Continuing the Story of the Valles Marineris

I leaned forward and inched the mask off my face. Surely the barmen were part of the nn like the rest of the staff. I lifted it just enough to reveal my features. I whispered,
“It’s me, Isaac Davis, wanted fugitive. I don’t want to be recognized.”
“You won’t be,” said the barman with a smile, “None of these people watch the news.”
“I watch the news,” came a young woman’s voice at my side. She drew herself near to where I sat, and took a seat in the recently vacated stool beside me. She wore a black gown made of some liquid-smooth fabric. Her blond hair hung in curls around her face, which was broad but very pretty, with dark brows arched almost in a phi curve, a button nose, and lips I might have called over-large before spending a year in divorce. Her eyes seemed somewhat glazed and did not quite meet mine when I turned to look at her, as if she were looking past me rather than at me, but I had pulled the mask back over my face, so meeting my eyes might have been too much to expect.
“Good on you,” I muttered.
“You’re no security man,” she told me with a knowing smile, though still not quite looking at me, “they never come in here.”
“I’m new.”
“We’re all new around here,” she countered, “We only set out yesterday. The day the police at the … whatever it is place, the Mountain colony, were all in a fuss over some escaped prisoner, yes?”
“You’re a veritable pillar of knowledge.”
“Oh, I’m good at connecting dots and then acting on what I figure out before most people do.”
“I’m sure.”
“You’d better be, Mr. Davis. I mean, you’d hate to get found out when we arrive in our new home, right? Freedom feels so good, doesn’t it?” I turned to the barman for a rescue, but he had already busied himself with pouring drinks for some other person.
“Go ahead and take that mask off, Mr. Davis. You’ll draw less attention to yourself. Let’s head over to one of the booths, shall we?” said the woman, “Somewhere more discrete.”
I really didn’t know what to say or do, but I did want to get out of the light of the bar, which seemed blinding all of the sudden.
“We’ll take a bottle of scotch, barman,” she said over her shoulder, and she accepted it when he placed it in her waiting hand. She led me across the carpet (with some difficulty as I sank in with every step) to one of the booths, an alcove etched out of the black with an elaborate pink neon archway. We sat opposite another, and she offered me the scotch, which I took a swig from. This wasn’t going as planned, but the scotch was good, and if nothing else, she was good-looking.
“So what’ll it be?” I asked, wearily, removing my mask. “Blackmail?”
“You’re the terrorist whose face was splashed all over the news, right?” She asked, her eyes sparkling, but still looking unfocused.
“So says the Ascraeus Mons Herald. I’m innocent of what they accused me of.”
“So you didn’t engineer a government takeover?”
“Don’t my soft eyes and earnest face speak volumes about my character?” I asked. My patience could only be tried so far. She had yet to make any demands for her silence. I thought she was toying with me.
“You actually look kind of haggard and unshaven,” she said, taking a drink straight from the bottle, “But I was actually hoping you could tell me what’s going on here, if you were behind it, or knew someone who is.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “I’m the one bargaining for my life, aren’t I?”
“Not really,” she said. “I’m probably one of the very few people who got on the ship from Earth to Mars whose brains aren’t sustained by heroin and alcohol. I got here because I’m good at connecting the dots, like I said. Found out my husband was going to take off to Mars without me. He was going to take his little woman instead.”
“Who’s your husband?” I ventured to ask.
“Who was he, would probably be more accurate,” she replied with a roll of her eyes. This was probably not her first bottle of scotch that night. “Ever heard of Ibrahim bin Wahid?”
“What, the dictator? Killer of thousands?”
“He didn’t think so. He didn’t notice it when people died. He didn’t bat an eye. One good thing, he brought me out of the slums to be his wife. But no, he was going to take off without me.”
“What happened?”
“I used my brains. Switched around a few of the flight arrangements. His sweetheart and I took off without him.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“You killed him?” I asked.
“He killed himself, didn’t he?” she said, “He who is without brains, let him cast the first nuke.”
“But yo ukilled him!”
“Oh, come on, Isaac!” She said, ending in a shout, “He was a murderer! Eater of babies, or whatever you said he was. All true. I did what the beloved US government wanted to do for years. Probably saved a whole bunch of lives here on Mars, too. No, Isaac, I’m here because I’m not dumb. And I know that there’s more than meets the eye to all this. We hear there’s a plot to take over. Suddenly the plot is thwarted, heroically, flags waving and cannons soluting, the whole shebang. We take off victoriously to further the glory of the star spangled banner. The day we leave, your face is splashed all over the news, miraculous escape. We find ourselves on a vessel of amazing luxury, on our way to some kind of colonization mission—odd method of transport to such a labor-intensive, gritty life, right? And now I find the escaped terrorist mastermind, right here in Aphrodite’s Couch. Be honest with me, Isaac,” She paused to took another drink, “All of us on this vessel are in a lot of trouble, aren’t we?”
She was smart. I had to give it to her, she was brilliant.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything,” I said, “Nothing’s safe to tell you.”
“You just told me everything,” she said, then laughed— “aha! See, you’d have told me everything if this whole spooky luxury liner weren’t … something …” she seemed to be having trouble speaking, her lips moving for a while, trying to form words that wouldn’t come, “Something’s the matter around here. It’s the terrorist group, right? They’re inc harge of this thing. We’re all going to die, right?”
“No one’s going to die,” I said, “as far as I know, you’re right on everything but that point. I know the people in charge, yes, I’ll admit. You probably knew that anyway. But no one’s dying.”
“You think you know them,” she said, “the people in charge, I mean. You don’t really.”
We spoke like that for another few minutes, nothing getting anywhere. She was far too drunk. Finally I told her I was going to go back under the tunnels, when she grabbed my shirt from across the table and drew me closer.
“Isaac,” she said, “you’re the only person who hasn’t tried to lie to me yet, and I need to believe you’re trustworthy.”
“Sure,” I answered, “the trustworthy escaped terrorist.”
“Something about all this is really wrong,” she said, “I’m really good at connecting dots. Something here isn’t connecting. Be really careful. Isaac,” she looked around, and her voice dropped to a whisper, “someone’s following me around. I’m sure you’re being followed, too.”
“I probably know them,” I assured her. Her breath was rank. Even this close to me, her eyes were looking through me.
“No,” she said, “trust me, you don’t know what’s going on.”
She rambled like this for a minute longer, and then she begged me to come visit her apartment—under the guise of security guard duty. She swore she was being followed by someone, and her complaints to the quartermaster had gone ignored (no surprise—the quartermaster was an ornery old cranky woman who probably went nn because Ottenson promised to let her smoke on duty). I don’t know if it was the fact that I had nothing better to do or how incredibly terrified she sounded, or maybe just the fact that I missed having people trust me, but I agreed to check up on her later in the evening and make sure she was still alive.
I found the security/maintenance hatch and re-entered the tunnel, winding my way through the darkness to the shaft of the Mariner I, the science vessel. However, I couldn’t get what she said out of my head, about both of us being followed. I stopped a moment befor eI climbed down into the brightly lit science vessel—footsteps continued behind me somewhere, and then stopped suddenly. I whipped my head around—no one was there, or if there were, the issues of steam and gas obscured him.
I was about ready to die of a heart attack, but in retrospect, I was probably stupid to think that none of the other staff use the tunnels. It’s probably unwise to drink with paranoid women before walking through a dark corridor. I’ll bring a flashlight next time.