Losing Mars (Saving Mars Series-3) (7 page)

“I think my aunt’s still messing with rebodying,” said Pavel. “That would explain why she wanted me to head the program.”

Harpreet sighed softly. “I was told as much in New Timbuktu prison by the two Malcolm Bonhoeffer’s—the Heads of Global Consciousness Transfer—who spoke with me.”

Ethan cleared his throat. “I believe we are only weeks away from completing the task of re-directing the Terran satellites. Our success in transmitting vid-mail to MCC indicates that several systems are functioning nominally.”

“Excellent,” said Harpreet. “Well, let us not delay you and the good Dr. Zaifa any further.”

The four concluded their meeting, and Jess found herself reading and re-reading Mei Lo’s private communication.

I ought to have listened to Kipper. She warned me to lock up her brother before you all left for Earth. How I wish she’d been at the trial, to speak out against him.

Jess called after her brother. When the others had departed, she asked him quietly, “Are you still monitoring what’s going on with Kipper at that hospital outside the capitol?”

“There has been no change to her condition, according to the records I have hacked. I receive updates several times daily.”

“Okay,” said Jess. “The minute anything changes, would you let me know?”

“Certainly,” said Ethan.

Jess strolled out into the heat of the afternoon, surprised again at how the air seemed to suck all moisture from her lungs. She needed to think. She needed to plan.

Mei Lo’s words about Kipper repeated in her mind:
How I wish she’d been at the trial, to speak out against him.

Jess kicked at a stone before her, watching it sail across the cracked earth. She still found wonder in the way gravity immediately pulled things back to the ground. To her Mars-born eyes, it was as if she were watching a visual that had been altered. “Get used to it,” she muttered. “You’re stuck on Earth now.”

There was a great relief in knowing they could communicate with Mars, of course, but knowing how badly things were going back home made Jess ache inside. She kicked at a smaller rock at her feet and then began to walk. The sun beat upon her neck like a blast from a firing thruster.

Was Mei Lo right about Kipper? If Kipper had been at Cavanaugh’s trial, could she have supplied information leading to his incarceration? Of course she could have.

“Hades,” Jess swore as she strode forward. She was going to have to get Kipper. It was plain as day, if you thought about it. Her brother’s problems communicating with the satellites might be solved tomorrow. Or they might never be solved. But if Kip could be brought back to consciousness … if Jessamyn’s former captain could send a message to MCC, to Mars …

“
Hades and Aphrodite!
” said Jess.

She’d never liked how everyone seemed to feel Kip was safest where she was right now. Jess was sure no one within Lucca’s easy grasp could be called “safe,” for the love of Ares.

Jessamyn felt the searing heat cooking her lungs with each breath. She shouldn’t be wandering outside at this time of day. She felt the urge to climb inside Pavel’s dirt brown ship and fly, fly, fly until she reached Kipper’s side. Could her former captain be awakened? The doctor in Lucca’s employ didn’t seem to think so, according to the information Ethan had hacked. But wasn’t it worth trying?

Jess squatted and chose a handful of small rocks from the sandy soil. One turned out to be a clod of earth. She crushed it between her fingers, watching the fine soil fall to the ground. The remaining three stones she hurled as far away as she could.

“Holy
Ares
,” she said aloud, placing her now-empty hands on her hips. “I can’t just stand here and do nothing.”

She turned back toward her temporary home, and over evening rations, explained her reasons for wanting to retrieve Kipper.

The outcry against Jessamyn’s idea surprised her.

“There’s no way of knowing if she can be revived,” said Brian.

Pavel nodded agreement, adding, “Lucca doesn’t waste time on things that aren’t going somewhere, which means your friend is safest where she is.”

“It would be too dangerous,” said Kazuko Zaifa.

Jessamyn was completely outnumbered.

“It is commendable of you to seek to help, though, daughter,” said Harpreet.

Ethan, who had remained silent throughout, spoke last. “I have noticed something curious at the hospital in Dunakeszi.”

The others turned their attention to Jessamyn’s brother.

“The chief physician has repeatedly applied for additional staffing for his facility, and been continually denied. There are no records to indicate a new member has joined the hospital. However, he now regularly refers to a ‘Nurse Cassondra’ about whom I can discover absolutely nothing.”

“Cassondra?” asked Harpreet, in tones of surprise. “But that’s Kipper’s name.”

“Indeed,” replied Ethan.

“What do you mean, you can’t discover anything about her? As in, you
can
find stuff out about other employees?” asked Jessamyn.

“Of course,” replied Ethan. “I am able to access considerable data about any of the employees at Dunakeszi, which is what makes the appearance of an undocumented laborer so puzzling.”

“Undocumented labor’s nothing new in the larger metropolitan areas,” said Kazuko. “There exists any number of reasons for such.”

“It does appear to be the single instance of such at this particular hospital,” said Ethan.

“Aye, it’s bloody
illegal
, then, isn’t it?” said Brian Wallace.

“Can you acquire imagery?” asked Jess. “To see if it’s her?”

“That’s illegal, too,” said Pavel. “A hospital’s one of the last places you can guarantee a measure of privacy. Although my aunt would like to see that changed.”

“I am unable to obtain video of any part of the hospital in question,” confirmed Ethan. “In addition, I ought to have pointed out that Cassondra Kipling’s body is still listed among the patient roster for the hospital. Her vital signs, which I can access, have undergone no change since I began monitoring her.”

“It’s got to be a coincidence,” said Pavel, after the group sat in silence for several minutes. “Brian’s right about employees being hired off-record. It happens. And if her read-out says she’s still comatose, I don’t see any reason to believe otherwise. Sorry, Jess.”

Jessamyn’s heart squeezed. She’d hoped Pavel might back her in this. But he trusted the readings from the hospital.

“I am sorry as well, daughter,” said Harpreet. “But this does not appear to change anything, much as we might wish it would. I do not feel it would be wise to venture to the capitol at present. Perhaps once your brother has things settled with the satellites, we might reexamine the situation.”

Everyone seemed to regard Harpreet’s opinion as closing the discussion, and they rose to their various duties and evening occupations.

But Jessamyn sat still and alone, thinking about Mars and about the upcoming elections.
A vote of no-confidence
. That was what was happening on Mars in two months’ time. It was worse than a regular election. When a CEO on Mars died in office, an election was held. But this was a vote being held to decide whether Mei Lo or
someone else
should govern Mars. If there was any possible way to bring Kipper back to consciousness, to have her tell the citizens of Mars the
truth
about her brother …

Jessamyn rose and began pacing. If there was any chance that
Nurse Cassondra
and Kipper were the same person … Jess had to do something.

15

THERE’S THE RUB

Cassondra Kipling marched steadily in the direction of the Danube River with only the Terran moon to light her way. Of her destination, she was certain. Of her intentions, less so. The ache pulsing through her right temple and eye hampered her decision-making less than it had initially, but there were still moments of such pain that she doubted the reliability of her brain’s executive functions. Especially during the rare times she found herself alone.

Nearly three Terran months had passed since the fateful night she’d told Communications Specialist Ethan Jaarda to continue hacking—that she would draw the attention of the secures who’d discovered them at the satellite communications facility. She had drawn the secures’ attention
and
their fire. She didn’t know what had become of Ethan or the others.

Her temple throbbed painfully. Remembering the event seemed to make her pain worsen. To remind her of the blinding heat of the shot which had felled her. The shot that had saved her, if her doctor was to be believed.

“Your body, unharmed, would have been placed into a lottery with those valuable extra years,” he’d remarked upon her first day back to full consciousness. “But a body riddled with inoperable pain? Not worth anything to anyone. Except, apparently the Chancellor. She wants you for questioning. Or we can discuss an alternative you might prefer.”

Cassondra shuffled forward, noting the way moonlight dimmed Dunakeszi’s pinks and ochres, coloring the buildings gray. She felt gray herself tonight—as though all the color had seeped away from her life until the only shades that remained were pewters and blacks, charcoals and ghostly whites. Perhaps it was time.

Time to admit defeat. To admit mission failure. To admit that she no longer lived a life that resembled in any way one that was worth living. Lines from Shakespeare’s
Hamlet
drifted through her mind:

To die, to sleep; to sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come …

She did not fear death. She did not even fear the process of dying. The pain inside which she lived out each day was surely a cause of greater suffering than such deaths as she might procure. No, she did not fear death. Rather, she feared departing life while any hope remained that she might complete her mission.

So, then, was there any hope that she might yet carry out Mei Lo’s instructions? How far had Ethan progressed in his attempt to disable the lasers pointed at anyone trying to leave Mars? Had he escaped with Harpreet? Brought rations to her home world? Or was Mars even now caught in the spiral toward slow starvation?

She knew what those like her uncles and her brother would do back home—hoard rations and steal rations and attempt to contact Earth. She knew all too well that there were those on Mars who would bargain Marsian independence in exchange for Terran aid. If things grew desperate on Mars, Cavanaugh would surely sell out MCC for the assistance tellurium could buy. Terrans needed the rare metal to complete the consciousness transfers that kept peace on Earth.

Kipper laughed bitterly as she walked toward the river’s edge. Her own transfer seemed every day less likely. And for that she ought to be glad. Dr. Ruchenko had not officially given up hope of finding a way to remove the small bullet that caused Kipper’s pain and rendered her first-body unsuitable for being given in transfer.

But Kipper knew he was content that she should remain in perpetual servitude to the small hospital he oversaw on the outskirts of Budapest. Ruchenko was not a bad man. She even liked the work, such as it was. If she’d had no fears for her planet’s safety, she might have been content to live out her days tending to the hospital’s assortment of children with brain injuries.

She stood upon the river’s edge now, gazing at the dark water, her eyes catching now and then on something which bobbed along the Danube. The pain struck her again and she crumpled to the ground, simply focused on breathing. In and out. Breathe. Just breathe. The worst passed and it was like a small sunrise in the darkened regions of her mind.

Who would choose to continue such a life? She was a fool. A fool who believed that impossible things could be done by those whose will was strong enough. She shook her head. Impossible things were just that: not possible. She’d captained a crew of the foolhardy.

Crusty, did you make it back?
she found herself wondering once more.

In Crusty’s shoes, she’d have used Brian Wallace’s contacts to pay someone to pilot the ship back to Mars. She felt certain Crusty would have done the same. Perhaps none of the four crew members who’d traveled to Budapest had made it back to Skye where Crusty waited. But there were billions of Terrans. Surely
one pilot
could have been found who would have made the one-way trip for some reason or another. The tellurium in the final hold would have spelled untold wealth for the family of anyone who left Earth to take the ship back to Mars.

She allowed herself the hope that her world continued because of the sacrifice the Mars Raiders had made.

Another nauseating wave of pain.
Focus on your breath.
She heard the words she’d spoken to so many at the clinic.
Focus
. The pain always passed, now. When she’d first awakened from her coma, the pain had been nearly constant. She’d lain in a trauma-induced sleep from which it was nightmarish to wake. Not that waking had lasted long—she simply passed out as the pain grew too great. Ruchenko had found a way to reduce the severity of her pain—to make intermittent what had been constant. She did not think he was motivated to do more.

He’d given her a decision to make when she’d awoken from her coma:
Work secretly for me as a member of the nursing staff or I’ll follow my orders to hand you over for interrogation by the Terran Chancellor.

That decision had been simple. She touched her face, still becoming accustomed to the surgical alterations the physician had made at Kipper’s insistence. Her eyes were the same, her hair color unaltered. She’d even kept her own name, reasoning that no one on Earth knew her true name and that “Nurse Cassondra” would be easier to answer to than an invented name.

But what use was a disguise if she was in too much pain to attempt to complete a dangerous mission? The pain kept her dependent upon the hospital and its ready drugs. Drugs she would have no access to if she ran away. No, she was trapped. Death alone could bring an end to her agony.