Patron of the Arts

by William Rotsler

  As I came to know her mind as well as her voluptuous body, I found her constantly inquiring, eternally interested, and rarely bored. I saw her turn the near-rape by a torch tech into an hour-long lecture by him on the delicate balances that must be maintained in the magnetic bottle so that it works and so that they can open one end of the bottle and let out bits of the sun contained within. She left him glowing, proud of himself, very flattered that she was interested, and a little surprised at himself that his erection had gone away.

  The more I knew of Nova the more there was to know.

  What greater praise is there?

  6

  Despite difficulties we all survived, except the crewman who lost the duel, which was played up beyond belief in the vidpress on Earth. The rather plain nurse was dubbed The Temptress in White and given other lurid titles and became infamous and sought after. The Balboa went into docking orbit and the shuttle came over from Phobos and took us down to Ares Center, the “capital” of Mars. The disk of Mars was a great tawny-red, brown, and slate globe and the only sign of life was Elizabeth II in parking orbit nearby. As we came down we could see the rectangular green fields around Polecanal, then the smudge of Grabrock and Northaxe. Over the pole, down the Rille, Grandcanal City was a dot on the night horizon as we settled down toward Ares Center.

  Dawn on Mars.

  Thin cold air, thin enough still to require airmasks and bottles despite the years of terraforming, cold enough, even in this “summer,” to necessitate warmsuits. Great long rolling sandy stretches, with the soft ellipses of ancient craters and the abrasive grit of the sand getting into everything.

  Dawn on Mars.

  The rosy light was soft on the side of the shuttle. The last of the passengers disembarked and went beyond the pink cement wall until the ship had lifted off to go back for the cargo. “Come on,” Nova said, “this way.”

  We huddled against the blowing sand caused by the ship’s takeoff and angled across to the fusion-powered carrier that awaited us. A big-chested man in a patched blue warmsuit took one look and jumped off to embrace Nova warmly.

  “Nova! Damned if you haven’t grown up to be the most beautiful thing I ever—!” He saw me, obviously with her and just as obviously annoyed. He looked from me to her and back again, his face friendly but ready to go either way.

  “Johann, this is Diego Braddock. Johann Tarielovich. He’s a sort of . . . uncle.”

  The big man hugged her to him and grinned at me. “Any man a girl calls an uncle will never be anything but a friend, I’m sorry to say.”

  He stuck out a hand, then drew it back and pulled off a glove. I took it, my fingers chilly, and found him carved from icerock.

  His eyes went quickly from my face to hers, again scanning for information. Then he grunted, nodded wisely, then shook his head.

  “Come on, doch, climb aboard before we freeze these cleanboots!”

  “Dvígat, dvígat!” he snapped at the last two aboard. “Move!” He hopped into the seat and motioned Nova next to him. I sat in the back, next to a Marine who was already cursing his assignment, oblivious to the wonders of being on another planet.

  On another planet.

  On Mars.

  I grinned to myself and scanned the horizon for John Carter as we bumped over the road toward the bubble complex of Ares Center, thinking that those first explorers had not forgotten the heritage of their youth. Since a few things had been named by astronomers, some were named for what happened, like Touchdown, where the first ship landed. Some were named for the way they looked, like Redrock and Mano Rojo and Icemountain. One place was optimistically named because someplace on this planet had to be named that, but so far Marsport was a tiny outpost with only a small landing field.

  Pride of discovery had made early explorers pretty well ignore the fancy Latin names like Mare Hadtriacum and Syrtis Major and Amazonis and just use those labels they thought they had a right to affix. Wells.

  Bradbury, where they discovered the great Star Palace.

  Grandcanal City, which had no canal.

  Burroughs, with some of the finest relics and walls yet found. The Rille, Grabrock, and Northaxe, where they found that most ancient of archaeological finds.

  In a range of mountains named after John Carter what could you call the first mine of rare crimson diamonds but the Dejah Thoris?

  Arlington Burl, who had been on the Balboa with us, had named his twin mines Enyo, goddess of battle, and Eris, goddess of discord, who have been described as sister, mother, wife, and daughter of Ares. His sons, Phobos and Deimos, gods of tumult and terror, fly overhead. But too much fantasy can blind you to reality. A hard bump threw me against Pelf, who had not annoyed me especially on the trip once I became involved with Nova. He grinned, and shoved me back helpfully. I nodded my thanks and squinted against the dust toward the domes and towers of Ares Center ahead. Newly manufactured air from the fusion torch’s mass accelerator poured out of the stack, creating a permanent wind that flowed away in every direction, spreading the new atmosphere over the planet. But my mind was not on the terraforming project, but that nagging concern about Pelf that I couldn’t shake. I still felt that Pelf was spying on me, but perhaps he spied on everyone. I have grown used to being spied on, directly and indirectly, electronically and by computer-directed dossiers that are supposed to predict my future performance by past records. I have grown used to it but I have never liked it. I had erected a wall between us a month long and higher than he could jump. I was hoping it would hold.

  We trundled into the long, segmented zome and I noticed how skillful they had gotten with the sand-silicon sprayfoamed over the complex of balloon structures. The lock cycled and we went on into the oldest dome, now chipped and discolored, but kept serviceable. Johann pulled up to the largest structure in the center of the dome, a four-story building of rosy blocks of fused sand. Most of the older buildings were built in a similar fashion.

  “Here you are,” he said, killing the engine. “I’ll go back out and fetch your cargo when they land it,” he added. Several men in worn warmsuits and one in a shiny new one came out of the building and approached us. Some were known by my fellow passengers and there was a general conversation, hubbub, chaos, and party. Nova was snatched away and wondered at and kissed and hugged and lusted after and passed from one man to another or snatched away with good natured desire to be marveled over.

  Johann stood nearby, thumbs stuck in his harness belt, admiring Nova as she laughed and kissed the welcoming throng. From time to time I felt him eyeing me and at last our eyes met.

  He nodded his head toward Nova. “She certainly grew up fast and fine.” I agreed, waiting impatiently for her to return to me. Johann dug into one of his zippered pockets and pulled out a pouch, offering me a pinch of what I recognized as Cannabis sativa Ares III, which was fantastically expensive on Earth. I shook my head and thanked him. I intended to keep all my original impressions clear. Time enough to stretch my senses when I wished to explore other aspects of this world. Two slightly drunken men in pale blue warmsuits were carrying Nova around on their shoulders and she was yelling at them happily. On the backs of their warmsuits there was stitched a large red sunburst with a golden apple in the center.

  I ignored Johann’s continued inspection of me, and I don’t think even Raeburn’s computers ever dissected me more deeply. I simply waited until Nova would be “mine” again, though I may not have waited with very good grace. Jealousy was a surprising emotion and I resented being surprised.

  Finally Nova writhed back down to the ground and broke free, running to me, flushed and happy. She pulled me forward to introduce me to a group of what the vidtabs are fond of calling Nuvomartians. They were none too enthusiastic, especially with Nova hanging on my arm, but they restricted their reaction to glances among themselves. I shook hands with Iceberg Eddie, D’Mico, Endrace, Big Ivan, and Little Ivan. I had my hand mauled by Kum Ling, Jalisco, and a hulking solemn brute named—or perhaps engraved—Aleksa
ndrovich. There were others, and latecomers, the names all in a muddle, some happy, some resentful, some undecided, some sour, but most of them civil enough in welcoming me.

  As everyone was going back through the lock in bunches I lost Nova to the newest group and found myself flanked by Johann and Endrace.

  “What do you think of Mars so far?” Endrace asked me.

  “I’m not certain I’m welcome,” I said.

  “Oh, hell, don’t you worry too much,” Endrace said. “If Nova decided on one of us there would be fifteen sanders who might figure he wasn’t good enough for her and sandplug him some dark night. But an outsider, well, you’re not one of us so we don’t have to fight each other.”

  “Just me, huh?” He grinned at me and we passed into the lock, which was needed only to hold the slightly higher Earth-norm pressure inside. “But you might lose Nova to an outsider.”

  “Hell, amigo, she’s the Princess of Mars, didn’t you know that?

  No sandblasted rock grubber is good enough for her, anyway. Just got to be some visiting prince or other, in the end.”

  “Has she been hearing that Princess of Mars stuff since she was a child, from all of you?”

  “It seems that way. Her daddy started calling her Princess, the way fathers do, I guess, and it sort of spread, her being so damned pretty and all. She was always really bright and everyone was only too happy to show her stuff, take her places. It just sort of became her way, you know? It keeps most of these hardrock diggers from getting out of line. But if one of them ever did act a bit zongo toward her, there would always be four or five of us willing to converse with him about the error of his ways.”

  I stepped out of the lock and felt the higher pressure. I looked at Johann and asked, “Will there be four or five of you coming to have a talk with me some moonless night?”

  He grinned and Endrace grinned. “Hardly without a moon up there, compadre, but not much moonlight.” He scratched his jawline and he and Endrace exchanged looks. Johann looked back at me and his grin sort of melted away, into another sort of smile. “I don’t just know yet what we might have to talk to you about.”

  The others were already ahead of us, strung out through the streets that curved around the inner domes and other structures. Overhead was the big geodesic main dome, and through the milky, sandblasted triangles I could see the adjoining domes. Already we were being joined by more of the citizens of the Martian capital city, some sober, some not. They surrounded the new nurses and other ladies and some even talked to a few of the men. The Marines were collected by an officer and reluctantly left us.

  Johann pointed out some of the local sights—Fosatti’s Emporium, the Sword and Shield Pub, the Grand Martian Hotel, the Royal Bar, and Cluster’s. I kept trying to catch up with Nova, or at least keep her in sight.

  But the sights of Mars kept getting my attention, little things as well as big. There were sandslab walls, rough and uneven, slightly shiny from the plastic that had been pressure-impregnated into them, and the fine mica flakes. These formed many of the topless, flatsided structures within the dome. The inner domes, most with airlocks for safety, were the standard rockfoam construction.

  Some of the walls were laser-cut from harder rock, and here and there, imbedded in the sandstone, were museum-quality artifacts, fossils, and sliced rosestones. I saw several weathered carvings in deeper pink and dusty red, as blurred as old coins, alien and indecipherable. But, of course, everything Martian was of museum quality simply because of its novelty and rarity. We stopped momentarily at the Royal Bar; the backwall was a single massive slab of petrified fiber, carved with a convoluted design that could have been purely decorative, the Martians’ Eleven Commandments, a political ad, or a shopping list. It was beautiful, but unreadable.

  I kept falling further behind diverted by these distractions. By the time I got to middome there was no one close to me, so I stopped to stare, the complete tourist. At the intersection of three narrow streets curving in around the oldest inner domes stood a pylon of ancient rock too big to transport back to Earth, even if the nuvomartians would allow it. It was an object familiar to almost every Earthling. I stopped in amazement, startled and delighted, although I had known it was here someplace.

  I let the last of the celebrating miners and others go on down the street, their arms around the laughing nurses. Temporarily, I forgot Nova, for I had found the Colossus of Mars.

  That’s what it is called, although it isn’t that big. Only five meters high, it gives the effect of something huge. It’s deep rust-red, its original form melted by time and weather. It stands like a huge shrouded figure, vaguely humanoid, vaguely alien, vaguely anything you care to read into it.

  It just had to be a representation of an intelligent being, not an abstract carving or a natural formation. There was too much authority, too much “presence” for it to be anything but a portrait or an inspired representation of an ideal.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  Nova was leaning against the light brown wall of a warmsuit factory, her hands behind her, watching me look at it.

  “I thought you went with the others.” She shook her head and smiled. I looked up at the graceful spire of rock that had been carved, experts told us, twenty thousand years before the Egyptians raised Khufu’s pyramid. It graced the cover of half the books about Mars, in situ usually, with the thick walls of the Grand Hall behind it, half buried in drifting sand.

  I reached out and touched it. It was cool and smoothed by the thin winds, yet sensuous under my fingers. The convoluted rills of what had to be drapery but just as easily could have been huge folded wings slid under my palm as I touched time itself.

  A burst of distant laughter brought me back from wherever I had been. Already Brian Thorne was imagining what it would cost and how it might be taken back to Earth; but Diego Braddock was saying no, leave it here. Leave all of the Martian finds here. If people want to see them let them come here. You don’t put the Grand Canyon in a trailer and take it around to show.

  I laughed at myself. Brian Thorne could afford to come here, but 99.9 percent of the world could not. Would they know what they saw if they saw it? Did I know what I saw? All my life I had been hearing the statements in the museums. “He was the crazy one, you know. Cut off his ear to give it to some (whisper!) prostitute? ”

  “Left his wife and family and went off to paint in the South Pacific, he did. But look at him! Can’t even paint the sand right. When Wilma and I were down there last year with Tahiti Tours we took some stereos of what it really looks like!”

  “He was a sort of dwarf, you know. Drank something called absinthe that rots your brain like headpoppers.”

  “Old Pablo really had ’em all fooled, he did! They’d buy anything he put his name to!”

  “The intrinsic value of the negative space is offset by the chromatic change in the positive area, as anyone can see. What the artist meant to say here, in this gray, undulating section, is that the innate nature of man is that of violence and self-defeat. In my opinion . . .”

  “Isn’t that cute?”

  “I’d buy it if it was in blues. I like blue. Would go well with the new Lifestyle furniture, wouldn’t it, honey?”

  “My four-year-old robot can do that well!”

  I shook my head. Probably some lice-ridden, fur-clad grump huddled in the Trois-Frères cave grumbled that Ogg was messing up the nice clean limestone walls with his scratchings, and anyway that didn’t look a bit like Grunt, the Boar-Killer.

  The Colossus of Mars.

  I looked up at it again. I think you’re safe from that great devourer of art, Brian Thorne.

  Nova took my hand. “C’mon, everyone’s going to the Redplanet Inn.”

  I raised my eyebrows. The Redplanet Inn was the most notorious restaurant, gambling hall, hotel, and whorehouse in over forty-eight million miles.

  “Oh, come on. Everyone goes there.”

  I went with her down the street, past several assay
offices, a sandcat repair shop, and a Bureau of Martian Affairs office. We went through a lock and into another dome, a sort of vast parking lot for sandcats, capsule trailers, big-wheeled prime movers, digger gear, and scooters. In the center was a repair complex and spare parts storage. Nova took me along the left wall, curving around toward a side lock. I looked at the battered, tough little vehicles and saw one lettered Nova III sitting between Uschi Luv and Le Zombie. Further on I saw Miss Nova neatly lettered on a big Catepillar gouger. The whole left side had been sandblasted down to the bare metal but the name had been carefully repainted.

  Nova was indeed known in these parts.

  There is something about certain machinery, certain tools, that is beautiful: A sculptor’s mallet, the 1860 .44-caliber Army Colt, the General Electronic C-model fusion plant, the World War II Jeep, the Randall version of the Bowie knife, the GM Lafitte Class torchship, the Colt .2 laser, certain racing cars, Shark-class personal submarines—all are beautiful examples of a merging of art and function. The rugged, bulging, functional Ford sandcat was one of those beauties. No artist designed it, no stylist smoothed over its features with a chocolate coating of thin steel and chrome striping. Few could afford to ship anything but the bare necessities this far, and already the cost of each sandcat was several times the cost of the most expensive scratch-built Sahara racer. But they had turned out to be a triumph of unadorned beauty, generating a certain affection in their owners. They worked, they responded, they had personalities. Any craftsman knows what it is like to have the right tool for the right job, and the miners of Mars knew they had the right tool.