At the city border, the pavement ends unceremoniously, giving way to flat-graded, tight-packed dirt road, distinguishable from the rest of the dusty, orange-brown landscape only by the absence of larger-sized rocks. The driving gets bumpy. As I pass the last few rickety shacks at the far edges of Oasis City, the alkali dust whips across my goggles, stinging my nose as I accelerate out onto the dry, red plains. The sky is open in front of me now, a great blue expanse hemmed by the harsh, high, jagged mountains that surround the Oasis Basin. The colony started in this valley because it’s less prone to extreme weather than the rest of the planet, and it’s the only spot naturally flat enough to build on, having been leveled by the impact of a meteorite half a million years ago.
The soil in the flats is dry and powdery, strewn with rocks ranging in size from pebbles to monolithic wind-worn boulders jutting up from the earth. Sparse vegetation whisks by, most of it thin and wiry, some of it heavy with leathery green and dark-red leaves, punctuated here and there with squat, thick blush cacti and their tangled, spiny limbs. In school they teach you that three colors of photosynthetic chemical evolved in this ecology and that most native plants carry the red type in addition to green chlorophyll, while the plants in the oceans generally carry green or blue or both.
The structures of civilization fall behind me, and for several minutes I move at top speed over the flats until I spot the place up ahead in the wastelands, nestled among some low rocks at the foot of steep, silvery hills. A mine. Platinum, probably, or helium.
I park my ride in front and step off, removing my goggles and hanging them on the handlebars as I survey the homestead. A midsized, mostly underground house, the roof poking just above the caked earth, a couple of beat-up vehicles parked in an open garage, and an underground warehouse of unknown size. No other buildings for kilometers around. The wind whistles across the rocks, but otherwise all is quiet. I bite my lip at the thought of how ugly things could get here and consider calling in backup. This could be a job for the heavies. But splitting my commission up even further does not appeal to me, so I walk to the front door and ring the bell.
My hand hovers over my sidearm as minutes pass and no one answers. I can probably break the door down if I have to, but deciding to check the other buildings first, I go to the entrance of the warehouse and try the controls. To my surprise, the door slides open. I dart aside instinctively, taking cover against the wall, but no attack comes.
Hand on the grip of my pistol in its holster, I lean into the doorway, cautious. “Hello?” I call. “Is anyone there?”
Nothing. Just the whistling of the plains winds.
I draw my weapon and step into the building. A steep ramp takes me underground onto the floor of the warehouse. Maybe twenty meters square, walls lined with stacked platinum bricks. From the stockpile I guess that the proprietor is waiting for the exchange rate to improve, hoping he can get more calcium per kilo of metal. Good luck with that.
I walk to the door on the far wall. Suspecting some kind of trap, I put my ear to it but hear no signs of life, so I try the controls and the door opens. I find myself facing dense machinery, floor-to-ceiling, packed tight, some of it running with a faint but steady hum. I hesitate to enter the maze of metal and piping, apprehensive of an ambush.
“Hello?” I call. “Collections Agency.”
No response.
Screw it. Holding my sidearm upright, tight to my body, I slip into the room. The air is hot and still. Checking to my right and left at each turn, I make my way between the dinged-up metalworks. “Anyone there?” I repeat, my voice reverberating off the irregular surfaces.
The clanking sound of metal striking metal disrupts the quiet. A dropped tool, or something hard hitting one of the machines. I pause. “I heard that.” I announce, adding, “You surprise me, I start shooting.”
I move forward deliberately. As I climb over a stack of tubing, something flies out from behind one of the machines and clatters against some pipes. I raise my gun but take my finger off the trigger when I see that it’s just a wrench, tossed aside by someone near the back wall.
“Stay where you are, lady,” a man shouts. “Don’t come any closer.”
“I’m a Collections Agent, here on official business. Obstruction of this investigation is a felony. I have no intention of harming anyone, and I promise that it will be for your benefit to come out and talk with me.” Lines I’ve used often.
“Nothing here to collect,” says the man.
“Then you can come out and talk.” Receiving no response, I add, “I got a report of a possible death.”
“Busy back here,” he says. “Come back later.”
I’ve been working this job long enough to know that this guy has something to hide. I bite my lip, left with no choice but to do things the hard way.
Alert, I snake through the tight walkway between the machines, sweat beading on my temples and running down my face. Stepping under a mess of cooling lattice, I find myself near the room’s rear wall, and I finally see the man, an old miner in shabby, worn-out clothing streaked with dirt and oil, kneeling next to a piece of equipment, fastening something to it with a power drill. He looks up at me, and I see fear in his eyes. His back is hunched, and on one of his forearms is the telltale purplish mottling of hypocalcemia. Not a case that will kill him soon, but it marks him with the look of poverty and desperation.
“I told you, you got no business here,” he says, “I’ve got work to tending.”
I raise my firearm emphatically. “Stand up, old man. You need to get in your head that this is serious.”
Begrudgingly he climbs to his feet. “Got nothing to say.” His words are deliberate, spoken with a lisp because of his lack of teeth. He probably sold them, maybe couldn’t afford a fake set.
“Plenty of platinum here, old man. Why not buy yourself some teeth?”
“Waiting for my ship to come in.”
The poor, optimistic bastard probably thinks the Commerce Board is going to negotiate higher import quotas and get the other colonies to loosen their restrictions on calcium exports to Brink. It’s all over the news cycle like it is every year around this time, but nothing ever really changes.
“Your ship could be a long time coming.”
“What do you want?”
“I’m a Collections Agent, and this is a collection. Obstruction is a felony punishable by a fine you probably can’t afford to pay, or in the alternative, death, but I have no intention of harming you. I promise that it will be for your benefit to come out and talk.” I take a few steps toward him, sizing him up. He doesn’t look like he’s armed. “I need to search every building on the premises before I can leave.”
“Collections?” he scoffs, going back to his work, “Look at my skin.”
“What about it?”
“Should be obvious I got nothing to collect.”
“You’ve got a motive to withhold, is what you’ve got.”
“Withhold what?”
“There’s been a report of a possible death.”
He stops working again but does not turn to face me. After a moment’s pause he says, “You can come back later. I’ve got work to tending.”
“No. I can’t,” I reply, dropping the cordial tone. “Now.”
I can hear the clinking and shuffling of the old man working, ignoring me. The narrow pathway between us is strewn with pipes and wires, and the old man might be baiting me into a trap. But I’ve got little choice. Sidearm held tight to my torso, I make my way toward him. When I get to the corner he’s working behind, I step out and train my gun on him.