transferred. Don’t you have some questions for me?”
I had thought I’d have to come clean with Berling to get answers about his trip out from Earth on the B. Traven all those mears ago, but one doesn’t blow a good cover unnecessarily. “I can see,” I said, “that we did a magnificent job.”
She tipped her head down, appraising her own body. “Oh, it looks great. Exactly what I was hoping for. But I do want to be sure that everything is functioning properly.” She looked back up at me, aquamarine eyes beneath long dark lashes. “You know, while the work is still under warranty.”
“Surely you and Mr. Berling have, um, tested things out.”
“Yes, yes, of course—but he transferred first. I haven’t yet had an opportunity to, ah, put this new body through its paces with a biological.” She lifted her perfect eyebrows, and her forehead didn’t crease at all as she did so. “It’s like I’m a virgin again.”
It’s at moments like this that a man’s morals are truly tested, and I asked myself the question that needed asking: could I actually bill Pickover for the time I spent making love with Lacie?
She took my hand, and I let her lead me to the bedroom. If you keep in good shape, sex on Mars is amazing, thanks to the low gravity. Zero-g, I’m told, is no fun: it’s too easy to send your partner spinning across the room. But a third of a gee—well, that’s just perfect. You can do acrobatics that put Earth-based porn stars to shame. And it’s even better if, as Berling and his wife did, you have some handles mounted on the ceiling above the bed.
This wasn’t my first time with a transfer, but Lacie was the best-looking one I’d ever been with, and she was a very generous lover. I’d heard it said that among biologicals, beautiful women got cheated on more often than plain ones, because the plain ones did all the things to keep their partners happy that the beauties wouldn’t. Lacie still had the mind of someone who had had to work to interest men—and the body of someone who could have anyone she wanted. It was a very appealing combination.
When we were done—and it was a good thing that Berling was gone for hours—I had a sonic shower, and she buffed her plastic skin with a chamois.
I couldn’t question her about Berling’s arrival on Mars without telling her I wasn’t with NewYou. I doubted she’d really be upset, but given that she might be able to pull my head off, I didn’t want to risk it. Instead, I simply asked her to have him give me a call when he got home. But just as I was leaving, he called her. I stood out of view and listened. He’d had a good day out by the Reinhardt dunes, he said, and was heading to Ernie Gargalian’s fossil dealership to sell his finds. I hadn’t seen Gargantuan Gargalian for a few weeks, and so I made my way over there to intercept Berling; it was more seemly, I thought, to question him somewhere other than where I’d just banged his wife.
The sun was setting over Syrtis Major way, and the sky was growing dim. But Ye Olde Fossil Shoppe stayed open after dark every night: that’s when the prospectors came back inside with their booty, and many wanted to sell immediately rather than storing fossils overnight in their homes and inviting thieves to come get them.
The walk over was pleasant—and not just because I was still grinning from my encounter with the now-lovely Lacie. Walking on Mars was virtually effortless, as long as you didn’t have to wear a surface suit.
Ernie’s shop was in the center of town near NKPD headquarters, which said a lot about who was really in charge here. “Mr. Double-X!” he proclaimed with his usual precise enunciation as I entered. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Ernie Gargalian was sixty-five and hugely fat, with man boobs that were only perky thanks to Mars’s low gravity. His thinning silver hair was slicked straight back from his forehead, and his pale face had been puffed out enough to fill in most of the wrinkles. His brown eyes were close together and deeply set.
“Hey, Ernie,” I said. “Has Stuart Berling been in yet?”
“Today? No. I haven’t seen him all week.”
“Well, he’s on his way here. Mind if I wait?”
Gargantuan spread his giant arms, encompassing his showroom. “Fossils are fragile things, Alex.