However, that bright Sun was no illusion. It stood high in the sky, as high as it would ever get at Mars latitude thirty degrees. That meant it was close to noon, much too early for Danny Casement to be in his office and fully awake. Dapper Dan, unless he had changed beyond recognition, put most nocturnal animals to shame.
Even a man in a hurry had to eat, and now was as good a time as any. Chan decided to have a meal before he went the rest of the way to Danny’s office. He left Center Island and walked out along one of the many causeways that led in the right direction. The surface of Marslake was dotted with thousands of small islands, laid out on a regular grid and connected by roads wide enough for foot traffic or small wheeled vehicles.
The walking people were few and far between, and the only cars that Chan saw were slow and creaking. They, like the outside cafe that he came to at the end of the causeway, had seen better days. The cafe, Inn Paradise, could not even afford robot servers. Chan, the only customer, ordered his simple meal of bread and fruit jellies from a human. While he ate — Chan was not picky, but the food was dreadful — he heard the familiar tale of woe from the owner/waiter.
Marslake had been poised to take off as the solar system’s greatest tourist attraction, ready to host multitudes of humans and Pipe-Rillas and Tinkers. Even the taciturn and mysterious Angels possessed plenty of negotiable materials, and they would be welcomed.
The quarantine had ended everything. Aliens had ceased to arrive. Humans from all around the solar system were affected by the general economic collapse and could not afford to come. And now … The owner waved his hand gloomily around. Old holo-images, with their advertisement of wondrous coming attractions, hung dim and translucent in the air, predictors of a false future that would never be. The only cheerful thing in sight was the Sun, which apparently knew no better.
“Where are you from?” The owner ended his mournful discourse and asked his first question as he gave Chan the credit slip.
“Earth.”
“Ah. You’re lucky. Not like here, I bet.”
“No.” Chan touched the payer ID unit and rose to leave. “Everything there is much, much worse.”
Except, possibly, the food and waiters and restaurant owners. But Chan was already on the way out and he did not bother to say it.
He was able to pick out Danny’s place long before he reached it. Unlike most other businesses scattered over the surface islands of Marslake, Danny felt a need for actual walls and a ceiling. Most enterprises found those to be unnecessary. With no wind and no weather, why waste time on structures? Only an occasional need for privacy demanded the use of enclosed space, and space for that could easily be rented.
Chan halted when he was still a couple of hundred meters away. He had come prepared. Dag Korin had made the portable Remote Observer available to Chan without question. Apparently the General found it quite natural that Chan would wish to spy on his own friends, which was something to bear in mind on the trip to the Geyser Swirl. Chan didn’t think of the use of the R/O as spying or intrusive in this case. It was a way to save everyone’s time if things were obviously not going to work out.
He took the R/O unit from his pocket and rested it on a railing at the side of the causeway. He adjusted the focus and inserted the tiny earphones. If this didn’t produce the right result he would gain a working day but lose a team member.
Visual information was a more demanding technical problem than aural. The sound from inside a building was usually sharp and clear, while the image tended to be variable and slightly grainy. Chan also had the feeling that today the colors were a little off. It didn’t matter. That, surely, was Danny Casement with his back to the viewing unit.
You could pick Danny out from his clothes alone. Today he was dressed, as in the old days, in a favorite combination of a high-necked shirt with fine green-and-white check and an ultraconservative business suit with a herringbone pattern of mixed brown and gray. As he turned, Chan made a confirmation. The R/O unit showed a small, neatly built man, with the brown face, wizened features, and wide mouth of a trustworthy ape. It was Danny all right, debonair as ever. He had a tall, elegant woman in his office with him, and he was shaking his head at her with a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger expression on his face.
“It’s a bad time to speculate?” Chan turned up the volume a fraction. “My dear, if your ex-husband says that, I must say I agree with Andrew.”
“Arthur.” The woman, hair piled high on top of her head, towered over Danny Casement.
“With Arthur. It’s always a bad time to speculate. What we are talking of here isn’t speculation. It’s investment .”
“But Hyperion is an awful long way from Mars.”
“And what does distance have to do with the value of an investment? We are talking of a proven resource that has already made thousands — tens of thousands — of people rich. Leonora, if distance is the only problem, I will personally take you there so you can see for yourself. Just the two of us.” He touched her arm and quickly pulled back, as though he had acted on impulse.
The woman gave him a nervous smile. “That would be lovely. But Arthur says that the Yang diamond was completely worked out, years and years ago.”
“As I already mentioned, this is not the original Yang diamond. It is a completely new formation, created by a different impact, which also happens to be on Hyperion. However, if your husband—”
“Not my husband. My ex -husband.”
“My apologies. Your ex -husband. If Arthur is so reliable a source of information—”
“He’s a jerk and a louse.”
“Then perhaps his information—”
“But he’s a smart louse. That’s how he made so much money — not that he was willing to give me much. I can’t afford to throw what I have away.”
“Nor would I ask you to, or ever want you to.” Danny reached out, and this time allowed his hand to stroke Leonora’s forearm and remain there. “The final purchase price will be three hundred thousand, but I am certainly not proposing that you pay anything like that until we are absolutely sure that the return will be many times your investment. All that is necessary at the moment is that you make a small down payment, in order that your claim can be certified and your rights of ownership confirmed.”
“How much?”
“Just twenty-five thousand. After that you will have a year of steady income from the mine before you need to pay out another penny.”
“I don’t know. I’d like to.” Leonora placed her hand on top of Danny’s. “But Mr. Casement—”
“Please call me Daniel.”
“Daniel. It still sounds like an awful lot of money. Even the down payment. It isn’t that I don’t trust you, I do. But if I could just be sure .”
“I know exactly how you feel.” He removed his hand from hers, stood up, and turned around to give the whole room a thorough inspection, as though someone might be concealed within a desk drawer or one of the small cabinets. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Leonora, I’m going to do something that I am not supposed to do. In fact, if the mine developers knew about it, I would be in very serious trouble.”
“What’s that?” Her voice fell in volume to match his. “What are you going to do?”
“This. And remember, if anyone ever asks you, it didn’t happen.” He reached into a vest pocket and pulled from it a small pouch of black velvet. “Hold out your hand. Palm up.”
She reached her hand out in slow motion. He placed the square on her outstretched palm and carefully unfolded it, to reveal a tiny glittering stone that caught and refracted every light in the room.
“There it is.” Danny Casement spoke in the reverent tones of a man in the presence of divinity. “That is a fragment of the Yang diamond. Just a little chip, of course — there are many tons more, free of all defects and waiting to be mined. I was shown this on my trip to Hyperion, when I made my own first investment. I asked to borrow it for a little while, just to marvel at its quality. Look at it closely, Leonora. Let the light fall on it from all sides. You will see that this is diamond of the purest water. There is none finer in the whole solar system.”