Operation Isis. E. Hoffmann Price

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      Copyright Information

      Copyright © 1987 by E. Hoffmann Price. All rights reserved.

      Published by Wildside Press, LLC on behalf of the Estate of E. Hoffman Price.

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      Dedication

      In memory of Wanda and 1932, when she said, “Instead of hunting another job, dream up stories for the magazines. I’ll do the typing and we’ll make it.” And so we did.

      Chapter 1

      The spaceport of Maritania, the only city of the Martian Mining, Manufacturing & Agricultural Project, was in the easternmost of the ever-expanding complex of interlocking domes that retained the synthetic atmosphere of the developed region and the water vapor exhaled by its lakes and meadows. Beyond the spaceport and well into the level area bulldozed in the midst of the red desert’s wilderness of jagged outcroppings, the Garuda Bird towered above her landing struts. A kilometer-long enclosed escalator led from the vast waiting room and was connected by airlock to the cruiser’s boarding port.

      Freshly refitted, her gleaming molybdenum alloy shell not yet pitted by micrometeorites, the old Garuda Bird had been modernized for the tourist trade. She would be packed with homeward bound Terrestrians. Now that Mars was “in” as a vacation spot, every trendy North American was pushing his or her Kredit Kard to its limit. In one respect, however, these differed from the other trained seals. They were in home territory.

      For the past decade or so the Martian colony had been internationally, albeit grudgingly, recognized as belonging to and being ruled by the Limited Democracy of North America, successor to the short-lived Parliamentary Imperium of North America. Whatever doubts had lingered in minds other than that of Roderick David Garvin, war hero, war criminal, exile, and eventually Governor-General of Mars, were settled when his defense system made it a one-way trip for the invading Fourth World Flotilla, which set out to impose liberation and utopia on the rich imperialism that someone else had laboriously financed and developed.

      In addition to the goddamn tourists, as the Maritanian population termed them, there were the military and civil service personnel setting out on leaves of absence. Destination: Paris; purpose: rest, recuperation, and cultural evolution, a pompous way of saying “drinking, whoring around, and getting away from Mars, that ruptured hemorrhoid of the Solar System.” The fact of the matter was that although Maritania offered plenty of such evolution, the cultural impact was greater away from home.

      In one of the odd little nooks that were a by-product of making use of every square centimeter of floor space in a complex of spherical curves of dome and girder, there was a couple emotionally as well as bodily apart from the crowd. Two uniformed security men gestured with lead-loaded batons to keep souvenir and refreshment peddlers from invading the alcove. Back to that isolated couple: At first glance, one would dismiss the man as another sandy-haired nondescript whose features, though not badly matched, had been assembled from the spare parts bin. He wore English tailored tweeds that had not been pressed since leaving the Maritanian haberdasher. For several minutes he had been listening to his companion without ever a gesture or interruption. He was oblivious of his surroundings. The acre of milling travelers, the blaring of the P.A. system, and the vast red desert beyond the transparent plastic walls were dreary old stuff. The woman with him had his undivided attention.

      Any graduate girl-watcher standing within half a dozen meters would have said, “No goddamn wonder!”

      Her long-legged slender figure, with an understatement of curves that paradoxically enhanced the subtle sensuousness of body, suggested Shanghai, except that the peach blossom brocade skirt was not slit up to or beyond the knee. Furthermore, the dark eyes were not quite Chinese, nor were the cheekbones sufficiently prominent to give more than a piquant accent.

      The woman’s nose lacked the nostril flare of so many eastern Asiatics; it was longer and with a hint of the aquiline.

      Finally, the dainty feet and elegant ankles declared that she was a thoroughbred.

      Without further appraisal, the hypothetical girl-watcher would decide, “Uighur Turki, and the type that the Son of Heaven gratefully accepted when he and one of the kings of Turkistan declared peace after a gentlemanly war: friendly exchange of gifts, which left those distinguished young ladies delighted and wondering what their home folk got that was one-half as precious as what the Emperor of China was receiving.”

      Wrong diagnosis but not loutish ignorance. The nondescript man wearing tweeds, had he been so inclined, would have explained, “Not that it’s any of your frigging business, but Azadeh is my Number Two Wife. Aboriginal Martian. One of a prehistoric starfaring race. Their space cruisers are what won the battle of Kashgar. Quarter of a million years old and way ahead of our Johnny-come-lately science.

      “Sure, they’ll tell you that that is pure distilled horse turd! Scientists are a jealous pack, and I don’t deny that the legends and myths are a contradictory confusion. So the Great American Slob calls them Gooks and feels witty.”

      Confucius might have tagged Azadeh “Superior Person.” Chuang Tzu would have retorted, “Simply superior in herself. And I beg of you, Venerable Kung Fu Tzu, do not remind me that I often declare that all is relative.”

      It boiled down to something like this: Azadeh was as incapable of looking up to this one as she was unable to look down on that one. It was clear that as a partner she would be difficult, and as a subordinate fatally impossible. Whether friend, lover, or husband, her opposite number had to be her equal in substance and self-assurance.

      This suggested that Azadeh’s companion was not so commonplace. And, indeed, when at last he spoke, she did not interrupt. Though he paused for breath, or to ponder, or to look far beyond her as if gazing into time rather than space, she did not cut in with something totally unrelated to what he had been saying or, in the manner of the North American female, lash out with a rebuttal indicating that she had neither heard nor understood a word of what he had been saying.

      Finally, she pointed to a spot outside the alcove and spoke. “You and Flora were standing over there. And when Dad came to pay his respects, it was pure sleight of hand the way you gave him your palmed note. Speaking our language, he told you he would be standing near me, with his back to the Saturnienne. That conspicuous Gook pattern on his jacket would be a marker, and when you were on the bridge, you could pick me from the crowd for a good-bye look.”

      They’d spoken those lines many a time since their reunion in 2086, and especially since two of his wives had taken their leave. But that was the way of goodbyes, of the minutes before takeoff: rehashing trivia and choking on the unspoken meaningful. Such as the radiogram from France in which Flora had announced the birth of their son.

      It was the afterthought line that he had never forgotten and which he was sure that Azadeh recalled: FELIX, NOT FELICE. I’VE CAUGHT UP WITH YOUR AZADEH AT LAST.

      The man sighed. “My life is a long road, with leave-takings for milestones. Too bad we can’t take this trip together.”

      Fond whimsy. Futile words. Neither was taking a vacation from the other. When it had become a fixed custom for him to sit at his telescope watching Earthrise, no matter what hour of the Martian night that might take place, Azadeh had known that it was time to tell him that she was as homesick as he. And this was convincing. He knew well how, like the Americans of North America, the Gooks had accepted too many of the worst features of an alien culture and had been unable to assimilate sufficient of its better phases.

      So Azadeh would go back to the unspoiled asteroid, and he would head for Terra, where he would meet Felix and the boy’s mother, lovely Flora, the enchantress who loathed Martian life. And furlough would include a survey of North America and the exchange of reminiscences with the aging Warlords.

      That neither had included mention of that radiogram in their leave-taking prelude made it clear that each was aware of the pressures that could and might make his journey a one-way trip and a permanent vacation.

      During