The woman was slender and dark, almost as tall as he was. She had long, black hair that went across her shoulders, down her back, and tucked under her rump. Her hair glistened in the subdued lighting every time she turned her head. The woman's features showed the exquisite curves of a Polynesian or other Pacific Islander, with the sun-browned skin coloring to match.
"Lole! Ellen!" the Creole called from the entry arch.
The two of them looked over. "Boy, am I glad I caught you!" Jory pushed his way between the tables, Demeter trailing behind him.
"Demeter Coghlan, I'd like you to meet Lole Mitsuno and Ellen Sorbel. They're hydrologists with the complex's Resources Department. Sometimes I help them out with surface assignments."
"Hi there," from the woman.
"Howdy, ma'am," from the man.
Coghlan figured he must be the "Lolly" of the pair, because he sure didn't look like any "Ellen."
"Demeter is a tourist up from Earth," Jory explained. "From Texahoma State, to be exact," he added with a meaningful glance at Mitsuno.
"What exactly does a 'hydrologist' do?" Demeter asked conversationally, sitting down at one of the free chairs. The Creole rotated one around from a nearby table and squatted on it in reverse, crossing his arms over the back.
"We find water," Sorbel replied.
"Well, shucks," the man said. "Ellen here finch it. I just go and dig it out."
"And I help them, sometimes," Jory repeated.
"Are you really from Texas?" Mitsuno asked, his grin tightening with unexpected interest.
"Texahoma, actually."
"You know any cowboys?" He made a twirling motion with his right index finger above his head.
"Lole is very interested in the Old West," Sorbel explained.
"Well, I know a couple of rig drivers, work out of El Paso. They sometimes carry a load of frozen myolite."
The tall man knitted his brows.
"Processed protein product?" Demeter suggested. "But like as not they're carrying rockcandy silicon or liquid propane, you know. Or anything break-bulk."
"They ever do rodeo?" Mitsuno asked hopefully.
"Not since the Animal Rights Act of ninety-six."
"Then I guess you don't have shootouts or—"
"Not since my grandfather's been in office." "Oh."
Sorry.
The conversation entered a barometric decline, with everyone staring at the tabletop. Demeter wondered what she wanted to drink at ten o'clock in the morning, local time.
Jory suddenly looked up and stared at the far wall. He seemed to be receiving messages from beyond it. "Hey! Gotta go!" the Creole announced. "I'm late for the duty roster." He unhooked his legs from the chair rungs and dashed out.
After he was gone, Demeter and her two new friends resettled themselves in silence. Coghlan glanced at the pair across from her, sensing an easiness about them as if, sitting three feet apart, they still touched at several points. She wondered if they were lovers.
"So . .." Demeter began again. "What kind of name is 'Mitsuno'? I'd have said Japanese, but you look a long way from—"
"Finn," Lole supplied. "My ancestors came from above the Arctic Circle. I guess that's why someone thought I'd be good at finding ice."
"Gosh, do you still speak Finnish at home?" Coghlan asked.
"Nobody speaks Finnish here anymore." He shrugged loosely. "Russian's easier to pronounce, and English's got simpler spelling rules."
"I see. . . ." She turned her attention to the young woman. "So, how do you find water? Go out in the hills with a witch-stick, or what?"
"I am a cyber ghost," Sorbel replied. "After Lole fires a string of sonic charges and brings up a field of data, I sniff around to see if anything looks possible."
Demeter sort of followed what Ellen was saying. She knew enough about teleoperators to know that ghosts worked in virtual realities which most of the rest of the human race wouldn't find particularly "real." Inside molecular structures, say. Or wedged into the laminar flows of a plumbing complex. Or, as here, looking at rocks and soil from the inside out.
Cyber ghosts went beyond the simple-minded rotas of expert systems. They did things that computers in the grid could not do. The computer mind might be able to tabulate sonic echoes and gravimetric survey data into matrices and layers, but it lacked the essential human element—"intuition" was the only word for it—that let an Ellen Sorbel enter the datastream, "sniff around," and then decide whether that particular formation was worth drilling for ice. In simplest terms, humans could exercise creativity and imagination, while computers just processed numbers.
"And then I go back out in a walker and put down a bore hole wherever she says to," Lole Mitsuno finished up. "In a way, its a lot like wildcatting—if you know what that means."
"Sure. We're not so far from our roots, down in Austin," Demeter acknowledged.
"Well, good!" He gave her a big grin, making Coghlan feel she had just passed some kind of test. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go make a contribution to the aquifer."
"Huh?"
"He means to 'take a leak,'" Ellen supplied, as Mitsuno unfolded himself and made his way between tables to the convenience.
With just the two of them left, facing each other now, Demeter decided to make a stab at girl-talk. She'd gotten rusty, living so much of her recent life out of a suitcase.
"So . .. are you and Lole engaged or anything?'
"Define 'anything,'" the woman returned her volley.
"Well, in love, in lust, into aggressive hand-holding ... you know"
"You mean, is he free?"
"Yeah.. ."
Sorbel considered. "Lole's about the freest man on Mars—which isn't to say he's not expensive. We used to be real tight, working practically inside each other's minds all day long. The mental just led to the physical 'n' all that—and it was good. But now we're more . . . Well, I don't mind you making a move on him, because he is an upright piece of manhood. But if you hurt him, Dem, I will arrange to have you killed."
"Uh, point taken." Demeter tried to smile.
"Just so we understand each other.... How much of Mars have you seen already?" Sorbel asked, changing the subject.
"Only what you can glimpse from a window, actually. Coming down the Fountain—that was great. And I did get out in a proxy."
"Where did you go?" Lole asked brightly, rejoining the table.
"Just over the next valley or so. I helped Jory shuck-crabs."
"Von Neumanns." Ellen nodded.
"That as far as he would take you?" from Lole.
"We did have a kind of excursion planned, out to the Valles area, but all the proxies on site there were taken. Maybe tomorrow...."
"Oh, the proxies are all right," he conceded. "You get as much feel for the land as a well-done travel sim, I guess. But you really have to walk on the surface and wiggle your toes in the sand if you want to know Mars."
"You put your toss—?"
"Your boots, anyway"
"I was told about the safaris," Demeter said. "They sound expensive."
"They can be, sure. Unless you go as supercargo with a work party. Look, I'm checking out a walker tomorrow to go eyeball some new formations that Ellen likes. If you want to come along, I can sign you on to guard the sandwiches and such."
"Sure!"
"Let me just confirm it with our department and get you assigned your own air bottle. . . . Wyatt, do you copy?" he asked, turning his face to the nearest surveillance lens.
"Confirm," said a neutral voice, emanating from an air duct overhead. "One to accompany your June-ten-slash-eleven-fifteen out time, person of Demeter Coghlan, tourist from Earth."
"Who was that?" Demeter asked.
'Wyatt, the cyber that thinks it runs our department," Ellen replied.