Marianne Dubois had to restrain herself from running and jumping onto the new, colorful pile of plastic textiles next to the indoor wall between her warehouse and office areas. Stevensen Industries, always reliable, had delivered their usual magic. She was absolutely thrilled with what Rick and Miranda Stevensen and their talented robot fabric employees managed to create for her.

 

Still, even with the force of gravity on Mars only forty percent of that on Earth, maybe jumping wasn't exactly wise. Marianne considered herself to be in the prime of her life, but her bones and muscles tended to behave purely according to chronological data and deny her speed and agility when she needed it.

 

Nothing to obsess about. Marianne could accept her age. Between middle-aged and early senior status on Earth, Marianne had long since converted her Earth years to the more flattering Martian basis for calculation, making her barely thirty Martian years old.

 

Her petite and compact body would never have made her a fashion model. Making the most of her possibilities, though, she kept her expertly coiffed short hair colored a pale blonde and applied the minimal amount of make-up to maintain her image of agelessness and timelessness.

 

Marianne's workplace was a huge warehouse, the size of several Earth athletic fields, nine stories under the Martian surface. The extra air purifying systems she had installed kept surface dust down to a minimum. She didn't have to freshen the air artificially. She smelled no peroxide stench from the dust, just the alluring scent of metal, plastics, and electric motors, her kind of creative fragrance.

 

She had had the walls painted with red murals showing the Martian surface, Olympus Mons, the Valles Marineris, both polar areas, and various cliffs and crevices. The constant reminder that she was on Mars made her happy.

 

Marianne was just getting her business started, but she suspected her future customers would be more concerned with the products she created than the appearance of the environment she created them in. The robots didn't care what they looked while they worked.

 

She held a pile of pale, green plastic chiffon under her chin and looked into one of the many full-length mirrors around the dressing rooms next to her office. Yes, this would perfect for the ballet troupe. The dancers just didn't know that they needed genuine costumes yet.

 

Her fingers itched to start cutting, draping, and stitching. Naturally, her seamstress robots would do the heavy lifting, but she always indulged in some hands-on activity when it came to creating new fashions.

 

Her communicator lit up, and Marianne swore. That damned mayor again demanding that she come to his office within the next hour. She had no desire to hear what new set of regulations he wanted to impose on Tharsis Trends, her clothing company on Mars. That jerk was hell-bent on making it difficult for her to market the clothing she created and produced expressly for the settlers on Mars.

 

She really didn't have enough patience for people who got in her way. She hadn't been able to persuade Old Ned, the billionaire who paid for the Mars project, of the necessity of fashionable clothes for his settlers. Ned was convinced that the free, habitat-issued coveralls would be more than sufficient. However, he had allowed her to buy her way in and pay for her own trip to Mars.

 

Good thing she had almost as much money as Ned Brooks. Marianne had money, creativity, and ambition. What she didn't have was any willingness to let that tyrant of a mayor get in the way of her clothing business.

 

She sent an official reply to Mayor Berry that she would keep the appointment in his office immediately. She summoned a transport robot and organized her thoughts as the robot vehicle bearing a faint resemblance to old Earth dune buggies dashed through the dusty tunnels at an insane pace. The numerous almost-collisions with other vehicles and with the curved walls of the tunnels didn't improve her mood.

 

Once the vehicle arrived on the habitat's surface level at the mayor's palatial outer office door, Marianne stepped out impatiently and pressed the entrance button. The massive door ─ rumor had it that the mayor had this huge, wooden door transported from Earth ─ opened and arrows on the floor lit up, pointing the way to the inner office. Smaller offices with red, plastic doors lined up on both sides of the arrows.

 

You couldn't fantasize anything this pretentious. It was typical for the mayor. Mayor Ben Berry was a psychopathic little control freak with a Napoleon complex, whose only joy in life came from ordering people around and getting in their way, insisting that whatever they were doing was wrong. Everyone on Mars wondered how he got the job. Marianne put her money on the probability that he had something on Ned Brooks and the threat of blackmail got him the trip to Mars. However, these things were usually more complicated than they first seemed.

 

Sighing at the waste of her time, Marianne followed the arrows that led to yet another massive wood door that opened as her feet touched the last arrow. She walked into the gargantuan office and reflected on its contrast to most habitat efficiency apartments. The most hated man on Mars, undersized settlement Mayor Ben Berry glared at her from behind his desk, as oversized as everything else in his office, including most padded reclining chairs.

 

Marianne gritted her teeth in anticipation of the conversation with the mayor. She could barely stand to look at his greasy dark hair hanging over his beady, little eyes and tiny, almost invisible ears. Having to listen to his nonsense was always unbearable.

 

"Please be seated," Mayor Berry squeaked as he pointed to a shaky stool in front of his desk. His raspy, tenor voice grated on everyone's nerves, on Marianne's perhaps more than anyone else's.

 

Nonetheless, she sat down on the dusty, plastic stool.

 

"You might as well return to Earth," Mayor Berry began. "I won't allow the settlers to attire themselves with anything other than habitat-issued coveralls. It's simply a matter of safety. Settlers must be able to climb into their surface suits immediately if necessary. Your extravagant clothing would inhibit this process."

 

"I have discussed this with Max Gruhn, the settlement safety officer," Marianne said grimly, wishing she could sound patient and understanding. She knew that the contempt in her voice wasn't helping her cause. However, there were simply limits to her patience and tolerance.

 

"He is of the opinion that my creations are no more cumbersome for slipping into a surface suit than the habitat coveralls. Therefore, there is no reason not to allow them," she continued. "All I ask is a chance to show what my creations can do. If you won't give it to me, I'll have to forward my request to Ned Brooks on Earth. He had no objections to the business I intended to establish on Mars."

 

Mayor Berry stared at her and allowed a brief smile to briefly distort his narrow lips. "Of course I would like to give you a fair chance," he squealed. "However, I have to give the safety of the habitat the highest priority."

 

Unlike the mayor, Marianne was never slow on the uptake. The bastard had just figured out that he could let Marianne invest all kinds of time and resources into her Tharsis Trends fashion shop and then shut down her business because of safety concerns as soon as she showed any success.

 

Fine with her. She was more than willing to take some necessary risks. The mayor was annoying but not a serious hindrance.

 

"Have I understood you correctly?" she asked. "Do I have official permission to start selling clothes?"

 

"I will issue you a temporary commercial license for six Martian months," Mayor Berry said. "After that time I will evaluate safety concerns, and if I am not convinced that your clothing is safe, I will rescind your license and you will have to close up shop. You may go." He grinned unpleasantly.

 

Marianne kept her voice and facial expressions as neutral as she could. "Thank you, Mr. Mayor," she said. "I will keep you and Mr. Brooks informed about the progress of my business."

 

In the outer office, Marianne tapped her fingers on her communicator and ordered a robot vehicle. During the wild ride back through the tunnels down to her business quarters she started making her production and marketing plans. She was sure she had good ideas, but had a hunch that she wasn't thinking of everything.

 

Marianne then changed her mind and directed the robot vehicle to bring her to the surface cafeteria instead. Emma the cafeteria lady was surprised to see Marianne burst into the eating area with its panorama view of the Martian surface through the floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides. Good, no other customers there at the moment.

 

"Good to see you, Marianne," Emma said. "Would you like something to eat or drink?" Marianne looked at Emma more carefully than usual. Emma, significantly older than Marianne, wore the gray habitat-issued coveralls, baggy with elastic at the wrists and ankles and an unflattering built-in belt at the waist that drew attention to Emma's abdomen that hadn't been flat for decades.

 

"No thanks," Marianne said. "Do you have a minute? I need someone to brainstorm with."

 

Emma pointed to the nearest sturdy, red, plastic table at a window and motioned for Marianne to join her there.

 

Marianne sat down and said, "I've just come from the mayor."

 

"So you need a stiff drink?" Emma asked.

 

"No," Marianne said. "Actually I have a temporary license for my Tharsis Trends fashion shop and can start producing and selling clothes whenever I want."

 

"Oh," Emma said. "Well, I wish you well, but you have a tough job ahead of you, persuading people to spend habitat credits on something they can get free from the habitat authorities."

 

"I don't see any problem with pointing out to people that you get what you pay for," Marianne said calmly. "I have always believed and continue to believe that well-fitting, comfortable, flattering clothing is a quality of life issue. It makes people feel better. When they feel better, they do everything else better. They work better. They get along with people better. This benefits your brother's whole Mars project."

 

"Is that why you became a clothes designer?" Emma asked.

 

"Well, that was a while ago," Marianne began. "I was so annoyed at people who used fashion to make people feel bad about themselves or who told them that they needed fashion to hide their physical failings. Fashion should make you feel good about yourself. It should draw attention to the parts of your appearance that you like. People have to be themselves. They should dress as their moods demand."

 

"Hmm," Emma said. "I have to warn you. I am completely satisfied with my habitat coveralls. They are comfortable and functional."

 

"Exactly," Marianne said. "That's why I would like to win you over as my first model for Tharsis Trends clothing. Let me show you what I can create for you. I bet, once you see the clothes I make for you, you'll want to dump your coveralls out onto the surface and let the wispy wind blow them into the next crevice."

 

"I don't know," Emma said. "The habitat coveralls are no trouble. You always have one set in reserve, and every morning you turn in the clothes you wore the day before and pick up a new set. You'd probably have to clean and care for your own clothes yourself. I don't know if I want to bother with that again."

 

"Way ahead of you," Marianne said. "Your brother Ned had the same objection. Since I paid my own way here, I was allowed to bring along as much luggage as I wanted. What I brought with me was a container of nanobots specialized for cleaning textiles and capable of reproducing themselves."

 

"And how would they work?" Emma asked.

 

"Every customer gets a laundry bag saturated with these clever little nanobots. They remain in the substance of the laundry bag, but clean any clothes you throw into the bag. You throw your laundry in the bag at night and pull it out perfectly clean the next morning."

 

"Well," Emma said. "All right, then. Now I'm curious. I'll be willing to play guinea pig and test any clothes you create."

 

Marianne smiled. "Then I'll have some ensembles ready for you in about a week, if you just stand up and let me take a few photos so that I get the measurements right." She pulled out her communications device and quickly dashed around Emma, photographing her from all angles, using a few more electromagnetic frequencies than the human eye could detect.

 

Emma shook her head. "I don't understand why you want me as your first model; I'm too old for such nonsense. Still, I'm also old enough to know that you shouldn't say no to something new just because it's new. But now, I have to get back to baking. Otherwise there won't be anything for people to munch on later." And she headed toward her kitchen area.

 

Marianne smiled as she ordered her robot transit vehicle. Emma, of course, would be her best and cheapest advertising. The cafeteria was wildly popular in the habitat. No one bothered to cook when Emma provided such delicious food.

 

Everyone who came to the cafeteria would admire how good the new clothes made Emma look, and Emma would truthfully say how comfortable they were. Considering how many settlers in the Bradbury habitat ate most of their meals in the cafeteria, Marianne would soon have more customers than she could count.

 

Suddenly her communicator buzzed. A text from Stevensen Industries said, "Ms. DuBois, our development people have finished testing a plastic silk that is just as good as the organic one when it comes to functioning at extremely low temperatures. We got plastic fibrils to become more stretchable and stronger as the temperatures dropped close to zero degrees Kelvin through the addition of artificial aqueous proteins. You might want to consider using this new fabric for your products."

 

Yes, of course she would. Maybe these features weren't all that necessary for indoor habitat clothing, but Marianne was already busy conferring with Doc Brach and Janine Marten, the head of engineering, about developing less bulky surface suits. This plastic silk might indeed be the solution to various problems.

 

For new and improved surface suits, they needed extremely elastic plastic threads that the robots could weave together. The suits would be loose to step into but when activated would shrink to a tight body suit. Headgear could be worn as a collar and then pulled up if necessary. Such suits would protect against a vacuum, radiation, and against cold.

 

Marianne's customers could wear attractive clothing over such tightened surface suits or fully clothed settlers could slip quickly into the surface suits for protection from the very unlikely breaches in the habitat structures. The suits could be activated by pressing an emblem on the suit after which the respective nanobots would pull the threads tight.

 

So, she directed the robot vehicle to take her directly to Rick Stevensen's office. After some satisfactory negotiating with respect to price and delivery schedules, Marianne returned to her warehouse and programmed the robots to start sewing clothing for Emma.

 

Marianne trusted her instincts as far as taste was concerned, but, as an old astute Earth dictator had once pointed out, trust is good, but checking up is better. So, she fed all Emma's data, age, body shape, etc. into her computer fashion program and compared the suggestions with her own ideas.

 

She produced several outfits, variations of pantsuits, pants with elastic waistband and matching floral tunic tops, shirts and blouses with short and long sleeves, ankle-length dresses, all in variations of powerful blue, red, and green to show off Emma's thick white hair. No wishy-washy, pale pinks or yellows for a woman with as much character and personality as Emma.

 

She delivered the clothes to Emma who indeed did start wearing them that same day. "They're not exactly what I expected," Emma confided in her two days later. "But they are so comfortable and I feel good when I see myself in a reflection in the kitchen. The nanobots in the laundry bag do a perfect cleaning job. I want you to make me some more, as soon as I can get a bigger closet built into my apartment."

 

Emma's customers quickly took note of her wardrobe and started bombarding Marianne with requests. Despite the occasional scheduling problems, Marianne insisted on meeting with each customer personally, not just to get accurate measurements, but also to get an impression of what styles would make the person happy. Soon Marianne had to put in an order for more seamstress robots. Her customers were not willing to wait very long for their new clothes.

 

In no time at all the habitat was populated by settlers all wearing Marianne's newest creations. Marianne began to explore the surface of Mars to get new inspiration for her designs. Sometimes it was the volcanic mountains in the background; sometimes it was the rocks and cliffs; sometimes it was just the patterns of dust on the rocks.

 

Apparently, her satisfied customers started sending photos and videos of their new attire back to Earth. Marianne started getting orders from clothing distributors on Earth. With a fair amount of trial and error she managed to program her clothing designs so that robots on Earth could produce adequate imitations. Rick and Miranda Stevensen started sending Martian fabrics back to Earth, since Marianne's designs just didn't look as good when made with Earth fabrics.

 

Things indeed were progressing well.

 

At first, Marianne didn't know what to make of the message from a Barnard P. Braley about the Cosmos Day he wanted to celebrate, but of course, she never turned down a potential customer. She invited him to come to her office at his convenience, which turned out to be within the hour.

 

"Come in," she said when he showed up at the door. She quickly motioned for him to enter her little office.

 

Glancing at Barnard, she said, "I see you are still wearing the habitat-issued clothing. It's becoming enough on you, but I could design something better."

 

Barnard sat down in front of her desk and laughed. "Maybe some other time, thanks. Right now I need to ask you about the new surface suits you've designed."

 

Her face lit up. "Production went much faster than even I had hoped," she said. "The most time-consuming problem was writing the software for the construction robots. The suits are ready to sell. I just haven't gotten around to advertising them yet."

 

"That is good for my Cosmos Day plans," Barnard said.

 

"And why?" Marianne asked. "What is this Cosmos Day, and what do my new surface suits have to do with it?"

 

"I've decided we should celebrate the day the settlements on Mars began," Barnard said. "That would bring us all together and would be fun. At first, I couldn't come up with a venue big enough to fit all the settlers, so I thought about a huge tent out next to the spaceport. But the mayor pointed out that in such a temporary structure all the participants would have to wear these huge, cumbersome surface suits. That would really spoil my party."

 

"True," Marianne said.

 

"Then I heard about your surface suits and started wondering if they might not be the solution to my problem," Barnard continued.

 

"Yes," Marianne said. "We made sure these suits are comfortable and flexible and also provide necessary protection. People could party easily in these suits."

 

"Cosmos Day is in three weeks," Barnard said. "Can you produce enough suits by then?"

 

Marianne did some mental calculations.

 

"I'll have enough surface suits available within ten days," she assured him. "Once I advertize the suits, people will stand in line to get them. That was what happened with everything else Tharsis Trends has produced so far."

 

"Great," Barnard said. "Then I can get back to all the other things on my list. Thank you! The mayor has been trying to sabotage my celebration from the get-go, so I'm grateful for any help I can get."

 

"I've still got the mayor's threat hanging over my head, myself," Marianne said. "He only gave me a license for my clothing production for six months. Then it will depend on how safe the clothing turns out to be, all of which is stupid. People already tell me that they can get into the old surface suits faster when they were my new clothing creations than they could in the old coveralls."

 

"You can't trust him," Barnard said. "He's a power-hungry, control-freak psychopath."

 

"I know," Marianne said. "At the moment I'm hoping that my success will intimidate him, that he won't dare to forbid something absolutely everyone in the habitat wants."

 

"We'll see," Barnard said. "If it's all right with you, I'll keep in touch about the new surface suits so that we can advertise them long enough before my Cosmos Day party."

 

The morning of the Cosmos Day celebration Mayor Ben Berry sent a message to all settlers declaring that it was forbidden to wear clothing produced by Tharsis Trends and that everyone had exactly one week to acquire the previous coverall attire, which, he added, people no doubt foolishly threw away. No settler was allowed to travel to the Cosmos Day tent venue without an old surface suit.

 

Marianne's customers of course got in each other's way trying to contact her, whether electronically or physically. She took Emma's call. "This is too much, Marianne," Emma said. "I've sent an urgent message to Ned telling him he needs to call back the mayor. Enough is enough."

 

"Will that do any good?" Marianne asked.

 

"I don't know," Emma said. "I've tried this before, and Ned never listened to me. But now he has to."

 

"Hmm," Marianne said. "I'll get back to you. I have an impossible number of people trying to talk to me."

 

She listened to as many as she could. A consensus established itself almost immediately. Everyone was going to continue to wear Marianne's fashionable clothing, and was going to the Cosmos Day as planned. Marianne felt flattered and validated, but she wondered what extra tricks the mayor had up his coverall sleeves.

 

She couldn't get in touch with Barnard, and so she just traveled to the celebration tent with the others, clad in her newest creation, a shimmering body stocking that changed color every thirty seconds with the addition of a flattering bodice and pleated skirt with a different rainbow color in each pleat. She wondered if it would do any good to organize a massive demonstration to converge on the mayor's office and kick in his wooden doors.

 

Probably not. As she had suspected, the mayor first let her invest time and money in producing clothes just to destroy everything she had worked for. He probably had some other disadvantages planned for any settlers who defied him.

 

In the meantime, she might as well enjoy the festivities.

 

The tent was full, the music was loud, and the food was excellent. Barnard obviously knew how to organize a party. Everyone had a great time until the mayor burst in, yelling through a microphone that the celebration was illegal and that everyone had to leave.

 

Marianne saw how Barnard went over to talk to him. The mayor turned and left.

 

She rushed over to Barnard and asked, "How did you manage that?"

 

"I reminded him that I have permission from him in writing for the party and that he doesn't have the authority to withdraw written permission. He is going to return to his office and find or probably forge some paper giving him this authority," Barnard explained.

 

"You don't seem that upset about it," Marianne said. "Is there reason for optimism?"

 

"This turn of events was not my first choice," Barnard said. "However, it's a ways back to the habitat, and even robots can make mistakes due to software glitches. Let's party until we hear differently."

 

The celebration continued with enthusiastic participation of all present.

 

A few hours later, the robots driving the vehicle reported an unfortunate vehicular accident that had resulted in the demise of the mayor. Barnard took over organizational questions, and the party continued. Emma immediately sent a notice to Ned who replied that the habitat would have to govern itself for the time being.

 

The next day Marianne thought about designing suitably somber, black attire for the settlers so that the mayor could have a solemn and dignified funeral.

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