The first two shelves contained volumes by Stavros Shopatsky with lurid titles like The Wanton Savior, The Shores of Death, and Pirates in the Wind. The subsequent shelves had books grouped by authors—but not alphabetically. First Hayakawa, then Chavez, then Torkoff, then Cohen. “Are these the other writers who have been in residence here?” I asked.
“That’s right,” she said, nodding that lovely head of hers. “We’re each supposed to bring at least five kilograms of our own books as part of our personal mass allowance. If our books are only in e-editions, we’re to have leather-bound copies produced to bring with us.”
My eyes tracked to the second shelf from the bottom, which was partially full. An odd little L-shaped thingy pressed against the last book to keep them all from toppling over. The name on the spines of the last three books was Lakshmi Chatterjee. I reached down and extracted the final volume; its title was Lunaport: Valor and Independence.
“And now you’re writing about the B. Traven?”
“Exactly.”
“I’m trying to find out who smuggled the explosives aboard the Traven.”
“Ah, yes,” she said. “The land mines.” She headed into the living room and motioned for me to sit down. I’d hoped she was going to take the green couch, meaning I could move in next to her, but she took the matching chair instead.
I leaned into the corner of the couch and swung my legs up, leaving my feet projecting off the cushions into the air. “How much longer will you be on Mars?” The question had nothing whatsoever to do with the investigation.
“Another seventy-one days.”
I smiled. “Not that anyone’s counting.”
“The next writer is coming in then; I go back on the ship that’s bringing him.”
“You looking forward to going home?”
“Somewhat. I like it here.”
“Where is home for you?”
She crossed her long legs. She was wearing tight-fitting pants that looked like black leather and a tight-fitting black top. “Delhi.” She looked at a wall clock—an analog wall clock; it always took me forever to decode those. But the point was plain; I should move things along. “Do you know who brought the land mines aboard the Traven?”
“Sure. It was Willem Van Dyke—the same guy Weingarten and O’Reilly had taken along on their second voyage.”
I shook my head. “I’ve seen the passenger manifest. He wasn’t on the Traven, at least not under that name.”
“He wasn’t a passenger,” Lakshmi said. “He was crew.”
“You mean—you mean he was the monster? The one who thawed out passengers and terrorized them?”
“No, no. He was the backup bowman; the spare. He was supposed to be kept on ice the whole voyage, and only thawed out in an emergency.”
“Ah,” I said. “And do you know what became of him?”
“Of course. I’m covering that in my book.”
I looked at her expectantly. “And?”
She tilted her head and brushed lustrous hair out of her eyes. “I’ll send you an invitation to the book-launch party.”
I smiled my most-charming smile. “Please, Lakshmi. I’d really like to know.”
She considered for a moment, then: “I don’t know how much you know about the history of human space flight.”
“Some. What they taught in school.” Except on Fridays.
“Well, did you know that some space scientists used to say it was impossible for humans to safely come to Mars, or live here?”
“When did they say that?”
“From the 1970s to, oh, say, 2030 or so.”
“Why?”
“Radiation.”
“Really?”
“Yup. Earth’s magnetosphere and atmosphere protect people on Earth’s surface from solar and cosmic radiation. And they argued that without those shields, you’d get too big a dose coming to Mars or staying on its surface.”
I smiled. “Shall we turn off the lights and see if we glow?”
“Exactly. It was a risible contention. The scientists who were making it were either talking outside their field of expertise or were deliberately misleading people.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Why?”
“A turf war. Sure, here on Mars we get more radiation than people on Earth do—enough for each year living under the dome to increase by a whopping one percent your chance of getting cancer sometime in the next thirty years. The scientists saying cancer was a showstopper were all either in the business of unmanned probes or wanted to spend forever hanging in Low Earth Orbit.” She paused. “You know anyone who smokes tobacco?”
“My grandmother used to.”
“Yeah. Well, if she’d moved to Mars but left her cigarettes behind on Earth, she’d have reduced her chances of getting cancer.”
“Okay,” I said. “So?”
“So, getting cancer via space travel or while living on Mars is a vanishingly slim