Empress of Mars

by Kage Baker

  Mr. De Wit set his mug aside, folded his hands and said:

  “In a minute I'm going to ask you how you got the diamond, but I'm going to tell you a few things first, and it's important that you listen closely.

  “What you sent us is a red diamond, a true red, which is very rare. The color doesn't come from impurities, but from the arrangement of the crystal lattice within the stone itself. It weighs 306 carats at the present time, uncut, and preliminary analysis indicates it has remarkable potential for a modified trillion cut. It would be a unique gem even if it hadn't come from Mars. The fact that it did makes its potential value quite a bit greater.”

  He took the buke from its case and connected the projector arm and dish. Mary watched with suspicion as he completed setup and switched it on. After a couple of commands a holo-image shot forth, hanging in the dark air between them, and Mary recognized the lump she'd entrusted to Finn.

  “That's my diamond!”

  “As it is now,” said Mr. De Wit. “Here's what we propose to do with it.” He gave another command and the sullen rock vanished. In its place was an artist's conception of a three-cornered stone the color of an Earth sunset. Mary caught her breath.

  “Possibly 280 carats,” said Mr. De Wit.

  “What's it worth?”

  “That all depends,” Mr. De Wit replied. “A diamond is only worth the highest price you can get for it. The trick is to make it desirable. It's red, it's from Mars—those are big selling points. We'll need to give it a fancy name. At present,” and he coughed apologetically, “it's being called the Big Mitsubishi, but the marketing department will probably go with either the War-God's Eye or the Heart of Mars.”

  “Yes, yes, whatever,” said Mary.

  “Very well. And Polieos is prepared to cut, polish and market the diamond. We can do this as your agents, in which case our fee will be deducted from the sale price, or we can buy it from you outright. Assuming,” and Mr. De Wit held up a long forefinger warningly, “that we can establish that you are, in fact, the owner.”

  “Hm.” Mary frowned at the tabletop. She had a pretty good idea of what was coming next.

  “You see, Ms. Griffith, under the terms of your Allotment lease with the BAC, you are entitled to any produce grown on the land. The terms of your lease do not include mineral rights to the aforesaid land. Therefore—”

  “If I dug it up on my Allotment, it belongs to the BAC,” said Mary.

  “Exactly. If, however, someone sold you the diamond,” and Mr. De Wit looked around at the Empress again, his gaze dwelling on the more-than-rustic details, “say perhaps some colorful local character who found it somewhere else and traded it to you for a drink—well, then, not only is it your diamond, but we have a very nice story for the marketing department at Polieos.”

  “I see,” said Mary.

  “Good. And now, Ms. Griffith, if you please: how did you come into possession of the diamond?” Mr. De Wit sat back and folded his hands.

  Mary spoke without pause. “Why, sir, one of our regulars brought it in! An Ice Hauler, as it happens, and he found it somewhere on his travels between poles. Traded it to me for two pints of my best Ares Lager.”

  “Excellent.” Smiling, Mr. Dr. Wit shut off the buke and stood. “And now, Ms. Griffith, may I see the Allotment where you didn't find the diamond?”

  * * * *

  As they were walking back from the field, and Mr. De Wit was wiping the clay from his hands, he said quietly:

  “It's just as well the land isn't producing anything much. When the diamond becomes public knowledge, you can expect the BAC to make you an offer for the Allotment.”

  “Even though I didn't find the diamond there?” said Mary warily.

  “Yes. And I would take whatever they offer, Ms. Griffith, and I would buy passage back to Earth.”

  “I'll take what they offer, but I'm not leaving Mars,” said Mary. “I've hung on through bad luck and I'm damned if good luck will pry me out. This is my home!”

  Mr. De Wit tugged at his beard, unhappy about something.

  “You'll have more than enough money to live in comfort on Earth,” he said. “And things are about to change up here, you know. As soon as anyone suspects there's real money to be made on Mars, you won't know the place.”

  “I think I'd do smashing, whatever happens,” said Mary. “Miners drink, don't they? Anywhere people go to get rich, they need places to spend their money.”

  “That's true,” said Mr. De Wit, sighing.

  “And just think what I can do with all that money!” Mary crowed. “No more making do with the BAC's leftovers!” She paused by a transparency and pointed out at the red desolation. “See that? It's nobody's land. I could have laid claim to it any time this five years, but what would I have done with it? It's the bloody BAC has the water and the lights and the heating and the vizio I'd need!

  “But with money...”

  By the time they got back to the Empress she was barreling along in her enthusiasm with such speed that Mr. De Wit was panting as he tried to keep up. She jumped in through the airlock, faced her household (just in from the field of glorious combat and settling down to a celebratory libation) flung off her mask and cried: “Congratulate me, you lot! I'm the richest woman on Mars!”

  “You did bet on the match,” said Rowan reproachfully.

  “I did not,” said Mary, thrusting a hand at Mr. De Wit. “You know who this kind gentleman is? This is my extremely good friend from Amsterdam.” She winked hugely. “He's a gem of a man. A genuine diamond in the rough. And he's brought your mother very good news, my dears.”

  Stunned silence while everyone took that in, and then Mona leaped up screaming.

  “Thediamondthediamondthediamond! Omigoddess!”

  “How much are we getting for it?” asked Rowan at once.

  “Well—” Mary looked at Mr. De Wit. “There's papers and things to sign, first, and we have to find a buyer. But there'll be more than enough to fix us all up nicely, I'm sure.”

  “Very probably,” Mr. De Wit agreed.

  “We finally won't be POOR anymore!” caroled Mona, bounding up and down.

  “Congratulations, Mama!” said Manco.

  “Congratulations, Mother,” said Chiring.

  Mr. Morton giggled uneasily.

  “So ... this means you're leaving Mars?” he said. “What will the rest of us do?”

  “I'm not about to leave,” Mary assured him. His face lit up.

  “Oh, that's wonderful! Because I've got nothing to go back to, down there, you know, and Mars has been the first place I ever really—”

  “What do you MEAN we're not leaving?” said Alice in a strangled kind of voice. “You're ruining my life again, aren't you?”

  She turned and fled. Her bedchamber being as it was in a loft accessible only by rope ladder, Alice was unable to leap in and fling herself on her bed, there to sob furiously; so she resorted to running away to the darkness behind the brew tanks and sobbing there.

  “...felt as though I belonged in a family,” Mr. Morton continued.

  * * * *

  Alice might weep, but she was outvoted.

  Rowan opted to stay on Mars. Mona waffled on the question until the boy-to-girl ratio on Earth was explained to her, after which she firmly cast her lot with the Red Planet. Chiring had no intention of leaving; his Dispatches from Mars had doubled the number of subscribers to the Kathmandu Post, which was run by his sister's husband, and as a result of the Mars exposes he looked fair to win Nepal's highest journalism award.

  Manco had no intention of leaving either, since it would be difficult to transport his life's work. This was a shrine in a grotto three kilometers from the Empress, containing a cast-stone life-sized statue of the Virgen de Guadalupe surrounded by roses sculpted from a mixture of pink Martian dust and Manco's own blood. It was an ongoing work of art, and an awesome and terrible thing.

  The Heretic, when asked if she would like to return to Earth, became so
distraught that her ocular implant telescoped and retracted uncontrollably for five minutes before she was able to stammer out a refusal. She would not elaborate. Later she drank half a bottle of Black Label and was found unconscious behind the malt locker.

  “So, you see? We're staying,” said Mary to the Brick, in grim triumph.

  “Way to go, Beautiful,” said the Brick, raising his breakfast pint of Ares Lager. “I just hope you're ready to deal with the BAC, because this'll really get up their noses. And I hope you can trust this Dutchman.”

  “Here he is now,” said Chiring sotto voce, looking up from the taphead he was in the act of changing. They raised their heads to watch Mr. De Wit's progress down from the ceiling on his line. He made it to the floor easily and tied off his line like a native, without one wasted gesture; but as he turned to them again, he seemed to draw the character of Hesitant Tourist about him like a cloak, stooping slightly as he peered through the gloom.

  “Good morning, sir, and did you sleep well?” Mary cried brightly.

  “Yes, thank you,” Mr. De Wit replied. “Er—I was wondering where I might get some laundry done?”

  “Bless you, sir, we don't have Earth-style laundries up here,” said Mary. “Best you think of it as a sort of dry-cleaning. Leave it in a pile on your bunk and I'll send one of the girls up for it later.” She cleared her throat. “And this is my friend Mr. Brick. Brick is the, ahem, colorful local character who sold me the diamond. Aren't you, dear?”

  “That's right,” said the Brick, without batting an eye. “Howdy, stranger.”

  “Oh, great!” Mr. De Wit pulled his buke from his coat. “Would you be willing to record a statement to that effect?”

  “Sure,” said the Brick, kicking the bar stool next to him. “Have a seat. We'll talk.”

  Mr. De Wit sat down and set up his buke, and Mary drew him a pint of batch and left them talking. She was busily sweeping sand when Manco entered through the airlock and came straight up to her. His face was impassive, but his black eyes glinted with anger.

  “You'd better come see something, Mama,” he said.

  * * * *

  “I went to replace the old lock seal like you told me,” he said, pointing. “Then I looked through. No point now, huh?”

  Mary stared at her Allotment. It had never been a sight to rejoice the eye, but now it was the picture of all desolation. Halfway down the acreage someone had slashed through the vizio wall, and the bitter Martian winds had widened the tear and brought in a freight of red sand, which duned in long ripples over what remained of her barley, now blasted and shriveled with cold. Worse still, it was trampled: for someone had come in through the hole and excavated here and there, long channels orderly cut in the red clay or random potholes. There were Outside-issue bootprints all over.

  She said something heartfelt and unprintable.

  “You think it was the BAC?” said Manco.

  “Not likely,” Mary said. “They don't know about the diamond, do they? This has Clan Morrigan written all over it.”

  “We can't report this, can we?”

  Mary shook her head. “That'd be just what the BAC would want to hear. ‘Vandalism, is it, Ms. Griffith? Well, what can you expect in a criminal environment such as what you've fostered here, Ms. Griffith? Perhaps you'd best crawl off into the sand and die, Ms. Griffith, and stop peddling your nasty beer and Goddess-worshipping superstitions and leave Mars to decent people, Ms. Griffith!’ That's what they'd say.”

  “And they'd say, “What were people digging for?’ too,” said Manco gloomily.

  “So they would.” Mary felt a chill. “I think I must speak with Mr. De Wit again.”

  “What should I do here?”

  “Seal up the vizio with duct tape,” Mary advised. “Then get the quaddy out and plough it all under.”

  “Quaddy needs a new air filter, Mama.”

  “Use a sock! Works just as well,” said Mary, and stamped away back up the Tube.

  Manco surveyed the ruined Allotment and sighed. Resolving to offer Her another rose of his heart's blood if She would render assistance, he wrestled the rusting quaddy out of its garage and squatted to inspect the engine.

  * * * *

  Mr. De Wit and the Brick were still where Mary had left them, deep in conversation; the Brick seemed to be regaling Mr. De Wit with exciting tales of his bipolar journeys for carbon dioxide and water ice. Mr. De Wit was listening with his mouth slightly open.

  Mary started toward him, intent on a hasty conference, but Rowan stepped into her path.

  “Mum, Mr. Cochevelou wants a word,” she said in an undertone.

  “Cochevelou!” Mary said, turning with a basilisk glare, and spotted him in his customary booth. He smiled at her, rubbing his fingertips together in a nervous kind of way, and seemed to shrink back into the darkness as she advanced on him.

  “Eh, I imagine you've come from your old Allotment,” he said. “That's just what I wanted to talk to you about, Mary dearest.”

  “Don't you Mary Dearest me!” she told him.

  “Darling! Darling. You've every right to be killing mad, so you do. I struck the bastards to the floor with these two hands when I found out, so I did. ‘You worthless thieving pigs!’ I said to them. ‘Aren't you ashamed of yourselves?’ I said. ‘Here we are in this cold hard place and do we stick together in adversity, as true Celts ought? Won't the English laugh and nod at us when they find out?’ That's what I said.”

  “Words are all you have for me, are they?” said Mary icily.

  “No indeed, dear,” said Cochevelou, looking wounded. “Aren't I talking compensation? But you have to understand that some of the lads come of desperate stock, and there's some will always envy another's good fortune bitterly keen.”

  “How'd they know about my good fortune?” Mary demanded.

  “Well, your Mona might have told our DeWayne,” said Cochevelou. “Or it might have gone about the Tube some other way, but good news travels fast, eh? And there's no secrets up here anyway, as we both know. The main thing is, we're dealing with it. The clan has voted to expel the dirty beggars forthwith—”

  “Much good that does me!”

  “And to award you Finn's Field free and clear, all further payments waived,” Cochevelou added.

  “That's better.” Mary relaxed slightly.

  “And perhaps we'll find other little ways to make it up to you,” said Cochevelou, pouring her a cup of her own Black Label. “I can send work parties over to mend the damage. New vizio panels for you, what about it? And free harrowing and manuring that poor tract of worthless ground.”

  “I'm sure you'd love to get your boys in there digging again,” Mary grumbled, accepting the cup.

  “No, no; they're out, as I told you,” said Cochevelou. “We're shipping their raggedy asses back to Earth on the next flight.”

  “Are you?” Mary halted in the act of raising the cup to her lips. She set it down. “And where are you getting the money for that, pray?”

  Cochevelou winced.

  “An unexpected inheritance?” he suggested, and dodged the cup that came flying at him.

  “You hound!” Mary cried. “They'll have an unexpected inheritance sewn into their suits, won't they? Won't they, you black beast?”

  “If you'd only be mine, all this wouldn't matter,” said Cochevelou wretchedly, crawling from the booth and making for the airlock with as much dignity as he could muster. “We could rule Mars together, you know that, don't you?”

  He didn't wait for an answer, but pulled his mask on and fled through the airlock. Mary nearly pitched the bottle after him too and stopped herself, aware that all her staff, as well as Mr. De Wit and the Brick, were staring at her.

  “Mr. De Wit,” she said, as decorously as she could, “May I have a world with you in private?”

  * * * *

  “That was sooner than I expected,” said Mr. De Wit, when she'd told him all about it.

  “You expected this?” Mary said.<
br />
  “Of course,” he replied, tugging unhappily at his beard. “Have you ever heard of the Gold Rush of 1849? I don't know if you know much American history, Ms. Griffith—”

  “Gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill,” Mary snapped.

  “Yes, and do you know what happened to Mr. Sutter? Prospectors destroyed his farm. He was ruined.”

  “I won't be ruined,” Mary declared. “If I have to put a guard on that field every hour of the day and night, I'll do it.”

  “It's too late for that,” Mr. De Wit explained. “The secret can't be kept any longer, you see? More Martian settlers will be putting more red diamonds on the market. The value will go down, but that won't stop the flood of people coming up here hoping to get rich.”

  And he was right.

  * * * *

  For five years there had been one shuttle from Earth every three months. They might have come more often; technological advances over the last couple of decades had greatly trimmed travel time to Mars. There just hadn't been any reason to waste the money.

  The change came slowly at first, and was barely noticed: an unaccustomed distant thunder of landing jets at unexpected moments, a stranger wandering wide-eyed into the Empress at odd hours. More lights glinting under the vizio dome of BAC headquarters after dark.

  Then the change sped up.

  More shuttles, arriving all hours, and not just the big green BAC ships but vessels of all description, freelance transport services competing. More strangers lining the bar at the Empress, shivering, gravity-sick, unable to get used to the smell or the taste of the beer or the air but unable to do without either.

  Strangers wandering around outside the Tubes, inadequately suited, losing their sense of direction in the sandstorms and having to be rescued on a daily basis by some opportunistic Celt who charged for his kindness: “Just to pay for the oxygen expenditure, see?” Strangers losing or abandoning all manner of useful odds and ends in the red desolation, to be gleefully salvaged by the locals. Mary's back bar became a kind of shrine to the absurd items people brought from Earth, such as a digital perpetual calendar geared to 365 days in a year, a pair of ice skates, a ballroom dancing trophy, and a snow globe depicting the Historic Astoria Column of Astoria, Oregon.