Hidden Variables by Charles Sheffield Read Free Book Online Page B

simple monument faces the setting sun. Forged of plasteel, graven by diamond, it will endure the long change of the Mars seasons, until Man and his kind have become one with the swirling sands. The message it bears is short but poignant, a silent tribute to two great figures of the colonization: IN MEMORIAM, PENELOPE AND POMANDER: MUTE SAVIORS OF OUR WORLD.
    Fate is fickle. Although I don't really mind one way or the other, I should be on that monument too. If it hadn't been for me, Penelope and Pomander would never have made it, and the Mars colony might have been wiped out.
    My involvement really began back on Earth. A large and powerful group of people thought that I had crossed them in a business deal. They had put in two million credits and come out with nothing, and they wanted the hide of Henry Carver, full or empty. I had to get away—far, and fast.
    My run for cover had started in Washington, D.C., after I had been pumped dry of information by a Senate committee investigating my business colleagues. When the questioning was over—despite my pleas for asylum (political, religious, or lunatic; I'd have settled for any)—they turned me out onto the street. With only a handful of credits in my pocket, afraid to go back to my office or apartment, I decided that I had to get to Vandenberg Spaceport, on the West Coast. From there, I hoped, I could somehow catch a ride out.
    First priority: I had to change my appearance. My face isn't exactly famous, but it was well known enough to be a real danger. Showing more speed than foresight, I walked straight from the committee hearings into a barbershop. It was the slack time of day, in the middle of the afternoon, and I was pleased to see that I was the only customer. I sat down in the chair farthest from the door, and a short, powerfully built barber with a one-inch forehead eventually put down his racing paper and wandered over to me.
    "How'd you like it?" he asked, tucking me in.
    I hadn't got that far in my thinking. What would change my appearance to most effect? It didn't seem reasonable to leave it to him and simply ask for a new face.
    "All off," I said at last. "All the hair. And the moustache as well," I added as an afterthought.
    There was a brief, stunned silence that I felt I had to respond to.
    "I'm taking my vows tomorrow. I have to get ready for that."
    Now why in hell had I said something so stupid? If I wasn't careful, I'd find myself obliged to describe details of my hypothetical sect. Fortunately, my request had taken the wind out of his sails, at least for the moment. He looked at me in perplexity, shrugged, then picked up the shears and dug in.
    Five minutes later, he silently handed me the mirror. From his expression, a shock was on the way—already I was regretting my snap decision. I had a faint hope that I would look stern and strong, like a holovision star playing the part of Genghis Khan. The sort of man that women would be swept off their feet by, and other men would fear and respect. The face that stared back at me from the mirror didn't quite produce that effect. I had never realized before what dark and bushy eyebrows I have. Take those away and the result was like a startled and slightly constipated bullfrog. Even the barber seemed shaken, without the urge to chat that defines the breed.
    He recovered his natural sass as he helped me into my coat. "Thank you, sir," he said as I paid and tipped him. "I hope everything works out all right at the convent tomorrow."
    I looked at the muscles bulging from his shortsleeved shirt, the thick neck, the wrestling cups lined up along the shelf. His two buddies were cackling away at the other side of the shop.
    "I hope you realize that only a real coward would choose to insult a man whom he knows to be bound by vows of nonviolence," I replied.
    It took him a few seconds to work it out. Then his eyes popped, and I walked out of the shop with a small sense of victory.
    That didn't last very long. I had changed