Patron of the Arts

It was sunset when we got into Bradbury, and Nova was seen by a group of jolly farmers with the purple Silverberg Kibbutz insignia on their shoulders. They hadn’t known she was back, and there was a lot of cheerful kidding and not a little outright lust.

Nova was gay and charming and steered them into gossip about the Canalgae farm, and then we were at Sunstrum’s office. His agent there kept a couple of sleeping cubicles that shared a vibrabath. As she rid herself of the day’s dust and dried river mud she said, “You know the only thing I really liked about Earth was all that water! I love showers, real showers!”

I’ll buy you a Niagara of showers, I thought. I’ll divert the Nile! Cleopatra’s water will flow over your body! “Vibrabaths get you cleaner,” I said.

“They only get my body cleaner,” she said. “There are other factors to getting clean.”

We dressed and went out for dinner and that’s when they tried to kill me.

There was a gritty ripping noise and bits of a storage dome fell from a sudden long slit. Nova stared at it curiously, then protested as I grabbed her wrist and threw us into the dark between domes. She protested, both verbally and physically.

“Here? My god, Diego, don’t you get enough? Hey, what are you doing?” I was dragging her, kicking and fighting, further into the dark. I saw a shadow move on the dome across the street and I had no time to explain things. I found her jaw in the dark and punched her out. I lay very still, my heart pounding, my mind racing.

Why were they trying to kill me? Us? No, it had to be me. A good marksman could take me out with a laser and leave Nova holding a hand with no arm attached.

I watched the light patch on the dome across the narrow street, hoping to see a shadow, although what I was going to do then I hadn’t the faintest idea. I had no weapon, except my brain.

I felt around in the dark and found a rock, a wedge of permaplast, a broken electronic plug-in, all things that had escaped the notice of the cleansweepers. I took a good grip on Nova’s wrist and threw the three bits high into the night. I started to drag Nova away and I felt a plasticon box by my foot and I flipped that back toward the light. The bits of trash fell on domes and started sliding to the ground. The box skidded noisily and crashed against the far dome. A shadow moved and I yanked the limp Nova around the curve as I saw the ruby light glowing. Behind me something suddenly hissed and there was a crumbling and a gushing of liquids.

I scooped Nova up in my arms and ran. I zig-zagged in a stumbling fashion, then found I was at the back of a bar, or at least a place with some people in it. I slumped against the curving dome, drawing air with ragged breaths, still holding Nova. Finally, I eased her to the ground and tried bringing her around, then I stopped. I had to think before she awoke and came at me with questions. Who the hell was trying to kill me? The first answer was that Nova had a jealous suitor, but I hadn’t expected this from any of them. The nuvomartians I had met were stand-up, punch-out types, not backshooters or assassins.

Who, then? I hadn’t made any enemies on Mars, except those connected with Nova.

But Brian Thorne had enemies. Nothing personal, mind you, but a thousand men would like to see me dead. A stock shift here, a chairmanship there, a directorate given to someone else. Five-to-four decisions made five-to-four the other direction. Nothing personal, Thorne, but drop dead.

Or one of the Neopolitikons, with their ideas of Communism mixed with a sort of ego fascism. Kill Thorne for the People’s Sake. Nothing personal, Thorne, you are just a symbol.

A nut, driven mad in the ghettos of the poor, one day sees me drive by in a car at the moment he goes manic, and I am the focus. Nothing personal, mister, because I am mad.

Or something personal. A failure who blames me. An incompetent employee fired by one of my managers and I am in the crosshairs. The son of a board chairman whom I have caught stealing and who turned suicide as a result of the discovery. The present lover of an ex-mistress who thinks there might be something in my will for her. A man with a laser.

I knew I would have to check. I wondered if they would have any Null-Edit tapes here. No, that would take too long. A tight beam was the only fast way. Would a Publitex flack be allowed to spend that kind of money? My only hope was that they knew nothing of the way a flack operates.

Then I grinned ruefully. Who was I hiding from? At least one man here knew who I was. I was either being killed because I was Nova’s lover or because I was Brian Thorne.

As gently as possible I slapped Nova awake and stifled her groaning questions with a hand over her mouth. I ignored her protests about a broken jaw and told her someone was trying to kill me and did she know who it might be?

“Sure, about ten or twelve diggers, a handful of grubbers, one computer jockey, and a Marine. At last count.”

“I’m serious, Nova.”