Berling scowled. “What happened aboard the Traven”—here in the darkened back corner, he was willing to utter part of the name—“was horrific.”
I took a sip of my gin.
“You’ve got to understand,” Berling continued. “We were young kids, most of us.” He glanced at Dirk. “Kids like you. Some looking to make a fortune, some looking for adventure, some just looking to get away from Earth. We knew it’d be harsh, but we assumed it would be harsh after we got here.” He shook his head. “You know why I’m still here? After all these mears? Because I’m terrified of spaceships—couldn’t ever bring myself to fly on one again. Not after what happened on the Traven.”
I tried to make light of it. “Turned out okay,” I said. “You must have finally struck it big to buy new bodies for you and your wife.”
“Yeah, I’ve had some luck at last. A couple of new species of rhizomorphs; previously unknown taxons always fetch top coin.”
“Good for you. Never had much luck hunting fossils myself.”
He placed his perfect hands on the scratched tabletop, palms down. “So, what exactly is it that you’re investigating?”
“Some cargo that had been brought here aboard the Traven has turned up.”
Berling narrowed his eyes. “Cargo?” But then he nodded. “You mean the land mines.”
I kept an impassive expression. “What do you know about them?”
“I first heard about them after we landed—somebody discovered some in the cargo hold, or something like that, right?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Christ, if I’d known about them while we were still in transit, I’d have set them off. Anything to put an end to it all.”
I’d wondered if it had been Berling himself who had brought them on that voyage. After all, he clearly had access to high-quality fossils—which might mean the Alpha. But, judging by the deteriorated state of the unexploded mine Pickover had brought to my office, I’d assumed they’d been planted many years ago, and Berling had apparently only recently come into wealth. “Do you know who smuggled them aboard?” I asked.
“I didn’t at the time. Like I said, I didn’t even know they were there. But after we got to Mars, yeah, I figured it out. It was . . .” He trailed off.
“Yes?” I prodded, lifting my eyebrows.
Berling tilted his head. “How did you know my wife had transferred, too?”
Oh, crap. “I do quality-assurance follow-ups for NewYou,” I said. “You know that. She’s on the list the franchise here gave me to interview next week.”
“No, you don’t,” said Berling. “I was at NewYou a few days ago, getting a couple of minor adjustments made. I asked the new owner there, Fernandez, about you. He said, sure, he knows you, but he doesn’t employ you. Said when you’d talked to me before you were investigating the disappearance of the previous owner, Joshua Wilkins, who I guess had transferred the same day I had. But when you came to see me about that, Lacie hadn’t transferred yet.”
“I work for the head office on Earth,” I said. “I stopped by your place, but you weren’t home.”
His eyes narrowed. “Lacie never mentioned that.”
“Anyway,” I said lightly, “you were saying the person who brought the explosives aboard the Traven was . . . ?
But it was too late. Berling was on his feet. He didn’t have enough to justify attacking me right there—but he certainly had his suspicions. “I knew I shouldn’t trust you, Lomax,” he said and stormed out.
I downed the rest of my gin. Dirk, wisely, didn’t say a word.
SIXTEEN
Igave Dirk the twenty solars I’d promised him, and we exited The Bent Chisel and went our separate ways. I did not, however, give him back the switchblade I’d taken from him, even though I had it with me; it looked like it’d be a useful thing to carry, along with my phone, my tab, and my revolver.
I was sorry not to have gotten the information Berling had, but if this writer-in-residence fellow was doing a book about the Traven, he might know who had brought the land mines onboard. I decided to head out to see him; a little culture never hurt anyone. I took a hovertram since Shopatsky House, the writer’s retreat, was way up by the north airlock station.
I’d expected the writer-in-residence to be a mousy academic, like Pickover. But when the green door slid open, it revealed a statuesque biological woman in her late twenties with flawless chestnut skin, sexy brown eyes behind long lashes, and a gorgeous