Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson [166]
“But we’ll never know! They’ll end up debating it for centuries to come, there’ll be a journal devoted to that issue alone, but we’ll never really know.”
“If it’s too close to tell, it’s probably Terran,” John said, grinning at the boy. “Anything that evolved separately from Terran life would give itself away in an instant.”
“Probably,” Ann said. (“Probabry.”) “Except what if there’s a common source, the space-spores theory, for instance, or ejecta blasted from one planet to another with microorganisms buried in its rock?”
“That’s not too likely, is it?”
“We don’t know. We’ll never know, now.”
John had a hard time sharing her concern. “They might have come from the Viking landers for all we know,” he said. “There’s never been a very effective effort to sterilize our explorations here, that’s just the way it is. Meanwhile we’ve got more pressing problems.” Such as a global dust storm longer than the longest one ever recorded, or an influx of immigrants whose commitment to Mars was as minimal as their housing, or an upcoming treaty revision that no one could agree on, or a terraforming effort that a lot of people hated. Or a home planet going critical. Or an attempt (or two) to do one John Boone some harm.
“Yeah yeah,” Ann said. “I know. But all that’s politics, we’ll never get away from that. This was science, a question I wanted answered. And now I can’t. Nobody can.”
John shrugged. “We’ll never answer that one, Ann. No matter what. That was one of those questions that was fated always to remain unanswered. Didn’t you know that?”
“Probabwy Tewwan.”
• • •
A few days after that, a rocket landed on the little lake station spaceport pad, and a small group of Terrans emerged out of the dust, still bouncing around as they walked. Investigative agents, they said, here on UNOMA authority, to look into sabotage and related incidents. There were ten of them in all, eight clean-cut young men right out of the vids, and two attractive young women. Most had been assigned from the American FBI. Their leader, a tall brown-haired man named Sam Houston, requested an interview with Boone, and John agreed politely.
When they met after breakfast the next morning— six of the agents were there, including both women— he meekly answered every question without hesitation, though instinctively he told them only what he thought they knew already, plus a bit more to seem honest and helpful. They were polite and deferential, thorough in their questioning, extremely reticent if he asked them anything in return. They seemed unaware of much of the detail of the situation on Mars, and asked him about things that had happened in the first years at Underhill, or during the time of Hiroko’s disappearance. They obviously knew the events of that time, and the basic facts of the various relationships among the first hundred’s media stars; they asked him a lot of questions about Maya, Phyllis, Arkady, Nadia, the Acheron group, Sax . . . all of whom were well-known to these young Terrans, permanent fixtures on their TV. But it seemed they knew little beyond what had been taped and sent back to Earth. John, his mind wandering, wondered if that would be true of all Terrans. After all what other sources of information did they have?
At the end of the interview, one of them named Chang asked him if there was anything else he wanted to say. John, who had omitted an account of his midnight visit from the coyote, among many other things, said, “I can’t think of anything!”
Chang nodded, and then Sam Houston said, “We’d appreciate it if you’d give us access to your AI on these matters.”
“I’m sorry,” John said, looking apologetic. “I don’t give access to my AI.”
“You have a destruct lock on it?” Houston said, looking surprised.
“No. I just don’t do it. Those are my private records.” John stared the man in the eye, watched him squirm under the gaze of his associates.
“We, um, we can get a warrant from UNOMA, if you like.”
“I doubt you can, actually. And even if you do I won’t let you in.”
John smiled at him, almost laughed. Another moment where