The Luna Deception Read online

  Mendoza had seen with his own eyes that there was no one in the office. That meant the voice was coming through his iEars transducer implants, not his ears. The speaker was only here virtually.

  Social protocol still applied. “Hello?”

  “Huh? Who’s there?”

  A pale, balding man prairie-dogged up from behind the filing cabinets that blocked the window.

  “Oh. Hello. You must be … John Mendoza? The psephologist?”

  Fortyish, receding light brown hair, blue eyes. Pureblood, Mendoza thought, and was ashamed of the thought. Then he registered what the man had said. “Psephologist?” He laughed.

  “The science of polls and voting. Not you? Wrong guy?”

  “No, no, I was just surprised. I know what psephology is. I guess you could say I’m a psephologist. I got my degree in the subject. But I guess the demand isn’t there, so I ended up in data analysis.” Mendoza realized that he was not doing a very good job of selling himself to his new boss, assuming that was who this was. “I’m sorry, should I just sit anywhere?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. I don’t work here. I was just looking for something. Maybe you could help me out.”

  Mendoza put down his stool and circled the last row of filing cabinets. Binders and folders, bristling with search tags, littered the floor. The man flipping through them was dressed flamboyantly for Shackleton City—for anywhere, as a matter of fact. Red and yellow striped trousers clashed with a royal purple tailcoat. A lace cravat mounted to his stubbly chin, matching his white leather boots. The overall effect fell somewhere between dandy and graphics program malfunction. Of course, this was just an avatar. The guy might look ordinary in real life, although Mendoza’s own avatar was synced to his actual appearance.

  The man reached into a filing cabinet and dragged out another armload of folders, which he dumped at Mendoza’s feet.

  “Totally useless filing system. Nothing’s properly tagged. Mind helping me go through these? We’re looking for historical polling data on resource extraction from Mercury.”

  “There’s polling data on resource extraction from Mercury?” Mendoza began to see what his new job might consist of. It did not fill him with excitement.

  “The United Nations does theoretically derive its legitimacy from citizen buy-in.”

  They searched the archives without success until Mendoza’s new boss turned up. She was a sharp-faced woman named Preeti Dillinger. She informed them that they’d been wasting their time. No historical polling data existed.

  “You’re kidding,” the virtual man said. “We’re talking about a planet. No one has ever bothered to ask the public how they feel about dismembering it for resources?”

  A small thundercloud appeared over the head of Dillinger’s avatar. “Historically, Mercury hasn’t been seen as an influencer of public sentiment. Most people on Earth are hardly aware of its existence. That said, all the major resource companies have a presence there. Some of them may have conducted their own polling.”

  “No use to me. I assume you’re going to do some polling now?” The man slapped the shoulder of Mendoza’s avatar in a comradely way. Mendoza’s BCI manufactured the illusion of physical contact. “Now you’ve got a professional psephologist on board.”

  “Polling is one component of the Phase 5 ramp, yes. Now, if you don’t mind, Mr. Lorna …”

  “Fine, fine; I know where I’m not wanted.” The virtual man winked at Mendoza and vanished.

  During the conversation, several more MeReMSG employees had come into the office.

  “That was Derek Lorna, director of the Leadership in Robotics Institute,” Dillinger told them. “He thinks he can go wherever he likes, do whatever he likes. The sad thing is, he can. Why? Because he’s a universally acknowledged genius.” She rolled her eyes. “Excuse me, gang. I’ve got kittens that need feeding.”

  ★

  Before the morning was out, Mendoza understood that the Mercury Resource Extraction Support Group was a shambles. The slipshod filing system and Dillinger’s kittens were just the most visible signs of disorder.

  As was often the way with tiny teams that never caused any trouble, MeReMSG had chugged along placidly for years, not troubling themselves to codify or document their procedures. Why bother, when the old-timers had it all in their heads? This stemmed from both laziness and fear. Mendoza recognized the mindset from his days in the Astrodata Analysis Group: the less paperwork you generated, the less you were at risk of being held accountable for it.

  But as their early-morning visitor, Derek Lorna, had mentioned, you were supposed to get public approval for resource extraction operations, especially when these were funded by the UN taxpayer. Thus, Mendoza’s job would be to craft polls that tricked the UN taxpayer into approving of the ramp-up of a mining operation that would extract 1035 kilograms of iron ore and other silicates from Mercury’s crust, on a tight schedule, utilizing hardware that either didn’t exist or hadn’t been procured yet.

  Drawing on his long-ago training, Mendoza designed graphics, animations, and questions that were weighted to produce the desired result. It was fun to let his visual-arts side come out and play. But he regularly found himself with hours to kill while his proposals were stuck in Dillinger’s basket of kittens. He drifted back to the Mars forums.

  There’s neither sin nor crime in looking …

  A new poster had shown up on All-We-Know-About-Mars/secret.cloud. ‘Fragger1’ was grabbing all the kudos that had formerly been Mendoza’s, even though he had no fresh data to share. He just posted rants about how urgent it was to FIGHT BACK against the PLAN before it EXTERMINATED humanity. Mendoza skimmed long reply threads consisting basically of “Yes, but.” He could not resist posting a reply of his own, in support of Fragger1’s position: “Yes, agree 100%. If not now, when?”

  Fragger1 responded: “YEEAHH! And if not us, WHO!?!”

  But HOW, Fragger1? Mendoza thought. That would seem to be the problem, wouldn’t it?

  He sighed. He’d broken his promise to Father Lynch, and for what? For who? Fragger1 was just another internet warrior—probably a mild-mannered office worker in real life.

  He looked up from his screens and saw his new colleagues trickling out of the office. Lunchtime. He ordered chicken shawarma from one of the restaurants off Hope Circus.

  On Earth, takeout was normally delivered by drones that flew up to your front door, or your office window. This was Shackleton City, so his food was delivered by a teenage boy who expected a tip.

  As he ate, he started to return to All-We-Know-About-Mars, to see if Fragger1 had posted anything else, but then he stopped. Was he really going to keep on doing this?

  No, he told himself. No, and again no.

  With an effort of will, he canceled his security redirects and called up a news feed. He checked for news about the UNVRP election. Just what they’d expect him to be interested in. They’d never know he was mostly searching for glimpses of Elfrida.

  ★

  An email popped into his HUD.

  From: Derek Lorna [ID string attached]

  “Hey, fellow! It was great meeting you the other day. I was wondering if you could help me out with that issue we were discussing? Put together a sample poll on the Phase 5 ramp, without mentioning it as such, natch. I just want to know what such a poll would look like. Doesn’t have to be done immediately. Whenever you’ve got a minute. Thanks!”

  Mendoza blinked all the clutter out of his retinal display. Unobscured by virtual overlays, the office looked strange. People stood or sat at their desks, staring at their screens, occasionally making odd gestures, or mumbling under their breath. The fake sunlight of Wellsland shone in through the windows.

  Put together a sample poll on the Phase 5 ramp.

  The request struck him as odd. This was the same thing he was doing for MeReMSG. So why hadn’t Lorna gone through Preeti Dillinger, if he wanted a sample? Why had he contacted Mendoza directly?

  Without men
tioning it as such, natch.

  There was the clue. UNVRP was increasingly unpopular. Mendoza knew they’d never get approval of the Phase 5 ramp if the public connected it with the Venus Project. Lorna must have reached the same conclusion independently.

  Which left the question of what business it was of his, anyway.

  And Mendoza knew the answer to that: None whatsoever.

  But he needed some distraction from the Mars forums. And Lorna was a man you did not want to piss off. So he added some finishing touches to one of his sample polls, and sent it.

  ★

  Luna, once known simply as the Moon, had first been settled in the mid-21st century by sixteen scientists, eleven chickens, and two pigs (one of which promptly died). Those pioneers had established their base on the sunny side of Malapert Mountain because it was near water—in the bottoms of the permanently shadowed craters at the lunar south pole; because it was covered with thick, workable regolith; and because it stayed in sunlight all year round, guaranteeing a permanent supply of solar energy.

  Since then, humanity had spread to the north pole, the dark side of the moon, and the equatorial regions. That was when the lunar economy had really taken off. The equator was where the helium-3 was. Nowadays, nearly-free energy flooded the grid throughout the lunar days and nights. The conurbation known as Shackleton City sprawled over 150 horizontal and eight vertical kilometers, including its many exurban bedroom communities. That original outpost on Malapert Mountain had long since turned into a tourist attraction, complete with one live pig and one authentically dead-looking plastic one.

  However, you could still experience something akin to the isolation that those first pioneers must have felt, alone in the universe, 400,000 kilometers from home.

  All you had to do was ride the commuter rail during rush hour.

  Jammed in among the native residents of Shackleton City, Mendoza had never felt so alone. He’d taken the drastic step of emailing Elfrida, since he hadn’t heard from her. Nothing heavy, just a friendly ‘Hi, how’re you doing?’ And half an hour later, it had bounced back to him. She’d blocked his ID.

  His isolation ended abruptly when a disembodied voice addressed him through his iEars.

  “Hello … John Mendoza! You have been selected to participate in a public poll!”

  Mendoza ground his teeth.

  “Please confirm your participation by saying ‘Yes’!”

  Voting was compulsory. ~Yes.

  The poll materialized in front of him. It overlapped the real straphangers, but it was small enough that its face showed up nicely against the back of someone’s black frock coat. It was a teenage girl with a punky mop of blonde hair.

  Mendoza recoiled in shock.

  This was his poll.

  The ‘sample’ he’d sent Derek Lorna just a few hours earlier.

  It was out and running.

  “So!” the poll said brightly, speaking the words he’d written for it. “Mercury is a small planet near the sun. We get a lot of stuff from there. If you’re seeing this on a screen, it was probably made on Mercury! Actually, Mercury is the whole reason we don’t have to have dirty, toxic, pollute-y mines on Earth anymore. But some people are saying that we should NOT expand our mining operations there. What do you think?!? Are they freaking nuts, or what?”

  Mendoza wanted to sink through the floor of the carriage. The question was incredibly slanted, even for the polling business. He never would have released it to the public without further tweaking.

  ~Yes, I think they’re nuts, he responded flatly.

  “Thank you for your participation! Would you like to see how other people have responded?”

  ~Yes.

  The poll vanished, to be replaced by a graph. So far, 87% of respondents had agreed that NOT to ramp up mining operations on Mercury would be freaking nuts. Despite his consternation, Mendoza felt a twinge of professional satisfaction. That was almost exactly the result he’d modelled.

  His HUD area lit up. Someone was pinging him.

  Derek Lorna.

  Surprise, surprise.

  Lorna’s voice bubbled with glee. “Did you get the poll? I made sure you were in the randomly selected list of participants. Looks great, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Mendoza said.

  “And did you see that approval rate? You’re a pro, fellow. Now listen …”

  “I’m on the train,” Mendoza blurted, before he switched to subvocalizing. His BCI’s voice always sounded lifeless and unenthusiastic. He didn’t want Lorna to think he was resentful. ~I’m glad the results matched my projection, he subvocalized.

  “Yeah. But listen, this question was pretty broad. We really need to follow up with something more specific, to rule out support for the more radical interpretations of planetary resource exploitation. Can you do coffee? Doesn’t have to be now … but I see you’re on the Victoria line. Get off in Verneland and I’ll meet you on the roof of Harrods.”

  Lorna ended the call. Mendoza clenched his fists. I see you’re on the Victoria line … There had been no need for that. But yes, there had been a need for it. To remind Mendoza that everywhere he went, everything he did, he was watched. And someone with Lorna’s kind of standing could access the real-time surveillance logs.

  He got off the train in Verneland and went up to the roof of Harrods.

  A landmark on the Lunar tourist trail, Harrods was a department store owned by the ex-royal family of Qatar, who were prominent citizens of Shackleton City. The roof garden featured a café and a resident pack of corgis that waddled around begging for tidbits. Mendoza ran two fingers around the inside of his collar, feeling out of place among tourists in tailcoats, frills, and flower-heaped hats. The tourists seemed to enjoy dressing up in Victorian fashions. They didn’t have to do it every day.

  Derek Lorna came towards him. He fit right in, clad in a ruffled lavender shirt and linen trousers with a thin ivory stripe. Physically, he looked the same as his avatar. Receding hairline, blue eyes, designer stubble. In real life, however, the eyes had a striking intensity. Lorna was clearly one of those people with enough energy for ten ordinary mortals.

  “You made it! Listen, we can have coffee here, or I can give you a ride to the edge of the dome. You can catch the train there, and we’ll talk on the way.”

  As before, Mendoza saw which option he was meant to choose. “A ride would be great.”

  Lorna was already urging him towards the airship anchorage.

  In comparison to the Hindenburg-esque sightseeing craft moored around it, Lorna’s private airship flaunted sleek lines. Its open-topped gondola had teak rails, leather-look ergoforms, and a mother-of-pearl table in the middle. It flew so smoothly that Mendoza did not realize they’d left their mooring until he felt a breeze in his hair.

  Harrods shrank away below. The rooftops of Verneland spread out, festooned with decorative chimneys and gutters.

  “Tough day at work?” Lorna said. “Laugh! I’m impressed that you got that poll done so fast. Let’s discuss how we can keep the momentum going.”

  All these years on Luna, and this was the first time Mendoza had ever been up in an airship. The noises of the city reached them only as a murmur. He cleared his throat. “I just wondered, is anyone actually calling for the Phase 5 ramp to be cancelled?”

  “Only the usual suspects,” Luna said dismissively.

  As the airship gained height, the rooftops resolved into a 2D panorama. The streetlights had started to come on, although the sky was still blue.

  “Remember, this wasn’t supposed to happen for another few decades,” Lorna said. “So a lot of ongoing debates have suddenly become acute. And the competition for poor old Charlie’s job looks like turning into a referendum on those issues. See what I’m getting at?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?” Lorna gazed at him for a moment. Then he seemed to change his mind about what he’d been going to say. “I’ll be honest. My outfit, the Leadership in Robotics Institute, w
ill be supplying software for the Phase 5 ramp. This is a big deal for us. Make or break, to be honest. The competition for UNVRP tenders is cutthroat. We’ve planned our entire investment schedule around this. If the Phase 5 ramp was canceled, it might spell doom for LiRI, too … So yeah, I’ve got a dog in this fight.”

  Lorna was acting like he’d just come clean about his motivation, but he’d said To be honest twice, which was a pretty good sign that he wasn’t being honest at all.

  More than ever, Mendoza wanted to know the real reason Lorna was interested in Mercury. He felt protective of the little planet. Elfrida was there.

  “So, bottom line,” Lorna said, “the right person has to win this election.”

  He tapped the mother-of-pearl table. It turned into a screen showing an Asian-featured woman in her forties. She had the kind of beauty that money could buy.

  “It won’t surprise you,” Lorna said, “to learn that the right person in our view, the view of everyone involved, is Angelica Lin.”

  It did surprise Mendoza. He didn’t even know who Angelica Lin was. A lightning-fast search threw up her name in connection with the death of Charles K. Pope. She had been Pope’s girlfriend.

  “Is she even running for the job?” he asked.

  “She will be.” Lorna smiled at Angelica Lin’s luscious features, kissed his fingers, and planted the kiss on her lips. The touch erased the portrait. “She’s never held public office before, but she’s the obvious choice, and I’m sure the voters will see it that way, too. But they might need a little help making up their minds … do you see where I’m heading with this?”

  Mendoza did, and he felt relieved. Lorna wanted him to use his psephological skills to help get Angelica Lin elected. This was practically business as usual. “Sure. But if I can ask a question, why not Dr. Ulysses Seth? Isn’t he the default UNVRP candidate?”

  Lorna chuckled. “He’s eighty-seven.”

  “Yes, but ….” The average lifespan in the UN was 98. Shorter for the spaceborn, but Dr. Seth had been born on Earth, a lifelong physiological advantage that no length of time in space could erode.