“You seem to be saying,” Lamont observed, “That you took my book to be a work of fiction.” He kept his eyes locked on the astronaut’s as he took a measured sip of his coffee, cigarette cradled between two fingertips. He took a second sip. “This is very good,” he noted.
Carter smiled. “It’s genuine, grown here in Hellas. Now, what I’m speaking to is the primitive labor camp, the layers of corrupt bureaucracy, the Keystone Cop guards with patches on their uniforms and pockets full of cigarettes.”
Lamont shrugged. “Pretty much what you’d expect in the backwaters of Tibet.”
“Exactly,” Carter agreed, extending a long finger toward the newspaperman. “That’s exactly my point.”
Lamont took another sip of coffee. He was feeling hot now, perhaps because of the cigarette or the coffee, but more likely because—for reasons he could not begin to fathom—Francis Carter seemed intent on getting under his skin. Whatever his motivation, the tactic could not have been better calculated to frustrate Townsend’s chance encounter with a primary subject of his investigation. Lamont himself had become the object of scrutiny, and he did not like it. He sat back and took a long pull on his cigarette. “What’s it like being back to Mars after thirty years?” In the back of his mind, he heard Harry’s tinny voice suggesting human interest.
Carter looked around, slender hands folding around his coffee cup. “Surreal,” He admitted. “The pace of colonization has been staggering. I remember Mars as cold and quiet, a monument to civilizations long gone and far greater than ours.”
“Now it’s become a monument to human ingenuity,” Lamont prodded.
“Or human opportunism,” Carter shrugged. “What the Martians achieved, they achieved through careful reason, a methodical progression of cultures over eons of time. Like us, they were nearly wiped out by a cataclysmic event—the loss of their atmosphere—but they had nowhere to go, no resource at their disposal but their own glorious minds. We have Mars. Soon we’ll have the stars. But we’ll have reached them on the backs of giants.”
“How soon?” Lamont asked. He thought of the radio station on Triton.
“Sooner than you think,” Carter said, and then he seemed to catch himself. His eyes, which had taken on a distant look during his revery, snapped back to Lamont’s behind the dark lenses of his glasses. He inhaled deeply, stood, and dropped two Munit coins on the table—a generous amount, even for the best coffee. “I’m a very private man, Mr. Townsend. I value solitude, and it’s becoming increasingly scarce. I don’t know how you found me, but I’d thank you not to make it known for a while.”
Lamont nodded. “Is that why you came to Mars? For solitude?”
“No,” Carter admitted. “There was a time when I had the planet nearly to myself, but that was long ago. Good day.” He turned and began to walk.
Lamont stood, almost toppling his chair. “Nearly,” he suggested, “But not completely, isn’t that right?”
The astronaut stopped and turned his head. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’m referring to Phobos,” Lamont blurted. It was a chance he felt he had to take.
Carter’s jaw worked visibly at the reference. After a moment he asked, “The moon?”
“The Martian,” Lamont suggested. He picked the paperback up from the table, stepping forward to hand it to Carter.
“Take care, Mr. Townsend,” Carter said in a tone that sounded more like a warning than a platitude. Accepting the book, he turned again, and his long legs carried him swiftly around the corner.
Lamont exhaled, passing a hand over his mouth. For a long moment, he stood in place, processing the encounter and committing Carter’s few words to memory. He tossed his cigarette to the curb, a smoldering blemish on an otherwise spotless street, and began to walk with no particular destination.
After a short wait, the man on the bench in front of the barbershop, and the two salesmen drinking coffee nearby, all rose and began to walk in the same general direction.
Next: The Honeycomb