The Empress of Mars (6 page)

Cochevelou grimaced. “Speak no ill of the dead and all, but if I could ever get my hands on that little bastard’s neck—” he said.

“Beer please,” said one of the British Arean Company engineers, shouldering through the crowd.

“A pint for the English!” Mary announced, and he looked around guiltily and pulled up the hood of his psuit. “How nice of you to come down here to our primitive little fete. Perhaps later we can do some colorful folk dancing for your amusement.” She handed him a mug. “That’ll be one punt Celtic.”

“I heard you’ll take air filters,” said the engineer in an undertone.

“What size, dear?”

“BX-threes,” replied the engineer, drawing one from the breast pocket of his psuit and displaying it. Mary took it from him and inspected it critically.

“Your gracious patronage is always appreciated,” she said, and handed it to the Heretic, who tucked it out of sight. “Enjoy your beer. You see, Cochevelou? No money in my hands at all. What’s a poor little widow to do?”

But Cochevelou had missed the sarcasm, staring over her head down the tunnel.

“Who’s this coming, now?” he said. “Nobody I recognize. Did they bring a passenger on the last transport up?”

Mary turned and saw the newcomer, treading gingerly along in the cat-step people walked with before they became accustomed to Martian gravity. The stranger was tall, and wore a shiny new thermal psuit,
and he carried a bukecase. He was peering uncertainly through his mask at the crowd around the transparencies.

“That’s a damned solicitor, that’s what that is,” said Cochevelou, scowling blackly. “See the skullcap? Five’ll get you ten he’s come to see you or me.”

Mary’s lip curled. She watched as the newcomer studied the crowd. He swung his mask in her direction at last, and stared; then walked toward her decisively.

“It’s you, eh?” said Cochevelou, trying not to sound too relieved as he sidled away. “My sympathies, Mary darling.”

“MS. GRIFFITH?” inquired the stranger. Mary folded her arms.

“I am,” she replied.

“ELIPHAL DE WIT,” he said. “I’VE HAD QUITE A TIME FINDING YOU!”

“TURN YOUR SPEAKER DOWN! I’M NOT DEAF!”

“OH! I’M sorry,” said Mr. De Wit, hurriedly twiddling the knob. “Is that better? They didn’t seem to know who you were at the port office, and then they admitted you were still resident but unemployed, but they wouldn’t tell me where you lived. Very confusing.”

“‘Unemployed!’ I like that. You’re not from the British Arean Company, then?” Mary looked him up and down.

“What?” Mr. De Wit started involuntarily at the crowd’s roar of excitement. The English kayaker had just swung past the midway marker. “No. Didn’t you get my communication? I’m from Polieos of Amsterdam.”

“WHAT?” said Mary, without benefit of volume knob.

“I’m here about your diamond,” Mr. De Wit explained.

“And to think I thought you were a solicitor at first!” Mary babbled, setting down a pitcher of batch and two mugs.

“Actually, Ms. Griffith, I am one,” said Mr. De Wit, gazing around at the inside of the Empress. “On permanent retainer for Polieos, to deal with special circumstances.”

“Really?” Mary halted in the act of reaching to fill his mug.

“And I’m here as your counsel,” he explained patiently. “There has really been no precedent for this situation. Polieos feels it would be best to proceed with a certain amount of caution at first.”

“Don’t they want to buy my diamond, then?” Mary demanded.

“Absolutely, yes, Ms. Griffith,” Mr. De Wit assured her. “And they would prefer to buy it from you. I’m here to determine whether or not they can legally do that.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Well—” Mr. De Wit lifted his mug and paused, staring down at the brown foam brimming. “Er—what are we drinking?”

“It’s water we’ve put things in, because you wouldn’t want to drink Mars water plain,” said Mary impatiently. “No alcohol in it, dear, so it won’t hurt you if you’re not a drinking man. Cut to the chase, please.”

Mr. De Wit set his mug aside, folded his hands and said: “In a minute I’m going to ask you how you got the diamond, but I’m going to tell you a few things first, and it’s important that you listen closely.

“What you sent Polieos is a red diamond, a true red, which is very rare. The color doesn’t come from impurities, but from the arrangement of the crystal lattice within the stone itself. It weighs three hundred six carats at the present time, uncut, and preliminary analysis indicates it has remarkable potential for a modified trillion cut. It would be a unique gem even if it hadn’t come from Mars. The fact that it did makes its potential value quite a bit greater.”

He took the buke from its case and connected the projector arm and dish. Mary watched with suspicion as he completed setup and switched it on. After a couple of commands a holoimage shot forth, hanging in the dark air between them, and Mary recognized the lump she’d entrusted to Finn.

“That’s my diamond!”

“As it is now,” said Mr. De Wit. “Here’s what Polieos proposes to do with it.” He gave another command and the sullen rock vanished. In its place was an artist’s conception of a three-cornered stone the color of an Earth sunset. Mary caught her breath.

“Possibly two hundred eighty carats,” said Mr. De Wit.

“What’s it worth?”

“That all depends,” Mr. De Wit replied. “A diamond is only worth the highest price you can get for it. The trick is to make it
desirable
. It’s red, it’s from Mars—those are big selling points. We’ll need to give it a fancy name. At present,” and he coughed apologetically, “it’s being called the Big Mitsubishi, but the marketing department will probably go with either the War-God’s Eye or the Heart of Mars.”

“Yes, yes, whatever,” said Mary.

“Very well. And Polieos is prepared to cut, polish, and market the diamond. They can do this as your agents, in which case their fee will be deducted from the sale price, or they can buy it from you outright.
Assuming
,” and Mr. De Wit held up a long forefinger warningly, “that we can establish that you are, in fact, the owner.”

“Hm.” Mary frowned at the tabletop. She had a pretty good idea of what was coming next.

“You see, Ms. Griffith, under the terms of your allotment lease with the British Arean Company, you are entitled to any produce grown on the land. The terms of your lease do
not
include mineral rights to the aforesaid land. Therefore—”

“If I dug it up on my allotment, it belongs to the British Arean Company,” said Mary.

“Exactly. If, however, someone sold you the diamond,” and Mr. De Wit looked around at the Empress again, his gaze dwelling on the more-than-rustic details, “say perhaps some colorful local character who found it somewhere else and traded it to you for a drink—well, then, not only is it your diamond, but we have a very nice story for the marketing department at Polieos.”

“I see,” said Mary.

“Good. And now, Ms. Griffith, if you please: how did you come into possession of the diamond?” Mr. De Wit sat back and folded his hands.

Mary spoke without pause. “Why, sir, one of our regulars brought it in! An Ice Hauler, as it happens, and he found it somewhere on his travels between poles. Traded it to me for two pints of my best Ares Lager.”

“Excellent.” Smiling, Mr. Dr. Wit shut off the buke and stood. “And
now
, Ms. Griffith, may I see the allotment where you didn’t find the diamond?”

As they were walking back from the field, and Mr. De Wit was wiping the clay from his hands, he said quietly: “It’s just as well the land isn’t producing anything much. When the diamond becomes public knowledge, it’s entirely likely the British Arean Company will make you an offer for the allotment.”

“Even though I didn’t find the diamond there?” said Mary warily.

“Yes. And I would take whatever they offered, Ms. Griffith, and I would buy passage back to Earth.”

“I’ll take what they offer,
if
they offer, but I’m not leaving Mars,” said Mary. “I’ve hung on through bad luck and I’m damned if good luck will pry me out. This is my home!”

Mr. De Wit tugged at his beard, unhappy about something. “You’ll have more than enough money to live in comfort on Earth,” he said. “And things are about to change up here, you know. As soon as anyone suspects there’s real money to be made on Mars, you won’t know the place.”

“I think I’d do smashing, whatever happens,” said Mary. “Miners drink, don’t they? Anywhere people go to get rich, they need places to spend their money.”

“That’s true,” said Mr. De Wit, sighing.

“And just think what I can do with all that money!” Mary crowed. “No more making do with the BAC’s leftovers!” She paused by a transparency and pointed out at the red desolation. “See that? It’s nobody’s land. I could have laid claim to it any time this five years, but what would I have done with it? I might have wells drilled, but it’s the bloody BAC has the air and the heating and the vizio I’d need!

“But with
money
. . .”

By the time they got back to the Empress she was barreling along in her enthusiasm with such speed that Mr. De Wit was panting as he
tried to keep up. She jumped in through the airlock, faced her household (just in from the field of glorious combat and settling down to a celebratory libation) flung off her mask and cried: “Congratulate me, you lot! I’m the richest woman on Mars!”

“You did bet on the match,” said Rowan reproachfully.

“I did not,” said Mary, thrusting a hand at Mr. De Wit. “You know who this kind gentleman is? This is my extremely good friend from Amsterdam.” She winked hugely. “He’s a
gem
of a man. A genuine
diamond
in the rough. And he’s brought your mother very good news, my dears.”

Stunned silence while everyone took that in, and then Mona leaped up screaming.

“
Thediamondthediamondthediamond!
Omigoddess!”

“How much are we getting for it?” asked Rowan at once.

“Well—” Mary looked at Mr. De Wit. “There’s papers and things to sign, first, and we have to find a buyer. But there’ll be more than enough to fix us all up nicely, I’m sure.”

“Very probably,” Mr. De Wit agreed.

“We finally won’t be
poor
anymore!” caroled Mona, bounding up and down.

“Congratulations, Mama!” said Manco.

“Congratulations, Mother,” said Chiring.

Mr. Morton giggled uneasily. “So . . . this means you’re leaving Mars?” he said. “What will the rest of us do?”

“I’m not about to leave,” Mary assured him. His face lit up.

“Oh, that’s wonderful! Because I’ve got nothing to go back to, down there, you know, and Mars has been the first place I ever really—”

“What do you
mean
we’re not leaving?” said Alice in a strangled kind of voice. “You’re ruining my life
again
, aren’t you?”

She turned and fled. Her bedchamber being as it was in a loft accessible only by rope line, Alice was unable to leap in and fling herself on her bed, there to sob furiously; so she resorted to running away to the darkness behind the brew tanks and sobbing furiously there.

“—felt as though I belonged in a family,” Mr. Morton continued.

Alice might weep, but she was outvoted.

Rowan opted to stay on Mars. Mona waffled on the question until the boy-to-girl ratio on Earth was explained to her, after which she firmly cast her lot with the Red Planet. Chiring had never had any intention of leaving; his
Dispatches from Mars
had doubled the number of subscribers to the
Kathmandu Post
, which was run by his sister’s husband, and as a result of the Mars exposés he looked fair to win Nepal’s highest journalism award.

Manco had no intention of leaving, either, for many reasons, not least of which was that it would be difficult to transport his life’s work back to Earth. This was a shrine in a grotto three kilometers from the Empress, containing a cast-stone life-sized statue of the Virgen de Guadalupe surrounded by roses sculpted from a mixture of pink Martian dust and Manco’s own blood. It was an ongoing work of art, and an awesome and terrible thing.

The Heretic, when asked if she would like to leave Mars, became so distraught that her ocular implant telescoped and retracted uncontrollably for five minutes before she was able to stammer out a refusal. She would not elaborate. Later she drank half a bottle of Black Label and was found unconscious behind the malt locker.

“So, you see? We’re staying,” said Mary to the Brick, in grim triumph.

“Way to go, beautiful,” said the Brick, raising his breakfast pint of Ares Lager. “I just hope you’re ready to deal with the BAC, because this’ll really get up their noses. And I hope you can trust this Dutchman.”

“Here he is now,” said Chiring
sotto voce
, looking up from the tap-head he was in the act of changing. They raised their heads to watch Mr. De Wit’s progress down from the ceiling on his line. He made it to the floor easily and tied off his line like a native, without one wasted gesture; but as he turned to them again, he seemed to draw the character of Hesitant Tourist about him like a cloak, stooping slightly as he peered through the gloom.

“Good morning, sir, and did you sleep well?” Mary cried brightly.

“Yes, thank you,” Mr. De Wit replied. “There seems to be some sort of moss growing up there in the loft, did you know?”

“Oh, that.” Mary waved her hand. “An old experiment from my lab days. It’s that stuff that’s growing on the outside too. Some of it got in through the airlock somehow and now it’s all over the walls. We let it stay because it makes a little oxygen. Won’t hurt you, honestly.”

“Oh, good.” Mr. De Wit flicked a few crumbs of lichen from his elbow. “Er—I was wondering where I might get some laundry done?”

“Bless you, sir, we don’t have Earth-style laundries up here,” said Mary. “Best you think of it as a sort of dry-cleaning. Leave it in a pile on your bunk and I’ll send one of the girls up for it later.” She cleared her throat. “And this is my friend Mr. Brick. Mr. Brick is the, ahem,
colorful local character
who sold me the diamond. Aren’t you, dear?”