The Empress of Mars (30 page)

Across the bottom someone had printed, in block capitals: GOOD LUCK.

Mr. Rotherhithe sagged forward slowly, a big vessel pulsing visibly at his temple. “Help me,” he moaned. “Ms. Lash, help me. I’m sorry. I’ve been a wicked, wicked boy and must be punished.”

Weeping, he lowered his thermal bottoms and bent over the general director’s desk, waiting, praying for the hiss and crack of the whip. And that was the image presented to the board of directors, when the signal worked its way back and the channel opened to Luna.

“Who’s Nennius?” was the first thing the board chairman said. But not the last . . .

“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer person,” said Mary cheerily. “Only wish I’d been there to see it.”

“What do you reckon became of that Bill Nennius bastard, anyway?” said Cochevelou. “I’d have liked to given him a parting shot.”

“Probably dragged back Down Home on the same shuttle took Mr. Rotherhithe back,” said Mary. “The swine. Good riddance! Think we might persuade Perrik to come back down the mountain now?”

Cochevelou, rueful, shook his head. “He likes it where he is,” he said. “I went up to see him. Did you know? Couldn’t stand it anymore and climbed up to that cave. The biis whirled about me like confetti, but he didn’t let ’em harm me. Even let me in to see his place. The damn things have built him a whole efficiency flat in there. Dug conduits in to tap off your pipes, I’ll have you know. If that isn’t sly clever, I don’t know what is.”

“How is he looking, dear?” Mary put her hand over Cochevelou’s.

“Thin,” said Cochevelou. “Pale. But then again, he always was. He seemed so . . .
calm
. Looked me in the face, can you believe it? Says he’s never been so happy. It’s like . . . he was allergic to people, all his life. Never easy around them, always fretting and scowling and looking away. But now he’s peaceful. He let
me
in. Said I could even come back and see him. Isn’t that nice, now? Said I could expect money from him.”

“There’ll be a great deal of it soon, you know,” said Mary. “A lot of folk want biis Down Home, seemingly. Mr. De Wit’s handling the negotiations, with those people who own Polieos. That ought to make the clan happy.”

“Well, that’s the catch, though,” said Cochevelou, with the ghost of a smile. “Perrik says he’s left the clan. Formally resigned his membership. He’ll give his old dad all the cash he needs, says he, but devil a penny will he see lining the clan’s coffers. Just as well, really, now that we’re paying out so much to the Church.”

“Hmph,” said Mary, glancing over her shoulder into the kitchen. At that moment the lock opened and the Brick came in, stamping red dust from his boots.

“Set me up with a cold one!” he yelled, as he strode to the bar. “There’ll be dancing in the depot tonight! I just heard the news!”

“Which news?” Mary and Cochevelou both turned to stare. The Brick slapped down his gauntlets on the bar, grinning as he pushed his mask up over his head.

“Only that the British Arean Company’s been formally dissolved,” he said. “Bankrupt. Buggered. Defunct. Disgraced. Rotherhithe would be in prison, only he’s been sent to Hospital. He’ll see how the other half lives
now
, you can bet your life.”

“Which facility?” inquired Mr. Morton, setting a beer before him.

“Lambeth, I heard.” The Brick gulped his drink down. Mr. Morton shuddered.

“Oh, dear, Lambeth! That’s not a nice place. Not like dear old Winksley at all. Full of entirely the wrong sort of people, you know.”

“Keen mortification for him, I’m sure,” said Mary.

“No more British Arean Company,” said Cochevelou in wonderment. “What’ll happen to Settlement Base?”

“I heard they’ve brought in an outfit called Areco to sort it all out,” said the Brick. “You know what it’ll mean, don’t you? They’ll have to cut new deals with all of us. It might just as well be Uncle Tars with a big sack of fat new contracts!”

“Here’s to a new era!” said Mr. Morton, lifting his mug of batch. “Things are bound to improve!”

“And, before I forget,” said Mary to Cochevelou, “you might jog your ladies’ memories a little. Rowan sent out the invitations for Alice’s baby shower a week ago, and no one’s responded. I was wondering if maybe Ramsay had filed them under Inbox Junk or some such.”

Cochevelou went a little pale and peered into the bottom of his mug. “Oh. Well, Mary darling, the truth of it is—see—the truth of it is—”

“What?”

“The invitations got there, see, but the ladies had a good talk amongst
themselves and decided maybe it was better not to go, what with you being excommunicated and all.”

“Excommunicated?” said Mary, thunderstruck. “I never.”

“You were,” said Cochevelou. “That Mother Glenda came round and announced it at Morrigan Hall, giving us the list about all the penalties spiritual and temporal for having anything to do with you at all. Don’t tell me you hadn’t—”

“Oh, dear,” said Mr. Morton. “Oh dear. There was some hard copy, ma’am—one of those big girls brought it by, very unpleasant she was about it, too, and I set it—somewhere over
here
—it had such an ominous look about it, I confess I was a little intimidated—” He turned and began rummaging frantically through all the junk on the back bar.

“They never,” said Mary.

“I thought you were taking it remarkably well, so I did, never a hair you turned, and here it was because you didn’t know all along—” Cochevelou said.

“I probably just subconsciously deliberately forgot about it because it was so upsetting-looking—” Mr. Morton seized up a large black envelope. “Here it is!” He thrust it at Mary.

She took it reluctantly. It was an impressive object: black veltex cut and folded like an old-fashioned envelope, her name printed on the front in bloodred letters in the Font of Disfavor. The back was sealed with black wax, for Heaven’s sake, and the seal impression showed the Triple Hecate. It popped off and hung by one black ribbon when she opened the envelope.

A concealed sound chip promptly began playing the Curse Litany. Tinny contralto voices railed at Mary as she drew out the hideous document, and read the declaration that she was henceforth damned and excommunicate in the name of Diana, Inanna, Demeter, Isis, Hera, Astarte, Ishtar, et cetera, et cetera. At the very bottom, in a smaller font, were listed the toll-free commcodes she might use in order to appeal her sentence or begin negotiations to have it reversed, with fee schedules and payment plans.

“Bugger,” she said.

“And, see, it doesn’t matter a tinker’s shite to me, my dear, but you know how people can get once they’ve put their heads together and begun talking and all—” Cochevelou babbled.

“Er—do you want me to take down the Goddess shrine, now?” Mr. Morton inquired.

“No!” Mary got to her feet, clutching the excommunication notice. “But you can go down the hill to the Emporium and buy a picture frame, and nail
this
damn thing up next to it as a badge of honor!” She flung it down on the counter. The Brick picked it up and, looking it over, chuckled.

“Not to worry, babe,” he said. “The Haulers are behind you. You have us on your side, you don’t need to worry about the Church.”

“How dare they,” said Mary, the rage beginning to work. “Those old bitches!” She strode for the lock, grabbing for her mask and Outside gear. “Mothers, my arse!”

She stormed out through the lock.

“It’s best we don’t try to go after her,” said Cochevelou, though no one was making any move to do so. “Best to let her have her space at this difficult time, right?”

“If you say so,” said the Brick.

The plan of storming into the Ephesian Mission and giving them a good piece of her mind faded rapidly, as Mary walked through the Tubes by herself. A few tears, of embarrassment and anger, trickled down inside her mask, but they soon dried. She thought to go down to her fine fields and walk among them, to comfort herself; but the thought that she might encounter any of the women of Clan Morrigan infuriated her, and so she found herself going in the other direction.

The Tube led here to a barren rocky area, quarried for gravel in the early days of Settlement Base’s construction. Wheeled tracks led in and out through the lock at its end; someone was still driving a quaddy
through here on a regular basis. Manco, of course. He came down here to get materials for casting, and wasn’t his sacred grotto, or whatever it was, hereabouts?

She went outside and, yes, there was the quaddy, parked a little distance across the mountainside. Mary walked along the well-beaten trail, and coming around a curve found Manco.

He was standing at a work table he’d jackhammered from a boulder, placidly sculpting a rose on its work surface. Sitting by his tools was a small squeeze bottle of something blackish-red, from which he added a few drops to his bowl of clay. He glanced up through his mask and nodded as she approached.

She nodded back, but walked forward staring past him at the grotto beyond. There she was, the life-sized Virgen de Guadalupe, looking down serenely. Manco had done a great deal since Mary had seen the first holoimages he had taken. The Lady’s robe had been rendered blue-green with paint from the Emporium, and gold spangles were painted here and there. The crescent moon on which the Lady stood was now being supported by a little stevedore of an angel, whose features bore a certain resemblance to Manco’s own. Cast cement spines radiated out from the Lady, painted in alternating yellow and orange to resemble rays of sunlight or divine grace. Around them, spreading out from every crevice and extending up across the grotto walls, were extravagant hallucinogenic waves of roses cast of stone. Some had been daubed with color, yellows and oranges and creamy whites; some had been left unpainted, in shades of pink and bloodred. The Lady’s face and hands had been left unpainted, too. There was an unsettling glint to the eyes, however. Walking close, Mary peered up and saw the pair of rough diamonds Manco had set there.

Blood and diamonds and stone. Was it Mary’s imagination, or was there a certain ferocity in the image’s face, a uniquely Martian look to the Lady?

Belief adapted, it flowed and morphed itself to fit any place in which it fetched up. An ancient goddess of flowers, She Who Swallows the Stone Knife, She Who Crushes the Serpent, finding new work as
the Mother of God . . . and, now that the wrecking ball of time had leveled that former neighborhood, so to speak, She was changing Herself to suit yet another new world.

She had nothing to do with Sisterhoods, with churches and rules and sins and pieties, spiritual or temporal. She had everything to do with blood and birth, with fighting to bring children into the world, with struggling to feed them all and keep them alive. She crushed serpents, all right, she pierced with those spines. She did whatever she had to do to keep life going, ruthlessly. She knew what it cost. And here, on Mars, the price was high.

They don’t know You like I know You
, thought Mary.
We’ll see who lasts, on Mars
.

“Here’s something to make you smile, Ms. Griffith,” said Mr. De Wit, leaning back from his buke. “Jovian Integrated Systems has money for Perrik Cochevelou, which is to say his estate. They want to know if you have an automatic deposit arrangement with your Earth bank, or need one set up.”

Mary, sweeping the floor in a high bad temper, looked up glaring. “
My
Earth bank? All I’ve got’s an old inactive account with First Celtic Federal down there. Not so much as a punt in the damned thing these six years. I went with the British Arean Company’s credit union, or I suppose it’s the Areco Credit Union now, when I emigrated up here. Your people want Cochevelou’s bank data, and I’ve no idea where himself banks.”

“In fact, they want your information,” Mr. De Wit explained. “Perrik’s father hasn’t got power of attorney for him and his estate. You have.”

“What?”

“Cochevelou’s money is all held in the common account of Clan Morrigan. Perrik gave you power of attorney.”

“What? When?”

Mr. De Wit looked a little shamefaced. “We’ve been in communication. He has a buke up there with him, you know. Very clever young
man. He was extremely specific about what he wanted, which was that any profit from the bii patents should remain out of reach of Clan Morrigan. He asked if it was possible to create a document authorized by both of you before his disappearance, and, er, I told him it was. So we did.”

“But . . . but . . .” Mary gripped the broom handle. “Oh, no. His father’ll be devastated it wasn’t him.”

“The next step is setting up a trust fund for his father,” said Mr. De Wit. “Perrik really does want to make certain he’s well provided for. I thought you could find a tactful way to put it.”

Mary grimaced. “Why is it always up to me to soothe people’s feelings? And how much money from this Jovian company are we talking about, by the way?”

Mr. De Wit named a sum. Mary reeled where she was standing. “What!”

“In quarterly installments over the next five Earth years,” said Mr. De Wit. “And he has stock shares.”

Giggling breathlessly, Mary sank down on the bench beside Mr. De Wit. “Well! How very nice. Great Goddess Below, Perrik will be able to afford a private compound with security guards and a bloody swimming pool, if he’s so minded.”

“He could,” said Mr. De Wit. “Shall I see if your account at First Celtic Federal can be reactivated?”

“Would you, please?” said Mary, with a wave of her hand, just as Alice leaned out of her loft.

“Eli, sweetie? I have the most awful headache. Will you bring me a cup of tea?”

“Of course,” said Mr. De Wit, and got up to go pump a kettleful of water. Smiling, Mary leaned over to peer at the screen of his buke. She read through the inquiry from Jovian Integrated Systems, with the slightly guilty thrill that came from looking at someone else’s buke screen. Only on the third reading did she notice the name of the sender.

By the time Mr. De Wit came back to the table, Mary had drawn away from the buke and was watching him with slightly hostile eyes.