by Kage Baker
She clutched at Cochevelou, noting the preponderance of tools he had brought with him: anvil, portable forge, pig iron . . . and she thought of the thousand repairs the Empress’s tanks and cantilevers would now require. More than repairs: a whole new city to be built.
Drawing a deep breath, she cried: “OH, MY DEAR, I’M THE GLADDEST WOMAN THAT EVER WAS!”
“MUM! MUM!” Mona fought her way through the blowing sand. “THEY’VE COME ROUND!”
Mary broke from Cochevelou’s embrace, and he followed her back to the cab of the Brick’s freighter, where Manco and Mr. Morton were sitting up, or more correctly propping themselves up, weak as newborns, letting Ottorino swab BioGoo on their cuts and scrapes.
“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT, BOYS? WHERE’S THE HERETIC GONE?” Mary demanded.
Mr. Morton began to cry, but Manco stared at her with eyes like eggs and said, “There was a miracle, Mama.”
Miracles are good for business, and so is the attraction of a hot bath in a frozen place of eternal dirt, and so are fine ales and beers in an otherwise joyless proletarian agricultural paradise. And free arethermal energy is very good indeed, if it’s only free to you and costs others a packet, especially if they have to crawl and apologize to you and treat you like a lady in addition to paying your price for it. So is having the exclusive patent on pollinating microbots, in a rapidly expanding agricultural economy.
Five years down the line there was a new public house sign, what with the Queen of England being scoured away at last by relentless grit, and a fine new sign it was. Two grinning giants, one red and one black, supported between them a regal little lady in fine clothes. At her throat was the painted glory of a red diamond; in her right hand was a brimful mug, and her left hand beckoned the weary traveler to warmth and good cheer. Inside, in the steamy warmth, Sherpas drank their beer with butter.
Five years down the line there was no rebuilt Temple of Diana; only a modest Ephesian Mission, a meek supplier of soups, herbal teas and pamphlets to any interested takers. But on the mountain there was a second stone figure in its own grotto, a new saint for the new faith. It resembled nothing so much as the hood ornament of an ancient Rolls-Royce, a sylph leaning forward into the wind, discreetly shrouded by slipstream short of actual nakedness. Its smile was distinctly unsettling. Its one eye was a red diamond.
Five years down the line there were holocards on the back bar, all featuring little Mary De Wit of Amsterdam, whether screaming and red-faced for the camera in her first bath, or holding tight to Mr. De Wit’s long hand while paddling her toes in the blue sea, or smiling like a sticky cherub before a massed extravagance of Solstice presents and Chanukah sweets, or solemn on her first day of school.
Five years down the line Emporium di Vespucci had relocated into three connected domes farther up the mountain, vast and magnificent, stocking everything a growing community could desire to furnish the blocks of flats that were being dug into the lots fronting the new Commerce Square. Three little Vespuccis rode their tricycles up and down the Emporium’s aisles, pretending to be cowboys riding the open range.
Five years down the line there was indeed a Center for the Performing Arts on Mars, and its thin black-clad manager put on very strange plays indeed, drawing the young intellectuals from what used to be Settlement Base, and there were pasty-faced disciples of Martian drama (they called themselves the UltraViolets) creating a new art form in the rapidly expanding city on Mons Olympus.
Five years down the line, Haulers roared along the completed High Road in as much safety as Mars afforded, which was still more danger than a sane man would face, and the ones who perished became legends. Somewhat more prudently, Crosley & Peebles Enterprises operated its fleet of mobiles closer in to Mons Olympus, offering high-rolling entertainment, dentistry, insurance policies for any eventuality, the finest in escort hospitality for both genders, and pharmaceutical notions.
Five years down the line a thriving community had grown up around the old Settlement Base and former clan lands, calling itself, with proud lack of imagination, Mars One. There were long green fields spidering out along the Martian equator and even down to the lowlands, because that’s what a good socialist work ethic will get you, and many little socialists born, because that’s what the life force produces on any world. It must be admitted there had been some grumbling about the cost of renting biis for pollination, however. Up in the city they called Mars Two, the bright nano-rainbow flitted free of charge, through domed rose gardens planted to the greater glory of Her who smiled serene in Her cloak of stars, Mother of miracles like roses that bloom in despite of bitter frost.