The Fourth Science Fiction MEGAPACK ®. Айн Рэнд
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told you, but we are not ‘carrying something.’”
Marcus said, “Get Hesperson. He will talk to us. He’s no trifling fool to hide behind his bots and hires.”
Hesperson came on. “It’s beginning to look like something happened back there, something to do with those Land Ethic Nomads you entertained overnight.”
“Didn’t want to think that,” said Marcus.
Zora bit her lip. “Not all of them. That Valkiri woman.”
“She may have done something to the nuke at the Centime’s Pharm, as well, Dr. Smythe. You understand the implications of this.”
Zora squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them and blinked to clear her mind. “Yes, ombudsman Hesperson. There’s a killer on the loose.”
He grimaced and nodded. “Exactly. And if seems you are not her only victims.”
Marcus said, “Then best shelter us until she’s apprehended.”
Hesperson continued smoothly. “And draw fire here? If this woman follows you into Borealopolis, several thousand lives will be at risk. The entire population of our city would be endangered.” He leaned into the viewscreen. “Let me put a proposition to you, Drs. Smythe. Bring me this woman, give her up to us, and we will allow you shelter. Perhaps I can even persuade the Borealopolis citycorp to reward you somehow.”
Marcus said, “How? How can we stop her.”
Hesperson made a cage of his fingers and looked over it at them “I assume you have the usual homesteader’s aversion to visual monitoring of your hab?”
“We left Earth to avoid that kind of violation,” Zora snapped.
Hesperson’s mouth twitched. “Then let me remind you that you are the only ones who have seen her face.”
* * * *
Zora felt exhausted. The sols were short this time of year, and the sky had darkened several hours before. Sekou’s whimpers cut her like little blades, and she herself was getting hungry. “My brain is shutting down, Marcus. What can we do? Land Ethic Nomads are many of them unregistered. We don’t know Valkiri’s last name, or even if she was born in a place where she would be given one. Valkiri is probably an alias. We don’t even know the legal names of the tribe members we’ve sheltered and traded with before.”
“We’ve seen her face.”
“Yes, briefly and in bad light.” In respect for the Land Ethic Nomad’s desire to conserve resources, the lights in the hab had been dimmed. Of course, that served Valkiri’s purposes very well. “But we could download face reconstruction software and create a picture. Or—”
“Mama,” said Sekou quite reasonably, “I really have to go now. Can’s we go home now?”
“No, honey.”
“You promised we could go visit Mr. and Mrs. Centime and that little girl. Please, mama. They have a bathroom, don’t they?”
Zora turned to him. “You’ll just have to hold it! This is an emergency, Sekou.”
“Mama, I can’t!”
“Well, then you’ll have to go in your pants. We have more important problems.”
“Mama—”
She turned to Marcus. “We can’t pressurize the rover just to let him urinate. We just can’t.” The rover passenger compartment had no airlock. It took a long time to pressurize and they might have a much greater need later to pressurize, if for example they had to consume water or food. Of course they’d have to find water and food, which they hadn’t had time to pack.
Marcus squatted down in his cumbersome environment suit and looked at Sekou, bent in a cramped ball inside the bubble. “Listen, Sekou. Your daddy and mama understand. We ran into a problem and we’re trying to solve it fast. Now, take a deep breath and tell me if there’s enough air in there.”
Sekou made a great show of inflating his chest as far as was possible while bent double, then blowing out. “I think it’s okay, Daddy.”
“Good. That’s a good boy. Now close your eyes and keep trying the air in there. Breath big deep breaths, that’s right.”
“But if I—?”
“If you have an accident, we can clean it up soon as we get where we’re going. Okay? Are you a big guy?”
“No, Daddy.”
“Oh yes. Big, brave guy. Breathe again, let’s see you puff out those cheeks.”
Sekou breathed in and out again, eyes closed.
Zora felt again the pang of being not very good with kids. When a girl leaves her family at fifteen and the earth itself at nineteen, as Zora had, maybe she doesn’t pick up the knack of being good with kids. “He’ll pee himself if he falls asleep,” she sent on a private channel to Marcus.
Marcus said, “Yeah, and what harm is there in that, considering the ice we’re on?”
That crumbled Zora’s sense of reality, and she began laughing, in a kind of relief at having let go some of the pettier fears of their situation. Then something occurred to her. “We could use the photograph that Sekou took.”
Marcus turned his eyes to her. “Use—”
“To find her. If we have an image, we don’t need to try to recognize her face. We can upload it to Marsnet and let their biometrics identify her.”
“Girl, I thought I married you for your pretty face, but I’ll love you forever for your brain. Wait, though. What if she’s not registered?”
“She won’t be, probably. But Earth shares biometric data with Marsnet.”
“Still won’t tell us where she is on Mars. I like the idea—”
“Even Land Ethic Nomads can’t stay out in the sky forever. Send out biometrics, including the photo itself, and tell Pharmholders to check when travelers seek shelter.”
“Yes, yes, Daddy, Mama, we can go home then?” Sekou was not asleep, it seemed.
“Yes, little habling, yes, but close your eyes and go to sleep like Daddy said.”
“Okay. But I have to go so bad!”
Marcus patted the top of the bubble with his gloved hand. “Remember what I said, now. Close your eyes. Mama and Daddy have to talk some.”
Zora said, “There’s one problem. I have no idea where that photo plate is.”
“Ask Sekou.”
Sekou heard his name and was instantly awake, sensing some how that he could be part of the solution to the family crisis. “Mommy! Mommy! It’s in my bedroom. I tried to show you when you read my story to me, only you made me go to sleep.”
Zora felt a shudder of fear and hope. She knew Marcus would volunteer to go back into the hab and retrieve the camera and the photo plate. She knew it was dangerous, but she made an instant calculation: life without Marcus would be hell, and life on Mars without Marcus would be worse than hell.
Marcus had already turned the rover around. She bit her lip. She was going to insist on being the one to go into that hot hab. But she wouldn’t make her bid until the last possible minute. She’d surprise him, force him into letting her do it before he could think. The entire ride was silent. Maybe Marcus was making the same calculations.
* * * *
As they neared the hab, Sekou’s tired little voice piped up. “Can we go back in now?”
“No! Stop asking! Mommy and Daddy are just trying to protect you,” Zora snapped.
Marcus said, “Sekou, my big smart man, you remember about the radiation