The Dark Side (20 page)

After enduring six further blows the droid finally managed to get a hand on the reach extender. But before he could wrench it forward, thereby dragging the man into striking range, the man shrewdly released it and hopped away—hopped backward, in huge defensive bounds. The droid hesitated for a second, then lurched forward in attack, wielding the weapon like a club, intending to give the man some of his own medicine—with interest. But the man was already picking up a boulder, a feat impossible on Earth, and hurling it at the droid like a medicine ball. The droid had to dodge to avoid being struck.

Then the man, still retreating, started pitching rocks as well—pitching them nearly thirty meters, with surprising accuracy. The droid had to bend and weave. It really was becoming ridiculous—he was being
outfought
by a human, a man he could kill in seconds.

The droid decided he'd had enough.

Lose your temper often. And well.

He stormed across the rock-strewn terrain—he wasn't even smiling now—and descended on the strange man, determined to stop him once and for all. But the man exercised another curious evasive move, half curl and half flip, and somehow escaped his grasp once more. The droid changed course too—a whip-snap move—but the strange man yet again managed to elude him.

Then the two of them engaged in a ridiculous chase, bounding like kangaroos, abruptly changing course, this way, that way, at one stage heading for the day-night terminator before doubling back, the man at one stage squirming out of the droid's grip and hopping away again.

The droid stopped for a second, to compute his options, and scored a rock in the face for good measure—the blow actually bent his head to the side, and caused him to shake himself like a man clocked in the jaw.

And when he looked back—nothing. He couldn't see the strange man anywhere. He must have hidden behind a boulder. Or dropped into a hole. The droid set out, following the man's footprints in the graphite-like dust, but there were so many prints now—going in all directions, and each fresh enough to retain a heat signature—that it was difficult to see where his quarry had gone. He might as well have dematerialized.

So the droid made a very logical decision. There was no point chasing a man who was very likely doomed anyway. Out here, on the far side of the Moon, miles from anywhere, the strange man's chances of survival were remote to nonexistent. Moreover, the droid did not want to be lured away from the LRV—a cunning ploy on the man's part, perhaps, to regain possession of it and speed away.

So he just headed back to the vehicle himself. He got into the driver's seat. He examined the controls—more primitive than
those of any rover in his experience, but still recognizable. He took hold of the hand controller. He pulled it all the way back and released the brake. He pushed it forward. And after a few spasms he blurted off, with no sign of the strange man anywhere. In a few minutes the whole scene of the fight, and any possibility of being attacked, was completely lost behind the horizon. It was actually crueler that way, the droid thought, because after all—

It's merciful to go for the jugular.

But now, less than ten minutes later, he's come to an ignominious halt. He's in a broad ridge between two craters. The darkness is advancing relentlessly. If he doesn't get the LRV functioning quickly its thermal control systems might not be able to counteract the sudden cold. So he gets off the vehicle for a closer look.

On the left side, the same side that's partially crushed, are two of the traction drive motors. They're pressurized with nitrogen and covered with thermal blankets. The droid makes a visual inspection but can't detect any leaks—the casings are solid copper. He moves along the chassis to examine the electrical component box, which is shielded with metalized polyester. But as close as he can get—and his eyes are just inches away, scanning methodically with his heat sensors—he can see no damage here either. He feels the outer casing, pressing sentient fingertips against the metal. But nothing. He's about to move on when—

WHACK!

And before he can straighten and turn—

WHACK
—again!

The droid is being bashed around the head. It's the strange aggressive man—again! He's followed all the way—on foot!

WHACK!

He's like an automaton! His teeth are bared, his faceplate is beaded with moisture. And he's swinging that reach extender—which
the droid had thrown aside—like he's a medieval knight with a broadsword!

The droid raises his arms defensively, but he still can't prevent the extender glancing off his head.

WHACK!

So he decides to take a leaf out of the strange man's book. He retreats with huge defensive bounds. He stops ten meters distant. But then he sees the strange man scramble back into the seat of the LRV—he's trying to reclaim it after all! It must have been part of his plan all along! But wait—he's not driving away, he's not fleeing; he's just backing the vehicle expertly—the rear wheels hit the crater rim behind—and executing a three-point turn. He's going to face the droid head-on. He's going to charge the LRV, with the reach extender pointed like a jousting stick, like some mad knight on a steed!

The droid doesn't laugh—he's not programmed to do so—but he starts smiling again.

Smile. Smile. Smile. Kill. Smile.

The LRV blurts toward him, totally silent. The droid, even from a distance, sees that the strange man has the most fierce glint in his eyes, as if his whole life has boiled down to this one crazy act. He hurtles in with spear pointed. But the droid stands immobile. He waits for exactly the right moment. And then he takes three bounding steps. He springs into the air. He spears headfirst
over
the outstretched reach extender. He flies
past
the strange aggressive man. And on the way he thrusts a clenched fist into the man's helmet, with a force equivalent to 2,500 psi. And the faceplate cracks. And that's enough.

The droid executes a roll in midair—easy enough in lunar gravity—and lands on his feet, needing only half a dozen stumbling steps before regaining his balance. Then he looks back.

The LRV, with a last splutter of energy, is heading over the lip of a crater. But the strange man is no longer in the driver's seat. It takes a few seconds, but the droid finally sees him. He's staggering in the opposite direction, out of the shadows and into the night. And he's tugging at his spacesuit. He's unstrapping his lifesupport system, disconnecting the hoses, dropping it all behind. He's reaching to his neck. He actually seems to be cutting open the front of his suit with a box cutter. He's pulling out the thermal and ventilation layers. He has bits of insulation in his hands. He makes about a hundred paces—it must be agonizing with his blood boiling, his tissues swelling, his lungs bursting—and then drops to his knees. And collapses completely. But not before twisting his body so that he lands on his back, facing the sky.

The droid waits long enough to make sure there's no movement. Then he goes over to check. It's the sort of thing he's not needed to do before, but the strange aggressive man certainly warrants the effort. It's not exactly admiration on the droid's part—he just wants to be absolutely sure that the man is dead.

And he is. His faceplate is splattered with coughed-up blood. His eyeballs are bulging. His skin is blue and looks shrink-wrapped. And the front of his suit is peeled back, exposing the skin to the lunar vacuum. When the droid bends closer, he sees that the man has colored diamonds inked all over his chest. And in the middle of the diamonds there's a white dove. It's as if the strange aggressive man, in his last moments, tried to release this dove to the universe.

The droid looks up, but all he can see are the shimmering clouds of dust, blocking out the stars.

A
T THE SECRET ROCKET
base Justus is met by a voluptuous woman called Amity Powers. She welcomes him smoothly, reiterates the importance of the mission, and apologizes in advance for Fletcher Brass—he won't be able to spare much time, she explains, and might not be in the best of moods anyway. But she assures Justus that he's open to all questions and certainly wants the investigation to succeed.

“Pleased to hear it,” Justus says. “And who are you, exactly?”

“I'm the expedition's flight coordinator.”

“And you'll be going to Mars too?”

“Oh no—I'm just managing things. For the crew. Why do you ask?”

“I just like hearing myself talk.”

The flight coordinator chuckles and probably thinks Justus is flirting with her. She ushers him down a stairway and then leaves
him alone on a wire-mesh landing in a cavernous construction chamber, like something out of a Bond movie. Brass's cone-shaped
Prospector II
, much larger than most spacecraft launched from Earth, occupies most of the room. The outer shell, made of carbon fiber and tiles of ablative shielding, is still patchy, though Justus notices plenty of brass trimmings already in place. Through a portal about ten meters up workmen are visible, scurrying around with plasma torches and sealant guns. There are a lot of sparks, flashes, buzzes, and squeals, almost as if a little show is being performed. The act goes on for about ten minutes—just enough to make a good impression—and then a man emerges from the ship, passes through a curtain of sparks, crosses the catwalk, and extends a hand.

“Lieutenant Damien Justus, is it?”

“That's right.”

“I'm Fletcher Brass—the real Fletcher Brass.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Brass.”

Brass's hand is so exfoliated it feels like a lobster claw. He's wearing a skintight, brass-colored spacesuit. His face—his whole physique—looks unreal, larger than life, just as one might expect of a man in his seventies with a body repeatedly fat- and fluid-siphoned and replenished with spare parts. He's also a lot taller than Justus expected—then again, his spine has had a lot of time to lengthen—and, unless the spacesuit is designed to be flattering, more muscular too. But regardless of what's been done to him—all those cosmetic surgeries, anti-aging medications, hair grafts, muscle implants, and the like—there's still something about him, some inner spark, some undying charm, that nobody else, certainly not some wife-murdering Welsh thespian, could ever hope to approximate.

“My valet tells me you insisted on seeing me in person, Lieutenant. Wouldn't take no as an answer. Wouldn't accept any excuses at all.”

“It's my job not to accept excuses.”

“Well, I'm delighted to hear that. If we had more men like you then I'm sure Otto Decker wouldn't have been killed in the first place. Which is exactly why I approved when I heard my daughter hired you. Shall we find a place to sit down?”

“Here is fine with me—I have just a few questions and I don't want to waste your time.”

“I appreciate your concern, Lieutenant.” Brass looks Justus up and down with his brass-flecked eyes—they truly are mesmerizing. “And I don't want to waste your time either. So do you mind if I tell you what's on your mind?”

“By all means.”

“You're wondering about Otto Decker—exactly what I had planned for him. If he might have been killed because he was in line to rule Purgatory while I'm on the Mars expedition. And you're wondering if a bona fide terrorist group might be involved, or someone else—someone with grubby ambitions of their own. So you've come to see what you can pry out of me about the complex political and familial dynamics that operate here. Is that it in a nutshell?”

Justus thinks that he sounds very much like his daughter. “More or less,” he says.

“More or less?” Brass raises a brass-tinted eyebrow. “You have some other questions for me?”

“A good investigator keeps some cards close to his chest.”

“And a good poker player can tell what's close to that chest anyway. So let me go on, Lieutenant.” Brass's eyes haven't moved or blinked. “Let me tell you what else is on your mind.”

“Please.”

“You don't know whom to trust or what to believe in Purgatory. But you wonder if it could be my daughter who's behind all
this. That's right—my own daughter, QT Brass. Don't say it hasn't crossed your mind. You wonder if QT might have arranged the whole thing. You've heard she's got ambitious plans of her own, so it figures that she'd like to implement them while I'm away. And you're wondering if she's arranged to have one of her rivals eliminated under the pretext of a terrorist assassination.”

Justus shrugs. “That's part of it.”

“Of course it's just part—I haven't finished yet. Because you also wonder about me. Don't deny that either. You wonder if
I
had some reason to assassinate Otto Decker. Perhaps I didn't trust the man for some reason, despite all appearances. Perhaps he knew something about me that I didn't want made public. So perhaps
I'm
the one who's fabricated a terrorist attack to cover for an assassination. How does that sound?”

Justus wonders if Brass is trying to outdo his daughter in the art of preemptive candor. “I'm not going to deny it,” he says.

“Of course not. But let me tell you something, Lieutenant. Let me be more honest than I have any need to be. All those suspicions are wrong. Totally without foundation. First, I love and respect my daughter. We disagree about a lot of things, and often passionately. But that doesn't mean we don't love each other. She's my flesh and blood, after all. And I know for a fact—with every fiber of my being—that QT couldn't be behind this. I
know
it. Nor am I troubled by her agenda, whatever her agenda is. Because I already have systems and protocols in place. I'll be absent for a long time—
years
—but that doesn't mean I won't still be in charge of Purgatory. Effectively, anyway.”