Mars Plus

Epilogue For Services Rendered ...

Roger Torraway was walking west across the ochre dunes with the sun rising behind his back.

He walked alone because his sometime Cyborg companion, Fetya Mikhailovna Shtev, had taken a day job at Solis Planum. Since the computer grid's dominant sentience had blasted off for the Oort Cloud with Solar Power Station Six, the human colonists had developed a real need for expert help with their suddenly intractable cybernetic systems. Fetya was reprogram-ming the brown-water reclamation system with one hand and arbitrating petty legal disputes with the other.

"Is living," was all she would say, the last time Roger had sought her out. That meant she was happier than a frog who'd just been deeded the neighborhood lily pond.

The gloom along the horizon ahead of Torraway was still low and purple when a familiar shimmer started to form in his peripheral vision. He paused for the image of his first wife, Dorrie, to solidify Fetya was right. Something subtle and undefined had gone out of Cyborg life when the grid abruptly removed itself.

For one thing, Roger could feel the rate of random bit-decay increasing in his own cyber systems, with Dorrie's image deteriorating the most rapidly Her masses of dark hair, which used to wave gently in the breeze, now stood straight out and static from the side of her head, like a flag propped up on a stick. And her teeth were missing; whenever she opened her mouth to speak, all he could see was crackling lips edging a blank view of the scenery behind her head. It destroyed some of the illusion.... Most of it.

"Roger, you're wanted in Tharsis Montes," her silvery voice sang.

"Oh, Christ! What is it now?" Suddenly, he felt very tired. Fifty years of pounding sand with his own two feet was starting to catch up with him.

She giggled. "It's a surprise."

"You know how I hate—" Roger was going to say "surprises" but stopped himself. It was in the nature of computers, as he should have learned by now: they remembered everything, but they knew nothing.

"All right, command override," he instructed. "Now, tell me why I'm wanted at Tharsis Montes."

"To take delivery on a shipment that came down the space fountain yesterday," she replied seriously. "A shipment from Earth."

"Something addressed to me?"

"Yes, Roger."

"What's in this shipment?"

"Fifteen hundred kilograms of refined deuterium-tritium. The fountain administrators want your instructions for the transfer to Deimos Station. It seems no one on Mars has ever charged up a fusion generator of that design before. They think you might have the specifications somewhere in your own systems."

"I do, but... where did it come from?'

"That is a secret, Roger."

"Command override."

"It really is, Roger. I'm not supposed to say anything about it."

"Well then, what's the point of origin? The shipment had to come from somewhere."

"Why do you ask?"

"Somebody's going to send me a bill, right?"

"Oh! No, Roger. This is a gift from ..."

"From who? Come on, Dorrie. I'm smarter than you are now."

"The consignment originated with Houston Fusion Products, Inc., was shipped F.O.B. Galveston, Texahoma State, and was trafficked by the Porto Santana fountainhead. There, are you satisfied?'

Roger Torraway could feel a smile forming on his lips. "Demeter sent it."

"Well, you couldn't prove it by me."

"But how did she know? I mean, I never told her—"

Dorrie became almost humanly exasperated, just like in the old days. "Look, just because Big Daddy Gigabytes has left us for parts unknown, it doesn't mean we've lost all our faculties."

He was laughing too hard to articulate. Finally, he could say, "Thank you, Dorrie."

She gave him a shy smile. Not even her own set of teeth could have improved on it. "My pleasure, Roger."