Old Mars

Count Jack Fitzgerald, Virtuoso, Maestro, Sopratutto, stood at the window of the Grand Valley Hotel’s Heaven’s Tower Suite in just his shirt. Before his feet, the Sculpted City of Unshaina tumbled away in shelves and tiers, towers and tenements. Cable cars skirled along swooping lines between the carved pinnacles of the Royal Rookeries. Many-bodied stone gods roosted atop mile-high pillars; above them, the skymasters of the Ninth Fleet hung in the red sky. Higher still were the rim rocks of the Grand Valley, carved into fretwork battlements and machicolations, and highest of all, on the edge of the atmosphere, twilight shadows festooned with riding lights, were the ships of Spacefleet. A lift-chair borne by a squadron of Twav bobbed past the picture window, dipping to the wing beats of the carriers. The chair bore a human in the long duster coat of a civil servant of the Expeditionary Force. One hand clutched a diplomatic valise, the other the guylines of the lift-harness. The mouth beneath the dust goggles was open in fear.

“Oh God, look at that! I feel nauseous. You hideous government drone, how dare you make me feel nauseous first thing in the morning! You’ll never get me in one of those things, Faisal, never. They shit on you; it’s true. I’ve seen it. Bottom of the valley’s five hundred feet deep in Mars-bat guano.”

I come from a light-footed, subtle family, but for all my discretion, I could never catch Count Jack unawares. Tenors have good ears.

“Maestro, the Commanderie has issued guidelines. Mars-bats is not acceptable. The official expression is the Twav Civilization.”

“What nonsense. Mars-bats is what they look like, Mars-bats is what they are. No civilization was ever built on the basis of aerial defecation. Where’s my tea? I require tea.”

I handed the Maestro his morning cup. He took a long, slurping sip—want of etiquette was part of his professional persona. The Country Count from Kildare: he insisted it appear on all his billings. Despite the titles and honorifics, Count Jack Fitzgerald had passed the summit of his career, if not his self-mythologizing. The aristocratic title was a Papal honor bestowed upon his grandfather, a dully devout shopkeeper who nonetheless was regarded as little less than a saint in Athy. The pious greengrocer’s apples would have browned at his grandson’s flagrant disregard for religion and its moralizing. The Heaven’s Tower Suite’s Emperor-sized bed was mercifully undisturbed by another body. Count James Fitzgerald drained his cup, drew himself to his full six and a half feet, sucked in his generous belly, clicked out cricks and stiffnesses in his joints.

“Oh bless you, dear boy. None of the others can make tea worth a tinker’s piss.”

For the past six months, long before this tour of Mars, I had been slipping a little stiffener into the morning tea.

“And did they love us? Did strong men weep like infants and women ovulate?”

“The Joint Chiefs were enchanted.”

“Well, the enchantment didn’t reach as far as their bloody pockets. A little consideration wouldn’t have gone amiss. Philistines.”

A gratis performance at the Commanderie for the Generals and Admirals and Sky-marshals was more or less mandatory for all Earth entertainers playing the Martian front. The Army and Navy shows usually featured exotic dancers and strippers. From the piano, you notice many things, like the well-decorated Sky-lord nodding off during the Maestro’s Medley of Ould Irish Songs, but the news had reported that he had just returned from a hard-fought campaign against the Syrtian Hives.

“Ferid Bey wishes to see you.”

“That odious little Ottoman. What does he want? More money, I’ll warrant. I shan’t see him. He spoils my day. I abjure him.”

“Eleven o’clock, Maestro. At the Canal Court.”

Count Jack puffed out his cheeks in resignation.

“What, he can’t afford the Grand Valley? With the percentage he skims? Not that they’d let him in; they should have a sign: no dogs, uniforms, or agents.”

We couldn’t afford the Grand Valley either, but such truths are best entrusted to the discretion of an accompanist. I have talked our way out of hotel bills before.

“I’ll book transport.”

“If you must.” His attention was once again turned to the canyonscape of the great city of the Twav. The sun had risen over the canyon edge and sent the shadows of Unshaina’s spires and stacks and towers carved from raw rock chasing down the Great Valley. Summoned by the light, flocks of Twav poured from the slots of their roost-cotes. “Any chance of another wee drop of your particular tea?”

I took the cup and saucer from his outstretched hand.

“Of course, Maestro.”

“Thank you, dear boy. I would, of course, be lost without you. Quite quite lost.”

A hand waved me away from his presence.

“Thank you. And Maestro?”

He turned from the window.

“Trousers.”