Free Saturn Run by John Sandford, Ctein Page A

his way through a mass of paper—books, magazines, journals, legal pads—that occupied all visible surfaces but one: an easy chair.
    The kitchen was at the rear of the house, and the man in the kitchen, his wide back to Crow, called, “Who is it?”
    Crow found the question interesting: first, “Come in,” followed by “Who is it?”—he’d never in his life done things in that order. The man hadn’t even turned to check him out: he was stirring something on a stove, and whatever it was, smelled wonderful.
    “My name is Crow,” Crow said. “I work for the President. We’ve been trying to get in touch with you.”
    Now Clover turned, a wooden spoon in his hand. He was a heavyset man, but not overly fat. He’d played pro football for a couple of years, a tackle, and had stayed in okay but not great shape. He had a beard and was wearing eyeglasses; the combination suggested a taste for anachronism.
    He looked at Crow for a few seconds, then said, “Sonofabitch, you’re real? I thought you were a spammer.”
    Crow began, “Maybe you should have—”
    “Give me a minute. I just started sautéing the tomatoes and I don’t want them to burn. Take that green wooden chair there—not the red one, that’s for the cat.”
    The air was faintly blue with smoke, and smelled of cumin, pepper, oregano, and marijuana. Crow picked up a copy of
Nature
that was sitting on the green chair, sat down, looked for a place to put the magazine, and finally put it on the cat’s chair. Crow’s stomach rumbled; he hadn’t had a decent meal since Darlington had taken him to a Mexican restaurant in Pasadena.
    He said, “So . . . do you usually assume the Office of the President of the United States is a spammer?”
    “Well, wouldn’t you?” Clover asked. “You’re sitting in a restaurant inthe French Quarter, your mouth is open, you’re about to stick the most delicate cream puff into it, with the flakiest butter crust, your computer dings, and it says, ‘Greetings from the President of the United States.’ What would you do? I deleted it and ate the bun.”
    “I see a certain logic in that,” Crow admitted, “which is why we have authentication certificates.”
    “Yeah, well, my neighbor boy could produce one of those in about five minutes.”
    “Anyway, Mr. Clover—”
    “Call me John.”
    “We’d like you to go to Mars with us.”
    Clover didn’t say anything, but turned and gave Crow a long, steady look, then said, “Bullshit.” And, “One more comment like that, I’ll kick you out of here and eat by myself. So don’t lie to me anymore. Just tell me the truth about what you want, and we’ll work from there.”
    Crow crossed his legs and said, “That was the truth.”
    “Bullshit . . . well, hmm. Give me a minute. What you’re telling me is, the reason the Chinese are going to Mars is that you’ve all found out that Deimos is a hollow shell left there by the LGMs, and so the race is on.”
    “What’s Deimos? What’re LGMs?”
    “Deimos is the smaller of Mars’s two moons and has some oddities. LGMs are Little Green Men. If you really don’t know what Deimos is, then you were lying to me. Actually, you’re lying to me either way—either you know about Deimos, or you don’t want me to go to Mars.”
    “You’re confusing me here.”
    “You don’t look confused. By the way, do you have a badge?”
    “Sure.” Crow took an ID out of his pocket, held it up. Clover had a wrist-wrap on the kitchen counter and picked it up, waved it toward the ID, and a line in the wrap turned green. The ID was real.
    “Okay, you’re something,” Clover said.
    “Tell me why I’m lying,” Crow said.
    “Because there are two things I’m known for. The first is my studies of ancient Mayan hydraulic technology. It’s brilliant work, if I do say so myself—and I often do. But it wouldn’t be of much interest to thePresident of the United States.” Clover took another sip of the jambalaya, swirled it in