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Page 21.
 I came to a landing with six doorways that smelled sour, like stale cabbage, mildewed clothing, ick. I heard babies squalling and someone arguing. I recognized his voice behind one of the doors, and waited a few minutes to see how many people were in that apartment. It was he and a young woman, presumably his wife or girl friend. Their argument came to a crescendo, and I ducked aside as I saw the doorknob turning by my elbow. I ducked aside, just in time to see an angry, pretty young blonde girl of about 18 striding out with makeup and clothing that suggested to my Free Domer sensibilities that she was either a bar girl or a prostitute working for this scoundrel. Her long legs under a short white skirt pumped away as she descended the stairs without having noticed me. I believed he was alone, and started to formulate a plan. I did not have long to wait. He came out of the door, whistling to himself, as if he were about to go out drinking. He had my money in his hand, and was happily tossing it up and down when my cane descended hard on his wrist. Before he would yell, I whacked him over the back of the head just hard enough to stun him. Then, before any neighbors could peer outside their doors, I scooped up the money. I grabbed his coat between the shoulder blades and used my knee to guide him inside, where I shut the door behind me. He was stunned, and sank to his knees. I slapped him hard, first on one temple, then the other, which made him fall down stunned or unconscious. I was hoping he had not recognized me as the monk from the park, but then again this sort of creature wouldn't really turn to the police. I spent about ten minutes ransacking the place as he lay moaning. I found another fifty or sixty RC, which I pocketed. Then I gave him one more kick in the kidneys before leaving—not hard enough to break anything, but enough to make him very sore and stiff and prevent him from following me any time soon.
I now had enough money to make it for a few days. Time to turn my attention to the Temple Section. From my studies of the map I was surprised to learn that the Temple owned all the land on all the decks below. At least, I was surprised, and as the truth sank in, I wasn't surprised. On every deck, the map showed a gray area ('unknown') for the secret Temple areas. On the lowest deck, the dead giveaway was that all the sections around the gray square were marked Mining Industry. What else could there be under there but more mining? In fact, Sam Gorepoint had told me he worked in a special mining zone under the Temple complex.
It all came together now, what I had so far. The seventh point wasn't next to, as it seemed from Timony's map—it was underneath the sixth point which was the Holy Mother's main Temple.
All I had to do now was get into the mines down deep without getting caught, which would mean the death penalty, and then I'd have to figure out what miners like Sam couldn't see. And I didn't even know what I was looking for. All I knew was that when I found this mysterious place or thing Timony had sought and given his life for, it would change life on Mars forever.
I was tired, and needed a good sleep. So I rented a room in a cheap hotel, which cost me 8RC, and another 2RC for a small bottle of wine, some bread, and a little cheese. I woke up rested and refreshed the next morning.
On my way topside, I stopped for coffee and a ham and cheese pastry in a cozy little corner tea bar, as the call them here. It was just a little place that wrapped itself around the corner for about forty feet, with the main entrance at the corner and two picture windows facing the street. A man and a woman in white shirts and black pants kept busy behind the counter. It was busy with a dozen or more customers eating and reading their morning news or watching the newspane on the wall. In the mirrors behind the bottles and cakes standing on counters by the wall, I watched the steady river of pedestrians rushing by outside in either direction. That was when I noticed a Temple monk across the street. He had his cowl over his head, hiding his face, and his arms folded under his wide sleeves. I made a note of him and then saw him again in at least three other places before I emerged from a concrete stairwell into a busy topside street. I sauntered over to a park bench partially hidden behind a tree, and watched him emerge from the underground a minute later. He turned left and right, realized he had lost me, and headed away in the direction of the Temple Section with its spires—Holy City, as my map called the semi-autonomous region where the Popess reigned.
I had nothing better to do, and followed at a discreet distance under the high geodesic dome with its hundreds of daylight-blue light globes that turned night into day inside the vast Olympus Crater.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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