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

primarily because many were summoned to City Hall, but few left.  Gold and silver veined marble blocks, delicately and intricately carved and etched, made up the facade of the Great Hall of the City, as City Hall was officially known.  The pillar and wall sculptures depicted marvelous acts of human bravery and ingenuity.  The only failing, in Marlowe’s mind, was that the human performing these acts bore an uncanny resemblance to his brother.  The sculptures had once borne an uncanny resemblance to their father, but after his coup attempt had succeeded and Father had disappeared, the Governor had hired the original artisans to touch up the faces and replace the father’s visage with the son’s.
    Marlowe had to grudgingly admit that the marble reliefs were stunningly good; his brother had spared no taxpayer expense.  The only thing marring the artistry of that facade was the line of stark, oversized black and white wanted posters, printed on NevaFade SynthaVellum and affixed with archival grade glue that would adhere to any surface for at least forty years.  The Governor was a law and order politician, with an emphasis on order, but he had no soft spot for criminals, especially his most hated nemesis, the dreaded Lafayette, fabled leader of the Avian mob, whose gray visage adorned most of the posters.
    The wall of the facade was only thirty centimeters thick (and that only in the thickest portions).  Hiding behind this grandly ornate front was a heavily fortified two story bunker, made of the drabbest but most resilient stone and rock that their father had been able to salvage from the old Big Fed military installation to the north.  It was common knowledge the structure could withstand a nuclear attack.  It was also common knowledge that common knowledge had little reflection in reality.  But the Governor certainly felt safe.
    The inside was pretty much what you’d expect to see in a salvaged bunker.  Thick walls, rough concrete, a gravel-and-lead mixture sandwiched between the outside ring of walls.  And elevators.  Elevators that ran down deep into the Earth, into situation rooms, illicit rendezvous chambers, even a home theater system with a sub-woofer so powerful that certain movies registered as earthquakes on the surface.  And tunnels.  Myriad tunnels, twisting and turning everywhere, some leading to secret exits, some leading to certain death, some leading to nowhere in particular.  Marlowe had dim childhood memories of running down those tunnels, usually pursued by his brother and his mastiffs.  Of course, when father found out about those pursuits, and he almost always did, he got terribly upset.  Marlowe had been cloned as a set of spare parts for his older brother, the first born.  The thought that any of those spares might be damaged by the dogs tormented dear old father, and soon his brother was only allowed to keep goldfish as pets.  Goldfish and the occasional hermit crab.
    But once medical technology (regen gel, synthetic blood, artificial organs, tissue cloning and regrowth, and, of course, nano probes) had minimized the need for a working set of spares, Marlowe had been allowed to wander in larger and larger circles away from the concrete nest of City Hall.  As his jabbed veins healed and the blood “donations” ended, he felt a strength and clearheadedness he hadn’t known for the first fifteen years of his life.  He found an old library in one of the underground rooms, filled with all manner of mystery novels and short story collections.  He inhaled them, discovering new worlds inside the books just as he began to explore the new world outside the bunker.  That was the seed that had taken root, nearly twenty years ago, and had grown and blossomed into the man he was today.  Marlowe.
    The Studebaker beeped its horn gently twice, and Marlowe’s reverie ended.  The car was circling the Great Hall of the City, trying to find a place to park.
    Oh sure, there was the large James