Arabella smiled, patted the hard carapace of Gonekh’s shoulder, and moved on to the next student. There were nineteen of them at the moment. More were always arriving, mostly from Sor Khoresh but a few from the northernmost parts of Saint George’s Land, enticed in by Khema’s recruiters. But some were always drifting away as well, unfortunately … life at Tekhmet was hard and isolated, and many young Martians soon found a conventional life with their own family and tribe far more preferable.
They were building Draisines. Pedaled Draisines, to be specific.
“I cannot imagine,” Fulton had said when she had proposed this course of study, “that this absurd contrivance could possibly benefit our efforts in any way whatsoever. It is nothing more than a toy … a plaything for gentlemen with more money than sense!”
“I would beg you recall,” Arabella had replied, “that if it were not for the pedaled Draisine, we would none of us be here now. For it was the pedaled Draisine which bore me from Brighton to Greenwich to deliver the news of the Prince’s horrid scheme.”
“I often wonder,” he had replied, “if we would all be happier if it had not.”
Although sometimes Arabella agreed with this sentiment, if only to herself, she still felt fondly toward the Draisine and continued to defend its place in her curriculum. Despite its novelty, it was comparatively simple—far less complex than an automaton or a steam engine—and required no specialized tools and a fairly small amount of material for its construction. This meant that each student could build her own Draisine, from beginning to end, which exposed her to all stages of the process of production, from drafting through construction, and on to testing, maintenance, and repair. Some of the students, including Gonekh, had actually refined the design, to Arabella’s enormous satisfaction.
The completed machines, too, had a role to play in the resistance, and upon successful completion of Arabella’s course of study many of the students continued building Draisines as well as participating in the work of the iron refinery and building the ship-yard. For although the Draisine was not nearly so suited to travel across soft sand as the huresh, much of the desert consisted of stone, clay, and hard-packed dirt. Furthermore the Draisine, with its two wheels in line, could make use of an extremely narrow track, far narrower than any cart or carriage. With an experienced and robust operator, a Draisine could carry a message or small package nearly as far and as fast as a huresh, and by comparison with that beast it required barely any care at all.
“Carry on, now,” she told her students once she had inspected all their work. “I have a luncheon to attend, but I shall return in the afternoon.”
* * *
Arabella carefully closed the Institute’s door behind herself, making certain that the leather seal at the sill was properly seated. The dust of the deep desert, fine and corrosive, got into every thing, and if not kept out of the workshop it would play havoc with the gears. Then she turned around, leaned heavily against the door, and let out a deep sigh of fatigue and frustration.
In many ways, she thought as she gazed out across the bustling yard, the town of Tekhmet was similar to Marieville—a rough and hastily-constructed town in the trackless wastes far from civilization, dedicated to the production of armored airships.
But though Marieville had been a town on Venus, built and populated largely by Venusians, it had been fundamentally European in character. Established by Frenchmen, laid out by Frenchmen, ruled by Frenchmen, and managed by Frenchmen for the purpose of French victory, it stood aloof from its planet. Had it not been for the constant heat and damp, it might almost have been possible to look down a street lined with white-washed wood buildings, with signs all in French and even some of the Venusians dressed in the French style, and forget upon which planet one stood.
Tekhmet, by contrast, was very much a Martian native settlement. Nearly all of the inhabitants in Arabella’s sight were Martians in native costume, and most of the buildings were constructed of fused sand in the Martian fashion. The streets were laid out radially, rather than at right angles as in English settlements. And the sand … the sand blew unimpeded across every street and square, treated by the populace as something like air—omnipresent, unavoidable, but easily ignored—rather than as the filthy, destructive invader the English considered it to be.
But still, she reminded herself, this was her town too. Unlike Marieville, if she did not leave this place, it was by her choice, not Napoleon’s … nor the Prince Regent’s.
* * *
Tekhmet meant “resolution” in Khema’s tribal dialect and several other Martian languages. Resolution was a quality that the resistance required in abundance, but fortunately it was also a quality with which they were already well equipped.
“You must understand,” Khema had said to Arabella as they had first looked out over the sere and forbidding spot which was to be their home and headquarters for the foreseeable future, “that, as I hinted at our first meeting in Fort Augusta, resistance to the English has been in progress ever since the arrival of Captain Kidd. It is true that this resistance has at times been sporadic, disorganized, and ineffectual, but we have found that when it becomes organized and overt—as with the violent uprising following the theft of the Queen’s egg—the end result is a significant step backward in Martian rights, freedoms, and respect. For this reason I, and many other prominent Martians in Saint George’s Land, have advocated against hostility and aggression.” Her eye-stalks spread downward. “For this we have been derided as weak by Tura and those of like mind. Nonetheless, we retain tekhmet—resolution—and we believe that as long as we work resolutely toward our goals we will, eventually, achieve them.”
“I had never known,” Arabella admitted … and wondered what else she had not known. What other significant facts of Khema’s life, and the lives of the other Martians with whom she had been surrounded in her early years, had slipped her notice?
She had considered those Martians nearly family. Only now did she come to wonder what they had thought of her.
* * *
The town of Tekhmet was small, isolated, spartan, and—at least as of yet—ill-equipped for the coming conflict. One of the few advantages they had was that hardly any one outside of Tekhmet knew that every one who had come to Mars aboard Diana and Touchstone would be considered a traitor by the English government. But as soon as the first fast packet-ship from London arrived—which could be as soon as next month—the latter advantage would evaporate. Once that occurred they would be forced to conceal themselves completely from the English, but until that day they were able to move freely among the populace, making recruitment of people, acquisition of materials, and appeals for funds much easier.
But even with the wholehearted efforts of the Leadership Council of the Martian Resistance—headed by Khema and her fellow akhmok, with the participation of several other prominent Martians—back in Fort Augusta, and the very tepid assistance of Tura from Khoresh Tukath, they had fewer than two hundred Martians and a handful of Englishmen, plus the crews of Diana and Touchstone. This company was sufficient for their current needs, barely, but for the production of a full fleet of ships they would require several times as many.
Money was a still greater concern. Captains Singh and Fox and Lady Corey had all pledged their personal fortunes to the cause, but Fulton, for all his success in numerous fields, had not managed to hold on to any of the proceeds for long—he kept reinvesting his income in new projects—and Arabella’s family fortune was controlled by Michael. But even if Fulton and Arabella were as rich as Captains Singh and Fox, it would not be sufficient in the long run—a project of this magnitude would need far more than that before it was done.
* * *
“I have received a note from Lady Corey,” Captain Singh said, seating himself with a steaming plate of kokore. “She reports that her attempts to inculcate resistance to the idea of quartering troops in private homes have not met with much success. The women of Fort Augusta, both the young ladies an
d their mothers, have a great admiration for men in uniform, and the imposition of such quartering is perceived as less significant than the possible advantages arising therefrom.” He shook his head, examining his kokore dubiously. He did not care for the sautéed crustacean, but at the moment it was the only dish on offer.
Arabella, Captain Singh, and Fulton were the only ones at the luncheon table this day. Fox, aboard Touchstone, was patrolling the skies above the port of Khulesh in hopes of interdicting one of Reid’s ulka-smuggling ships, and Lady Corey was making the rounds of high society in Fort Augusta, seeking information, sowing dissent, and surreptitiously soliciting donations from those few Englishmen who supported an independent Mars. Ever since the completion of Common Hall, the first permanent structure in the infant town of Tekhmet, some months ago, these five humans had made a habit of gathering there for luncheon each Monday. At these meetings they would discuss the progress of the resistance, celebrate victories, and commiserate over their losses, setbacks, and disappointments.
Of late, there had been much more of the latter than the former.
“I cannot believe,” Fulton said, piling kokore upon his own plate, “that they can be so foolish and short-sighted as to trade their future freedom for a chance at marrying well.”
“For most English women,” Arabella countered, “to marry well is their only chance at any thing resembling future freedom, on a personal level.”
Fulton sat beside her. “That they cannot see beyond that limited horizon is the fault of society.” His American accent, Arabella noted, was more pronounced when he was denouncing some habit of the English.
“You said last week,” Arabella asked Fulton in an attempt to change the subject, “that you hoped for a first trial run at the hydrogen manufactory. How did that fare?”
“Not well, I’m afraid.” He peeled off a kokore shell and popped the meat into his mouth. “All the parts of the process”—he chewed as he spoke, a disgusting habit—“seem to be working, but the gas actually produced was negligible in quantity and horrifically impure.” He washed the bite down with a big swallow of lureth-water. “It may be that the acid is not so strong as we require, or the iron contaminated with some alkaline substance.”
The ships that Fulton had designed for the projected Aerial Navy of the Martian Resistance were based upon the Martian khebek—the same type of small, light, flat-bottomed aerial boats which had met Diana on her arrival at Khoresh Tukath—but adapted to interplanetary service. This design was easy to build, economical of materials, and particularly suitable to Martian conditions, and would be familiar to the Martians who would form the bulk of their crew. To this basic design he had added several improvements of his own, including a limited amount of armor plating for the protection of the crew, swivel-guns instead of crossbows as weapons, and the use of hydrogen rather than hot air for lift.
It was the hydrogen that was the most problematic part of the design. The gas was absolutely required, Fulton said, both to compensate for the weight of the armor and cannon and to avoid the necessity of constructing massive launch-furnaces at Tekhmet’s ship-yard. But where Napoleon’s ship-yard on Venus had made use of native creatures—larger relatives of Diana’s pet Isambard—to produce its hydrogen, on Mars they were required to use a chemical process of dissolving iron filings in acid. Mars, fortunately, was rich in iron, and the acid could be produced by distillation from compounds present in the soil. But Fulton was less experienced in chemistry than he was in mining, refining, mechanics, and ship-building, and progress at the hydrogen manufactory had not been nearly as rapid or straightforward as desired.
“As for the rest,” Fulton continued, “operations at the mines and foundry continue apace, and the rope-walk should be ready for use within the week. We have ordered all the Venusian silk we will require for the sails and envelopes, and eighteen graving docks are ready for keels to be laid.” He glanced to Arabella. “We lack only a source of khoresh-wood.”
Arabella glanced down at her plate, which suddenly seemed far less appetizing. “Michael has still not responded to my letters,” she admitted. “But perhaps he has not received them—I do not trust the khoreshte post in the slightest. I intend to pay a call upon him this week.”
Captain Singh wiped his mouth, pushing his half-finished plate away. “Diana is to take over blockade duty from Touchstone this week. I will carry you to Woodthrush Woods by ship, and you may return to Tekhmet by coach with Fox after he lands.” Touchstone, being dependent upon a launch-furnace for ascent, was still using Fort Augusta as her home port. Once their treason was exposed, she would have to shift to Khoresh Tukath.
* * *
Two days later, Captain Singh joined Arabella and Michael for dinner at Woodthrush Woods. “I was disappointed,” Arabella said to Michael, “not to receive any response to my letters in the last three months. Did you not receive them?”
“I … I do not recall the date of the last letter I had from you,” Michael hedged. “What did they treat upon?”
“I requested you to consider donating a portion of the plantation’s production to a personal project.” More detail than that she preferred not to provide, for here in the dining-room there were always servants close by, but she put a very slight stress on the word “production” to point out that she meant actual khoresh-wood, not merely a charitable donation of funds.
“Ah, that,” Michael said, as though it had merely slipped his mind—though they both knew it had not. “Perhaps we should return to this question in the morning.”
“I would prefer to discuss it now.” She met his eye levelly.
Michael looked to Captain Singh, perhaps hoping that the captain would rescue him with an urgent request for port and cigars, but he merely matched Arabella’s forthright gaze. “I … ah … oh, very well. Come with me to the office.”
As they departed the dining-room, Michael requested of one of the servants that a bottle of port be brought to his office.
* * *
Michael settled himself down behind the grand desk which had been his father’s, leaving Arabella and Captain Singh to take the guest chairs. Arabella noted that, while her father’s collection of small automata remained on the shelves above the desk, they had plainly not been touched or even dusted in months; this observation lowered her already-diminished spirits considerably.
“You are as aware as I, dear sister,” Michael said as the servant departed, leaving a bottle of port on the desk and closing the doors behind him, “how negligible are the profits in this business. You know that I cannot simply give you any kind of khoresh-wood, never mind the prime stuff, in the quantities you have requested without driving the enterprise into debt.” He poured himself a glass of port and took a generous sip before continuing. “My failure to respond to your letters, although inexcusable, can perhaps be explained by the difficulty of forming a reasonable response to such an unreasonable request.”
“I am thoroughly aware of the consequences of such a large request, dear brother,” Arabella countered, “but—as I said quite clearly in my letters—this is a matter of life and death not only for Mars and the Martians, but for Woodthrush Woods. We depend upon our Martian neighbors for so much … labor, food, and water are the least of it! If the Prince Regent has his way, and subjugates the planet completely, do you imagine they will continue to provide these goods and services so willingly?”
“If he has his way, they will provide those goods and services whether they will or no! And more cheaply at that.”
“If you truly believe that, you are naive.” She reached across the desk and took her brother’s hand. “Can you imagine Khema—even the Khema of our youth, never mind the powerful akhmok she has become—acquiescing with any grace to the loss of her freedom and independence?”
“You have spent too much time under Napoleon’s heel,” Michael scoffed, taking his hand back. “I cannot imagine that an English monarch, or even a regent, would behave so intolerably toward his subjects, wh
ether human or Martian.”
“The Prince Regent does not consider the Martians at all,” Captain Singh argued. “He cares only for the money that can be extracted from Mars for his personal profit, and gives not a fig for how it is done. But to his underlings, the men who lead the Navy and the Honorable Mars Company”—he pronounced the adjective as though it had turned to vinegar in the bottle—“the Martians are little more than cattle, or perhaps something a bit more clever, like dogs. And they mean to use English cannon and Venusian drugs to bring them to heel.”
Michael’s face showed that the self-evident truth of the captain’s words warred with his unwillingness to believe ill of his betters. “Nonetheless,” he said at last, “I cannot possibly provide the quantities of wood you request. Most of the timber, as you know, is already committed—has, indeed, been committed for years—and an Englishman’s word is his bond!”
“I am asking you,” Arabella said, though she was nearly certain she knew what the response would be, “to consider a higher cause.” She leaned forward, her hands clasped before herself. “War is coming, Michael. There will be violence, and bloodshed, and death … a broken business contract is the least of our worries. We cannot prevent this war; once the Martians realize what the Prince intends, they will resist. Our only choice now is to side with the Prince Regent, or to side with Mars.” She sat back in her chair, though her back remained rigidly upright. “I have made my choice—to resist the Prince’s predations upon the planet of my birth—and I can only hope that you join me in it.”
Arabella the Traitor of Mars Page 15
