Birth Of Fire

by Jerry Pournelle

  They didn't pay much attention to me after that. The brew was good, heavier and a lot more flavorful than Earthside beer. I found out the bartender owned the place and made the stuff himself. He'd been a Mars General miner in his day, which is why a lot of the MG crew came to his place.

  The miners didn't seem to be a lot different from the Dog Soldiers: good men, tough and proud, but men with no place to go. They talked a lot about women they'd had, and which brothels were best, and how pilgrim day was the lousiest time to come to town, and how they wished the goddamn company would tell 'em when the Feddies were bouncing pilgrims so working stiffs could pick another day when the whores weren't slot-machining.

  After a while somebody suggested they ought to look up an old buddy. I hoped they'd take me with them. I liked their company. But when they stood, Andy said, "See you around, Garr. If you sign up with MG, God help you, but look me up."

  I went back out into the square. It wasn't like Earth at all, not topside and not Undertown. There were uniformed men I supposed were cops, but they didn't hassle anybody. The place was crowded, but not like downtown Baltimore, and except for us newcomers nobody was wandering aimlessly the way they do on Earth.

  Another difference was that everyone carried a knife in plain sight. Some had big ones, broadbladed things designed for combat and not much else. Others had smaller and more useful-looking sheath knives; but everybody was bladed. According to Zihily there were few guns on Mars, and the Federation people had them.

  I saw a knife fight five minutes after I left the tavern.

  Two men in blue coveralls, like ours but faded and patched, came out of a bar. They were shouting at each other. When they got outside they drew knives and squared off. A couple of cops drifted over, but they only stood and watched.

  It started as a formal affair, with a lot of dodging and weaving, feints and counterfeints. They were good. Then the smaller guy made a tricky pass, thrusting up underhanded, and the big guy looked surprised as blood poured out of a gash in his lower arm.

  "I'll be damnedl" he said. He put his hand over the cut and drew away. "I will be dipped in dung."

  "Probably."

  "First blood enough?" a cop asked.

  "Christ yes," the winner said. "Caz? Enough?"

  "Oh hell yes." The loser looked at the cops. "I'll be at work tomorrow. No time lost."

  The cop looked critically at the wound. "If you say so." He looked to his partner and got a nod. "Okay.” "Right," Caz said. He looked at his bloody arm again. "I will be dipped in crap."

  "Probably."

  They went back into the bar.

  There were a lot of company offices around the main square, places like Peabody, GE, Westinghouse, and the other big outfits. The smaller companies had tables set up in the open space. They were all pitching how wonderful it would be to work for their outfits, but I noticed the wages were low and about the same no matter where you went.

  Most of my classmates drank up their starter money, signed on with a company, drank up their bounties, and shipped off to work. They were gone within two days.

  A few of us were still around. Lefty had a floating crap game that he said was making food and air money for himself and Kelso, and he was talking about opening a gambling hall when they had a stake. I didn't see much future in that, even if I'd been needed, which I wasn't.

  Nobody cared about the dice games. Nobody cared about anything that didn't cost labor time or get in the way. I learned fast: you don't block the path of an armed man, and you don't break up the furniture in bars. Neither lesson came the hard way for me; I learned from another pilgrim's experience.

  I found a tunnel end to sleep in. They'd been digging out to expand the city, but this project was halted for lack of a labor force. Nobody bothered me. I figured I had nothing worth stealing, anyway. That turned out to be stupid: I had a charged air tag, and that would be worth my life if there was anybody around desperate enough to cut my throat for it. Nobody was, just then.

  Halfway between my tunnel end and the downtown square was a store. It was quite literally a hole in the wall, owned by a man who'd been crippled in the mines. His buddies had chipped out a couple of rooms for him, and he sold food, beer, water, and anything else he could buy cheap and sell later. He gave me a runner's job, going to the bakery for stale bread to feed his chickens, carrying chicken droppings to the recycling works, running across town to deliver beer to some old friend who gave him business out of charity. The wages were simple: two hours work for a meal with beer, and he wouldn't pay my air taxes. It was hardly a permanent job.

  Everything was expensive. It cost more if it came in a can. In fact, cans were worth as much as what was in them, and some scraggly kids made a living cruising the tunnels looking for miners' beer parties where they might get thrown a can or two.

  After a couple of days old Chad trusted me enough to let me sleep in the store. I worked pretty hard for him, straightening up the store and chipping out some new shelves in the rock. He needed that done, but he didn't have the tools, and he was too stove in to do it with hammer and chisel and too broke to buy plastic shelving.

  I finished a little niche, not one hell of a lot accomplished for all that work. He drew a beer from his barrel and handed it to me. "Garr, I can use the help, but what are you waitin' for? I can't pay your air taxes, and that tag's going to start turning color."

  "Yeah, I know. Man said to wait for a friend of his."

  "You give your word?"

  "Sort of."

  "He give his?"

  "Yeah," I said.

  "Good man?"

  I thought about that. Was Farr a good man? I wanted him to be. "I think so."

  Chad nodded gravely. "Then you wait, that's all. It'll be okay. If something's happened, though, maybe my buddies can fix you up with a short hitch at Peabody. It's not a bad outfit, as outfits go."

  I went back to chipping rock. It wasn't as hard as granite, but it wasn't soapstone either. It was red like everything else. "Mars’ anything like you expected?" Chad asked.

  "Well, they kept saying on Earth that Mars was a frontier. I guess I expected it to be like the old western movies.. "

  "Is, lots of ways."

  "Maybe." I laid down the hammer and took another slug of beer. "But you can't get out on your own. Can't live off the land."

  "Farmers do."

  "Sure, with a hundred grand worth of equipment-"

  "Don't take that much. Work for a good outfit, save your wages, the banks will put up a lot of it if you've saved a stake. Ten years work, maybe, if you save your money. Then you're out of here. That's how most of the Rimrats got started. Wish I'd done it. Can't, now."

  I thought about it. When you're twenty, ten years, is a long time. Half your life. But there sure didn't seem much future hanging around here. "If this other deal doesn't come through, maybe I'll do that," I said. "Only I wonder if I can save the money - “ "That's the blowout for most, all right," Chad said. "You just stick tight a couple of days, though."

  "Sure, you need the help-"

  "Aah, there's that too, but maybe things'll work out better'n you expect."

  "Sure." But I didn't have much hope of it. A man's word is either good or it isn't, Farr had said. It looked like his wasn't. Why had I expected anything diferent from a prison warden?

  I'd been there ten days and my air tag was turning from green to yellow. It was getting time to move on. I figured another couple of days would do it.

  A big man came into the store. He wasn't as big as Kelso, and he was a lot older, but there was nothing small about him. "Ho, Chad," he called. Then he saw me and looked me over, slowly, in a way I didn't like.

  Chad came out of the other room. "Sarge Wechsung," he said. "Figured you'd show up one of these days." Chad looked at me about the way Sarge had. "Come for the kid?"

  "Yeah. Pittson, I had a hell of a job runnin' you down. Old Man said to look you up next time I was in town. Had some trouble gettin' here."


  "The Old Man? Oh, you mean Superintendent Farr-"

  "Sure." They both talked at once, cutting me off, as if they didn't want me to say the name.

  "I hear you're looking for a job," Wechsung said. "I got one. Come on, let's go, I'm runnin' out of time." His voice was raspy, as if he'd been used to shouting a lot. It didn't sound particularly friendly.

  "Just where are we going?" I asked.

  "I got a station out on the Rim. Windhome. Nobody watchin' the place, got to be gettin' back. Need a farmhand. You'll like it. Work your arse off, do you some good. Right, Chad?"

  "Damn right," the old man said. He rubbed his crippled leg. "Wish you'd been around when I come here. Go on, Garrett. He's a good man."

  Take the word of a man I didn't know about a man I'd just met. Well, what the hell, I thought. What have I got to lose?

  A lot.

  "Let's go, let's go, got to get you outfitted," Wechsung said. "Chad, we'll be down at Smitty's place if you want to send down some lunch -“

  “Send how? You're stealin' my runner. I'll bring it myself."

  "Right." Wechsung walked out. He didn't look back to see if I was following.

  I stood there a moment, then caught up with him.

  FIVE

  The suit was a tight bodystocking of an elastic weave, with metal threads running through it that fitted like it had been painted on. The outfitter chewed gum and made stupid jokes about blowouts while he literally built the suit around me. He cut the cloth, stretched it, and heatwelded the plastic threads while it was in place. Then I took off that part and he finished the welding job. When it was all done it fit snugly, not quite tight enough to cut off circulation, and looked something like a thin version of a skin diver's wet suit.

  "We first came here, they didn't have thread that would stand up," the outfitter said. "This new stuff's great, though. You can gain maybe five kilos and it'll still fit. Don't put on more weight than that, though, or you'll be buying a new suit."

  The pressure suit ended with a gasket at the neck. A helmet dogged onto that. With pressure in the helmet you could go outside. The skintight bodystocking reinforces your own skin so it can take the internal pressure, and your sweat glands are the temperature regulator. Marsmen wear skintights everywhere because if there's a blowout and you get your helmet on quick, you may stay alive.

  That was quite a helmet, with lights, a radio, and hoses meant to connect to air tanks. The tanks went in a backpack. There was more to the outfit: reflective coveralls, heavy foam-insulated jacket and trousers, thick gloves, a tool kit that snapped onto a belt, boots, a knife, and another radio in a holster.

  Smitty the outfitter had set up a table outside for people waiting while he worked on their gear. Chad brought lunch and beer.

  "Doesn't this cost a lot, Mr. Wechsung?" I asked.

  "Call me Sarge. Sure it costs."

  I didn't understand and I guess my face said so.

  "Think you're not worth it? Hell of a time to tell me. Once Smitty starts cuttin', I've bought it."

  I didn't say anything, and he laughed. It was a cheerful laugh. He didn't sound worried about anything, but I knew it would take more than a year for me to save up what he was paying. "Let us worry about the costs," he said. He looked around. No one was listening to us. "The Skipper thinks you might make a Marsman, and I take the Commander's word for it."

  "You mean Mr.-"

  "Yeah. "

  Commander. That squared with the black bands on Farr's coverall sleeves. "Are you still in the Federation Service?" I asked.

  "Hell no. Retired years ago. So did the Old Man. He went to prisoner-chasin' and I went to farming. What do they call you, Pittson?"

  "Garrett's my name-"

  "Fine. Garrett, you were told to think about something. Did you?"

  "Yes.

  "And?"

  "I'll make my word good."

  Sarge grinned. "Okay. And you can trust people, a little anyway, or you wouldn't have waited for me. Garrett, I have a big place out there. Lots of work. You'll sweat your balls off, and I won't pay you much, but you stick with me a Mars year - that's two Earth years - and you'll know the score and have a stake you can use to get out on your own. That's what you want, right?"

  "I think so-"

  "What anybody in his right mind wants."

  Chad shuffled up to collect the beer mugs. Across the square a group of miners came out of a brothel. They were laughing and shouting as they got onto the jitney that would take them back to their barracks.

  "What happened to the last man you had helping you?" I asked.

  "Got his own place. A couple of dozen have come through Windhome, Garrett. Some got themselves killed. Some couldn't stick it and ran back here to work for a company outfit. But five have their own stations."

  "And why are you doing this?"

  Sarge shrugged. "You ask too many questions. Finish your beer. Your stuff's about ready and we've got to move before sundown. The tractor won't run so good in the dark."

  The tractor wouldn't run at all in the dark. It had solar cells all over it - on the roof, on the decks in front and behind the passenger compartment, and on wings that could fold up when it was inside but unfolded when it was running. The solar cells furnished all the power.

  It was very comfortable. The passenger compartment was bigger than I had expected and had a bunk as well as seats. This was the only pressurized part of the tractor; the rest would seal up to keep out dust, but if you had to carry cargo under pressure you put it in airtight bags.

  Sarge drove up the ramp from inside the city. It went up steeply, a dark tunnel with a few lights. There were three sets of air locks at the top. Then we were outside. The sun was high in the west; it seemed very bright after my time in Hellastown.

  When we got onto the plains, the motors whined as the solar cell wings extended. "Okay, watch what I do," Sarge said. "Now we're outside we switch from batteries to direct solar power. This thing develops about fifty horsepower, enough to move pretty fast and still keep the batteries charged in full sun, but you don't want to run at night. It won't go more than a couple of hours."

  I looked around at the Marscape. It was bleak, and in two minutes we were out of sight of Hellastown. We drove through fields of boulders. They came in all types, from house-sized to just rocks. Red dust blew all around. "What happens if you're caught out at night?" I asked.

  "You pray a lot." Sarge nodded to himself. "Pray a lot and hope your air lasts. Then curl up and go to sleep. Batteries should give enough heat to last the night. It gets cold out there."

  About a hundred below zero, I remembered from the school. But in summer daytime it was warm enough to go out without a jacket as long as you had a p-suit and air.

  "The manuals for the tractor are in that compartment," Sarge said. "When we get home, take 'em inside and read up."

  "Sure."

  "And don't forget to put 'em back before one of us has to use Aunt Ellen again."

  "Aunt Ellen?"

  "The tractor. Next to your p-suit, a tractor's the most important thing in your life. Treat Aunt Ellen right and she'll take care of you."

  A strong wind was blowing outside. Hellas is a low basin, formed a billion years ago when a rock the size of Greenland smashed into Mars. The impact melted the rock, and lava flowed up from inside Mars to cover the hole. Huge chunks of rock were thrown up into a rimwall, and more rocks were thrown out to make another ring of secondary craters around that.

  Then for the next billion years-Hellas and the Rim were pounded by smaller meteoroids. They left the basin flat but partly covered with junk. Since there weren't any hills, the visibility was terrible; we were lost in a jungle of rocks. The wind whipped the dust around so thick we could hardly see out.

  "You're crazy, you know," I said.

  "How's that?"

  "You don't know a damn thing about me. Superintendent Farr talked to me for maybe three hours-"

  "Best not mention that when any
body else is around."

  "Yeah, but-"

  "We have the test results, Garrett. Psych and skills both. And maybe we've kept an eye on you better than you know."

  "You still don't know I'm not planning to murder you for the tractor!"

  Sarge laughed. "What would you do with it? Everybody knows it's mine. And just how long would you live out here?"

  "Yeah." I watched the dust for a moment. "They taught us just enough, didn't they? Just enough to know there's a lot they didn't tell us."

  Sarge grinned. It was a nice grin. "See how smart you're gettin' already? Know any good songs?"

  He knew a lot more of them than I did. We sang along to pass the time.

  "You got to learn more songs," he complained. "Here, let's teach you `The Highland Tinker.' We'll work up to `Eskimo Nell' - Hey! Look, over there. See it?" I looked where he pointed. "Nothing I see." "Gone now. Sand cat, maybe." I looked at him to see if he was putting me on.

  He didn't look like it. "An animal? There aren't any animals on Mars!"

  "That's what the books say. Me, I'm not so sure. Every now and then you see something moving. Just a flash. Some say they've seen 'em close up, about the size of a squirrel, red brown, blends with the sand."

  "I thought animals weren't even possible. No air."

  "Yeah." Sarge grinned again. "I'm not sayin' those who've seen 'em close up hadn't had a few. Still in all, it's a big planet and there's a lot about it we don't know."

  "That's for sure." And there are plants, I thought. Plants that have the biologists climbing the walls, because they're kin to Earth lichens and can even crossbreed with some Earth strains, but they aren't the same at all. Mars plants cover themselves with a glass bubble like snail shell but more transparent.

  "Wonder what'll happen to 'em?" Sarge said.

  "To who?"

  "To the sand cats. When we get the Project goin', can the goddamn cats live after there's air? But they do say Mars has had air before, so maybe they can. Hope so."

  "Tell me about this project. Commander Farr mentioned it, but I haven't heard much from anybody else."