Old Mars

She came to her feet; the robe had shed the blood, and scuttling things were coming out of tiny holes in the walls to clean up the rest before they returned to feed it and the spilled food to the house digesters. The platform trotted off pad-pad-pad-pad to plug itself into the … more or less … veins of the building.

“How much were you paid to let them in?” she asked.

The lineage head—his name was Zhay—was gray-haired and wrinkled, which meant he’d probably been born when Andrew Jackson was president of the United States and Japan was a hermit kingdom run by knife-fanciers with weird haircuts who spent all their spare time oppressing her peasant ancestors.

“One thousand monetary units, and in addition a conditional threat to kill or excruciate several of us if we declined,” he said. “The perpetrators were independently contracting Coercives, persons self-evidently given to short-term perspectives.”

Which is a devastating insult, locally.

He went on: “I would estimate that they were highly paid, however.”

Sally made herself count to five before replying in an even tone: By local standards she simply didn’t have any grounds for being angry, and she had to conform if she wanted to be taken seriously. Nobody here would expect the residents to risk their relatives or their own lives to protect someone like her. And if they were going to rat her out, why shouldn’t they make a profit on it? A thousand monetary units was a lot of money.

Somebody was willing to pay high for a Terran, or for Tom specifically. Or maybe they wanted both of us, but they were too banged-up to take us both.

The apartment’s lineage had had the medical platform standing by, which actually showed goodwill. She really couldn’t afford to unload on them.

“But it would feel so good to go completely ripshit,” she said to herself through gritted teeth, in English.

“Take this to my consulate and you will receive reasonable recompense,” she went on, when the throbbing in her temples had subsided, typing quickly on her personal computer and loading it onto the data stick.

She hadn’t known Tom Beckworth long enough to care about him really deeply.

Not as much as I do about Satemcan, if we’re being completely honest, she thought.

But he was a Terran where those were damned few, and a fellow American where they were even thinner on the ground, and more important, looking after him while he was still green here was her job.

“Please note that if there is any repetition, my associates at the consulate will invoke an arbitration council and propose a heavy fine for implicit violation of the mutual-protection provisions of my lease.”

Zhay looked as if he were going to protest—it was an arguable point, since that clause really only applied to random street crime and burglary. Instead he simply gestured acknowledgment again and accepted the little plastic rectangle.

She didn’t bother to threaten him with the consulate’s influence with the local government. Robert Holmegard was a good man, but she’d learned right down in her gut what the Alliance consul still had trouble accepting over there in the palace district: government just didn’t matter nearly as much here as it did back on Earth, where variations on social democracy were pretty well universal outside the EastBloc.

And I am better informed about this side of Martian life than a diplomat. Much, much better.

“I will be out for a considerable period,” Sally concluded. “I need to find a Coercive of my own. Please leave on the porch light; I’ll be back after midnight.”

It didn’t rhyme in the monosyllabic tonalities of Demotic, but the puzzled frown was worth it. They really didn’t get folk rock here.

A Martian staggered out of the Blue-Tinted Time Considered as a Regressing Series, cheap inert fabric mask dangling and a smile—a slack grin, by local standards—on his face. He hummed a tune, then called out:

“Eu … Eu … euphoriaaa! Is there anyone within heeeearringggg intent on parareproductive coitus?”

Sally stiff-armed him as he stumbled toward her. The lightly built Martian gave an ooof and bounced back into the wall, still giggling.

“Three inhabited planets in this fucked-up zoo of a solar system, and you can’t get away from irritating drunks on any of them.”

He sank against the wall and slid down it, tittering, then started to hum the same tune as he sat splay-legged. Several adolescents eyed him, waiting to see if it was safe to lift his possessions, but blinking and backing a little when she glared at them.