a year. Then I tried hurt for a while. Hurt and drunk. Then just drunk, and then drunk and bitter. Eventually Nick dried me out and kicked my tail and got me to focus on work again. That’s what I have now: my work, and I’m damned good at it. “I ferry passengers to and from Mars now, and that’s all that’s going on here.”

Tracy was silent for almost a minute; and when she did speak, I could barely hear her. “I thought maybe . . . maybe you joined this crew so you could . . . see me . . . ”

I looked away. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing how much that had touched me. She wasn’t my reason, though part of me wished she had been.

Trying to keep a steady tone, I answered, “No, I joined this crew to serve under Captain Aames.”

“Nick? He’s a bastard!”

“That ‘bastard’ is the only reason I’m alive today. Me and the twelve other survivors from the second Bradbury expedition.”

“Yes, but . . . The way he treats you! How can you put up with that abuse?”

How could I explain it to her when sometimes I couldn’t even explain it to myself? But I had to try. “The safest place to be in this Solar System is under the command of Nick Aames—but just outside of shouting distance.”

“And inside shouting distance?”

“Third safest. Second safest if you can get him shouting at somebody else.”

Tracy smiled. Despite myself, I did, too. Damn it! I couldn’t do this. I had to keep my distance. If I relaxed, if I let myself loose, it would happen all over again. I couldn’t take another round of losing her.

I squeezed past her. “Come on. The bastard is waiting.”

Nick’s door opened, and the liquid notes of a trumpet emerged, accompanied by a soft drum beat and guitar. It was a sad, sweet tune, “Mue Esquema.” Now there was a title that suited Nick: “My Scheme.” We entered. Nick looked up and silenced the music.

I stood by the door. “As you requested, Captain, Ms. Wells is here to speak with you. I’ll be in my office.”

“No, Chief Carver, stay. I need your perspective on these interviews.”

Nick had me right where he wanted me, but I wasn’t going to acknowledge it. “As the Captain wishes.”

“Ms. Wells, have a seat.”

“Thank you, Nick.” Tracy had never been big on formality, and it looked like she wasn’t going to play by Nick’s rules. No surprise there. She casually dropped into the guest chair, settling easily in the low gravity.

Nick stared directly at Tracy, his hands clasped on the desk. “So . . . You’ve had quite an expedition. It’s been a long time. How long?”

“Almost four years, as you know. You always know details like that.”

“Certainly! Attention to detail is my specialty. And yours, apparently, is distracting and ruining my best officer.”

Tracy held her casual pose, but I could see the rising ire in her eyes. “I ruined him?”

“Look at him standing there, all tense, ready to flinch at any moment.”

“I wasn’t the one who talked him out of his opportunity to go back to Mars! And . . . ”

“I did no such thing.”

“You know full well you did!” Tracy leaned forward. Despite her resolve, Nick was getting to her. He always did. “When you turned down the Liaison post on the Azevedo expedition, you knew there was no way Anson would go with us if you didn’t! Of course he wanted to go back to Mars! What member of the Corps didn’t? Three-quarters of your crew were on our applicant list. I’ve seen it! But not Anson, nooooo! He wouldn’t go on any expedition where you didn’t approve. He wouldn’t leave you.”

“Not even to be with you.”

“Not even to be with me.”

“And that bothers you.”

“No, not any more. It stopped bothering me a long time ago. But it bothered me then.”

“And that’s why you broke up with him.”

“Captain!” I had had enough of the two of them arguing over me as if I weren’t there. “You’re supposed to be investigating—”

“Chief Carver, I am investigating, and I’ll do it my way. I expect you to respect my line of questioning and trust that I have my reasons.”

I sighed, but not loudly. “Aye, Captain.”

Tracy glared at me. “‘Aye, Captain.’ It’s still like that? All right, if you want to pretend this is germane, I won’t give you the satisfaction of fighting with you. I broke up with Anson because it would’ve been unfair to ask him to wait for me for nearly four years through the training and the expedition. It would’ve been different if we were together, but you made sure that wouldn’t happen. He had to get on with his life, even if his ‘life’ was following you and taking your orders.”

“Taking orders. Discipline. Concepts you never really understood, aren’t they? That’s why you fit in so perfectly in the Azevedo expedition.” Tracy didn’t respond, but I could see she wanted to. “Carver tried to warn you about their poor planning, I know he did; but you were Mars struck. Or should I say star struck, perhaps? The great Professor Azevedo was going to Mars, the first mission of the Civilian Exploration Program, and he was taking the best of the best with him! Or at least that’s what his press releases said. And he chose you, a practically unknown film student, to record his journey! You weren’t about to let anything stop you from going. The dazzle of the spotlight blinded you to the actual state of the mission.”

“It didn’t blind me.”

“No?”

“All right, it sounded glamorous and exciting at the start. All my life, I had dreamed of shooting documentaries on other planets and between planets. I wanted to capture life in space and on ships and space stations. That’s how I met Anson, when I was filming at Mission Control one time.”

Nick didn’t interrupt, but I knew what he was thinking. He had told me often that he thought Tracy had used me as a stepping stone for her video ambitions. Tracy’s admissions came uncomfortably close to proving his point.

“But I took my training seriously. Azevedo didn’t train us, you know, we had training from the Corps. From your protocols! And oh, I took notes, and I learned. I wanted to understand what Anson thought was so important, so vital that he would turn down a promotion if he thought the mission was poorly planned. I wanted to learn what made your way so important to him.”

“And did you learn?”

Tracy paused. I knew her face too well, I could read the reluctance there; but then she nodded. “I did. I learned the value of precision and protocol and observation. And . . . your way is right. So I learned.”

“Uh-huh. And your proof is . . . ?”

Tracy pushed a file from her comp to Nick’s desk. “Here’s a list of my reports. And notice in particular the variances: every time I observed a deviation from protocols, I filed a variance. Every variance includes a risk assessment as well, and also my contingency recommendations. Every one filed with Professor Azevedo and also with Gale as the Corps Liaison. It got so they both stopped reviewing my reports. I was never wrong, but still they just kept doing what they wanted. Despite them, I did everything by the book. By your book, Nick.”

“Hmmm . . . We’ll see, won’t we? These records do look impressive. I’ve had Bosun Smith running an inventory of the expedition gear. It’s sloppy, poorly maintained, articles are missing or misplaced . . . As I expected, most of your team weren’t as meticulous as you’ve been here.”

Tracy stared blankly. She was used to abuse and criticism from Nick; but something close to a compliment seemed to baffle her.

When Tracy didn’t respond, Nick prompted her to continue. “All right . . . Tell me about the Chronius Mons trip, and the accident.” I relaxed a bit. Finally we were moving on from personal matters—my personal matters—to the actual subject of the investigation.

Tracy, on the other hand, became less relaxed. As she started into her report, she sat up and looked alert and . . . serious, in a way I wasn’t accustomed to from her. “As you know, Professor Azevedo selected Terra Cimmeria for the first CEP expedition due to two unusual phenomenon observed there, one measured and one inferred. The Mars Global Surveyor measured large magnetic stripes in Cimmeria and Terra Sirenum, which are hypothesized to be evidence of ancient tectonic activity; and albedo spectroscopy had indicated possible carbonate deposits that could be evidence of ancient life. The Professor hoped that by choosing that locale, he would double the chances of a momentous discovery that would bring in new investors for future expeditions.

“But by our hundredth day on Mars, Terra Cimmeria had proven frustrating and disappointing. It wasn’t even that we had negative data to report, just no statistically valid conclusions either way. The magnetic stripes didn’t conform exactly to any of the three standard tectonic models; but they didn’t vary far enough to disprove any of the models, either, nor enough to choose between them. All our data really told us was we would need a lot more data. In the same way, the carbonate deposits were largely albedo spectres; and what deposits we did find were too small, too dispersed for us to make much sense of. They could’ve been remnants of ancient biotics, but they could just be natural mineral phenomena.”

I managed not to stare, but I was surprised. Tracy had never shown much science knowledge before. Oh, she had always been smart, but she had concentrated on filmmaking and project management. She was an artist, not a researcher, and Azevedo had hired her for her video skills. Somehow in the past four years she had developed a whole new side to her.

Tracy continued, “So the Professor decided to make the trek to Chronius Mons. He . . . Well, it might be easier if I just played back my journal.”

Tracy tapped her sleeve comp, and a strange voice emerged. It was almost recognizable, but pitched to a high octave like a cartoon character. “Azevedo Expedition Journal, Day 106. Videographer Wells reporting. After considering my advice—refer variance report 104-27w—Professor Azevedo has filed a revised exploration plan for a two-day hike to Chronius Mons. He believes we may find—”

“Stop!” Nick shouted, and Tracy paused the log. “Enough with the chipmunk log!”

“I’m sorry,” Tracy said, “I don’t even notice it any more. After five months of breathing heliox, I speak ‘chipmunk’ fluently.” To reduce payload mass, Azevedo’s team had brought a helium-oxygen breathing gas mix rather than standard air. It massed only one-third as much, but it had the unfortunate side effect of raising human voices by an octave or more due to the thinner gas. We didn’t bother with it on the Aldrin, since our orbit required almost zero fuel to maintain; but the choice had made a huge impact on Azevedo’s mass budget.

“Well, I hate heliox,” Nick said. “For the sake of my ears, I’d like you to summarize. We can skip the journals.”

“If I have to do a lot of talking, can I get some water? I got spoiled by the heliox, it’s easier to breathe. I’m still readjusting to normal air. My throat always seems dry.”

Nick looked at me. “Carver, fetch the lady some water.” I went to the sink in the corner, poured a glass, and brought it to Tracy. Our fingers touched briefly as she took the glass. I managed to keep my hand from trembling.

Tracy took a drink, and then she resumed. “With the carbonates disappointing and the plate tectonics inconclusive, Professor Azevedo didn’t have much to show for the expedition. So he announced a new mission objective. I told him that was clearly outside of all protocols; but he overruled my objections, as usual, and said we had plenty of safety margin for a trek to Chronius Mons. He said we had spectroscopic evidence of significant and unusual phosphorus outcroppings on the upper slopes. We had no particular theory to test, no reason for scouting for phosphorus. It was data gathering and grandstanding, nothing more. And the spectroscopic assay was far from conclusive, as I told him.”

“Oh? And when did you get a degree in chemistry?”

Nick’s question had been mocking, so Tracy’s answer surprised him as well as me. “I started the program during mission training, and then I got my degree on the trip out on the Collins. I had to do something to fill my spare time.” She glanced in my direction, then looked back to Nick. “Anson always told me how important it is for expedition members to cross train so that critical skills have backups. ‘Videographer’ isn’t a critical mission skill, even if the Professor saw it as such; but a grounding in chemistry made me a backup for a number of personnel.”

I actually saw Nick nod at Tracy’s answer. That was as close to praise as she was likely to get.

When Tracy realized Nick had nothing to say, she continued. “So Professor Azevedo insisted on Chronius Mons. In truth, I think he was looking for challenge and adventure. He kept talking about scaling the highest point on the Terra and the great panoramas I could film from up there. He wanted something that would make great publicity. This wasn’t really for the scientists, it was all for the money folks and the media back home.

“He also insisted that we could hike the distance in two days and make the climb in two more, rather than risk a lander flight in the questionable winds. We had no ground vehicles, so it was hike or fly or stay at the camp; and he wouldn’t consider the last two choices.

“Professor Azevedo selected Lieutenant Gale and Dr. Ivanovitch for the hike, and also myself to record it. Gale selected himself, really: as Astronaut Corps Liaison, he had supervisory authority over any trip outside the bounds of the camp. He didn’t always exercise that authority, but he insisted for that trip. Margo also insisted on coming, and the Professor wasn’t inclined to say no to his wife—especially since she financed much of the expedition.

“We loaded up sledges with supplies. I personally prepared the equipment plan, but then was overruled time and again by the Professor and Gale. Still, I think we were adequately prepared when we left. We had three Mars tents—”

Nick’s eyebrow raised. “Three tents? For five people?”

“I know, protocols call for two: a primary for all of us, and a backup. But again, I was overruled. We also had food, water, tanks of heliox, spare clothes, comm gear, spare clothes, the doctor’s med kit, a telescope, a microscope, shovels, sample bags, pitons, hammers, plenty of S3 cable, computers, a satellite locator, flare guns, an emergency beacon, a chemical mini lab, a mineralogical kit, videography gear, suit repair kits.

“Despite the frequent stops for photo ops, the hike to the mountain went quickly, and it was pretty uneventful. Even pulling the loaded sledges, it was light work in the Martian gravity. We walked all day and set up camp, two nights in a row as scheduled. Inevitably Dr. Ivanovitch broke out his vodka. I had long since given up fighting that, and he was too professional to drink to excess when he was the sole medic on that trip. But I had to nag him and Gale to see to equipment maintenance before they started drinking each night.”

“And did they?”

“See the reports, here. I didn’t have the opportunity to inspect the gear stored in the other two tents. I encouraged the others to do standard inspections. As you can see, the inspections were spotty; but in aggregate, most of the gear was covered. Except . . . ” She paused and pointed.

“Except the Professor’s climbing gear, including the S3 cables.”

“Mmmhmmm. It hadn’t been unpacked since we left Earth, so he saw no need to inspect that.

“And then we reached the mountain. Chronius Mons, the highest peak in that quadrant. We had done mountaineering training in Peru, all in full Mars suits. The mountain was tall, but it looked like only an average difficulty climb, and even less thanks to the gravity. And I’ll give the team credit: while they were lax on most mission protocols, they took the climb seriously. They tested every handhold, double checked every piton. And so . . . it came as a complete shock to me . . . when . . . ” Tracy stopped, her face anguished. Old instincts kicked in, and I wanted to comfort her; but before I had to decide whether to follow those instincts, she gathered her strength and continued. “Professor Azevedo’s cable snapped. Any one of us could’ve been on that cable at that time, but it happened to be him. He . . . fell. He fell so slowly in the Martian gravity. He had plenty of time to cry out for help. But even on Mars, three-hundred feet is . . . too far. His cries ended in a sickening crunch before his suit comm cut out.

“Margo wanted to rush down to him, and it was all we could do to restrain her so we didn’t end up with another casualty. Carefully we rappelled and climbed down to him, taking nearly five minutes. Thanks to his suit’s automatic seals and med systems, he was still alive; but the doctor shook his head. He said the Professor needed emergency surgery immediately.

“And that just wasn’t possible. We had to descend another hundred feet to a ledge large enough to set up a Mars tent. Despite our best efforts, the climb inflicted further injuries. Then we had to set up the tent, pressurize it, and get the Professor out of his suit. Dr. Ivanovitch set up for emergency surgery, and Gale and I assisted. The doctor gave his best effort, but it was far too late.” Tracy swallowed drily. “The Professor died twenty minutes after the start of surgery. He had never really stood a chance.”

I was . . . puzzled. Puzzled but impressed. The old Tracy would often be overwhelmed by her empathy. Sometimes I thought she used the camera to put up a layer between her and the suffering she observed. But now . . . Now she was distraught, but she reported the incident in full, maintaining her composure for the most part. She had grown stronger—but not, I hoped, less empathetic.

As I thought on this, Tracy continued. “With the Professor dead, Gale assumed command. Oh, Margo might have contested that if she had tried, but she was in no shape to make any decisions. We bundled the Professor back into his suit for transport, and Gale led us back down the slope. There we had to rest for another night. We were physically and emotionally spent. The next day we double-timed it back to the camp.

“The rest is in my reports over the remaining month and a half until your pickup. We did our best to continue exploration and sampling, trying to salvage what we could for our objectives. Margo slowly regained enough energy to argue about who was in charge of the expedition. Legally she had the stronger case, but Gale kept arguing that we needed a professional in charge.”

Nick nodded. “You did. Too bad all you had was Gale.”

Tracy almost smiled at that. “The camp was pretty small, so their arguments made the place very unpleasant, with different members of the expedition lining up with her or with him. Dr. Ivanovitch and I eventually managed to calm things down by appealing to Azevedo’s memory. His personality had united the expedition in the first place, and it was enough in the end to keep us alive until you arrived. The rest is in my reports.”

Tracy took one last drink of water and then set her glass down on Nick’s desk. “So that’s my summary. Is that what you need?”

“Yes, if you’ve told me the whole story, then we’re done here.

“I wouldn’t keep anything secret. That’s against mission protocols.”

“Ms. Wells, I have learned in my command career that people keep all sorts of things secret when they’re trying to protect their own careers and their own reputations. If they have a guilty conscience or they think perhaps they contributed to some mistake, they keep secrets, and they lie. I’ve learned to ferret out details that people would rather hide. I won’t be lied to on my ship.”

“You will find that my reports are complete in every detail, and as factual as I could make them. I did everything I could, but I lacked the authority to override Professor Azevedo’s decisions.”

Nick looked over his comp. “I wouldn’t have expected it, but it does seem that way. So considering everything, I have to say that perhaps your training wasn’t wasted. You mastered the protocols, which is more than I can say for your leadership.”

Tracy stared blankly at Nick. I did as well. He had just come very close to complimenting her, at least by Nick’s standards.

But she quickly recovered. “Then if you don’t mind, I still have videos to edit before we get to Earth.” Tracy stood to leave, but she stopped and turned at the door. “Goodbye, Anson.” And then she left.

After Tracy was gone, I turned on Nick. “You never once asked her about the cable and the nanos! The . . . the murder!”

“I didn’t need to.”

“What?”

“I heard what I needed to hear. Now I know the basic outline of the trip and Azevedo’s death: who was present, what their roles were, and so on. I’ll talk to her again later if I need more details.”

I knew better than to push Nick. He would keep his secrets until he saw a need to reveal them. Besides, I had something else on my mind. I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking: “Did you have to be so hard on her?”

“Yes, Mr. Carver, I did. I have my reasons.”

“And you had to drag me into it? What was the point of that?”

“Carver, I am conducting a criminal investigation. Didn’t you ever read mysteries? Means, motive, opportunity: those are the classic requirements for solving a crime, and a key part of that is motives. I have to understand the people involved and what drives them. So I had to know where she stood in regards to you and in regards to that expedition. I had to know everything about her.”

I was in no mood to be mollified. “You just can’t resist picking at old wounds, can you?”

“Your wounds or hers? I’m not convinced she has any.”

“What did she do to deserve that?”

“What did she do? You ought to remember! Are you going to let her do this to you again?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You are! You’re going to let her just use you for whatever it is she’s up to: chew you up, spit you out, and leave you crying in your beer. Again!”

“It’s not like that!”

“It’s always like that!”

“Look, just because your wife and your kids aren’t talking to you any more doesn’t mean it’s like that for everyone!”

“It was last time!”

“It wasn’t like that last time, either. Relationships just sometimes . . . They just sometimes end!”

“Yep, it ended when she got what she wanted.”

“That’s not fair! She had the chance to go to Mars, and she took it! I did the same thing when I had the chance. I can’t blame her for that.”

“Uh-huh. You went with me. She went with Azevedo, and now he’s dead. That was mighty poor judgment on her part. She’s lucky she’s still alive.”

“That’s not fair! You heard her. She studied! She learned your mission protocols. She did everything possible to ensure the success of that expedition.”

“Hmmm . . . Yes, she did, didn’t she? I have to admit, that surprised me. A chemistry degree? Surprising, yes.”

Nick sat in silence, clasping his hands and staring at his fingers. I realized he had gotten to me again. He always probed for weakness, always had to know where someone might fail him. I stood, fuming but patient, determined not to give in to his testing.

At last Nick looked up. “All right, Ms. Wells has given her report, and that’s a start. But I need another perspective. Carver, express my condolences, but bring me Margo Azevedo.”

I found Mrs. Azevedo alone in her cabin. She had it to herself, a luxury we normally couldn’t spare even for important passengers such as her. But on this trip, I had triple-berthed some junior crew to open up a private cabin for her. I figured she deserved some solitude if she needed it. The ship might be too damned crowded for her otherwise.

When I signaled the door, it took Mrs. Azevedo almost a minute to open it. She was a tall, dark-toned woman with dark hair that showed some gray. In her pre-mission photos there had been no gray, but hair dye was just another luxury not to be found on Mars. Despite the gray, she still looked much like the fashion model she had been in her youth, back before she turned her earnings into shrewd business investments and a major fortune.

Her once elegant face was lined with grief. She wasn’t red-eyed from crying like she had been earlier in the voyage. Five months of travel from Mars had gotten her past the deepest grief. But she still looked very weary, and I felt guilty for having to disturb her. But guilty feeling or no, Nick had his reasons and I had my orders.

Mrs. Azevedo summoned the energy to speak. “Yes, Chief Carver, can I help you?”

“Begging your pardon, ma’am. I hate to disturb you, but I have orders from the Captain. He has sent me to request that you come to his office. He has some matters to discuss.”

“What . . . What’s it about?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m not at liberty to comment on the Captain’s business.” That was a lie, of course, but I didn’t want to explain to her that someone had killed her husband. And I didn’t want to even consider that she might be a suspect. But as we walked through the ship, I realized I had an obligation to prepare her for Nick’s investigation. “Ma’am, you know that Captain Aames can be a bit . . . brusque.”

“‘Brusque’ hardly goes far enough.”

“Ma’am, I don’t think you understand.”

“Please, Chief, don’t treat me like a china doll. This is a rough time for me, but believe me, I’ll get by. I’ve been making my fortune the hard way since before you were born: first on the fashion runways, and then on the spaceplane runways. And I saw plenty of ugly corporate battles in between, I survived all of them, and I triumphed. I’ve faced opponents far ruder than Captain Aames.”

Despite myself, I grinned. “There’s no one ruder than Captain Aames.”

She laughed; and for a moment I saw the charm she had used to win backing for this expedition. “Nick Aames can be a smug, self-righteous asshole, no doubt. I appreciate your concern. But don’t worry. I’ve handled Nick before, and I can handle him today.”

“Of course.” I knew the basics, so she didn’t have to explain; but she seemed to need to talk, like the silence was too much for her.

“Nick was . . . Paolo’s first choice for the Astronaut Corps Liaison for our expedition. I thought it was a done deal, but Nick and Paolo couldn’t agree on terms. Nick insisted on rewriting the entire mission plan to his exacting standards.”

I nodded. “The Captain would do that.”

“But his standards . . . were too exacting. Too much redundancy, too much expense. Paolo wanted a streamlined mission—still a safe mission!—so that we could keep to an affordable budget. He said a mission to Nick’s standards would never get launched; and Nick said that was fine with him, and he hoped Paolo’s mission would never launch, either. He said the Civilian Exploration Program couldn’t afford to have its first expedition go wrong, and that that would undermine support for the program. And now . . . I fear he’ll be proven correct.” Her face darkened, and I looked discreetly away. “Nick stormed out that day, and we had to hire Lieutenant Gale instead. Gale is a fine officer, and he gave us none of Nick’s troubles. But rest assured, I know Nick’s moods, and I’m ready for him.”

“I hope so, ma’am.”

We arrived at Nick’s outer office. We entered the command office in the middle of a samba tune. Nick stood to the side of the desk, absently bouncing to the beat. If we had been alone, I would’ve told him what a lousy dancer he is, even in one-quarter G. That’s a common jibe in our ongoing duels. But I would never disrespect an officer in his official capacity.

The song soon ended, and Nick sat down. I pulled out the visitor chair for Mrs. Azevedo.

Nick leaned on his desk. “Ah, Mrs. Azevedo. Much as I wish otherwise, I’m afraid I’ve opened an investigation into the tragic incident on your expedition. Some information has come to me about your equipment, and it’s very troubling.”

Mrs. Azevedo started to speak, looking agitated; then she paused and regained her control. “Captain Aames, are we going to discuss this again?”

“I have some concerns.”

“Yes, Nick, I’m well aware of your concerns from before.”

“And now you can see that I was right, and Paolo’s carelessness has gotten someone killed. At least it was him, not someone who trusted him.”

“Nick!” I couldn’t help myself. That was over the line, even for Nick.

But Mrs. Azevedo wasn’t disturbed. “No, Chief, he’s just trying to provoke me. I won’t let him do that. Yes, Captain, you predicted a disaster, and it happened. But none of your dire predictions came to pass. What happened was something you never foresaw, a freak cable accident and nothing more. I stand by my original decision that your fears were groundless, and you were afflicted with your usual excess of caution and your pathological need for control.”

“And I stand by my original decision. I wanted nothing to do with your poorly planned vanity expedition. Only a fool would take your offer, and I’m no fool. But you found your fool in Gale, didn’t you?”

“All right, Nick, if it makes you happy: I wish you had taken my offer. Maybe if you had been our Liaison . . . ” She trailed off, but we all knew what went unspoken: maybe Nick could’ve gotten Azevedo safely back to shelter in time to save his life. Or maybe Nick would’ve prevented the accident in the first place.

Nick’s face turned more serious. Perhaps his conscience was tweaking him just a bit. “I’m sorry, Margo, that would never happen. I can’t take a mission I don’t believe in.”

“And so you took this instead?” Mrs. Azevedo leaned forward. “I know there are some in the Corps and in Mission Control who will never forgive you for the second Bradbury incident, even though the review board ratified your every decision. There were many who told me I was a fool for wanting you for Liaison for this expedition. I wanted you anyway. Okay, you turned me down, you explained your reasons. But then, to take this job . . . Nick, you’re throwing away your talents here. You’re better than this! You’re more than . . . more than a glorified subway conductor! If you didn’t want to be on my mission, you would’ve been invaluable in program management.”

“And work with fools like Lee Klein? Not a chance.”

“Judgmental as always, aren’t you? Everyone in your eyes is a loser or a fool.”

“No, not everyone. There are fifteen billion people back there on those two worlds. They’re not all losers. Ninety percent of them are ordinary folks, minding their own business, going about their day, not causing me any trouble. And there’s maybe half a dozen people worth actually spending time with. But that leaves that 10 percent—one and a half billion—idiots, jerks, losers, and psychopaths.”

“And so you’ll lock yourself up here with only a couple of dozen.”

“Yep. A couple of dozen, and I’m smarter than all of ’em. And I’m in charge.”

“All right. You’re the Captain, you’re in charge here. Are you happy now?”

Nick paused. When he started again, his tone was lower and more reserved. Nick can be respectful when he chooses. “Margo, I know we clash. And I clashed with Paolo, too. It’s my nature, not anything to do with you. I call them like I see them, and sometimes I neglect how people might feel. So please accept my condolences. I didn’t agree with Paolo’s plans, but it wasn’t personal. He was a good man. I’m very sorry.”

Mrs. Azevedo stared down at the floor, but she nodded. “Thank you, Nick. That means . . . a lot. Chief Carver says you have questions for me?”

Nick hesitated again. “This will be . . . difficult, I’m afraid. But I need to hear about the trip to Chronius Mons.”

Mrs. Azevedo’s tone was flat. “It’s in our reports.”

“I know. It’s . . . important that I hear it in your own words.”

She nodded; and then she started slowly retelling the story. She echoed Tracy’s version, but without Tracy’s critical judgments about mission protocols. In fact she made every effort to portray her husband in a positive light. On the subject of Terra Cimmeria, she saw the site selection as a great success: “Oh, we didn’t find evidence to decide among the competing theories, but we have radically improved on the precision of the orbital data. Now we know exactly where we should plan new expeditions to definitively rewrite the geological history of Mars. Paolo already submitted a paper on that before . . . the accident.” She similarly saw the carbonate data as eliminating a lot of possibilities, pointing the way to new research.

And then she got to a crucial point: the reasons for the Chronius Mons trip. She saw it very differently than Tracy had. “That was in the back of Paolo’s mind all along. That was why he insisted on bringing Wells on the expedition in the first place: he wanted to show humanity the grandeur of Mars, the grand vistas and the sweep of the unknown. He wanted . . . He wanted to excite people, ignite their sense of adventure.”

“Yes,” Nick agreed, “he was a visionary. Or that’s how he saw himself, which is visionary enough. That was what worried me about him: that vision blinded him to flaws in his plans. He had this sense that ‘destiny’ would see him past any problems.” Mrs. Azevedo didn’t answer, but her face turned down. “And he would tackle any obstacle, follow any path for that destiny. How fortunate for him that he married into enough money to fund his visions.”

“Nick!” Again I was stunned that even Nick could be so callous; but before I could say more, Mrs. Azevedo held up a hand to stop me. She glared at Nick.

“So that comes up again.” Her tone was bitter. “You said as much during expedition planning. You think he married me for money?”

“Well, there are always many motivations that lead into a decision like that. You were young and attractive, and you bought into his vision. The money was just an added benefit; but as it happened, it was a crucial benefit in order for him to succeed.”

She paused; and when she answered, she spoke slowly, restraining her emotions. “I know you’re a cynic, Nick. I know you would never understand what Paolo and I had. But to question it . . . now . . . I didn’t think even you could be that cruel.”

Nick leaned back in his chair and shrugged. “You call it cruel, I call it diligent. I have to get some answers.”

“Fine, here are your answers. I love Paolo. He . . . loved me. We had problems, everyone does, but we shared so much more than just Mars plans.”

Nick looked down at his desk. “So noted. My apologies, but I have to be thorough. Please, continue.”

Mrs. Azevedo looked at Nick, considered, and then went on. Soon she got to the subject of supplying the expedition, and Nick again asked about the three tents. She seemed surprised by the question. “Why is that important?”

“I can’t tell what’s important,” Nick explained. “Details matter. That’s what I tried to tell your husband: details matter, and you can’t guess which ones. So why three tents?”

“Well, we had them to spare, so why not? Paolo and I had a tent for ourselves. The command tent, as it were. Besides, we were entitled to our privacy. Ivan and Gale shared another tent, and Wells slept in the third. We divided supplies among the three tents so that an accident with one wouldn’t affect other supplies. You should approve of precautions like that.”

“Hmmm. Yes, I approve of precautions; but protocol here is entirely different. For a mission that size, two tents would have been proper: one for all of you to share, and one as a backup for that. It might be less comfortable to squeeze five into a tent, but it would’ve given adequate safety margins and less mass to transport.”

“Yes, yes, I’ve read your recommendation. We decided we could handle the mass, and we wanted the comfort. And ultimately it had nothing to do with Paolo’s accident, so can we just drop it?”

Nick didn’t answer. He had made his point, so he let her continue. He also didn’t comment when Mrs. Azevedo discussed their stops for the night; but even I could see that Tracy had been correct: the team had performed only perfunctory equipment inspections. Their uneventful time on Mars to that point had made them sloppy—or sloppier, as Nick would say.

And there was something else: something about the expedition had distressed her, and she had difficulty discussing it. She drew out the discussion with a lot of trivialities, stopping and repeating points. It took her twice as long to describe the trip as it had Tracy, and yet she revealed less. Was she just postponing the discussion yet to come? Maybe; but I saw Nick eyeing her carefully as if he suspected something more.

And then finally she discussed the climb; and then the fall and the attempted rescue. She started to choke up when she got to the surgery, tears flowing; and Nick showed unexpected kindness by stopping her there. “That’s enough, Margo. I only need to know what led to the incident. I have a clear picture of what came after. Carver, give her your handkerchief.” I did, and she dabbed her eyes.

Nick was being uncharacteristically kind, but I knew it couldn’t last. Sooner or later, he would point out again how this was all Professor Azevedo’s fault. Before he could get the chance, I spoke up. “Captain, if we’re done, Mrs. Azevedo has had a long day. Can I escort her back to her cabin?”

Nick seemed a little distant. “What?” Then he recovered. “Oh, yes, we’re done here. But I’ve summoned Bosun Smith. She can see to Margo. I have more duties for you.”

Just then the office door opened, and Smith came in: a large, competent woman who I knew to also have a compassionate side when she needed it. Nick was right: Mrs. Azevedo might appreciate having a woman’s support after putting up with him. But he would never admit that was his motive.

Bosun Smith stood at attention. Nick looked at her, a questioning look on his face. “Well?”

Smith lifted her sleeve comp and pushed a file to Nick’s desk. “There’s my full report, Captain. A number of items are missing, as indicated, and the necessary maintenance reports haven’t been filed for much of the rest.”

Nick nodded at Smith, and then rose. “Margo, again, I’m sorry. If I could’ve prevented this pain for you, I would’ve. We’ll talk again. Ms. Smith, please see Mrs. Azevedo to her cabin.” Smith saluted and then offered an arm. Mrs. Azevedo took it and leaned on Smith’s shoulder as they left the office.

When the door closed, I turned back to Nick. My questions were the same as before. “I hate to repeat myself—”

“Then don’t,” Nick interrupted. “Everything is going as I planned.”

“This is a plan?” I couldn’t see how Nick could learn anything about the murder this way.

“Yes. I’m learning what I need to know. Besides, didn’t you hear that undertone? There’s something she’s not saying, something she feels guilty about.”

I hadn’t heard it. I mean, I’d heard something wrong, and noted it; but I hadn’t picked up on guilt. She was a grieving widow! I expected some distress. But Nick had always been better at reading people than I was. He himself might come across as a one-note scold and a control junkie, but he was excellent at ferreting out hidden motivations and secrets.

“What would she have to feel guilty about?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve no idea. For that I need the help of an incurable gossip. And so I guess it’s time to speak with Horace Gale.”

I tracked down Lieutenant Gale in the Rec Lounge. As had been the norm on this trip, knots of expedition crew occupied the tables, and our off-duty crew hung near, each imagining what it must have been like to be down on Mars. But strangely, when I found Gale in the corner with Riggs they were discussing football, not Mars.

“Yes sir, Lieutenant.” Riggs’s enthusiasm was all over his face. He was eager to talk about football leagues with a fellow Brit. “Absolutely it’s Manchester’s year. They’ve been rebuilding for five now. It’s their time!”

“Well, Karl, I’m not so sure. Liverpool is looking pretty strong.”

“Liverpool?” Riggs nearly exploded with laughter. “They’ll barely finish the season. They’re old and tired.”

“You’re right, you’re right. Still, they have experience.”

Riggs raised an eyebrow. “In football, sir, isn’t that just another word for ‘old’?”

“All right, they’re old, I’ll admit it.” Gale laughed. “But just remember: in the Astronaut Corps, it’s not age, it’s seniority.” Riggs joined the laughter on that line, though I thought his sounded a bit forced.

I cleared my throat, and Gale looked up. “Yes, Chief Carver?”

“Lieutenant Gale, the Captain would like to see you, sir.”

“Oh, Nick causing trouble again, eh?”

“It’s not my place to comment on what trouble the Captain might cause, sir. If you’ll come with me, please.”

“I suppose. I knew this was coming eventually. Well, Mr. Riggs, it has been a pleasure. See you at SP?”

Riggs raised a glass to Gale. “Indeed, sir. Thank you!”

We set off to the Captain’s cabin. As soon as we were alone, Gale turned to the subject I knew was coming. “So, Carver, have you had enough of Aames and this tin can yet?”

I deflected. “The Aldrin is no ‘tin can’, sir. It’s a masterwork of engineering, and it gets better every cycle as we add rings and capacity.”

But Gale wasn’t about to let up so easily. “Yes, yes, but it’s still a glorified transport ship. You’re a fine officer, Carver, you deserve better. If you had the Space Professionals behind you, you might get a better posting.”

The SPs were something of an “astronauts’ guild”, though they never used that term. They advocated for more influence over mission planning. Ideally that would be something Nick would support. His feuds with Mission Control were legendary in the Corps. But Nick had laughingly rebuffed their efforts to recruit him, saying that they were more Politicals than Professionals. And that included Gale, who had a lot of influence in the movement. As Nick explained it to me: “It’s the only way a bumbler like Gale can hope to get work. Before long they’ll have work rules that say I can’t dismiss any crew member any damned time I please; and next thing you know someone’ll get killed because of those rules. Why would I be part of that?”

Since they had failed to recruit Nick, the SPs had worked on me, hoping I might influence him; but I found Nick’s arguments to be irrefutable as usual. There were some good people in the SPs, but a lot of them were just looking for more money for less work. I was tempted to answer as bluntly as Nick would; but instead I simply said, “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, but I can’t imagine a better posting than this, or a better commander than Captain Aames.”

And with that, I opened the door to Nick’s office. We entered to the sounds of bossa nova, but this time Nick didn’t make us wait, turning off the music immediately. “Ah, Horace . . . ” Nick exaggerated the name: “Horace.”

“Hello, Nick. So this is where you say ‘I told you so’?”

Nick waved his hand dismissively. “Waste of my time. We both know it.”

“Yes, but I’m sure you’ve just been waiting for the chance.”

“No, I’ve been avoiding the lot of you as best I can. I may have to transport you, but that doesn’t mean I have to sit here and listen to the mistakes I knew would happen.”

Gale sat in the visitor chair while I remained standing. “So, Nick, what’s this about?”

“Well, Horace, we do need some discussion regarding the fate of your ill-planned mission.”

“Yes.” Gale sighed. “Get on with it.”

“That final trip across the desert . . . It was just the five of you?”

“Yes: me, Paolo, Margo, Ivan, and Tracy.”

“So you had five people, and yet you had three Mars tents. Wasn’t that a little bit of excess weight to carry? You could’ve carried more consumables?”

I was confused. Again with the tents? What did that have to do with the sabotage of Azevedo’s cable? But Gale didn’t seem to find the question unusual. “The Mars protocols—which you wrote—say we should have a backup for every piece of essential equipment. Mars isn’t Earth, where we might survive without a tent.”

“Yes, so two tents would give you a backup. But three? Those tents will hold six.”

“Yes . . . ”

“So why did you have three? You didn’t need them for storage.”

“Well, we did store supplies separately in each tent. ‘No single point of failure,’ that’s in the protocols, too. If something happened to one supply cache, we would still have the others.”

“Oh, so you didn’t even reserve them as backups? You deployed all three tents?” Nick already knew that from Tracy and Mrs. Azevedo. I could only assume he was feigning ignorance to keep Gale talking.

“Yes. Paolo and Margo wanted their privacy, you know.” Nick looked up, but Gale shook his head. “No, not for sex, for fighting. They did an awful lot of arguing on the expedition . . . I’m sure Margo regrets it now.”

I nodded. That might explain the guilt that Nick had detected. But Nick showed no reaction and continued his questioning. “So the lovebirds insisted on their own tent. And the three of you remaining needed two tents because . . . ?”

“Well, Tracy insisted we should share a tent. ‘That’s the protocol,’ she said, ‘and I don’t want to write up another variance.’ The girl is almost as mad as you, Nick, always writing up variances and insisting on following protocols to the letter. She acted like she was in charge, not just a videographer. But Ivan said he wanted more space.”

“I see. And you bunked with Ivan because . . . ”

“Well, because Tracy was making such a row about protocols, I finally got fed up with her.”

“But why, Horace? You knew she was right.”

“Of course she was ‘right’.”

“Then why—”

“Because I didn’t want to keep fighting about it!” Gale was red-faced. I could tell that Nick knew his buttons; and Nick can never resist pushing buttons, testing to see where your breaking point is. It looked like he had found Gale’s. “Why make such a big deal about it?”

Nick steepled his fingers and looked up at the ceiling. “I’m finding I have a new respect for Ms. Wells. If she annoyed you this much, she must’ve been doing something right.” Gale scowled, and Nick smiled. “Same old Horace . . . You’re smart enough to know what the right thing is, but you’re too weak to fight for it.”

“I heard enough of this from you before the expedition, and I am tired of it now!”

“Good! If I provoke you enough, you can show a little backbone. But you never seem to when it matters. That’s why Paolo chose you as Corps Liaison, you know.”

“What?”

“You won’t argue with the wrong decision, even if you know it might get somebody killed. You’re too eager to get along. You’re too nice. Space doesn’t give a damn about nice.”

“If you’re going to bring that up again, then I think this conversation is over.”

“No. I’m still Captain on this ship, and we’re still outside the gravipause. This conversation is over when I say it’s over. Chief Carver?”

I straightened. “Yes, Captain.”

“If he tries to leave, sit on him.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Horace, you are a weak man. I wouldn’t send my worst enemy on an expedition where you made the decisions. You won’t stand up for what’s right, and that may have gotten Paolo killed.” Gale’s face showed dismay, but not shock. Suddenly I was sure he had already reached the same conclusion, and guilt was tearing at him. And then I was also sure: if he felt his mistakes might be responsible for Paolo’s death, and he felt remorse at the possibility, then he couldn’t be the murderer.

Gale seemed to rally, mounting a weak counter offense. “I needn’t worry about sending men on an expedition with you, since no one in the Corps will have you.”

“Nope, they won’t. Klein and the rest of Mission Control want a bunch of yes men and toadies.”

Gale sat in silence, looking at the floor in sullen silence. Nick let the silence hang for several seconds before continuing. “One more thing . . . What did Paolo and Margo argue about?”

It took Gale a few moments to answer. Finally he looked up at Nick. “I shouldn’t . . . shouldn’t say. It’s a personal matter, and it’s in bad form to mention it now. But I know you, Nick. You’re going to gnaw on this until you get an answer, aren’t you?” Nick just stared at Gale. Gale looked away. “All right . . . Margo was jealous of Tracy. She said several times that she was sure Paolo and Tracy were sleeping together.” I winced, but I managed to control my reaction beyond that. “I’m not sure when they would’ve had the opportunity. It’s very close quarters on Mars, and very tight schedules, as you know. But she was sure they were grabbing spare moments here and there. Certainly Paolo showed an excessive interest in Tracy.”

“Ah, there we go! A classic motivation for mischief, eh?”

“Mischief? Who said anything about mischief?”

“Oh, I’m looking for motivations. That was one of Azevedo’s biggest mistakes, you know, he didn’t consider the range of interpersonal problems that might arise. And you didn’t help him any.” Gale glared again, and Nick returned to his previous tack. “So you have no reason to suspect foul play?”

“Oh, no! And especially not Margo! She couldn’t have. Oh, they fought, but . . . ”

“So she couldn’t have. And you, no doubt, will proclaim your innocence. You’re narrowing down the list of suspects.”

“What’s all this about suspects, Nick? What, you think some sort of crime was committed?”

“Oh, I am certain that a crime has been committed. Now I’m just trying to determine by whom. All right, Mr. Carver, I’m through with him. You can let him leave.”

Gale stood stiffly and headed for the door. He glanced at me, but he turned away at my impassive response; and then he left.

I looked at Nick. “So I suppose you want me to summon Dr. Ivanovitch next?”

“Oh? No, I have no need to talk with the good doctor.”

“You don’t think he could’ve killed Azevedo? Maybe he sabotaged the cable; and then after Azevedo survived, he did a poor job of treating him?”

“No, I am quite certain that Dr. Ivanovitch is much too smart for this crime.”

I didn’t understand what intelligence had to do with it; but I knew Nick would explain when he was ready, and not until. So I tried another line of questioning. “At last you’ve gotten around to the subject of the crime; but why didn’t you ask Gale about the cable?”

“Oh, trust me, I’m very curious about the cable. But I was waiting to see if he would bring it up.”

“What? Why would he do that?”

“Why, indeed? That’s what I’ve been waiting for: one of them to bring up the cable.”

“Nick, that makes no sense. The last thing the murderer would want to do is draw attention to the cable. That’s evidence!”

“Ummhmmm.” But Nick said no more. He just stared at me as if waiting for me to reach some obvious conclusion. But whatever that conclusion was, it eluded me.

Besides, I had another concern tugging at my mind. “What’s with your obsession with their sleeping arrangements? You don’t seriously believe that . . . that Tracy was . . . ”

“Whether I believe it or not is inconsequential. And I’m not sure why it matters to you, either, if you’re over her like you say you are. But if it soothes your worries any: no, I don’t believe it. Unless she’s fooling me—and she’s not—she has changed. She’s too professional to risk the expedition over an affair.

“But what matters is: does Margo believe it? If so, that might have motivated her anger during the expedition, as Gale said; and perhaps it motivates her guilt now. This is a complex case, and it’s all about motivations at this point. I understand the crime, so now I just need to understand who had a motive.”

“So what now? More interviews? Whom do I fetch next?”

Nick shook his head. “No more interviews quite yet. I need to think. Tell Bosun Smith I have some errands for her, and then you can go about your duties.”

Nick didn’t bother dismissing me. I knew him well enough to know I was dismissed when he turned on the music. It was another classic, “Parece Mentira,” from an old Brazilian saying: “It seems like a lie.”

But instead of going about my duties, my watch was over. Not that that really mattered: on Nick’s ship, you were off duty when Nick said you were off duty, and not until. And that was doubly true for me as his second in command. Still, I had nothing on my schedule; and I had had a long, emotionally draining day already. I needed to unwind like I hadn’t needed in nearly . . . four years. So I headed back to the Rec Lounge.

But when I got there, I knew I wouldn’t be able to escape my troubles after all. Tracy was there, and she had a large audience gathered for a preview of the final cut of her big documentary. There was a large mix of expedition members and Aldrin crew. Tracy opened with some production notes and then started the show; but she stopped occasionally for more notes or to invite comments from expedition members. Riggs sat in the front, right next to Gale, and he asked lots of questions and took notes on Gale’s answers.

But my attention was reserved for Tracy. She had cleaned up for this presentation, switching to a freshly pressed jumpsuit. She had let her hair down so it hung around her shoulders the way I always liked it. Again I smelled lilac water, and I tried to shake it out of my memory; but it wouldn’t go away. Her eyes lit up as she explained details of the expedition and her filming; and she was an engaging speaker, as always. I knew that wasn’t just my heart speaking, as the crowd hung on her every word. But the documentary stood on its own just fine even without her production notes and her enthusiasm.

It was really good. She covered the highlights of planning and training. She showed just enough of the flight out on the Collins to give the flavor without losing the viewer in the tedium of five months in orbit. She vividly captured the blend of exhilaration and terror of landing in the Ishiro-class shuttles. She showed the camp setup and the scientific experiments, including both the disappointments and the tantalizing hints for the future.

And she covered Professor Azevedo’s death. Oh, she had no film of the incident itself. The rescue had taken all their efforts, so there was no film. But she had a computer animation of the scene, with stick figures tastefully substituted for the real participants. She showed exactly what went wrong—except, of course, that she didn’t mention the salt contamination. Nick hadn’t revealed that yet; and if Tracy knew . . . No, I didn’t want to contemplate how she might know.

I was still wrapped up in these thoughts, not even noticing that the film had ended, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Before I turned, the scent of lilacs swept over me. It was Tracy. Old habits took over before I could even think, and I smiled at her. When she smiled back at me, I almost reached out for her; but at least I held that reaction in check.

“So what did you think?” she asked as she sat across from me.

“I . . . ” I searched for the words. Then I decided to just be upfront. “It’s brilliant. Your best work ever.”

“Thank you, Anson. That means a lot.”

“Except . . . In your report to Nick, you were so harsh on Azevedo and his team for their poor planning. You didn’t miss a note, and you didn’t pull a punch. And yet none of that came through here.”

Tracy hesitated. I could see that I had caught her in a conflict. “Anson, there are two stories of the expedition: the story of what went wrong, and the story of what went right. A lot went wrong, and that’s all in my reports; but even with all the inconclusive experiments, even with the Professor’s death, he accomplished his primary goals. He showed that Mars is a place where people will go, not just an elite group of professional astronauts. And where people go, people will die. People make mistakes. We’re not all perfect robots. We’re . . . We’re not all Nick Aames. If we let imperfection stop us, we’ll never go anywhere.”

“Imperfection gets people killed.”

“Yes, and perfection can’t always save them, either. Have you forgotten the Bradbury?”

I would never forget the Bradbury, and she knew that. We had lost a lot of good crew in that incident. “But don’t you feel like this is a lie?”

“No, it’s the other side of the story. When we get to Earth, I know the media will be full of reports of the accident again—my own reports. They’re going to give Gale and that bunch another weapon to use in their argument: ‘Space isn’t safe for ordinary people. Leave it to us professionals.’ They will find reasons to be safe, to avoid risks. We can’t afford that. We need people to take chances. That was the Professor’s goal and Margo’s goal, and it’s still my goal. I thought . . . it was a goal you understood.”

I understood; but I understood Nick’s point of view as well. I felt like they were doing it to me again, forcing me to choose all over again between his caution and her dreams.

I couldn’t choose, so I said nothing; and I saw disappointment in her face. Once more, I hadn’t chosen her. I hadn’t chosen Nick, either, but I hadn’t chosen her.

But it seemed she wasn’t ready to give up, not again. She pulled her chair around beside mine, uncomfortably close. The lilac water couldn’t be imaginary, as clear as the scent was. She must’ve preserved a vial. I remembered other nights when I smelled it so close, and I squirmed; but Tracy didn’t seem to notice. “We were there for seven months. I’ve got months of footage to work with. This won’t be my only documentary coming out of the expedition. There will be one that tells the mistakes quite thoroughly. But this is the one that I need to tell now. The one that shows: We can do this!” She opened her comp so I could see it. “Here. This is my real last scene. I haven’t included it yet because I want to get Margo’s approval first. But it’s important that you see this, that you understand.”

She tapped her comp, and a new scene appeared. It was Mrs. Azevedo in a shelter in the camp. Her eyes were red from recent tears, but she had a defiant look on her face. The shelter was darkened with a hint of red, probably from natural Martian daylight outside; but a mild light shone down on her from above, accentuating the shadows in her face. She leaned forward, directly into the camera. “Am I going to give up? No. Never! If I give up, then Paolo is dead. When his dream dies, then I bury him in my heart. Until then . . . No, there is no then. I won’t give up, not ever. But maybe others will. Maybe I’ll have no choice. But my words, my money, my time, my power . . . I’ll use them all for Paolo’s dream. People will come here, they’ll keep coming here. And they’ll remember . . . They’ll remember Paolo, and how his spirit calls them to come here and live here and work here. And some of them . . . Well, they’ll be brave like Paolo. They’ll know the risks.”

And then the scene rolled back in time and space, all the way back to Earth, back to the earliest days of training. Professor Azevedo sat in a tent that bore a superficial resemblance to the Mars shelter; but the light was bright and blue-white, and Azevedo sat back in his chair. He wore a stubbly beard of gray with flecks of white, much like the hair that stuck out from his knit cap. I suspected they were on a mountain trip. He looked into the camera, and he smiled that smile that had won over so many skeptics. “Will people die in this program? Of course they’ll die, what kind of question is that? It’s the old Pioneers’ Creed: ‘The cowards never started, and the weak died along the way.’ People die on the frontier, and that’s no reason not to go. The ones who survive will be the strong and the smart and the lucky and the just-too-tough-to-kill.”

From off screen, Tracy asked, “And which are you?”

His grin broadened. “There’s only one way to find out. And no matter what, I will find out. Gladly. How about you?” And he laughed. And the screen faded to black, and white letters appeared: Paolo Azevedo, Ph.D., Founder of the Civilian Expedition Program. 1994–2037.

I stared at the simple words, dumbstruck. Tracy’s video made her argument far more eloquently than her words had. In that moment, I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her I was wrong. I wanted to take her to Mars.

And so, with his usual uncanny timing, that was the moment Nick’s voice came from my comm. “Chief Carver, we’re almost to the gravipause, and I’m ready to conclude our business. Please bring Mrs. Azevedo, Lieutenant Gale, and Ms. Wells to my office immediately.”

I ushered the expedition members into Nick’s office. By unspoken understanding, the others left the sole guest chair to Mrs. Azevedo. She sat and looked at Nick.

Nick stood behind his desk. In his hand he held a coil of S3 cable. He looked across the faces and then began to speak. “Well, here we are. One last time together. We’re entering Earth’s orbit, we’ve passed the gravipause, so this ship is now back under the authority of Mission Control. So I guess that wraps up my investigation.”

“Investigation?” They were all thinking it, but Mrs. Azevedo was the one who asked. “What investigation?”

“Oh, the investigation into this S3 cable. It has been an internal matter to this point, but now it’s time to present my findings to you all before I report to Mission Control. Midshipman Riggs has found conclusive evidence that this cable has been contaminated with salt ions, destroying its integrity; and then it stretched until it broke.” Mrs. Azevedo turned pale, but Nick gave her no time to interrupt. “Furthermore, there’s no doubt that this contamination was deliberate.”

This time Mrs. Azevedo did break in. “Deliberate? Paolo . . . ?”

But she got no further, and Nick continued. “Someone wanted it to break. It’s also clear that the cable is from your trip to Chronius Mons. Ms. Wells’s inventory reports are quite thorough, and they document precisely which gear you took with you.”

Tracy said, “But Mrs. Azevedo couldn’t—”

Nick interrupted her, nodding. “You’re right, she couldn’t. Oh, people do surprising things, angry spouses especially. Gale told me how Margo was jealous of you, Tracy, jealous that Paolo had his eye on you.”

Mrs. Azevedo stood, too fast for the low gravity. “That’s a lie!” In her anger, she ignored her unexpected bounce, but Nick seemed amused. “We were past all of that months ago! Paolo convinced me he had no interest in this . . . this little girl. We made up, and we were . . . We were closer than . . . ” She glared at Nick. “But how could I convince a cynic like you? You always believe the worst of people. What would you know about two people in love?”

That stopped Nick cold; and his face showed something close to sympathy. Then he shook his head. “No, I believe you. A gossip like Horace always exaggerates what he knows. But just because Paolo had no interest doesn’t mean Tracy had no interest.”

This time it was Tracy who was angry. “That’s ridiculous! I . . . I would never let personal feelings endanger the team. I admired the Professor, and I was grateful to be on this expedition; but that’s all there was between us!”

“Is it? Did you know, Ms. Wells, that when you broke up with Carver he wondered if perhaps you had your sights set on Professor Azevedo?”

“What?” Tracy practically shouted; and at the same time I said, “Nick, that’s out of line!”

“Oh, he was quite sure of that for a while. He said a lot of bitter things when he was drunk.”

“Anson! You didn’t believe that?”

“Tracy, I was hurt. I . . . No, I didn’t believe it, I just didn’t know what to believe. I wanted some explanation.”

“And maybe . . . ” Nick broke back in. “Maybe he was correct. Motivations, that’s what we’re after here. Was it perhaps the woman scorned? And that brings us back to this cable.” Nick held up the cable for us all to see. “I had Bosun Smith bring me this cable from the lab because there was one piece of information missing from our earlier report: the RFID tag woven into the cable end. And guess what? It’s not one that Professor Azevedo packed in his gear.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ms. Wells, the RFID tag is clear, and your meticulous inventory is equally clear: this cable came from your personal supplies. You had it stowed in your tent each night before the climb. Oh, and Bosun Smith also searched the rest of the expedition’s supplies very carefully; and the Professor’s cable is nowhere to be found. She checked the tag on every cable. Someone swapped this sabotaged cable for his.”

Someone swapped . . . And Tracy had packed this cable . . . And . . .

No. I couldn’t believe that. Tracy had surprised me before. She had disappointed me. She had broken my heart. But this? No. I knew that was impossible. I loved her, it couldn’t be possible.

But Nick was drawing the conclusions I refused to draw. “So the cable Paolo packed, the cable that would’ve been in his tent every night where Margo had access to it: that cable’s missing. And the cable you packed, Ms. Wells: that cable’s sabotaged.”

Tracy grew livid. “What are you implying?”

“I’m presenting facts, not implications. Now that we’re in Earth orbit, it’s up to Mission Control to make decisions from these facts. My duty is to report what I know, not to speculate.”

“So what will you report?”

“The facts exactly as I know them. I will report that this cable is not Professor Azevedo’s, it is yours. I will report that it was under your control the entire time it was on Mars. Professor Azevedo’s cable is missing, and no one in the expedition crew admits to knowing where it’s at. I will report that this cable has been contaminated with salt-affixing nanomachines. And I’ll report all the rest of our findings, and they can draw whatever conclusions they may.”

“And I will get a good lawyer to ensure that your accusations never make it into my record.”

“I’m not making accusations. The conclusions should be obvious to anyone with half a brain, so I expect the review board to miss them entirely.”

“And what are you going to do, Captain?” Tracy asked.

“Nothing, and you know it. Now that we’ve passed the gravipause, my powers are strictly curtailed. I can’t hold you. I have no authority here over anyone but my crew.”

“Well, that’s good news, because I’m innocent. As soon as the funeral’s done, I’ll clear my name.”

I knew that determined look on Tracy’s face. Every bit of self-control was at work, holding back her anger, and maybe her tears. I wanted to comfort her, but I had to stand my post. She looked at me, and I almost broke; but then she left for the docking bay.

No one else spoke. Mrs. Azevedo stood. She stared at Nick, her expression unreadable. Then Gale offered her an arm, and they left.

I stood where I was. I hadn’t been dismissed, and I had no orders, so I had nothing to do but stand there and stew over all that I had just heard. Stand and stew and stare at Nick.

Nick ignored me for almost a minute and a half; but finally he spoke. “Don’t stand there glowering at me. Can’t you make yourself useful?”

“‘Glowering’? Really?”

“It’s the perfect word to describe your expression, and I get to use it so seldom. But get over it already. Ms. Wells will be fine. In fact, I’ve entered a commendation into her record.” I must have looked puzzled, so Nick explained. “The silly little girl who broke your heart is gone. That woman who just left here is the only one on that whole team who understands how to properly plan a mission. I can’t guess what changed her, but I can’t deny the change. Azevedo was an ass. He chose his expedition members for their willingness to fawn over him and for how popular they would be in the press. Plus a bunch of other entirely personal reasons: camaraderie, influence, favors . . . You name it, anything but competence. But with her, despite himself he got lucky. The only one whom he chose who was worth a damn was Ms. Wells, and even I wouldn’t’ve guessed that. She surprised me.”

“What?”

“Look at her reports, Carver. Look at what she’s done. Look at everything. Despite my doubts, that woman has shown that the discipline that we need in space can be found far outside the Corps. The people who want to go to space, the ones who really should be there, are going to do it right. I couldn’t have predicted it four years ago; but if I had to staff a mission and my choices were ‘professionals’ like Gale or an amateur like Ms. Wells, I would choose her without hesitation.”

“But I thought—I thought you blamed Tracy! You practically accused her of murder!”

Nick sighed, his “you are beyond an idiot” sigh. “There was no murder here, Carver.”

“No murder?”

Nick tapped his desk and the comm chime sounded. “Mr. Riggs, you can come in now.” The door to the outer office opened, and Riggs entered, looking nervous as usual when crewmen are summoned before Nick. I ushered him in, and he stood at attention before Nick’s desk.

Nick wasted no time on pleasantries. He sat and looked up at Riggs, who stood neatly at attention. “Midshipman Karl Riggs . . . What do you know about salts in chemistry?”

“Not much, Captain, I’ll admit. I know I like salt on my chips!” It was a weak joke, and weaker in Riggs’s delivery. Nick had the man nervous, which wasn’t unusual.

“Ah, that’s right, you said you’re weak in chemistry. Unlike Ms. Wells, say. Quite a surprise, that chemistry degree of hers, it gave me a whole new perspective on that discovery of yours.

“Mr. Riggs, a salt is a compound wherein a positive and a negative ion exactly counter each other, yielding a neutral end product. They can be quite useful both biologically and in other reactions, and it’s very hard for us to get by without them. That’s why we’ve manufactured nano lines that can scavenge or even assemble the necessary ions from available stock.”

“I . . . see, sir.”

“But nano machines don’t have brains, Riggs. They only have simple chemical sensors, valence detectors particularly. They look for the proper valences, grab the ions, and affix them to other ions or to a substrate. They’re really just glorified enzymes in a sense. If they can’t find the precise valence signature and yet they’re still active, some of them will grab the nearest equivalent they can find: something close enough to the right ionic properties.

“Ah, but something close electrically can still be chemically a very different salt. For instance . . . ” Nick pulled up Riggs’s report on his desk comp. “These nanos in these micrographs you took, they were designed to scavenge carbonate items out of Mars’s atmosphere, with its high concentration of carbon dioxide. It’s almost 95% CO2, did you know that?”

“Well, I . . . I knew something like that, sir.”

“Yes. And in fact, Azevedo chose his site because of the high presence of carbonates, perfect for these nanos. But if they can’t find the carbon ions they’re designed for, many of them will find the next closest valence. For example, a nitrite ion would be electrically identical to a carbonate ion, and a nitrate might be close enough for a nano’s detectors.

“Now there’s something interesting about these micrographs you took. If you look at the chemical analysis attached—as I did when you brought them to me—you will find that the S3 cables have been contaminated with nitrite salts, and also a smaller proportion of nitrate salts, not carbonate salts. That means that when those nanos were active, they found predominantly nitrogen stock, not carbon dioxide. Nitrogen, you know, the stuff that makes up 79% of standard air mix.”

Riggs was silent. His normally fair complexion had turned even more pale.

“In fact, since they get much of their stock from the surrounding air, that implies that this contamination happened in a nitrogen atmosphere. Now you won’t find that on Mars, as I said. It’s nearly all CO2. And you wouldn’t even find it in the expedition’s shelters. They used heliox as their breathing gas to lower their payload mass. That, by the way, is why I was so insistent on confirming the details of which Mars tents were used and where and how the gear was stowed. I needed to be certain that I knew where these cables had been and what they might’ve been exposed to; and all three expedition members confirmed for me that the gear was safely stored in the Mars tents every night, in the heliox conditions. There would be trace amounts of nitrogen, surely, but it should be completely dominated by carbon dioxide. There was no chance for contamination there, so there’s only one place this contamination could have happened.”

I couldn’t keep quiet. “On the ship!”

“Yes, on the ship, Chief Carver. And since these cables were very thoroughly inspected and recorded by Ms. Wells—I’m quite astonished at her meticulous records, Carver, you could learn something from her—we can be certain that the cables were not contaminated when they left the Collins. And so the contamination could only have happened aboard the Aldrin—after Professor Azevedo’s all-too-avoidable death.”

Riggs found his voice. “I . . . see, sir.”

“Oh, I’m quite sure you do. And Mr. Carver is starting to see as well, though I think you had a head start on him. I knew right away: I wasn’t investigating a murder, I was investigating a frame-up. Someone is trying to frame someone for Azevedo’s death, and I needed to know who the someones were.

“So I had to ask myself the traditional questions: who had means, who had motive, and who had opportunity? At first I thought Ms. Wells had opportunity. She could’ve gotten to the cable at any time; and once we learned it was her cable, the opportunities expanded. But no, even before that, I learned of her chemistry degree. No chemist would make that mistake with the atmospheric ions. They would know it was a waste of time.

“As for Margo . . . What would she gain by making Azevedo’s death look like murder? Not much. For one thing, the spouse is always the first, most likely suspect in a homicide, especially given their well-known fights. Oh, in theory she might have tried to frame Ms. Wells by swapping the cables; but Margo had too much to lose either way. Her whole media campaign is about Azevedo’s great judgment, his people instincts that helped him to select an elite team of scientist explorers, the best of the best. If people think he let a murderer onto his crew, his entire myth falls apart. Not that I put any stock in that myth, mind you, but her investors do. She wouldn’t do anything to endanger that myth. It would ruin her.

“And Horace?” Nick chuckled. “What would he gain out of it? Cast suspicion on Margo, maybe? Hardly. He needs her. He’s a joke in the Corps. Yes, I know he’s a bigwig to you SPs, but no one in Mission Control trusts his decisions. He needs this Civilian Exploration Program to succeed if he wants to stay employed. Oh, I considered briefly that Horace might have a motive: if Azevedo’s death was murder, then it couldn’t be blamed on Horace’s poor planning. He could’ve been trying to duck responsibility. But Horace just isn’t that clever. Besides, he may be a damned fool, but he’s well versed in the atmospheric chemistry of Mars. He couldn’t make that mistake any more than Ms. Wells could.”

I broke in. “And that’s why you didn’t question Dr. Ivanovitch, either. You knew his chemistry knowledge ruled him out as a suspect.”

“Yes.”

“Then why’d you interview Gale at all?”

Nick grinned. “Because it amuses me to rub his nose in his mistakes. And I wanted his perspective on the personalities of the expedition. Horace Gale may be a pompous ass, but he’s also a political climber. He always knows the gossip.

“But that was before I realized I was looking in entirely the wrong direction, because I was only looking at the expedition personnel. If the sabotage happened here, that added dozens of potential suspects from our own crew. Mr. Riggs?”

Riggs was slow to respond. “Captain?”

“Reports are that you seem to be very friendly with Gale.”

“Yes, sir. We . . . worked together in the past. I trained under him on my first post. And besides, he’s the only other Brit on board. It’s nice to talk football with someone.”

“Indeed. My reports are that you’ve spent pretty much all of your free time with him.”

“Can you blame me, sir? It’s a chance to talk to a real explorer. Someone different on this ship, you know.”

“Um-hmmm. Perhaps you forget: both I and Chief Carver have already been to Mars on the second Bradbury expedition. I do hope we’re ‘real’ enough for you.” Riggs took the rebuke without blinking, and Nick continued. “And you—and you’re not alone in this, so don’t take offense—you’ve voiced concern in the past that the CEP is a mistake, and missions like this should be Corps missions. ‘Leave space to the professionals,’ I believe that’s what the SP activists say.”

“I’m entitled to my opinion, Captain. As you say, I’m not alone. We Space Professionals have a lot of influence in the Corps command.”

“Yes, yes, just what we need: more politics in the space program. Be that as it may . . . It looks like, despite poor planning and one unfortunate death, this expedition met most of their mission objectives. I would hazard a guess that Ms. Azevedo’s investors will be pleased over all, and will invest in further CEP expeditions. Once she buries her husband, Margo still has the clout and the drive and the financing to mount another expedition, and another.”

“I wouldn’t know, sir.”

“Oh, trust me, she does. These decisions are being made politically these days, not sensibly. And I’m sure you believe it as well.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“But now if Margo were to be implicated in a murder—or for that matter, if any of the senior staff were, it hardly matters who—it would throw everything into disarray. Suddenly there would be investigations, there would be questions, there would be doubts . . . Investors would get nervous and pull financing. The Corps would feel pressure from the Space Professional contingent, and would likely push to cancel the CEP. The next mission would likely be under Corps command, probably under Horace Gale himself; and he would pick his loyal crew.”

Nick still held the coil of S3 cable in his hand, looking down at it, not at Riggs. “I have a report from your supervisor that you may be leaving us.”

“Sir?”

“He says you’ve applied for a transfer.”

“Well . . . Yes, sir, just . . . considering it.”

“Yes, and a chance to ingratiate yourself with them as well, especially with Horace Gale. Looking at the letters of recommendation you’ve requested—”

“Sir!”

“Pshht. You think any communication goes out from this ship without me knowing about it? Please. What kind of a Captain would I be if I didn’t keep up with details on my vessel? So it looks like in fact you’re hoping for reassignment to the Mars expedition on their next trip.”

“Well . . . ”

“And lo and behold, with the news from this expedition, there are sure to be some vacancies on that crew. Azevedo dead, and now Miss Wells tied up in legal battles, the whole CEP in jeopardy . . . There should be a complete shakeup. It’s likely the Space Professionals will get their way. Gale will end up in charge, and there could be an opening for the right man.”

“Well, I . . . guess . . . ”

“Oh, most certainly. Horace would want to take his chosen crew with him, men he knew and trusted. And you hope to be one of them.”

“Captain . . . ”

“Oh, don’t deny it. As I was told, three-quarters of my crew applied for that last expedition, you included. But there will be some difficulty with your transfer, I’m afraid.” Nick touched the comm control on his desk. “Bosun, come in, please.”

The office door opened, and Bosun Smith came in. She carried another coil of S3 cable.

“Well?” Nick looked from Smith to the cable.

Smith nodded. “It was in his cabin, sir, just like you said it would be. I found it coiled up in his pillowcase, crammed in between the bunk and the wall. You’d never notice it without a search. Well, you might, Captain, but not the average person.” She handed the cable to Nick. “The RFID tag confirms: that’s Professor Azevedo’s cable.”

Nick stood slowly, came around his desk, and stood nose to nose with Riggs. He didn’t yell. That’s when I know Nick is really angry, not just domineering: he gets very calm. He looked at Riggs and said, “Get off my ship.”

Riggs swallowed. “Sir?”

“You lied to me, Mr. Riggs.”

“Captain, I—”

“Don’t bother denying or explaining. We may be inside the gravipause; but when it comes to my crew, I am still judge, jury, and lord high executioner. And I do not want to hear more lies. I’m a realist, I know people lie for all sorts of stupid reasons. It’s part of their nature. But not to me, and not on my ship. That gets people dead, and I won’t tolerate that. Bosun, escort Mr. Riggs to his cabin. Watch him pack his kit. If he tries to go anywhere else or talk to anyone else, slam him into the nearest bulkhead. Twice. Once he’s packed, escort him to the docking bay and confine him there until the ferry arrives.”

“Yes, Captain.” Smith didn’t grin, but her eyes did. She was half again as large as Riggs, and she knew how to fight dirty. I think she wanted Riggs to make trouble. But he didn’t: he just left, and Smith followed.

My head spun. It was like my head was tossed into microgravity and all the facts I thought I had learned that day had been tumbled into space and rearranged themselves. I had been wrong. About all of it. And about Tracy. But Nick—I looked at him. “But if you knew this already, why didn’t you say so? Why did you let Tracy twist in the wind? Why did you let her suffer? She left here practically in tears!”

Nick sat in his chair, leaned back, knotted his fingers before him, and looked at me for several seconds. “Carver, you may have gotten over what she put you through, but I still had a bit of a grudge to work out. She almost cost me the best junior officer I’ve ever had. She appears to have grown up since then, but she still had earned a little suffering for that. And I knew you would never give her what she deserved, so I had to do it.”

“You . . . You planned that?”

“It was a simple calculation. I had nothing to gain. It’s not like exonerating her is going to endear me to her. It’s far too late for that. But I had nothing to lose as well. It’s not like she could hate me any more than she already did. So I might as well play the villain.”

“So you were cruel to her just because you had nothing to lose?”

“You missed the final line in my calculation: I would gain nothing by exonerating her; but if you get on that shuttle and present the evidence that clears her name, you’re her hero. You’ll come in and save her from my vile accusation.”

I blinked. Nick playing matchmaker? But . . . “No. I can’t play games like that with her. I won’t lie to her.”

“Oh, don’t be a complete ass, Carver. Tell her a lie, tell her the truth for all I care, but don’t you dare let her leave you behind the way she did last time. That woman is going to space, with or without you. So get going before you miss that shuttle. I don’t need you moping around for another six months. Go work out whatever it is you two have to work out.”

“Thank you, sir.” I leapt for the door.

“Oh, one last thing . . . ” Nick halted me on the threshold. “The Aldrin leaves Earth for Mars in three months, with or without you. If I’m wrong, and she’s not going back to space . . . If I’m going to need a new Chief Officer, please try to give me enough time to find a replacement who can measure up to your standards.”

“Yes, Nick. Permission to go ashore, Captain?” But Nick ignored me, turning his music on instead. Once again I heard “Brigas Nunca Mais.” Without waiting for an answer, I was already in the outer office and heading for the corridor.

I would be back on the Aldrin, I was certain of that. And I was just as sure that next time I wouldn’t be alone. That would give Nick something to complain about, so everyone would be happy.

Originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, September 2013.

A Few Words with Martin L. Shoemaker

What are the origins of this story?

In 2012, Richard Johnson, a great writer out of Melbourne, Australia, won the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award. Rich couldn’t make the trip to the International Space Development Conference to accept the award, so he asked me (as the second place winner) to accept in his place. That resulted in my having dinner and drinks with Ben Bova, Baen editor/author Tony Daniel, and Bill Ledbetter (the contest administrator and a talented writer). It also resulted in my having lunch with a table of space industry insiders, including Buzz Aldrin! So I owe Rich a few pints of beer whenever I finally see him in person.

And every time this story is reprinted, I add another pint to that debt. After lunch, I attended Buzz’s presentation on his Mars Cycler plan, and I was hooked. I jotted down one brief story note: “Something aboard a Mars cycler.” I wrote down a lot of other story notes that day, so this one could’ve just gotten lost in the shuffle; but a couple of months later, I was musing on the idea in the shower, and I remembered something Buzz said: “It’s like an express train to Mars,” express meaning not “fast” but “no stops along the way.” Something clicked in my head, twice: first I put together the words “Aldrin Express”; and then immediately after came the title, “Murder on the Aldrin Express.” With a title like that, how could I resist?

I knew from the title that I had a hard science fiction mystery. I’m not an extensive mystery reader, but I’m fond of the fair mysteries of Ellery Queen: all the clues are there, with plenty of chances for the reader to put them together. I’m also (as evidenced by my bibliography) a big fan of hard science fiction. So I wanted a fair mystery in which the vital clue lay in the science of Mars. That meant I needed a competent “detective” to figure it out. I decided on the ship’s captain, but that immediately left me with a new question: why is a competent captain commanding a ship that goes back and forth to Mars but never stops? Wouldn’t he want to explore? And so I came up with Captain Nick Aames, a bitter, misanthropic man who LIKES this duty because it keeps him far away from almost all of humanity. But that makes for an unlikable protagonist, so on the advice of friends I added his best friend, the very likable Chief Anson Carver. The combination “clicked,” and the story grew naturally from there.

What are some of your favorite short stories?

There are lots of modern stories I enjoy (many of them written by friends!); but like many people, my “favorites” were stories I discovered in my youth (many in the pages of Asimov’s). There are lots of classics, but I’d like to call out three that are less commonly known yet have really stuck with me through the years.

“Enemy Mine” by Barry B. Longyear. It seems odd to call this one “less commonly known,” given that Longyear won the Hugo, the Nebula, and the John W. Campbell for it; but that was a generation or more ago, and I don’t hear people discuss it much today. If you can reach the end of this story without choking up, you are stone. (Just don’t talk to me about the film. More important, don’t talk to Longyear about it!)

“Gift of a Useless Man” by Alan Dean Foster. This is, in my opinion, the perfect short story. It’s the story of a criminal stranded on a distant planet and the surprising way he spends his life. I can’t describe more than that without ruining it, and this is a story that should never be ruined. It’s in Foster’s collection With Enemies Like This, and it’s well worth hunting down.

“Fighting Madness” by P.J. Plauger (yes, programmers, THAT P.J. Plauger) is THE formative influence on all of my fiction. First appearing in Analog Annual (edited by Ben Bova), this was the story that sparked my interest in hard science fiction. This is the standard I try very hard to meet. Combine the intelligent action of this story with the visuals (but NOT the illogical plots) of Space: 1999, and you can see what was in my head when I wrote “Murder on the Aldrin Express”. That’s the feel of my Blue Collar Space stories.

If you could make something from a story or novel you've written a reality, what would it be?

I’m going to go big and say the Aldrin Express from this story (plus two others so far, and more to come). The why is two-fold. First, being a hard science fiction guy, I can’t endorse “poof!” wishes. A ship like the Aldrin (which has grown considerably since I wrote this story) doesn’t happen without a significant space infrastructure to support it. So it’s a twofer: to get my one wish, I have to get a bigger wish, a spacefaring society.

And the second reason is the flip side of the first: the Aldrin enables that spacefaring society. Buzz Aldrin’s cycler plan uses orbital mechanics to guide the ship, not propellant (or at least not much), so it enables larger-scale transport to and from Mars. As my Aldrin stories grow, the ship is becoming a means of “bulk shipment” to Mars, allowing us to build larger, more sustainable bases and settlements.

So I don’t wish for much: just space travel, Mars colonies, and a really cool spaceship!

Do you have anything coming out in the months ahead?

I have three publications coming out soon: “Early Warning” in Analog, “The Vampire’s New Clothes” in Galaxy’s Edge, and “Meet the Landlord” in the Baen Anthology Little Green Men Attack!, edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt. I also have two reprints coming from Digital Science Fiction (“Il Gran Cavallo” and “Pallbearers”), and “Today I Am Paul” has been selected for Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best Science Fiction (and for another anthology which has not yet been announced, but which I’m sure will interest your readers).

As for what I’m working on now: I’m about 80% through a new Carver and Aames novel, telling the story of their mission to Mars and then the first voyage of the Aldrin Express. I keep getting distracted by other side projects, but that novel is my primary focus until it’s done.

Bloom

Gregory Norman Bossert

“It’s very simple,” Ki Ninurta said into the darkness, as quietly as her torn voice would allow. “If you take another step, you die. We all die. So we wait.”

“No fucking way it’s a CoL,” Ben said, out of the black.

“Cawl?” Andrea said. “I thought you said it—”

“Cee-Oh-Ell. Circle of Life. A Yu Stigmergic Colony. A Bloom.” Ki said.

No response from Andrea. Ki thought the Earth woman was about four meters to her right, and a step or two ahead. Ben was in between them, a little closer to her than to Andrea. And a few meters behind; that was the scary part. If he was over the edge of the Bloom, she must be halfway to the center.

“No fucking way,” he said again.

“I can smell it,” Ki said.

“The hell you can.”

She could. It was unmistakable underneath the normal spice and bite of Ardun’s atmosphere, unforgettable. It was yeast and vinegar and semen-stained sheets. It was fecundity and decay. It was—she could see the glowing digits of her watch—three years, seven months, four days, twelve hours, thirty-four minutes.

A sniff, and Andrea in a small voice, “I can smell it too.” Another sniff, and another, and Ki felt a chill.

“Do not cry. Water, salt are secondary triggers,” she snapped.

“I can’t stop,” Andrea said.

“They initiate the second phase: mycorrhizal spikes and the grigs. They’ll have a bit of difficulty getting through the skin without the coiltails softening you up first. That might give you a second or two more before they rip you apart.”

“I said I’m sorry.”

“Quiet,” Ki said, and over her, Ben said, “Fuck sake, Ninurta, the hell good that’s gonna do? Lay off her.”

A tremulous inhale from Andrea, but she said, “I caught them. The tears, I mean, I think I caught them all.”

“We’d already know,” Ki said, “if you hadn’t.”

silence

The flashlight was somewhere behind Ki and Ben; she’d heard it hit and roll when Ben had dropped it, saw the flash as it went dark. Loose connection. Or bad design. There was a lot of that with their equipment, which was half military surplus and half donation-in-kind from sponsors. Great way to dump unwanted inventory, that: grateful thanks from the university, maybe an honorary degree for the sponsor’s CEO, and they were out here fifty lightyears away with a flashlight not fit for a backyard sleepover.

Her right ear itched, where the lab-grown skin attached to the cartilage.

silence

“I’m going to back up,” Ben said. “I’ll step into my footsteps.”

“And you’re going to do that how? It’s pitch dark,” Ki said. “I don’t recommend feeling around for them.”

“I jump backward, then, hard as I can. I can’t be more than a meter or two into the Bloom, yeah? I can jump clear.”

“All three of us are probably inside the edge. You just broke through first. And anyway, pulling your foot out of the crust is as likely to trigger the Bloom as anything else.”

“We gotta do something,” Ben said.

“Like I said before, we wait for someone to notice that we are missing and come looking for us with a thermal scanner. It’s the only rational option.”

Ben grunted. “We didn’t sign out,” he said. He sounded defensive; Ki was, amongst other things, the project’s safety officer. She would love to call him out on that idiocy, but . . .

“Neither did I,” Ki said.

“Oh,” Andrea said, very quietly.

“It’s a small base,” Ki said. “And there’s just a handful of crew down off of Andrea’s ship. Someone will figure it out.”

silence

“Why aren’t we dead already?” Andrea asked, her voice steadier. “I mean, the way we hear it back on Earth, the Blooms of Ardun, one wrong step and . . . ”

“Ask her,” Ben said. “She’s the fucking expert. And the fucking guinea pig, huh, Ninurta? And the whatchacallit, the lucky rabbit’s foot. But that only works for her, I guess. Sure didn’t help Laurent.”

“It’s complicated,” Ki said.

silence

“I checked the board,” Ben said. “Before I brought her out. This whole area’s supposed to be clear, everything between the lab complex and the ridge.”

“Blooms move. You know that. She’s from offworld, she’s got an excuse,” Ki replied.

“Blooms creep. Like, a few meters, maybe a few dozen meters a day. I oughta know, I do the stats for the betting pool.”

Ki hissed, though she’d known about it. A hundred people on planet, give or take, didn’t leave a lot of space for secrets.

She said, “We don’t really know anything about this world. People who think they understand an exoplanet get dead.”

“There was nothing within half a klick. It’s your fucking board.” Ben’s voice tremored, threatened to crack.

“Shhhh,” Ki said. “Calm.” She took a slow deep breath. The reek of the Bloom was too familiar, too intimate; those three years seven month four days should have dulled that memory. The dreams were sharp, though, when she let herself sleep.

The dark, the smell was so familiar, whether from memory or dream. ‘Which one are you?’ she thought, of the Bloom.

silence

Ki was crouched, left foot a little ahead of the right, left hand on her foot, right arm across her leg. Her heels were down; if she’d been up on her toes, like Earth people did, she’d have gone over already. She was from Gennissea, twenty-two percent higher gravity, and the corresponding level of common sense.

It had taken her about five minutes to settle into that position, trying to keep her weight constant, keep her feet from shifting.

“If either of you are still standing, you should try to—”

“I’m down,” Ben said. “Squatting.”

“Me too.”

“Huh,” Ki grunted. “Keep your heels down.”

silence

“Why didn’t you bring a scanner?” Ki asked. “Even if you did check the board, you should have been prepared.”

“You got a lab full of that crap for the taking. Us assistants, we gotta check them out,” Ben said. “I didn’t want it in the logs; out at night, with a visitor, that’s the kind of shit ends up in your personnel record. Why the hell didn’t you bring a scanner?”

Ki ran her tongue between her lip and teeth. Her ear itched like hell. “The scanners really aren’t that effective after midnight; the heat signature has dissipated too much. The tracking board is more reliable.”

“Yeah, right,” Ben said, and snorted like he was going to spit. An audible swallow. “Damn, this thing stinks.”

silence

“I have to pee,” Andrea said.

“Hold it,” Ben said.

“I always have to pee after sex,” Andrea said, like an accusation.

“Jesus, Ann.”

“Andrea.”

“Jesus, bitch.”

“He’s right. Hold it,” Ki said, flatly. She didn’t need that in her head, the two of them lying on the talcum-soft sand; images that wrapped and clung and left her half blind with something that was part longing but mostly anger. She’d been dodging those images ever since she had run into the two of them on the ridge an hour ago. She had been lost in that bitter blindness as she lead the little group back to base, not absolutely sure where they were, until Ben had taken a step that crunched and left them, all three, in that darkness.

“Think about something else,” she said.

silence

“No, seriously. What were you doing here without a scanner?” Ben said.

“As I said, the scanners aren’t—”

“Bullshit. You get on my case about the scanner, you must think they’re good for something. I went through your safety lecture my first day on-planet. Scarred into my damn memory, you standing up there looking like roadkill, telling us how dangerous this place can be. As if you weren’t proof enough. And you always saying how much worse it is in the dark, when everyone knows you’re out here walking around every damn night.” And in a bad imitation of Ki’s Gennissean accent, he said, “‘A walk out on the surface without careful preparation is suicide.’”

Ki’s eyelid twitched, tugged with every heartbeat. She willed the silence back, her faithful companion across the dark watchful dunes, but Ben went on.

“You think you’re safe out here, now you’re got some Bloom in you? Or are you just too smart to get caught, when it’s a death wish for us normal people?”

It wasn’t just their voices; she could smell them under the fetor of the Bloom: a human and therefore alien odor of sweat and must and fear. The urge to flee that intrusion, to keep stepping forward toward understanding or oblivion, was suddenly so strong she almost shook with it. But that urge was as familiar as the dark and the silence. “No,” she said.

“Oh,” Andrea said. And in a steadier voice than before, “Shut up, Ben.”

silence

Ben said, “I think I can reach the flashlight.”

“It’s not worth the risk,” Ki said. “It’s broken.”

“You don’t know that,” Ben said. “You just like the fucking dark.”

Andrea said, “Would we be able to see the Bloom? I didn’t see anything before. I thought they live under the sand.”

“She was supposed to be guiding us,” Ben said. “Now we know it’s there, maybe we can see it. We’re damn well close enough. And we can use the light to signal for help. Hell, I’m doing it.”

Ki opened her mouth. The board was clean, she wanted to say, there should be nothing here. But she wasn’t sure now if she knew exactly where they were or which way they were facing, as if rather than evicting them from her accustomed private darkness she had lead them into its heart. So she listened instead, for his surprised grunt, the crack of crust breaking, the impossible roar of an entire ecology unfolding into life underneath her.

There was a quiet click-click-click. “It’s dead,” Ben said.

Ki shut her mouth. Whatever she might say, she feared would come out sounding too satisfied.

silence

“Honestly,” Andrea said, “if someone does find us, is there anything they can do?”

“If they have lights, or—” Ki felt herself blush. “—Or a thermal scanner, then we could try jumping. It is arguably less risky if we know where the edge is, and how far. They could also give us a hand, use a pole or a rope to pull us out faster. That might improve our chances.”

“Might,” Ben echoed sourly.

“If someone does come, though, it better be in the next three hours.”

“Why?” asked Andrea, “I mean, why soon? Apart from the fact that I really got to pee,” with a try at a chuckle that scraped to a stop.

“A Bloom event, well, if you consider the colony a single creature, it wakes up, eats, moves, and goes back to sleep. But for the individual organisms that make up the colony, it’s an entire lifecycle; whole generations feed, reproduce, and die. All that takes resources, energy, particularly when it moves far.”

“And this one fucking jumped,” Ben said.

“So, that first night, the Bloom is a bit . . . subdued. That may be why we are still alive. But in the light and heat of the dawn, it becomes fully active. It wakes up.”

“Wakes up hungry.”

“Think about something else,” Ki said again.

silence

“So who was Laura?” Andrea asked.

“Huh?”

“You said something before about Laura, and Doctor Ninurta being a rabbit’s foot.”

“Laurent,” Ki said. “He was my research assistant.”

“Was. Did he . . . ”

“Stepped into it, out in the Western Groups,” Ben said. “Setting up her damn equipment, wasn’t he, Ninurta? Misjudged the edge of the Bloom and then crunch, boom, all she wrote. She was fine, outside the blast area.”

“God.”

“But it wasn’t all she wrote, was it, Doctor Ninurta? Got a couple of papers out of it, huh?”

“Any scientist would have wanted—”

“What Laurent wanted was to go home to Earth and screw his girl until the two of them couldn’t walk straight. I shipped out with him. Ninurta here worked with him every day, probably didn’t know his first name. She took samples, afterwards. With a fucking scraper.”

“What part of ‘shut up, Ben’ wasn’t clear?” Andrea said.

silence

“The hell with shutting up,” Ben said, and shouted, “Hey! Help!”

The sound ripped through Ki like a shockwave, tore her from herself; it was as if she was collapsing inward and reeling away at the same time. One part of her swirled down into a grinding, buzzing dimness threaded by low angry voices. The other part tried to fly in all directions at once and avoided falling only because it could not remember which way was down.

Ki could not tell if either part was here and now or three years seven months four days ago.

After an measureless moment, the shock rippled out through her fingers and toes. Epinephrine and norepinephrine, she thought—fight-or-flight and neither one is an damn option—and with that thought she was whole and here and now. She wasn’t falling, not quite, and the low angry voices were real enough.

“ . . .going to wake it up,” Andrea was saying.

“It’s not like it has ears,” Ben said. And then, with an uncertain edge to his voice, “Right, Ninurta? It can’t hear us, can it?”

“No,” Ki said, and hoped the shake in her voice sounded like exasperation. “Maybe. We don’t know.”

“Because . . . ” Ben said, much more softly, “Well, there was a story going around that when you are out here at night, you’re screaming at the Blooms. Calling them names.”

There were more neurotransmitters in the mix at that statement, but Ki was well familiar with the effects of these: embarrassment, shame, anger. She let the reaction swirl over her and away, and felt fully herself again. “It’s unlikely that the Blooms detect sounds in the human range of hearing,” she said. “But the Blooms change. I wouldn’t bet my life on it.”

silence

There was a sort of gurgle from Ben. Ki’s first thought was that he was choking, a flash of him coughing, off balance, putting out a hand. Even a spray of spit could be enough. But the gurgle returned: he was laughing.

“What?” she snapped.

“You know what Frandt down in transport was calling the Blooms? IEDs. Improvised Evolutionary Devices.”

Andrea gave a nervous snort.

Ki said, “Not entirely inaccurate. But not funny.”

“Yeah? Frandt ran into a couple of ex-Marines at the canteen didn’t think so, either. Beat the crap out of him.”

“Now that’s funny,” Ki said. Frandt was the sort of man who couldn’t walk past her without making some sort of comment to his companions, just loud enough for her to hear. She hoped they’d hurt him. She hoped that they’d left some scars.

“Still, it’s a better name than ‘Bloom’. Like it’s some kind of fucking flower.”

“Algal blooms on Earth,” Ki said. “They kill off entire sections of ocean via toxins, gill damage, oxygen depletion.”

Ben grunted.

“But it’s not a very good analogy,” Ki continued. “Algal blooms are anomalous and unsustainable events, probably anthropogenic. What the Yu Stigmergic Colonies do is natural, an adaptation to the limited resources of the plains. ‘Bloom’ was what the first landing team called them, before Yu started his study. He came up with ‘Circle of Life’.”

“Sarcastic motherfucker,” Ben said. “Sarcastic dead motherfucker,”

“And our project, we gave them names,” Ki said. She had the sudden urge to reach down and touch the dry cracked surface of the Bloom, so like her own ravaged skin. ‘Which one are you?’ she thought again.

silence

“That’s Canopus,” Andrea said.

“Can o’ what?”

“Speaking of names. Up there, Canopus. Alpha Carinae. The star. It’s a supergiant, type F. Brightest absolute magnitude in our region of the galaxy. On Earth, you can only see it regularly from the southern hemisphere, like Australia where I’m from. I went to school in the EU. On break, first thing I’d do was go out and find Canopus. Then I’d feel like I was home. It’s always been a guide star for navigation, since back in the days of sea travel. We still use it as a primary tracking point. It’s just half a degree off the southern celestial pole here on Ardun.”

“You’re a pilot?” Ki asked, and was surprised at her sharpness in her voice.

“Navigator. Lead, second shift.”

The sharpness was anger. “Then what the hell were you doing out here with him.”

“S’that supposed to mean?” Ben growled.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know what he was after,” Ki said.

“Just because I’m out from Earth doesn’t mean I’m an idiot,” Andrea said.

“You would . . . fuck,” the word came out sibilant, clipped, like a hiss, “fuck him, just to take a walk?”

“To spend a night under alien stars, my first trip out? Yeah. It was worth it,” Andrea said. “Until . . . ”

silence

“Where’s Earth, then? Sol, I mean.” Ben asked.

A pause, and then “A bit north of west. But it’s already down, set an hour or two ago.”

“Never should have fucking left.” He grunted. “God, that hurts. Goddamn cramps.”

“Be glad it’s a warm night,” Ki said.

“If it wasn’t, I’d have found a spot inside, wouldn’t be in this shit.” His breath hissed. “Fucking leg.”

silence

“So, how did . . . ” Andrea trailed off. “Ki. With you, I mean. What happened? I saw the news reports; that was when I was in school, about the accident, and how they . . . you know, the reconstructive surgery. But they didn’t really explain what happened with the Bloom.”

Ki could tell this story with her eyes closed. She closed them now, despite the dark. “What do you know about the Blooms?”

“Not much, not from school; the Nav track at the Academy is all physics, mostly; I never really paid much attention in bio.”

“Physics, then,” Ki said. “You’ve got the concept of potential energy, right?”

“Rock and roll,” Andrea said.

“Sorry?” Ki said.

Ben snorted, and swallowed. “I got that one in high school,” he said. “Rock sitting on a hill, it’s static, it’s not doing anything, but it still has potential energy. Give it a nudge to get it going and that energy, you know, spills out, and the rock rolls down the hill.”

“Huh. Well, when dormant, the Blooms are storing a tremendous amount of energy, by some estimates up to a Megajoule. That’s the equivalent of a small bomb, so Frandt’s IED joke wasn’t far off.”

“I saw the Yu videos,” Andrea said. “He just . . . blew apart. But you . . . ”

“Didn’t. The Yu video doesn’t have the frame-rate to show the individual stages clearly, though if you step through it, you can see that he wasn’t really blown apart; he was stripped down.” Ki knew every frame, could replay them against the dark in her head. “His own blood pressure created the spray. The process is optimized to reduce the subject down as efficiently as possible without losing elements outside the colony. We’ve got high-speed video of local fauna getting caught; it’s beautiful, really.”

Ben grunted, and Andrea echoed, “Beautiful?”

“From an evolutionary point of view, the Bloom is extraordinary.”

“You talk like it’s an ‘it’. I thought it was a ‘them’?”

“Well, you’re a ‘them’. We all are, at a cellular level; a colony of differentiated but mutually dependent organisms, whose overall behavior emerges from reducible, stigmergic mechanisms.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t . . . Stigmata?”

“Stigmergy is a form of self-coordination via indirect mechanisms. It’s—”

“Ants,” said Ben.

“Heh,” Ki said.

“I sat through your damn welcome speech,” he said. “It’s like ants in an anthill. A colony.”

“It’s not a perfect analogy. The elements of a Bloom share some genetic material, but they can be considered separate species. The Portuguese Man o’War on Earth—”

“An ant is dumb,” Ben plowed on, “but a bunch of ants can do stuff, solve complex problems, like . . . ”

“Stripping a carcass,” Ki said.

silence

“So . . . ” Andrea said. “You still didn’t explain how you survived.”

“We gotta talk about this?” Ben asked.

“Better than going crazy, waiting in the silence,” Andrea said. “Anyway, it helps to understand. I was scared of deep space, before I went to the academy.”

“You get used to the silence,” Ki said. And no understanding can save you in this darkness, she thought. But the lecture was as much a part of her as her seamed skin. “There are three stages. First the coiltails penetrate the skin, providing access for the later stages. Then the spikes and grigs separate the subject into component pieces, get everything down to ground level. Finally, the vermiforms reduce the remaining elements. The stages pass quickly; a large animal, like a sharcoat or human, can be processed in fifteen to twenty seconds, flyers in as few as two or three.”

“‘Component pieces,’” Ben muttered.

“But . . . ?” Andrea said.

“Occasionally, very rarely, the initial phase is incomplete. The coiltails fire, but when they hit the subject’s skin, they stop.”

“Like, bounce off? But you, you’re . . . ”

Disfigured. Scarred. Taken. Ki opened her eyes; a scattering of stars, otherwise the blackness was the same either way.

“A coiltail looks somewhat like a bullet attached to a spring,” she said.

“Like a fucking monster sperm,” Ben said.

“Somewhat,” Ki said. “The tail is literally a spring; the coiltails use it to launch out of the ground them at close to the speed of sound. And once in the subject’s flesh, they spin the tail to expand the perforation—”

“Jesus, Ninurta, you could make an orgy at a ballgame sound boring. It’s a dumdum bullet. A fucking frag grenade.”

“Actually, ‘an orgy at a ballgame’ is a good analogy for the nominal case. When a Bloom is triggered, the individual organisms that make it up are squeezing in a whole lifetime of eating and breeding. In these anomalous events, however, the party never gets started. Instead, the coiltails brake on impact and swell like a cork, minimizing the release of fluids long enough for the subject to escape the circle.”

“Escape?”

“Fly, or run, or crawl.” She paused, squinted her eye against the twitch. “I did a bit of all three. It was two kilometers back to the base.”

“Jesus.” And a gasp like a sigh from Andrea.

“I kept falling over, couldn’t understand it. Turns out I’d lost my toes. Is that colorful enough for you, Ben?”

silence

“Did it hurt?” Andrea asked.

Ben barked a sort of laugh, cut it short.

“Not at first. It felt like . . . Have you ever gone from a sauna to a cold pool? It was a bit like that. And the blow, it felt like something had grabbed me by every inch of skin and lifted me straight off the ground. My head was up; I could hear a landing shuttle, was looking for it. That saved my eyes; the cheek and orbital bones caught the worst of it.”

Ki’s neck cramped, a sudden stabbing pain, a pull to the right. She clamped her jaws.

“Later, it hurt,” she said. “On the way back. And despite the coiltails plugging the wounds, I started to lose blood, got dizzy. If they hadn’t picked me up on a tracking camera, I’d have bled out within sight of the base.”

“And then?”

“After that, well, if you saw the coverage, you know as much as I. They sedated me and pulled out the coiltails, one at a time. Four thousand, three hundred and four, though some broke apart during removal. I have pieces still in there, little pockets of alien DNA. They pumped fluids in me as fast I was leaking them out, until they could regrow a skin. You can see how well that worked.”

“Not here in the dark,” Andrea said, gently.

silence

Ben said, “There’s something she’s not telling you.”

“About the Blooms?”

“About the sharcoats.”

Ki shut her eyes again.

“The sharcoats, they’re kind of like giant sheep, yeah? Only green. And carnivorous. But still, they’re herd animals.”

“I’ve seen videos,” Andrea said.

“So, up in the ridges, the big males, they lead the herd, watch for predators, find the best crap to eat, look for sharcoat babes, whatever the hell it is that makes a boss sharcoat happy. The juvenile males stay in the back, far away from the leaders as they can get, with the old and crippled and sick ones straggling along afterward. And the moms and babies, they’re clumped up in the middle, safety in numbers, you know?”

“You seem to know,” Andrea said. “What is it, another betting pool on the sharcoats?”

“I told you I was a research assistant. That’s what I do, fly a drone, track the herds. Anyway down here on the plains, it’s different. The herd goes backwards; the alpha males in the rear, old ones first. And the cripples, yeah, Ninurta? You know why?”

Ki’s eyelid twitched to her heartbeat.

“Because the fucking Blooms aim. They take the one or two nearest the center. If they kill something outside the Circle, it doesn’t do the colony any good. The herd goes backward out here because the ones that go first are expendable.”

“So?” Andrea asked.

“So maybe it won’t get all of us. If we just jump for it, maybe some of us will make it.”

“You’re the one who broke through the crust, Ben,” Ki said. “You want to take that chance?”

silence

“I didn’t think so,” Ki said.

silence

“Which one is Canopus?” Ki asked.

“Huh? Uh, it’s up . . . Um. Okay, see those three stars at ten o’clock, make a sort of triangle? Reddish one on the lower left?”

“Yes.”

“Follow that arrow down to the horizon. That bright white one is Canopus.”

“So that’s south?”

“Yup.”

“Sasquatch, Yeti, Nessie, Chupacabra,” Ben said.

“What?”

“The Southern Group,” Ki said. “Like I said, we named the Blooms. My great contribution to exobiology so far. If that’s south, and that ridge ahead of us is the one west of the Base, then we’re much closer to the Southern Group. But . . . ”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “This bastard leapt. The betting pool, it’s about which Bloom moves the farthest, which way they go. And the Southern Group—”

“Moves very slowly,” Ki said. She tilted her head a few centimeters each way, slowly, watching the stars slip in and out from behind the ridge, trying to get a bearing. They were further east than she had thought. “The Eastern Group is divided into two genetically related subgroups.”

“Jubjub and Borogove, they move all the time, but not very far,” Ben said. “And then there’s Tove, Bandersnatch, Snark, and—”

“Boojum,” Ki said.

“That one is, uh, is yours? I remember that, from the reports.” Andrea said, not quite a question.

“That one is mine,” Ki said.

“That group, they can cover ground,” Ben said.

“They average twenty, thirty meters during feeding. Snark made the largest move yet recorded, almost two hundred meters, after catching a pregnant sharcoat. But Snark was half a kilometer north of the ridge this morning.”

“It’s Boojum,” Ben said.

“We can’t be certain,” Ki said, though her heart said otherwise with every racing beat.

“Boojum’s been weird every since you stepped in it. The thing caught some of your crazy.”

“There is a possibility that—”

“It’s fucking Boojum. And you’re immune. That motherfucker already took a bite, and spit you out.”

silence

“Ki, why you?” Andrea asked.

Ben snorted, swallowed, said nothing. Nor did Ki.

silence

“What I meant was, Ki, why did you survive? Why did the Bloom stop and not, you know, take you?”

“We don’t know. Not enough data points. Not with humans, anyway.”

“How many other people have . . . ” Her voice shook for a second. “How many survived?”

“None. Out of eight human subjects, I am the only survivor.”

“Oh.”

“There are three recorded incidents of sharcoats surviving attack. Same as my case; the coiltails fired, but stopped in the dermal layer. Sharcoats have a heavy layer of blubber under the skin; it helps then maintain water, like a camel’s hump, but it also protects them in one of these events. They survived, where I would not have, not without aid. It’s possible the aborted attacks have something to do with sexual reproduction; an exchange of genetic material if the subject is later taken by a different Bloom. That’s just a hypothesis.”

“So, if this is Boojum, wouldn’t it be done with you? Wouldn’t it want to you survive, then, to get caught by another Bloom? Does it know you?”

“It doesn’t know us,” Ben said.

“It’s just a hypothesis,” Ki repeated. “Anyway, this could be Snark. Could be something new.”

silence

“It’s pretty fucking obvious,” Ben said.

“What is?” Andrea asked.

Ki knew what was coming.

“Why she’s the only one that didn’t get eaten. She’s a fucking ET. A Gennissean. Seven generations, now? Eight? Under that crazy giant star, and that gravity. You think the Blooms are a textbook example of evolution, take a look at her. You want a data point? All seven humans died.”

silence

“Asshole,” Andrea said. “Ki, I’m so sorry. I just don’t get it.”

silence

“Actually, it is plausible,” Ki said. “The gene pool on the original Gennissea colony was limited, and as Ben says, there are significant environmental stresses on my homeworld. Island populations tend toward extreme genetic drift. Like the Blooms: they’re genetic islands, always changing, always drifting toward something new. Boojum has changed since my encounter; Ben’s right about that as well.

“But the variation on Gennissea is within the range of pre-Expansion Earth, and so far I haven’t found any markers that might explain my survival. Earthers and Gennissans are still the same species; we can still interbreed.”

“Wasn’t going to happen even before your accident,” Ben said.

“I hope it takes you first, Ben,” Andrea said.

“Never should have left,” Ben said again, his voice distant, as if he was speaking up into the stars.

“Ki, what I meant was, I don’t understand why you stay here. The colony is so small, and everything else is so alien. Doesn’t it just remind you . . . I mean, how can you get past what happened when it’s always right in your face?”

Ki laughed, too sharp and loud for safety. “In my face is right. Not likely to forget, am I, when it’s literally under my skin. Everywhere is alien to me now.” But before the silence could take hold again, she added, “You came out, out from Earth, out from the base, even though you know the dark is dangerous. Why was that?”

silence

“Because . . . ” Andrea said, very quietly. “To see Canopus in that dark, and know everywhere is home. Ki, it was worth it. Even this.” And then, “They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care, they, pursued it with, um . . . ”

Ki’s breath hung; her chest rang like a bell. “They pursued it with forks and hope; They threatened its life with a railway-share; They charmed it with smiles and soap.”

“What the hell?” Ben said.

“It’s a poem,” Andrea said, “about searching for something you can’t—”

“Shitshitshit,” Ben said, too loud. “Something just moved. Under my goddamn foot.”

“Sssh,” Ki hissed. “It’s the grigs, moulting. During the night after a move, they go through larval stages before taking their adult form.” She tilted her wrist, checked the time. “Getting late.”

They were facing west; the sun would be behind them. In Ardun’s thin, dry air, dawn came fast, with little warning, and the ridges in front of them were beginning to take on form.

silence

“We should try calling,” Ki said.

“You said you wouldn’t risk it,” Ben said, his voice still loud, and shaky.

“I lied,” Ki said. “What you said before, about me out here at night, walking the valleys and shouting at the Blooms . . . . It’s true.”

Neither Ben nor Andrea said anything. Ki almost laughed into that silence; she thought that if she had done so, it would have been her first laugh without bitterness since her first encounter with the Bloom. “Calling them names? Yes, calling them the names we gave them. You know what I shouted? ‘Here I am. Come and get me.’”

“Ki, I understand,” Andrea said.

“I don’t need your pity,” Ki said.

“You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met,” Andrea said.

Ki had no reply to that. But before they could lapse back into the silence, Ben snorted.

“‘Here I am, come and get me’ works for me,” he said. “I’m thinking we’re too far east for the base sensors to pick us up, but what the hell, huh?”

They all shouted.

silence

“No one is coming,” Ben said. His voice was dry, cracked but calmer. “We gotta do something, and it’s gotta be soon.”

Ki took a deep breath, held the scent of Bloom and planet and human swirling in her lungs. She thought of island genetics. Stigmergy and emergence. She breathed out again.

“Here’s something else I didn’t tell you,” she said. “When you are really lonely . . . not the sort of loneliness you can have on Earth, or any of the settled planets, or on a ship; there’s always something familiar there, that can trick you into thinking you’re part of something. When you are out here on the edge, in the damn dropshadow of human space, and everything that connected you to your species has been stripped down by something you will never truly understand, because it is truly alien, and you don’t even have that hope . . .”

She reached up and scratched her damn ear, rubbed her eye. Nothing happened, beyond a brief respite from the itching.

“When you are really lonely,” she started again, more quietly, “you aren’t sad. You don’t sit around and pity yourself. You don’t need people. You don’t need anything.”

She could see the ridge in front of them now, no detail, just a basic sense of line and plane.

“But you want. You want everything, with a desire so clear and pure it burns like anger, so intense that you have to scream it into the dark every night. Every minute . . . ”

Three years, seven months, four days, fifteen hours, nineteen minutes.

“Every moment, you burn with it.”

silence

Ki could see her own hand, a dark cutout against the surface grown pale in the rising light. There was a line in the dust, a subtle flattening of the texture, an edge. The dawn would wash it out in a few minutes, but in the dim flat light she could see an edge running behind her to curve around the lump that was Ben. Andrea was a shadow against shadow beyond him, no more than a meter inside the circle.

Or maybe she was imagining that line.

If she wasn’t, the center of the Bloom was there.

silence

The shape that was Andrea moved: a glint of an eye, a curve of cheekbone pale and pure and whole.

Ki stood up slowly. The dawn broke behind her ravaged face, rimmed her hair into a flower of fire. She said, “Andrea, I think, I hope, you do understand. I can’t get past what happened, and I don’t want to. I can only go through it.”

“Oh, Ki,” Andrea said. She sounded sad.

Ki thought of a cool pool after the heat. Forks and hope, she thought. The center was there. Boojum, love, is that you? It’s me.

“Back.” Back out of the circle, she meant. Back to your ship. Back out of the dark, back home where Canopus was far away in an familiar sky.

Ki jumped toward the center, arms flung wide like an embrace.

Ben fell backward toward the edge; the foot caught in the crust spinning him sideways, arms flailing, face twisted in fear.

Andrea rose up, arched in a graceful curve, not away but toward Ki, one hand up to catch the sun, the other stretched to pull Ki back.

For a moment, the three of them hung in the alien light, in silence.

Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 2013.

A Story, with Beans

Steven Gould

Kimball crouched in the shade of the mesquite trees, which, because of the spring, were trees instead of their usual ground-hugging scrub. He was answering a question asked by one of the sunburned tourists, who was sprawled by the water, leaning against his expensive carbon-framed backpack.

“It takes about a foot of dirt,” Kimball said. “I mean, if there isn’t anything electrical going on. Then you’ll need more, depending on the current levels and the strength of the EMF. You may need to be underground a good ten feet otherwise.

“But it’s a foot, minimum. Once saw a noob find a silver dollar that he’d dug up at one of the old truck stops west of Albuquerque. ‘Throw it away!’ we yelled at him. Why did he think they replaced his fillings before he entered the territory? But he said it was a rare coin and worth a fortune. The idiot swallowed it.

“We could have buried him. Kept his face clear but put a good foot of dirt over him. That could’ve worked, but there were bugs right there, eating those massive hydraulic cylinders buried in the concrete floor of the maintenance bays, the ones that drove the lifts.

“We scattered. He ran, too, but they were all around and they rose up like bees and then he stepped on one and it was all over. They went for the coin like it was a chewy caramel center.”

There were three college-aged tourists—two men and a girl—a pair of Pueblo khaki-dressed mounted territorial rangers that Kimball knew, and Mendez, the spring keeper. There was also a camel caravan camped below the spring, where the livestock were allowed to drink from the runoff, but the drovers, after filling their water bags, stayed close to their camels.

There were predators out here, both animal and human.

“What happened to the noob?” the tourist asked.

“He swallowed the coin. It was in his abdomen.”

“What do you mean?”

“Christ, Robert,” the girl said. “Didn’t you listen to the entrance briefing? He died. The bugs would just go right through him, to the metal. There aren’t any trauma centers out here, you know?”

One of the rangers, silent until now, said, “That’s right, miss.” He slid the sleeve of his khaki shirt up displaying a scarred furrow across the top of his forearm. “Bug did this. Was helping to dig a new kiva at Pojoaque and didn’t see I’d uncovered the base of an old metal fencepost. Not until the pain hit. There weren’t many bugs around, but they came buzzing after that first one tasted steel and broadcast the call. I was able to roll away, under the incoming ones.”

“Why are you visiting the zone?” asked Mendez, the spring keeper. He sat apart, keeping an eye on the tourists. The woman had asked about bathing earlier and the rangers explained that you could get a bath in town and there was sometimes water in the Rio Puerco, but you didn’t swim in the only drinking water between Red Cliff and the Territorial Capital.

“You can bathe without soap in the runoff, down the hill above where the cattle drink. Wouldn’t do it below,” Mendez had elaborated. “You can carry a bit of water off into the brush if you want to soap ’n’ rinse.”

Kimball thought Mendez was still sitting there just in case she did decide to bathe. Strictly as a public service, no doubt, keeping a wary eye out for, uh, tan lines.

The woman tourist said, “We’re here for Cultural Anthropology 305. Field study. We meet our prof at his camp on the Rio Puerco.”

“Ah,” said Kimball, “Matt Peabody.”

“Oh. You know him?”

“Sure. His camp is just downstream from the Duncan ford. He likes to interview the people who pass through.”

“Right. He’s published some fascinating papers on the distribution of micro-cultures here in the zone.”

“Micro-cultures. Huh,” said Kimball. “Give me an example.”

“Oh, some of the religious or political groups who form small communities out here. Do you know what I mean?”

“I do.” Kimball, his face still, exchanged a glance with the two rangers.

As the woman showed no sign of imminent hygiene, Mendez climbed to his feet, groaning, and returned to his one room adobe-faced dugout, up the hill.

The woman student became more enthusiastic. “I think it’s so cool how the zone has ended up being this great nursery for widely diverse ways of life! I’m so excited to be able to see it.”

Kimball stood up abruptly and, taking a shallow basket off of his cart, walked downstream where the cattle watered. He filled the basket with dried dung: some camel, horse, and a bit of cow. He didn’t walk back until his breathing had calmed and his face was still. When he returned to the spring, one of the rangers had a pile of dried grass and pine needles ready in the communal fire pit and the other one was skinning a long, thin desert hare.

Kimball had a crock of beans that’d been soaking in water since he’d left Red Cliff that morning. Getting it out of the cart, he added more water, a chunk of salt pork, pepper, and fresh rosemary, then wedged it in the fire with the lid, weighted down by a handy rock.

“What do you do, out here?” the woman tourist asked him. Kimball smiled lazily and, despite her earlier words, thought about offering her some beans.

“Bit of this, bit of that. Right now, I sell things.”

“A peddler? Shouldn’t you be in school?”

Kimball decided he wasn’t going to offer her any of his beans after all. He shrugged. “I’ve done the required.” In fact, he had his GED, but he didn’t advertise that. “It’s different out here.”

“How old are you?” she asked.

“How old are you?”

She grinned. “Personal question, eh? Okay. I’m nineteen.”

“I’m sixteen. Sweet, never been kissed.”

She cocked her head sideways. “Yeah, right.”

“Kimball,” one of the rangers called from across the fire-pit. “A quarter of the hare for some beans.”

“Maybe. Any buwa, Di-you-wi?” Kimball asked.

“Of course there’s buwa.”

“Buwa and a haunch.”

The two rangers discussed this in Tewa, then Di-you-wi said, “Buwa and a haunch. Don’t stint the beans.”

They warmed the buwa, rolled up blue-corn flatbread, on a rock beside the fire. Kim added a salad of wide-leaf flame-flower and purslane that he’d harvested along the trail. The rangers spoke thanks in Tewa and Kimball didn’t touch his food until they were finished.

The woman watched out of the corner of her eyes, fascinated.

The tourists ate their radiation-sterilized ration packs that didn’t spoil and didn’t have to be cooked and weren’t likely to give them the runs. But the smell of the hare and beans wafted through the clearing and the smell of the packaged food didn’t spread at all.

“That sure smells good,” the girl said.

Kimball tore off a bit of buwa and wrapped it around a spoonful of beans and a bit of the hare. He stretched out his arm. “See what you think.”

She licked her lips and hesitated.

“Christ, Jennifer, that rabbit had ticks all over it,” said the sunburned man. “Who knows what parasites they—uh, it had.”

The rangers exchanged glances and laughed quietly.

Jennifer frowned and stood up, stepping over sunburn boy, and crouched down on her heels by the fire, next to Kimball. With a defiant look at her two companions, she took the offered morsel and popped it into her mouth. The look of defiance melted into surprised pleasure. “Oh, wow. So buwe is cornbread?”

“Buwa. Tewa wafer bread—made with blue corn. The Hopi make it too, but they call it piki.”

“The beans are wonderful. Thought they’d be harder.”

“I started them soaking this morning, before I started out from Red Cliff.”

“Ah,” she lowered her voice. “What did they call you earlier?”

“Kimball.”

She blinked. “Is that your name?”

“First name. I’m Kimball. Kimball . . . Creighton.”

Di-you-wi laughed. Kimball glared at him.

“I’m Jennifer Frauenfelder.” She settled beside him.

“Frauenfelder.” Kimball said it slowly, like he was rolling it around in his mouth. “German?”

“Yes. It means field-of-women.”

Di-you-wi blinked at this and said something in Tewa to his partner, who responded, “Huh. Reminds me of someone I knew who was called Left-for-dead.”

Kimball rubbed his forehead and looked at his feet but Jennifer said, “Left-for-dead? That’s an odd name. Did they have it from birth or did something happen?”

“Oh,” said Di-you-wi, “something happened all right.” He sat up straight and spoke in a deeper voice, more formal.

“Owei humbeyô.”

(His partner whispered, almost as if to himself, “Once upon a time and long ago.”)

“Left-for-dead came to a village in the Jornada del Muerto on the edge of the territory of the City of God, where the People of the Book reside.” Di-you-wi glanced at Jennifer and added, “It was a ‘nursery of diverse beliefs.”

“Left-for-dead was selling books, Bibles mostly, but also almanacs and practical guides to gardening and the keeping of goats and sheep and cattle.

“But he had other books as well, books not approved by the Elders—the plays of Shakespeare, books of stories, health education, Darwin.

“And he stole the virtue of Sharon—”

The two male tourists sat up at that and the sunburned one smacked his lips. “The dawg!”

Di-you-wi frowned at the interruption, cleared his throat, and went on. “And Left-for-dead stole the virtue of Sharon, the daughter of a Reader of the Book by trading her a reading primer and a book on women’s health.”

“What did she trade?” asked the leering one.

“There was an apple pie,” said Di-you-wi. “Also a kiss.”

Jennifer said, “And that’s how she lost her virtue?”

“It was more the primer. The women of the People of the Book are not allowed to read,” added his partner.

“Ironic, that,” said Kimball.

“Or kiss,” said Di-you-wi said with a quelling glance. He raised his voice. “They burned his books and beat him and imprisoned him in the stocks and called on the people of the village to pelt him but Sharon, the daughter of the Reader, burned the leather hinges from the stocks in the dusk and they ran, northwest, into the malpaís where the lava is heated by the sun until you can cook buwa on the stones and when the rain falls in the afternoon it sizzles like water falling on coals.

“The Elders chased them on horseback but the malpaís is even harder on horses than men and they had to send the horses back and then they chased them on foot but the rocks leave no prints.”

“But the water in the malpaís is scarce to none and Left-for-dead and the girl were in a bad way even though they hid by day and traveled by night. Once, in desperation, Left-for-dead snuck back and stole a water gourd from the men who chased them, while they lay sleeping, but in doing so he put them back on the trail.

“Two days later, Sharon misstepped and went down in a crack in the rock and broke both bones in her lower leg. Left-for-dead splinted the leg, made a smoke fire, and left her there. The People of the Book found her and took her back, dragged on a travois, screaming with every bump and jar.

“They discussed chasing Left-for-dead and then they prayed and the Reader said God would punish the transgressor, and they went back to their village and spread the story far and wide, to discourage the weak and the tempted.

“Left-for-dead walked another day to the north, hoping to reach the water at Marble Tanks, but he had been beaten badly in the stocks and his strength failed him. When he could go no further he rolled into a crevice in the lava where there was a bit of shade and got ready to die. His tongue began to swell and he passed in and out of darkness and death had his hand on him.”

Here Di-you-wi paused dramatically, taking a moment to chase the last of his beans around the bowl with a bit of buwa.

Jennifer leaned forward. “And?”

“And then it rained. A short, heavy summer thunderstorm. The water dripped down onto Left-for-dead’s face and he drank, and awoke drinking and coughing. And then drank some more. He crawled out onto the face of the malpaís and drank from the puddles in the rock and was able to fill the water gourd he’d stolen from the Reader’s men, but he didn’t have to drink from it until the next day when the last of the rain evaporated from the pockets in the lava.

“He made it to Marble Tanks, and then east to some seeps on the edge of the lava flows, and hence to the Territorial Capital.”

“Because the incident with Left-for-dead was just the latest of many, a territorial judge was sent out with a squad of rangers to hold hearings. The City of God sent their militia, one hundred strong, and killed the judge and most of the rangers.

“When the two surviving rangers reported back, the territorial governor flashed a message beyond the curtain and a single plane came in answer, flying up where the air is so thin that the bugs’ wings can’t catch, and they dropped the leaflets, the notice of reclamation—the revocation of the city’s charter.”

“That’s it?” said Jennifer. “They dropped a bunch of leaflets?”

“The first day. The second day it wasn’t leaflets.”

Jennifer held her hand to her mouth. “Bombs?”

“Worse. Chaff pods of copper and aluminum shavings that burst five hundred feet above the ground. I heard tell that the roofs and ground glittered in the sunlight like jewels.”

The sunburned man laughed. “That’s it? Metal shavings?”

“I can’t believe they let you through the curtain,” Jennifer said to him. “Didn’t you listen at all?” She turned back to Di-you-wi. “How many died?”

“Many left when they saw the leaflets. But not the most devout and not the women who couldn’t read. The Speaker of the Word said that their faith would prevail. Perhaps they deserved their fate . . . but not the children.

“The last thing the plane dropped was a screamer—an electromagnetic spike trailing an antennae wire several hundred feet long. They say the bugs rose into the air and blotted the sun like locusts.”

Jennifer shuddered.

Di-you-wi relented a little. “Many more got out when they saw the cloud. I mean, it was like one of the ten plagues of the first chapter of their book, after all. If they made it outside the chaff pattern and kept to the low ground, they made it. But those who stayed and prayed?” He paused dramatically. “The adobe houses of the City of God are mud and dust and weeds, and the great Cathedral is a low pile of stones and bones.”

“Owei humbeyô.” Once upon a time and long ago.

Everyone was quiet for a moment though Jennifer’s mouth worked as if to ask something, but no sound came out. Kimball added the last of the gathered fuel to the fire, banged the dust out of his basket, and flipped it, like a Frisbee, to land in his rickshaw-style handcart. He took the empty stoneware bean crock and filled it from the stream and put at the edge of the coals, to soak before he cleaned it.

“What happened to Sharon?” Jennifer finally asked into the silence.

Di-you-wi shook his head. “I don’t know. You would have to ask Left-for-dead.”

Jennifer: “Oh, thanks a lot. Very helpful.”

Di-you-wi and his partner exchanged glances and his partner opened his mouth as if to speak, but Di-you-wi shook his head.

Kimball hadn’t meant to speak, but he found the words spilling out anyway, unbidden. “I would like to say that Sharon’s leg still hurts her. That it didn’t heal straight, and she limps. But that she teaches others to read now down in New Roswell. That I had seen her recently and sold her school some primers just last month.”

Jennifer frowned, “You would like to say that?”

“It was a bad break and I set it as best I could, but they bounced her over the lava on their way home and trusted to God for further treatment. She couldn’t even walk, much less run, when the metal fell.”

Jennifer’s mouth was open but she couldn’t speak for a moment.

“Huh,” said Di-you-wi. “Hadn’t heard that part, Left-for-dead.”

Kimball could see him reorganizing the tale in his head, incorporating the added details. “Got it from her sister. After I recovered.”

Jennifer stood and walked over to Kimball’s cart and flipped up the tarp. The books were arranged spine out, paperbacks mostly, some from behind the Porcelain Wall, newish with plasticized covers, some yellowed and cracking from before the bugs came, like anything that didn’t contain metal or electronics, salvaged, and a small selection of leather-bound books from New Santa Fe, the territorial capital, hand-set with ceramic type and hand-bound—mostly practical, how-to books.

“Peddler. Book seller.”

Kimball shrugged. “Varies. I’ve got other stuff, too. Plastic sewing-needles, ceramic blades, antibiotics, condoms. Mostly books.”

Finally she asked, “And her father? The Elder who put you in the stocks?”

“He lives. His faith wasn’t strong enough when it came to that final test. He lost an arm, though.”

“Is he in New Roswell, too?”

“No. He’s doing time in the territorial prison farm in Nuevo Belen. He preaches there, to a very small congregation. The People of the Book don’t do well if they can’t isolate their members—if they can’t control what information they get. They’re not the People of the Books, after all.

“If she’d lived, Sharon would probably have made him a part of her life . . . but he’s forbidden the speaking of her name. He would’ve struck her name from the leaves of the family Bible, but the bugs took care of that.”

Di-you-wi shook his head on hearing this. “And who does this hurt? I think he is a stupid man.”

Kimball shrugged. “It’s not him I feel sorry for.”

Jennifer’s eyes glinted brightly in the light of the fire. She said, “It’s not fair, is it?”

And there was nothing to be said to that.

Originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, May 2009.

About the Artist and Authors

Ron Guyatt (ronguyatt.com)

Ron Guyatt is a self-taught artist and professionally-taught graphic designer from Toronto Canada. He attended George Brown College for Design Foundation where he completed with Honors and then followed with his three-year diploma in graphic design at George Brown College.

Inspired by Art Deco, film and science fiction he loves to design posters & create illustrations. His work as been featured in magazines such as Games TM, Level, and Playstation Magazine and worked with clients like EA, Digital Devolver and Bioware.

His Forever cover art is available for purchase as part of his space poster series at: fabledcreative.bigcartel.com/category/space-posters

Martin L. Shoemaker (www.Shoemaker.Space)

Martin L. Shoemaker is a programmer who writes on the side . . . or maybe it’s the other way around. Programming pays the bills, but a second place story in the Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest earned him lunch with Buzz Aldrin. Programming never did that! His work has appeared in Clarkesworld, Analog, Galaxy’s Edge, Digital Science Fiction, and Writers of the Future Volume 31.

Gregory Norman Bossert (GregoryNormanBossert.com)

Gregory Norman Bossert is an author, filmmaker, and musician, currently based just over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. He started writing in 2009 on a dare from film designer Iain McCaig, attended the Clarion Writer’s Workshop in 2010, and has since published over a dozen stories. His story “The Telling” in Beneath Ceaseless Skies won the 2013 World Fantasy Award, and “Bloom”, originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, was a finalist for the 2014 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. When not writing, he wrangles spaceships and superheroes for Industrial Light & Magic.

Steven Gould (eatourbrains.com/steve)

Steven Gould is the author of Jumper, Wildside, Helm, Blind Waves, Reflex, Jumper: Griffin’s Story, 7th Sigma, Impulse, and Exo as well as short fiction published in Analog, Asimov’s, and Amazing, and other magazines and anthologies. He is the recipient of the Hal Clement Young Adult Award for Science Fiction and has been a Hugo, Nebula, Prometheus, and Compton Crook finalist, but his favorite distinction was being on the ALA’s list of Top 100 Banned Books 1990-1999. “Jumper was right there at #94 between Steven King’s Christine and a non-fiction book on sex education. Then the Harry Potter books came along and bumped us low achievers off the bottom of the list.”

Jumper was made into the 2008 feature film starring Samuel L. Jackson, Jamie Bell, Rachel Bilson, and Hayden Christensen. In 2013 Steve was hired to help develop the three movie sequels to James Cameron’s Avatar, as well as write four novels based on the films. Steve lives in New Mexico with his wife, writer Laura J. Mixon (M. J. Locke) and their two daughters, two dogs, and three chickens. He has practiced aikido and Japanese sword for the last two decades, and has recently served two terms as president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

About Forever

Forever Magazine is edited by Neil Clarke and published monthly by Wyrm Publishing. Subscription information is available on our website at forever-magazine.com.

Neil Clarke (neil-clarke.com) is the editor of Clarkesworld Magazine (clarkesworldmagazine.com), Forever Magazine, and Upgraded; owner of Wyrm Publishing; and a three-time Hugo Award Nominee for Best Editor (short form). The innagural edition of his Year’s Best Science Fiction anthology series will be published by Night Shade Books in 2016. He currently lives in NJ with his wife and two children.

Thank you for reading Forever Magazine.