Carl grunted.
“You ever feel like that?” she asked.
“No.”
It came out more abrupt than he’d meant. He sighed and opened his hands where they rested on the rail. “I’m a thirteen, remember. We don’t suffer from this need to feel useful that you people have. We’re not wired for group harmony.”
“Yeah, but you don’t always let your wiring tell you what to do, right?”
“Maybe not, but I’d say it pays to listen to it from time to time. If you plan on ever being happy, that is.”
Rovayo rolled over on the railing, put her arched spine to it, and hooked her elbows back for support. “I seem to remember reading somewhere we’re none of us wired for that one. Being happy. Just a chemical by-product of function, a trick to get you where your genes want you to go.”
His gaze slipped sideways, drawn by the lithe twist she’d used to reverse her position on the rail. He caught her profile, lean high-breasted body and long thighs, the dark flaring facets of her face. The wind off the bay fingered through the curls in her hair, flattened it forward around her head.
“You don’t want to worry too much about Coyle,” she said, not looking at him.
“I’m not.”
She smiled. “Okay. It’s just. See, we don’t get a whole lot of thirteens out here on the Rim. They crop up occasionally, we just bust ’em and ship ’em out. Dump them in Cimarron or Tanana. Jesusland’s always a good place to export the stuff you don’t want in your own backyard. Nuclear nondegradables, nanotech test runs, cutting-edge crop research. The Republic takes it all at a fraction what it’d cost us to do the processing ourselves.”
“I know.”
“Yeah, you worked a couple of Cimarron breaks, right?”
“Six.” He considered. “Seven if you count Eric Sundersen last year. He escaped en route, never actually got to Cimarron itself.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that one. The guy who shorted out the autocopter, right?”
“Right.”
“You the one who brought him in?”
“No,” he said shortly. Eric Sundersen had died in a hail of assault rifle fire on the streets of Minneapolis. Standard police ordnance and tactics; apparently he’d been mistaken for a local drug dealer. Carl was chasing false leads down in Juarez at the time. He went home with day-rate expenses and minor lacerations from a razor fight triggered by one too many questions in the wrong bar. “I missed out on that one.”
“Yeah?” Rovayo hitched herself up on the rail. “Well, anyway, like I said. Having guys like you around isn’t something any of us are used to. Coyle’s got a pretty standard Rim mentality about what a good thing that is. And with the mess Merrin made on that ship…well, Coyle’s a cop, he just doesn’t want to see any more blood in the streets.”
“You trying to apologize for him? That what this is about?”
She grimaced. “I’m just trying to make sure you two don’t kill each other before we get the job done.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “I can guarantee you Coyle won’t kill me.”
“Yeah.” She nodded and her mouth tightened. “Well, just so you know, he’s my partner. It’s not a fight I’ll stay out of if it cuts loose.”
He let it sit for a while, waiting to see if she was finished, if she’d leave him alone with the threat. When she didn’t, he sighed again.
“Okay, Rovayo, you win. Go back and tell your good, honest, compassionate cop partner that if he can keep the word twist hedged a little tighter behind his teeth next time, I’ll cut him some slack.”
“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 around 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 labor to go around, 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.”