Axis

Isolated from Earth for mille

Wun Ngo Wen, the so-called Martian ambassador—Turk found a photograph of him as he leafed through an appendix to the book: a small, wrinkled, dark-ski

The version of the Archives Lise possessed was an authorized redaction, published in the States. It had been vetted and organized by a panel of scientists and government officials and it was acknowledged to be incomplete. Before his death Wun had arranged for unedited copies of the text to be privately circulated, along with something even more valuable—Martian "pharmaceuticals," including the drug that would add some thirty or more years to an average human life span, the so-called Fourth treatment by which Lise's father had presumably been tempted.

There were supposedly lots of native Fourths on Earth now, though they lacked the elaborate social structures that constrained the lives of their Martian cousins. Taking the treatment was illegal under a UN accord signed by virtually every member nation. Most of what the Department of Genomic Security did back in the States was shutting down Fourth cults both genuine and fraudulent—that, and policing the booming trade in human and animal genetic enhancements. These were the folks Lise's ex-husband worked for.

"You know," she said, "we haven't talked much about this."

"We haven't talked nearly enough about anything at all, seems to me."

Her smile, though brief, was pleasing.

She said, "Do you know any Fourths?"

"Wouldn't recognize one if I saw one." And if that was an evasion, she didn't appear to notice.

"Because it's different here in the Port," she said, "here in the New World. The laws aren't enforced the way they are back on Earth."

"That's changing, I hear."

"Which is why I want to look at what my father was interested in before it all gets erased. People say there's a Fourth underground in the city. Maybe more than one."

"Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard a lot of things. Not all true."

"I can do all the secondhand research I want, but what I really need is to talk to someone who's had direct experience with the Fourth community here."

"Right. Maybe Brian can arrange it for you, next time DGS arrests somebody."

He was immediately sorry he'd said it, or said it so bluntly. She tightened up. "Brian and I are divorced, and I'm not responsible for what Genomic Security does."

"But he's looking for the same people you're looking for."

"For different reasons."

"Do you ever wonder about that? Whether he might be using you as some kind of cat's paw? Riding on your research?"

"I don't show my work to Brian—to anyone."

"Not even when he's baiting you with the woman who maybe took away your father?"

"I'm not sure you have the right—"

"Forget it. I'm just, you know, concerned."

She was obviously on the verge of handing that right back to him, but she cocked her head and thought about it first. That was one of the things Turk had noticed about her right away, the habit she had of stepping outside the moment before she rendered a verdict.

She said, "Don't make assumptions about me and Brian. Just because we're still on speaking terms doesn't mean I'm doing him favors."

"Just so we know where we are," he said.

The sky was gray again by noon, but the clouds were rain clouds, nothing exotic, and they brought a drenching, unseasonable downpour. Turk guessed the rain might ultimately be a boon—it would wash some of this ash into the soil or out to sea, maybe help salvage the season's crops, if that was possible. But it did nothing to ease the drive south from the Port, once he recovered his car from the parking lot at Harley's. Glistening washes of gray ash made the pavement treacherous. Creeks and rivers had turned the color of clay and ran turgidly in their beds. When the road crossed the high ridges Turk could see a bloom of silt tailing into the sea from a dozen muddy deltas.

He left the coast road at an unmarked exit toward a place most English-speakers called New Delhi Flats, a shanty settlement on a plateau between two creeks, under a sheer bluff that crumbled a little every rainy season. The alleys between the rows of cheap Chinese-branded prefab housing were unpaved, and the fair-weather huts had been improved with tarpaper roofing and sheets of insulation hauled in from cheapjack factories up-coast. There were no police in the Flats, no real authority beyond what could be leveraged by the churches, temples, and mosques. The earthmovers hadn't been anywhere near the Flats, and the narrower alleys were congested with sloggy wet dunes. But a passage had been shoveled along the main avenue, and it took Turk only a few extra minutes to reach Tomas Gi

He parked and waded through a thin gruel of wet ash to Tomas's door. He knocked. When there was no answer he knocked again. A lined face appeared briefly at the small curtained window to his left. Then the door swung open.

"Turk!" Tomas Gi

Turk stepped inside. Tomas's home was little more than a single thin-walled room with a raggedy sofa and table at one end and a miniature kitchen at the other, all dimly lit. The Port Magellan Power Authority hadn't strung any cables out this way. The only electricity came from an array of Sinotec photovoltaics on the roof, and their efficiency had been slashed by the dustfall. The place had a lingering aroma of sulfur and talc, but that was mostly the ash Turk had tracked in with him. Tomas was a fastidious housekeeper, in his own way. A "fuckin' mess," in Tomas's vocabulary, meant there were a couple of empty beer bottles undisposed-of on a narrow counter.

"Sit on down," Tomas said, settling himself on a chair with a dent in the seat that had been worn into a mirror image of his bony ass. Turk selected the least-tattered cushion on his friend's ancient sofa. "Can you believe this shit falling out of the sky? I mean, who asked for that! I had to shovel my way out of the house yesterday just to go out and get groceries."

Pretty unbelievable, Turk acknowledged.

"So what brings you here? Something more than neighborliness, I expect, given the weather. If you can call it weather."

"Got a question to ask," Turk said.

"A question or a favor?"

"Well—starts with a question, anyway."