“I don’t know, and I could not make out the voice.”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Hello.’ There was a pause, then she said, ‘Absolutely.’ Another pause, then—”
“Did she say anything important?”
“I don’t know what qualifies.”
“List all the proper nouns she used in her phone conversation.”
“In the order she first used them: Shopatsky House, Dave Cheung, Persis, Isidis Planitia, Dirk, Lomax, Mars—”
“Stop. What did she say about Lomax?”
“‘If we can’t take Lomax out, then we need an insurance policy.’”
“Continue the conversation from that point on.”
“There was another pause, then: ‘No, Dirk saw them together at The Bent Chisel; they’re clearly an item, and she’s coming to see me in a couple of hours; she’s tailor-made for the part.’ Another pause, then—”
“Stop.” I looked at my wrist phone; it was 2:08 p.m., and Diana’s appointment had been slated to start at 2:00. My heart started pounding. “Juan, we’ve got to go. Diana’s in trouble.”
THIRTY-SIX
Juan Santos looked up at me, piecing it together. “Diana?” he said. “My Diana?”
“Yes, yes,” I replied. “She’s at Shopatsky House right now.” I headed through the descent stage’s open airlock door and scrambled down the exterior ladder; Juan followed. As soon as we were both out on the shipyard grounds, I swore. “It’ll take forever to get to Shopatsky House from here by tram.”
“We won’t take a tram,” Juan said. “We’ll take my Mars buggy.”
“It’ll take even longer to go get that.”
“It would if the buggy was still outside. But it’s not. I had it brought in for a thorough cleaning after I got it back from you—I’ve never seen mud on a buggy before.” It was impossible to wash a car outside the dome; the atmosphere was too thin for sonic cleaning, the low air pressure caused water to boil away, and the ubiquitous dust dirtied things up again immediately anyway. “The sonic car wash is just inside the south airlock,” continued Juan. It meant running in precisely the opposite direction from where we wanted to go, but he was right: using his buggy would get us to the writing retreat much faster than the tram would. I thought about calling the NKPD, but I didn’t want a repeat of the fiasco that had occurred at the Kathryn Denning.
We ran to where the buggy was parked; it was indeed now clean, its white body glistening and not a speck of dirt obscuring its jade pinstripes. Juan was about to get into the driver’s seat, but I said, “Let me.” He frowned, but went around to the other side. He knew I’d been to Shopatsky House before.
I put the pedal to the metal. The lack of streamlining on Mars buggies was no impediment out on the surface, but in here I could feel the drag on the cubic habitat cover. Still, we were making great progress, and were soon on the heels of the very hovertram we’d have otherwise taken. I swerved around it. If the tram had had a driver, said driver might have given me the finger, but the computer that ran the thing seemed to take my maneuver with equanimity.
As I cut in front of the tram, a pedestrian was crossing the street ahead of us. It was hard to tell at the speed we were going, but he looked biological—meaning I might kill him if I hit him, instead of just knocking him flying. I slapped the flat of my hand against the center of the steering wheel, and—
Holy crap!
The sound almost burst my eardrums. Apparently a horn designed to be used in a thin atmosphere shouldn’t be used in a thick one. The guy in front of me leapt a good meter and a half straight up.
“Sorry!” Juan shouted at the guy. “Sorry!”
We continued on, the dome getting higher and higher above our heads as we made it closer to the center.
“Stop! Police!”
It was a cop in a blue uniform. I ignored him; the worst thing he could do is give chase on foot.
But in the next block, another cop caught sight of us. Why is there never a police officer around when you want one, and they’re everywhere when you don’t? This guy was more ambitious than the first cop. He stepped into the middle of the street and stood, legs spread, in our way. He had a gun, and he held it in both outstretched hands aimed right at us. I hit the horn again, spun the buggy in a one-eighty, then took a