Malcolm Cobb did his best to hang onto a blank, noncommittal, blandly smiling face. He did not clench his fists although he wanted to. He worked hard to look nonthreatening, although due to his size and build that was more challenging. He succeeded, as always, due to long, long practice. Gods below but he hated these people. They would not, could not accept that he was smarter, as well educated, as skilled in finances as they were. He was a scholarship boy, taken from the mining community based on his abilities. His brains and talent were co-opted for the greater good of Panschin. Talent such as his, a scarce and valuable resource or so he was told, was not to be wasted.
Yet this branch manager lounging before him with his soft gentleman's hands, a man who owed his position in life solely to his good fortune in choosing the right family when born, a man who had never held a job he had striven for, sneered at him. Desmond Wong had been given everything he ever had even as he firmly believed that it was all due to his own, herculean efforts. This fine gentleman would not have lasted a single day below Panschin, in the deep-down mining shafts and tunnels, wiggling his way through those narrow, stuffy, badly lit passages, in search of the ores that made the city the second richest on Mars.
But he didn't know that. He would never know that. His position in life ensured the risk would never cross his mind. And in the meantime, the branch manager of the Second National Bank of Panschin looked over Malcolm Cobb, searching for a trace of grime or dust that would betray his origins as a miner.
"So you work for me now. Here in Dome Two," the balding manager said, his voice betraying the slightest lisp. Malcolm wondered if that sibilance was an affectation of the manager's class or something he was born with. He still hadn't decided as so many of the other, higher status students he had met at the fancy school had those lisps, but only when they felt like it. The lisp, like knowing the right way to hold a pair of gilded chopsticks, might be one of those tells, denoting one's admittance into the upper reaches of society. Or maybe he was just being paranoid and resentful. That was an easy pit to fall into and a hard one to escape as he knew to his cost.
"Yes, sir, I do," Malcolm answered calmly and confidently. "I'm looking forward to it. It is a privileged assignment to be here in Dome Two with a man of your stature."
He wondered if he had laid it on too thick. Dome Two had not been a high-status location in the Second National Bank of Panschin in decades, but it would not do him any good to point this out to his new supervisor. He had to work with the man, after all, and the manager could harm him in a multitude of unseen ways.
Mr. Wong preened complacently and Malcolm thought, 'nope, not too thick. What an idiot. Doesn't understand that Dome Six is the place to be, or at least Dome Five. Our exalted supervisors dumped both of us here. Him because he's incompetent and me because they want to hide me.'
Mr. Wong, mollified at Malcolm's understanding how lucky they both were to be assigned to the branch in Dome Two, as opposed to say, Dome Three, Dome One or (worst of all) Dome Four, roused himself from his expensive throne to lead Malcolm on a tour of the branch office. It was, Malcolm observed, a very nice chair. It was also a chair that had been installed decades ago, when the branch was new, and it was no longer fashionable. Floral brocade was the preferred upholstery now, not blue gingham velvet. Yes, his manager was an idiot if he didn't realize that. He smiled inwardly. An idiot who could be managed while he, Malcolm, showed just how skilled he was to the people who mattered higher up.
The branch office was as he expected it to be, matching the manager's office. It was a formerly grand building, now slightly down at heels, reflecting the lowered status of everything within Dome Two. All the furbishing within was shabby, containing the telltale signs of poor maintenance. Terraformers had crept within, colonizing corners and backs of chairs, laying a new pattern on the carpet outside of the normal paths for foot traffic.
Mr. Wong introduced Malcolm to the staff, all of whom from tellers to loan officers to the office secretary, had that slight air of having seen better days elsewhere. They also, all of them, already knew who he was and where he came from. To a man or woman, they all took a surreptitious glance at his hands, looking for dirty nails showing he had just come out from underneath. Snobby idiots the lot of them, thinking he didn't know better.
Malcolm had in fact recently spent a few days underneath in the deep down, toiling alongside his father and uncle in the Steelio shafts. He needed the money and they needed the help but this was a fact he had learned long ago to never disclose. A good, thorough scrub along with some reasonable care meant his hands never betrayed him, as long as the observer didn't know what calluses meant. He smiled and made small talk with his new co-workers, making sure they knew he was clever, amiable, and ready to work.
The day finally ended, promptly at three, and he headed out into the watery sunshine penetrating the yellowed glassteel of the dome. Malcolm had already found a room in one of the many boarding houses in Dome Two. He knew better than to say so, but he had never seen so large and grand a house before, even if it was divided up into a warren of rooms. The price was right, he didn't have to share, his room was above ground, and it was an easy walk from the branch bank.
As he walked along, he studied his surroundings with great interest. He had never been in Dome Two before, other than school trips to the Panschin Museum of Art and other similar cultural outposts too large and too expensive to relocate. The neighborhood was astonishing, both large and surprisingly green. Most amazing of all, the houses had actual, tiny yards surrounding them. Dome Six, the place to live in Panschin, had no such thing. Even the richest, most high-caste citizens lived in towers. Very grand towers to be sure, at least from what he could observe from the outside, but Dome Six did not provide gardens to go with each of the luxury apartments in the gilded towers. All the units in a tower shared a single small greensward and a rooftop terrace no matter how many people lived there. A tenant might be wealthy enough to lease an apartment that spanned an entire floor of a building, but any private outside space was provided by a balcony.
Malcolm Cobb studied the buildings carefully as he walked by them. These had been luxurious symbols of wealth when they were built and despite the lack of upkeep, most of them were holding up surprisingly well. Most of them had been subdivided, as his own boarding house had, either into miniscule flats or into single occupancy rooms with negotiated privileges. It all depended on what the lease said. As he worked his way down the wide paved streets flanked at intersections by planters spilling over with flowers, he observed the other people around him. He wondered if they all lived here in Dome Two. How many of them had accounts at the local branch of his bank?
He stopped to stare at a particularly grand house, one that had not been chopped up. It had a very attractive garden around it and unusual for Panschin, an ostentatious pseudo-roof edging the rooftop terrace made up of pink and gray tile arranged in stripes. Even more unusual, this house had been whitewashed a blinding white, the evidence of that care still showing between the patches of terraformers. It was not thickly carpeted from top to bottom with ubiquitous lichens trying desperately to colonize every flat surface as every other building in Panschin normally had. Somebody regularly worked hard to scrape the building clean of its constantly regrowing sweater.
Malcolm knew from school that the domes and tunnels allowed a semblance of normal life this far north, but it came with a price. Because life was so unnatural within the domes, the terraformers were able to compete against the planted vegetation in a way they could no longer do outside. There, the soil was too rich, the air too pure and sweet. Inside the domes, the air was thin enough, despite the ventilation, that the terraformers weren't just everywhere. They were still needed. It also meant that wasting diseases were more prevalent in Panschin than they were closer to the equator.
As he admired the house, Malcolm suddenly saw his way to proving himself to those supervisors who had attempted to bury him forever in Dome Two. He knew that Panschin wouldn't be building more domes anytime soon. The cost was stunning and however rich Panschin was, money like that wasn't available. However, the population was expanding. Many of those newcomers would refuse to live in the tunnels below. They had to live somewhere and Dome Two had more open space than he had ever seen. Moreover, every important cultural building in Panschin was still located in Dome Two as they couldn't be moved. He ticked them off mentally one by one. It was quite a list.
He took a deep breath, filling his nose and lungs with the air of Dome Two. The ventilation was indifferent but perhaps that could be fixed. It wasn't much different from Dome Six as far as he could tell, perhaps a bit fresher due to the masses of terraformers all around. The dome overhead was yellowed but perhaps that could be fixed too. If those things could be done, then the housing stock in Dome Two would suddenly be recognized for what it was: drastically undervalued.
Malcolm Cobb showed his teeth at the noticeably white house rising in front of him, the raked gravel paths surrounding garden beds full of what even he knew were real plants and not terraformers. As the assistant manager of the local branch of the Second National Bank of Panschin, he was in charge of all the leases on all of their properties here in Dome Two. It had been obvious from the start that the local branch was a dying backwater for hacks and has-beens. It was doubtful that any of the leases had been reviewed in decades. Were any of those leases up for renewal? Were any of the lease holders in default of their sworn obligations to the bank, the government of Panschin, or the underlying authority: the Martian government? The Martian Government owned every bit of Mars, other than what was held by the Four Hundred families on their demesnes. All that property was rented, on exceedingly long-term leases to be sure, but the lease holders didn't own those properties, not even the century holders. Leases could be sold and swapped and they were, but as the sworn representative of the Martian Government, the bank was supposed to be notified of any changes.
This would be his self-chosen job here in Dome Two. He, Malcolm Cobb, would show his versatility, his ability to make money, his ruthlessness, and his skill at detecting opportunity that others ignored. He'd make piles of money for the bank, get all the accounts brought up to date, and maybe, just maybe, those double damned snobs in the hierarchy would see his value.
It could happen.
Malcolm turned and began walking up the street towards where he thought his boarding house was located. He thought of the quiet, drab room waiting for him. It was his, he didn't have to share, but he didn't fit in with the low-caste workers who lived there. Not anymore. He didn't fit in at the bank. He hadn't fitted in at school, nor had he fit in at the Panschin School of Business. He didn't fit in very well with his family down in the tunnels nor did he fit in, not anymore, in the deep down.
If he had not been tapped so long ago because of his intellect, he would have married by now, perhaps even had a child. He would be still be part of his family, valued by them and valued by Steelio for the work he could do. His family loved him and valued him but he wasn't really part of them anymore either. He was split between too many worlds. Would he fit in here, in Dome Two? It could happen. He would make it happen. And maybe, he would come to be valued for himself, for what he had to offer.
Maybe, he thought as he noticed the trio of pretty young women on the street walking by, he would even meet someone who didn't see him as a meal ticket like the girls from the tunnels did or an exciting, risk-free chance to slum like the sisters and cousins of the upper-caste students did. That would be really nice and as long as he was daydreaming, he could think about possibilities. Those girls, they had a future full of possibilities.
Malcolm would not and could not marry a girl from the tunnels. A tunnel girl would never be accepted in his new world and neither would their children. A girl from above would be accepted, if she was of high enough caste, by the class he was trying to enter, but a girl like that would never accept him, or his family left behind in the tunnels. He would not, could not walk away from them and pretend that he had never been raised in the deep down under Panschin. It was part of him and that would never change.