Buried Deep Part 5

The car landed with a caution that only Earth drivers used. Most Moon-based drivers and drivers who were used to domes landed at the same speed they drove, knowing there would be little interference from wind or the ground. People who grew up in Earth's constantly changing environments never knew what to expect, so they acted with extreme caution.

He was intrigued now, even though he knew the chances of the aircar's driver coming to see him were slight. His office was in Old Armstrong, where the Moon's first settlement had been. Most of the buildings here, including his, were made of the original colonists' permaplastic, and were on a number of registers of historic places. A lot of tourists came down here to walk to the streets and touch the past.

The car's driver's door opened and a woman got out. She had an athletic build that came from exercise, not thinness enhancers. Her black hair was cropped short and curled under her ears. She wore a loose blouse that looked too wrinkled to be Moon-made, and tight pants that showed off her muscular legs.

Flint didn't recognize her. He transferred her image to his private system and ran it through known Earth records. If he didn't get a hit there, he would go to Moon records and maybe beyond.

She looked around as if she were expecting to be attacked at any moment. Then she looked up, a sure sign of a non-dome dweller. The dome was in Dome Day, radiating pure sunlight on the city below, but the sunlight was artificial. This side of the Moon was in complete darkness, and had been for the last two days now. It would remain in darkness for another ten.

The woman bent slightly, grabbed a bag from the car, and slung the bag over her shoulder. The bag was too large to be a shuttle gift, something the pa.s.senger shuttles handed to tourists who carried too many personal belongings. It looked more like a suitcase of some sort.

Apparently, someone had warned the woman about the neighborhood. Flint wasn't sure if wearing the bag was any better than leaving it in her locked aircar.

Her shoulders went up and down in a visible sigh, then she left the lot, crossed the sidewalk, and entered the street, looking around as she did so. Such a naive thing. He wondered how she had made it so far on her own. Anyone watching her could tell she was a newcomer to Armstrong, probably with all of her belongings on her.

A victim ripe for the taking.

He zoomed in even closer, so that he got a better view of her face. She touched the edge of one eye, then blinked, and he realized she was following an overlay map that she had downloaded through her links.

She had a specific destination.

His private screen rose to full height. It was clear, so that he could see the office in the background. The screen displayed the still image of the woman, and beside it, a lot of tiny print.

Obviously, his system had found her.

He glanced at the information, blocking the photo, and making the print readable.

Aisha Costard Forensic Anthropologist Permanent address: Madison, Wisconsin, Old USA, Earth Last requested visa [information two days old: system has not updated]: Sahara Dome, Mars Visa approved by Sahara Dome Human Police Department. Reason given for issuance: forensic a.s.sistance on an unidentified corpse . . .

Flint stopped reading and frowned. A forensic anthropologist. He had heard of the job t.i.tle when he was at the police academy, but had never had cause to bring one in on a case.

Apparently, she was good enough at her profession to be summoned to Mars.

None of which explained why she had come to Armstrong.

He scrolled through the information, scanning, until he reached: Warning given: subject must report position daily to Sahara Dome Disty Police Department. Failure to do so will result in drastic action.

That surprised Flint. He'd seen enough of these when he'd been s.p.a.ce patrol to know that drastic action drastic action meant she was subject to Disty law. The only way she would be subject to Disty law outside of Disty territory was if she had committed a crime that the Disty considered particularly heinous. meant she was subject to Disty law. The only way she would be subject to Disty law outside of Disty territory was if she had committed a crime that the Disty considered particularly heinous.

Another screen went up and a silent alarm buzzed against his hip. She had come close to his building. Now he watched her on two screens, moving closer to his door.

When she reached it, she paused, blinked, and rubbed one eye. She had probably switched off the overlay map.

He shut down the hip alarm but kept the screens up. Her face looked unnaturally large in the building screen. She looked for something that identified the building.

She paused, as most people did, over the plaque that declared the building's historic value to the city of Armstrong. Then she saw, just below, the tiny sign that declared a Retrieval Artist worked in this office.

For a moment, she closed her eyes, as if she were terribly exhausted or extremely disappointed to find him. Then she took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and knocked.

He saved the information on her and shut down his alarm screens. He kept the wall screen on but muted it, and put his e-reader on the desktop as if he had been working with that. He shoved the keyboard into its place under the desk.

She knocked again.

"It's open," he called, even though it hadn't been a moment before.

The k.n.o.b turned and she stepped inside, stopping suddenly as her links shut down. Most people had some kind of information being fed to them constantly, so much that they had gotten used to the constant crawl along the bottom of their vision or the soft voice droning inside their heads.

A handful of Flint's potential clients had fled the moment the links quit.

"You didn't have to do that." Her voice was soft, almost musical. Its depth surprised Flint. "I'm a client."

"I do that to everyone. The only systems that run in my office are mine." He hadn't stood. He hadn't done anything by way of greeting. It was his job to make potential clients uncomfortable so that they wouldn't hire him.

Hiring a Retrieval Artist usually put the Disappeared in jeopardy. He usually worked cases in which he felt the Disappeared was already about to be found, had been reprieved, or was in new trouble anyway. He rarely took on cases in which he was the first to search for the Disappeared.

She still held the door open, almost as if her muscles had stopped working with her links.

"If you don't like the silence, you can leave," Flint said. "Otherwise, close the door. I have a lot of sensitive information here that I don't want hacked. The longer the door is open, the more danger you cause countless people you don't even know."

She started, as if she were embarra.s.sed, and pushed the door closed. Then she wiped her hands on those tight trousers.

"You're Miles Flint?" she asked.

"That's what the sign says."

She took a step closer to him. "You're the eighth Retrieval Artist I've seen, and the only one who has been this rude."

"I'm sorry to hear it," he said. "All of them should have been more cautious."

He was curious why she had seen eight previous Retrieval Artists, but he wasn't going to engage. He had learned, in the past few years of doing this job, that his curiosity often drew him to cases he shouldn't take.

"You're being rude on purpose?" she asked.

"I'd hate to think that I'm so socially inept that I'd be rude by accident." He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

Her face was very pleasant. Her eyes were dark, her skin a light chocolate. She had round cheeks and a b.u.t.ton nose that seemed at odds with her generous mouth. Yet all of the features worked together into something more, something quite appealing.

"I don't understand," she said. "You're in business." business."

He shrugged. "I don't need the money. Any Retrieval Artist who does is more of a Tracker, and probably doesn't care if he inadvertently exposes a Disappeared."

"I thought Trackers and Retrieval Artists were the same thing," she said.

He felt a flare of anger. He hated that comparison. "If you believe that, then why are you visiting Retrieval Artists? We're much more expensive."

"I thought-you know-Trackers worked in the public sector and Retrieval Artists were private."

"You thought wrong." He touched a key on the board under his desk. The door swung open. "Thanks for this little enlightening conversation. Your ignorance has been the highlight of my day. I hope I don't see you in my office again."

"You're kicking me out?" she asked. "You haven't even heard why I need your services."

"You probably need a Tracker." He stood, letting his height give his words added strength. "I will throw you out if you don't leave."

She looked panicked, as if he had already touched her, leaving bruises. Then she fled out the door. It closed behind her.

Flint sat back down and sighed. The case, whatever it had been, sounded like it might have been interesting, but he couldn't trust someone who didn't know the difference between Trackers and Retrieval Artists.

He hadn't lied to her when he said her very ignorance might put someone in jeopardy.

He pulled out the keyboard as he tried to dismiss Aisha Costard from his thoughts.

8.

He had run her out. That arrogant man had tossed her into the dusty street as if she had been nothing more than a child.

Aisha Costard stopped on the tilted sidewalk outside the Retrieval Artist's office and coughed as the Moon dust swirled around her. Nowhere in Sahara Dome had she seen so much dust, not even at the open gravesite. Here it seemed like the dust filtered in from outside, as if the Dome weren't properly sealed.

Her stomach lurched, and the fear she'd been trying to suppress rose again.

She had a list of two dozen Retrieval Artists. She had already seen the eight "trustworthy" ones on Mars. This Miles Flint was the only Retrieval Artist that SDHPD felt worthy on the Moon. If she had to hire someone else, she'd have to go to Earth, and in order to do that, she'd need special permission from the Disty themselves.

Two more trips through customs and security. Two more trips that were probably going to be worse than the one she had just endured. Earth's security was tighter than anywhere else in the solar system.

Earth made most suspicious outsiders go to the Moon, rather than risk the center of the Alliance. She'd probably be in custody for weeks rather than days.

She couldn't face it.

That arrogant man was going to listen to her, no matter what it took.

She turned around, walked back to the dirty plastic alcove that served as a front doorstep for this rundown place, and knocked again. She waited.

No answer.

She knocked again.

Of course, he probably had some kind of surveillance. He knew it was her and he wasn't going to let her back in.

"You should really listen to people before you make judgements," she said as loudly as she could. "I'm not your typical client."

Her words rang against the plastic. She had no idea if this Flint was listening to her. She had a hunch anyone else on the street could hear her.

"I'm here on official business," she said. 'This is really important."

Silence.

She had never, in all her years traveling to all sorts of different places all over Earth, encountered anyone as rude as this man. She had run into people she didn't like, people who didn't like her, and people who didn't want her on a case. She'd even faced the Disty who had already decided that she was an enemy, and she had made them listen to her, with partial success. She wasn't going to let some low-rent "artist" get the better of her.

She tried the doork.n.o.b, but it wouldn't turn. She shoved, but the door didn't open.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

He probably didn't appreciate her discussing this on the street. She didn't appreciate it either. What had he said? That leaving the door open would jeopardize information in his files. Was he pretending to care about the clients he had been rude to? Or was it the actual Disappeareds who were important to him?

Maybe this was just a negotiating ploy so that she would pay any fee to get him to help her.

She backed away. She wouldn't do that. This trick wouldn't get her to pay any price, not that it was her money. It wasn't. The money came from Sahara Dome-the human branch. It didn't matter if she saved them money, at least not to her, but it was the principle of the thing.

Principle.

He seemed to want her to believe that he was principled. Well, fine. She could play that game, even if she didn't believe him.

"No one's going to get hurt," she said. "The Disappeared is already dead."

Silence again. She was about to turn away when she heard a slight click. The door eased open. He was sitting behind that crummy little desk, looking like a pale ghost in the cold room. "Shouting on the street is a sure way to get someone hurt."

She stepped inside, braced for the double clunks she had heard the last time when her links closed down. She wasn't one of those people who had information running all the time, but apparently, the links came with some white noise that she hadn't recognized until now.

She actually missed it.

The door closed behind her. She shivered involuntarily. He kept this room unbearably frigid. Her bag shifted slightly, then slipped off her shoulder. She let the heavy thing fall onto the floor. "Are you going to listen to me?" she asked.

"If it's the only way to get rid of you," he said.

She hesitated, the rudeness catching her again, making her anger work.

His expression softened. He leaned forward, looking engaged for the first time. "Go ahead," he said. "Tell me what's going on."

So she did.

9.

Flint paid little attention to her saga of woe: How she felt she had been tricked when she went to Mars; how she was unfamiliar with Disty customs; how she had stayed four times longer than she had expected. She spoke with an intensity he hadn't seen before, as if each thing that happened to her had been a personal affront.