Queen of Mars - Book III in the Masters of Mars Trilogy

by Al Sarrantonio

“It’s a fitting place for Frane,” I said.

  Gloom descended on our party, until we stopped an hour later for a picnic lunch. We were on a hill overlooking a green and red valley. A thick wood sat at our back. The pink sky was dotted with wisps of clouds, and the noon sun was warm. There was the faint smell of newly bloomed flowers in the air. I thought of the night of my wedding, when that same odor had wafted through the garden, and how Darwin found me there...

  He must have been thinking the same thing, for he was grinning at me. “Would you like to take a walk, your majesty?” he asked slyly.

  We stole off, leaving Newton and our guards to set a lunch, and found a spot in the woods.

  “Listen,” Darwin whispered, and I heard nothing but the rustle of new leaves overhead and our own breathing.

  “Isn’t it marvelous?” Darwin said. “Nothing! No barking orders of generals, or the drone of air ships or motor cars...”

  “I wish it was always like this.”

  “Yes...” Darwin said, and took me in his arms.

  Later, before we returned to Newton, Darwin looked into my eyes and said, “I love you more every day, Clara. I don’t know how, but it’s true.”

  I kissed him once more, and we held hands like the young lovers we were.

  We camped that night under the stars, which once more made me think of Copernicus, and the next day, before morning was spent, when we topped a sandy rise, having left the dotted green pastureland and forests of Daedelus Planum for the rougher, redder, rockier landscape of Arabia Terra, who did I see waiting for us at the gates of the oxygenation station but little Copernicus himself!

  I nearly ran to him, and drew him into my arms, which embarrassed him greatly.

  “Copernicus!” I cried. “How did you get here?”

  Newton, who had seemed younger and happier since the beginning of this happy trip, chimed in, “I wanted it to be a surprise, your majesty.”

  “It is! And a wonderful one!”

  “Well, I must say I’m pleased myself,” Copernicus added, and I laughed.

  “How did you get away?”

  “Actually, Newton sent his black air ship for me,” Copernicus explained. “It was my first ride, and I must say it was fascinating.”

  “After hearing about his aptitude from you, your majesty,” Newton said, “I decided that Copernicus here was much too valuable not to have with me.”

  Copernicus threw out his chest proudly. “I’m now a member of the Science Guild!” he boasted.

  Newton smiled kindly. “Though self taught, he has a remarkable aptitude for just about anything he puts his mind to. And I must say I was fascinated by that paper from the Old Ones which he found.”

  “Is it genuine?” I asked.

  Newton scratched his chin. “It may be. It is a fascinating idea, that the Old Ones came from Earth.”

  Copernicus broke in, “I have a few ideas about the station here, to improve the efficiency...”

  He and Newton went off, arm and arm, nodding over technical terms that meant nothing to me, while Darwin and I followed them through the gates under a stone archway and into the station itself.

  It was a huge, dilapidated structure made up of many other structures: rows of what looked like bunkhouses and other freestanding buildings. Towering over everything were three huge stone smokestacks, one of which was intact, the other two crumbling. They pointed to the sky like broken fingers. There was debris and an air of quiet abandonment. But from somewhere I heard the faint whine of hidden machinery, and a vague chuffing noise.

  Copernicus turned and gestured happily. “Come into the main building!” he said, skipping ahead with Newton in tow.

  They disappeared into the largest structure, which looked like a gigantic warehouse or hangar.

  We followed, our boots echoing on the debris-strewn floor as we entered under another archway and open door. The space was filled with offices, machines of every sort, pillars which disappeared through the high ceiling overhead.

  Newton let Copernicus run on ahead, and waited for us. He was studying the floor around him, his eyes roving over a pile of what looked like a makeshift fence or fortification.

  “Your grandmother and I fought a battle with Baldies here,” he said to me, when Darwin and I had joined him. “It was Haydn’s first battle.” He pointed behind us to an open door. “We all almost died in that room, barricaded against the horde after our line was broken here. Your grandfather Kerl saved us.”

  He looked as if he was seeing ghosts.

  “That seems as if it were two lifetimes ago,” he said.

  “Newton!” Copernicus called, his voice echoing from the other side of the building. “You must see this! I’ve gotten eight more percent out of the main generator!”

  Newton’s eyes brightened, and he ambled off to consult with his new protégé.

  Later, as we made camp for the night in the same room in which Newton and my grandmother had fought their battle so long ago, Newton explained the importance of the structure.

  “This station,” he said, his face looking even younger in the glow of our lamps, as we sat in a circle as if around a campfire, “and the others like it, must be brought gradually back into operation in the next two years if life on Mars is to survive. I am already heartened by the progress we’ve made here. And Copernicus, here,” he said, as Copernicus’s chest once again swelled, “is proving invaluable in the effort. Already this station is putting out 25% of the oxygen it needs to. The repairs of necessary equipment have gone slowly, but, importantly, we are learning the technology. We will be able to fabricate the new parts we need, and, eventually, I think we will be able to manufacture new oxygenation stations as needed. But it is imperative that these structures we have now be put into operation, or we will never have the chance to build new ones. My one concern is that, because of war, we have not been able to guard the major stations like I had hoped. If even one of them were destroyed we would be doomed.”

  He took a deep breath. “But I am happy to report this evening, your majesty, that the dire news I gave you months ago is dire no longer. Copernicus and I have come up with a schedule and a plan this afternoon, and, if things go according to plan, as I now think they will, we will indeed be able to replenish the atmosphere of the planet.”

  He beamed – looking for the first time since I had returned like his old self.

  “That’s marvelous!” Darwin said. He produced from somewhere a bottle of champagne, and we opened it and drank a toast to Newton, and to little Copernicus, and to ourselves and our planet. Overcoming my own distaste for wine, I even joined in the celebration.

  That night we slept peacefully, in a place free of Baldies, content in our accomplishments, a little lighter of heart, safe in the bosom of a place that would save our world.

  It was a last peaceful interlude in what would be, very soon, a very dark time.

  Twenty-Four

  And so we prepared for war.

  Once again I stood before a mirror, but this time not in my wedding gown but in a ridiculous full length white fur coat, which made me look huge and which weighed as much as I did.

  “It’s hot as blazes in this thing!” I protested.

  “You won’t complain when the temperature drops to ten below zero,” my grandfather said, smiling knowingly. “It’s designed for movement as well as utility. And with the red F’rar sash—”

  “I told you before, grandfather – I will wear no symbol of any clan! Only the colors of all Mars.”

  He tilted his head in a bow. “As you wish. But you cannot fault an old man for trying.”

  Growling with displeasure, I pulled the monstrous cloak off, as General Misst withdrew to attend to other matters. I saw Thomas, an almost constant presence these days, glowering in the mirror’s reflection across the room.

  “What is it now, Thomas? You never smile anymore.”

  “That is true,” he said enigmatically.

  “You see demons in sunlight. Trou
ble where there is none. You skulk around the halls like a wraith during the day, and Creator knows what you do at night. You’re like a live ghost, Thomas. You worry me.”

  He moved his head in a “whatever-you-say” gesture.

  After a moment he asked, quietly, “Will my niece Rebecca be along soon?”

  “Yes, of course. It is time for my noon meal. Will you join me?”

  “No, thank you. I have business to attend to. But I will stay until Rebecca arrives.”

  As if on cue, the door flew open, and my lady-in-waiting arrived, bearing a tray. This was a new duty for her, but one she had earned. She had been one of the few to survive the massacre at Valles Marrineris, and had eventually found her way to Bradbury. She also bore Hector by his leash. She gave a cursory nod to her uncle and set the tray down on my table set by the window.

  At the sight of the dog I dropped my white fur on the floor and rushed to greet his slobbering form. He was straining at the leash and whining, and when Rebecca let go he leaped into my arms and nearly knocked me over.

  “Good heavens!” I shouted, holding him up by the front paws and examining him. “What have they been feeding you? You’re twice the size you were at Copernicus’s farm!”

  His fat belly was proof of this, and when I dropped him to the floor he walked around dragging it as if it were a pouch beneath him.

  “There’s no way on Mars you can travel with me now!” I said, laughing. “You will have to stay here and get even fatter!”

  He barked, and pawed at the ground, his ears flopping, and looking up at me with his sad eyes.

  “No, I’m sorry, this is how it must be!”

  “Rebecca,” Thomas said quietly, “remove the dog, please.”

  “But I’ve just seen him!” I protested. “Here, let me give him something to eat–”

  Thomas was there, gently staying my hand. “Please see Hector later, your majesty. We have important matters to discuss.”

  “Very well...”

  Reluctantly, I allowed Rebecca to remove the whining beast, who pawed and yowled as he was put outside the door and given over to a guard.

  “You are tasting and handling the Queen’s food now, I understand?” Thomas asked innocently, as Rebecca returned. He stood beside his niece at the table.

  “Oh, yes,” Rebecca said brightly. “Her regular attendants are being outfitted to ride with her, so I offered–”

  Thomas reached around her and put an extended claw into my tea, bringing it quickly to his lips.

  “It is mocra,” he said, his voice filled with sadness, and before I could protest he had drawn his dagger and thrust it deep into his niece’s breast.

  She let out a startled cry, and already blood was flowing from the deep and fatal wound.

  Her uncle lowered her gently to the floor, his eyes never leaving her own.

  “Why did you do this?” he asked gently. “Was there not enough shame already on our family?”

  “I—” Rebecca gasped, her eyes suddenly bright with fury. “I did it to avenge my grandfather! To avenge his murder!”

  “Jeffrey was not murdered, he was rightfully executed. As you have now been.”

  Thomas shook his head slowly, even as she closed her eyes, and her last breath escaped. He laid her body down flat on the floor and stood up, his dagger limp in his hand.

  “She was a fool among so many fools,” he said, his voice suffused with melancholy. “She drove your mother slowly mad with poison, and assassinated poor old general Xarr. She was in league with the mercenaries at Valles Marrineris, and provided them with the mocra that incapacitated your army. I began to suspect when she returned unharmed from the battle. And then, when she did all she could to become keeper of your food, I knew. She was a gentle soul, and could never use a blade. Poison was her way. And today she would have assassinated you.” He sighed heavily. “All for a fool’s idea that her grandfather was some kind of patriot! He was a fool who assassinated your grandmother for a foolish idea, and brought a curse upon all of us.”

  He paused, and his eyes were filled with infinite sadness. “This is a burden that cannot be borne, your majesty. My family is now forever in disgrace. Her grandfather was an assassin, and she the same. Her father and mother, as you know, are long dead, and I brought her into your service. I am as guilty as she. King Sebastian is gone, so there is no need for me. I am the last of my family. It must end here.”

  “Thomas–!”

  Before I could stop him, he thrust his dagger into his own breast, at the heart, and fell instantly dead at my feet.

  For a moment I stood frozen in shock. Then I kneeled and smoothed the fur from his troubled brow. His face relaxed into a kind of peace I had never seen in him.

  “Fear not, old friend,” I said quietly. “Because of you, because of your dedication and the service you gave my father for so long, your family name will always be remembered with pride on Mars.”

  He had fallen onto my new white fur cloak, which I had dropped on the floor, and there was now the red stains of his blood on its pristine surface.

  I would wear that cloak, I now resolved, with pride, and with the blood of this great and tragic feline intact.

  Twenty-Five

  We marched on the last day of Spring. Though it was warm, and I sweated like an ox in my white fur, there was a smell, the faintest of odors, of cold climes to come. My grandfather, resplendent in red and, after much fighting, without his F’rar crest, rode beside me. He had done wonders with a makeshift army, turning a mass of cynical old veterans and new recruits – farmers and manufacturing men who had never held a sword, fired an arrow or handled a scarce firearm – into a cohesive fighting force. There was discipline in this trained army, and I now led them proudly.

  My initial thoughts of cold were, of course, an illusion, and we spent the first week marching north through one of the worst early heat waves on record. My white fur was packed away in favor of a light pink tunic. Even that was too much in the heat and, on the seventh day of the heat wave, I abandoned it in favor of a simple white cotton blouse. Many of the soldiers were stripped to their skivvies, and the usual army complaints were in order:

  “Cold my arse! Feels like hell it does!”

  “I doubt there’ll be any ice cap when we get there. Must be melted clean away by now!”

  “You don’t need to cook your food – just hold it in your hand and the sun’ll do the job!”

  And so on.

  But this heat did not last and somewhere in the middle of the second week the unusual heat began to give way to the inevitable cool of the northern Spring. Skivvies were covered with tunics, and then neck wraps and then, finally, coats and cloaks and random wrappings. By the third week of march the complaints had changed:

  “Cold as hell it is!”

  “The whole bleeding planet must be one damned ice cap!”

  “Look! My dinner’s frozen before it reached m’ lips!”

  And as the climate changed, so did the landscape. What had been gentle dunes spotted with green hills and blue lakes turned to windswept red vistas, white frosted ponds and an angry, bare pink sky streaked with thin high cold-looking clouds. The air huffed cold vapor when I breathed. My fingers felt stiff, and the glare off the occasional patches of ice hurt my eyes.

  And then there were ice hills in front of us, which proved slippery to our mounts, and then the Northern Cap itself, which grew gradually in the distance from a line a bit higher at the horizon to a climbing wall of white glaring blue-white ice which ate up more of the northern sky every day.

  It snowed once at the beginning of the fourth week, a gentle reminder of things to come, and then it snowed again a bit harder two days later. There was no wind to speak of, which was a blessing, but then the wind came during the third storm, which drove us to our tents. Scouts reported that Frane’s army was a week’s march away, entrenched on the cap itself, and that we would have to either make a perilous climb to reach her, or go out of our way four day
s to find gentler slopes to the west. I resolved that we would cross that bridge when we reached it.

  It was well that Darwin was a good Jakra player, for we spent nearly three days entrenched while the wind howled and intermittent snows blew. The temperature had dropped precipitously, and I now blessed the white fur cloak I wore, which kept me as warm as I wished.

  “Bah,” my husband said, losing his third game in a row and throwing his cards on the ground.

  “You’re sick of Jakra?”

  “I’m sick of waiting. Why don’t we march?”

  “You’re always too restless, Darwin. And why do you disappear for much of the day while we do march?”

  He looked at me slyly. “I’m looking for a new wife.”

  “I doubt it,” I laughed.

  “You know why I disappear,” he said. “It’s what I do. I’m always looking for a place to hide. It’s what I’ve always done.”

  “Have you found anything interesting?”

  “Always,” he said. But he did not elaborate, for he had jumped across the mass of jakra cards to wrestle me to the ground and kiss me.

  Finally, a day later, the storm lifted and we resumed our march. The sky had cleared, and it was a fierce bracing cold day, with no wind at all. We traveled up a long, gradual snowy slope which led to a ledge. Below us stretched an ice valley whose blue glare was startling in the sun. We moved down a series of switchbacks to reach the floor.

  Once again Darwin had left my side, which always made me uneasy. But this was his way. Sometimes he might be gone for a day or two at a time – but always, when he returned, my heart leapt like a mare’s. Often when I asked him where he had been he would shake his head, or mumble something about “hiding spots, just in case,” – but today he returned in mid-afternoon with a wide grin on his face. With him was an impossibly tall feline, nearly as wide in girth as the gaoler from Robinson prison.

  “This is Miklos, a real gypsy king!” Darwin announced. Even at full-grown height, my husband came up barely to the fellow’s chest.

  “And this is little fish!” Miklos cried, lifting Darwin as if he were a bundle of clothes and holding him high in the air.