The Road to Mars: A Post-Modem Novel (1999) (35 page)

I’m panicking. No. Don’t panic. Take a deep breath. Got to go to Police Headquarters and see if it’s still there. Submit a Freedom of Information request. Maybe they destroyed it. After all, it is a long time ago.

“So this file from Carlton?” asked Dunphy as they prepared to move out for McTurk’s.

“Lot of damn nonsense about comedy,” said Rogers, preoccupied.

“What?”

“That pussy little robot wasting our time. I should have let them recycle him.”

“Comedy!” snorted Kyle contemptuously. “Like a machine can understand comedy.”

“Did you get the manifests, Kyle?”

“Here’s a list of all the stuff the Bodyslogs shipped on board. Take your pick.”

“Try Rhea,” said Dunphy.

“Why Rhea?”

“We were tracking a consignment of illicit arms that went missing on Rhea.”

Kyle jabbed his finger at something in the manifests. “Wow. Bodyslogs’ log. See there. Rhea. Tons of stuff brought on board. Mainly theatrical equipment.”

“
From Rhea?
”

“Yeah.”

“Not exactly the home of theater, is it?”

“Katy Wallace is in the Theatrical Division.”

“Interesting that she’s being shot full of drugs about the time someone is turning off Sammy Weiss.”

“Don’t you just hate coincidence?” said Dunphy.

“Pull her in,” said Rogers.

Kyle nodded.

“And I think it’s time to talk to Keppler.”

“You got it,” said Kyle.

Moments later Rogers was looking at a large-screen image of Emil Keppler. To his surprise the man was in a bathrobe. But his sneering tone had not been washed away.

“Ah, Rogers. I was hoping something unpleasant had happened to you.”

“It has.”

“Nothing trivial, I hope.”

“No. It’s not trivial.” He hesitated. Should he alert him?

His trim white beard, his white hair, the whole phony naval look irritated Rogers.

“Let’s see how he reacts,” said Dunphy, encouraging Rogers. “Go for it.”

“We believe that there are large quantities of arms hidden on this ship.”

The needles underneath the screen jumped.

“Whoa,” said Kyle, “that hit him in the heart.” They were monitoring his reactions. Keppler paused two seconds too long before replying.

“Don’t be silly. This is a passenger ship.”

“Yes.”

“A man would lose his license forever for a violation like that.”

“That would be the least of his problems.”

“Why so?”

“In the wake of H9, anyone even remotely implicated would be involved in conspiracy to commit mass murder.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“He’s good,” said Kyle. “He’s got himself back under control.”

“It looks as if someone in authority has made it possible for an extreme group to hide weaponry on board. Perhaps it was a deal made through ignorance, or under duress, or as a result of blackmail, there are many possible defenses…” He paused to let his message sink in. “However, it would be very bad for that person if he were now to compound culpability with noncooperation.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Did I say anything to threaten
you?
”

Keppler said nothing.

“Nice play,” said Dunphy as if he were watching a tennis match.

“I think I read that as a confirm,” said Kyle.

“It’s good enough for me,” said Rogers. “We’ll pick him up right after McTurk’s.” He clicked the intercom back on.

“Emil Keppler, I am placing you formally and officially under house arrest until further notice. You may not make or receive any calls. You may not leave your quarters, nor are you to entertain any guests. You understand?”

“House arrest? You’re putting me under house arrest?”

He began to laugh.

“You think that’s funny?”

He could hardly speak.

“I think it’s fucking hilarious.”

Rogers broke off the connection.

Josef emerged from the kitchen.

“Stop that,” he said. Keppler was still hysterical.

“I’m under arrest,” said Keppler, and began laughing again. The men filed back into the room staring at him.

“It seems everyone is keen to keep you here. It’s time, however, that we left. Pavel will stay here and look after you. He has instructions to shoot you if you so much as open your mouth before we’re clear. You understand?”

“Oh perfectly.”

“Come along then, gentlemen, it’s time to start your engines.”

This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.

—
Horace Walpole

I have neglected to tell you where Katy was in all of this. I guess I’m avoiding the subject. You can blame Molly if you like. I’m off women at the moment. I don’t trust them. I think Molly was doing a bit of snooping before she left. She is studying the behavioral patterns of an organism called frilia. A kind of space moss. In particular, she has been observing its florid behavior during the mating cycle when its cilia become highly extended and the creature behaves erratically. I suggested this might be comic behavior, and she looked at me strangely and asked me what I knew about comedy in the behavioral pattern of creatures. I thought, Has she found something? I averted the subject by initiating sex, but it was a close thing. Afterwards she tried to pump me for more, but I distracted her. I made up a silly rhyme.

The frillier the cilia

The sillier the frilia

The frillier the frilia

The sillier the cilia.

She really liked that.

So Katy. Well yes. When she came out of the hospital, there was an old man standing in front of her. Tears in his eyes. Arms wide. Weeping. Moaning. In an odd language.

“Katerina. Katerina. Du bist meine tochter liebling. Ich bin sein Papa.”

Over and over again. You’re my daughter. I’m your father. How many times as a child had she had that dream? That her father would walk through the door and scoop her up in his arms and carry her away. Nights at the orphanage when she refused to believe he was dead. And now this was him? She couldn’t believe it. She gazed in wonder at him, as a being from another planet, a time traveler.

“You’re my father. You’re really my father?”

She couldn’t take it in. She burst into tears. He hugged her.

“There. It’s okay. It’s me, child. It’s really me.”

But he was so old and frail. Her father had been a big man. A powerful man. She couldn’t recognize him in this old man.

“Come Katerina,” he said. “We have to go. They are looking for me.”

They couldn’t go to her apartment. The watchers, he said, would certainly be waiting for him there. They needed somewhere to hide, where they would be safe. There was a place she went occasionally when she wanted to be alone. It was a bedbots-only area at the top of the tall C Tower, a linen room where they stored spare blankets and sheets and toweling. Here amidst the comforting smell of freshly laundered linen, they sat on rough wood chairs and watched the galaxy wheeling gently as the ship slowly revolved on its long corkscrew journey towards Mars. Comus talked while tears poured down his face. He told her of her mother, of her birth, their betrayal, the long harsh years when he believed she was irretrievably lost. And then his joy at last in tracing her; his rash decision to contact her through Charles Jay Brown. How he was suspected, watched, betrayed. His elation at having found her shattered by his guilt at having her so suddenly snatched away.

“I’m sorry, Katerina,” he said, “it was all my fault.”

But she could not be sorry. She had found him at last.

He was suddenly tired. She laid him down on the blankets and she watched him until he fell asleep.

Then she tried calling Alex.

“What do you mean ‘Not Registered’?” she asked in disbelief. “He must be somewhere.”

“Sorry, we are not getting a listing.”

How could Alex have simply disappeared? It must be a result of all the refugees and the chaos on board.

When she left, her father was sleeping. She kissed him and left a note—“Back in ten minutes”—and slipped out.

She had decided to go see Emil Keppler. It was natural enough. But she had no clue he was sitting under armed guard in his apartment. Pavel was watching him warily. The large automatic weapon which lay in his lap never stopped pointing at the man with the trim white beard.

“That’s funny,” said Keppler. “Arrested twice.” He chuckled mirthlessly to himself. “I wonder if anyone else would like to arrest me?”

They both jumped at the knock on the outer door.

Pavel rose and held the automatic to his head.

“I’m watching you. Be very careful what you do.”

Pavel took the gun from his head and retreated inside the bathroom.

“I can still see you,” he said.

The laser from his sights made a tiny red dot on the back of Keppler’s head as he walked slowly across to the door. He didn’t open it.

“Who is it?” he said.

“It’s me, Emil,” said Katy.

He hesitated.

“I can’t see you right now.”

“Emil, I need to talk to you.”

“I’m sorry. I’m very busy.”

“It’s urgent.”

“It’ll have to wait.”

“Emil, I have to talk to you.”

“Go away. You can’t come in.”

“Please. Let me see you.”

“No.”

“Emil…”

“Go away. Leave me alone.”

“This is very important, Emil.”

“Damn you. I never want to see you again.”

Katy stared at the door. He sounded weird. Distant. Preoccupied. She shrugged and walked away.

Keppler sat down. Pavel came back out of the bathroom, lowering the weapon.

“Who was that?”

“Just some girl,” said Keppler.

Katy was puzzled. What should she do now? She should find Alex, but first she must check on her father. Even as she approached the linen room, she sensed something was wrong. When she saw the door open, she knew what she would find. Her father was gone. There was no sign of violence, no note, no nothing. Perhaps he just woke up and went out for a stroll. No need to panic. Then why did she feel this way?

She called the Bodyslogs.

“Old man out wandering?” they said. “No problem, what’s his number?”

But of course he didn’t have a number, and of course she didn’t have a picture.

“Lady,” said the Bodyslogs, “this ain’t a lot to go on.”

“Just pick him up and bring him home,” she pleaded. “He may be a little confused.”

“We’ll try,” said the Bodyslogs, “but with no personal number, how are we supposed to trace him?”

“Just find him,” she said.

People who indulge in comedy tend to be more and more isolated as the years go by.

—
Dudley Moore

Comedians don’t have very many friends. The real secret of comedy is sadness. Bleakness. It’s a young man’s game. Red Nose comedians cannot be alone for very long, says Carlton. The White Face craves isolation and is happier solo, but the Red Nose pines for people, for how can he realize himself except in their reflection? The White Face, on the contrary, craves solitude so he can be depressed about it. His universe is fine once he knows he has been abandoned again. So, locked up and isolated, Alex raged while Lewis found a Gideon’s Bible and spent his time reading the sonorous prose of Ecclesiasticus.

And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished as though they had never been
.

When the bedbot came into his room, Alex waited until her back was turned and then tried to slip out of the door. She caught him in a grip of iron.

“I wouldn’t do that if I was you” was all she said.

“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

Lame, lame, but it was as if she knew exactly where he was all the time, which was of course exactly right. He tried making little feints towards the door. She wouldn’t even look up. It was only when he crossed an invisible line precisely three feet from the exit that she would turn and fix him with a look. He tried sitting on a chair and sliding his foot forward over the imaginary line. She would come in, look at him, and then as he smiled innocently and slid his foot back she would go on with her work. Four times he did this. Each time his foot went over the line she returned and looked at him. The fifth time he slid his foot forward, he screamed. An electromagnetic shock numbed his entire leg. It felt like someone had chopped his foot off. He almost lost consciousness. His bedbot came back in.

“Okay now?” she said, not unkindly.

He nodded grimly.

“No more games?”

“You win,” he said. “Very funny.”

So half an hour later when a bedbot in a light green uniform, with flat brown sensible shoes and an odd kind of waitress hat, appeared at his door and urgently beckoned him to walk through the fry zone, he smiled bitterly, shook his head, and turned back to his game.

“C’mon, Alex,” said the bedbot.

“Hey, no thanks, my foot still hurts.”

“This way. Please hurry.”

“You’re out of your mind. I’m not playing any more games with you bedbots. You want me to move, you send the Bodyslogs.”

“Come on, please, we haven’t got much time.”

He paused in his game. There was something familiar about this bedbot. She had very short hair and her figure was a little skimpy for the frock. Her nylons had rolled down to her ankles and she was talking in a very strange voice for a bedbot.

“C’mon, sir, the coast is clear.”

“Oh shit,” said Alex as the penny finally dropped. “It’s you,” he finally managed to splutter.

“Of course it’s me,” said Carlton, “and we need to get away from here in a hurry.” But Alex’s laughter was uncontrollable.

“Oh my god,” said Alex, choking, “now I’ve seen everything. A robot in drag!”

L
ook I’m sorry to keep interrupting the flow of the narrative like this, but there is an emergency. I promise you this will be the last time. I realize it’s not particularly cool, that all these interjections by the narrator may be rather irritating, but I’m a scientist, not a novelist. I don’t know anything about story or maintaining the through-line. I just wanted to make a few notes about the history of Carlton and how he came to make his great discovery, and instead it’s become this whole drama. The worst of it is it’s changing into a confessional. But as I’m reading through and correcting, I need to update you. Things keep happening and I want you to know what’s going on. Think of it as post-Heisenberg narrative. The observer is part of the story too. The Nobel adjudicators have just acknowledged receipt of my thesis. Rhea University is anxious for me to announce at their next convocation (they have all but promised me an honorary doctorate), and Mehta & Asher are keen to issue a large printing of my book. I have not been idle. So I promise I won’t interrupt the flow again. But you see, I have startling news. I’m gob-smacked.