George Martin - Old Mars

He looked old . Maartin straightened to his knees, his fingers asking what was wrong, scattering soil crumbs across his thighs.

“What are they?” Jorge squatted to face him. “What are the people you see if they’re not ghosts?”

His fingers danced, explaining. He shook his head. Groping for words. They were getting harder to find. “They … are … the pearls.” Inadequate. “Like … like …” He thought hard, running through all the earth-things he’d learned. “Projector? Storage? They … live … forever. Until the sun … eats the planet.” Gave up, slumping, his fingers snapping and weaving his frustration in the air between them.

Jorge was staring at them. “Live forever?” He shook his head. “They can’t be alive. Like you said, they’re images. Ghosts. Not real. The pearls are rocks .” He lifted his head to meet Maartin’s eyes.

He wanted Maartin to say yes. Wanted it a lot. Maartin shook his head. He studied the explanation as his fingers rippled and twined it in the air. “Spectrum.” That was close. “Energy?” Not quite. “Different spectrum. They live.”

Jorge closed his eyes, and when he opened them, the hope was gone. “Cory and Bantu have been scratching around here when nobody was watching.” His voice was hoarse. “Your settlement is sitting on a shoal.”

Maartin didn’t bother to nod. Sharp-edge-alert had drifted up behind him. It occurred to Maartin that Sharp-edge-alert always seemed to be close by.

“I’m …” Jorge sucked in a ragged breath. “I’m going to warn your mayor. To leave. Just clear out of here. The settlement. I’ve … you can’t talk to them. It’s all about … going home. Like I told you.”

They would destroy the settlement, the way they’d destroyed the other one. Worse, because the shoal was beneath them, not up in the rocks above. He closed his eyes, imagining the mayor, his father, when the big earth-chewers rolled up to the gardens. “The mayor … will call the Planetary Council.” Maartin groped for the words, forced them out. “They’ll help.”

“No, they won’t.” Jorge shook his head, looked away. “We got better weapons and they know it. We’ll pay off the people who need paying off—you can do that when you’ve got a shoal’s worth of pearls. Everybody wants them, Maartin.” His voice was harsh. “Everybody. You better ask your Martian buddies to defend you if you want to stay here.” His laugh came out as bitter as the bleakness in his eyes. “Nobody else is gonna do it. Come on.” He grabbed Maartin’s arm. “I gotta get back before they suspect I came over here to warn you, or I’m dead meat.”

“You’ll kill …” His fingers writhed outrage. “You’ll kill … the city.”

“The settlement, you mean? Not if you guys don’t fight back.” Jorge was dragging him along the path now, toward the exit lock.

He didn’t mean the settlement. Sharp-edge-alert drifted along behind.

Anger .

And then he left, loping across the pastel tiles. Everybody in the plaza stopped and turned toward him. The water in the fountains subsided into low, burbling mounds and the mists drifting from the pipes turned an ugly shade of brownish green. Cold sweat broke out on Maartin’s skin, and he thought he was going to faint as Jorge yanked him into the lock and closed the inner door.

They found the mayor at Canny’s. Maartin hadn’t realized how late it was; the sun was sinking into the red crags beyond the city and the canal. Most people were there. Dad was leaning on the barplank, and he looked about as old as Jorge. Maartin hadn’t noticed it before. There was a lot of gray in his hair now. A crowd of people streamed through the room, heading toward the canal, slipping through the settlers, through the walls, hurrying. He’d never seen one of the people hurry. Maartin peered after them, the anger-hum intensifying steadily, making his bones ache.

“What the hell are you saying?”

The mayor’s angry bellow yanked Maartin’s attention back to the room. Jorge stepped away from him as the settlers gathered to face him, eyes hard, mouths grim. The people streamed through them, more of them now. Maartin doubled over with the pain of the anger-howl. Jorge retreated a step. “There’s nothing you can do.” He spread his hands. “You fire a shot at them, they’ll raze this settlement. Get your stuff and get out now and we’ll try not to damage too much.”

“You do that and the Planetary Council will issue death warrants in a heartbeat.” The mayor stepped forward, chin out. “You’ll all die.”

“You think so?” Jorge stopped retreating, his eyes as bleak as they had been in the garden dome. “I lied to you.” He was speaking to Maartin now, only to Maartin. “I was there, I was part of the crew that brought the rock down on the settlement over near First Down. I … knew what they were gonna do. I just quit, walked away. But I didn’t warn the settlers. I … I’m sorry.” His eyes were dark as night. “I’m sorry, Maartin.” He faced the mayor again. “Every one of those men got a death warrant. Every one went home. Rich .” His voice grated, harsh and loud, in the sudden silence. “You got real pearl-money, the death warrant gets kind of delayed. Until the next ship leaves. Got it?”

“Paul, get the rifles. We’ve got twelve in the vault in my office.” The mayor blocked Jorge as he edged toward the door. “Grab him.”

Jorge lunged, went down with a half dozen settlers on his back. Somebody shoved through the crowd with restraints from the little jail room behind the mayor’s office and they strapped his hands behind him, feet together.

“You’re not going to stop ’em.” Jorge shouted the words, his mouth bloody. “You don’t have to die! Just get out! They’ll pay damages after, if you don’t scream to the Council.”

“Fifteen years.” The mayor stood over him, fists at his side. “We’ve been culturing those cyan beds for fifteen years! And you’re just gonna plow ’em all up? And then go home? We can’t go home, and we want to breathe.” He kicked Jorge in the side. “Let’s go!” He turned, grabbed a projectile rifle from someone behind him. “They’re gonna pay for this! We’ll spread out, take cover, and drop a hell of a lot of ’em, soon as they come in range.”

“You do that, and they’ll kill every last one of you!” Jorge yelled from the floor. “There won’t be anything left here!”

Nobody listened.

“Come on, Maartin.” Dad grabbed his arm. “I can’t leave you here. God knows what they’ll do when we start shooting. Stay close!” He dragged Maartin along with the settlers pressing through the door, grabbing breathers.

Dad was scared. His whole body shivered with it.

Wait, wait, wait, don’t go, don’t go that way! His fingers snapped with urgency, but Dad didn’t look, didn’t notice. “No!” He finally forced the word out. “Wait!”

“We can’t wait, son. It’ll be too late.” Dad wasn’t speaking slow, wasn’t really paying attention as he dragged Maartin along.

No one would pay attention. The anger-hum was squeezing his brain, his organs. The plaza was undulating under his feet so that he stumbled, and Dad lost his grip on his arm. He yelled, trying to turn back, but the press of settlers swept him on. The others pounded past him, ignoring him. The spires swayed with the anger and the spiderways shivered; clouds of silvery sparks spouted from the columns in the now-dry fountain, hissing and crackling with an ugly sound.

Dad and the mayor and Celie and all the others were way ahead of him now. He cut right, following his shortcut to the canal. That was the way they’d come. He could get there first. His teeth felt as if they were loosening in their sockets and he clenched them, leaning against the anger-hum, homing in on it.