Losing Mars (Saving Mars Series-3) (2 page)

The old woman looked at Jessamyn as though she’d asked a question with an obvious answer. An extremely obvious answer.

“I don’t know what the lichen is for,” said Jessamyn, attempting to clarify.

“Oh,” said Gran. “Thought I said already. It’s the secret ingredient.”

When this failed to elicit a response from Jess, the old woman added, “You do know it’s the tea that keeps you from getting radiation poisoning? You are drinking your tea?”

“Yes, of course.”

Pavel had stressed the importance of consuming the hot beverage twice daily to stave off sickness.

Gran continued. “This is the one ingredient as no one but Gran knows. Gran’s kept the secret nigh on ten decades. And now you’ll keep it.”

Jessamyn stared at the old woman, trying to think of a polite way to refuse.

“Figure that ought to give folks here an iron-clad reason to accept you and offer you a permanent home. Seein’ as they’ll die unless you tell ‘em how to keep from gettin’ sick.” Gran cackled for a minute, but then seemed to sober. “It ain’t right, girl. It ain’t any kind of right, losing your folks and your home and everything at your age.”

Jess felt a lump swelling her throat uncomfortably. She’d vowed to shed no more tears for Mars, lost to her now.

“Come on then,” said Gran. “What are you waitin’ for? Ain’t you got chores?” The old woman moved swiftly—more swiftly than Jess thought she should be able to—passing from the outcrop of rocks and back toward the hummocks of Yucca’s below-ground homes.

The pair arrived before a dwelling known as “The Gopher Hole,” the place Jess had called home for the past week on Earth.

“I’ll tell the Shirff he’s got hisself a new Guardian of the Herb,” Gran hollered, by way of a farewell.

“Wait,” called Jess, standing atop the stairs that led to the dwelling under the earth.

Her brother Ethan hovered at the base of the stairs as though about to ascend in his chair.

“You need to pick someone else,” Jess called to Gran. “Someone planning on staying here.”

The old woman, whose hearing Jess knew to be good for her age, had become obdurately deaf.

“Is your statement addressed to a particular individual?” Ethan asked, foregoing any sort of salutation. Jessamyn’s brother considered greetings to be wasted words.

Jess turned to her brother, seated in his hoverchair, and experienced again the odd moment between
seeing
Ethan and
recognizing
him as her brother in his newbody.

“It was nothing,” she said. She ran a hand across the back of her neck, hot from the mass of red hair hanging down.

Her brother, apparently having decided that his sister’s statement was another form of throwaway language, changed the subject abruptly. “You are late.”

“I know,” Jess said as she descended the stairs to enter. Yucca’s underground dwellings had doors, but they were rarely closed. “The old lady who’s always wandering around—Gran—made me go scrape some kind of …
growth
off some rocks with her this morning. It’s some big secret and she wanted me to know about it.” Jess kept to herself what Gran had said about finding a new place to call home.

From behind the kitchen pantry peered the narrow face of Renard, eighteen and newly accepted to full Yuccan citizenship. He was also a close friend of Pavel’s. Renard asked a question. “Gran told you the name of her secret plant?”

Jess shrugged her shoulders. Was she supposed to keep it secret?

Stepping into the main room, Renard repeated his query. “The secret ingredient in the tea? The one only she knows where to find? She told
you
?”

“I guess,” replied Jess. “She showed me some form of plant life—a lichen, I think she said—and told me the Shirff would be informed.”

Renard whistled, a low and drawn-out sound. “Well, that just beats everything.”

“Listen, I’m late—” began Jess.

“You’re not flying today,” said Renard. “None of us are. Shirff says we’re laying low for the week.”

Ethan added, “I informed the Shirff of an anomalous reading. There is a minute possibility that the ship with which we rescued you, Jessamyn, was traced all the way to this location.”

“Oh,” said Jessamyn. “That doesn’t sound good.” Secretly, she was more disappointed than afraid. She’d been looking forward to the flight to a North American city to acquire parts needed by the community of Yucca.

“Back to the lichen,” said Renard. “Gran showed it to you? Told you its name? How to identify it?”

Jessamyn’s brow furrowed. “She didn’t give it a name, now that you mention it. She’s been watching me outside the past three mornings and today she said it was time, and she took me to help collect this grey stuff off a pile of rocks where snakes hang out.”

“She trusts you,” said Renard, winking at Jess. “People have been speculating about who she’d choose for years. Decades, even. It’s kind of amazing she picked
you
, though.”

Jessamyn frowned. “Maybe she wants me to tell the rest of you. She seemed a little obsessed with death. Like she was afraid she’d pass on before she told anyone else. Maybe she grabbed me because I was handy?”

“Maybe,” replied Renard. “But if she told you, that would mean you are the Guardian of the Herb.”

“That’s what she called me,” said Jessamyn.

“I would’ve thought she’d pick a citizen of Yucca, but I guess this makes you one
de facto
, as it were,” said Renard.

A citizen of Yucca
.

Jessamyn didn’t want to be a citizen of Yucca. She was a citizen of Mars Colonial. Even if she’d stolen a spacecraft from MCC to travel here. Even if they’d arrested her
in absentia
for the deed. Even if she’d crashed the ship—the last one capable of taking her back home.

“I’ll tell the Shirff there’s been a mistake,” said Jessamyn, rubbing her eyes. She felt suddenly tired. “After I get a couple hours of sleep.”

“Jessamyn,” Ethan called after her. “You will not wish to sleep at the moment.”

“No, I think I do,” replied Jess, irritated.

“I spoke inaccurately,” said Ethan. “Although you may wish to sleep at the moment, you will prefer to remain awake when you hear what has transpired this morning.”

“Besides me being made a citizen without my permission?” snapped Jess.

“Harpreet reports that the current Head of Consciousness Transfer has placed white lilies upon the grave of his wife,” said Ethan.

“White lilies?” Jess stared at her brother blankly. “So what?”

Ethan frowned and looked to Harpreet for assistance.

“Perhaps,” said Harpreet, “Your sister’s mind grew weary last night as we discussed the affairs of a world she has not yet learned to care for.”

That was likely enough, thought Jessamyn, flushing. The meeting had been completely Earth-centric. Only her respect for Harpreet had kept Jess from screaming out,
What about Mars? What about going home?

“As I believe you are aware,” continued Harpreet, “Earth’s Chancellor appoints the Global Head of Consciousness Transfer. This position has been held for twelve Terran years by Malcolm Bonhoeffer. Or by someone inhabiting his body.”

“Oh,” said Jessamyn, catching at a detail she remembered. “And you met two individuals while you were in prison who claimed to have held that position. In the same body, right? But at different times.”

Harpreet nodded. “Only to find themselves upon separate occasions waking up in New Timbuktu prison one morning, incarcerated and in the wrong body. One of them, whose moral values appeared to have been most …
Marsian
, spoke of regrets regarding his wife’s funeral arrangements. She died whilst he was in prison. The person inhabiting his body—appearing to
be
him—placed upon her grave red roses, a flower she disliked.

“He told me that should he ever find himself released and reinstated, his first act would be to place white lilies upon his wife’s grave. His second would be to call for planet-wide reform of the Rebody Program by exposing what he knew about irregularities in the program, up to and including his own defrauding of the system.”

“Has he made good on the second promise?” Jessamyn asked, interested in spite of herself.

“He’s called for a live press conference which airs in twenty minutes,” replied Harpreet.

3

TRAIL OF TELLURIUM

Lucca Brezhnaya smiled at her newly-restored Head of Consciousness Transfer. “It would seem,” she said, “that in sending you to New Timbuktu, I did myself and the world a grave disservice. Your successor—that is, the man you are replacing—had certain hesitations in carrying out his duties. I am so glad that you seem to have moved past your …
hesitations
. It gives me great pleasure to welcome you back to your position.”

Malcolm Bonhoeffer, happily returned to his familiar body, smiled softly. “I am eager to serve, as I indicated.”

“Good,” said Lucca, her dark red lips drawing back to reveal perfect rows of white teeth in an approximation of a smile. “I anticipate the need of your finely honed skills and your …
discretion
.”

Bonhoeffer gave a slight nod of acquiescence.

“In addition, you will, on tonight’s newsfeed, present a plan encompassing changes to the Rebody Program based on our current global shortage of tellurium.”

Bonhoeffer’s raised eyebrows indicated the shortage was a surprise to him. Lucca smiled. The
manufactured
shortage, suggested by Vladim Wu, was a surprise to everyone. Also, it did her good to see her subjects kept off-balance. “We want to avoid creating panic, naturally,” Lucca said.

“Naturally,” agreed Bonhoeffer.

“I’ve taken the liberty of drafting your proposal for parliament,” said Lucca. She passed him a small, coiled strip of plastic. “Look it over. You will exude confidence. You will assuage fears. You will encourage conformity. Understood?”

“Of course, Madam Chancellor,” Bonhoeffer said softly, in a tone that indicated his absolute compliance.

“Dismissed,” said Lucca, rising.

Bonhoeffer bowed.

“One thing more,” Lucca called after him. “Your wife’s grave—I understand you visited it?”

Bonhoeffer felt a flush of color rising to his skin. He cursed his inability to hide his emotions in this, his own threebody.

“It was commendable of you to remember the past,” Lucca said softly. “But see you give no cause for others to murmur as to any personality …
alterations.
Such as a sudden obsession with the dear departed. It might make people wonder if you are who you appear to be. You understand the need for a seamless transition, I’m sure.”

As the restored Head of Consciousness Transfer gave a curt nod and departed, Lucca’s thoughts returned to the vanished red-haired inciter. Unlike the Martian girl, Lucca had unlimited funds. She had an entire shipload of tellurium, in fact. Whatever the red-haired girl had been ordered to accomplish, she’d have a hard time doing it without tellurium. And an even harder time doing it without a ship to fly home. Like Pavel, the girl was trapped on Earth now. She could not hide forever.

Lucca smiled. The intelligence Wu’s operatives had gathered all pointed to the Martian hiding somewhere in the Americas. There were cities large enough to swallow shipfuls of Martians in North America alone. But Lucca suspected the girl would go to ground somewhere less populous. Somewhere more like home. Vladim Wu had concurred.

Lucca had long allowed certain factions and enclaves to exist outside her government’s direct control. Wu’s attentions were focused upon these fringe settlements. The Chancellor had discovered two centuries earlier that overzealous restrictions on petty dissenters tended to breed revolutionaries. But leave them alone, or let them think they were being left alone, and most of these dissenting elements did little harm.

The only inciter attacks in the past fifty years had been of Lucca’s own manufacture, to encourage the citizenry to call for greater government controls. Or, most recently, to encourage Pavel to come out of hiding. Lucca scowled. The attack on the hospital in Hong Kong had
not
achieved her objective of flushing out her nephew. Although she imagined it had made him miserable enough. Which was something.

Her thoughts returned to the present. Wu had additionally instituted a tighter observation of the ebb and flow of tellurium on the open market. Since the Martians had sent tellurium in the second ship, it was almost certain they had brought it in the first. It would explain something else as well—there had been an influx of tellurium into the world market several months back. The timing corresponded well with Lucca’s first encounter with the red-haired girl. It was time to find out
with whom
the girl had been associating. It was time to follow the tellurium and see where it pointed. Major Wu and Lucca both felt certain it would point the way to any Martian sympathizers.

As for finding the Martian, Lucca decided she would monitor four of the largest closed societies in North America: one in Alaska, one in the Idaho wilderness, one outside of the tiny nation of Vermont, and one beside former Los Angeles. She held out little hope for the one rumored to exist beside the ruined City of Angels—the radioactivity would have done in any residents decades ago. But Wu had insisted and satellites had shown some minimal activity.
Someone
scratched out a living there.

Lucca pinged her secretary. “I want the Head of Global Solvency.”

She brought her fingertips together, forming a sort of tent with her hands. “We follow the flow of tellurium,” she whispered. And then she smiled as she prepared to roll out Wu’s latest suggestion.

When Mr. Casale, Head of Global Solvency, appeared holographically, Lucca had her story well-prepared.

“I have just uncovered most unwelcome news,” said the Chancellor. “It would seem we have inciters to thank for the current shortage of tellurium. They’ve accessed reserves that ought to have supplied us well into the next century.” The lie slipped out easily.

“I’ve heard nothing of this,” replied Mr. Casale, clearly suspicious.