Marlowe and the Spacewoman by Ian M. Dudley Read Free Book Online

traffic and cut past the Studebaker.  Marlowe watched it pass, the woman behind the wheel shampooing her hair.  Apparently this year’s model had an indoor plumbing option.
    “Go ahead and lay ‘em on me, from most to least likely.”
    “A covert Ministry of Policing munitions dump exploding, a covert Civic Defense Guard munitions dump exploding, a covert anti-City militia munitions dump exploding-”
    “I thought there was no such thing as resistance to my dear brother’s administration.”
    “Please.”
    “Man,” said Marlowe, “Who doesn’t have a covert munitions dump these days?”
    “The Girl Scouts.  Maybe.”
    “OK, is that it?”
    “No, if not a munitions dump, it could have been an old and forgotten Big Fed missile silo.  An underground nuclear detonation, most likely not full yield, given the age of the warhead.  Or a meteorite impact.  Or the return of the Lost Martians.”
    Marlowe laughed at the last suggestion.  The Lost Martians.  If someone had told Marlowe the Governor was planning to restore all their old, Big Fed civil rights, he would have replied, “And I’m a Lost Martian!”  A story told to frighten children, they were a team of scientists sent to Mars as part of the Big Fed space program right before the collapse.  They had arrived on Mars, set up camp, and then been unable to return because Earth forgot them in the chaos that ensued when the city secessions began and the federal government collapsed.  The whole idea was preposterous; who in their right mind would go on a journey to another planet with the only ride back a mission planned for the near future.  Insanity.  Of course, that’s what gave the myth such power – the possibility that the legend was wrong and they DID have a way back.
    “Any other possibilities?”
    “A carefully coordinated and planned attack on one of the City’s larger food sources.”
    “I vote for that or a covert munitions dump.  Not City affiliated, though, because His Honor would have no reason to bring me in on something like that.”
    “Unless he doesn’t trust Obedere to investigate.”
    “And he shouldn’t.  Not that Obedere could get to the bottom of any mystery, even if he wanted to.  Which collective farm?”
    “Northeast Rural District One.  Brussels sprouts, kale, Lima beans.  Genetically enhanced for winter growth.  Not the City’s most popular selection of vegetable matter.”
    “But our most plentiful.  If someone blew that all to kingdom come, they’ll be facing a death sentence for sure.  And quite possibly martyr status if word is ever allowed to leak out.”
    The car had entered the heart of the city.  Skyscrapers stretched up into the clouds, which were artificially generated at low altitude in order to give the appearance of majestic buildings and to hide the zeppelins and guy wires that held up some of the more poorly constructed structures.  The Studebaker bobbed and buckled with each pothole in the road, which was ridiculous.  Riding on the magnetic fields of steel lines buried under the roads, the car didn’t make any contact with the uneven, battered surface.  But the City Road Works Department, in order to justify their huge budget and constant road work, had deliberately introduced wobbles into the magnetic fields.  This was done to make the general populace, by and large ignorant of the workings of the vehicles they so depended on, think the improvements were not only necessary, but long overdue.  Anyone smart enough to realize the work was not necessary, and stupid enough to say something about it, ended up in the Ministry of Policing Maximum Security Detention Facility.  Those with enough City scrip might manage, if they were lucky, to bribe their way into a job in the City Road Works Department instead, where they then had a vested interest in staying quiet.
    Marlowe reached Main Street.  Twelve lanes across, but that was just northbound.  There were only eight lanes southbound,