to stop either. But we can tell the truth. The truth is a light, Shay. We shine that light in all the dark corners and see what comes scurrying out. And if we aren’t big enough to step on it ourselves…” I shrugged. “Well, maybe we try to find someone else who is.”
* * *
We waited until two hours after the sun had set over the Martian horizon before venturing out from the hotel. The Palms was only a couple of miles from Copeland’s apartment, and we elected to walk. The sealed dome ensured that the temperature remained pleasant, and I once again marveled at the engineering necessary to produce the faint breeze that rattled the leaves on the infrequent trees and sent gentle eddies of dust dancing on the walkways. The dome designers had gone to great lengths to furnish the little details that made planet-dwellers feel safe. Seemed like a waste of effort to me, but then again, I hadn’t been born at the bottom of a gravity well. We were far from the only ones out and about. People crowded the walkways and small electric carts zipped along the roads. We drew a fair number of glances—Chan had traded in her vacc suit for a pair of slacks and a button-down shirt cut in a style that could almost be called a blouse. I still wore the space-black VaccTech, with all my possessions (and weapons) dangling from it. Given our disparate dress, I suspected people were taking me for some sort of bodyguard, which by default would make Chan someone important. The slightly worried stares had one advantage, though—despite the busy streets, we moved in a bubble of space as the crowds parted and flowed around us.
I marveled at the domed city as we made our way through it. I was used to the crowds, though I knew that there were more people who lived within Pallah than could fit in any of the habitats I’d ever set foot upon. But they had so much space beneath the domes. I could appreciate the irony—those who lived in the depths of space did so at the cost of… space. Even though we moved through a sea of people that, just in this one section of town, rivaled some of the habs I’d lived, I could still take three steps in any direction and be out of the flow. I could find a quiet niche, an alleyway between two prefab structures, a café with plenty of seats to spare, without the slightest bit of effort. It was at once freeing and oddly disconcerting.
And the sky! A simple glance up revealed the beauty of the Martian sky. Though it was, undisputedly, the Red Planet, and though the oldest pictures showed the skies a butterscotch brown, human perception was a complex beast. Here, on the surface, with the lower light native to a world much farther from the sun, the Purkinje effect emerged, shifting the vision balance of the human eye from the color-sensitive cones to the more color-blind rods. It had the odd effect of casting the Martian sky in richer and deeper blues than one could ever find upon Earth’s surface. And yet, within the dome, the lighting level was higher, and as I looked at the transparent bubble that kept the teeming millions safe from the devastating effects of the Martian atmosphere, it almost felt as if I was at the bottom of some ancient sea looking up not into the sky, but into the fathomless depths of an endless ocean.
But there was no time to stop and marvel at the wonders, and I knew that I couldn’t let the strangeness of Pallah draw me too far from the matter at hand. It was exotic, yes. Beautiful, even. And the crowds and shadows both provided ample cover for any killer waiting to remove us from the game. I tore my eyes from my surroundings and focused on staying alive. But I couldn’t resist the occasional glance upward, to the inherent contradictions of the Martian sky.
Copeland’s building was a rather plain, prefab rectangle rising ten stories. A sidewalk led to a small concrete patio, beyond which a pair of double doors beckoned. A screen beside the door displayed a numbered list of apartments and Net codes. “Copeland is in 803,” Chan said, scanning the list. “The lock’s pretty simple… I can hack it if we need to.”
“Don’t bother,” I said.
Sarah, ping them all.
The apartment listing showed close to one