Page 6 of The Red Woman on Mars

“Vivian Bowen.” The man stepped forward and swept off his top hat to bow, revealing straight black hair down to his shoulders. “I see you enjoy reading. Poetry?”

Mitzi King—head of the Arcadia Banking Group and Council Minister of the Treasury, her headset supplied—let out a huff. “Poetry? Don’t be ridiculous, Ren. She has an eighth-grade education.”

“And nearly a year of high school,” Vivian corrected softly. To the man, she said, “I prefer fiction.”

“Oh, lovely!” His light brown eyes crinkled in a smile. “What kind?”

“The Bronte sisters, Alcott, Austen.” A half-truth. She wasn’t about to mention the mental escape she’d found in romance authors writing about the same period hundreds of years after those women had died. And here she was, in an uncanny Martian re-creation of the Regency era. She didn’t remember any of her books describing the dresses as quite so cumbersome and restricting.

Mitzi snorted. “Earther drivel.”

Ren frowned reproachfully at his companion. “You could show a modicum of respect to our new friend, Minister.”

“I could, but why bother?” Mitzi said to Ren without looking at Vivian. “Her sexual preferences don’t include women.”

Ren turned to include Vivian in the conversation. “The Intelligence believes a healthy sexual relationship is a key factor in a successful marriage and serves to reinforce the co-parent bond.” To his credit, he delivered the information while keeping his eyes on her face.

Even so, Vivian repressed a shudder of revulsion. The AI cared about the sex life she’d have with her new husband? Would it …monitorher somehow?

“I—I thought we were to conceive children in-vitro,” she stammered.

Vivian had only just arrived at this party, and her head was already swimming with confusion. What had she been told when she signed the contract at the camp? Martian doctors would retrieve eggs from her body and later implant a genetically modified embryo with her and her partner’s genetic material.

“Of course you will. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” Mitzi’s voice held a trace of impatience. “But the Intelligence wants us matched on sexual compatibility anyway. Even if it doesn’t have a body of its own, the Intelligence understands how decent sex can ease the tedium of marriage.” Her thin lips pressed in a smirk. “Who am I to argue with the wisdom of the Intelligence?” She fixed sharp eyes on Delilah, already basking in the attention of a group of admirers. “I’ll try her.”

Vivian breathed through a tightness in her chest. Across the room, Delilah let out a sparkling peal of laughter, and her new Martian suitors smiled at her enthusiasm. Vivian would not allow her sunny, bright-eyed little sister to choose someone who regarded marriage as tedious.

Before Mitzi could approach Delilah, Ren grabbed her arm and nodded to the arrival of a new group. “Would you look at that,” he remarked to Mitzi in an undertone. “I didn’t expect Dorsey to allow his pets to come out and play.”

“Fucking hypocrite,” Mitzi hissed, the tendons on her long neck protruding. “So much for his sanctimonious bitching in the last Council session. If Yarrow wasn’t protecting him, I’d crush him like a bug.”

Vivian swiveled and adjusted her headset to observe the three newcomers. Caspian Hayes was rated a 60-percent compatibility match. He held a seat on the Council, invested in the terraforming industry, and maintained a community hospital with his sister Ivey, the headset helpfully informed her. His rosy face held an open, affable expression as he took in the room with pleasure.

“Mr. Hayes is a well-respected member of society, but I believe he is too easily influenced and weak-minded,” Wim’s pre-recorded voice chirped in her ear.

Ivey’s pinkish skin and sandy hair resembled her brother, but her cynical detached smile did not. Even though her sardonic expression appealed to Vivian, the headset warned that Ivey was only a 20-percent compatibility match. Why did the Intelligence put so much stock in co-parenting with a sex partner? She wasn’t attracted to Ivey, but she might enjoy raising children with a girlfriend who shared her sense of humor.

“Despite her altruistic pursuits, Miss Hayes is insufficiently respectful to the superior intellect of the Intelligence,” Wim opined. Were any of the potential spouses good enough for Wim’s exacting standards?

Next to Ivey stood the disagreeable man she’d seen at the shuttleport the day before. The headset flashed a warning.Xavier Dorsey. Unsuitable Match. Do Not Engage.Putting the headset down on a side table, Vivian looked at the man with both realeyes. He was startlingly handsome with rich brown eyes and dark skin. His open jacket revealed a brocade vest of silver and navy that hugged his trim torso. Vivian hadn’t been sure she could be attracted to the stretched-out Martian physique, but Xavier’s tall, elegant body made her mouth run dry.

Until he ruined it by scowling at all in attendance and heading immediately for the bar.

“Mr. Dorsey may have honorable connections to her ladyship, but he is blasphemous, disagreeable, hubristic, supercilious—” Vivian pulled the earpiece out of her ear and dropped it in an abandoned champagne flute.

Across the room, Xavier accepted a glass of white wine from the Earther bartender. He angled his lean body forward across the bar and said something that made the bartender flash his white teeth in a laugh and lay a hand on Xavier’s forearm.

What caused the Intelligence to label Xavier Dorsey as unsuitable? Was he an unsuitable match for all the women or just for her? And why had he been watching them at the shuttleport?

“I do hope you’ll come to agree with me,” Ren said to her.

Vivian jerked her head away from watching Xavier to realize Mitzi had left their side, and Ren had been speaking to her. “Of course,” she replied automatically.

“Good, good. That is the foremost reason why I adore Martian poetry,” Ren continued, oblivious to her distraction. “Let me introduce you to the works of Kenji Nakamura, my great-great-grandparent. They reclaimed the ancient method of Haiku, traditionally used to mark the seasonal changes of nature, and applied it to the harsh Martian landscape.” He closed his eyes and pressed a long-fingered hand to his chest. “Stillness and quiet / A ship scatters sand and rocks / Crash! Silence again.”

Vivian waited for the rest. Ren peaked his eyes open. “What do you think?”

“Oh.” Vivian attempted a smile. “Very nice. Thank you.”