Read The Empress of Mars for Free Online

inquired the Brick, slightly muffled because his mouth was full.
    “Oh. That? Wait, you were a mineralogist, weren’t you?” Mary paused, looking over her shoulder at him as she fetched the crystal down.
    “I have been many things, m’dear,” he informed her, washing down his mouthful with more beer. “And I did take a degree in mineralogy at the University of Queensland once.”
    “Then you have a look at it. It was in some clay I dug up this afternoon. Maybe quartz with some cinnabar stain? Or more of the ever-present rust? It’s a funny old thing.” She tossed it over and the Brick caught it in his massive hand, peered at it for a long moment.
    Then he unflapped his transport jacket, reached into the breast and brought out a tiny spectrometer mounted in a headset. He slipped it on with one hand, holding the crystal out to the light with the other. He stared through the eyepiece for a long moment.
    “Or do you think it’s some kind of agate?” said Mary.
    “No,” the Brick replied, turning and turning the crystal in his hand. “Unless this gizmo is mistaken, sweetheart, you’ve got yourself a diamond here.”
     
    Nobody believed it. How could something that looked like a lump of frozen tomato juice be worth anything?
A diamond?
    Whatever it turned out to be, however, everyone agreed that the British Arean Company must not be told.
    “They’ll stiff you of it somehow, darling girl,” said Cochevelou, leaning across the table to gaze deeply into Mary’s eyes. It was his table, not hers; she had been invited to a celebratory dinner at Morrigan Hall, where a piglet had been slaughtered in her honor. Three hours of greasy revelry later, Cochevelou had retired with her to his private chamber, along with a pitcher of cream and honey and a bottle of aquavitae.
    “They’ll find a way to take it from your hands, just as they’ve takeneverything else,” he said, reaching for the pitcher to mix her another brose. “Drink up now, my heart. I’ll tell you a parable; the BAC’s like the bees we brought up here, ain’t they?”
    “Are they?” Mary accepted her drink but did not lift it to her lips.
    “They are. Brought up here in great expectation, eh? And lo and behold, they’re all but useless.
‘Ooo, where’s the magnetic field? Oooo, how’ll we fly? Oh dearie me, we’re not going out and pollinating anything up
here!
We’ll stay in our nice warm hive, thank you very much. Though if you bring us food and such we’ll perhaps consent to make a little honey.’
They get fed, they get cosseted, but who is it does the real work? My Perrik’s biis, that’s who.
    “And so it’s us doing the real work of terraforming after all, not those bureaucrats under the dome. But you may lay odds, the minute they get to hear of diamonds in your allotment, out they’ll swarm with their lawyers and sting the living shite out of you until they’ve driven you off your own land!” Cochevelou gulped down his drink. Mary turned the stem of her goblet in her hand.
    “What remedy, then, Cochevelou?”
    “Why, dispose of the thing first! I’ll trade you Finn’s twenty long acres for the rock outright, dearest woman. I’ll stand between you and the vicious stinging thieves. And into the bargain I’ll—why, I’ll—” He sank awkwardly to his knees, taking her free hand in both of his.
Holy Mother, not again!
thought Mary.
    “I’ll ask you to be my lady wife, which besides being the glory of my days and nights would also make those British Arean drones think twice about slighting you. What do you say, joy of my eyes?”
    “Chief, sir?” Gwil Evans opened the door, peering in. “You’d better come look—Ramsay’s in the sewer pipe and his foot’s caught, and we can’t get him out—”
    Cochevelou stood, clenching his fists. “What in hell is he doing in there?”
    “And we were hoping you’d have some helpful suggestions, like—because he went in there to retrieve Finn’s identity disc, see, which