Old Mars Page 29

  Unsteady after the wreck, I clambered out to the wide, red dunes of the planet. We had fallen not far from one of the great ruined cities. Its spires and towers reached toward the sky, lightning still playing about their outstretched tips. A great canal, wider than any river save the God-like Amazon, curved to the south, the waters low against its walls, black and sluggish. Carina Meer came to my side, her arm on my shoulder.

  “One day,” she said, “I will make all of this bloom. I swear it.”

  It was frantic work, preparing this last leg of our journey. Half of our remaining crew manned improvised barricades, keeping the Ikkean survivors of the wreck at bay with Martian ray pistols and their own good steel blades. The other half gathered the Incan alloy that had been scattered by the wreck and rigged the now crippled floating cart on which it had rested. One corner of the failing platform dragged a trail in the dust when they moved it. Doctor Koch tended to the wounded and La’an said words over the fallen. As the sun rose among the vast ruins of the Martian city, we affixed ropes to the listing cart, and, with the straining muscles of our bodies, we began to haul our cargo toward the horizon. How strange it felt to breathe air no man of Earth had ever breathed, to feel the dreamlike lightness of my flesh and dig my feet into the ruddy soil of another world. We had traveled farther than any subject of the empire had ever gone, farther even than the great general of Macedon whose name I bear could have dreamed, across the starry void, driven by powers too vast to contemplate. And still the fate of our mission rested on the effort of strong English backs and the willingness of men as unalike as a baboon from a bumblebee to make common cause. Our goal, the Palace of the Underworld, loomed in the distance, gray and massive and wreathed by ghostly flames of St. Elmo’s fire.

  There are no words to describe the desperation of those hours. The rope bit into my hands and the flesh of my shoulder as I pulled along with my men. Even the callused palms of a life at sea were unequal to the terrible task we performed. My body trembled with effort, my very ligaments creaking like the timbers of a ship. With every hour, new assaults were made upon us, and the great spiders moved with an alacrity on this, their native soil, that made them seem even more nightmarish and monstrous. Again and again, our mixed crew threw them back, blades dripping with yellowish ichor, our own wounds leaving matching trails across the sand. Until my dying breath, I will recall with pride the common will of my crew as we forged across the bloodied dunes.

  The Palace of the Underworld had grown to almost twice its height when the enemy’s flying scouts appeared.

  Imagine if you will, Your Grace, the vast Martian sky, as purple as a lilac, with the same sun that shines on Westminster and London here taking on a wholly foreign aspect, with wide tendrils of rainbow snaking from its centrally glowing orb. See, if you will, the vast ruins that had once been the pride of seven races with their crystal hearts laid bare by storms and war; the massive, dying river, slow as an old man’s blood; the bleeding and desperate crew hauling the hope of survival on a half-shattered cart that struggled and failed to rise from the ground like a wounded moth. The air was thin and held the scent of metal and spent gunpowder. The heat of the sun oppressed as powerfully as a tropical noontime. Now hear the familiar cry of Quohog—awch loy—smoke ahoy. Picture a storm of dragonflies, each as large as a man’s arm. They rose in the east, thick as the billows of a vast conflagration, and spread out across the sky. I heard Carina Meer’s cry when she caught sight of them and saw the blood drain from her tawny face.

  “We must hurry,” she said. “The central hive has discovered us. If we are not safely belowground when their fighting force arrives, there will be no hope.”

  “Must say,” Mister Darrow said between gasping breaths. “I’m beginning to dislike these buggers.”

  Young Carter chuckled. “See what you did there? Bugs. Buggers. A bit funny, that.”

  “I do what I can in the service of levity,” Mister Darrow intoned solemnly, and we drove our shoulders into the lines as if to break our backs. Time became a lost thing; only the strain, the agony, and the distant Palace of the Underworld remained in our collective and narrowed consciousness.

  As we neared our object, the landscape shifted. The desert sands gave way to a low and purplish scrub brush, and small, insectlike lizards scuttled fearlessly about our feet. The vast and buzzing swarm of enemy scouts blotted the sun, and we labored in shadow. The landscape divided itself between labyrinths of cutstone gullies and sand-swept plains. We knew not how soon the enemy forces might arrive, but only pressed forward with failing strength. What had once seemed wealth enough to please a king was a burden heavier than hope. The only advantage that I, in my weakened state, could perceive was that the harassment by Ikkeans had waned as we drew farther away from the Serkeriah, and those crewmen who had taken the role of protectors were able to relieve those of us who hauled the lines. I myself was permitted a few moments of rest and recuperation. Blood streaked my arms and breast, and sweat stung where my skin had rubbed raw. And yet, for all my discomfort, I saw that we were close to our aim. The Palace of the Underworld towered above us. Its vast stonework resembled nothing so much as a great cathedral, and the living energy that played madly along its surface appeared auroral and deep. Mister Kopler paced the long line of men, exhorting them to pull, to work, to crack their spines with their muscle’s strength, and the tooth-baring effort in every countenance very nearly moved me to displace one of the more rested crewmen for the sheer joy of the toil. Sisyphus damned had no greater task than did we, only we had hope and determination and the love of our fellows, be they Carib or English, Sorid or Manae. So narrow as that is the difference between perdition and redemption.

  Carina Meer appeared beside me. I can put it no other way, for in my flickering consciousness, there was no approach, only her sudden presence. Somewhere in our endeavors, she had suffered a cruel cut across her collar and a bright and painful-looking burn along the knuckles of her left hand, but she made no complaint.

  “Captain Lawton,” she said to me. “May I speak with you?”

  “Of course,” I replied, turning toward her. I knew even then what would be the subject of our conversation. We stepped a bit apart from our joint crew and stood under the blue shade of a vast outcropping of stone.

  “We will not achieve our goal before the enemy finds us,” she said. “Nor shall we be able to continue carrying this burden in the midst of a full attack.”

  “I had suspected as much.”

  “If you and your men will go ahead, then,” she said. “Tell my brother that I am in need of reinforcements, and I will guard the gold against all comers as I did before.”

  Her smile would, I think, have convinced another man that her offer was what it seemed to be, but I had worked the figures in my own mind as well. The demise of the Serkeriah could not have gone unnoticed by our allies underground, nor would the activity of the Ikkeans who followed in our wake. That no relief had come could only be a sign that there was none to be had, and this, then, was Carina Meer’s gambit to save my life and the lives of my men.

  “There is another alternative,” I said. “Allow me to call for parley. If Governor Smith is the guide to these creatures, they may well be swayed by him, and honor will not permit him to refuse.”

  “And what is it you would say to him or his masters?” she asked.

  Now came my own turn to smile.

  “Whatever comes to hand,” I said. There was a moment’s distrust in her eyes. For the first time since I had collected her from the Vargud van Haarlem, I was asking that she put herself wholly within my control, and I take it as no insult that she hesitated.

  Our preparations were not lengthy, and when they were complete, I used the rags of Doctor Koch’s pale shirt and the branch of a strange and rubbery Martian tree to signal our intention.

  It was something less than an hour before Governor Smith appeared upon the plain that I had chosen for our final confrontation. Carina Meer stood at my side, a
nd our joint crew, reduced by half, sat or stood by the tarp-covered mass behind us, the blood-darkened hauling ropes trailing from it on the dusty soil.

  They emerged from the gully to our east. Governor Smith and five Ikkean battle spiders. For the first time in a decade, I faced my nemesis in the flesh. His velvety black jacket was smeared with the dust of Mars and his disarranged hair stood at rough angles from the elongated egg of his skull. His expression was the same pleasant cipher I had known when I first had the misfortune to cross his path, but I venture to say this: There was something different in the set of his eyes. I recognize that I am not now nor was I then an impartial observer of the man, and still I ask that you believe me when I say there was in him something like madness.

  “Good morning, Captain Lawton,” he said. “Captain Meer. You have led me quite a merry chase. My congratulations on a game well played. I am pleased that we can end this like civilized men.”

  “That remains to be seen,” I said. “We have not yet addressed the matter of terms.”

  “Terms? You are charming, Captain Lawton. The terms are that you and your allies will throw down weapons, or, by all that is holy, you shall not live to see another sunrise on any planet.”

  “All that is holy,” I spat at him. “From a man who has joined himself to the devil.”

  “Say rather,” he replied with his mocking smile, “that I have joined myself to the victors. An ambassador, if you will, though without the official title as yet. Someday soon the Ikkeans will rule both worlds, and their friends will rule with them.”

  Carina Meer’s laugh was the platonic ideal of contempt.

  “Unacceptable,” I said. “You may have the advantage, but you have had that before only to see defeat. I insist upon guarantees of clemency.”

  The Ikkean at Governor Smith’s side chattered, a horrible high-pitched sound with a thousand knives in it. I believe that Governor Smith flinched from it as much as did I.

  “Captain Lawton, I made an offer to you before. Your aid in return for control of the Serkeriah.”

  I nodded. Behind me, young Carter said, Oh, was that the offer then?

  “You are a clever man,” the governor continued. “And I see that I was stingy in my price. Our situation is somewhat changed, and so is my proposal. Order your men to drop their lines and take into custody the rebel forces of Captain Meer. I will guarantee your safe return to our home world, and further, a full pardon. I will see to it that your good name is restored and your honor unquestioned in any corner of the British Empire. I will champion your cause personally.”

  I froze, Your Majesty. What a prospect it was! What vengeance it would be to use Governor Smith, of all men, as the agent of my social redemption. To be made right in the public eye. My honor restored. It was like the promise of love to the unrequited. For a moment, I was in the fine houses where once as a young man I supped. I recalled the delicate eyes of a young woman who loved me once, before my fall from grace. To see her again, to kiss those near-forgotten lips …

  “It is not enough,” I said. “I require a confession, written in your own hand and before witnesses to say it was not coerced. You will admit to all the subterfuge and deceit that brought me low. That, and pardons for not only myself, but all of my men. Would you suffer that price, Governor?”

  His eyes narrowed, and he let out a sound like the hiss of an annoyed serpent. I could feel the gaze of Carina Meer upon me and did not turn to her. My men and hers stood silent. A thin breeze stirred the dust about our ankles.

  “Done,” he said at last. “You have my word of honor, I will fulfill my part of the compact. For now, you will fulfill yours.”

  At that moment, as Providence had it, a change came upon the Palace of the Underworld, and a gout of green fire rose from it, up into the purple Martian sky. A cheer rose from the crew behind me and I saw Carina Meer settle a degree into herself.

  “I will not,” I said. “You sad, small-hearted pig of a man. Do you believe that you frighten me? I have ridden the most tempestuous waves in the seas. I have stood with naked steel in hand against men a thousand times your worth. Who are you to pardon me?”

  “What is—”

  “That fire you observed was the signal from those of my crew and Captain Meer’s not present that they had arrived in safety at the Palace of the Underworld. All the time that you have wasted preparing for these negotiations and conducting them, our men have been taking the alloy beyond your reach.”

  When young Carter and Mister Darrow threw back the tarp to uncover the mound of rough Martian stone, the astonished gape of Governor Smith’s mouth was a thing to behold. I could see where the dentist had removed one of his molars, so profound was his surprise.

  “False parley!” he shouted, and pulled a pistol from his belt. Murder glowed in his eyes. “There is no shred of honor left in you, sir.”

  “You are a fool,” Carina said. She lifted her chin, haughty as any queen. “Honor is a petty, meaningless thing if men such as you have it.”

  Governor Smith shifted his pistol, pointing it at her forehead, his finger trembling on the trigger. Carina narrowed her eyes in disdain but showed no sign of fear.

  “Save your childish outrage,” I said, stepping forward to draw his attention. “You haven’t the will to fire. You’re a coward and cheat, and every man here knows my words are as the gospel on it. I would no more accept pardon from you than drink your piss. If you have honor, then honor be damned. You are nothing, sir. You. Do. Not. Signify.”

  And then, Your Majesty, as was my hope and aim, the Honorable Governor Smith turned and shot me.

  Was it a desperate ploy that brought the pistol’s ball to my own belly rather than chance the death of the woman whom I admired above all others? Perhaps. But it was a successful one. The blow was not unlike being struck by a mule’s hoof, though I am sure you have never had the ill fortune to experience such. I stumbled back and fell, unable to maintain my feet. I believe that Governor Smith had time enough to understand that his temper and impetuous violence had left him vulnerable, though God alone will have leisure to clarify this with him. Before he could call out to his demonic allies for aid, Carina Meer leapt forward and crushed the man’s windpipe with a single strike of her right elbow. He stumbled back, my echo in this as in so many things.

  The battle was immediately joined, and Carina Meer and what remained of our joined crew assaulted the Ikkean warriors. But we sat for a moment, he and I, our gazes locked. Blood spilled from my punctured gut. His face darkened as he struggled vainly to draw breath. And then his eyes rolled back and his body sagged to the Martian ground, and that, as they say, was that.

  When the skirmish ended, Doctor Koch and Carina Meer were with me immediately. We had won the day, but only at peril to our lives. The massed Ikkean forces were descending upon us, and despite my entreaties, Carina and my men refused to leave my wounded body behind as the burden it was. Mister Darrow fashioned a rough litter from the legs of the defeated Ikkeans, and then …

  Oh, Your Majesty, and then so much more. Shall I recount to you the battle at the edge of the Palace of the Underworld, and how young Carter saved us all by scaling the massive spider-ship as though it were rigging, his dagger in his teeth? Or the fateful meeting with Hermeton, brother to Carina Meer, and the fearful duplicity of his plan to defeat the Ikkeans? Shall I describe to you the great caverns below the Martian surface and detail the mystery and madness of the Elanin Chorus? The death dwarves of Inren-Kah? The hawk-men of Nis? The Plant-Queens of Venus? Like Scheherazade to her Caliph, I believe I could beguile you with these tales for countless nights. But to what end? I set forth here to explain my role in the death of Governor Smith, and I have done so.

  Your Majesty, I did not slaughter the governor, but I was instrumental in his death. I broke the laws of custom and honor, rejected his offer of clemency, and drew his ire to myself in defense of a woman and of a world, both almost strangers to me but already of inestimable value. I did this knowi
ng that I might die, and accepting that risk because there is a better and nobler thing than to be the servant of honor. I know this, for I have become it. And I was once an honorable man.

  Yours,

  Captain Alexander Augustus Lawton, Citizen of Mars

  MELINDA M. SNODGRASS

  A writer whose work crosses several mediums and genres, Melinda M. Snodgrass was story editor on Star Trek: The Next Generation and wrote the award-nominated “Measure of a Man,” among other episodes. She worked on Reasonable Doubts, and was a writer/producer on The Profiler. She has written a number of SF novels, and was one of the cocreators of the long-running Wild Card series, for which she has also written and edited, and she has delivered a Wild Card movie to Universal Pictures. Her novels include The Edge of Reason and The Edge of Ruin, and she has just delivered the third book in that series. She also penned the Circuit trilogy, and Queen’s Gambit Declined. Her most recent novels are This Case Is Gonna Kill Me and Box Office Poison, written under the pseudonym Phillipa Bornikova.

  This story shows that, even on Mars, family can be a strength and a refuge, and it can also be a claustrophobic, smothering trap—or, sometimes, both at once.

  Written in Dust

  MELINDA M. SNODGRASS

  The best memory is that which forgets nothing but injuries. Write kindness in marble and write injuries in the dust.

  —PERSIAN PROVERB

  It was a festival day, and crowds strolled the jeweled streets. Overhead, delicate glass spires echoed the colors of the pavements below and scratched at the sky. The perfume of flowers both sharp and sweet coiled about her.

  A sticky-bun seller offered her one of his wares. The long face like a horse’s, but with faceted, insectoid eyes, nodded in acknowledgment as she sang her thanks. She was small compared with the crowds surrounding her. Tall, slim, swaying like dancing reeds, every word a note, every conversation a symphony. The living and the dead walking together.