picture?”
“Oh, right.” She spoke some commands, and the terminal responded — making me wonder what she’d wanted the keyboard for. But then she used it to type in a long passphrase; presumably she didn’t want to say hers aloud in front of me. She frowned as she was typing it in, and backspaced to make a correction; multiword passphrases were easy to say, but hard to type if you weren’t adept with a keyboard — and the more security conscious you were, the longer the passphrase you used.
Anyway, she accessed some repository of her personal files, and brought up a photo of Joshua-never-Josh Wilkins. Given how attractive Mrs. Wilkins was, he wasn’t what I expected. He had cold, gray eyes, hair buzzed so short as to be nonexistent, and a thin, almost lipless mouth; the overall effect was reptilian. “That’s before,” I said. “What about after? What’s he look like now that he’s transferred?”
“Umm, pretty much the same,” she said.
“Really?” If I’d had that kisser, I’d have modified it for sure. “Do you have pictures taken since he moved his mind?”
“No actual pictures,” said Cassandra. “After all, he and I only just transferred. But I can go into the NewYou database, and show you the plans from which his new face was manufactured.” She spoke to the terminal some more, and then typed in another lengthy passphrase. Soon enough, she had a computer-graphics rendition of Joshua’s head on my screen.
“You’re right,” I said, surprised. “He didn’t change a thing. Can I get copies of all this?”
She nodded, and spoke some more commands, transferring various documents into local storage.
“All right,” I said. “My fee is two hundred solars an hour.”
“That’s fine, that’s fine, of course! I don’t care about the money, Mr. Lomax — not at all. I just want Joshua back. Please tell me you’ll find him.”
“I will,” I said, smiling my most reassuring smile. “Don’t you worry about that. He can’t have gone far.”
* * *
Actually, of course, Joshua Wilkins could perhaps have gone quite far — so my first order of business was to eliminate that possibility.
No spaceships had left Mars in the last ten days, so he couldn’t be off-planet. There was a giant airlock in the south through which large spaceships could be brought inside for dry-dock work, but it hadn’t been cracked open in weeks. And, although a transfer could exist freely on the Martian surface, there were only four personnel air locks leading out of the dome, and they all had security guards. I visited each of those air locks and checked, just to be sure, but the only people who had gone out in the last three days were the usual crowds of hapless fossil hunters, and every one of them had returned when the dust storm began.
I remember when this town had started up: “The Great Fossil Rush,” they called it. Weingarten and O’Reilly, two early private explorers who had come here at their own expense, had found the first fossils on Mars, and had made a fortune selling them back on Earth. More valuable than any precious metal; rarer than anything else in the solar system — actual evidence of extraterrestrial life! Good fist-sized specimens went for millions in online auctions; excellent football-sized ones for billions. There was no greater status symbol than to own the petrified remains of a Martian pentaped or rhizomorph.
Of course, Weingarten and O’Reilly wouldn’t say precisely where they’d found their specimens, but it had been easy enough to prove that their spaceship had landed here, in the Isidis Planitia basin. Other treasure hunters started coming, and New Klondike — the one and only town on Mars — was born.
Native life was never widely dispersed on Mars; the single ecosystem that had ever existed here seemed to have been confined to an area not much bigger than Rhode Island. Some of the prospectors — excuse me, fossil hunters — who came shortly after W
“Oh, right.” She spoke some commands, and the terminal responded — making me wonder what she’d wanted the keyboard for. But then she used it to type in a long passphrase; presumably she didn’t want to say hers aloud in front of me. She frowned as she was typing it in, and backspaced to make a correction; multiword passphrases were easy to say, but hard to type if you weren’t adept with a keyboard — and the more security conscious you were, the longer the passphrase you used.
Anyway, she accessed some repository of her personal files, and brought up a photo of Joshua-never-Josh Wilkins. Given how attractive Mrs. Wilkins was, he wasn’t what I expected. He had cold, gray eyes, hair buzzed so short as to be nonexistent, and a thin, almost lipless mouth; the overall effect was reptilian. “That’s before,” I said. “What about after? What’s he look like now that he’s transferred?”
“Umm, pretty much the same,” she said.
“Really?” If I’d had that kisser, I’d have modified it for sure. “Do you have pictures taken since he moved his mind?”
“No actual pictures,” said Cassandra. “After all, he and I only just transferred. But I can go into the NewYou database, and show you the plans from which his new face was manufactured.” She spoke to the terminal some more, and then typed in another lengthy passphrase. Soon enough, she had a computer-graphics rendition of Joshua’s head on my screen.
“You’re right,” I said, surprised. “He didn’t change a thing. Can I get copies of all this?”
She nodded, and spoke some more commands, transferring various documents into local storage.
“All right,” I said. “My fee is two hundred solars an hour.”
“That’s fine, that’s fine, of course! I don’t care about the money, Mr. Lomax — not at all. I just want Joshua back. Please tell me you’ll find him.”
“I will,” I said, smiling my most reassuring smile. “Don’t you worry about that. He can’t have gone far.”
* * *
Actually, of course, Joshua Wilkins could perhaps have gone quite far — so my first order of business was to eliminate that possibility.
No spaceships had left Mars in the last ten days, so he couldn’t be off-planet. There was a giant airlock in the south through which large spaceships could be brought inside for dry-dock work, but it hadn’t been cracked open in weeks. And, although a transfer could exist freely on the Martian surface, there were only four personnel air locks leading out of the dome, and they all had security guards. I visited each of those air locks and checked, just to be sure, but the only people who had gone out in the last three days were the usual crowds of hapless fossil hunters, and every one of them had returned when the dust storm began.
I remember when this town had started up: “The Great Fossil Rush,” they called it. Weingarten and O’Reilly, two early private explorers who had come here at their own expense, had found the first fossils on Mars, and had made a fortune selling them back on Earth. More valuable than any precious metal; rarer than anything else in the solar system — actual evidence of extraterrestrial life! Good fist-sized specimens went for millions in online auctions; excellent football-sized ones for billions. There was no greater status symbol than to own the petrified remains of a Martian pentaped or rhizomorph.
Of course, Weingarten and O’Reilly wouldn’t say precisely where they’d found their specimens, but it had been easy enough to prove that their spaceship had landed here, in the Isidis Planitia basin. Other treasure hunters started coming, and New Klondike — the one and only town on Mars — was born.
Native life was never widely dispersed on Mars; the single ecosystem that had ever existed here seemed to have been confined to an area not much bigger than Rhode Island. Some of the prospectors — excuse me, fossil hunters — who came shortly after W