The Empress of Mars (33 page)

Matelot extended a banking plaquette in a trembling hand.

The silence went on and on. Was anyone breathing? After a moment Mary reached out and took the plaquette. She glanced at it before looking back at the clansmen.

“I see,” she said. “He’s deserting too, is he?”

“And we’ll just be going, then,” said Matelot, and collided with his fellow clansmen as they all three attempted to get out the airlock at once.

When they had gone, Mary sank down on a settle. The rest of her household stared at her. Nobody said anything until Rowan came and crouched beside her.

“Mum, it doesn’t matter. Maybe Areco will make us an offer, too—”

“We’re not waiting to see,” said Mary.

“You’re going back to Earth?” asked Alice, too shocked for triumph. Mr. De Wit shook his head in silence, a sick expression in his eyes.

“I am not,” said Mary. “I said I won’t be driven out and I meant it.”

“Good for you!” cried Mr. Morton, and blanched as everyone turned to stare at him. Then he drew a breath and said: “She’s right! We—we don’t need the clan. Or Areco. We’ve got our pumping station and all that land up there. We can make a
new
place! Our own settlement, for people like us. We’ve already got plans for the theaters. We can expand into a hotel and restaurant and—who knows what else?” He spread out his hands in general appeal.

“But where will we get the barley, Mum?”

“The MAC will trade with us,” said Manco, narrowing his eyes. “Trust me.”

“Where are we going to get the people for a whole city?” asked Chiring.

“Well, er—we can advertise in the
Kathmandu Post
, can’t we?” Mr. Morton turned to him. “Tell the Sherpas all about the great job opportunities now being offered at, ah, Griffith Energy Systems! Tell them we’re making a wonderful place up here where people will be free and there’ll be Art and exciting adventure and, and no corporate bad guys running their lives!”

Chiring had already pulled out his jotpad before Mr. Morton had stammered to his conclusion, and was busily making notes. “I think we can get Earth’s attention,” he said.

Alice sighed, gazing at her mother. She looked down at the bright pictures scattered at her feet.

“We’ll stay and give you all the help we can,” she said. “Won’t we, Eli?”

“No.” Mary got to her feet. “You’re going back to Earth. No sense wasting perfectly good tickets. You can be my agents there. I’ll be buying a lot of things for the new place; I want them shipped properly.
And Mr. De Wit can handle all of the
thousand
lawsuits I plan to file much more effectively if he’s on Earth, can’t you, Mr. De Wit?”

Mr. De Wit bowed slightly. “Your servant, madam.” He coughed. “I think it might be worth your while to inquire whether Jovian Integrated is interested in buying shares in Griffith Energy Systems.”

“I will, by Goddess!” Mary began to pace. She swung one arm at Rowan. “How many antigrav units has our Ottorino got in stock, girl?”

“What?”

“Antigrav units,” said Mary, as the lock opened and Ottorino came in.

“Carissima—”

“How many antigrav units have you got in the shop?” Mary demanded of him. He blinked at her in surprise.

“Twenty,” he said.

“I need to borrow them,” said Mary. “Areco’s double-dealing us and I need to move my house up to the pumping station, or we’ll have no air nor heat this time tomorrow.”

“Ah.” Ottorino nodded, eyes brightening. “Yes, I know. The sheriff will come with the mortgage foreclosure, but we will already be gone over the county line. Rowan, my darling, did you save me some cake?”

“Here.” Rowan held out a little plateful of cake. He swept the slice into his mouth.

“Mm! Congratulations and abundance, Mrs. Alice,” he said muffledly. “Mamma, I’ll go get the antigravity units for you. Shall I bring all twenty?”

“Please,” said Mary, and he turned and went back out through the lock.

“Girls, start packing. Everything’s to be closed down and strapped in. Disconnect everything except Three Tank. Mona, you go out to the Ice Depot and let the Haulers know I’m giving away beer tonight. Then go down to the motel and let the prospectors know. Chiring, go with her.”

“Right away, Mum!” Mona grabbed her air mask. Chiring grabbed his air mask and handcam.

As Alice and Rowan hurried away to pack, Mary strode into her kitchen.

“Did you hear all that?” she called. There was a rustle from the shadows in the pantry. Finally the Heretic sidled into sight.

“Yes,” she said, blinking.

“Will it work, do you think? Can we tell them all to go to hell and start our own place?” Mary demanded.

The Heretic just shrugged, drooping forward like an empty garment; then it was as though someone had seized her by the back of the neck and jerked her upright. She fixed a blazing red eye on Mary, and in a brassy voice cried:

“For the finest in Martian hospitality, the tourist has only one real choice: Ares’ premiere hotel the Empress of Mars in Mars Two, founded by turn-of-the-century pioneer Mary Griffith and still managed by her family today. Enjoy five-star cuisine in the Empress’s unique Mitsubishi Room, or discover the delights of a low-gravity hot spring sauna!”

Mary blinked. “Mars Two, is it to be? As good a name as any, I suppose. That’s a grand picture of the future, but a little practical advice would be appreciated.”

The strange voice took on a new intonation, sounded sly:

“All-seeing Zeus is lustful, can never be trusted; His son has a golden skull. But Ares loves a fighter.”

“I don’t hold with gods,” said Mary stiffly. “Especially not a god of war.”

Someone else smiled, using the Heretic’s face. It was profoundly unsettling.

“All life has to fight to live. There’s more to it than spears and empty rhetoric; she who struggles bravely has His attention.”

Mary backed out of the kitchen, averting her eyes from the red grin.

“Then watch me, whoever you are, because I’m going to give Areco one hell of a fight,” she muttered. “And if my cook’s still in there, tell her to get to work. I’m throwing a party tonight.”

By the time the sullen day dawned, people were still drunk enough to be enthusiastic.

“Jack the whole thing up on ag units, yeah!” roared the Brick, his eyes blazing like stoplights. “Brilliant!” His fellow Haulers howled their agreement, and the prospectors gave scattered cheers.

“And just sort of walk it up the slope a ways, we thought,” said Mary. “So it’ll be on my claim, see.”

“No, no, no, babe—” Tiny Reg swayed over her like a cliff about to fall. “See, that’ll never work. See. Too much tail wind. Get yer arse blowed down to Ios Chasma. You nona let—wanna let us—”

“Tow my house all the way up there?” asked Mary artlessly. “Oh, I couldn’t ask!”

“Hell yeah!” said the Brick. “Just hook it up an’ go!”

“Fink I got my glacier chains inna cabover,” said Alf, rising from a settle abruptly and falling with a crash that sent a bow wave of spilled beer over Mary’s boots. When his friends had picked him up, he wiped Phobos Porter from his face and grinned obligingly. “Jus’ nip out an’ see, shall I?”

“Oh, sir, how very kind,” said Mary. She put out an arm and arrested Mr. Morton’s flight, for he had been in the process of running to refill mugs from a pitcher. “Can we do it?” she demanded of him
sotto voce
.
“You understand these things. Will the house take the stresses, without cracking like half an eggshell?”

“Er—” Mr. Morton blinked, stared around him for the first time with professional eyes. “Well—it will if we brace the interior cantilevers. We’d need, ah, telescoping struts—which we haven’t got, but—”

“Where can we get them?”

“They’re all in the construction storage shed on the base . . .” Mr. Morton’s voice trailed off. He looked down at the pitcher he was carrying. Lifting it to his mouth, he drank the last pint it contained and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I know the code to get the shed door open,” he said.

“Do you?” Mary watched him closely. His spine was stiffening. He put down the pitcher, flexed his long arms.

“Yes, I do,” he said. “I’ll just go off and see an oppressive corporate monolithic evil entity about a dog, shall I?”

“Thank you, Mr. Morton. Gentlemen, go with him in case the shed is guarded, please.”

“Yes, Mama.” Manco picked up a crowbar and looked significantly at Ottorino. They headed all together for the airlock. At the airlock Mr. Morton put on his mask, and paused as though to utter a dramatic exit line; then realized he should have delivered it before putting his mask on. He saluted instead, with a stiff perfect British salute, and led them marching away down the Tube.

“Mum?”

Mary turned and beheld Alice, swathed extravagantly for the trip Outside. Mr. De Wit stood beside her, a bag in each hand and under either arm.

“The tickets say to get there three hours before flight time for processing,” said Alice hesitantly.

“So you’d best go now,” said Mary. Alice burst into tears and flung her arms around her mother’s neck.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been a good daughter,” cried Alice. “And now I’m going to feel like a deserter, too!”

“No, dearest, of course you’re not a deserter,” said Mary automatically,
patting her on the arm. “Good-for-nothing bastard Maurice Cochevelou, now, is a deserter.” She looked over Alice’s shoulder at Mr. De Wit. “But
you’re
going to go away with this nice man and bear me a lovely granddaughter, see, and perhaps someday I’ll come visit you in my diamond-encrusted planet shuttle, yes?”

“I hope so,” said Alice, straightening up, for her back ached. Mother and daughter looked at each other across all the resentments, the dislike, the grudges, the eternal intractable
issues
of their lives. What else was there to say?

“I love you, Mum,” said Alice at last.

“I love you, too,” said Mary. She went to Mr. De Wit and stood on tiptoe to kiss him, for which he bent down.

“If you desert her, I’ll hunt you down and kill you with my two hands,” she murmured in his ear. He grinned.

They went away through the airlock, just as Alf the Hauler came in. Beer had frozen on his clothing and he was bleeding from his nostrils, but he seemed not to have noticed.

“Got a couple fousand meters of chain!” he announced. “ ’Nough to move bloody shrackin’ Antartarctica!”

“You silly boy, did you go out without your mask?” Mary scolded gently. “Rowan, bring a wet face flannel for our Alf. Where are your keys, dear?”

Smiling like a broken pumpkin, Alf held them up. Mary confiscated them and passed them to Chiring, who masked up before ducking outside to back Alf’s hauler into position.

“You can hold yer breff out dere, you know,” said Alf proudly if muffledly, as Mary cleaned him up. “S’really easy once you get used to it.”

“I’m sure it is, love. Have another beer and sit still for a bit,” Mary told him, and turned to Rowan. “What’s happening now?”

“Uncle Brick and the others are putting the ag units in place,” said Rowan. “Is it time to disconnect Three Tank yet?”

“Not yet. They’ll want a drink before they go up the slope,” Mary replied.

“But, Mum, they’re
drunk
!” Rowan protested.

“Can you think of a better way to get them to do it?” Mary snapped. “What chance have we got, unless they think it’s a mad lark they came up with themselves? I’ll get this house on my claim any damned way I can. Pour another round!”

Alice was reclining in her compartment, adjusting to the artificial gravity. Already she felt heavy and breathless. She wondered uneasily if the transition to Earth gravity would be difficult, and consoled herself by thinking that all these months of pregnancy might serve as a sort of involuntary weight training. She stared up at the monitor above the couch. It was showing only old-fashioned flat image feed from the live camera mounted above the shuttleport; but the views were something to occupy her attention in the gray cubespace, and the litany of
Last time I’ll ever have to look at this
was soothing her terrors.

Suddenly something on the screen moved, and the image became surreal, impossible: there out beyond the settlement a dome was rising, as though a hill had decided to walk. Alice cried out. Eliphal was beside her immediately, though she had had the impression he had been off seeing about their menu selections for the flight.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, taking her hand in both his own.

“Where did you come from?” she asked him, bewildered. “Look out there! She’s actually talked them into it!”

Clearly free now, the Empress of Mars was crawling up the slope from the Settlement Base like a gigantic snail, ponderous, of immense dignity, tugged along inexorably by no less than three freighters on separate leads of chain and a Rover, each one sending up its own pink cloud of dust from roaring jets. Eliphal watched it and thought of a Monty Python sketch, imagined a Strauss waltz playing somewhere.

“Of course she’s done it, Alice.” How assured his voice was, and yet a little sad. “Your mother will found a city up there, on beer and rebellion. It’ll be a remarkable success. You’ll see, my dear.”

“You really think so?” She stared into his eyes, unsettled by the expression there. She had stifled her habitual rage around him for so long, it had faded down into lukewarm ash. He remained the kindest man she had ever met, but sometimes she felt as though she were a small lost animal he’d picked up and taken home. In another month she’d be free of the baby and free of the need to pretend she loved him. Suddenly, however, the idea of being on her own terrified her.

She turned her eyes back to the monitor. “I guess we should have stayed to help her, shouldn’t we?”

“No.” He put his arms around Alice. “You’ll come home to Earth. I’ll keep you safe, you and the little girl. I promised your mother.”

“Oh, Earth . . .” Alice thought of green streets, and blue canals, and houses with open windows and silver rain falling . . . and the fact that her mother, and her mother’s problems, would finally be subtracted from her life. “Oh, we’re going to Amsterdam at last.”