"Vat you, green thing. You'll sell Mars out for a shiny slug."
The knife forgotten, the two men were grabbing at each other, slapping each other's hands away, wrestling their way to their feet, each trying to topple the other. The ambassador hissed, "That's not true. I'm here to help."
"Stuff it. You're Earth. Earth bites our hearts out. You'll never side with Mars over Earth."
The two men suddenly pushed at each other in the same direction. The force of the maneuver sent them stumbling once more. They slammed into the wall—Hawkes luckily on the outside. Gasping for breath, the ambassador said, "You're wrong. Whatever treaty I negotiate . . . it'll be the fairest . . . fairest one possible."
"Liar! No paper's ever going to free Mars! Fat Earth will never free us. But we will! The Originals didn't eat red dirt so you could drink their children's blood."
Hawkes could feel his hold on the younger man weakening. He had given it everything he had, but he was too tired. As the fatigue of days without rest started to eat at him, he struggled merely to maintain his grip, but to no avail. Sensing the loosening of Hawkes's hold on him, the assassin shifted his weight and then threw his arms apart, hurling Hawkes away.
Dashing to his fallen weapon, he screamed, "The Resolute don't listen to Earth lies. We reject you and all the green." Grabbing up his blade, the assassin turned back toward his victim. A cold sheen in his unblinking eyes, he began moving forward again, snarling, "Mars first, Eart'hog!"
But suddenly the Recycle area's massive door clicked open. The noise distracted the killer long enough for Hawkes to make it back to his feet. His enemy made another forward step, but as he did, a voice called out, "Hey! Whadya think yer doin'?"
"Stay back," cautioned the ambassador, recognizing the gardener's voice. "He's got a knife."
"Crunch it," replied the worker, moving up to Hawkes's side. Displaying his own weapon, one several inches longer than that of the now-outnumbered attacker, he said, "Everyone on Mars got a knife."
Shaking his fist at the gardener, the attacker shouted, "The Resolute won't forget this, bootlicker."
More people appeared in the Recycle doorway. As they began to step out into the hall, the foiled assassin ran off, his oaths fading behind him: "The Resolute don't forget!"
As the Recycle personnel began to crowd around the two figures in the hall, Hawkes leaned back against the wall. Safety was making him aware of his pains. Reaching out to the gardener, he rolled his eyes and gave the man a feeble smile, saying, "Thank you."
"I owed you one," the man answered matter-of-factly.
Ready to walk off, the ambassador caught his arm, holding him back. Reaching inside his vest, he asked, "Have you ever had meat before?"
The gardener looked at Hawkes with a puzzled stare. When he realized the ambassador was serious, he said, "No. No one in the family's seen meat since the grandolds."
Finally getting his inner seal undone, Hawkes got his hand into his pocket and pulled out the two beef jerkies he had taken with him earlier. The ambassador was almost embarrassed by the look in the gardener's eyes.
The man read the words on the outside of one of the packages. He did not know what a "kippered beefsteak" was, but he appeared willing to find out. As the small crowd gathered about watched, Hawkes took one of the jerkies back and then tore open its vacuum-sealed package with his teeth. Peeling back the plastic outer coating, he bit into the barest end of the thick, red meat stick. Then he chewed up the bit he had torn free and swallowed it. Handing the packet back to the gardener, he urged the man to do the same.
While Hawkes went back to trying to regain his breath, the man did as he had been shown. He chewed slowly, rolling the shredding fibers around in his mouth. The gardener moved the small chunks around in his mouth, his eyes wide, his expression near rapturous. He swallowed as little of the precious mouthful as he could, forced into the reaction only by the fact that his mouth was filling with saliva at a rate he had never known before.
Then, suddenly, he became aware of the reaction of the crowd around him. Neither embarrassed nor gloating, he slid the unopened jerky into his pocket. Then he folded the plastic wrapper down over the one Hawkes had opened and slid it into his pocket with the other. He took a step closer to the ambassador, smiled, and said, "I guess I still owe you one."
19
THE NEXT NIGHT, HAWKES AND DlNA MARTEL SAT IN
one of the low-energy people movers that buzzed about through all levels of the Martian Colony. Little more than a golf cart with a primitive robotic brain, the small three-wheeler quietly carried its passengers toward their destination.
"Do you think this is a good idea?" asked Martel, worrying at the strap of her gown.
"It was my idea, wasn't it?" Hawkes raised an eyebrow at her in amusement. "Yes, I think it's fine." Reaching over, he helped with her dress. "But you'd like an explanation, wouldn't you?"
"As to why you're showing such favoritism this early in the game? Yes."
"That barely deserves a response, but as my old commanding officer used to say, 'You can't be expected to play along if you don't know the game plan.' So, let me ask you: What do you think we accomplished today?"
"We opened negotiations," she answered. "We got everyone seated at the same table and we got them talking to one another."
"Were we in the same room?" asked Hawkes with mild sarcasm. When his aide was silent, he reminded her, "We didn't get anyone talking. We baby-sat a bunch of children. We listened to the same useless gaggle of threats and demands and accusations we spent our first two
