The Lawyers of Mars: Three Novellas Read online

  The first sublevel, ground level and first floor of the Builtdown Building were all taken by trendy shops and restaurants and the top twelve floors were the offices of some of the oldest companies in the Cavern, including, of course, L'svages, L'svages, L'svages, L'svages, L'svages and L'svages. The middle levels were given over to apartments, and so going home was a simple matter of a brief elevator trip. She'd taken possession of her parents' apartment when they died in a monorail accident two years ago, and no amount of hinting had shaken her loose or persuaded her to share with one of her pseudofem cousins. Even for a L'svages she had an indecent amount of personal cubic. The privacy was worth the taxes.

  She peeled out of her court suit with relief, wrapping an old comfortable skirt around herself. The living room was elevated half a stride, with a railing separating the polished tile floor from the planted area of her very own personal mini park. The absolutely best part of the apartment was that it was located at the very back of the building; the back wall of the two strides deep park was the native stone of the cavern, soaring like a cliff wall behind her cherished springers and sweepers, the towering spine of the spiral leaved vance, and her newest addition, a tiny dwarf pet plant. She flicked a pellet at it, watching the elegant arch of the male flower stem bend to catch it as it rolled past. Grasping it loosely in its petals, it rattled it gently around to coat it with pollen then flung it. Despite the tendency of Martians to keep the larger varieties for children's playmates (they'd throw balls for splits) and give them names, the scientists all claimed it was purely mechanical. The plants were not actually happy, nor playing. They were just spreading their pollen, using anything that moved. So it was merely happenstance that Xaero was able to field the pellet twice and throw it back before it was lost somewhere in the sand and pebbles of the park.

  All her other plants were surface survivors, tough and water thrifty plants that had evolved to live in the increasingly thin air of a cold dry planet. Martians, sometime in the late stone age had started moving underground, even building greenhouses, if one believed the archeologists. They'd taken their domesticated plants and animals with them, and eight thousand years later neither Martian, plant nor beast could long survive the deteriorating conditions outside.

  She snapped on the vid, and stretched out on her belly on her "heated rock" lounger, but the closest thing to worthwhile viewing was yet another documentary on the Imperial family. This one featured old vids of the Empress's children when they were young. Bold and handsome Crown Prince Fenstery, shy Princess Ferity and on down the line to the aptly nicknamed "Prince Fatty", a happily waving cherub with a lisp so precious he'd been accused of single-handedly instigating a baby boom a generation ago. With the falling birthrates, the Royals were probably trotting out the cute baby pictures in hopes of another round of baby hunger. Since everyone knew what an embarrassing playboy Fenstery had grown into and the charming Fatty had disappeared from public mention long before passing his thirtieth year without maturing into fertility, she rather doubted any number of pictures would do the trick.

  Now, a social revolution that elevated the status of trufems to at least that of pseudos instead of converting the unfortunately fertile fem into a virtual second class citizen—that would help. Legally, trufems had all the rights of every other citizen, but laws couldn't budge millennia of cultural habits, which were often argued to be evolutionary and genetic. Especially by conservative families like the L'svages.

  She flipped off the vid in the middle of Princess Ferita's wedding to a politically chosen trumale whom the Princess had divorced twelve years ago in a very loud and public fashion, and reluctantly dragged her minicomp out of her briefcase. Accounting should have all the various court costs and other expenses already and she'd been rigid about keeping up her time sheet. With relief she realized there wasn't anything to do tonight except perhaps take a long, hot, moisturizing bath . . .

  Chapter Two

  Xaero's promotion to junior partner could be seen as an uneven trade. She'd gained the prestige—and workload—of her new position, but she'd lost the shared services of the efficient and likeable Miss F'gatha. In return, she'd gained the full and sole services of that pain in the tail Miss Buharo C'ank. It had been a very uneven trade.

  "Well, you look very good this morning, Miss." The scrawny little silver lizard smiled nastily. "I'm glad you were able to sleep in. Your new associate is waiting in your office."

  Raelphy.

  Xaero suppressed a shudder. The only thing worse than an insolent secretary I can't fire is a senior partner's spawn. "We'll have to find him a temporary office nearby. Why don't you look into it?" She braced herself as she opened the door to her invaded sanctum.

  "Morning, Aunt Xaero!" Raelphy dropped the magazine he'd been reading and sat up straight. Her desk looked untouched, much to her surprise. She made a quick decision.

  "Good morning, Raelphe." She clearly enunciated the young adult form of his name. Raelphy looked at her with astonished joy. Poor kid was more than old enough, but he acted so juvenilely that the childish version of his name had just stuck.

  "So, have you ever done a billable splits time sheet, Raelphe?" He was just a few tenths out of law school, but she was still surprised by the negative answer. All lawyers worshipped the billable split. Hadn't his father put him to work, shown him the basics? If not, maybe it was Great grandfather's idea to saddle her with him, rather than leave him under his father.

  Her comm dinged, followed by Miss C'ank's smug tones. "Thuru L'drew is holding on line fifteen."

  Sand!

  "Well, you need to learn about this as well, Raelphe, so be quiet and listen." She grabbed her minicomp. "Start the timer function," she said as she poked the comm.. "Good morning Mister L'drew."

  "Miss L'svages! Those neighbors of mine have left their trash out overnight and are attracting vermin! I saw a dozen scratchers scurrying away from the bins this morning. There's no excuse for it!"

  "How disgusting! Shall we start with a sharp letter?"

  "Yes, absolutely, and make it very sharp, this sort of degenerate behavior has got to stop!" The connection ended with a loud crash, not at all the usual sign off on the modern comm system.

  Xaero sighed and pushed the button to reconnect.

  "What?" the old lizard snapped.

  "What are their names, and which apartment do they live in?"

  "Oh, they're the people two doors north, I don't speak to people like that. Why should I know their names?" Crash.

  Xaero checked her detailed street map of the caverns that made up Icefire Metropolis, and then the city directory. "There they are." She pointed out the listing to the snickering Raelphe as she stopped the timer. "Zero point seven splits, so he gets billed for the whole split. He's a sandy nuisance, but I charge three hundred rocks a split and he never complains."

  Raelphe was soaking it all up. "So you bill him for the time on the comm conference, the time spent looking up the address and names, the time for writing the letter and for the time spent working up the bill, right?"

  "Nope. We have to work up the bill on our own time. Pity, I hate those unpaid splits."

  "But, if you bill him for a whole split, when he used less, if you had enough clients you could fill your day, all hundred splits." He looked bright-eyed at the thought.

  "If you have that many clients, you raise your rates. You really don't want to ever get audited if you're doing things like that. Embarrassing, because it looks so fraudulent, even if legitimate." Xaero suppressed a grin over a cherished memory involving several of her uncles and an internal audit. Great grandfather had been so sarcastic about the Mighty Lizards Who Needed No Sleep. "Why don't you take a swing at writing the letter? Keep track of your time and have it on my desk in the morning. But right now let me show you how billing works with the Blozolli case."

  She pulled up the detailed time sheets for the Blozolli case and explained it all to him, then led him down to the accounting department and showed him h
ow to file a final account. And then to politely answer all the questions from the cousins in accounting who considered all lawyers to be financial idiots. As they returned to her office, Raelphe grilled her about the case. As much to shut him up as to educate him, Xaero copied all the case data over to him, to study as he wished. "After work and for your own education or entertainment, Raelphe, since we can't bill the time." She gave him a grim stare. "And We Do Not Discuss Clients With Any Outsiders."

  A memo in her in box proved to be information on the new case. "Director Metini L'azlod, of the Martian Development Agency, and sometime ambassador from the Union of the Southern Hemisphere." Ugg. Politics. "By Firstday, the police will either have to charge him or release him."

  Raelphe was nodding. "I studied a lot of criminal law, Aunt Xaero. Do you suppose this one will go to trial?" he asked hopefully. "A big diplomatic scandal?"

  She spiked her spines in mock horror. "I sincerely hope not!" She reread the memo and frowned. "I don't see why Apru isn't keeping this, since it's been his baby all along. It's complete with valuable political and international contacts and all that." She tapped out a memo in return, asking him to send the entire file to her by early Firstday, printed it and signed it. "Apru pretends to be old fashioned," she explained. "If I send this electronically, he'll claim he never saw it."

  "Pretends?" Raelphe was skeptical.

  "He's as big a rumor spreader and turf defender as the rest of the family. Giving him an excuse to not comply with a legitimate request gives him three points. One for being careless enough to give him the opportunity, one for making me ask again and one for losing billable splits waiting on him."

  He looked at her, appalled. "I thought it was just us young and hungry types that acted so sandy stupid, playing at group dominance points."

  "Dream on. And speaking of group dominance games . . . " She stuck her head out the door. "Miss C'ank, have you found an office for Raelphe?" she asked the old pseudofem.

  "Oh, did you mean for me to do that?" C'ank smiled insolently. "I must have misunderstood, since you said 'we'."

  Xaero smiled back. "Go find Raelphe an office. As near as possible to this one. If it does not have the correct furniture, call Facilities and Maintenance and have them bring whatever is missing and take away whatever is in excess to his needs, which Raelphe will tell you. You will take orders from Raelphe, just as you do from me." Oh, yes, that had her sitting up and nearly spitting! "Got that, Raelphe?" Raelphe was wide-eyed, flat-spined and shooting panicked looks in C'ank's direction, but nodded. Xaero looked back at C'ank. "That was an order. In case you had any doubts."

  "But, Aunt Xaero, she'll eat me. Even Dad can't fire her because she's got so many shares and trained so many partners to fear her!" Raelphe kept his voice down.

  Xaero dispatched him with the memo and waited around long enough that C'ank actually had to find an office, right across the hallway, and call Facilities and Maintenance to remove half the empty filing cabinets and bring in a desk. Incredible. Apparently two unwanted helpers really were better than one. Xaero left early, happily contemplating the possibilities for revenge on her pain in the tail secretary.

  She stopped at her apartment long enough to change out of her office outfit and into ordinary blend-into-the-crowd casual wear and grab a bag of fresh food. The cabin had everything else she needed and the monorail delivered her to the nearest stop, a tiny unmanned maintenance station, with an airlock door to the local tunnel. The tunnel served several businesses, a dozen old family farms in natural caves and a decrepit store. Half a kstride beyond the last farm, another airlock let her into the climbing passage to the surface. Half natural, half carved, this was one of the old Dry Scale retreats, full of small side cracks and caves, long unused. Her grandfather had been the last of the Dry Scales, the last tribe to live on the surface, and even they had only lived there part time, retreating underground at need, mining the permafrost and digging through the permafrost for the heat of the depths and the thicker air.

  General Xavarti Ile Leia had come here often, with his little granddaughter tagging along. She still came as often as possible.

  As soon as she cracked the seal on the hatch, the natural sunlight poured in, golden and warm. The single big room was surrounded with glass, and she dropped everything, peeling off clothes on her way to the airlock, closing each glass door behind her then climbing the stairs until she was on top of the cabin. It felt like being on top of the world.

  The thin dry air was cold; the dust and sand laden wind scoured her bare scales clean of cavern pollution and odors as she inhaled deeply, spinning slowly in place. To the south a branch of the Great Canyon fell away in dramatic sunlit cliffs and dark shadows, to the west the northern-most of the Triplets was visible. To the north and east the plateau fell away and it seemed as if she could see forever across the dry, lifeless low plains.

  She stood for a long time, facing into the dry wind, absorbing the stark peace of the surface. At last her treacherous Cavern Dweller heritage caught up with her, and unable to maintain aerobic metabolism, her body started acidifying in preparation for some emergency anaerobic action. Clumsily, as her body had stopped maintaining a working temperature without her noticing, she crept back inside. The power panels were stored inside the airlock. She dragged them out, angled them to catch the sunlight and plugged them into the covered connectors built into the wall. Back inside she stretched out on a rug in the sunlight and concentrated on her breathing meditation and pain control while the pumps thickened the air a bit and her body readjusted.

  Grandfather had been able to stay out indefinitely, so long as he had water to drink. She just didn't have the lung capacity and adaptations to stay out long enough to worry about dehydration. Maybe she'd get up early tomorrow morning, take an oxygen bottle, water and food and hike out to some of the secret spots the Old Lizard had shown her.

  She was probably the last Martian to know where the Dry Scales' tiny little pocket farms could be found, wild plants carefully nurtured in naturally watered cracks and holes. She sighed, knowing she should pass the knowledge on, but having no one to pass it to. At some point, at some time in the future, she'd marry and have children. Maybe one of them would be able to join her, would want to join her. Some day.

  The latest theory she'd heard was that the core of the planet had once been molten and the planet's spin had created a magnetic field so strong it had diverted the solar wind. When the core cooled and solidified, the solar wind had begun to erode the atmosphere, a process that was still ongoing. The low pressure and cold prevented any surface water, liquid water, from accumulating. Even in the deepest canyons, melt water rarely pooled. Up here water was either frozen or evaporated and then lost forever.

  She ate while watching the Sun set behind the volcano, then curled up in her grandfather's old soft sleeping pit for the best night's sleep she'd had in a year.

  By noon the next day she was stretched out on an ancient lava flow, laughing at the antics of rockhoppers. The cute little lizards burrowed down to the permafrost layer, then carried frozen dirt up to the surface to thaw. This constant turnover of soil and water was advantageous to the local plants if not carried out to extremes, and this tiny pocket of greenery looked very healthy. She had helped herself to a handful of berries, but left the rest for the hoppers and cheepers. This time of year, the young hoppers were establishing their territories, the pseudofems carving off pieces from the older trufems' territories or moving into vacated burrows. The cause of the vacated burrows was also sunning itself on a lava flow. She and the herfit were keeping wary eyes on each other across the miniature valley. It was an obviously well fed youngster, nowhere near desperate enough to tackle something her size.

  She frowned a bit, studying it. At a guess it was a pseudomale, no spine spikes yet, but heavier in the forequarters than a female, pseudo or true. All Mars animals went through the pseudo stage in young adulthood, a period of establishing territories, finishing full growth and fatt
ening up for true adulthood and breeding.

  Only in Martians, the sole intelligent species, had the pseudo stage lengthened and become permanent. The pseudos claimed it was genetically linked to intelligence, but some studies of animals showed that it could be induced in animals with sufficient crowding, and blamed it on going underground. Moving pseudos to larger accommodations or with natural lighting made no difference in the rate of their becoming fertile, none-the-less some still advocated exposing children to large, spacious areas as much as possible. Moves to require this of schools had bogged down over equal demands for academic excellence, of which there was definitely too little in many public schools.

  Checking the oxygen level in her backpack bottle, Xaero reluctantly left her rock and headed, in a rather roundabout fashion, for home. Some of the few pockets known to her had been dry and empty of life, much to her distress. She had plenty of time to finish a circular route and check two more before she definitely had to get indoors.

  As she crouched over the barren pothole where twelve years before she had collected a vance seed, she began to wonder how precarious the situation was. The underground cities and farms were completely dependent on electrical power. The older geothermal generators were known to be on their last gasp, as the core of the planet cooled. The new nuclear reactors were taking their place, but there were concerns about limited fuel for them. The crystal based solar collectors like hers showed promise, but the energy density of sunlight was just too low for them to support a city, especially power eating industry. They were widely distributed, in storage, in case of a reactor failure. But the Martian dust storms tended to destroy them in fairly short order. Emergency power was all they were.

  She spent the next day ferrying water. Digging had shown no traces of permafrost. At all. She worked all day, hoping adding water was all that was needed. Would the surface finally, truly, become unlivable? She couldn't bear the thought. Would the government restoration project help? Perhaps she should find the time to study the details. She dug a hole and poured the last of her water into it. It would freeze by sundown. She had no idea if it would help, if there were viable seeds and hibernating rockhoppers, or if it was a pointless gesture.