The Empress of Mars (21 page)

“Look, Mama!” said Manco proudly, gesturing at the white. “Heat
and
water!”

“So I see,” said Mary, crawling from the car. “Who’d have thought mud could be so lovely, eh? And we’ve brought you a present. Unload it, please.”

“Bravo!” Ottorino cast aside his pick and applauded. He strode forward and Matelot and the others who had been industriously leaning
on their shovels sighed, and set about helping him unclamp the bungees that had kept the great crate in its place on the back of the Celt-Cart.

The crate was much too big to have traveled on a comparative vehicle on Earth without squashing it, and even so the cart’s wheels groaned and splayed, though as the men lifted the crate like so many ants hoisting a dead cricket the wheels bowed gratefully back. The cords had bit deep into the crate’s foamcast during the journey, and the errant Martian breezes had just about scoured the label off with flying grit, but the logo of Third World Alternatives, Inc., could still be made out.

“So this is our pump and all?” inquired Padraig, squinting at it through his goggles.

“This is the thing itself, pump and jenny and all, new delivered by shuttle to send wet hot gold down the mountain to us,” Cochevelou told him.

“And here’s Mr. Morton,” Mary added proudly. “Your construction boss, to exercise his great talents building a shed to house it all.”

Mr. Morton unfolded himself from the rear cockpit and tottered to his feet, looking about with wide eyes. The speaker in his helmet was broken, so he merely waved at everyone and went off at once to look at the foundations Manco and Ottorino had dug.

“And lastly,” said Mary, lifting a transport unit that had been rather squashed under the seat, “Algemite sandwiches for everybody! And free rounds on the house when you’re home tonight, if you get the dear machine hooked up before dark.”

“Does it come with instructions?” Matelot inquired, puffing, as he stood back from the crate.

“It promised an easy-to-follow holomanual in five languages, and if one isn’t in there we’re to mail the manufacturers at once,” Mary said. “But they’re a reputable firm, I’m sure.”

“Now, isn’t that a sight, my darling?” said Cochevelou happily, turning to look down the slope at the Tharsis Bulge. “Civilization, what there is of it anyhow, spread out at our feet like a drunk to be rolled.”

Mary gazed down, and shivered. From this distance the Settlement
Dome looked tiny and pathetic. The Martian Motel was a blight of dust-covered shelters and parked rigs, with the Excelsior Mobile Card Room the only bright exception. The network of Tubes seemed like so many glassy worms, and her own house and even the grand new Emporium might have been a pair of mudballs on the landscape, with the Hauler depot a distant third one. It was true that the settlement’s landing port had recently enlarged, which made it more of a handkerchief than a postage stamp of pink concrete, and there were actually several shuttles lined up there now. Still, little stone cairns dotted the wasteland here and there, marking the spots where several luckless prospectors had been cached because nobody had any interest in shipping frozen corpses back to Earth.

But Mary lifted her chin and looked back at it all in defiance.

“We won’t need the BAC for a damned thing, if I have my way,” she said. “Not with our own power source. Think of our long acres of green. Think of our own rooms steam-heated. Lady bless us, think of having a hot
bath
!”

Which was such an obscenely expensive pleasure on Mars that Cochevelou gasped and slid his arm around her, moved beyond words.

“In fact,” Mary went on, “think of all those poor Haulers, and prospectors sleeping in their cabs down at the motel. Think of poor Rowan and dear Mr. Vespucci crowded into that one little loft, and Mr. De Wit and Alice crowded into theirs. What’s this place need, eh, but a few cottages and a boardinghouse or two? And me with Morton Construction just started, and look at all this lovely potential real estate I’ve laid claim to!”

“And Settlement Base but a meager handful of clerks in a wretched little dome,” gloated Cochevelou. “We’re outnumbering them, and we’ll outlast them, my queen.”

Clinging together on that cold prominence, it was a while before either of them noticed the tiny figure making its way up the track from the Empress.

“Who’s that, then?” Mary peered down at it, disengaging herself abruptly from Cochevelou’s embrace. “Is that Mr. De Wit?”

It was Mr. De Wit.

By the time they reached him in the CeltCart he was walking more slowly, and his eyes were standing out of his face so they looked fair to pop through his goggles, but he seemed unstoppable.

“
WHAT IS IT?
” Mary demanded, turning her volume all the way up. “
IS SOMETHING GONE WRONG WITH ALICE?
”

Mr. De Wit shook his head, slumping forward on the cart’s fender. He cranked up his volume as far as it went too and gasped, “
LAWYER
—”

“
YES
!” Mary said irritably, “
YOU’RE A LAWYER
!”

“
OTHER LAWYER!
” said Mr. De Wit, pointing back down the slope at the Empress.

Mary bit her lip. “
YOU MEAN
—” she turned her volume down, reluctant to broadcast words of ill omen. “Hodges from the BAC?”

Mr. De Wit nodded, crawling wearily into the backseat of the cart.

“Oh, bugger all,” growled Cochevelou. “Whyn’t you fight him off then, as one shark to another?”

“Did my best,” wheezed Mr. De Wit. “Filed appeal. But you have to make mark.”

Mary said something unprintable. She reached past Cochevelou and threw the cart into neutral to save gas. It went bucketing down the slope, reaching such a velocity near the bottom that Mr. De Wit found himself praying for the first time since his childhood.

Somehow they arrived with no more damage done than a chunk of lichen sheared off the airlock wall, but they might have taken their time, for all the good it did them.

The lawyer was indeed Hodges from the Settlement, whose particular personal interests Mary knew to a nicety and whom she might have quelled with a good hard stare. He was avoiding her gaze, however, whistling an uneasy tune as he peered at some distant point on the ceiling.

“Good luck, my dear,” said Cochevelou, pouring himself a drink. “I’ll just quench my thirst and then edge off home, shall I?” Hodges’s gaze snapped down, though still avoiding Mary’s, and he fixed Cochevelou with a fishy eye.

“Maurice Cochevelou?”

“I am.” Cochevelou stared back.

“Duly elected chieftain of Clan Morrigan?”

“That would be him,” said Mary.

“Ah.” The solicitor drew a text plaquette from his briefcase and held it out. “You are hereby advised that—”

“Is this more about my Perrik?” Cochevelou demanded, slowly raising fists like rusty cannon balls.

“In short, sir, no,” replied the solicitor, with remarkable sangfroid. “The British Arean Company is reorganizing its affairs and has decided to inventory all resources accrued by Clan Morrigan over a ten-year period in order to assess your debt load.”

“An audit,” said Mr. De Wit.

“Debt load?” shouted Cochevelou. “What debt load?”

“The debt for support material received at the outset of the colonization effort,” said Mr. Hodges, “which our records clearly show received by you, but for which the British Arean Company has never been repaid.”

“We received
nothing
from you,” said Cochevelou, “not a sack of seed corn, not a tractor, not so much as a cinderblock!”

“Doubtless the audit will determine whether or not that is in fact the case,” said Hodges, with the edge of a smile.

“No, there’s not going to be any damned audit!” said Cochevelou, beginning to sweat. “Let’s see those records! Let’s see those receipts that show you gave us anything more than best wishes when we settled up here!”

“We are not obliged to do so,” said Hodges. “The burden of proof lies with Clan Morrigan.”

“You’re going to file an appeal,” explained Mr. De Wit.

“Do you wish to appeal?” said Mr. Hodges to Cochevelou.

“Do you wish to take a walk Outside, you little—”

“He’ll appeal,” said Mary firmly, and, grabbing Cochevelou’s great sooty thumb, stamped the plaquette. “There now. Run along, please.”

“You can tell your masters they’ve got a fight on their hands, you whey-faced soy-eating little timeserver!” roared Cochevelou at Hodges’s retreating back. The airlock shut after him and Cochevelou picked up a mug and hurled it at the lock, where it shattered into pink fragments.

“We’ll burn their Settlement Dome over their heads!” he said, stamping like a bull in a stall. “We’ll drive our kine through
their
spotless tunnels, eh, and give ’em methane up close and personal, won’t we just!”

“I think it would be a better use of your time to prepare for an audit,” said Mr. De Wit. “If, for example, you had any equipment producing any substance the British Arean Company might construe as controlled, you might want to make certain it couldn’t be seen by any British Arean Company inspectors.”

“Oh,” said Cochevelou, stepping back. A long moment he considered that; then the coals of his wrath glowed again. “Well, that’s gratitude for you. Hasn’t it been by our efforts the planet’s been as terraformed as it has been, so far? What would they have been eating these past ten years but nasty imported soy pastes, if not for what we grow? They
need
us. What do they think they’re doing, making themselves such nuisances?”

“Another lawsuit?” said General Director Rotherhithe with a yawn. He settled himself more comfortably in his lounger and set his holonovel aside. “Really, Nennius, what is this supposed to be accomplishing for us?”

“It continues the steady delivery of straws to the camel’s back, sir,” Mr. Nennius replied, “which will provoke the animal into an unwise reaction, and sooner rather than later. In the meanwhile, sir, we have another part of the grand scheme to which we must see. I recommend you shave and change your garments, sir.”

“What’s that? What for?” Mr. Rotherhithe sat up straight.

“Because the delegation from the Martian Agricultural Collective
arrived on the planet this morning,” said Mr. Nennius. “History has come calling,” he added, with an uncharacteristic grin.

“I still think it’s madness,” grumbled Mr. Rotherhithe, adjusting his collar as he hurried to the reception area.
“More
colonists? When we can barely support the ones we’ve got?”

“Perhaps it might be more productive to consider them as more your sort of people,” said Mr. Nennius. “Colonists from your own culture. Colonists who have passed genetic screening. Colonists with acceptable morals. Colonists without the need of any inconvenient treaties granting them immunity from certain kinds of prosecution on diplomatic grounds. In short, sir, the
decent people
you have wished for.”

“But who’s going to provide for them?”

“The Company, of course, sir,” said Mr. Nennius, punching in Mr. Rotherhithe’s admittance code. “We have a vested interest in their success, after all.”

The hatch to the reception area opened to reveal three lean men, who stood to stiff attention. They wore Earth-style clothing, heavy scuffed boots and dull woven stuff in gray tones, as alike as was possible without being actual uniforms. Their heads were shaven, under stocking caps. They eyed Mr. Rotherhithe, in his formal British Arean Company jacket, in thinly disguised contempt.

“Welcome to Mars, gentlemen,” said Mr. Nennius. “I trust you had a pleasant flight?”

The foremost of the three gave a short humorless laugh. “Nothing pleasant about it, but we’re here. And this is the Company director, is it?”

“So nice to meet you,” said Mr. Rotherhithe with a stiff bow, which was not returned. The one who had spoken before slapped his own chest.

“Rich Chesebro, chairperson of the Martian Agricultural Collective’s Emigration Council.” He jerked his head to right and then left. “Marlon
Thurkettle, my alternate chairperson. Rena Bewley, our second alternate chairperson.”

Mr. Rotherhithe realized, belatedly, that one of the men was actually a woman. She wore no cosmetics of any kind that might have given him a clue, nor was a female shape especially noticeable through her clothing. Her features were just as stern, her eyes just as steely as those of her confederates.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” he said faintly.

“And you’re the one we’re doing a deal with about settling Mars, are you?” said Mr. Chesebro. “Right then! I must say we aren’t impressed with what we’ve seen so far. You’ve been up here ten years and most of the planet looks to be still desert.”

Mr. Rotherhithe opened his mouth for incredulous protest, but Mr. Nennius spoke up first. “Exactly! It’s all the fault of the original planning committee. All they were interested in doing was getting a colony established quickly, in order to impress the shareholders. No proper screening for suitability at all.”

Mr. Chesebro’s lip curled.
“Shareholders
, is it? Well. I refer your honors to the shameful history of colonialism on Earth. Lackey overseers sweating native laborers in the sun so that fat investors could rake in the profits. As long as
profit’s
your only concern, we’re not interested.”

Mr. Rotherhithe opened his mouth once more, prepared to thank and dismiss them, but once more Mr. Nennius spoke first. “Oh, no, we’ve learned from our mistakes. We fully see that having a committed work force with a personal interest in the project’s success is the only way the terraforming project will advance.”

“Mr. Nennius, may I speak privately with you a moment?” said Mr. Rotherhithe.

“I hardly think so, sir. Gentlemen, we respect your dream of building a new world, and we’re more than happy to offer our assistance during the transition.”

“Is that so?” Mr. Chesebro looked sidelong at Mr. Thurkettle. “We’ll expect you to provide transport, then. And tractors and that lot. Not to
mention rations, until we’re producing our own food. And, of course, a guarantee of fifty hectares per colonist, free and clear with all mineral rights reserved. And water rights, and well-drilling gear.”