“Can’t say I’ve been exposed to it much. I’ve always lived in the Northeast U.S.—or here.”
“There’s a lot of good old boys here,” he said. “They call me an honorary redneck, because I’m from Indiana.”
“You know, a couple of years ago, at a reception at the White House, Frank Sinatra ran into Bill Monroe. I read about it in the paper. Sinatra said when he was an Italian kid growing up in Hoboken, he would tune into The Grand Ole Opry, and he remembers hearing Monroe singing. He said that, although he doesn’t know bluegrass music, he always thought Monroe was a great singer.”
Jake smiled. “That’s neat. What did Monroe say?”
“Oh, that’s the funny part. He thanked Sinatra for the compliment, and after he left, turned to a friend and asked, ‘Who’s Frank Sinatra?’”
The young lady returned with our mugs. I took a sip and looked around. Some of the workers smiled and nodded at me. One man pointed at my feet and shouted, “Hey, you’re wearing shoes today!”
I laughed. “Everyone seems friendly enough,” I said to Jake.
“You have a good reputation among the grunts and ground pounders. You’ve been fair in signing off on any labor arbitrations, and they know your blue-collar background,” Jake said. “And you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty. Everyone knows how you charged into the Hilton and stopped the breach.”
I looked across the room. The waitress smiled at me.
Jake nudged me. “If you hang out in a place like this, you might meet a nice American girl.”
The way he said it, was almost like he was in a genial way implying I was being disloyal to American womanhood. I wanted to change the subject.
“What’s planned for entertainment tonight?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I heard there’s a new group playing tonight. We’ll find out soon enough.”
“By the way, how do you keep androids out?” I asked. “I mean, some of them are pretty life-like.”
“See the bug zapper just inside the door?”
“Yes. Wait. What do you need a bug zapper for?”
“It’s a droid catcher. Look at the poster.”
Nailed on the wall behind the device, which dangled from a rod, was a poster of a young man with flamboyant ’70s disco hair, and the slogan: “I am a magnet, you are steel.”
“That thing puts out a powerful oscillating magnetic field that will scramble any ’bot that gets near,” Jake said. “We had a fellow once who’d been dating an android for so long, he forgot she was an android. And he never told any of his fellow workers. Then one night he walks in, she follows him, and just freezes inside the doorway, like a mannequin. The look on his face when he turned around was great!”
“How can a union man date a droid? Isn’t that expensive?”
“He paid for its services, but he had the money. He was a union boss. TWU, I think. When the union leaders realized he’d been able to afford a droid as a girlfriend, they followed the money and realized how much he’d skimmed.”
Our waitress brought over our “steaks” and potatoes. The mushroom material had been molded into a fair approximation of a rib-eye. It was better with steak sauce. The potato was great. There’s something about the Martian soil that makes underground plants taste the best. Some people say it’s because the soil has never been contaminated with bacteria.
I was just finishing up as the sound system whined, and then a cassette tape began playing as some men in Western outfits moved onto the stage.
“For your dancing and listening pleasure, Handsome Hank and his Lonesome Boys.”
It sounded like the intro for an old-fashioned radio program. As the musicians took their places, a union man still in his shop vest came out onto the stage.
“Now, we have ourselves some good old boys who have come here tonight all the way from the mountains of Europe, back on Earth,” he began. “They come to us from Switzerland.”
He turned toward the band. “Howdy, Sam!”
The band leader raised his cowboy hat. “Howdy, Mars!”
“What brings y’all here?”
“We’ve been touring the outlands,” Sam said. “We just arrived from Pattonville at Moon Base.”
“Ah, the Outlands! Is that what they call us?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Now these boys are going to play for us tonight. Good ol’ bluegrass music like it should be played!”
“Thank you, Frank!” said Sam.
“Now, what are you going to kick off tonight with? How about that song about the radio?”
“Yes, sir. It’s called ‘Video Killed the Radio Star.’”
The fiddler started the intro. I was impressed from the first note.
Jake saw I was smiling and leaned back, a mug in one hand. “They’re good, ain’t they?”
“Very, it’s great, and that’s my favorite song, anyway. I never heard it done bluegrass style, though.”
Laura had mocked me, saying I was too young to have nostalgia, but sitting there, after dealing with internal politics and intrigue in my job all day long, that song was very nostalgic for me. It was a big hit in 1979, the year I graduated from college. Back then, I thought I was going places. Six years later, and I’m on Mars, and I still had had no idea where I was going.
It was a very good bluegrass arrangement of the New Wave song, by the way. It distracted me from brooding. Substituting “Yodel-ay-he-hoo” for “Ohh Ohh” in the chorus was brilliant.
I was on my second mug of beer when the band started up its next tune, without an intro. This time the mandolin did the lead-in. It was a bluegrass version of “Ballroom Blitz.” It was even better. I was feeling very cheerful by the end of that number, and my mug was empty again.
Sam stepped forward to the mic. “Well, folks, thanks for all the love. Do you have any requests?”
He did a passable job of hiding his German accent, and putting on enough of a drawl that he didn’t sound stupid.
Someone near the stage shouted, “Rocket Man!”
There were shouts and applause.
I leaned over to Jake. “That’s an Elton John song. How do you do a bluegrass version of that?” I asked.
“No, he means our song,” Jake said. “We have our own song called Rocket Man.
“It was written years ago by one of the first grunts working on the Moon Base construction,” he continued. “I don’t think it’s ever been written down. We keep it to ourselves.”
“Then I’m sure I’ve never heard it,” I said.
“Wa-a-a-l,” said Sam on the stage, speaking very slowly. “That isn’t in our songbook, because—as we’ve learned—it’s the only song I’ve heard of that was written in space.”
There were boos.
Sam spoke up. “But, boys, ah’ll tell you! We learned it fast as we played some gigs on the Moon!”
There were loud cheers, some whistles.
“Ah’ll tell you what. We’ll play it. Y’all tell us if we got it right. Deal?”
The cheers were deafening.
The intro started.
Jake nudged me. “I know where the tune is from. My gram belonged to a Pentecostal church. It’s an old gospel tune called ‘Angel Band.’”
The first verse was slow and mournful.
We wait for one last touchdown
On the planet of our birth.
And watch the trees and feel the breeze
And see the oceans of our Earth.
Then the tempo doubled.
Oh, come, rocket man, come down from orbit,
And you’ll take me away in your silver ship,
To my terrestrial home.
You’ll take me away with your silver ship,
To my terrestrial home.
Across the dark of outer space,
Earth seems so warm and bright.
Just like a big blue marble
Shining on all through the night.
Oh, come, rocket man, come down from orbit,
&
nbsp; And you’ll take me away in your silver ship,
To my terrestrial home.
You’ll take me away with your silver ship,
To my terrestrial home.
My soul aches for a landing
On my terrestrial home,
I’m done roaming the spaceways
One last landing and I’m home.
Oh, come, rocket man, come down from orbit,
And you’ll take me away in your silver ship,
To my terrestrial home.
You’ll take me away with your silver ship,
To my terrestrial home.
Oh, come, rocket man, come down from orbit,
And you’ll take me away in your silver ship,
To my terrestrial home.
You’ll take me away with your silver ship,
To my terrestrial home.
We all stood up, clapped, and cheered. I’d never heard it before, but it was great. When I sat back down again, I missed the chair. Jake and a whole bunch of people rushed over to help me up from the floor.
“I must have had a little more than I thought,” I muttered. I sat back down. “Ouch! My tail-bone hurts!” I rubbed my rear.
The waitress grabbed Jake by the elbow. “I think you need to help Mister Shuster home.”
“Oh, no, I have to go straight home. I promised my wife I wouldn’t be out late. She would be mad at me for staying this late, but when I tell her Mister Shuster was with me …”
He looked at her. “You take him home. You only work the dinner shift, don’t you?”
“Yes, my shift is ending.”
“I can find my home fine, thanks anyway.” I took a few steps and knocked the table over. “Shit!”
She looked at me. “Mister Shuster, you’re very wobbly. I can come with you.”
“I’m more tired than anything,” I said. “But, yes, I’d be grateful if you made sure I made it home safe.”
I turned to my dinner companion. I had to raise my voice because Smiling Sam and his boys had taken another request.
“Jake, thanks for the invite. I’ve had a great time, but I really need to go home.”
“My pleasure, Mister Shuster!”
The waitress picked up her purse and a few things, and we walked out the door. “My name’s Anita, by the way.”
“Thanks, Anita,” I said.
On the transport up and home, we sat down and I saw Ivan Iglyztin sitting there, holding hands with a pretty Russian girl. He looked at me, then at Anita, and then winked at me. I had to admit, Jake and the others had been right, I was very unsteady.
“I must have had more than two beers,” I said to Anita on the way to my apartment.
She laughed. “Umm, Jake told me you weren’t paying attention and finished off two of his mugs, too.”
“Why didn’t he say anything?”
“He said you seemed to be happy and having a good time!” she said. “Also, our beers … aren’t all beer. They’re spiked.”
“Oh, crap!”
Anita had to put the key in the door for me.
“Thanks, I appreciate it,” I said as she opened the door.
“Do you need any more help?” she asked.
“No, I can find my way to bed, and sleep it off,” I said “You’ve been a big help, and I mean it.”
She smiled at me. She really was very pretty. “Be careful,” she said, patting my forearm.
She turned and left.
I staggered and fell down on my bed. A random thought went through my mind before I fell asleep: “I think I’m falling apart.”
I didn’t know what that meant—at the time.
* * *
Sherry shook her head when she saw me the next morning. “Your eyes are so bloodshot, they look like a New Jersey roadmap,” she said. “Let me put some eye drops in them.”
I went in my office, sat down, and tilted my head back. “I had a little too much drink last night at a union club.”
She laughed. “A little? Right!”
“I’m sure the blue collar workers appreciate your outreach,” she continued, “but they don’t drink the best booze.”
“They spiked the beer for an extra kick,” I said. “I didn’t know.”
“That explains it. Martian Moonshine. I’ve heard of it,” she said. “It has more octane than rocket fuel.”
She put a drop in my right eye. “And you brought a girl home, too.”
“She brought me home. I needed help, and nothing happened,” I said. “Shit, am I under constant surveillance?”
“In this village, yes,” she said as she put a drop in my left eye.
She stood up straight. “You don’t smell that bad. I don’t think you hold your liquor well.”
“I learned that when I was in a college fraternity,” I said. “Do we have any chilled first gen water?”
“I’ll get it for you,” she said.
A thought crossed my mind, and in the state I was in, it hurt. I remembered my last conversation before I saw Jake the night before. I dialed Mickey at UPI.
“Cardinale here,” he said.
“Mickey, it’s Dave Shuster. I have a technical question about printing here in the colony,” I said.
“Well, I’ve never worked a press, but maybe I know the answer.”
“Who prints the International Herald-Tribune?”
“The same people who prints Mars Today, the local edition of The New York Times, and all the other papers,” he said. “There’s only one press.”
“Yes, a flexo press. You told me that once. Who owns it?”
“It’s a JOA.”
“JOA?”
“Joint Operating Agreement. All the papers own the company together. It’s called FSM.”
“What’s it stand for?”
“Free Speech something, I think,” he said.
“I assume this outfit is in Dome Six, then. The press is a big piece of equipment.”
“That’s right. Why all this interest in the technicalities of publishing?”
“I may have a print job that would be better in that format,” I lied.
“The head pressman is named Richard Bird. If you call him Dickie Bird, he’ll kill you.”
I chuckled, and then groaned.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Hung over. Went someplace for the first time last night, but I drank too much. My head feels like the M104 bus kneeled down on it.”
“Ouch!”
“I’ll be better, thanks for the info.” I hung up the phone.
There was an old red bound World Book Encyclopedia in my office. I thought I knew the answer to the question in my mind, but I went over and pulled out a volume. I flipped through the pages until I found what I wanted:
“The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a left-wing student protest group on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, in the early 1960s …”
The same time Kurland was at Caltech. Many times, when I needed Sherry, I liked to walk out of my office, to be less formal, but this time I called her on the intercom. “I need a bit of research done,” I said. “Can you find the incorporation filing for the printing press company, FSM?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. I’m sure she wondered what I wanted it for, but knew me well enough not to bother to ask.
A few minutes later, the intercom buzzed. “It’s a call from Constable Coltingham’s office.”
“I’ll take it.”
She put it through.
“Administrator Shuster, this is Officer Jenny with Constable Coltingham’s office.”
“Yes, Jenny, what is going on?” I was fuming a bit because the limey didn’t have the courtesy to call me himself.
“That evidence you requested in the Wilder investigation is here,” she said. “The Constable said you’d want to inspect it.”
“The android that was called ‘Big Red’?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll be there as fast as I can.” I stepped outside
and told Sherry where I was going.
“That was pretty fast. Kurland seems to be cooperating,” she said a bit dubiously.
“Well, I want to strike while the iron is hot,” I said. “I need to get over there before Coltingham does something underhanded.”
When I arrived, Jenny said Coltingham and Mattern were away on an investigation.
“How convenient,” I said. “Just as well. He’d probably get in my way.”
“I wasn’t aware he had any mobility issues, sir,” said Jenny.
“That’s a colloquialism that means a person will be unhelpful or uncooperative,” I said.
She looked at me. “Thank you. You’re the first person I have encountered who will stop and explain things for my heuristic learning programming.”
“My parents were immigrants. They didn’t know English when they arrived in the U.S. When I was growing up, I was always explaining things to them.”
“You were being helpful,” she said.
“Your heuristic programming is working fine,” I said. “Where’s the android?”
She gestured to a back room. “Laying on an examination table.”
We walked in. It was easy to see how the android got her nickname. She was 6'4".” Her hair was blonde now, but she must have been a sight when it was red. She was dressed in an Urban Cowboy get-up of denim shirt, blue jeans, boots, and an embossed leather belt with a large silver buckle.
“Looks like a real Amazon,” I said.
“She has been repurposed and renamed,” said Jenny. “She is being sold to the Big Texan Steakhouse. Her name is now Alexis Texas.”
“I didn’t think she’d fit in at Valle’s.”
“Excuse me?”
“Forget it, stupid joke. Is she activated?”
“She is in Safe Mode,” said Jenny. “That is the way she was delivered by Tesla.”
“Safe Mode?”
“She is immobile, but can answer any questions.”
I walked up to the table and spoke to the android.
“What is your name?”
“Alexis Texas.”
“Are you the android that was formerly known as Big Red?”
“Yes.”
“Were you formerly called Judy Nogales Cantina?”
Another Girl, Another Planet Page 21
