Innocent at Large Read online

  * * * * *

  Matheny puffed smoke and looked around. His feet ached from the weighton them. Where could a man sit down? It was hard to make out anyindividual sign through all that flimmering neon. His eye fell on onethat was distinguished by relative austerity.

  THE CHURCH OF CHOICE _Enter, Play, Pray_

  That would do. He took an upward slideramp through several hundred feetof altitude, stepped past an aurora curtain, and found himself in amarble lobby next to an inspirational newsstand.

  ”Ah, brother, welcome,” said a red-haired usherette in demure blackleotards. ”The peace that passeth all understanding be with you. Therestaurant 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 ananimated angel. Organ music sighed through an open doorway. The seriesof 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 afifty-buck coin down a slot marked CONTRIBUTIONS, and sipped themartini he got back while he strolled around studying the games.He stopped, frowned. Bingo? No, he didn't want to bother learningsomething new. He decided that the roulette wheels were either honestor 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 thecongregation really noticed him. Then it was with awe. The first fewpasses 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 acustomary form of challenge on Mars. Here, though, they simply pushedchips toward him. He missed a throw, as anyone would at home: simplecourtesy. The next time around, he threw for a seven just to get thefeel. 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 thegreen table. ”I'm sorry. I guess I don't know your rules.”

  ”You did all right, brother,” said a middle-aged lady with an obviouslysurgical bodice.

  ”But--I mean--when do we start actually _playing_? What happened to thecocked 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 cursedhis knotting tongue. _Damn it, just because they're so much moresophisticated than I, do I have to talk like a leaky boiler?_

  The helpful Earthman was not tall. He was dark and chisel-faced andsleekly pomaded, dapper in blue pajamas with a red zigzag, a sleighbellcloak and curly-toed slippers.

  ”You're from Mars, aren't you?” he asked in the friendliest toneMatheny had yet heard.

  ”Yes. Yes, I am. M-my name's Peter Matheny. I, I--” He stuck out hishand to shake and chips rolled over the floor. ”Damn! Oh, excuse me, Iforgot this was a church. Never mind the chips. No, please. I just wantto g-g-get the hell out of here.”

  ”Good idea. How about a drink? I know a bar downshaft.”

  Matheny sighed. ”A drink is what I need the very most.”

  ”My name's Doran. Gus Doran. Call me Gus.”

  They walked back to the deaconette's booth and Matheny cashed whatremained of his winnings.

  ”I don't want to--I mean if you're busy tonight, Mr. Doran--”

  ”Nah. I am not doing one thing in particular. Besides, I have never meta Martian. I am very interested.”

  ”There aren't many of us on Earth,” agreed Matheny. ”Just a smallembassy staff and an occasional like me.”

  ”I should think you would do a lot of traveling here. The old motherplanet and so on.”

  ”We can't afford it,” said Matheny. ”What with gravitation anddistance, such voyages are much too expensive for us to make them forpleasure. Not to mention our dollar shortage.” As they entered theshaft, he added wistfully: ”You Earth people have that kind of money,at least in your more prosperous brackets. Why don't you send a fewtourists to us?”

  ”I always wanted to,” said Doran. ”I would like to see the what theycall City of Time, and so on. As a matter of fact, I have given mygirl one of those Old Martian rings last Ike's Birthday and she wasjust gazoo about it. A jewel dug out of the City of Time, like,made a million years ago by a, uh, extinct race ... I tell you, she_appreciated_ me for it!” He winked and nudged.

  ”Oh,” said Matheny.

  * * * * *

  He felt a certain guilt. Doran was too pleasant a little man todeserve--

  ”Of course,” Matheny said ritually, ”I agree with all the archeologistsit's a crime to sell such scientifically priceless artifacts, but whatcan we do? We must live, and the tourist trade is almost nonexistent.”

  ”Trouble with it is, I hear Mars is not so comfortable,” said Doran. ”Imean, do not get me wrong, I don't want to insult you or anything, butpeople come back saying you have given the planet just barely enoughair to keep a man alive. And there are no cities, just little towns andvillages and ranches out in the bush. I mean you are being pioneers andmaking a new nation and all that, but people paying half a megabuck fortheir ticket expect some comfort and, uh, you know.”

  ”I do know,” said Matheny. ”But we're poor--a handful of people tryingto make a world of dust and sand and scrub thorn into fields and woodsand seas. We can't do it without substantial help from Earth, equipmentand supplies--which can only be paid for in Earth dollars--and we can'texport enough to Earth to earn those dollars.”

  By that time, they were entering the Paul Bunyan Knotty Pine Bar &Grill, on the 73rd Level. Matheny's jaw clanked down.

  ”Whassa matter?” asked Doran. ”Ain't you ever seen a ecdysiastictechnician before?”

  ”Uh, yes, but--well, not in a 3-D image under ten magnifications.”

  Matheny followed Doran past a sign announcing that this show was forpurely artistic purposes, into a booth. There a soundproof curtainreduced the noise level enough so they could talk in normal voices.

  ”What'll you have?” asked Doran. ”It's on me.”

  ”Oh, I couldn't let you. I mean--”

  ”Nonsense. Welcome to Earth! Care for a thyle and vermouth?”

  Matheny shuddered. ”Good Lord, no!”

  ”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. Butyou don't think we'd _drink_ it, do you? I mean--well, I imagine itdoesn't absolutely _ruin_ vermouth. But we don't see those Earthsidecommercials about how sophisticated people like it so much.”

  * * * * *

  ”Well, I'll be a socialist creeper!” Doran's face split in a grin. ”Youknow, all my life I've hated the stuff and never dared admit it!” Heraised a hand. ”Don't worry, I won't blabbo. But I am wondering, if youcontrol 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 havebeen paid on a bottle, and the Earth wholesaler and jobber and salesengineer and so on, down to the retailer, have taken their percentage,and the advertising agency has been paid, and about fifty separateEarth taxes--there's very little profit going back to the distilleryon Mars. The same principle is what's strangling us on everything. OldMartian artifacts aren't really rare, for instance, but freight chargesand 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 andso on to people who like to act cosmopolitan, and I understand ourtravel posters are
quite popular as wall decoration. But all that hasto be printed on Earth, and the printer and distributor keep most ofthe money. We've sold some books and show tapes, of course, but onlyone 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; authorsnever have been protected the way a businessman is. We do make a highpercentage of profit on those little certificates you see around--youknow, the title deeds to one square inch of Mars--but expressedabsolutely, in dollars, it doesn't amount to much when we startshopping for bulldozers and thermonuclear power plants.”

  ”How about postage stamps?” inquired Doran. ”Philately is a bigbusiness, 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 asweepstakes, 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 triedto, well, attract capital from Earth?”

  ”Of course,” said Matheny bitterly. ”We offer the most liberalconcessions in the Solar System. Any little mining company or transportfirm or--or anybody--who wanted to come and actually invest a fewdollars in Mars--why, we'd probably give him the President's daughteras 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 moreof. We're only the descendants of a few scientists, a few politicalmalcontents, oddballs who happen to prefer elbow room and a bill ofliberties to the incorporated state--what could General Nucleonicshope 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 interplanetaryfreight 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 veryfrank with me. I like a man that is frank.”

  Matheny shrugged. ”I haven't told you anything that isn't known toevery economist.”

  _Of course I haven't. I've not so much as mentioned the Red Ankh, forinstance. But, in principle, I have told him the truth, told him of ourneed; for even the secret operations do not yield us enough._

  The beer arrived. Matheny engulfed himself in it. Doran sipped at awhiskey sour and unobtrusively set another full bottle in front of theMartian.

  ”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, ”withthe situation as you have been describing--”

  ”Oh, we're not _that_ poor! My expense allowance assumes I willentertain 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 businessmanager for the Martian export trade.”

  ”What's wrong with your own people? I mean, Pete, it is not your faultthere are so many rackets--uh, taxes--and middlemen and agencies and etcetera. That is just the way Earth is set up these days.”