The Unicorn Trade Page 6

  “Oh, those. Sure. But aren’t they out in California?”

  “Just a front,” said Matheny. “Actually, that’s our largest dollar-earning enterprise.” He would have liked to say it was his suggestion originally, but that 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 NeoCretan mode had obviously been engineered to her personal specifications.

  She waved twelve inches of jade cigaret 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.

  Peri pouted, dimpling her cheeks. “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 whispered.

  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 now, well, our laws on Earth are pretty strict about unlicensed corespondents. 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 down if I can. I will talk down his figure. It will still cost you, Pete, but fout, 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.

  He bit his lip. “Thanks, Gus,” he said. “You are a real friend.”

  Sam blocked the doorway with his shoulders as he entered the room. Doran followed like a diminutive tug pushing a very large liner. They closed the door. Matheny stood up, avoiding Sam’s glare.

  “Okay, louse,” harshed Sam. “You got a better pal here than you deserve, but he ain’t managed to talk me into settling for nothing.”

  “Let me get this … I mean … well,” said Matheny. “Look, sir, you claim that I, I mean that your wife and I were, uh, well, we weren’t. Not really. I was only visiting her and—”

  “Stow it, stow it.” Sam towered over the Martian. “Shoot it to the moon. You had your fun. It’ll cost you. One million dollars.”

  “One mil—But—but—Gus,” wailed Matheny, “this is out of all reason! I thought you said—”

  Doran shrugged. “I am sorry, Pete. I could not get him any farther down. He started asking fifty. You better pay him.”

  “No!” Matheny scuttled behind a chair. “No, look here! I, Peter Matheny of the Martian Republic, declare you are blackmailing me!”

  “I’m asking compensation for damages,” growled Sam. “Hand it over or I’ll go talk to a lawyer. That ain’t blackmail. You got your choice, don’t you?”

  Matheny wilted. “Yes,” he shuddered.

  “A megabuck isn’t so bad, Pete,” soothed Doran. “I personally, will see that you earn it back in—”

  “Oh, never mind.” Tears stood in Matheny’s eyes. “You win.” He took out his checkbook.

  “None of that,” rapped Sam. “Cash. Now.”

  “But you claimed this was a legitimate—”

  “You heard me.”

  “Well … could I have a receipt?” begged Matheny.

  Sam grinned.

  “I just thought I’d ask,” said Matheny.

  He opened a drawer and counted out one hundred ten-kilo-buck bills. “There! And, and, and I hope you choke on it!”

  Sam stuffed the money in a pocket and lumbered out.

  Doran lingered. “Look here, Pete,” he said, “I will make this up to you. Honest. All you have got to do is trust me.”

  “Sure.” Matheny slumped on the bed. “Not your fault. Let me alone for a while, will you?”

  “Look, I will come back in a few hours and buy you the bes
t dinner in all the Protectorates and—”

  “Sure,” said Matheny. “Sure.”

  Doran left, closing the door with great gentleness.

  He returned at 1730, entered, and stopped dead. The floor space was half taken up by a screen and a film projector. “What happened, Pete?” he asked uncertainly.

  Matheny smiled. “I took some tourist movies,” he said. “Self-developing soundtrack film. Sit down, and I’ll show you.”

  “Well, thanks, but I am not so much for home movies.”

  “It won’t take long. Please.”

  Doran shrugged, found a chair, and took out a cigarette. “You seem pretty well cheered up now,” he remarked. “That is a spirit I like to see. You have got to have faith.”

  “I’m thinking of a sideline business in live photography,” said the Martian. “Get back my losses of today, you know.”

  “Well, now, Pete, I like your spirit, like I say. But if you are really interested in making some of that old baroom, and I think you are, then listen—”

  “I’ll sell prints to people for home viewing,” went on Matheny. “I’d like your opinion of this first effort.” He dimmed the transparency and started the projector. The screen sprang into colored motion. Sam Wendt blocked the doorway with his shoulders.

  “Who knows, I might even sell you one of the several prints I made today,” said Matheny.

  … “Okay, louse,” said Sam.…

  “Life is hard on Mars,” commented Matheny in an idle tone, “and we’re an individualistic culture. The result is pretty fierce competition, though on a person-to-person rather than organizational basis. All friendly enough, but—Oh, by the way, how do you like our Martian camera technology? I wore this one inside my buttonhole.”

  Doran in the screen shrugged and said: “I am sorry, Pete.” Doran in the chair stubbed out his cigarette, very carefully, and asked, “How much do you want for that film?”

  “Would a megabuck be a fair price?” inquired Matheny.

  “Uh … huh.”

  “Of course, I am hoping Sam will want a copy too.”

  Doran swallowed. “Yeah. Yes, I think I can talk him into it.”

  “Good.” Matheny stopped the projector. He sat down on the edge of the table, swinging one leg, and lit his pipe. Its bowl glowed in the dimness like the eye of a small demon. “By the way,” he said irrelevantly, “if you check newscast tapes you’ll find I was runner-up in last year’s all-Martian pistol contest. We shoot from the hip.”

  “I see.” Doran wet his lips. “Uh, no hard feelings. No, none at all. But say, in case you are, well, you know, looking for a slipstring, what I came here for was to tell you I have located the very guy you want. Only he is in jail right now, see, and it will cost—”

  “Oh, no!” groaned Matheny. “Not the Syrtis Prospector! Kids are taught that one in kindergarten.”

  Doran bowed his head. “We call it the Spanish Prisoner here,” he said. He got up. “I will send the price of those films around in the morning.”

  “You’ll call your bank and have the cash pneumoed here tonight,” said Matheny. “Also Sam’s share. I daresay he can pay you back.”

  “No harm in trying, was there?” asked Doran humbly.

  “None at all,” said Matheny. He chuckled. “In fact, I’m grateful to you. You helped me solve my major problem.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll have to investigate further, but I’m sure my hunch will be confirmed. You see, we Martians have stood in awe of Earthmen. And since for a long time there’s been very little contact between the two planets except the purely official, impersonal sort, there’s been nothing to disabuse us. It’s certainly true that our organizations can’t compete with yours, because your whole society is based on organizations.—But now, by the same token, I wonder if your individuals can match ours. Ever hear of the Third Moon? No? the whipsaw play? The aqueduct squeeze? Good Lord, can’t you even load a derrel set?” Matheny licked his chops. “So there’s our Martian export to Earth. Martian con men. I tell you this under security, of course—not that anyone would believe you, till our boys walk home with the shirt off the Terrestrial back.”

  He waved an imperious pipestem. “Hurry up and pay me, please. I’ve a date tonight with Peri. I just called her up and explained the situation, and she really does seem to like Martians.”

  —Poul and Karen Anderson

  SIX HAIKU

  l

  The white vapor trail

  Scrawls slowly on the sky

  Without any squeak.

  2

  Gilt and painted clouds

  Float back through the shining air,

  What, are there stars, too?

  3

  In the heavy world’s

  Shadow, I watch the sputnik

  Coasting in sunlight.

  4

  Those crisp cucumbers

  Not yet planted in Syrtis—

  How I desire one!

  5

  In the fantastic

  Seas of Venus, who would dare

  To imagine gulls?

  6

  When Proxima sets

  What constellation do they

  Dream around our sun?

  —KAREN ANDERSON

  HAIKU FOR MARS

  I

  From this neighbor hill

  The noonday of Mars outshines

  The windows of home.

  II

  For one who goes forth,

  For one who sees the tall ship

  Depart: two wonders.

  Ill

  On Syrtis, we lay

  Foundations for the topless

  Towers of Helium.

  IV

  I watch the dust scud

  Past my faceplate, and wonder:

  What does it smell like?

  —Karen Anderson

  THINK OF A MAN

  Think of a man—and think he’s much like you—

  Who cups like gems in memory’s hand the stars

  And maybe says: “This one that blazes blue

  Shone down—near crisped me!—on the Canis wars.

  I was decorated: medal and three scars.

  Next came this yellow, Procyon; by its light

  I spent some gritty months in desert cars,

  Drank up my pay and hoped there’d be no fight.

  “And then to Pollux; not so bright, but warm;

  Just like the girl I met there—comfort, though,

  Can get damned dull. My dress whites were the charm

  That kept her, and I shed them; shed her so.

  A merchant ticket hauled me, come and go,

  A dozen times round Castor and Capella.

  Castor’s this green one: dazzled on the snow

  That slipped me up and cracked my fool patella.

  “I thought I liked it dirtside; learned to gamble

  The one sure way to win—got paid to deal.

  And that got dull. I took a little amble

  To this one, arc-blue Regulus, to feel

  Once more the thrum and urge of driven steel.

  Sudden I hated day-star never changing

  And suns at night held all to one round wheel.

  I knew for me there’d be no life but ranging.”

  Think then of such a man, who gems his thought

  With Mizar’s emerald, Vega’s diamond gleam,

  Arcturus’ topaz: wealth he’s fairly bought

  With nothing less than heartblood. Let him seem

  Grown old, with darting eyes whose corners teem

  Wrinkles to laugh like dawn or weep like dew:

  Hell-tested, Heaven blest: he lives his dream.

  Think such a man. And think he might be you.

  —KAREN ANDERSON

  DEAD PHONE

  That was an evil autumn, when the powers bared their teeth across an island in the Spanish Main and it seemed the world might burn. Afterward Americans looked at each other with a kind of wonder, and
for a while they walked more straight. But whatever victory they had gained was soon taken away from them.

  As if to warn, a fortnight earlier the weather ran amok. On the Pacific coast, gale force winds flung sea against land, day and night without end, and rainfall in northern California redressed the balance of a three-year drought in less than a week. At the climax of it, the hills around San Francisco Bay started to come down in mudslides that took houses and human bodies along, and the streets of some towns were turned into rivers.

  Trygve Yamamura sat up late. His wife had taken the children to visit her cousin in the Mother Lode country over the Columbus Day weekend. His work kept him behind; so now he prowled the big hollow house on the Berkeley steeps, smoked one pipe after another, listened to the wind and the rain lashing his roof and to the radio whose reports grew ever more sinister, and could not sleep.

  Oh, yes, he told himself often and often, he was being foolish. They had undoubtedly arrived without trouble and were now snug at rest. In any event, he could do nothing to help, he was only exhausting himself, in violation of his entire philosophy. Tomorrow morning the phone line that had snapped, somewhere in those uplands, would be repaired, and he would hear their voices. But meanwhile his windowpanes were holes of blackness, and he started when a broken tree branch crashed against the wall.

  He sought his basement gym and tried to exercise himself into calm. That didn’t work either, simply added a different kind of weariness. He was worn down, he knew, badly in need of a vacation, with no immediate prospect of one. His agency had too many investigations going for him to leave the staff unsupervised.

  He was also on edge because through various connections he knew more about the Cuban situation than had yet gotten into the papers. A nuclear showdown was beginning to look all too probable. Yamamura was not a pacifist, even when it came to that kind of war; but no sane man, most especially no man with wife and children, could coolly face abomination.

  Toward midnight he surrendered. The Zen techniques had failed, or he had. His eyes felt hot and his brain gritty. He stripped, stood long under the shower, and at last, with a grimace, swallowed a sleeping pill.