out from here, but her computer—that red cube I’d seen before sitting on the roll-top desk—replied in a female voice: “Yes, Lakshmi?”
“In thirty seconds from my mark, detonate the explosive in the book—and please do a countdown.”
“Mars seconds or Earth seconds?” asked Persis. Since the Martian sol was 1.03 times the length of an Earth day, Martian seconds were 1.03 times as long as Earth ones.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” declared Lakshmi. “Mars seconds!”
Nothing happened for a moment, and then Lakshmi realized she had to say, “Mark.” She did so, and I heard Persis counting down.
“Thirty. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight.”
“Toss the book aside, Lomax.”
I drew my gun. “Abort the countdown, Lakshmi.”
I was hoping she wouldn’t think of the obvious. But she did; she crouched down beneath the windowsill, out of my line of fire.
“Twenty-two. Twenty-one. Twenty.”
But since she was crouching, she wasn’t looking. I scrambled forward, just below the sill, surged to my feet standing on the alloquartz pane, grabbed Lakshmi by her wrists, hauled her out through the window, rolled back on my spine, and flipped her past me onto the bed of ferns.
“Seventeen. Sixteen. Fifteen.”
I tossed the book aside; unlike cordite, cardite wasn’t finicky about such things.
“I don’t think either of us wants that destroyed,” I said, jerking my head toward it as I pulled my gun again and aimed it at Lakshmi, who was now appealingly spread-eagled with her tushy facing up.
“Persis,” she said, “abort!”
There was only one problem. Persis apparently couldn’t hear Lakshmi now. “Eleven. Ten.”
“Oh, crap,” I said.
“Eight. Seven.”
Lakshmi rolled onto her back and leapt to her feet, jumping a good meter off the ground as she did so. “Abort!”
“Five.”
“Abort!” she shouted as gravity slowly pulled her down.
“Four.”
“Abort!” she shouted again.
“Three.”
“Abort!” she shouted once more as she lunged toward the window. I was back on my feet and danced out of the way to let her do so.
“Two.”
“Abort!”
“Aborted,” said Persis calmly.
Before Lakshmi could make it in through the window, I jumped over and grabbed her wrists. We struggled for a bit, but although she was strong—recent arrivals from Earth tended to be, by the standards of most Martians—I was stronger. When it ceased to be fun, I pushed her toward the dome, and said, “Keep walking.” I made sure she went three times as far as I’d thrown her—well out of Persis’s earshot, or whatever you called it when a computer was listening. “Stand there,” I said. “Don’t do anything. Just stand there.”
She did so, although now that she’d lost the upper hand, she seemed moved to modesty. She used one arm held horizontally to cover the nicest parts of her breasts and another held vertically with fingers splayed to partially conceal what I’d already seen plenty of down there.
I fetched the book from where I’d tossed it, then pulled out the switchblade and started carving through the thick back cover, separating it from the spine. When the back cover was free, I flung it as far as I could—which meant it went sailing clear out of sight.
“And now,” I said, still keeping the gun trained on her, “I’m going to leave, taking this book with me.”
“You won’t be able to make sense of it,” she said. “It’s a personal diary, full of Denny’s own private shorthand. Why do you think they needed a historian to write the authorized story?”
“Well, if it turns out that I require your help, I know where to find you. And don’t plan on any more trips out to the Alpha. Not only is it fortified, but I killed your buddy Darren Cheung, and I’ll kill you, too, if need be, to protect it. You might be able to count on police protection here under the dome—although you’d be a fool to stake your life on that—but you go out on the planitia again, and you’re mine, understand?”
She was staring at the ground, but at last she nodded. I used the barrel of my pistol to lift her chin up and said into her dark eyes, “Here’s looking at you, kid.” And then I headed on my way.
TWENTY-THREE
Idecided it was prudent to not go where it would be too easy for Mac to find me, just in case Lakshmi did call in the break-and-enter. He wouldn’t look for long, but he’d certainly try my office and apartment, so I went by Gully’s Gym, had a sonic cleaning there, and changed into the blue track pants and black muscle shirt I kept in my locker. I checked the mirror to make sure I was