Man O' War

by William Shatner

  "But," she countered, "isn't it possible that someone might think you're just going to stall everyone and go ahead and step up some violent plan they have?"

  Hawkes had nodded in agreement, admitting, "Chance we take."

  After that, he had sent his aide to get some rest, and then had done so himself. Twelve hours later, after two showers, two meals, and as much sleep as he could manage with all the reading he had to accomplish, the ambassador sat down with the head representatives of each faction and had a far less dismissive meeting than the first.

  He blamed his manner from the day before on a desire to get down to business, combined with a level of fatigue he found he could not combat. "I have to apologize. Never having been through anything like the last few days, I simply didn't realize how great a toll everything had taken on me. Before you know it, I'm going to have to admit I'm not twenty anymore."

  He was gracious and humble, stepping back from his gruff attitude the day before. Putting everyone at the table more or less at ease, he then proceeded to solicit their opinions on how fast things should progress, what everyone felt were the most important points to cover, and in what order they should be covered. He allowed no arguments, gently reminding everyone that in the end all decisions would be his.

  Finally, after several hours, Hawkes declared that he had everything he needed to proceed. Assuring the assembly that he would be ready to meet with them again in two days, he bid them all farewell. To those who protested, he mentioned the mountains of reports, statement records, briefs, complaints, and declarations they had all given him.

  "Do you want a spectator or a mediator? Or, more important, which of you wants to take the chance that your position papers might be the ones I don't get to?"

  The protests ceased abruptly.

  Settling in, Hawkes and Martel had read throughout the rest of the day. Of course, she ran everything through the computer net provided to them first. Hawkes had given her a list of key names and points to correlate. Using the computer to sift through the millions of screens' worth of material, Martel had pulled together the different parties' slants on each key person involved in the negotiations and how the viewpoints, demands, and objections mixed and matched with one another.

  It still left Hawkes with several thousand pages to read. Now, after hours of staring at the hand screen glowing gently off to the side, the ambassador turned away from it. His eyes were so tired he knew another shot of Strain-Break would be counterproductive. He had already dosed himself with more than twice the recommended limits.

  Realizing he needed a break, Hawkes decided to work within his brain for a while, just to figure out for himself what he had learned. The first thing that came to mind was the fact that everyone at the table had seemed prepared. That had been a disappointment; he would have liked to find a link between one of the parties and the pirate raid.

  The interrogation of the pirates taken prisoner—both on board the Bulldog and subsequently on Mars—had yielded nothing of value. Finally, with Hawkes's approval, standing Martian law was followed and the prisoners were taken away to Recycle.

  Most of them had been quite stoic about the sentence. A few had cried out in rage and disbelief until they had been removed from earshot. Sitting alone in his chambers a day later, the ambassador could still hear them in the back of his mind.

  Angrily, he silenced the sentimental side of his nature, reminding himself that they were mercenaries who had taken on the job of wholesale murder. He did think the pirate attack pointed a definite finger, however. He was beginning to feel that the source of the attacks on him had to be Earth.

  The first two attempts on his life had been made on Earth. The third had been an all-out try to keep him from Mars, and must have seemed guaranteed to succeed.

  I've been here awhile and no one's tried anything. It could just be that they spent big and now they have to regroup. But I get the feeling this is Earth inspired. The AWF—why? What would be the profit? The workers . . . how could they have paid for any of it?

  Absently pushing aside papers and memory report chips, the ambassador closed his eyes, trying to squeeze the fatigue out of them. As he did, he thought, Earth League . . . there's the place to look for the kind of money it takes to orchestrate a deep-space assault . . . or, he added, remembering the attack on his ranch, recruit a mercenary force of supposed dead men, for that matter.

  Feeling a bit more secure, Hawkes shoved aside his own concerns for the moment, deciding to get back to organizing everything he had learned about the Martian situation. As he did, he was actually surprised at just how much everyone concerned seemed to agree on.

  Point number one . . . the colonists who first came to Mars had done so thirty-four years earlier. It had been understood that life would be underground and communal for the first decade. After that, family units would be made available for those workers who wanted to live privately. After another decade, domed areas were to be completed, in which people could live on the surface.

  There was no disputing this. Everyone had copies of the first agreement. Unfortunately, the outer domes were now fourteen years late in being completed.

  Hawkes thought for a moment of living in tunnels for thirty-four years. Of never seeing the sun, smelling fresh air, running through grass, feeling the wind in your face, eating an apple pulled down from a tree . . . ten thousand thoughts flashed through his brain in an instant, ten thousand images and sensations that could not be seen or felt or indulged in by those who had come to settle Mars.

  By those who had been born on Mars.

  Who had never known anything but Mars.

  It was a horrifying feeling to him—the thought of children growing up in caverns . . . comfortable caverns . . . clean caverns with piped-in water and food and light, caverns with a television that would pour out entertainment of any and all sorts . . . if one could afford them. Which led Hawkes to point number two.

  Another thing that everyone agreed on was that the pay was extremely bad on Mars. For years the rewards for meeting quotas had been cut over and over. Here the ambassador found his disagreements cropping up.

  Red Planet claimed that their expenses had turned out to be much greater than those initially projected. It was true that now they were supplying more than half the Earth's food, and through the AWF almost half the Earth's raw materials. But the cost of building the colony—living quarters; factories; the vast, continent-spanning sponge/mush vats—had yet to be paid off. Red Planet had scaled back actual pay and, for decades, had been making up the balance with shares in the company.

  What it meant was that the workers were rich, but only on paper. By rights, they all should be living like royalty. The problem was that until the colony's managing company began to turn a profit, their stock—sheltered separately from the Earth League's other holdings—was worthless. A good hedge against the future for the corpor/ nationals, which had invested together to create Red Planet, but worthless to the people dying to pay off the ever-spiraling debt the company had incurred in the act of creating itself.

  Red Planet's output seemed to Hawkes to be the third major point. Once again, there was no disagreement— Mars was feeding, clothing, and sheltering the Earth. The ambassador could not even begin to imagine what would happen if production on Mars were suddenly to halt. But that was what talk of strikes and revolt was threatening to bring about.

  On Earth, a number of the corpor/nationals had begun to grow leery of their investment. For decades, blocks of Red Planet stock had been traded back and forth on a regular basis like any other recognized currency. Lately, however, people were beginning to find it harder to interest anyone in taking even a fraction of the stock load they would have in days gone by. Because of the talk of unrest filtering back to Earth, the corpor/nationals claimed that Mars was getting labeled as a bad risk.

  Of course, standing on the outside of the game, it was easy for Hawkes to see the self-fulfilling-prophecy aspect of it all, but that did not do him or an
yone else any good. If the Earth League partners could not be calmed down, their desperately growing desire to turn their stock into capital held the potential of creating exactly the same level of disaster that any kind of physical conflict on Mars might.

  And, point number four, conflict on Mars was beginning to look all but inevitable. Every one of the surviving original colonists was still trapped below the surface of the planet, living like a slave. Their children, born in the planet's lesser gravity, were bound to the planet even more closely than they were. Even if they could buy their passage off-world, they could not survive more than a few months in Earth's gravity without a great deal of medication and physical therapy—costly medication and therapy. They might migrate to the Moon, but from all reports, life there was even harsher than on Mars.

  Three generations of people were trapped by greed and were powerless to get what they wanted—what they had been promised—in any way except through force. And Hawkes could see that more violence was coming. Reports showed that riots sprang up constantly. Two-, three-, ten-person outbursts were going off at random whenever another battered soul snapped and reached out for the nearest blunt object.

  So far, no major damage had been caused. But from similar situations throughout his career, the ambassador knew that such things were only a matter of time. Without false modesty, he knew that his reputation was the only thing keeping things quiet for the moment. And he also knew from bitter experience that he could count on that for only so long.

  Which brought him to the fifth point: the fact that Red Planet management did not seem inclined to change their policies much. To them, strikes were illegal because any attempt to unionize was illegal. Red Planet had turned into a sort of debtors' prison, with the cost of food and shelter more than its inmates could work off. The corpor/national's employees had no constitution. They had no rights. Legally, the company could do what it wanted with them.

  On the other hand, immigration had fallen off to a trickle. No one wanted to move to Mars anymore because—despite massive attempts to silence such information—over the years the consequences had become all too apparent. Thus, Red Planet—and by extension, the Earth League—did need to negotiate, but they insisted that the circle still brought them around to the same starting point: there was no money to give anyone, there were no domes to move into, and there was nothing left for the colonists but working until they died.

  A wave of tired hopelessness washed over Hawkes. Unlike most of the diplomatic problems he had been sent into during his career, this one was close to pure tragedy. There seemed to be no real villains . . . just a lot of helpless, scared people on all sides, looking for the way out of a room without doors.

  Sighing, the ambassador stretched again, then got up out of his chair. He was tired to the point of irritability and knew he needed a distraction. Realizing he had not yet really inspected the quarters the Earth League had set aside for him, he began to move around the chamber, stretching out his cramped back and legs. He had to admit that he was surprised. He had gotten used to the opulence of government lodgings; he had been surprised to find something so . . . standard.

  Everything about the two small rooms he had been given boasted pure functionality. Clean, straight-angled, relentlessly empty, it was a proud barrenness, one that spoke volumes about the severity of life on Mars. Everything was well built—the walls smooth and seamless; the table and chairs, couch, and shower area all practical and useful, but utilitarian.

  Hawkes's mind roamed for a moment, taking him back to the clean, open beauty of his ranch. Shuddering as he contemplated the differences, he muttered, "God, I'm just so tired of this. I'm tired of being used, tired of working my way around in useless circles, tired of everything I accomplish always going for nothing."

  And his cynical side reminded him, I'm tired of waiting to get my hands on the sons of bitches who killed Dizzy.

  Suddenly Hawkes could no longer stand the sight of his pair of spartan rooms. Too tired to continue reading and yet too keyed up to rest, he found himself being consumed by darker and darker thoughts. The talks to come seemed hopeless. He could see them going on for months—months that might lead on to years. Years trapped below ground—years living in tunnels, no meat, no sun, no . . . "Oh, the hell with this."

  Stalking across the room, Hawkes kicked his slippers under his bed and then grabbed up his boots. Pulling them on one at a time, he said, "All right, so I might be here for a while. If that's the case, I might as well go out and start learning my way around."

  On his way to the door, he grabbed up his portable screen—just in case he decided to sit down and start reading again. He checked his pockets to make sure he had all the usual odds and ends. Then he pulled two beef jerky packs from his luggage, slid them into his inner vest pocket, and headed for the door.

  For some reason, he did not take a weapon. He would soon have reason to question that decision.

  17

  EVEN WANDERING AS HE WAS, IT DID NOT TAKE HAWKES long to descend to the lowest levels of the Martian Colony. Not down into the factory levels, of course, but only into the bottom reaches of the living quarters—the Big Above, as many called it. Not much he saw made him want to stop.

  Everything looked the same. It was all too orderly, every corner, wall, and angle too functionally oriented. Directional markers crowded out any attempts at aesthetics by the original builders, which had been few enough. The countless communications boxes and security monitors did nothing to cheer the look of the place, either.

  The ambassador stared down at the ground. Every floor was painted with the same pattern of designational and classification stripes—constantly telling him where he was and where he was going.

  And if you walk backwards, thought Hawkes bitterly, where you've been as well.

  He had not been walking for a full hour yet, but already the look and feel of the colony had begun to depress him deeply. In his time, the ambassador had trod the ground of some of the world's poorest nations. He had witnessed desperate poverty in lands torn asunder by mindlessly horrific wars. He had seen corpor/nationals take over vast tracts of countries, evicting all their citizens. He remembered the forced marches in Africa when Inver-Comp had seized power—the tens of thousands on the march. No food, no water, dusty roads worn down into the veld by an army of marching skeletons.

  This might be better than that, he grudgingly admitted to himself after a moment's deliberation, but not by much. And if things don't change, and change fast, I can see it all getting worse. Fast.

  Hawkes came across the central park of the colony shortly after beginning his inspection. He was surprised to find no one in it. Of course, he also had been surprised by the fact that he had seen only one other person as he walked. But, to his way of thinking, in a place as desolate as Mars . . . how could people not be in the park? It might not be the only park in the Above, but it was known to be by far the largest and most elaborate. As he wandered through it, the ambassador winced inside, thinking, God help these people . . . if this is the best they have. . . . He glanced from side to side, misery creeping into him with every second. . . . This. This.

  The cold, logical part of his brain was willing to be impressed. Not only was the park on a formerly lifeless planet, but it was inside that planet, hidden from the sun. Everything being done was being done artificially. But still, the rest of him shuddered. It was a park without trees, without water, without birds or grasshoppers, without wind or ants or grass or even loose soil.

  The entire park was actually a series of potted plants, mostly short, shade growers—stunted things, really. From one end to the other, he saw no flowers, no variation—no color except the same easy-to-grow dark green. It was the only life to be had for several levels, though, which made Hawkes curious as to why there was no one else about. Continuing on through the sad little acre, he chanced across a gardener trimming away dead and dying leaves. Curiosity driving him, he asked,

  "Excuse me—but is this all ther
e is?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "To the park? Is this all there is? Aren't there any trees, anywhere? Any flowers, anything"—Hawkes waved his arms about somewhat helplessly, finally finishing by asking simply—"anything else?"

  "No," answered the man somewhat sullenly. He did not know who the ambassador was, nor did he seem to care. He seemed interested only in performing his duties-whatever they might be.

  Curious, Hawkes asked him, "Is this your job? Are you the gardener?"

  "I signed on for a few hours a shift. All I could afford."

  " 'Afford'? What do you mean?"

  "Afford. Whadya mean, wha'do I mean? What're ya— deaf? A Jim's gotta make some extra bank to stay afloat in this crap hole. I get done down in the growth vats, I come here and do snip duty for the recyclers."

  Understanding flooded through Hawkes. Suddenly he did not have to ask any more questions. There were no permanent gardeners, just workers desperate for extra units. The man was trimming away dead growth and turning it over to the recyclers for who knew how little— would four or five hours' effort buy a meal? A stiff drink? The ambassador was too embarrassed to ask.

  And that, he thought, is why there's no one else here. That's why I've seen only one person since I left my rooms. Everyone else is off working their own second and third jobs to try and . . .

  He hesitated for a second, wondering what anyone would save for on Mars.

  Work like a dog? Who cares? What does it get anyone? More worthless stock?

  Suddenly he was seized by the madness of Mars. Why would anyone come there? Stay there? How could they? How? How did a person go on, day after day, after day . . . after day . . . after day? When every moment was spent stepping over more gray flooring, going past more gray walls, under more gray ceilings. When every bit of effort went to someone else's benefit. When every breath was as useless as the last?