Identity Theft and other stories (collection)

Pickover nodded. “Yes. So?”

“Numbers are often coded info,” I said. ‘ “Half past eight; seven courses.’ What’s that mean to you?”

“To me?” said Pickover. “Nothing. I like to eat much earlier than that, and I never have more than one course.”

“But it could be a message,” I said.

“From who?”

There was no easy way to tell him this. “From you to you.”

He drew his artificial eyebrows together in puzzlement. “What?”

“Look,” I said, motioning for him to sit down in front of the computer, “Raoul is doubtless right. You can’t sift a digital scan of a human mind for information.”

“But that must be what Wilkins is doing.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “The only way to find out what’s in a mind is to ask it interactively.”

“But … but no one’s asked me my passphrase.”

“No one has asked this you. But Joshua Wilkins must have transferred the extra copy of your mind into a body, so that he could deal with it directly. And that extra copy must be the one that’s revealed your codes to him.”

“You mean … you mean there’s another me? Another conscious me?”

“Looks that way.”

“But … no, no. That’s … why, that’s illegal. Bootleg copies of human beings—my God, Lomax, it’s obscene!”

“I’m going to go see if I can find him,” I said.

“It,” said Pickover, forcefully.

“What?”

“It. Not him. I’m the only ‘him’—the only real Rory Pickover.”

“So what do you want me to do when I find it ?”

“Erase it, of course. Shut it down.” He shuddered. “My God, Lomax, I feel so … so violated! A stolen copy of my mind! It’s the ultimate invasion of privacy …”

“That may be,” I said. “But the bootleg is trying to tell you something. He—it—gave Wilkins the passphrase, and then tacked some extra words onto it, in order to get a message to you.”

“But I don’t recognize those extra words,” said Pickover, sounding exasperated.

“Do they mean anything to you? Do they suggest anything?”

Pickover re-read what was on the screen. “I can’t imagine what,” he said, “unless … no, no, I’d never think up a code like that.”

“You obviously just did think of it. What’s the code?”

Pickover was quiet for a moment, as if deciding if the thought was worth giving voice. Then: “Well, New Klondike is circular in layout, right? And it consists of concentric rings of buildings. Half past eight—that would be between Eighth and Ninth Avenue, no? And seven courses—in the seventh circle out from the center? Maybe the damned bootleg is trying to draw our attention to a location, a specific place here in town.”

“Between Eighth and Ninth, eh? That’s a rough area. I go to a gym near there.”

“The old shipyards,” said Pickover. “Aren’t they there?”

“Yeah.” I started walking toward the door. “I’m going to investigate.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Pickover.

I looked at him and shook my head. He would doubtless be more of a hindrance than a help. “It’s too dangerous,” I said. “I should go alone.”

Pickover looked for a few moments like he was going to protest, but then he nodded. “All right. I hope you find Wilkins. But if you find another me …”

“Yes?” I said. “What would you like me to do?”

Pickover gazed at me with pleading eyes. “Erase it. Destroy it.” He shuddered again. “I never want to see the damned thing.”

* * *

I had to get some sleep—damn, but sometimes I do wish I were a transfer. I took the hovertram out to my apartment, and let myself have five hours—Mars hours, admittedly, which were slightly longer than Earth ones—and then headed out to the old shipyards. The sun was just coming up as I arrived there. The sky through the dome was pink in the east and purple in the west.

Some active maintenance and repair work was done on spaceships here, but most of these ships were no longer spaceworthy and had been abandoned. Any one of- them would make a good hideout, I thought; spaceships were shielded against radiation, making it hard to scan through their hulls to see what was going on inside.

The shipyards were large fields holding vessels of various sizes and shapes. Most were streamlined—even Mars’s tenuous atmosphere required that. Some were squatting on tail fins; some were lying on their bellies; some were supported by articulated legs. I tried every hatch 1 could see on these craft, but, so far, they all had their airlocks sealed tightly shut.

Finally, I came to a monstrous abandoned spaceliner—a great hull, some three hundred meters long, fifty meters wide, and a dozen meters high. The name Mayflower II was still visible in chipped paint near the bow—which is the part I came across first—and the slogan “Mars or Bust!” was also visible.

I walked a little farther alongside the hull, looking for a hatch, until—

Yes! I finally understood what a fossil hunter felt like when he at last turned up a perfectly preserved rhizomorph. There was an outer airlock door here, and it was open. The other door, inside, was open, too. 1 stepped through the chamber, entering the ship proper. There were stands for holding space suits, but the suits themselves were long gone.