The Underwater Ballroom Society

by Y. S. Lee

  Bertrand looked tired, Harriet thought. His always messy black hair looked like it had been attacked by a mist bird, and he had only made a half-hearted attempt at tying his cravat. His clothes were smart and fashionable—he and Amy might not have much money, but Amy was always insistent he looked as well as his peers in the police service—but rumpled, as though he’d already been at work for hours.

  It had taken the Tharsis City Police Service long enough to promote Bertrand. They had set him on the case of the Glass Phantom knowing full well he would fail so they would have an excuse to get rid of him; his superiors believed he was incompetent. Instead, between them, Harriet and Bertrand had succeeded. It had gotten Harriet into the British-Martian Intelligence Service and finally it had gotten Bertrand his promotion. He would need the extra income when he and Amy had their baby.

  “They’ve put me in charge of the Extraordinary Investigations Department.” Bertrand looked suddenly glum. “Only there haven’t been any extraordinary crimes to investigate yet. All distinctly ordinary, apparently.” He perked up. “Although I’m certain there will be soon. Something is bound to go wrong.”

  “That’s the spirit.” In truth, Harriet was having a hard time focusing on what Bertrand was saying. Her insides were knotted in and over themselves, like a nest of confused tangle-eels. She wasn’t by nature a nervous person, but too much rested on this mission. Mess it up and her nascent career as a spy really would be over. She would become no more than another eligible young lady hoping to make a good marriage. Mars would be closed off to her. Her life would become a constant circuit of witless social occasions and obedience to some husband. She might never go anywhere interesting or do anything worthwhile. She couldn’t give all this up.

  “It must be good news, though, mustn’t it?” Bertrand said.

  Harriet realized she hadn’t really been listening to her brother-in-law.

  “What’s that?”

  “The invitation! To the ball. It must mean someone high up is pleased with me.”

  Harriet winced. She hated misleading Bertrand like this. As far as she knew, most of Bertrand’s superiors still wanted him gone. They thought he was a terrible detective, and if Harriet was honest with herself, he was. The public pressure from the Tharsis Times following Bertrand’s success with the Glass Phantom—her success, in truth—had forced the promotion, but that didn’t mean he was in good favor. If Bertrand believed they were rewarding him, he might poke his head too far above the parapet and end up catching an arrow. Harriet would never forgive herself if she were the cause of Bertrand losing his job. But what choice do I have?

  “Are you all right, old thing?”

  Bertrand was squinting at her. Harriet smoothed her face.

  “Just the elevator.” It was decelerating as it approached the bottom of the escarpment.

  Bertrand nodded knowingly. “Ah. Yes. It can be like that. Jolly good of the old bird to let you off like this.”

  “What?”

  “Lady Felchester. Letting you accompany me on such short notice. Good old bird. Or maybe I should say, good old beetle, eh? Ha! Come on, Harry. Let’s go and have some fun.”

  The Clockwork Express train that would carry them to Candor City on the shore of the Valles Marineris was already waiting at the station. It was a long, sleek, steel machine with five smooth carriages and an arrow-headed engine on which were mounted two vast, flat springs, which would drive the train across the surface of Mars.

  Harriet and Bertrand boarded and found their cabins. Harriet dropped her valise on one bunk, while an automatic porter placed her trunk on the other side of the cabin. The Clockwork Express would reach a top speed of almost two hundred miles per hour, but the trip was almost fifteen hundred miles and the train would stop at several towns and cities on the way, as well as to exchange its spent springs. They wouldn’t arrive in Candor City until the early hours of the next morning. Harriet tested her mattress. Surprisingly, it was softer than her bunk in the trainee’s dormitory. Good. She’d need a proper night’s sleep to be on her mettle.

  Bertrand stuck his head around the door. “Why don’t we go and get a cup of tea?” He licked his lips. “And maybe a spot more breakfast. Amy’s got me on this terrible diet. She says only one of us can be as round as a whale at any one time, and as she’s with child, she gets priority.” His face fell. “You won’t let on, will you?”

  “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  The dining car was half full when they arrived. Bertrand slipped cheerily behind a table and waved to an automatic waiter. The impassive, silvery machine glided over to him in an almost silent whirr of cogs. Harriet settled in opposite and looked around the dining car, taking in the other passengers, assessing them with a single glance. That was one of the things they were always banging on about in the academy. Be aware of your surroundings. Assess the risks. Evaluate threats. It was exhausting, but she had found she couldn’t turn it off.

  At the far end of the car, near the second-class carriages, two men and a woman sat shoveling enormous portions of breakfast into their mouths. The way you eat when you don’t know for sure when you’re next going to get a meal. The larger of the men sat with his back to Harriet, taking up a full two seats by himself. If he stood, Harriet reckoned he’d be almost seven feet tall. The smaller man facing him was dressed like a dandy, with a bright green jacket, a yellow, patterned waistcoat, and an elaborately knotted cravat. The woman, by contrast, could have disappeared into any crowd. If you were looking for a picture to illustrate “inconspicuous”, you’d pick her. Except you wouldn’t, because you wouldn’t notice her in the first place. They were keeping themselves to themselves, but even so, they radiated a sense of danger. Watch them.

  A family with two little children crowded around a too-small table nearby, the mother leaning over the children and urgently whispering to their mutinous faces. For some reason, the family reminded her of Bertrand and Amy. They would have their own children soon. She would be an aunt. An aunt. The thought filled her with a mixture of terror and delight that, just for a moment, made her dizzy. I’m only seventeen!

  Don’t let your emotions get in the way, she heard Lady Felchester say in her head. Emotions undermine logic. They erode caution. A spy does not have emotions. Which was easy enough for Lady Felchester to say. But then Harriet didn’t think Lady Felchester had ever had an emotion she hadn’t chosen to have in her entire life. It was infuriating.

  On the opposite side of the aisle, a young man sat holding a book. He was reading in silence, but his face twitched furiously as he snapped through the pages. He really mustn’t like that book, Harriet thought. University student. She’d seen enough like him arguing in the Tharsis University quadrangles, gesturing passionately, voices raised, as they debated obscure bits of academic theory.

  Assumption, she heard Lady Felchester snap. Don’t classify. Classification is lazy. It leads you into traps.

  Another dozen well-dressed couples sat at tables, eating or drinking. Harriet’s eyes slid over them. Nothing unusual about any of them. Harriet wondered if anyone in the dining car could be her contact. If they were, Lady Felchester would expect her to identify them before they made themselves known at the ball. Lady Felchester had said her contact would already be at the hotel, but this whole exercise was a test. A little bit of misinformation to assess her instincts and training wouldn’t be so unlikely.

  But then why would her contact travel all the way from Tharsis City to the Louros underwater hotel when they could just pop around the corner to give her the package?

  Because that’s the kind of thing spies do, she thought grumpily. Nothing is ever straightforward.

  The train kicked into motion, accelerating cleanly along the bronze rails. The mounded greenhouses of the Tharsis City Botanical Gardens slipped past the window, then the train tracks dipped, and the train picked up speed, hurrying down the long incline toward the Pavonis plain. The hum of the great springs was scarcely audible in the dining c
ar.

  “I’ll have the full breakfast,” Bertrand told the automatic waiter. “With extra eggs. And, ah, extra toast. And extra kippers.” He licked his lips. “And some more extra eggs. How about you, Harry?”

  Harriet glanced up. “Hm? Oh, just some tea.”

  Bertrand blinked. “But it’s all free.” He turned back to the automatic waiter. “She’ll have some cakes.” He cleared his throat. “And if you don’t eat them, Harry old thing…” He rubbed his stomach.

  A shout sounded from further down the dining car. Harriet looked up in time to see that one of the children had broken free from his parents and was barreling down the aisle like an out-of-control tumble-ox, bouncing off seats and tables and setting crockery clattering like approaching alarm bells. Harriet shot out an arm as the boy rushed past, snagging him and bringing him to a halt. She looked up to see the boy’s mother hurrying after him, her face as flushed as fire-bloom.

  “Forgive me,” the woman said. She had runny egg down her gown, Harriet noticed, and a buttery handprint planted firmly on her jacket sleeve. “He just can’t sit still.” If anything, her face was turning even redder.

  “Ha!” Bertrand said. “Nothing to forgive. You should have seen Harry when she was little. Bouncing around like a Martian slug fly. Couldn’t stop her…” He trailed off as he noticed Harriet glaring at him. “Anyway,” he rallied. “No harm done, eh?”

  Harriet held her withering glare for another second before turning to the woman. “Don’t worry. I’m Harriet George. Where are you traveling to?”

  The woman got a good grip on her son’s hand. “Mr. and Mrs. Edgeware.” She shot a look at her son. “And children. This one is Marcus. Eleanor is back at the table. For now. We’re on holiday. We’re going to the Louros Hotel.”

  “To the ball?”

  “Oh, good gracious no!” Mrs. Edgeware laughed. “That’s not the kind of event people like us are invited to. We’re just staying at the hotel. My husband has a fascination for Ancient Martian ruins. We’re hoping to take a submersible trip around the more impressive submerged buildings. I have heard that some are large enough that a submersible can slip inside. You can still see the decorations on the walls.” She leaned closer. “I must admit, though, that the timing is not entirely coincidental. I am hoping to catch a glimpse of Sir Lancelot Coverdale. I hear he is attending the ball. It will drive my sister wild with envy. She has such a tendre for Sir Lancelot, even though she’s never met him. She reads all about him in the newspapers, you see. Oh.” She looked up. “I see your breakfast has arrived. I shall leave you to it. Once again, thank you for capturing my little runaway.”

  “Sir Lancelot Coverdale, eh?” Bertrand said, once the woman and her child had returned to their table. “I once almost arrested his father. By mistake!” he added at Harriet’s raised eyebrow. “He took it rather well. Considering.” He leaned back to let the automatic waiter set out their breakfast. “So, were you going to eat those cakes, do you think?”

  Harriet glanced around the carriage again. The dangerous-looking trio had disappeared. They must have left in the confusion. Harriet cursed herself. Watch them, she’d told herself. Then she’d gotten distracted. Blast it! She couldn’t afford to let that happen. She reached absently for a seed cake.

  “Oh,” Bertrand said. “Oh well.”

  By the time they reached Candor City in the early hours of the next morning, Harriet had learned two things. Firstly, although she had always wanted to see more of Mars, she didn’t want to see more of this particular part of Mars. The strip of British Mars over which the Clockwork Express ran, from the high Pavonis plain, along the precipitous north coast of the Valles Marineris to Candor, was given over almost entirely to farmland and small towns. It made sense, Harriet supposed, but every time she glimpsed the bustling, tangled wilderness on the horizon, she felt the kind of sharp longing that left her shaking. When she and Bertrand had taken an airship to the Great Wall of Cyclopia and the dinosaur-infested wilderness beyond in pursuit of The Glass Phantom, the feeling of liberation and freedom had been almost overwhelming. I have to get this right. As an agent of the British-Martian Intelligence Service, she might be sent anywhere on Mars or even Earth. As a single young lady, or, worse, a married woman, she might never leave Tharsis City again.

  The second thing that Harriet had learned was that, despite the comfortable mattress and the gentle lulling of the spring-powered train, she simply couldn’t sleep. It was the way the bunks were arranged, she’d decided sometime well after midnight. They were side-on, so that every time the train slowed, Harriet felt like she was going to roll out of bed. Somewhere near two o’clock in the morning, Harriet managed to manhandle the mattress off the bunk and onto the floor only to find that the cabin was a good foot too narrow to accommodate it the proper way around.

  By the time Bertrand finally knocked on the door with a cheery shout of, “Wake up, sleepyhead,” Harriet was ready to strangle someone. She dressed quickly then slid back the door. Bertrand stood outside, beaming widely.

  “Haven’t slept so well for months,” he burbled, in a peculiarly irritating way, Harriet thought. “Not to speak ill of the heavily pregnant, but your sister does snore rather these days. I say, you look a bit rough.”

  Harriet shot him daggers.

  “I, ah, I’ll let you get ready, shall I? We’re only half an hour from Candor.”

  It took the full half hour to get respectable, and even then, Harriet thought she looked like a storm-tossed hedge. It was not a good look.

  I’ll sort myself out when we reach the hotel, she told herself. After all, the ball wasn’t until the evening and it wasn’t yet dawn.

  The train decelerated hard as it came down the slope toward Candor. Harriet stumbled awkwardly along the corridor, dragging her luggage behind her and muttering under her breath.

  A door in front of her opened at exactly the wrong moment. An elegant, middle-aged lady stepped out without looking. Harriet lost her footing and tripped right into the lady.

  She pushed herself upright from the door frame and took a step backward.

  “I do beg your pardon,” she managed.

  “Well, really!” the lady exclaimed. “How utterly disgraceful.”

  “It was hardly my fault!” Harriet said, bristling. “I wasn’t the one who stepped out into the corridor without looking!”

  A man—the lady’s husband, Harriet supposed—emerged behind her. Cold, hard eyes stared down at Harriet. She had to repress the urge to shudder.

  Bertrand’s hand closed on Harriet’s shoulder, easing her back. “You must accept our apologies,” he said easily. “Our fault entirely. This train won’t stand still, eh? If there is anything we can do to make up for the inconvenience.”

  The elegant lady turned her face away, as though the very act of looking at them was too much to bear.

  “That will not be necessary,” the man grated. Then, with a stiff nod, he took his wife’s arm and escorted her down the corridor.

  “What are you doing?” Harriet hissed. It was bad enough to be treated with contempt by that woman, but to have Bertrand apologize on her behalf when she wasn’t to blame was humiliating. “She was the one who stepped out!”

  “Didn’t you recognize them?”

  Harriet shook her head. “Why should I?”

  “That was Colonel Fitzpatrick. Don’t you read the newspapers? He’s just returned from Earth. They say he’s killed a hundred men in the war against Napoleon, and just as many in duels.”

  Harriet glared at Bertrand. “Well, I’m not scared of him.”

  “I am. And you’re not the one he would have challenged to a duel.”

  “Oh, please. Dueling is illegal, and you’re a policeman. You could have arrested him.”

  “Only if he didn’t shoot me first. Come on, Harry. Let’s just enjoy the trip. I’ve never been to Candor City before. Let’s see the sights!”

  Unlike many of Mars’s cities, Candor wasn’t built on Ancient Mar
tian ruins. It had grown as a fishing port here where the cliffs that bordered the Valles Marineris for hundreds of miles gave way to gentle hills and sheltered harbors. The Clockwork Express tracks swooped down low into the tangle of tall, twisted native Martian houses close to the docks. On the hilltops above the native Martian quarters and the docks, well-ordered lines of Earth-style houses would, when it was light, look out over the Valles Marineris. At this hour, though, only the glow of friction lamps lit the train station. Around them, most of the city was in darkness.

  Harriet watched as the passengers disembarked. Colonel and Mrs. Fitzpatrick were among the first to alight, accompanied by two of their own automatic servants. Mrs. Fitzpatrick gave an audible sniff as she spotted Harriet and Bertrand, then looked away. They were followed shortly after by the angry University student, still clutching his book tight in one hand. The dangerous-looking trio Harriet had watched at breakfast came next, pausing on the platform and looking carefully around. Harriet tensed, but they turned away from the docks and began trudging up the hill. Several other passengers followed, disappearing into the sleeping city. Just before the train was about to pull away, the young family—the Edgewares—tumbled out in a confusion of luggage, excited children, flustered parents, and impatient whistle-blasts from the train guards.

  “Guests for Louros Hotel,” a voice called.

  Harriet turned to see a young Chinese woman waiting at the far end of the platform. She was accompanied by a dozen automatic servants, which moved forward to collect luggage, and dressed in a uniform similar to that of an airship captain. Her long hair was held back in a straight braid.

  “Follow me,” the young woman called.

  “Are we to walk?” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said.

  “It’s not far. My submersible is waiting at the dock.”

  “Well,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick exclaimed. “I was told this was a civilized occasion. I do not recall the last time I was required to walk.”