Patron of the Arts

little operation here for some video show.”

The way he said dramatize told me how he felt about the vidtab way of “electrifying” reality, as they put it. “We take things out of the crust and we barter for the things we cannot make. It’s a simple life and we would hate to see it disturbed.”

I looked at him and said, “Minimum disturbance on all sensors, Mr. Sunstrum.” He smiled with more friendliness and released my hand.

“Nova has told us how you kept her from causing a mutiny on the ship.” He smiled fondly at her and I raised my eyebrows slightly. She looked serene and aloof. “Oh, father,” she said without rancor. Sunstrum looked back at me. “My thanks, as well.” Then he laughed. “I’m sorry, but your face is so carefully unexpressive! Li Wing!”

Nova’s mother turned from the cluster around Puma and joined us as we exited the lock. “Li Wing, this is Diego Braddock . . . Mr. Braddock, my wife.”

We acknowledged the introductions with pleasantries and then Sunstrum broke in. “I was just thanking Braddock for the way he handled the sexual situation on the Balboa.”

Li Wing smiled shyly at me and nodded. “Oh, yes. We were very worried about that long trip, with Nova grown.”

I shot Nova a look of What did you tell them? but she wasn’t listening. “Uh, thank you,” I said, meaninglessly.

We started across the work area before the dome, to a lock at the curving side. Li Wing took my arm and I found her a most appealing woman. Knife-thrower, huh? I couldn’t help thinking of the lurid overlay on this petite and ladylike woman.

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Braddock. I know that all introductions to sexual life are perilous and I must thank you again.”

Introduction to sexual life? I looked back over my shoulder at Nova, but they had been joined by Puma and one of the burly miners and no one was paying attention to me.

We passed through the lock and into a zome that connected to the home dome occupied by the Sunstrums. By the standards of Mars it was palatial. I quickly revised that: by any standards. It was nowhere as large as my smallest home, but it rivaled my best in the immediate feeling of home. All too often my expensive decorators had contrived marvelous showpieces, richly appointed sets for their talents. I had simply had too much to do and too many homes to live, or rather stay in, to do more than indicate basic directions and to Monday morning quarterback the results.

The Sunstrum home was warm in tone, with comfortable furniture, some of it the best of the Lifestyle lines, and other pieces homemade by loving hands and with an eye for design and detail. Each had been made for just the place it was in.

There was a big heater in a super-ellipse-shaped hole in one wall, a necessity of the Martian life. There was an enormous music-tape-projection unit by the far wall and a bar to the right. Over the bar was Puma’s portrait of Li Wing, and I was startled at how good it was. Back on Earth, when Puma had been Reymundo Santiago, he had been fairly popular, but not always good. Here he was good. I suspected he had been more than half in love with the beautiful oriental empress he had painted with such skill and insight.

I was suddenly aware that I was standing before it, and that they were watching me. I made an embarrassed face and a gesture of apology. “Forgive me, I—”

“Forgive, hell!” thundered Puma, “that’s the purest compliment you can give! Hot damn! Come on Sven, you dirt grubber, are you going to pour us some of that purply wine or not?”

I glanced at Li Wing and found her eyes coming from the painting back to me. “It is lovely,” I said and meant more. As all beautiful women, she understood the compliment and thanked me.

“I’m trying to get Puma to paint Nova,” she said.

“Hell, I’ll do her anytime,” Puma said, “but you sent her off to goddamn Earth!” He looked at her as she stood quietly, attentive but passive. “I do hate to sound like a goddamn cliche, but she sure has grown. Take a bigger canvas now!” He laughed and tasted the wine. He and Sunstrum fell into a conversation about vintages and solar strength and a longer season while I accepted a glass from Li Wing and sat down on the big tan couch.

“And what do you plan to do here on Mars during your visit, Mr. Braddock?” Li Wing asked. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Nova raise her head and she seemed to wait expectantly.

“Look,” I said.

“Just look?” There was the faintest blade of disdain in her voice as Nova’s mother questioned me. Wastrel. Wanderer. Tourist.