[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction July 1958.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
A hayseed Martian among big-planet slickers ... of course
he would get into trouble. But that was nothing compared
to the trouble he would be in if he did not get into trouble!
The visiphone chimed when Peri had just gotten into her dinner gown.
She peeled it off again and slipped on a casual bathrobe: a wisp of
translucence which had set the president of Antarctic Enterprise--or
had it been the chairman of the board?--back several thousand dollars.
Then she pulled a lock of lion-colored hair down over one eye, checked
with a mirror, rumpled it a tiny bit more and wrapped the robe loosely
on top and tight around the hips.
After all, some of the men who knew her private number were important.
She undulated to the phone and pressed its Accept. "Hello-o, there,"
she said automatically. "So sorry to keep you waiting. I was just
taking a bath and--Oh. It's you."
Gus Doran's prawnlike eyes popped at her. "Holy Success," he whispered
in awe. "You sure the wires can carry that much voltage?"
"Well, hurry up with whatever it is," snapped Peri. "I got a date
tonight."
"I'll say you do! With a Martian!"
* * * * *
Peri narrowed her silver-blue gaze and looked icily at him. "You must
have heard wrong, Gus. He's the heir apparent of Indonesia, Inc.,
that's who, and if you called up to ask for a piece of him, you can
just blank right out again. I saw him first!"
Doran's thin sharp face grinned. "You break that date, Peri. Put it off
or something. I got this Martian for you, see?"
"So? Since when has all Mars had as much spending money as one big-time
marijuana rancher? Not to mention the heir ap--"
"Sure, sure. But how much are those boys going to spend on any girl,
even a high-level type like you? Listen, I need you just for tonight,
see? This Martian is strictly from gone. He is here on official
business, but he is a yokel and I do mean hayseed. Like he asked me
what the Christmas decorations in all the stores were! And here is the
solar nexus of it, Peri, kid."
Doran leaned forward as if to climb out of the screen. "He has got a
hundred million dollars expense money, and they are not going to audit
his accounts at home. One hundred million good green certificates,
legal tender anywhere in the United Protectorates. And he has about
as much backbone as a piece of steak alga. Kid, if I did not happen to
have experience otherwise with a small nephew, I would say this will be
like taking candy from a baby."
Peri's peaches-and-cream countenance began to resemble peaches and
cream left overnight on Pluto. "Badger?" she asked.
"Sure. You and Sam Wendt handle the routine. I will take the go-between
angle, so he will think of me as still his friend, because I have other
plans for him too. But if we can't shake a million out of him for this
one night's work, there is something akilter. And your share of a
million is three hundred thirty-three--"
"Is five hundred thousand flat," said Peri. "Too bad I just got an
awful headache and can't see Mr. Sastro tonight. Where you at, Gus?"
* * * * *
The gravity was not as hard to take as Peter Matheny had expected.
Three generations on Mars might lengthen the legs and expand the chest
a trifle, but the genes had come from Earth and the organism readjusts.
What set him gasping was the air. It weighed like a ton of wool and had
apparently sopped up half the Atlantic Ocean. Ears trained to listen
through the Martian atmosphere shuddered from the racket conducted by
Earth's. The passport official seemed to bellow at him.
"Pardon me for asking this. The United Protectorates welcome all
visitors to Earth and I assure you, sir, an ordinary five-year visa
provokes no questions. But since you came on an official courier boat
of your planet, Mr. Matheny, regulations force me to ask your business."
"Well--recruiting."
The official patted his comfortable stomach, iridescent in neolon, and
chuckled patronizingly. "I am afraid, sir, you won't find many people
who wish to leave. They wouldn't be able to see the Teamsters Hour on
Mars, would they?"
"Oh, we don't expect immigration," said Matheny shyly. He was a fairly
young man, but small, with a dark-thatched, snub-nosed, gray-eyed
head that seemed too large for his slender body. "We learned long ago
that no one is interested any more in giving up even second-class
citizenship on Earth to live in the Republic. But we only wanted to
hire----uh, I mean engage--an, an advisor. We're not businessmen. We
know our export trade hasn't a chance among all your corporations
unless we get some--a five-year contract...?"
He heard his words trailing off idiotically, and swore at himself.
"Well, good luck." The official's tone was skeptical. He stamped the
passport and handed it back. "There, now, you are free to travel
anywhere in the Protectorates. But I would advise you to leave the
capital and get into the sticks--um, I mean the provinces. I am sure
there must be tolerably competent sales executives in Russia or
Congolese Belgium or such regions. Frankly, sir, I do not believe you
can attract anyone out of Newer York."
"Thanks," said Matheny, "but, you see, I--we need--that is.... Oh,
well. Thanks. Good-by."
He backed out of the office.
* * * * *
A dropshaft deposited him on a walkway. The crowd, a rainbow of men in
pajamas and robes, women in Neo-Sino dresses and goldleaf hats, swept
him against the rail. For a moment, squashed to the wire, he stared a
hundred feet down at the river of automobiles. _Phobos!_ he thought
wildly. _If the barrier gives, I'll be sliced in two by a dorsal fin
before I hit the pavement!_
The August twilight wrapped him in heat and stickiness. He could see
neither stars nor even moon through the city's blaze. The forest of
multi-colored towers, cataracting half a mile skyward across more
acreage than his eyes reached, was impressive and all that, but--he
used to stroll out in the rock garden behind his cottage and smoke a
pipe in company with Orion. On summer evenings, that is, when the
temperature wasn't too far below zero.
_Why did they tap me for this job?_ he asked himself in a surge of
homesickness. _What the hell is the Martian Embassy here for?_
He, Peter Matheny, was no more than a peaceful professor of
sociodynamics at Devil's Kettle University. Of course, he had advised
his government before now--in fact, the Red Ankh Society had been his
idea--but still he was at ease only with his books and his chess and
his mineral collection, a faculty poker party on Tenthday night and an
occasional trip to Swindletown--
_My God_, thought Matheny, _here I am, one solitary outlander in the
greatest commercial empire the human race has ever seen, and I'm
supposed to find my planet a con man!_
He began walking, disconsolately, at random. His lizardskin shirt and
black culottes drew glances, but derisive ones: their cut was forty
years out of date. He should find himself a hotel, he thought drearily,
but he wasn't tired; the spaceport would pneumo his baggage to him
whenever he did check in. The few Martians who had been to Earth had
gone into ecstasies over the automation which put any service you could
name on a twenty-four-hour basis. But it would be a long time before
Mars had such machines. If ever.
The city roared at him.
He fumbled after his pipe. _Of course_, he told himself, _that's why
the Embassy can't act. I may find it advisable to go outside the law.
Please, sir, where can I contact the underworld?_
He wished gambling were legal on Earth. The Constitution of the Martian
Republic forbade sumptuary and moral legislation; quite apart from the
rambunctious individualism which that document formulated, the article
was a practical necessity. Life was bleak enough on the deserts,
without being denied the pleasure of trying to bottom-deal some friend
who was happily trying to mark the cards. Matheny would have found a
few spins of roulette soothing: it was always an intellectual challenge
to work out the system by which the management operated a wheel. But
more, he would have been among people he understood.
The frightful thing about the Earthman was the way he seemed to
exist only in organized masses. A gypsy snake oil peddler, plodding
his syrtosaur wagon across Martian sands, just didn't have a prayer
against, say, the Grant, Harding & Adams Public Relations Agency.
* * * * *
Matheny puffed smoke and looked around. His feet ached from the weight
on them. Where could a man sit down? It was hard to make out any
individual sign through all that flimmering neon. His eye fell on one
that was distinguished by relative austerity.
THE CHURCH OF CHOICE
_Enter, Play, Pray_
That would do. He took an upward slideramp through several hundred feet
of altitude, stepped past an aurora curtain, and found himself in a
marble lobby next to an inspirational newsstand.
"Ah, brother, welcome," said a red-haired usherette in demure black
leotards. "The peace that passeth all understanding be with you. The
restaurant is right up those stairs."
"I--I'm not hungry," stammered Matheny. "I just wanted to sit in--"
"To your left, sir."
The Martian crossed the lobby. His pipe went out in the breeze from an
animated angel. Organ music sighed through an open doorway. The series
of rooms beyond was dim, Gothic, interminable.
"Get your chips right here, sir," said the girl in the booth.
"Hm?" said Matheny.
She explained. He bought a few hundred-dollar tokens, dropped a
fifty-buck coin down a slot marked CONTRIBUTIONS, and sipped the
martini he got back while he strolled around studying the games.
He stopped, frowned. Bingo? No, he didn't want to bother learning
something new. He decided that the roulette wheels were either honest
or too deep for him. He'd have to relax with a crap game instead.
He had been standing at the table for some time before the rest of the
congregation really noticed him. Then it was with awe. The first few
passes he had made were unsuccessful. Earth gravity threw him off.
But when he got the rhythm of it, he tossed a row of sevens. It was a
customary form of challenge on Mars. Here, though, they simply pushed
chips toward him. He missed a throw, as anyone would at home: simple
courtesy. The next time around, he threw for a seven just to get the
feel. He got a seven. The dice had not been substituted on him.
"I say!" he exclaimed. He looked up into eyes and eyes, all around the
green table. "I'm sorry. I guess I don't know your rules."
"You did all right, brother," said a middle-aged lady with an obviously
surgical bodice.
"But--I mean--when do we start actually _playing_? What happened to the
cocked dice?"
* * * * *
The lady drew herself up and jutted an indignant brow at him. "Sir!
This is a church!"
"Oh--I see--excuse me, I, I, I--" Matheny backed out of the crowd,
shuddering. He looked around for some place to hide his burning ears.
"You forgot your chips, pal," said a voice.
"Oh. Thanks. Thanks ever so much. I, I, that is--" Matheny cursed
his knotting tongue. _Damn it, just because they're so much more
sophisticated than I, do I have to talk like a leaky boiler?_
The helpful Earthman was not tall. He was dark and chisel-faced and
sleekly pomaded, dapper in blue pajamas with a red zigzag, a sleighbell
cloak and curly-toed slippers.
"You're from Mars, aren't you?" he asked in the friendliest tone
Matheny had yet heard.
"Yes. Yes, I am. M-my name's Peter Matheny. I, I--" He stuck out his
hand to shake and chips rolled over the floor. "Damn! Oh, excuse me, I
forgot this was a church. Never mind the chips. No, please. I just want
to g-g-get the hell out of here."
"Good idea. How about a drink? I know a bar downshaft."