"Huh? But they make thyle right on Mars, don't they?"
"Yes. And it all goes to Earth and sells at 2000 dollars a fifth. But
you don't think we'd _drink_ it, do you? I mean--well, I imagine it
doesn't absolutely _ruin_ vermouth. But we don't see those Earthside
commercials about how sophisticated people like it so much."
* * * * *
"Well, I'll be a socialist creeper!" Doran's face split in a grin. "You
know, all my life I've hated the stuff and never dared admit it!" He
raised a hand. "Don't worry, I won't blabbo. But I am wondering, if you
control the thyle industry and sell all those relics at fancy prices,
why do you call yourselves poor?"
"Because we are," said Matheny. "By the time the shipping costs have
been paid on a bottle, and the Earth wholesaler and jobber and sales
engineer and so on, down to the retailer, have taken their percentage,
and the advertising agency has been paid, and about fifty separate
Earth taxes--there's very little profit going back to the distillery
on Mars. The same principle is what's strangling us on everything. Old
Martian artifacts aren't really rare, for instance, but freight charges
and the middlemen here put them out of the mass market."
"Have you not got some other business?"
"Well, we do sell a lot of color slides, postcards, baggage labels and
so on to people who like to act cosmopolitan, and I understand our
travel posters are quite popular as wall decoration. But all that has
to be printed on Earth, and the printer and distributor keep most of
the money. We've sold some books and show tapes, of course, but only
one has been really successful--_I Was a Slave Girl on Mars_.
"Our most prominent novelist was co-opted to ghostwrite that one.
Again, though, local income taxes took most of the money; authors
never have been protected the way a businessman is. We do make a high
percentage of profit on those little certificates you see around--you
know, the title deeds to one square inch of Mars--but expressed
absolutely, in dollars, it doesn't amount to much when we start
shopping for bulldozers and thermonuclear power plants."
"How about postage stamps?" inquired Doran. "Philately is a big
business, I have heard."
"It was our mainstay," admitted Matheny, "but it's been overworked.
Martian stamps are a drug on the market. What we'd like to operate is a
sweepstakes, but the anti-gambling laws on Earth forbid that."
* * * * *
Doran whistled. "I got to give your people credit for enterprise,
anyway!" He fingered his mustache. "Uh, pardon me, but have you tried
to, well, attract capital from Earth?"
"Of course," said Matheny bitterly. "We offer the most liberal
concessions in the Solar System. Any little mining company or transport
firm or--or anybody--who wanted to come and actually invest a few
dollars in Mars--why, we'd probably give him the President's daughter
as security. No, the Minister of Ecology has a better-looking one.
But who's interested? We haven't a thing that Earth hasn't got more
of. We're only the descendants of a few scientists, a few political
malcontents, oddballs who happen to prefer elbow room and a bill of
liberties to the incorporated state--what could General Nucleonics
hope to get from Mars?"
"I see. Well, what are you having to drink?"
"Beer," said Matheny without hesitation.
"Huh? Look, pal, this is on me."
"The only beer on Mars comes forty million miles, with interplanetary
freight charges tacked on," said Matheny. "Heineken's!"
Doran shrugged, dialed the dispenser and fed it coins.
"This is a real interesting talk, Pete," he said. "You are being very
frank with me. I like a man that is frank."
Matheny shrugged. "I haven't told you anything that isn't known to
every economist."
_Of course I haven't. I've not so much as mentioned the Red Ankh, for
instance. But, in principle, I have told him the truth, told him of our
need; for even the secret operations do not yield us enough._
The beer arrived. Matheny engulfed himself in it. Doran sipped at a
whiskey sour and unobtrusively set another full bottle in front of the
Martian.
"Ahhh!" said Matheny. "Bless you, my friend."
"A pleasure."
"But now you must let me buy you one."
"That is not necessary. After all," said Doran with great tact, "with
the situation as you have been describing--"
"Oh, we're not _that_ poor! My expense allowance assumes I will
entertain quite a bit."
Doran's brows lifted a few minutes of arc. "You're here on business,
then?"
"Yes. I told you we haven't any tourists. I was sent to hire a business
manager for the Martian export trade."
"What's wrong with your own people? I mean, Pete, it is not your fault
there are so many rackets--uh, taxes--and middlemen and agencies and et
cetera. That is just the way Earth is set up these days."
* * * * *
Matheny's finger stabbed in the general direction of Doran's pajama
top. "Exactly. And who set it up that way? Earthmen. We Martians are
babes in the desert. What chance do we have to earn dollars on the
scale we need them, in competition with corporations which could buy
and sell our whole planet before breakfast? Why, we couldn't afford
three seconds of commercial time on a Lullaby Pillow 'cast. What we
need, what we have to hire, is an executive who knows Earth, who's an
Earthman himself. Let him tell us what will appeal to your people, and
how to dodge the tax bite and--and--well, you see how it goes, that
sort of, uh, thing."
Matheny felt his eloquence running down and grabbed for the second
bottle of beer.
"But where do I start?" he asked plaintively, for his loneliness smote
him anew. "I'm just a college professor at home. How would I even get
to see--"
"It might be arranged," said Doran in a thoughtful tone. "It just
might. How much could you pay this fellow?"
"A hundred megabucks a year, if he'll sign a five-year contract. That's
Earth years, mind you."
"I'm sorry to tell you this, Pete," said Doran, "but while that is not
bad money, it is not what a high-powered sales scientist gets in Newer
York. Plus his retirement benefits, which he would lose if he quit
where he is now at. And I am sure he would not want to settle on Mars
permanently."
"I could offer a certain amount of, uh, lagniappe," said Matheny. "That
is, well, I can draw up to a hundred megabucks myself for, uh, expenses
and, well ... let me buy you a drink!"
Doran's black eyes frogged at him. "You might at that," said the
Earthman very softly. "Yes, you might at that."
Matheny found himself warming. Gus Doran was an authentic bobber. A
hell of a swell chap. He explained modestly that he was a free-lance
business consultant and it was barely possible that he could arrange
some contacts....
"No, no, no commission, all done in the interest of interplanetary
friendship ... well, anyhow, let's not talk business now. If you have
got to stick to beer, Pete, make it a chaser to akvavit. What is
akvavit? Well, I will just take and show you."
A hell of a good bloke. He knew some very funny stories, too, and
he laughed at Matheny's, though they were probably too rustic for a
big-city taste like his.
"What I really want," said Matheny, "what I really want--I mean what
Mars really needs, get me?--is a confidence man."
"A what?"
"The best and slickest one on Earth, to operate a world-size con game
for us and make us some real money."
"Con man? Oh. A slipstring."
"A con by any other name," said Matheny, pouring down an akvavit.
* * * * *
Doran squinted through cigarette smoke. "You are interesting me
strangely, my friend. Say on."
"No." Matheny realized his head was a bit smoky. The walls of the booth
seemed odd, somehow. They were just leatheroid walls, but they had an
odd quality.
"No, sorry, Gus," he said. "I spoke too much."
"Okay. Forget it. I do not like a man that pries. But look, let's bomb
out of here, how about it? Go have a little fun."
"By all means." Matheny disposed of his last beer. "I could use some
gaiety."
"You have come to the right town then. But let us get you a hotel room
first and some more up-to-date clothes."
"_Allez_," said Matheny. "If I don't mean _allons_, or maybe _alors_."
The drop down to cab-ramp level and the short ride afterward sobered
him; the room rate at the Jupiter-Astoria sobered him still more.
_Oh, well_, he thought, _if I succeed in this job, no one at home will
quibble._
And the chamber to which he and Doran were shown was spectacular
enough, with a pneumo direct to the bar and a full-wall transparency to
show the vertical incandescence of the towers.
"Whoof!" Matheny sat down. The chair slithered sensuously about his
contours. He jumped. "What the dusty hell--Oh." He tried to grin, but
his face burned. "I see."
"That is a sexy type of furniture, all right," agreed Doran. He lowered
himself into another chair, cocked his feet on the 3-D and waved a
cigarette. "Which speaking of, what say we get some girls? It is not
too late to catch them at home. A date here will usually start around
2100 hours earliest."
"What?"
"You know. Dames. Like a certain blonde warhead with twin radar and
swivel mounting, and she just loves exotics. Such as you."
"Me?" Matheny heard his voice climb to a schoolboy squeak. "Me?
Exotic? Why, I'm just a little college professor. I g-g-g, that is--"
His tongue got stuck on his palate. He pulled it loose and moistened
uncertain lips.
"You are from Mars. Okay? So you fought bushcats barehanded in an
abandoned canal."
"What's a bushcat? And we don't have canals. The evaporation rate--"
"Look, Pete," said Doran patiently. "She don't have to know that, does
she?"
"Well--well, no. I guess not No."
"Let's order you some clothes on the pneumo," said Doran. "I recommend
you buy from Schwartzherz. Everybody knows he is expensive."
* * * * *
While Matheny jittered about, shaving and showering and struggling with
his new raiment, Doran kept him supplied with akvavit and beer.
"You said one thing, Pete," Doran remarked. "About needing a
slipstring. A con man, you would call it."
"Forget that. Please. I spoke out of turn."
"Well, you see, maybe a man like that is just what Mars does need. And
maybe I have got a few contacts."
"What?" Matheny gaped out of the bathroom.
Doran cupped his hands around a fresh cigarette, not looking at him.
"I am not that man," he said frankly. "But in my line I get a lot of
contacts, and not all of them go topside. See what I mean? Like if,
say, you wanted somebody terminated and could pay for it, I could not
do it. I would not want to know anything about it. But I could tell you
a phone number."
He shrugged and gave the Martian a sidelong glance. "Sure, you may not
be interested. But if you are, well, Pete, I was not born yesterday. I
got tolerance. Like the book says, if you want to get ahead, you have
got to think positively."
Matheny hesitated. If only he hadn't taken that last shot! It made him
want to say yes, immediately, without reservations. And therefore maybe
he became overcautious.
They had instructed him on Mars to take chances if he must.
"I could tell you a thing or two that might give you a better idea," he
said slowly. "But it would have to be under security."
"Okay by me. Room service can send us up an oath box right now."
"What? But--but--" Matheny hung onto himself and tried to believe that
he had landed on Earth less than six hours ago.
In the end, he did call room service and the machine was trundled in.
Doran swallowed the pill and donned the conditioner helmet without an
instant's hesitation.
"I shall never reveal to any person unauthorized by yourself whatever
you may tell me under security, now or at any other time," he
recited. Then, cheerfully: "And that formula, Pete, happens to be the
honest-to-zebra truth."
"I know." Matheny stared, embarrassed, at the carpet. "I'm sorry
to--to--I mean of course I trust you, but--"
"Forget it. I take a hundred security oaths a year, in my line of work.
Maybe I can help you. I like you, Pete, damn if I don't. And, sure,
I might stand to get an agent's cut, if I arrange--Go ahead, boy, go
ahead." Doran crossed his legs and leaned back.
"Oh, it's simple enough," said Matheny. "It's only that we already are
operating con games."
"On Mars, you mean?"
"Yes. There never were any Old Martians. We erected the ruins fifty
years ago for the Billingsworth Expedition to find. We've been
manufacturing relics ever since."
"_Huh?_ Well, why, but--"
"In this case, it helps to be at the far end of an interplanetary
haul," said Matheny. "Not many Terrestrial archeologists get to Mars
and they depend on our people to--Well, anyhow--"
"I will be clopped! Good for you!"
* * * * *
Doran blew up in laughter. "That is one thing I would never spill, even
without security. I told you about my girl friend, didn't I?"
"Yes, and that calls to mind the Little Girl," said Matheny
apologetically. "She was another official project."
"Who?"
"Remember Junie O'Brien? The little golden-haired girl on Mars, a
mathematical prodigy, but dying of an incurable disease? She collected
Earth coins."
"Oh, that. Sure, I remember--Hey! You didn't!"
"Yes. We made about a billion dollars on that one."
"I will be double damned. You know, Pete, I sent her a hundred-buck
piece myself. Say, how is Junie O'Brien?"
"Oh, fine. Under a different name, she's now our finance minister."
Matheny stared out the wall, his hands twisting nervously behind his
back. "There were no lies involved. She really does have a fatal
disease. So do you and I. Every day we grow older."
"Uh!" exclaimed Doran.
"And then the Red Ankh Society. You must have seen or heard their ads.
'What mysterious knowledge did the Old Martians possess? What was
the secret wisdom of the Ancient Aliens? Now the incredibly powerful
semantics of the Red Ankh (not a religious organization) is available
to a select few--' That's our largest dollar-earning enterprise."
He would have liked to say it was his suggestion originally, but it
would have been too presumptuous. He was talking to an Earthman, who
had heard everything already.
Doran whistled.
"That's about all, so far," confessed Matheny. "Perhaps a con is our
only hope. I've been wondering, maybe we could organize a Martian
bucket shop, handling Martian securities, but--well, I don't know."
"I think--" Doran removed the helmet and stood up.
"Yes?" Matheny faced around, shivering with his own tension.
"I may be able to find the man you want," said Doran. "I just may. It
will take a few days and might get a little expensive."
"You mean.... Mr. Doran--Gus--you could actually--"
"I cannot promise anything yet except that I will try. Now you finish
dressing. I will be down in the bar. And I will call up this girl I
know. We deserve a celebration!"
* * * * *
Peri was tall. Peri was slim. Peri smoldered when she walked and
exploded when she stretched. Her apartment was ivory and ebony, her
sea-green dress was poured on, and the Neo-Sino mode had obviously been
engineered to her personal specifications.
She waved twelve inches of jade cigarette holder, lifted her glass and
murmured throatily: "To you, Pete. To Mars."
"I, I, I," stammered Matheny. He raised his own glass. It slopped over.
"Oh, damn! I mean ... gosh, I'm so sorry, I--"
"No harm done. You aren't used to our gravity yet." Peri extended a
flawless leg out of her slit skirt and turned it about on the couch,
presumably in search of a more comfortable position. "And it must seem
terribly cramped here on Earth, Pete," she continued. "After roaming
the desert, hunting, sleeping under the twin moons. Two moons! Why,
what girl could resist that?"
"Uh, well, as a matter of fact, the moons are barely visible,"
floundered Matheny.
"Must you spoil my dreams?" she said. "When I think of Mars, the
frontier, where men are still men, why, my breast swells with emotion."
"Uh, yes." Matheny gulped. "Swell. Yes."
She leaned closer to his chair. "Now that I've got you, don't think
you'll get away," she smiled. "A live Martian, trapped!"
Doran looked at his watch. "Well," he said, "I have got to get up
tomorrow, so I had better run along now."
"Ta-ta," said Peri. Matheny rose. She pulled him down beside her. "Oh,
no, you don't, Mars lad. I'm not through with you yet!"
"But, but, but," said Matheny.
Doran chuckled. "I'll meet you on the Terrace at fourteen hundred hours
tomorrow," he said. "Have fun, Pete."
The door closed on him.
Peri slithered toward her guest. He felt a nudge and looked down. She
had not actually touched him with her hands. "Gus is a good squiff,"
she said, "but I wondered if he'd ever go."
"Why, why ... what do you mean?" croaked Matheny.
"Haven't you guessed?"
She kissed him. It was rather like being caught in a nuclear turbine
with soft blades.
_Matheny_, said Matheny, _you represent your planet._
_Matheny_, said Matheny, _shut up._
Time passed.
"Have another drink," said Peri, "while I slip into something more
comfortable."
Her idea of comfort was modest in one sense of the word: a nightdress
or something, like a breath of smoke, and a seat on Matheny's lap.
"If you kiss me like that just once more," she breathed, "I'll forget
I'm a nice girl."
Matheny kissed her like that.
The door crashed open. A large man stood there, breathing heavily.
"What are you doing with my wife?" he bawled.
"Sam!" screamed Peri. "I thought you were in Australia!"
* * * * *
"And he said he might settle out of court," finished Matheny. He stared
in a numb fashion at his beer. "He'll come to my hotel room this
afternoon. What am I going to do?"
"It is a great shame," said Doran. "I never thought.... You know, he
told everybody he would be gone on business for weeks yet. Pete, I am
more sorry than I can express."
"If he thinks I'll pay his miserable blackmail," bristled Matheny, "he
can take his head and stick--"
Doran shook his own. "I am sorry, Pete, but I would pay if I was you.
He does have a case. It is too bad he just happened to be carrying
that loaded camera, but he is a photographer and our laws on Earth
are pretty strict about unlicensed correspondents. You could be very
heavily fined as well as deported, plus all the civil-damage claims and
the publicity. It would ruin your mission and even make trouble for the
next man Mars sent."
"But," stuttered Matheny, "b-but it's a badger game!"
"Look," said Doran. He leaned over the table and gripped the Martian's
shoulder. "I am your friend, see? I feel real bad this happened. In
a way, it is my fault and I want to help you. So let me go talk to
Sam Wendt. I will cool him off if I can. I will talk down his figure.
It will still cost you, Pete, but you can pad your expense account,
can't you? So we will both come see you today. That way there will
be two people on your side, you and me, and Sam will not throw his
weight around so much. You pay up in cash and it will be the end of the
affair. I will see to that, pal!"
Matheny stared at the small dapper man. His aloneness came to him like
a blow in the stomach. _Et tu, Brute_, he thought.