The Spider kept crawling across Mars, unwieldy pincer-like legs reaching through the sand and pulling itself and its crew forward as David watched the shadows crimp the dunes and wondered how much longer he'd be alive. He tried not to think about the passing time. The radio feed was still coming in, the show was still going on, and no one'd be any the wiser if he didn't say. Weird and Gilly in the Spider knew, but they weren't miked for the feed, and he was far beyond their grasp.

The stars looked very different today. He could almost touch them, as he floated uselessly and inexorably away from the planet's surface, away from the Spider and the shuttle. The shuttle's crew were anxiously preparing for flight, as they'd been for—he checked the heads-up display in the suit despite himself—the last five minutes and eleven seconds. Under optimal conditions it took twenty-two minutes to prepare for flight; he would not allow himself the maths of mortality, but twenty-two minutes was too long.

Some part of him, some cold and reserved part the rest of him never touched, droned on about the numbers, as regular as a metronome. Five minutes and eleven seconds since he'd come unfettered and the suit's rocket had failed. Eight minutes and thirty-seven seconds for a message to pass from Mars to Earth or vice versa. He'd sent his last message to mission control, to the International Mars Initiative and the news networks and his families, five minutes before the accident, which meant it had now been a hair over ten minutes and his message had been received, that the response was traveling across the dusty nothing and inky in-betweens of the solar system.

The Spider looked so small in front of him. So very very small.

David remembered hearing about Apollos 8 and 13 on the radio as a young man. Watching the Challenger explosion on television in the RAF lab. Visiting Canaveral when Columbia was lost. He didn't want to be a where-were-you-when. He didn't want to be a punchline. How would they put it? What would be his "need another seven astronauts"? Would it be "What does IMI stand for? I Missed It!"? Would they find some pun in his name? Changing it as a teenager had been such an impetuous, stupid thing, but it had given him an edge with the largely-Texan American astronauts, cowboy types with names like Earl and Deke, men who appreciated a Brit who'd named himself after one of Texas's folk heroes.

Marc Bolan, more than once, had joked about changing his name to Houston Crockett. "They like you right away, Davey," he kept saying. "It's the name, they can't help it, they want to like you."

The sunlight spun strange reflections off the Spider's metal skin, the thin air of Mars giving it an unfamiliar cast, making the shadows seem leaner, hungrier. He could see himself in the curvature of his helmet, reflected behind the display of temperature and direction and velocity: an old man, he had somehow while not looking become old, well over eighty and only on this ride—although the world would offer other reasons, and perhaps deny them once he was dead—because he was friends with NASA's IMI liaison. An old man with hair which had gone white but never thinned, still stood up unruly as if half in shock, an old man whose left eye still reflected the wrong color because of a stupid teenage fight in art school, of all the things.

He tried to smooth the worry from his wrinkles, just as the video crackled alive with a lisp of static and the blinker for the outgoing feed turned red. "That's wonderful news, Major Bowie," Dirk said, grinning a white-toothed Texas grin. "Well listen, your family would like to say a few things to you, so as a special favor and in recognition of all the things you've done for the space effort, we've arranged for a little face time here. Hang on—yeah, Angie, c'mon in here."

Of course they'd put Angie on first. The tabloids had loved his marriage to Angie, and their divorce even more: her accusations that he was having an affair with a male British astronaut, that he saved his urine in the refrigerator, that he was on drugs—the Mirror's headline had been "Ashes to Ashes, Funk to Funky, We Know Major Dave's a Junkie" when Angie produced an ashtray filled with what she claimed was marijuana detritus.

"Hello, David," she said, all camera smile and videogenic eyes. She'd done well by herself. The alimony must've paid for the plastic surgery. "We're all very excited for you. Joey couldn't make it—" David's heart lurched in ambivalence—his son, his eldest child, was still too angry with him to watch his proudest moment, but it meant he wouldn't have to see his father's lingering last. "—but he sends his best. Sorry, that's all I've time for—cheers, love!"

Iman came next, and his daughters, and his eldest granddaughter the young American who was a pop star now—David had only the vaguest idea what she sang, didn't think he had listened to much newer than Percy Sledge—and he watched their faces pass on their well wishes and congratulations from eight minutes and then some ago, watched them blur one into the other, aware he should be saying something, he should be speaking, the blinker was red and the camera was recording and far below him the Spider kept crawling across Mars and his crew tried to make the shuttle fly and the sun sank further and further into the reddening dunes.

His death was waiting for him. There was a song he liked, a song by a Frenchman, Jacques Brel: "My Death," would be the title in English. There was an excellent line in there, "my death waits to allow my friends a few good times before it ends." And he had time, didn't he? Time to say anything he wanted to his family, to the world, and they'd hear it live from beyond the grave. If you die and people are still listening to you, are you really dead yet?

David watched the sun tumble red down the dunes, watched the light run for the shadows, run for the shadows, run for the shadows, whop whop whop—

"This isn't rock'n'roll!"

—he had time, plenty of time, time for anything he wanted, nothing but time in the shadows, waiting in the wings, flexing like a whore—

"This isn't rock'n'roll!"

—time for anything he could imagine.—

"This isn't rock'n'roll," Detective-Professor Bowie grunted as he took the lit cigarette from Ramon's hand and helped himself to a drag. Christ, but Ramon's hands were so cold, like he'd just dried them after a wash in ice-water. "This isn't rock'n'roll, this is genocide. Look at this fucking mess."

"Well, yes, Detective-Professor," Ramon said, staring at his hand for a moment before lighting a fresh cigarette from his pack of decarcinogenicized Marlboros. "You see, that's why I thought you would be the best man—I mean, this is rather your bailiwick, after all—"

"Piss at the bailiwick, what the hell's that supposed to mean, Ramon?"

Ramon shifted uncomfortably on his feet, tilting his shoes out to the sides like a young boy. The crime scene wasn't getting any younger, and Bowie tapped the cigarette in his fingers impatiently, as the crew working the Spider—the new gadget the forensics boys had kicked up, the big metal pincers-like thing that tagged and bagged the evidence while digitally recording it and reducing the possibility of contamination—bent about their whizness. He took a drag off the stick, and grunted again. All the thriller-killer of smoking'd died the day they outlawed cancer.

"Well, you're—you know, sir, you're the one—"

"Lennon and Presley, are you on about them again? Fuck, you save a couple of rockstars from a couple of bullets and all of a sudden you're 'the one,' that's 'your bailiwick.' I made Detective-Professor when you were still in nappies, Ramon, and I won't be used as some blasted celebrity bodyguard."

"Right, right." Ramon nodded fervently, glancing down at the bodies. Three, maybe. Could be four. Hard to tell how many heads those used to be. "Of course, Detective-Professor—er, what are nappies, then? No, it's all right, never mind. But sir—well, it isn't bodyguarding, isn't it? They're dead, and—"

"Do you listen to anything I say, Ramon? Have you gone Pete Townshend on me, with your hearing all dim? Should I shout? I should not mind shouting at you, not a bit, as it happens."

"Er. Er, no, sir. Detective-Professor. Only—what, sir?"

Bowie took the other cigarette from Ramon's hands and lit it from the stub of the first. "Let me give you some friendly advice, Ramon—that is your name, isn't it?"

"Actually, Detective-Professor, it's Justin—"

"Ramon, then. Let me give you some friendly advice. Don't become old. That's harder these days, but never mind that. Don't become old. You get old, you hit eighty, you start thinking all the problems of the world can be summed up by some stupid wet-ear who doesn't know a nappy from a lorry cause he was raised on American television. You start to be afraid of Americans, afraid of the world."

"Yes, sir."

"Now, as I was saying: this is genocide. You did hear me say that, yes? Now count the bodies."

"Er, three, sir? Wait ... four?"

"Three or four, yes. Does that sound like genocide to you?"

"Er, no."

"Urno indeed." Bowie took another look at the scene, at the faces he could make out in the soppy mess of flesh and sinew, the features he recognized from this and that over his years in the Popular Musics and Aftershocks Division of HRH's Artcrime Bureau. Dylan, that one peering at him from Evidence Bag 31-B was definitely Dylan. The other was Johnny Cash. A third had to be Stan Ridgeway, from Wall of Voodoo. The fourth—it was hard to tell if it was a fourth, or only pieces of the other three. "Well, Zappa and Ray Charles are safe, seeing as they're dead already. I'll want a brute squad on Olivia Newton-John, though, and Grace Jones, and God help me we're going to have to ring up Tom Jones, the fucking Welshman."

"Beg pardon, Detective-Professor?"

Bowie pivoted on a heel and swung away from the scene, shoes snapping smartly against the apartment's floor, taking a sour drag off the stick as he flicked the smoldering butt of the discarded cigarette over his shoulder. "It's a pattern, Ramon. It's ritual. It's what I'm paid to find, and I'm fucking aces at it." The butt spun slowly in the air, ash over teakettle, and landed in the penumbra of a damp reeking circle which had been poured around the detritus, and the circle came over all flames just as the Spider collected the last of the evidence. "Someone's killing every rockstar who's ever recorded a version of 'Ring of Fire.'"

He headed out towards the street, waving a hand at the driver impatiently, wanting the engine ready and raring by the time he opened the door.

"Sir?"

The kid was still after him with questions. "'Ring of Fire,' Ramon. Written by June Carter Cash about her relationship with Johnny Cash. First recorded by her kid sister Anita. They're both dead, so get that look off your face and stop pegging them as suspects. There are about thirty versions I know of, and the boss keeps telling me I don't know everything, so why don't you skaddle off to the internet and get me a list."

"Of course, Detective-Professor."

"And one more thing." The engine was ready, and Bowie kicked open the door to the backseat, sliding in and forcing himself to ignore the creak of his bones. "Next time I see you, you damn well better be smoking some proper British cigarettes. Silk Cuts would be nice."

He had the driver take him only far enough to put some distance between him and Ramon, then grabbed a pack of smokes from the passenger compartment and hit the streets. Chances were good the perpetrator was nowhere near anymore, but it never hurt to get the lay of the land. Artcrime was mostly about the legwork, when you came down to it.

He lit a Silk Cut and checked out the neighborhood. Two McDonald's, a Taco Bell, a Pizza Hut, and only one chip shop—one of them what sold deep-fried pizza and Twinkies 'longside the battered haddock and malt-vinegared chips. Bloody Little America, and not a stone's throw from Metro London. He twisted the cigarette, put the end in his mouth, pulled a finger, then another finger. Age was getting to his joints. He walked past a cafe—a bloody Starbuck's selling bloody cara-mallow Frappa-bloody-cinos, tee em, all rights reserved, should probably be happy they didn't call them Frappaxino'z—but didn't stop for anything. You don't eat when you've lived too long.

It'd all been a damned madness since Daltrey got offed on stage, just after singing "hope I die before I get old." See how far that got you, don't you, Roger? Bloody twatting rockstars, all leather pants and cocaine and smashing things up and all, and having to get Detective-Professor Bowie to clean up after them and hold their hands when the nightmares came. He should've put in for a transfer ages ago, back when he still could've, when he could've convinced someone he'd serve better in Abstract Assaults or Theatrical Homicide. But no, he'd had to stay in PM&A cause that's where he'd made his mark, and it made the Bureau look good to have him on.

Hang on.

Some of the common wisdom they'd give you in police training, applicable to whatever bureau to which you were bound, was that criminals often hung around their crime scene because they couldn't help themselves, they wanted to see what happened next, wanted to admire their handiwork. It was one of those things that was usually shit, and when it wasn't it didn't help you any, but it proved to be true often enough that people kept saying it.

This was one of those times.

Bowie knew the guy just by looking at him, a ratty-looking kid in his 30s with that hasn't-moved-into-a-flat-of-his-own look, that hasn't-touched-a-girl-without-paying-for-it look, that teenager-with-receding-hair look. The look of a fan. The look of a music freak. The look of someone who likely spent his weekends on the internet hunting down old analog-on-vinyl recordings of Ian Hunter and Reeves Gabrels, who didn't have a car but had a state-of-the-art sound system.

And the guy was obviously watching him, which was disconcerting: Bowie was in plainclothes, hadn't touched a uniform in decades, had to borrow one when he needed it for dress occasions.

They made eye contact.

The guy grinned nervously, a waiting-for-the-shoe-to-drop grin. "You—you're early," he said, fidgeting with his fingers. "You weren't meant to find me yet."

Oh hell, one of those. Groupies. Attention-seekers. Egomaniacs. Bowie inched his hand towards his holster. "Early for what, son?"

The kid swung a pistol up fast, too fast, must've been pumped up with methodextrin. "You were supposed to try harder. It was supposed to take longer. That was the play. That was the script."

Bowie flipped the recorder in his belt on, get the kid's confession down. "Try harder at what?"

"Don't play games with me." The kid leveled his pistol, and Bowie brought his own up, running his fingerprint over the side of the trigger to kick the safety off.

"Sounds like you're the one playing games. What is this, one of those things where you run me around town, one clue after the other, fulfilling some scavenger hunt you've set up?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it's—it's a hypercycle. A Gothic drama hypercycle. I mean, you're famous. You're practically a rockstar yourself. You're practically one of them. You're a star. I even hired an actress to play your love interest."

"Good for you. 'Fraid it's not going to play out like that."

The kid took a shot, and Bowie's arm suddenly felt on fire. He grunted, staying steady enough to return fire before collapsing to his knees in pain. The kid went down, too, bleeding in front of the Starbuck's. "It's—it's not your turn!" he complained, clutching his chest as blood pulsed between his fingers. "It isn't fair!"

"Tell me one thing, son," Bowie said, trying to figure out why his arm wouldn't move. "Why'd you do those things to them? The gasoline I understand—a ring of fire, ha ha. But—but the things you did to the bodies—and all the needles—"

"I was remixing them," the kid said, staring at the blood on his hand, tracing the fingers of the other through it to make small spirals. "Remixing them into something else."

Bowie's toes had gone numb. His fingers were tingling. His chest felt tight, compressed—oh, fuck. He was having a heart attack.

Remixing. For the love of Christ. These kids, these goddamn rock-n-roll kids, with their fucked-up notions of "art" and "performance"—it could've been stopped once, it could've been prevented, and maybe he could've been the one to do it. Maybe he should've. Maybe he'd misstepped, dodged his true calling—

"We can be heroes."

—he could've done something, could've made a difference—

"We can be heroes!"

—could've shown them all their flaming place.—

"We can be heroes," Bowie murmured, watching the glittering lights fill the sky one after the other, like Creation on fast-forward. "Just for one day. After that, they'll hang us all, you know."

Reeves nodded hesitantly. He lacked the balls for this sort of thing, had lost them to the ravages of age. These things happened. If he became too weak for a Minister of the Interior, Bowie would have him replaced. "Yes, Lord-Protector. I rather think they will. Sir, you should know that the protests have picked up a good deal more popular support."

The thin white duke—they'd granted him a duchy retroactively, when he'd established his Lord-Protectorate in the aftermath of the European Union's submission to England—leaned against the windowsill and sighed, clenching his fingers against his palm. "Have they. The Spiders are invading from Mars, and yet my people protest my defense of the empire."

"Well, sir—there are those who think you are too quick to war on the Spiders, that they can be reasoned with, that diplomacy—"

"Diplomacy? With machines? We don't even know if they think. We don't even know they're anything more than weapons left behind by some ancient civilization."

"Yes, but that's just it, we don't know. The academic community—"

"Pah, I left school when I was sixteen, you know how I feel about the 'academic community'—"

"— they worry that we may end up destroying the only extraterrestrial civilization that we've encountered, before we've had a chance to learn—"

"—what death tastes like? The academic community is not given to protests, Minister. Or at least the professors are not. Is it students we're worrying about? Whining children taking drama classes on the government's dime—on my dime? What else do they say?"

"The conscription, sir, they claim your selection methods are unfair, that non-whites are more likely to be forced into military service, and that—"

"Oh, for heaven's sake. Fine, then. Most of these protestors, I imagine, are white?"

"I don't know for a certainty, Lord-Protector, but I can find out."

"Don't bother. Simply conscript them." The stars fell to the earth, one by one, and somewhere out there the Spiders were crawling across the green hills of Earth, methodically deconstructing everything in their path.

"Sir?"

"You heard me, Minister. Conscript them. Every single one of them, every man and woman of age attending any public protest. Put them in service. Put them on the front lines. Let them try their 'diplomacy' face-to-face with a thirteen-foot glass spider that sees them only as bags of bones and muscle."

"Ahh, David."

Bowie turned around sharply, narrowing his eyes at Gabrels. "Did I give you leave to address me by my familiar name?" The words came out weakly, though. The Minister was holding a firearm of some sort, something black and shiny.

"I'm truly sorry, David, but you are simply out of control."

"I'll never step down, Reeves. You know that. I fought too hard for this. Do you know how much work I put into the world? How much it took out of me to bring peace to it, to give the people the strong leader they needed, they longed for? I won't give that up. I won't let them down. You'll have to kill me."

"I know," Gabrels said simply, and pulled the trigger. Something hot and cold tore a hole in Lord-Protector Bowie's chest, and he sunk to the floor, pulling the curtains down on top of him as he instinctively grabbed for support.

Through the interstices of the fabric, he watched the stars fall, watched the blackness of space, and thought for the first time: I wish I was out there. I wish I could see it for myself. It was so very beautiful, and so very terrible—

"Ground control to Major Bowie."

— to see it just once, to see the Earth from the deep black, see what he'd fought so long and hard for—

"Ground control to Major Bowie. Your circuit's dead—"

— just once, just to know it had all been worth it. —

"Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong."

Another nine minutes had passed. They weren't getting his transmission. He was still getting theirs, but they couldn't hear him. They didn't know. They likely didn't even suspect, even now: they imagined a technical glitch, a problem with the camera or the broadcast relay. They couldn't know that between his swiftly dwindling oxygen supply and the impossible temperatures of space which his suit would soon be incapable of shielding him from, he had less than a minute to live.

He'd been sent out to space, with the Spider, with Weird and Gilly, with the experimental TVC-15 personal exploration unit, to find out if there was life on Mars; and like the protagonist in some hamhanded cautionary tale or anxious pop song, he'd found only death. It didn't even frustrate him anymore. He'd had long minutes to accept it, long minutes to come to terms with it, to shake hands with time, to meet his death as it ran from the shadows.

Far below him he could see the Earth, a sparkling dot in the sky, with another dot near it he thought might be the moon. Could you see the moon from Mars, with the naked eye? He couldn't remember. It was becoming harder to think, harder to see, his vision was coming over all jittery. He was falling, no longer floating anymore, but falling hard, and he thought he might fall all the way to the moon, that moondust would cover him.

The blinker was still red. The shuttle would reach him, and maybe they would find the recording. "Tell my wife I love her very much," he murmured, tongue thick, having trouble making the words come out, and he looked back to Mars, turning to face the strange, where his death rushed towards him from the shadows like a shaking man on spider-limbs.

The End

Bio

Bill says: "I'm a New Orleans expatriate currently living in the Midwest so my girlfriend can finish her doctorate and my cats can eat cicadas. I've been published in Strange Horizons and elsewhere, and my short story collection Fierce Pop Songs is scheduled for release in midsummer 2004. I also write a monthly column on religion, occasional academic essays on popular culture, and roleplaying games."