On the Shores of Titan's Farthest Sea Read online

  The place was less a mansion and more a compound, sprawling across acres of manicured gardens, statuary, and fountained reflection pools. At the south end loomed a 20-meter crystalline pyramid, supposedly patterned after a Martian structure revealed to Sable during one of his famous trances. Horf didn’t know what he thought about trances, or even about style, but he knew money when he saw it. The place dripped with it.

  The villa itself spread out at the terminus of a curving driveway lined in Italian cypress and marbled walkways. The edifice bristled with columns, cupolas and balconies. Floodlights cast wild shadows across its imposing face. Another security guard met Horf at the front door, ushering him into a cavernous atrium. Murals decorated a domed ceiling. Gold leaf encrusted a set of sculpted capitals atop a colonnade that encircled the entire room.

  “More columns,” Horf grumbled, but the guard was gone.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Horf caught movement above. The gowned figure of Circe glided across the balcony and floated down a winding staircase. She looked like a figure right out of an old flat-flick, like Gone With The Wind, or that babe in the classic holovideo Into Our Numb Minds. They didn’t make them like that anymore.

  Circe drifted down the staircase until she settled, like an autumn leaf, on the polished floor. Now there were two of her, one upside down beneath. For an instant, Horf got the dizzying sensation of standing on glass, peering down into a vertiginous mirror-image world. He felt exposed, off balance.

  Circe’s gown plunged in the front, white silk glowing against her mahogany skin. Her cleavage was subtle, but her makeup was not. Her eyes held the painted black and peacock blue of a pharaoh’s bride, with dark stripes stretching around to her temples. Her wine-colored lips were full, glossy. The corners of her mouth twitched as she nodded her head toward him.

  “Please,” she said in a voice like butter, “have a seat.”

  Horf heard the settee rising from the floor behind him. He stepped back and sat at one end. Circe stepped toward him and sat at the other, her knee nearly touching his. Her smile widened slightly, more on one side than the other. Its lopsided quality added to her seductive magnetism. Before Horf could say anything, Circe took control of the conversation.

  “Demian tells me you need to chat. I assume this is about your progress in the outer planet trade, yes?”

  Horf said, “Yes, we—”

  “Your contact on Ganymede,” she interrupted. “Has he been helpful?”

  Apparently, Sable’s assistant had as much knowledge as her boss. The power of their intelligence network made him want to cringe. “Yes, he has. There was another transport attack. Not my people.”

  “Yes, we know.”

  “You know which part?”

  Circe cast a genuine smile, the first of the encounter.

  “No matter. Mr. Sable would like you to change your strategy slightly.” A man entered through an ornate doorway near the back of the great hall. He paused at Circe’s side. Horf detected what might have been a subtle bow. It was all very formal, very dramatic. Just like Demian Sable.

  “Tea?” Circe asked.

  “No thanks.”

  “Coffee, then? We get it from the domed tropo-fields of Hesperia.”

  Hesperia grew the finest Martian coffee, and Horf couldn’t resist. “Sure, thanks.”

  Circe nodded to the man. He pivoted smartly and disappeared.

  “Now, as I was saying, Mr. Horf, we need you to make a slight change in plans. The pirates are no longer your target. Go directly to the transports, especially the ones from the outer belt and the small Jovian and Saturnian moons.”

  So much for Sable’s brilliant strategy, Horf thought. “What happened to letting the pirates sort the cargo for us? What happened to the pirates letting down their guard and—”

  During Horf’s discourse, Circe had closed her eyes. Now, she held up her hand for quiet. Horf stopped.

  “There are changes in plans that you are not a part of, Mr. Horf.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. That look nearly plastered his back to the wall. Her glacial blue eyes had a laser-fire to them. “But you will play an important part, if you are willing to play.”

  “And if not?”

  Circe’s mouth tightened. “It’s a bit late, don’t you think? You started those cogs turning already. To back out now would be to put out Mr. Sable. I would think carefully before doing such a thing.” Her voice was mellifluous, but there was a dangerous edge to it.

  The assistant returned with a tray of drinks. The coffee’s aroma filled Horf’s nostrils, momentarily distracting him. As Circe stirred honey into her Earl Gray, Horf leaned forward.

  “So what does Sable want, exactly?”

  Circe stood in a fluid motion and began to float along the floor, back and forth, her reflection mingling with the mirrored images of the columns beyond. “You can begin by focusing on those transports that get through to the inner system. Those are the smart ones, the well-equipped ones, and they will be the targets with the best cargoes. Those that slip through the pirate network tend to be the richest.”

  Horf thought for a moment. “Makes sense, I suppose. But what’s with Sable, anyway? I’ve just started to get things in place, and now this.”

  Circe stopped her wafting and faced him. Her gown swirled slowly around her long legs. Horf caught a glimpse of her sandaled feet beneath its long train. “Please, please Mr. Horf. Where is your trust?” She pointed her teaspoon at him. “I must tell you to be patient. The Teacher has things just where he needs them. There will be news.” Her coyness was beginning to get on Horf’s nerves.

  “News?”

  “Soon.”

  Horf was letting her calm get to him, and it was having the opposite effect. “And another thing’s been bugging me. This Montenegro. Is he the real thing? I mean, everybody talks about the big shot entrepreneur, or is he a ruthless murderer this week? And when everybody’s done trying to keep track of him at the end of the day no one agrees on anything. Makes me wonder if Montenegro reads from the same playbook as Peter Pan.”

  Anger flashed through her eyes. “Montenegro is no murderer,” the self-possessed Circe suddenly turned on him. “He does everything for a reason. He is real flesh and blood and I’ve met him, so don’t start quoting fairy tales. It will end badly for anyone who does. And he’s no pirate. He has far more in mind.”

  The flash of anger on her face melted into a soft expression of perfect peace. She turned and slid toward the stairway. At its base, she paused and looked over her shoulder. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Horf. It has been a pleasure. We will be in touch.”

  As Circe embarked upon her heavenly ascension, teacup in hand, Horf felt as though he was a schoolboy who had just been dismissed by the principal. Whatever “news” was coming, he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  (*)

  Sable listened once more to the secure message. He always double-checked before responding over such distances.We have over 5 tons of pure ore, mostly copper, indium, unrefined zinc and some really high-grade palladium. On the hardware side it’s a real gold mine, so to speak, with a host of mining equipment and weapons. Our intelligence reports were good. Standing by.

  Sable ticked off the items on the list. Copper and indium and palladium. Useful in not only trade but high tech manufacturing. Zinc. Great for lasers and some propellants. And the weapons might come in handy quite soon. Riches with which to build his empire. All in all a good haul, and just in time.

  Sable keyed the encryption program. It scrambled the source of his transmission and disguised his voice. The bandwidth was good here; he could afford voice, which always lent an element of drama. “As far as the disposition of the crew, you have instructions, I assume. No change. The ore goes to the outpost on Iapetus and the weapons to the Northern Quadrant Base on Titan. Nothing is to go to the inner system from now on. Montenegro will be in the outer system within the next few weeks with further instructions. Wait for him before delivery to Titan. Transmi
ssion ends.”

  “Good,” Sable mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Good.”

  © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

  Michael CarrollOn the Shores of Titan's Farthest SeaScience and Fiction10.1007/978-3-319-17759-5_12

  12. Talking Trash

  Michael Carroll1

  (1)Littleton, CO, USA

  Abby couldn’t find Troy anywhere. He wasn’t in the secondary galley. He wasn’t in his room. He hadn’t checked out a research rover or even an environment suit. All of his equipment was stowed in the lab. She knew of only one place left to look.

  The hallway leading to the researchers’ quarters was cold, dark and unwelcoming. A thin ray of light painted a stripe across the floor up ahead. Abby knew whose door was open: Kevin Nordsmitt’s. And she knew who was inside.

  She peered into the cramped quarters. Troy sat on the floor, a pile of tablets, maps and portable display screens fanned around him. The light of a dozen mini-screens accentuated his rugged features. She wondered how he kept that athletic physique these days. Clearly, it wasn’t from hours at a microscope.

  “You look like a peacock,” Abby said, letting herself in.

  Troy jerked, dropping a small monitor. He grabbed it, frowning at her. “Thought I’d do some…follow-up. Shut the door, will ya?”

  “Follow up?” Abby looked doubtful.

  “You weren’t followed, were you?”

  “Yes, I tried to attract every shady character I could find in the galley, but there just weren’t any takers.”

  Troy’s face flushed. “Sorry; I’m just a little jumpy. Still. But with good reason, I think. Turns out our friend had quite the curriculum vitae. Worked with CoAz teams in Asia and at the L’Anse aux Meadows Viking coastal site up in Newfoundland. And at some government facility in northern California that I couldn’t cross-reference anywhere.”

  “That last point is pretty bizarre. What was he doing with all these illustrious teams?”

  “Not hydrology, that’s for sure. He’s got a boatload of articles printed in various journals and stuff. Look at these: Microbial Mats in Antarctic Dry Valleys. Fungal Colonies in Martian Fluvial Formations. Parallels Between Amazonian and Martian Delta Basins.”

  “Finally something on rivers.”

  “Well, sort of. Except he’s way down the list of authors, as if he’s been added as an afterthought or an observer or something. Not only that, but the article seems to be more about bacterial ecosystems in those river basins than their morphology.”

  Abby banded her arms across her chest. “A renaissance writer, and only one of those articles having anything even remotely to do with why he was supposed to be here.”

  “Yeah, I noticed. Good cover story, though, as far as it went.”

  “Something went too far,” Abby mumbled. The image of Kevin dead in his bed flared in her mind. She leaned toward a digital photo album on the floor next to Troy. Holo-snapshots of Kevin and his friends and family back home, water skiing in what looked like Lake Powell, snow hoverboarding at a ski resort on Earth or Mars (who could tell?), parasailing over Candor Chasma with its rusty cliffs.

  “He’s spent some time on Mars,” she observed.

  “Probably had to, with all that research comparing Brazilians and Martians—is that anything like comparing apples and oranges?”

  Abby shook her head. “I don’t get it. Why the secrecy?”

  Troy shrugged. “People don’t keep secrets about rivers, but they do keep secrets about drugs. Somebody must have found out his secret here, whatever it was.”

  Abby glowered. “I just can’t believe Kevin was the type to be involved in the drug machine. What did they find—whoever ‘they’ is? And would they kill over it? It still makes more sense that he got stranded outside for too long, or distracted, or had a suit malfunction.”

  “My money is on MECTRODEX, big gorilla of the pharmaceutical universe. I found some more references to them in the other room.”

  This wasn’t good, Abby thought. MECTRODEX had their fingers in more than one pie, and those pies weren’t all good recipes. Reports of insider trading, fixed pharmaceutical pricing, clandestine manufacturing off-world, and other nefarious rumors continued to make the rounds. The corporation’s tentacles spread throughout the system, with centers on Mars, Ganymede and even Ariel—figure that one out! It seemed to Abby that MECTRODEX was working its way up to becoming a poster child for bad business. If Kevin were involved with them, she would be hard pressed to understand why. It just didn’t fit the Kevin she knew.

  “You seem pretty convinced,” she said, keeping her tone even.

  “Oh, he was up to no good, all right.”

  “How well did you know him?”

  “Just enough to say hi to. We didn’t hang out at the robo-cantina or anything. Our research went in different directions. Why?”

  “I knew him pretty well, and this kingpin-of-the-drug-world isn’t sitting well with me.”

  Troy folded his hands and spoke in the patient tone of a teacher talking to a wayward student. “Are we letting our emotions contaminate our data stream?”

  She could feel herself blush. She clamped her jaw shut.

  Troy stood, trying not to step on any of the little screens and tablets around his feet. “One thing’s for sure: Kevin didn’t leave any notes about some secret launch facility beyond the lakes. That’s got to be the key to this, don’t you think?” He started scanning along a bookcase. Most were electronic flats, but a few were traditional.

  “Maybe they’re separate things,” Abby said, getting her breathing under control. “It was pretty obvious that Piers didn’t know anything about some secret mission that Kevin was on, and in his position he’d have to, wouldn’t he? If that launch was some sanctioned event? Maybe Kev was after something else and stumbled onto that place.”

  “It’s a long way off,” Troy objected. “He’d have to do a lot of directed stumbling to get up there, way around the lake.”

  “Maybe competition in Titan hydrology is fierce,” she offered, a last ditch effort at painting Kevin as an innocent.

  “Fierce enough to knock somebody off?” Troy wrinkled his nose.

  Abby shook her head slowly. “Fact is, I’ve got to admit he was no hydrologist, despite what we were told by the university. Somebody popped for a very expensive travel fare and sent him all the way out here for a good reason. I’d love to know what that reason was. It just might clear up a whole lot of stuff.”

  “Ooh, how quaint. Look at this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Diary.”

  “What’s so quaint about a diary?”

  “For starters, this one doesn’t need an energy pack.” Troy held up a leather-bound book. He began leafing through it.

  After a few moments, Abby said, “Mind if I peek?”

  Troy tossed the little tome to her. She rifled through a few pages. Sketches filed past her fingertips, carefully drawn diagrams of local Titan landscapes, small maps with personal notes, pages of observations: ice, sky, lake, dunes. Each little drawing was a masterpiece, carefully crafted in ink or neographite.

  There were more names. “And who is this Major J that keeps showing up?”

  “I’ll bet he knows G. I. Joe,” Troy offered.

  As she turned another page, a wave of winter air wafted across her shoulders and down her arms. Kevin had carefully mapped out the location of Kraken Mare’s southern coastline, along with the entire island of Mayda to the north. On the next page, arrows pointed to amorphous blobs. At first, Abby took these to be more islands, but then she saw the labels: organelles, possible flagella? double nuclei?

  “Troy, take a look at this. They’re diagrams of penicillin or something.”

  “See? Drugs.”

  She clenched her teeth. “I’m telling you, he was not into drugs.”

  “Penicillin’s a drug.” He said it in a nursery rhyme voice.

  Abby pointed at the sketches. “The
se aren’t drugs. More like bugs. These are, you know, molds or microbes or something.”

  “Germy things, like what drugs are designed to kill off.”

  Abby’s phone rang. She tapped her earpiece. “Marco.”

  “Abby, it’s Dr. Mason.”

  “What’s up, doc?”

  “One of the cleaning techs found something. I think you should see it.”

  All sorts of nasty scenes assaulted Abby’s imagination: a weeks-old moldy sandwich, medical refuse, toxic puddles leaking from some discarded container. All she could muster was a simple, “Oh?”

  “Can you come to my office?”

  “Sure. On my way.” She clicked off, looking at Troy. “Sounds a bit urgent.”

  “Mind if I come?”

  Although she did mind, she said, “Okay with me.” In a way, it was a relief to get out of that apartment. She hated sneaking around. She would never have made a good spy.

  In the hallway, Troy grabbed Abby gently by the shoulders. “Apps, listen. You need to be open to the possibility that we’re going to find out something about Kevin that neither of us likes.”

  Abby’s gaze dropped. “I know, Troy. I know.” She turned and headed down the passage.

  Despite the organized layout of the Mayda Research Station, the hallways seemed to wander in a disorienting labyrinth. The outpost consisted of two dozen habitats docked together, end to end, in long rows, short hallways, or clusters that provided more open areas for the large labs, main galley, and common atrium. Their modular nature only added to the confusion. Every wall looked like the last. Signs posted on partitions and hung from ceiling braces pointed toward various facilities.

  Abby and Troy passed beneath a sign reading “Medical Bay” and turned down a short corridor to the glassed-in airlock. The smell of antiseptic mingled with aromas of real flowers. The inhabitants of a little flower box just inside the door included tundra blossoms imported from places like Iceland, Scandinavia and Antarctica. The little plants provided a nice touch, but there was no mistaking the medlab ambience.