Old Mars

Mike Resnick is one of the best-selling authors in science fiction, and one of the most prolific. His many novels include Kirinyaga, Santiago, The Dark Lady, Stalking the Unicorn, Birthright: The Book of Man, Paradise, Ivory, Soothsayer, Oracle, Lucifer Jones, Purgatory, Inferno, A Miracle of Rare Design, The Widowmaker, The Soul Eater, A Hunger in the Soul, The Return of Santiago, Starship: Mercenary, Starship: Rebel, and Stalking the Vampire. His collections include Will the Last Person to Leave the Planet Please Shut Off the Sun?, An Alien Land, A Safari of the Mind, Hunting the Snark and Other Stories, and The Other Teddy Roosevelts. As editor, he’s produced Inside the Funhouse: 17 SF stories about SF, Whatdunnits, More Whatdunnits, Shaggy B.E.M. Stories, New Voices in Science Fiction, This Is My Funniest, a long string of anthologies coedited with Martin H. Greenberg—Alternate Presidents, Alternate Kennedys, Alternate Warriors, Aladdin: Master of the Lamp, Dinosaur Fantastic, By Any Other Fame, Alternate Outlaws, and Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, among others—as well as two anthologies coedited with Gardner Dozois, and Stars: Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian, edited with Janis Ian. He won the Hugo Award in 1989 for Kirinyaga. He won another Hugo Award in 1991 for another story in the Kirinyaga series, “The Manamouki,” and another Hugo and Nebula in 1995 for his novella “Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge.” His most recent books are a number of new collections, The Incarceration of Captain Nebula and Other Lost Futures, Win Some, Lose Some: The Complete Hugo-Nominated Short Fiction of Mike Resnick, and Masters of the Galaxy, and a new novel, The Doctor and the Rough Rider. He lives with his wife, Carol, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In the fast-paced adventure that follows, he takes us to the remotest wilds of Mars, on a search for the Tomb of the Martian Kings, lost for eons, and spins a story of greed and betrayal and the lust for riches—and how sometimes it might be better not to find what you’re looking for.

In the Tombs of the Martian Kings MIKE RESNICK

IT WAS CROWDED IN RAZZO THE SLUG’S.

There was no reason why it should be. There were twenty-three ramshackle bars surrounding Marsport, each with a don’t-hear-don’t-tell policy, but for some reason Razzo’s was the one that was always crowded.

Razzo himself wasn’t much to look at. It was Cemetery Smith who’d first remarked that he looked like a slug, and it stuck. No one knew where he came from, though it was clear from his accent and some of his mannerisms that it wasn’t from any of the inner planets. Not that anyone cared as long as he didn’t water his whiskey too much, provided an endless array of dancing girls from half a dozen worlds and moons, and made sure that nothing he heard was ever repeated.