Diana’s face lit up, but Buttrick raised a beefy hand. “Not so fast, lover boy. If you’ve got the money to take her out, you’ve got the money to settle your tab.”
I slapped two golden hundred-solar coins on the countertop. “That should cover it.” Buttrick’s eyes went as round as the coins, and he scooped them up immediately, as if he were afraid they’d disappear—which, in this joint, they probably would.
“I’ll be in the booth in the back,” I said to Diana. “I’m expecting Juan; when he arrives, could you bring him over?”
Diana smiled. “Sure thing, Alex. Meanwhile, what can I get you? Your usual poison?”
I shook my head. “Nah, none of that rotgut. Bring me the best Scotch you’ve got—and pour it over water ice.”
Buttrick narrowed his eyes. “That’ll cost extra.”
“No problem,” I said. “Start up a new tab for me.”
A few minutes later, Diana came by the booth with my drink, accompanied by Juan Santos. He was looking at her with his usual puppy-dog-love eyes. “What can I get for you?” Diana asked him.
He hesitated—it was clear to me, at least, what he wanted—but then he tipped his massive forehead forward. “Gin neat.”
She nodded and departed, and he watched her go. Then he slid down into the seat opposite me. “This better be on you, Alex. You still owe me for the help I gave you at Dr. Pickover’s place.”
“Indeed it is, my friend.”
Juan rested his receding chin on his open palm. “You seem in a good mood.”
“Oh, I am,” I said. “I got paid.”
The man the world now accepted as Joshua Wilkins had returned to NewYou, where he’d gotten his face finished and his artificial body upgraded. After that, he told people it was too painful to continue to work there, given what had happened with his wife. So he sold the NewYou franchise to his associate, Horatio Fernandez. The money from the sale gave him plenty to live on, especially now that he didn’t need food and didn’t have to pay the life-support tax anymore. He gave me all the fees his dear departed wife should have—plus a healthy bonus.
I’d asked him what he was going to do now. “Well,” he said, “even if you’re the only one who knows it, I’m still a paleontologist. I’m going to look for new fossil beds—I intend to spend months out on the surface. Who knows? Maybe there’s another deposit out there even better than the Alpha.”
And what about the other Pickover—the official one? It took some doing, but I managed to convince him that it had actually been the late Cassandra, not Joshua, who had stolen a copy of his mind, and that she was the one who had installed it in an artificial body. I told Dr. Pickover that when Joshua discovered what his wife had done, he destroyed the bootleg and dumped the ruined body that had housed it in the basement of the NewYou building.
Not too shabby, eh? Still, I’d wanted more. I’d rented a surface suit and a Mars buggy and headed out to 16.4 kilometers south-southwest of Nili Patera. I figured I’d pick myself up a lovely rhizomorph or a nifty pentapod, and never have to work again.
Well, I’d looked and looked and looked, but I guess the duplicate Pickover had lied about where the Alpha Deposit was; even under torture, he hadn’t betrayed his beloved fossils. I’m sure Weingarten and O’Reilly’s source is out there somewhere, though, and the legal Pickover is doubtless hard at work thinking of ways to protect it from looters. I wish him luck.
“How about a toast?” suggested Juan, once Diana had brought him his booze.
“I’m game,” I said. “To what?”
Juan frowned, considering. Then his eyebrows climbed his broad forehead, and he replied, “To being true to your innermost self.”
We clinked glasses. “I’ll drink to that.”
ELEVEN
TWO MONTHS LATER
Ihad my feet up on the desk when a camera window popped open on my monitor. The guy on my screen had obviously pushed the doorbell—that’s what activated the camera—but had then turned around. New clients rarely showed up without booking an appointment first, so I reached for my trusty Smith & Wesson, swung my feet to the floor, and aimed the gun at the sliding door. “Intercom,” I said into the air, then: “Yes? Who are you?”
The jamoke looked back at the camera—and I saw that half his face was dull metal with only traces of artificial pinkish beige skin still attached. But the voice! I