Patron of the Arts

Earth was still far from cleaned up. Piles of pure elements did not feed the billions, but they helped, mainly by sustaining the technology. Oil and the heavy metals were recycled. The technology that was needed to recombine the raw elements was even more complex than the technology that produced the raw material.

But atomically pure was even better than chemically pure and many of the delicate sciences, such as body and brain chemistry were aided by these pure elements, which reduced the X factor. Today, everyone gets at least an annual readout and delicate chemical adjustments are made where the nutritional balance has been disrupted. The fusion torch and attendant technology have saved man’s ass, but man’s soul is still in danger.

Maybe that was why I was on Mars.

Kochima’s Star Palace was our destination. First a dram of pop-top served in a rosy glass made from local silica, then a thick, tasty slab of algae steak, ragged cubes of soyasen, a few rounds of carrot as thick as my wrist, and some sort of blue-green lettuce. Between the drink and the food were introductions to a score or more of miners, torch technicians, farmers, and biologists. I noticed that whether hard-rock miner or test- tube biologist they all had a common factor of self-reliance, of independence and reliability. I was pleased to note that these traits were not the creation of the vidtab writers and that, as far as I could see,

“My word is my bond” was a truism.

Oh, not that everyone loved everyone else, and certainly not that they were all saints. You can be a self-reliant, independent, and reliable assassin or jewel thief or computer criminal. It was simply that these seemed common traits, and I found it comforting. I had been too long in the world of pragmatic business, where truth was a commodity and friendship a matter of whom you were dealing with. Nuvomartians wanted each individual to be what he seemed. They lived close to nature, but it was an alien nature that man was only beginning to understand. The need to trust one’s own kind was strong.

Maybe it was a little early, but I felt at home.

I found there were surprising aspects to some of these men. Easton had been in Leavenworth for six years for “adjusting” Union Oil’s computers to pay large sums into a dummy account. Now he ran the complex mass accelerator’s computers. “Long Jim” Trotter had been James Trotter IV, scion of a New England financial megafamily. Wayland and Migliardi had fought at New Orleans, in the Riots, one on each side. Drayeen had been a space salesman for a vidtab readout magazine. Puma had been Reymundo Santiago, a painter of note, and now a partner in Rojorock, Inc., a small mining company. They wanted to know all the latest news and gossip about Earth, and I wanted to know about Mars. But there were more of them so I ended up answering the questions.

Yes, Rosita Chavez and Olga Norse, Jr., were lovers but they had recently formed a notorious triad with Ed Avery, the director of City on Top of Itself, the muckraking expose of the predominantly homosexual archotolog called Heaven. No, it would be at least two years before the new Mark IX torch would be ready. Yes, the food riots in India had resulted in the deaths of millions. Peru and parts of the PanArab Republic had also suffered riots. No, there were no plans for saving Kennedy Space Center even as a historical monument. Yes, the White House wanted to chop off aid to Mars.

No, China Corlon was not a transsexual. Yes, President DeVore had called President Goldstein a mastoc cornard, and the insult was still shaking the beds of Washington. No, the Femmikin robots were no substitute for real women, no matter how well programmed to your tastes. Your own suspension of disbelief was their best asset. Yes, the FSA had picked John Grennell and Terry Ballard for the Callisto mission. No, Margarita Silva did not have implants, as far as I knew, just a bounty from nature.

Yes, Utah had gotten an injunction against Femmikin, Inc. after the Secretary of Robotics had fallen in love with one. No, Lila Fellini had not had any special geriatric treatments, nothing that wasn’t standard for all of us. Yes, the antipollution vigilantes had been disbanded. No, the Curtain of the Unknown cult had not quite won their election in England. Yes, some of the plastic surgeons considered certain of their patients to be living works of art, and it was true that Dolores Salazar, Helen Troy, and Illusiane had appeared nude, or in scanty power jewel costumes, on pedestals, at a gallery opening. No, they had not quite perfected the DNA regrowth techniques at Johns Hopkins West, but the RNA research was progressing well. Yes, the subcerebral learning techniques were much improved. No, the bordello bill had been defeated in Australia. Yes, Ron Manuel and Neola Digarth would be doing their next sensafilm on Mars. No, you didn’t go insane living in an archo tower complex, it only seemed that way.

I finally begged off by saying that all my talking was preventing me from drinking. They laughed and filled my glass with bubbling purple. When I was sufficiently drunk I was helped to bed, then got up to help Tanaka and Migliardi to their bunks.

Morning came early, as mornings all too often do. Wootten and I had forgotten to opaque the port and even at 141 million miles the sun was still bright enough to hurt my pop-topped eyes. Luckily, Wootten had some “Cork,” and soon we were eating breakfast and looking for a way to get me to the Sunstrum mine. Wootten asked around and found out that Puma was taking a sandcat out past there to Burroughs, and I asked myself along.

It was two hundred kilometers of beauty, for water from the torch was flowing down an ancient watercourse and we paralleled it for half the distance. Transplanted pines and other trees grew thickly, not in tree farms, but in realistic clusters and strings and solitary giants. With water a tiny native plant called Sprinkle blossomed into a lush dark green bush with hundreds of tiny flowers. The fabricated water looked very natural, and very welcome, winding its way through rock and pothole. It was not much more than a creek, but already it was called “the Mississippi of Mars,” and was officially labeled Athena River. Puma filled me in on Nova’s parents; his account was less formal than one of Huo’s dossiers, but just as accurate and complete.

“Sven Sunstrum came out here with the first shipload of colonists. Those were tough days. He punched