The Dragon's Cave

Earth's economy is secured by the contents of the Martian Vaults. Is this good for Mars?

         "Why do they keep all that gold in the mountain, Daddy?" Jenny looked upward into her father's face. It was the kind of look that made him want to be wise just for her. They stood in the Observation lounge atop the tallest skyscraper in Mars City, which belonged to its biggest bank. The mountain was visible in the distance through the transparent dome of the city. It was an old, extinct volcano. Its caldera was a giant storage facility for vast amounts of precious metals.

         Jack took his daughter's hand, "It's the safest place for it, and it is not just gold. They have piles and piles of silver, platinum and palladium in the caldera caverns up there. It is cheaper to keep it here, and the Earth economy uses it as security for its currencies."

         Jenny looked away toward the mountain.

         Jack said, "Earth soldiers guard the site. The Martian exchanges allow for transactions on Earth to alter the balance of ownership. Mars makes most of its revenues off commissions from the buying and selling of what it is in that mountain and from the sale and resale of certificates of Martian land ownership. We continue to mine Mars and add to the stockpile, so we make money off that also. We call it the Dragons' Cave because dragons like to sit in caves on piles of gold."

         Jenny filled the reddish view with the delightful sound of her laughter, "Like in my storybook. So it is all about money. How much gold and those other metals are in the Dragon's cave?

         Jack smiled, "Oh, it comes to trillions and trillions of Martian dollars. The Exchange and the Vault are at the heart of a big idea called the Gold Standard. Martian precious metals underpin the value of the Earth dollar. Theoretically, someone on Earth could swap their bank notes for a pile of gold. But since they could not afford to ship it back to Earth, they never will. So the value of the currency is underpinned without there ever being a rush on Earth's banks. We buy and sell the ownership of the metal in the Exchange and Mars pays a lot of its bills with the money we earn there. It was quite a clever idea - a hundred years ago - now people just see it as a way of concentrating wealth in the hands of the few while the majority are struggling with everyday bills."

         Jenny frowned, "But Daddy, you told me that we grow all our food and make most of our stuff. I do not understand why we need the mountain."

         She had a point. Why, indeed, do we need the Dragon's cave? Why do we need the class of super-rich Martians who work in the Exchange while most of the rest struggle with the bills? Why should we pay for the soldiers that only exist to guard it? Mars could be independent now with a good standard of living for all. What have the Earthlings ever done for us?

         Two men approached them. They were smartly dressed security guards. Jack held up his pass. He had paid two days' wages to show Jenny this view.

         "Sorry, sir, we need to ask you to leave, there have been complaints. You are not properly dressed." The men looked sympathetic, but they had their orders.

         "This is our Sunday best. We look ok," countered Jenny, not understanding. Various smartly attired bankers and tourists were giving them looks. Jack heard a little of the murmuring. "Hobos, tramps, vagrants, what is the world coming to?" sneered one lady.

         Jack looked carefully around and, offering his hand to his daughter, he nodded to the guards, "Jenny, we need to get back and cook your mother a meal. She worked today."

         Jenny took his hand, and he led her to the lifts and then down to the foyer. Jack felt humiliated but tried acting normally for Jenny's sake. It seemed to work as she was mainly oblivious to the people around her, her eyes still shining after what she had seen. She held his hand.

         The security guards showed them through the lobby downstairs to the door and then outside onto Musk Square. A large crowd had gathered there, watching the big monitor that overlooked the city center.

         Jack, seething with anger, did not look up at the screen, but he heard the phrases, "Greatest robbery of all time...", "The gold has gone..." It was probably Earth news and, therefore, uninteresting to him. Now suddenly, all the useless people in the square were detectives in some new Earth-media-fabricated who dun it. He did not care to play their games. Jack held Jenny's hand tightly, leading her through. Many of those gathered were wearing breathing apparatuses, so they were not pure Martians. You could see the shimmer of red dust that hung over the crowd like a dry mist. As he pushed past they looked at him through their plastic visors with the dual container filtration devices of their masks poking out from either side of their concealed mouths. They all looked quite ridiculous, Jack thought, and he did not know if they were smiling or sneering at him and Jenny. They were maskless and scruffy compared to these people. It was easier to imagine a sneer behind the masks than a smile. Life was not so good for Jack, even if this was his day off and he got to spend time with his daughter. How dare they expel him from the tower!

         Having pushed past the crowd, he made it into the main High Street, which was mainly empty. These shops were for the super rich and tourists from Earth, and the prices were unaffordable to the locals. The best tourist hotels were around the main Square, but that was not where he lived. He passed into the back streets of the slums. Mars City had seen better days, and most people like himself struggled to make ends meet. There was a palpable sense of decay, with flaky paint, broken lights, or roofing, and everything was covered with a thin layer of red dust.

         Most Martians around here worked in the mines or with the Colony maintenance department. A lucky few had jobs in the hotels where the air was cleaner and the food better, but many who lived in apartments attached to the hotel had little to do with the back streets once they found work there.

         Jack did not wear a mask because he could not afford a good one and did not need one. Like most true Martians, he had adapted to the dusty air, and his body had grown accustomed to it. Genetic mutation was involved. The Martians with this gene could live with the dust while for the others it had toxic properties and over time it degraded their lungs until most of them died of some lung disease or even asphyxiation in their sleep. Over time, the poorer population adapted to the planet while those who could not died out. Jack was a fifth-generation Martian; most of the deaths occurred decades before he was born. Martians like himself regarded the masked elite and the tourists with a sort of sullen disdain. They were not a part of his world; the news that mattered to them was of far-off events on Earth or the outer solar system, places he had never been and would probably never be able to afford to go. They seemed like abstractions, and they spoke about things he did not care about.

         His home looked like a metal box with dirty windows smeared red with dust after their journey through the posh part of town. "Hi, honey," Jack called and listened for an answer, but there was none. Sal was probably still at work. The shift supervisors insisted on a lot of overtime at Colony Maintenance. This was the state-owned sector that dealt with the basic needs of the colony: Food, water, breathable air, heat, and light, for example. Salaries were low but dependable, but the hours were horrendous and could be irregular if there was a crisis.

         Jack himself was a skilled engineer and chemist and worked in a rare earth processing facility for slightly more money. Mars mined its rare earths quite easily without the environmental restrictions on Earth. The Martian environment was hostile anyway, and there was less regulation. In the past, Mars was a major exporter of rare earths, but now it also controlled the manufacture of chips as it made more profit from selling the finished product than from raw materials only. So Mars now had a monopoly on chip manufacture, and Earth depended on these exports. But again, only a privileged few reaped the benefit of all this extra wealth, and many of the key shareholders of the company that Jack worked in lived on Earth. They controlled Martian politics remotely through their stockholder capitalism, sponsoring only senators that gave them tax breaks and favors.

         Sal came through the door in a rush some thirty minutes later. Jenny was at the table doing her homework, and Jack was preparing the meal in the kitchen, which was a part of the main living area. A peck on Jack's cheek barely interrupted the flow of words coming out of her, and she was excited about something. Jack had been concentrating on his recipe and did not pay attention at first. Then, Sal's words started to break through.

         "...the Martian Marines have taken over. Everyone is saying that the Dragon's Cave is empty."

         "What?" Jack finally woke up. "Put the news on." Sal fiddled with her mobile and clicked the wall-screen on. Sure enough, the commentator was talking about an attack on the mountain. The Marines were the local Martian militia; Earth soldiers rarely left the City. The TV showed pictures of the empty caverns. The mystery was how the thieves took the gold and where it was now. Everyone was speculating; various prominent police detectives added their two cents to the TV discussions, but no one had a clue.

         Sal whispered into Jack's ear, "It is the revolution, it has finally started. We have started by taking back our gold."

         Jack glanced at the detectives on screen and then at his wife; she was the one with the answers to the case they were all chattering about. "How do you know?"

         "Because I was part of the plan that stole our gold back - I put chloroform in the Earth soldiers' air supply."

         Jack gaped, struck silent for a moment, but then he smiled at his wife and gave her a sloppy wet kiss on the cheek that made her giggle.

         "It's happening because of you?" She nodded by way of reply and snuggled into his embrace. Jack felt so proud of Sal.

         As they watched, the news was interrupted by the face of a familiar Marine general, a local hero to ordinary Martians. He'd wiped out some vicious Earth gangs that had tried to establish themselves on Mars peddling drugs. He was in a cave surrounded by dusty Martian rebels carrying plasma rifles. In the background was a massive pile of gold. He could have been anywhere on Mars, so vast were the networks of underground caves that crisscrossed the planet.

         "That's General Valles..." Sal said.

         "People of Mars," Valles announced. "We have taken back what is ours, and we declare this day our independence from the interplanetary system that has kept most of us poor these last hundred years. We have secured all the major spaceports and military facilities on the planet, and we have the gold from the Dragon's Cave. Mars is free; Mars for the Martians!!!"

         Jack, Sal and Jenny could hear the cheering outside. They joined the throng on the streets, celebrating wildly and marching toward Musk Square...



Notes ▼

CONTEST:

SURVEY

Journey Through Genres: Official Contest  (E) Write a short story in the given genre to win big prizes! #1803133 by Writing.Com Support

GENRE: Detective
W/C: 1996