Marlowe and the Spacewoman by Ian M. Dudley

technologies, was reluctant to go that far.  It involved targeted radiation treatment to destroy bone marrow.  The process was apparently very painful, yet another deterrent if you didn’t already have the nano probes in place to block the pain.
    Marlowe had managed to learn, after a great deal of trouble and expense, that Obedere didn’t have any nano probes.  While he’d never managed to get a peek at Obedere’s medical records, he couldn’t imagine Obedere forgoing the nano probes except if he was allergic to them.  This meant Obedere needed to be taken to a medical facility if he ever died and wanted to be resurrected.  And not being a man to take chances, Obedere made sure a medical facility was always nearby.  In addition to a state-of-the-art mobile facility that always traveled with him (at a discrete distance), Obedere had covert emergency medical centers dotted throughout the City.
    Marlowe’s stomach lurched into his throat, but this time it wasn’t fear.  It was the elevator descending.
    “There was some wreckage in the center of the crater.  Actually, wreckage might not be the right word.  The vessel from which our young lady emerged was actually fairly intact.  We’re planning on moving it soon, but for now we’re leaving it to preserve any evidence.”
    The elevator stopped and they exited into a dimly lit hallway of concrete and brick walls.  At the far end a round, bright orange DuraPlast blast resistant door waited.  Obedere took the lead in his chair, speeding down the hallway.  The chair wobbled dangerously to the left and right, struggling with his mass.  Marlowe idly noted that the chair’s ability to function down here meant that somewhere in the floor was magnetic conduit.  Obedere skidded to a stop just outside the door, nearly hitting it, and then waited for Marlowe to catch up.  
    “Her name, if no one’s told you yet, is Nina Minari.  She claims to be some sort of ‘astronut’ or something from the past.  A very colorful story.  And fun to watch her tell.  She gets so, what is the word…agitated, yes, agitated, when you ask her to tell it again.”  Obedere cracked a crafty smile and his eyes twinkled, almost certainly his iris implants.
    “Now what is that access code,” Obedere asked himself as he surveyed the console next to the door.  “I can never remember what it is.”  He rotated the chair so he was facing away from Marlowe, but because the hover chair continued to wobble a bit, Marlowe managed to see Obedere sneak a surreptitious peek at the palm of his right hand, which had something scribbled across it.  Obedere clenched his hand into a fist and rotated back.  “Ah yes, now I remember.”  
    He never did have a very sharp memory, thought Marlowe.  At least not for numbers.  Slights, on the other hand, he never forgot.
    “We had some problems when we initially detained her.”  Obedere raised the chair up until his eye was level with the retinal scanner, which briefly flashed red over his left eye.  “She’s,” and he paused again to lower the chair so he could rest his hammy palm on the hand scanner, “hehehe…a feisty one.”  He licked his lips and smiled like the cat that caught the parrot.
    The door hummed, shifted in color from orange to gray blue, and sank diagonally into the floor.  The cell was bright, clean, and small.  Inside Marlowe noted a bunk, attached flush to the wall with an olive green blanket stretched over it, a toilet with one of those awful cushiony seats, and a Virtu-window.  It displayed the same green pastures as the screen in the Governor’s private office, but this view had prison bars in the foreground.
    By far the most arresting feature of the cell was its occupant.  She was sitting cross-legged on the bunk, hands resting on her knees, palms up.  Her eyes were closed, and she looked calm, almost blissful.  She had wavy black hair, cut short and with veins of gray running through it.  Marlowe