CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
GO YOUR OWN WAY
She was one of the new émigrés to Mars. She’d come out legally with the latest group of wives and she sure had a lot of boxes. It took her a full year to get out there. The boxes were all full of old paperbacks. Hard-boiled crime and private eye stuff mostly. All of it from LastCen. She’d liberated a case of delightfully tough James M. Cain, W. R. Burnett, Thomas B. Dewey, Gaylord Dold, and James Hadley Chase paperbacks.
It was her final trip out to Mars. She was there to rejoin her husband. She had come home. Finally.
She was here now as a new settler.
James Ryan met her at the port.
She stood at attention, with her hand over her heart as old man McGregor made sure the Mars World Anthem was played. Loudly. Proudly.
She saluted the Mars Republic flag.
It blazed with stark warning, “Don’t Tread on Me!”
It proclaimed with bold pride, “I’d Rather Starve Than Eat Your Bread!”
It said harsh truth, “TANSTAAFL”—There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch!
That last she had learned was a phrase made popular by a LastCen science fiction writer, of all people. Some guy named Robert A. Heinlein. A man whose work she’d discovered was hard-boiled in its own very special way. She’d brought copies of his Farnham’s Freehold out with her to Mars. A kick-ass book! She saw that the spirit of his work all came together in the Mars Republic flag, which told her boldly, you can go your own way.
That phrase she knew now was the title of an old song by a LastCen Earther rock band known by the curious name, Fleetwood Mac. Whatever a ‘Fleetwood’ or a ‘Mac’ might be?
She passed the new monument to Marsman Iron Mike, it flashed upon the screens. It said, “The King of Mars, we hail our beloved king!”
There was a moment of touching silence.
Then Arabella Rashid saw James Ryan and cried as she ran over to embrace him.
They held each other for a long time. Each luxuriating in the warmth of the contact of their flesh, and the burning of their love.
Finally she stopped kissing him and said, “You look good. It’s so good to see you, James.”
“You too,” he murmured between kisses.
“I read a lot of great books on the way out. And you gotta see the paperbacks I brought out, James. You’ll never believe what I got in these boxes.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, James, paperbacks like you would not believe, I mean, I know Mars still needs books, right? Well I brought plenty. I also have something else very special for you, baby. And it ain’t in any of these boxes either.”
She was lovely. He smiled and said, “Well let’s get on home and see what it is. “
Arabella Rashid said with a wink, “Yeah, baby, let’s do just that.”
* * * *
The news came to Michael in ultra-secret digital scramble. As new Director of the Department of Control, he looked at the warning carefully and in alarm. This could not be happening! It simply could not be happening!
The message flashed:
Top Priority! DOC Director! Eyes Only!
Then:
DOC Rebels, under the leadership of the treasonous non-human replicant Moses Sage, have overthrown the Directorship of the Australia Sector and have now come into de facto control of that entire security area....
Authority shock troops have been sent to quell the uprising, but many are in open mutiny....
Untrustworthy! Untrustworthy....
All space platforms have been alerted and targeted strongholds of rebel resistance for immediate destruction. However, the space platforms have become inactive. No reason for this malfunction has yet been determined....
Authority Leadership will take immediate action to regain control but it appears a general planetary uprising has begun and the rebel forces are....
YOUR TRANSMISSION HAS BEEN INTERUPTED.
THERE IS NO FURTHER INFORMATION....
D.O.C. SECURITY CENTRAL....
OUT....