Beast

by Patrick McClafferty

  The older man laughed. “Most, but not all. I encourage competition and a free market society. I’ve even been known to float the occasional loan to my own competitors.”

  Solomon gave the man who had such a lurid reputation a long considering look. “Are you trying to run for king of Mars?” he asked in a serious voice.

  Giuseppe chuckled and flashed a predatory smile. “There is no such thing as king of Mars.”

  Solomon noted that Giuseppe had not answered his question.

  The shuttle banked once more onto its final approach, and in the distance, the sun glinted off the solar collectors and wind turbines that provided power to the city and the automated refineries that sat well away from the residential domes.

  The streets in Lowell were crowded with foot traffic and the occasional electric delivery vehicle. The air was on the cool side, but filled with the smells of pies and breads, meats cooking on open braziers, and the sweet scents of flowers and perfume. Street musicians with a variety of instruments strolled by singly or in small groups, and somewhere, a woman was singing. A flock of children running and laughing shot down the corridor, out a transparent airlock, and into the unfiltered, unprocessed Martian atmosphere. Red sand kicked up as they ran, and someone produced a soccer ball, which they immediately began to kick, sending it arching off in the low Martian gravity. The children bounded after it.

  Solomon was again struck by the riot of colors he saw, in the baskets of flowering plants that seemed to hang from every window to clothes to the very domes themselves.

  When questioned, Giuseppe gave him an understanding smile. “Mars is a bleak and unlovely landscape,” he said to Solomon. “And it will take centuries to cover the countryside with a softening vegetation. The colors give the residents of Lowell and the other smaller towns and villages on Mars something pleasant to look at. The unrelenting rust color can get depressing.”

  An aging shopkeeper stepped out of the front door of his small business, bowing deeply to Giuseppe and Lucinda. ”Buona giornata, Zio e la Zia.”

  Giuseppe smiled and touched the man on the shoulder. “Hello, Fazio. How are your sales doing?” The older Fontaine glanced into the small greengrocer shop, which was piled high with fresh Martian-grown produce.

  Solomon was startled to see tomatoes the size of cantaloupes and the color of the red Martian sand. Behind the store’s dome sat another slightly smaller dome that housed rows of well-tended crops.

  The man grinned openly. “Very well, Zio. Soon, I will have enough money saved to bring all my family here from Earth, and we will open the city’s first Italian restaurant.” The man colored slightly. “With your permission, we will call it Il Patrono, Zio.”

  “I would be honored, Fazio. Let me know if you have any problems getting things set up.”

  The man bowed deeply. “It will be as you say, Zio. Shall I send your regular shipment of fresh vegetables? The eggplants are doing particularly well, as is the zucchini.” His old face creased in worry. “The green beans have taken a strange Martian blight, however, and I do not recommend them.”

  Giuseppe just smiled. “Send what you think looks good, my friend, and bill me at fair market value, as usual. We will deal with the problems Mars sends us.”

  The shopkeeper nodded in relief and faded back into his store.

  “Zio and Zia?” Solomon asked as the group continued down the tubular street.

  “It is a term of affection some of the people of Lowell use for Lucinda and me. It means uncle and aunt in the old language.”

  Solomon nodded, adding another piece to the puzzle.

  From the park, the party split up into two groups. Solomon accompanied Giuseppe, Lucinda, and Elora, while Jacob Eales reluctantly shepherded the rest of the Fontaine family towards the Mall.

  Solomon’s group stopped in several more businesses with results more or less identical with the first. The last, however, was less pleasant. A shopkeeper, Duguay Lecasse, was behind on his rent for the third month in a row.

  When he entered the shop with Solomon at his side, Giuseppe was not smiling. “Good day, Duguay,” he said in a flat voice. “You can guess why I’m here.”

  The shopkeeper’s face paled, and Solomon could suddenly smell the sour stench of the man’s fear. “M-m-mister Fontaine,” the man stammered, “b-business has been bad recently, and I just need a little more time to get your—”

  “You forget that I own the casino, Duguay,” Giuseppe growled, cutting the man off in midsentence. “The manager of the casino has told me about your losses… and your little problem. You knew what the consequences would be, didn’t you?”

  The man began to shake and fell to his knees. “Please, Mr. Fontaine, don’t take my daughter. She’s only sixteen, and she’s all I have. Please no.” He began to weep. “I’ll change.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Giuseppe murmured in a hard voice. His gray eyes were glacial as he turned to Solomon. “You will find the girl in the bedroom in the back. Give her one minute to pack her things and bring her along.” Solomon nodded as he turned for the girl’s bedroom, even as he kept one ear on the conversation going on in the front room “You have six months to turn things around and pay off your debts.” Giuseppe’s voice was harsh as he addressed the cowering shopkeeper. “Should you fail, I will dispose of your daughter as I see fit, and you won’t like what happens to you.”

  The pale frightened girl that Solomon found was sitting on the edge of her bed, her eyes wide in fear. “Pack your bags or come as you are,” Solomon said, crossing his arms as he watched her throw things in a small overnight bag.

  Solomon came out of the back of the shop, exactly one minute later with a young frightened dark-haired girl in tow, a single small bag in her hand. Her eyes widened more when she saw her father on the floor.

  “Please don’t take my Mélane, Mr. Fontaine.”

  Giuseppe nodded Solomon to the door, where he followed the struggling girl out into the street.

  He looked back over his shoulder once. “Remember, Duguay, you have six months, and not a microsecond more.” His back ramrod straight, Giuseppe turned and guided the small party down the street.

  Putting his head close to his stalking employer, Solomon whispered, “Will you sell the girl as a white slave?”

  Startled, Giuseppe blinked, turning his head to look at Solomon. “Sell her as a slave? Good heavens, no!” He chuckled. “Lucinda and my daughters would kill me. I will put her into an intensive six-month business course right there at the estate, during which time my accountant will have a bright young assistant to help him, and then I’ll turn the shop over to her. Her father, I will deport to Earth. I guarantee that within a year, the bills will be paid and the clothing store will be turning a tidy profit. A smart pretty young woman with her own store won’t lack suitors.” He looked thoughtful for a moment before he continued. “Perhaps Jax would be interested.”

  Solomon stumbled and stared after the older man. Giuseppe Fontaine was a ruthless businessman, but he wasn’t the Beast; of that, Solomon was one hundred percent sure.

  The Terran, as the Earth was now being referred to in most circles, appointed the military governor of Mars, a corpulent man with florid cheeks and a red nose shaped like a potato. The lavender suit he wore clashed with his skin tone, and just looking at it gave Solomon a headache. He seemed shocked when Giuseppe, Lucinda, Elora, and Solomon walked into his office, or perhaps frightened was a better word. To Solomon, he looked like a man who had just seen all of his plans fall apart before his eyes. Giuseppe, on the other hand, was at his casual best and walked into the palatial office confidently, his hand outstretched.

  “My dear Governor Pippo Vergas, it is so good to see you again.” He shook the governor’s limp hand warmly.

  Solomon glanced at Giuseppe sharply, but couldn’t detect the slightest false note, although he knew in his heart that Giuseppe was lying through his teeth.

  “Giuseppe, Lucinda.” The governor nodded to the two sta
nding before him, then his eyes flickered to Solomon.

  “Ahhh.” Giuseppe seemed to sigh. “Military Governor Vergas, I’d like to introduce our new head of security, Solomon Draxx. You may have heard of him. Solomon received a Purple Heart and a Silver Star while in the marines. We are lucky to have him with us, just when our former security chief, Rolf, was unexpectedly called away.” Three shots in the chest will do that, Solomon thought to himself in grim humor.

  The governor had gone the color of chalk, and a bead of sweat dripped down his left temple. “It is very nice to meet you, Mr. Draxx,” the governor said in a flat emotionless voice.

  Playing on Giuseppe’s performance, Solomon bowed briefly, letting his coat fall open to reveal the handle of his military energy pistol.

  The governor’s bloodshot eyes widened, and he swallowed. “And is your family well, Mr. Fontaine?” The governor was rapidly regaining his aplomb, and his voice dripped with insincere slickness.

  Lucinda sagged dramatically against Giuseppe’s arm as her husband said, “I’m afraid that our daughter Novalie passed away. She was a frail soul, and the deaths of her brother and sister were more than her heart could take.”

  Lucinda wiped away a tear from her cheek, and Solomon quickly handed her his handkerchief.

  Giuseppe continued, “The doctors suspect a foreign influence may have been the cause of her heart failure, and I won’t rest until…” He raised his head to look the governor full in the eyes. “I find the cause and obliterate it.”

  The governor opened his mouth, probably to make a scathing remark, but Giuseppe interrupted.

  “It has been a very great pleasure to see you again, Pippo, but we have to go now.” His eyes hardened momentarily. “The rest of the family is waiting downstairs with Solomon’s assistant, and I wouldn’t want him to worry, would I?” With Lucinda on his arm, and Solomon pulling up the rear, he turned for the door and exited the office.

  The family said not one word until they were once more on the street, when Solomon stopped and bowed deeply to Giuseppe and Lucinda. “That was one of the most incredible performances I’ve ever had the pleasure to see.”

  Giuseppe smiled in genuine pleasure. “Thank you, Solomon, but the performance was mainly for your benefit.”

  It took Solomon only a moment. “Ahhh, you wanted to show me who the real villain in this whole sick scheme is. Am I right in assuming that it is Pippo Vergas, and whoever his handler is back on Earth? Only Earth could have supplied the firepower we’re looking at.”

  “Earth indeed. They have been trying to drive me off Mars for years.” Giuseppe’s shoulders sagged. “And now they’ve upped the ante by killing off my children. We need more security bodies that we can trust. Do you have any ideas?”

  Solomon grinned. “I’ve given it some thought. We need former marines. I’ll make a couple of phone calls…” He looked around but failed to see a public communication kiosk. Without a word, Giuseppe handed him his own phone. Communication technology on Mars was running a full two centuries behind Earth’s, and the old tech cell towers were few and far between on the surface of the red planet, but they provided rugged and reliable communication.

  “Make your calls, and then meet us in the Barsoom for lunch.” He nodded to a large restaurant that filled one entire modest dome. Life-sized statues of Dejah Torris and John Carter flanked the wide front door. Solomon chuckled.

  Thirty minutes later, a grinning Solomon entered the restaurant and was directed to a small private wing where a number of waiters were bustling about nervously, serving wine and appetizers. As he had before, when the wine carafe came his way, Solomon held his hand over his goblet.

  Giuseppe gave him an askance look, and Elora answered his unspoken question.

  “Solomon told me that he never drinks on duty,” she reported to her father with a small smile. “I think that it’s an overactive sense of responsibility or something religious and possibly perverted.”

  Both Giuseppe and Lucinda laughed, and after a moment, Solomon joined in. Giuseppe sipped his own wine, an expensive Martian vintage bottled from tenth-generation old-vine Martian grapes, and looked at his daughter.

  “But doesn’t it make you feel a little better to have someone like Solomon covering your back? I know that Lucinda and I certainly feel that way.” He looked up into Solomon’s eyes. “Family couldn’t have done any better.”

  Solomon knew that he’d just received a high compliment from Giuseppe.

  “So,” Giuseppe continued, “did you find us any likely candidates?”

  Solomon sipped his water. “Actually, I found a half dozen former marines who were employed in gainful, if meaningless, jobs. They were all anxious to be a part of your team, especially if it might involve more action than the regular Saturday night drunk.” He chuckled. “Once a marine always a marine.”

  “What did you offer them for wages?” Lucinda asked quietly. It had quickly become obvious that both husband and wife took an equal part in running the family business.

  “I didn’t,” Solomon replied. “All I offered was fair wages, and all six were interested.”

  Lucinda glanced at Giuseppe and nodded slowly. Giuseppe’s eyes sparkled with mischief as he named a figure that made Solomon’s eyebrows crawl up into his hairline.

  He took a long drink of his water and coughed. “Ahhh, that might be a little much, sir. Start them out at half that amount, which is still almost double what they are making now, with the understanding that in six months, their pay will be raised to the indicated sum if there have been no problems. That will give you time to look them over and decide whether or not to keep them on. Call it a probationary period, if you will.” Solomon’s smile was thin. “One of them is an electronics whiz, who more than knows his way around computers. You might think about putting him in charge of Adele, if he works out.” He grinned. “Another one of the six is a former career NCO and retired as a Master Gunnery Officer. Put him in charge of the others and hiring new recruits, and call him a lieutenant.”

  “You’ve given this some thought, haven’t you?” Elora asked.

  Solomon laughed as his meal was served. “I sat on that slow boat from Earth for a full month with nothing better to do than hit the treadmill or plot possible scenarios. One scenario required me to provide a security force that could”—he glanced up at Giuseppe—”double as a small army, if needed. I was able to find six good men in ten minutes. Give them a week, and you’ll have your security force, and then some. Let them make a few calls back to Terra, and you will have an army.”

  Giuseppe leaned back in his chair, his meal untouched, and stared at Solomon. “Young man, sometimes you frighten me with your implacable resolve.”

  Solomon shrugged as he tore into his veal. “I’m nothing special, Giuseppe.”

  “You don’t know what you are, Solomon. Not yet anyway.”

  Chapter 5

  FLIGHT AND FIGHT

  “Solomon.” Giuseppe’s voice had an edge to it that Solomon didn’t like. “You should come up to the flight deck.” He didn’t say “immediately,” but it was implied.

  Through the armored windshield of the surplus military drop shuttle, Solomon could see a finger of smoke rising into the Martian air in the distance. “That could be why Governor Vergas was so startled to see us show up in his office,” Solomon said in little more than a whisper. “How many security forces did you have left at the estate… that you could trust?”

  Giuseppe, who was looking over the pilot’s shoulder, winced. “No more than a half dozen I could truly rely on, I’m afraid. I did make sure that my trusted people were secure in the main house before we left, with all the rest ordered to patrol the premises.”

  Solomon nodded. It’s a small break, but it might allow them all to survive today, if I’m lucky, he thought, looking at the young short-haired pilot. “This is an old Lynx-class marine drop shuttle, isn’t it?” he asked in a nonchalant tone.

  “Yes, sir.” The pilot never to
ok his eyes off the windshield, but his knuckles whitened on the control yoke.

  “Is this ship armed?” he asked, after discarding the other roundabout questions he’d been about to ask. He didn’t have the time.

  The young pilot gave Giuseppe a nervous glance, and the elder Fontaine just nodded. “We have a pair of AGM 182 Spectre missiles and an ALQ 262 ECM Pod, as well as one thirty-millimeter GAU-8/A seven-barrel Gatling gun in the nose.” He gave Solomon a crooked grin. “I know that the Gatling is ancient history, but it works in the Martian sand and dust, and we can still get rounds and, more importantly… spare parts.”

  Solomon nodded, turning to the copilot. “You ever use these weapons?”

  Wide-eyed, the young woman shook her head.

  Solomon grinned. “Slide on out of there. You’re about to have a practical lesson in close air support.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Giuseppe, you might want to sit down. Things are apt to get a little bumpy.”