The Empress of Mars (Company)

by Kage Baker

  “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.”

  “No—” began Mr. Rotherhithe.

  “—Problem. It’s the least we can do,” said Mr. Nennius, smiling. “And may I offer a further incentive? The British Arean Company will provide air and heat free of charge until your generators are built and online.”

  Mr. Rotherhithe closed his mouth. He saw the shrewd looks being exchanged between the members of the Collective; he heard Mr. Nennius going on and on in a pleasant bray, describing Mars in lyrical terms for their benefit. Mr. Rotherhithe withdrew mentally. He imagined Ms. Lash towering above him, fury in her fine eyes, and bit his lip as he imagined the impact of her riding crop . . . and History put down her spiked heel and pinned him securely.

  CHAPTER 19

  Foundations

  In spite of aggravations, Celtic Energy Systems got its pumping station built and online. Though the easy-to-follow assembly holo was indeed in five languages, they turned out to be Telugu, Swahili, Pashto, Malayalam and Hakka. Fortunately, most of the orderlies in the Hospital where Mr. Morton had grown up had spoken Swahili, and he had picked up enough to follow assembly directions.

  Of course, the pipes hadn’t been installed yet, so there was no way to send water, power, heat or steam anywhere; but Mr. Morton ha
d fabricated an elegant little neo-Gothic structure to house the pumping and power station, a sort of architectural prototype, as he explained, for the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Cabaret, and he was already happily designing the Downtown Arts Plaza and Promenade.

  Ottorino squinted against the sunlight, peered up at the clock on the façade of the town hall. Any minute now, the stagecoach would be arriving from Kansas City, with the hired gunmen aboard. And he had only his six-gun and his sense of justice to defend himself . . .

  Odd, though, how disagreeably yellow the sunlight seemed, and how dark a blue the sky was. And what a leaden heaviness seemed to bear him down! He put up a hand to wipe his sweating face and, to his horror, encountered no mask. Why had he gone outside without his mask? He turned and bolted for the saloon, but saw that it had no airlock: only the swinging doors, and what protection would they afford from the airless void? Rowan, where was Rowan, had she been able to mask up in time?

  He woke sweating, and she was struggling awake too in his arms where he clenched her. “What?” she demanded in PanCelt, and then repeated her question in her charmingly accented Italian. He collapsed backward in relief, into the cozy layer of spongy lichen that served as a mattress.

  “Only a foolish dream, my love,” he said. Rowan made a tiny disgruntled noise and curled up against him once more. He checked his buke and saw that it was early morning. In another half hour Mamma Griffith would be pumping water for the tea, and the one-eyed madwoman would begin frying up breakfast. The little white sun would peer over the close horizon, beautifully rimmed in violet. The sky would pale to a thin wintery blue, with pink plumes of dust whirling in the distance. And Ottorino would go forth into the bracing frost with a light heart, and a lighter step, to the day’s work . . .

  Rowan yawned, stretched, and looked up at him. “You answer her the communication from your brothers send by this time?” she inquired, in Italian.

  “Not yet,” said Ottorino.

  “You should do this,” said Rowan.

  “Okay,” said Ottorino, and pulling out his buke he thumbed in the message function and dictated: “Dear Giulio and Giuseppe, how are you? Please give my love to Elvira, Sophia, Clara, Gianetta, and all the little children. At the moment I am lying in bed with my beautiful bride, who sends you all sisterly kisses.”

  Rowan made an outraged sound and slapped his arm.

  “You don’t want to send them kisses? Yes? Oh, you want me to be businesslike. Very well. My brothers, thank you for the crates of merchandise, which arrived here safely yesterday. We have not unpacked them yet because I am in the process of laying the power and water lines for the Emporium. This should be finished in a few more days. It would have been done before now but our friends from the Celtic Federation about whom I told you have not been able to work. They have some legal problem and are all very upset. Do not be alarmed, though, as I am working very hard and my Incan friend is helping me. By next week we will have water, air, and light, and Emporium di Vespucci will have a grand opening.”

  “Good,” said Rowan.

  “My wife makes me work very hard, so I had better send this and get back to work,” Ottorino finished, and sent his message on to the relay station queue with a flick of his thumb. “They’ll like you better if they think you are managing me,” he explained, rolling over and finding his psuit in the shadows at the back of the loft. He shook lichen from it and pulled it on himself while lying down.

  “So you’re starting to feel trapped,” said Rowan, in PanCelt. “I knew you would. I wonder how long you’ll stick it out?” But in Italian she said only, “I am traveling down to make your tea.”

  She descended on her line, like a nymph of the air. He caught the line as it came back up, clipped it on, leaned out and soared down proudly as an eagle.

  They went out all together to the work site, Ottorino and Manco and Mr. Morton, trundling the dolly with its big tubes of caulking material. Chiring accompanied them with his handcam.

  “What did mankind imagine, when it first contemplated its flight into the stars?” he intoned into his recorder, in Nepali. “A brief examination of early science fiction reveals a touching confidence in state-supported technology. Giant equipment was envisioned, perhaps run by humanoid robots, as silver-clad settlers watched from the comfort of their rocket ships. Atomic space-age life would be effortless and clean! No one thought for a moment of sweat, blisters, or shovels. Will humanity continue its voyages among the stars when it understands the labor involved?”

  Ottorino grinned into the foremost camera, turned up the volume knob on his mask and hefted his pick. “Coming soon to the Tharsis Bulge!” he said in Italian. “Emporium di Vespucci, where the finest in domestic goods can be had for low, low prices! Whether you’re equipping yourself for a prospecting expedition or simply furnishing the home, Emporium di Vespucci is your first choice for value and economy!”

  They came to the worksite and resumed the long monotonous labor: dig a length of trench, drop in a length of pipe, connect the pipe, repeat. They had found that there was no point in digging the whole trench first, as the winds would only fill it up with red sand at once. They were five pipelengths farther down the hill by the time Ottorino spotted Rowan carrying their midday meal down the Tube. They had crossed half the distance to where she waited by the lock when the siren went off.

  “What on Earth?” Mr. Morton turned, staring. Chiring swung around and trained his handcam on the lock down by Morrigan Hall, from which the CeltCart, the Rover, and all four Jinma tractors came rocketing. With a spray of gravel and rising plumes of dust they fanned out, seemingly intent on following the perimeter line of Settlement Base.

  “What’s happened?” Rowan demanded when they stepped through the lock, and then repeated her question in Italian.

  “Is there an emergency?” Ottorino inquired.

  “They’ll announce something in half a minute,” said Mr. Morton, wringing his hands.

  But no announcement came. After ten minutes it seemed a shame to let the tea get cold, so they drank it and ate the sandwiches Rowan had brought, still staring out at the dust plumes making their way around the far end of Settlement Base.

  “Perhaps they’re having some sort of race,” Chiring suggested.

  “They’re supposed to be helping us,” said Manco, annoyed. “Not having tractor races.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t that,” said Rowan. “We’ll find out in another minute.”

  The minute came and went. At last they spotted someone making her way up the Tube from below: Lulu from Clan Morrigan, with tears streaming from the edges of her mask and drying to little salt-crusts. She seemed frightened.

  “Rowan, dear, where’s herself?”

  “Home,” said Rowan. “This is the day we brew the porter. What’s going on?”

  “It’s our Perrik,” Lulu replied with a whimper.

  It transpired, when Lulu had been escorted to the Empress and sat down with a drink, and Mary had disengaged herself from the brewing process sufficiently to come lend a sympathetic ear, that the British Arean Company had once more made a play for seizing custody of Perrik in order to ship him down to Hospital. And, though it turned out that in fact what the British Arean Company had done was simply file another copy of their original demand in accordance with the appeals process that was dragging its way through some distant court, the clan operator who took the incoming message didn’t read far enough to discover that before he had gone haring off to tell the others. Some individual—Lulu swore she’d never reveal whom, as no one should be saddled with such shame—had misunderstood, thinking that the British Arean Company officials were in fact on their way to Morrigan Hall even now with an armed team of Public Health Officers, and this person had run out to the nearest allotment and shouted the news to the workers there, so that they might come rushing with their farm implements to Perrik’s defense.

  And, despite all the excitement, one or two sharp-eyed people had noticed that the biis, who had
been roaming over the allotment doing their job, had then risen in a cloud and streamed out through one of the air conduits. Other people, not yet having heard the news, had also seen biis deserting the allotments en masse, and wondered why.

  By the time the message had actually been read all the way through, and all the shouted orders countermanded and all the panic had subsided, it was found that there wasn’t a bii to be seen anywhere. Shortly afterward, it was discovered that Perrik was missing.

  “With only his dear psuit and mask gone,” said Lulu, brushing away tears. “The poor little unworldly darling didn’t take so much as a crust nor a thermos bottle with him, and he’s nowhere within the clan holdings, and chief is certain he’s got frightened and run off Outside! His only child!” she added, with a resentful glance at Alice’s baby bulge.

  “Perrik’s not a child. So you’re all searching the bounds,” said Mary patiently. “Sure he didn’t leave a note or anything?”

  “Wasn’t that the first thing we looked for?” said Lulu with a wail. “And chief is just beside himself! Of course he went rushing out with the search crews, but you know how the wind blows away tracks up here. But now we’ve gone and lost our biis, that were going to make us all billionaires! And there’s some saying it would be better for the poor darling to die up here, rather than get carted away down to some Hospital where they’d put him on all manner of meds and keep him locked up until the end of his blessed days—”

  “Right,” said Mary, who had had enough. “I’ll just go down the hill and have a look at things, then, shall I?”

  Those members of the clan who were not out on the search had assembled in Morrigan Hall, and were watching the quartered feed from the Jinmas’ forecams on the big screen there, lamenting and sighing. Just as well I’m not a BAC spy, thought Mary as she wandered in to Cochevelou’s chambers unquestioned. The hatch through into Perrik’s room had been left unsealed, half-open in fact. She went through and looked around.