Kieran grinned. “A market of this kind of potential is bound to attract interests of every color, stripe, and persuasion,” he said. “Let’s just say that with possible future involvements in mind, I’d like to learn as much about it at an early a stage as I can.”
Leo Sarda joined them a few minutes later. Maybe in his early forties, with a mane of streaky yellow hair skirting his collar, a droopy mustache to match, and the ruddy appearance that resulted from the absence of UV-screening ozone in the Martian atmosphere, he had the kind of shaggy, weathered look that put Kieran in mind of a fishing-boat skipper or the “doc” from an old-time Western movie.
“Leo, I hope things have calmed down a bit,” Herbert opened as Kieran stood to shake hands. “This is June’s friend, Kieran Thane, that I told you about—the one who’s interested in everything. He just arrived on Mars yesterday, and because of the splendid job June’s been doing for us, we agreed to let him see the system. Would you do the honors and give him the tour?”
Sarda nodded. “Okay, let’s go,” he said briskly, looking at June in an unspoken invitation for her to join them if she was going, too.
“Thanks for setting it up,” Kieran said to Herbert as June stood up. “Will I see you again before I go?”
“No need to come back here. June will take care of you. But we’ll probably see you again sometime. Enjoy your stay.”
* * *
“Is it your first time on Mars, Mr. Thane?” Sarda asked as they followed a corridor on the floor below Herbert Morch’s office, past walls of windows behind which people were working among computer screens and laboratory equipment.
“No,” Kieran answered. “I was here about six months ago—some immigrants were being taken in by crooked land deals.”
“What brings you here this time?”
“Mostly taking a break. Although, I thought I might look into getting myself a place while I’m here—as an investment as well as a convenience. The market feels about right. And I figure I’ve got the experience now not to get burned.”
“Got any particular area in mind?”
“Not really . . . Probably somewhere here, around Lowell.”
“It isn’t bad. I’ve been here about a year.”
“Kieran appears from time to time,” June said. “And it isn’t usually very long before interesting, adventurous, and usually profitable things start to happen.”
Sarda raised his eyebrows. “I’m not sure we can promise anything like that here.”
“Don’t worry. From what I’ve heard, I’d say that this project of yours is interesting enough,” Kieran told him. “As for the rest, oh . . . give it time.”
Sarda’s stride was springy and exuberant, as if he were bombproof and the worst that life had to offer was rain—possibly the aftereffects of having come through the process unscathed, Kieran reflected. Although he had made a point of not staring earlier, he couldn’t resist glancing at Sarda surreptitiously as they came to a flight of metal-railed stairs and descended. Even after listening to June the previous evening, it seemed incredible that this person walking beside him could have been a formless aggregate of nonliving molecules just two days before. Every hair, every pore—even nongenetic, environmental effects such as the sunburn and evident wear and toughening of the hands and fingers—were exactly reproduced. Kieran was unable to find a flaw. It was uncanny.
They came to a concrete-walled room filled with consoles and equipment racks, items of unidentifiable apparatus, tangles of wires and piping, several desks partly hidden amid it all, and a workbench along one wall. But the centerpiece was a padded, recliner-like piece of furniture surrounded by more gadgetry, obviously built to take a human body. A sturdy white metal door was set in the wall nearby. Sarda ran over the basics of the process, keeping things short in view of the limited time that he could give them. Kieran could probably have helped a little by airing some of what he had learned from June, but it seemed wiser to just shut up and listen.
“You could think of a factory, along with all the machines and people in it, as a computer that translates design information and raw materials into products—an automobile, or a space plane, say. In the same kind of way, the protein transcription machinery in a cell is a chemical computer that translates DNA information and raw material into . . .” Sarda glanced at June for a suggestion.