As his wife appeared in the entranceway, Waters took on the look of a man who had suddenly realized he was rambling. Getting himself back on track, he said, "So, anyway, to down a report into a memo, the Originals decided to try and find some personal uses for the leftover fiber. There are some who make pillows—strip the fibers down to weaving strings. Others carve stuff, build furniture, so on. But one of the first uses was as compost. Just took it home and threw it in the corner to have a smell that wasn't paint or ore oils. Anyway, a lot of things grow in acidic soil . . ." Waters spread his hands apart, finishing, "You can guess the rest."
As the trio turned toward Mrs. Waters, following her back out into the finished section of the apartment, Martel asked, "And every management apartment has one of these caverns dug back off of it?"
"Every apartment has one," corrected Waters easily. "Workers have to eat and breathe, too, you know."
"Those workers you were cursing over the bargaining table today, Samuel?"
Hawkes and Martel shot each other silent looks as the husband answered his wife.
"Yes, dear . . .those workers."
"A lot of them are our friends, you know."
"If they were our friends, they'd understand that I'm not the one keeping them from going outside." Turning so that all of the others present could see his face, Waters asked earnestly, "Does everybody think I want to live like an ant?" He paused for a moment, as uncomfortable as everyone else in the tiny bubble of silence, then asked again, "Do they?"
Before anyone could answer, the front monitor announced, "Carrier dropping off. Vincent Pebelion approaching."
Mrs. Waters moved to the front door. Indexing the lock, she slid the door open and ushered a couple and their two children inside. Hawkes's face opened into a smile as he greeted the man personally, saying, "Well, hello. I didn't think we'd be seeing each other again so soon." Turning to Martel, he said, "This is the man who saved my life last night."
The woman next to him smiled widely. "That's my Vinnie," she said.
Almost blushing, the man downplayed his role, saying, "I just came out the door and yelled. I had to do it, anyway—except the yelling, of course."
"Then," said Hawkes, extending his hand, "let me introduce you as a man whose sense of timing is one I appreciate."
Pebelion handed a covered dish he was carrying to Mrs. Waters so he could shake Hawkes's hand. As the ambassador introduced the part-time gardener and his family to Martel, Waters told them, "We're still trying to track down that Resolute fellow who jumped you. No luck so far, from what I hear. But anyway, after you reported the incident, I made it my business to find out who the hero was." Walking over to Pebelion, Waters punched him in the shoulder with obvious affection, saying, "Should have figured it was one of my chief vat-kickers.'' Then, turning back to the ambassador, he added, "When it got to me that it was Vinnie, I didn't see where you'd mind if we invited him to join us."
"No, of course not," answered Hawkes. "You never know, it's been a few hours. Someone must be out there getting ready to make another try for me."
Mrs. Waters laughed, telling her husband, "Didn't I tell you he was droll? He was like this the whole trip."
With that, the two wives sent the newly arrived children off to join the others. At the same time, turning his attention toward the covered dish Pebelion had handed Mrs. Waters, the ambassador asked, "And what's this?"
"It's a pot pie," answered Hawkes's savior. "Wheat crust, potato filling, sunflower seed topping."
"There's something more, isn't there, Vinn?" asked Waters, a trace of puzzlement crossing his face. "I mean beyond spice. I smell something . . . something good . . . but I,I . . . what is it?"
"I was going to let it be a surprise, Sam. Shoulda known I couldn't get past that nose of yours." Reaching toward Mrs. Waters, Pebelion pulled away the lid from the dish he had given her. As its contents' aroma filled the air, he said, "It's meat." Hawkes stared as he watched the looks that came over the faces of both Sam and Glenia Waters. As both of them simply gawked, Pebelion told them, "That's right—meat on Mars. The ambassador gave me it for savin' his life."
"Glenia's told me about meat," murmured Waters, his eyes locked on the covered dish. "She's managed to try it a few times when she's been off-world. I, you know . . . I mean . . ."
"It's really not good for you, you know," added Martel, somewhat embarrassed by everyone's amazement.
"Neither's this," added Pebelion, pulling a flask of clear liquid from his hip pocket. "But what's a party without the best of everything?"
The chatter broke down into the normal civilized responses friends make toward each other for sharing their best. All of which did not escape Hawkes's careful eye. As everyone moved to the apartment's dining area, he could not help but wonder,
If what he was seeing was the way management and labor thought of each other on Mars, then what was all the arguing about? If what he had just seen was the truth, then where were all the lies he had been reading coming from?
There at dinner, smiling, nodding, joking, sharing both families bounties, he stewed over the question nagging at him. He knew he could find no answers then, but things were beginning to make sense to him. Between what he had learned the night before and what he was learning there at the Waters family's happy table, he was beginning to fit some of the pieces together.
Now, he thought, if I can just live through the next few days, maybe I can shed some light on what's really going on around here.
20
THE NEXT FEW DAYS' NEGOTIATIONS WERE MORE OF THE same. Hawkes presided over the different factions, maintaining order between them, listening to them squabble, barely able to keep his patience. It was not that the ambassador had lost any of his skills. Hawkes was as much in command as ever. He simply could not believe how little there was for the concerned parties to debate, and yet how many times they could go around in the same circles.
After a week of getting absolutely nowhere, Benton Hawkes had had enough.
On the fifth day of negotiations, the ambassador came to the meeting room ready for blood. The attempts on his life were coming a little too often for him. He was beginning to feel as if even his luck could not hold out much longer. He had not taken to walking with a bodyguard yet. It was no sense of false bravado, he simply knew how many points a show of fear would cost him, and how little good armed escorts ever did anyone.
Besides, he thought, his fingers edging their way toward his gavel, if I have to listen to this bunch much longer, I think I might welcome a good fight.
Across the table from him, Ace Goth was covering the same ground he had the last fifteen times he had been given the floor.
"To hell with your proposals. I'm telling you right now, the workers of Mars aren't going to put up with much more." As everyone groaned he brushed his long sandy hair back behind his ears, then raised his voice, claiming, "Hey! I don't want to hear it. The corpor/na-tionals haven't lived up to their contract—any part of it— and everyone knows it."
"Mr. Ambassador," started Herbert Marrow, head of the Earth League delegation, "once again I have to state the obvious . . . so what? These people"—his hand waved in Goth's direction—"don't even have a legal right to be represented at this table—Red Planet's charter invalidates the creation of any unions. We all know this."
"I'll tell you what I don't know," growled Goth. "I'm not sure what you're so hot under the collar for, Marrow, bein' how this is supposed to be between us and Red Planet. But just in case the League has some stake in this I ain't been imprinted with yet, let me remind you that there is no union. You're the one that keeps talkin' about a union." Goth allowed his statement to undercut the League head's anger, then added coolly, "Of course, the failure of your management company to meet the points of your contract, those're the kinds of things that just might get some people to start up some unionlike activity."
"Like strikes?" demanded Marrow.
As Sam Waters tried to intercede, reminding every
one that no one had mentioned a strike, Goth roared back, "Maybe someone should mention strikes. Maybe that's just what we need around here."
"Strikes?" thundered Marrow. "Strikes are illegal, and you know it."
"Then maybe we'll just settle for a mass walkout."
"Do it," dared the league head, "and I promise that anyone who leaves his job will be fired . . . cut off without pay and without access to company housing or benefits." Hawkes shut his eyes, tired of the never-ending circles. As he began to lift his head, Marrow snarled, "You people want to live on the surface of Mars so bad, go ahead . . . walk out. That'll be the only place you'll be able to afford to live."
"Genocide," cried Goth. "That's their answer. Work our fathers and us and our children into the ground—then kill us off." The angry workman stood up so suddenly he sent his chair flying. "Genocide!"
"Not genocide, simply union busting." "But there is no union, you bastard." "That's what you'd like us to think.. We're supposed to be idiots who can't interpret talk of walkouts." "And we're not supposed to recognize the fact you don't intend to do anything on Mars except cultivate a race of slaves—"
"That's enough!" All heads turned toward Hawkes. "That is all, absolutely all I want to hear from the lot of you." The ambassador stood, staring at both Goth and Marrow. It took only a moment for them both to slide back down into their seats.
"I've had enough of this. Enough—do you hear? Ace? Herbert? Do you? This is it. This is the end. We've heard this same sloshing round robin day after day. Well, not tomorrow. Let me tell you about tomorrow."
Hawkes sat back down. His back ramrod straight, his hands on the desk before him, his arms looking as tense and strong as hydraulic lifts, he said, "Tomorrow everyone comes back here in the morning, ready to negotiate.
Negotiate. Understand? Not argue, bitch, complain, moan, bicker, quibble, quarrel, rant, boil, or brawl. Negotiate. And . . ." turning his attention squarely on Marrow, he added, "I'd like you to understand that I don't appreciate your team's stalling tactics. True, it makes sense—as long as the workers keep working, who cares what happens? But, no matter, I want it stopped." When their team leader assumed the properly wounded expression, Hawkes told him, "Nice reaction. A little insincere around the eyes, but eyes are tricky, aren't they? There isn't a lot of time between now and tomorrow to practice, so if you don't want to look so wounded when we reconvene in the morning, I suggest you begin to answer some of the questions posed rather than simply keeping the circle going."
Before any of the assembly could break away, the ambassador warned the remaining delegates, "And, please, don't any of the rest of you get the idea that I think the rest of you are angels. You're all simply bickering rather than even beginning to attempt to work out any kind of agreement."
Closing his eyes, covering his face with one hand, Hawkes paused for a moment. Then he opened his eyes again, glaring out over his hand, saying, "Frankly, I'm tired of it. And so I'm warning all of you, if I don't see some kind of real effort being made tomorrow, I'm going to wash my hands of the lot of you."
His eyes narrowing, Hawkes focused his attention on the back wall, glazing his eyes in just the right manner to make every man in the room think he was staring directly at him. Then, filling his voice with dark, raw threat, he told them all, "And if any of you thinks that means you'll be free to do what you want, to strike, to bring in troops, to wash the entire planet with blood and plunge the Earth into desperation as food and raw materials disappear, think again. You people remember . . . I'm the governor here. If I don't see some attitude adjustments in the morning, I'm going to start issuing some executive orders. And if that happens, I promise you there isn't a one of you here who will be happy with the results.
"Not one."
And then Hawkes turned and walked out of the room, putting as much steel into his stride as possible. Half of the move was directed toward showing those at the table that he had become as rigid as he could. The other half was simply to keep him on course. He knew if he bent at all, he would turn around and lash out at the assembly, telling them what he truly felt in the most basic terms. That would be very counterproductive.
Martel followed him quickly, not allowing a trace of what she felt to show to the group. Catching up to him in the hallway outside his chambers, she said, "I know since it was your idea that the answer will be yes, but I thought I'd ask anyway . . . was that a good move back there?"
"Maybe," answered Hawkes, his tone a subtle mix of confusion and anger. He indexed his door open, motioning for Martel to precede him, saying, "It was the best I had to offer."
"Sir, you've kept other warring factions from each other's throats for months on end. We haven't been here a week and a half and these people have you climbing the walls."
Martel entered and took the seat she had begun to think of as hers. Crossing her legs, she bowed her head for a moment, then pulled it up again, asking, "What's so different here?"
"Dina," answered Hawkes, surprising her by using her first name, "I wish I knew. I really do. Oh, I can guess. Maybe I'm just getting old and can't suffer fools as gladly as I used to. Maybe I don't want to be remembered by history as the man who destroyed civilization throughout the solar system."
"I don't think—"
"Don't think what? That war could come out of this? Interplanetary war? Ships being launched against each other—not across rivers or lakes or even oceans . . . but across the gulfs of space? Don't you realize what we're talking about here?"
Martel shrank back slightly in her chair. Hawkes had grown loud, his nerves raw. He had not frightened her, but in her concern she pulled in on herself, giving him the stage to work out his fears. Curious and a bit frightened by what he might say, she sat back and listened as he continued.
"This wouldn't be like any kind of war we've ever seen," he told her. "If the Martian supply chain gets cut off, forget the raw materials. Forget the steel and plastic and thread and glass and everything else. No one'll even notice that. And do you know why? Because they'll be too busy trying to find something to eat."
The ambassador crossed the room, heading for his luggage. Reaching down under his shirts, he pulled out the single bottle of Jack Daniel's he had packed back on Earth that until then had remained untouched. Staring at it for a moment, he put it aside and said, "If the food barges stop shipping—if the colonists stop production, or explode the vats—there'll be no stopping it. We've both read the projections . . . even at their best, it won't take two weeks for every scrap of food to disappear from the face of the Earth. Millions will be dead by the end of the first month. Billions by the end of the second. Billions!"
Hawkes took another look at the fat, square bottle of sour mash next to him. Turning away again, he said, "Worldwide plague, along with cannibalism, will be the least of what we can expect. Don't forget, we're talking about out-of-atmosphere warfare. For the first time in over a century, for the first time since we discovered their true horror . . . man will feel free to use nuclear weapons again. Why not? For once, the enemy doesn't even breathe the same air as we do. Who cares what happens to bastards like that?"
Martel stared, saying nothing. There was nothing she could say. She had no arguments to hold up to Hawkes's logic . . . not even any suggestions. It had been a century and a quarter since mankind had exploded a nuclear device to take life—well over half a century since anyone had had any serious fears about their ever being used again.
Now, she thought, those fears were going to be coming back. After just a moment she realized, Going to be coming back? They're already here.
Feeling her skin going cold, the aide looked from the ambassador to the bottle at his elbow and, despite all that had been learned about the effects of alcohol over the past century, she had a horrible insight into why its popularity had never diminished.
21
"DO YOU REALLY THINK THIS IS A GOOD IDEA?"
Hawkes and Martel stood inside one of the thick-pour containment bunkers lead
ing to the outer surface of Mars. The ambassador had changed from his formal attire back into the clothes he had worn when he had first left the Earth. His aide had changed as well, accepting his judgment that rougher clothing might be more appropriate for exploring the outside of the planet than their duty suits.
Standing in front of the hatch to the decompression chamber that led to the smallest of the outer domes, the two stared forward, not quite certain exactly what to do next. Glancing over at the ambassador, Martel followed up her question, asking, "I mean—really? No one is supposed to be up here. No one is supposed to enter the domes."
"But why?" responded Hawkes, still staring at the door. Turning toward his aide, he repeated, "Why not? We both read the same research. These domes have been standing for decades. What's wrong with them that no one is living in them? Why don't people visit them?"
Reaching his hand out toward the control box, the ambassador depressed the heavy yellow button that opened the inside of the decompression chamber. A loud click snapped the quiet, and then the large, thick metal hatch began to roll slowly sideways. As the interior of the air lock was exposed, Hawkes took a tentative step forward, telling Martel, "This is what we need to know. When we reconvene the talks tomorrow, if things start going around in the same familiar circles, we need something to shake things up. If we've got some facts—any facts—something that proves people can live on the surface, or that they can't . . . it might force one faction or the other to give in a little."
"I have to admit," said the woman, "at this point, even 'a little' would be something."
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