‘I know. I’m sorry about that.’
‘Don’t be. You’re not the one who said it.’
She hesitated. ‘I don’t like that word any more than you do. It’s just, like I said, we don’t get—’
‘Yeah, I know. You don’t get many like me in the Rim, so Coyle gets to throw the words around without repercussions. Don’t worry, it’s not much different anywhere else I’ve been.’
‘Apart from Mars?’
He hunched round to look at her properly.
‘Mars, huh? This cousin of yours really planted some seeds, didn’t he? What’s the deal, you thinking about going yourself?’
She didn’t meet his gaze. ‘Nothing like that. Just Enrique, my cousin, he talked a lot about how no one had a problem with the thirteens there. Like they had this kind of minor celebrity status.’
Carls snorted. ‘Pretty fucking minor, I’d say. Sounds to me like your cousin Enrique’s having a bad attack of qualpro nostalgia. That’s pretty common once you get safely back, but you notice most of these guys don’t sign up for another tour. I mean, he didn’t, right?’
She shook her head. ‘I think part of him wanted to, part of him would have stayed out there longer, maybe not come back at all. But he got scared. He didn’t exactly tell me that, but you could pick it up from what he said, you know.’
‘Well, it’s an easy place to get scared,’ Carl admitted grudgingly.
‘Even for a thirteen?’
He shrugged. ‘We’re not that good at fear, it’s true. But this is something deeper, it’s not an actual fear of anything. It’s something that comes up from inside. No warning, no trigger you can work out. Just a feeling.’
‘Feeling of what?’
Carl grimaced, remembering. ‘A feeling that you don’t belong. That you shouldn’t be there. Like being in someone else’s home without them knowing, and you know they might be coming home any minute.’
‘Big bad Martian monsters, huh?’
‘I didn’t say it made any sense.’ He stared out at the bridge. The southern tower was almost lost in the encroaching fog bank now, wrapped and shrouded to the top. Tendrils crept through under the main span. ‘They say it’s the gravity and the perceived horizon that does it. Triggers a survival anxiety. Maybe they’re right.’
‘You think you handled it better?’ She made an embarrassed gesture. ‘Because. You know, because of what you are?’
He frowned. ‘What do you want to hear from me, Rovayo? What’s this really about?’
‘Hey, just making conversation. You want to be alone, say the word. I can take a hint if you hit me upside the head with it.’
Carl felt a faint smile touch the corners of his mouth.
‘You work at it, you can reach a balance,’ he said. ‘The fear tips over into exhilaration. The weakness turns into strength, fuels you up to face whatever it is your survival anxiety thinks it’s warning you about. Starts to feel good instead of bad.’ He looked down at the backs of his hands where they rested on the rail. ‘Kind of addictive after a while.’
‘You think that’s why they’re happy to have you on Mars?’
‘Rovayo, they’re happy to have anyone on Mars. The qualpro guys mostly go home as soon as their stint’s up – to be fair to your cousin, he’s a tough motherfucker if he stayed even for a second tour – and you’ve got a high rate of mental health problems in the permanent settlers, that’s the grunts and the ex-grunts who’ve upskilled, doesn’t seem to make much difference either way. End result – there’s never enough labour to go round, never enough skilled personnel or reliable raw human material to learn the skills. So yeah, they can put up with the fact you’re a born and bred twist sociopath if they think you’ll be able to punch above your weight.’ A thin smile. ‘Which we mostly can.’
The Rim cop nodded, as if convincing herself of something.
‘They say the Chinese are breeding a new variant for Mars. Against the charter. You believe that?’
‘I’d believe pretty much anything of those shitheads in Beijing. You don’t keep a grip on the world’s largest economy the way they have without stamping on a few human rights.’
‘You see any evidence? When you were there, I mean?’
Carl shook his head. ‘You don’t see much of the Chinese at all on Mars. They’re mostly based down in Hellas or around the Utopia spread. Long way from Bradbury or Wells, unless you’ve got some specific reason to go there.’
They both watched the silvered chop of the water for a while.
‘I did think about going,’ Rovayo said finally. ‘I was younger when Enrique came back with all his stories, still in my teens. I was going to get some studies, sign up for a three stint.’
‘So what happened?’
She laughed. ‘Life happened, man. Just one of those dreams the logistics stacked up against, you know.’
‘You probably didn’t miss much.’
‘Hey, you went.’
‘Yeah. I went because the alternative was internment.’ A brief memory of Névant’s jeering slipped across his mind. ‘And I came back as soon as I got the chance. You don’t want to believe all your cousin’s war stories. That stuff always looks better in the rear-view mirror. A lot of the time, Mars is just this cold, hard-scrabble place you won’t ever belong to no matter how hard you scrabble at trying.’
Rovayo shrugged.
‘Yeah, well.’ A hard little smile came and went across her mouth, but her voice was quiet and cop-wisdom calm. ‘You think it’s any different here on Earth, Marsalis? You think down here they’re ever going to let you belong?’
And for that, he had no answer. He just stood and watched the disappearing bridge, until Rovayo propped herself upright off the rail and touched his arm.
‘C’mon,’ she said companionably. ‘Let’s get back to work.’
They were working the Horkan’s Pride case out of a closed suite in the lower levels of the Alcatraz station. Shielding in the superstructure above them ensured a leaktight data environment, the transmission systems in and out ran Marstech-standard encryption and all the equipment in the suite was jacked together with python-thick coils of black, actual cable. It gave the offices a period feel that sat well with the raw, sandblasted stone walls and the subterranean cool that soaked off them. Sevgi sat in a commandeered desk chair and stared at a rough-hewn corner, keeping her eyes off Marsalis and furious with herself for the feeling that snaked across her belly when Rovayo came back with the black man in tow.
‘Coyle and Norton went to talk to Tsai,’ she told them. ‘Going to book some n-djinn time, run a fresh linkage model on Ward and the victims, soon as we can get on the machine.’
Rovayo nodded and went to her desk, where she stood, prodding through a pile of hardcopy with limited enthusiasm. Sevgi turned to Marsalis.
‘There’s a Mars datafile you might want to take a look at here. Seems Norton got onto Colony while we were in Istanbul, had them pull Gutierrez in. You want to screen it?’
She thought she saw a subtle tightening go through him. But he only shrugged. ‘Think it’s worth looking at?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said acidly. ‘I haven’t seen it yet.’
‘The chances Colony got anything useful out of an old familia hand like Gutierrez are pretty thin.’
‘Not really the main point,’ said Rovayo absently from across the room, not looking up from her paperwork. ‘Cop’ll tell you it’s what the guy doesn’t say as often as not gives you the angle.’
‘Uh, exactly,’ said Sevgi, startled.