Arabella the Traitor of Mars

by David D. Levine

  But even a lumbering, half-blinded giant is still a giant, and whether deliberately placed or not the sole of his shoe is still a force of inescapable destructive power. And the Prince Regent’s fleet was a very large giant indeed. So numerous, so disciplined, and so heavily armed and armored were they that, even in disarray, they still took a heavy toll upon the Martians.

  Diana too took significant damage from the English attack, with pulsers and sails shot full of holes and fractured masts held together with whipcord. One of her great guns had burst, doing terrible damage to the gun-deck and its largely Venusian crew, and half her rudder had been destroyed. It was only the skills of Chips and his men in patching her up in the brief intervals between attacks—and the skills of Dr. Barry in patching up the crew—that kept her flying at all.

  At least, that was the hope. But as yet another broadside struck Diana, sending Arabella tumbling with a shriek and a painful thud against the starboard bulkhead, she knew that not even all Captain Singh’s cleverness, the crew’s bravery, and Aadim’s calculations could keep one fragile wooden ship aloft forever … not when her destruction was the intent of an entire fleet. “Are you well, ma’am?” called Watson through the scuttle, alarmed by her cry of pain.

  “I am well enough!” Arabella replied, though her right elbow pained her fiercely from its impact with the wall. “Larboard three points, now!”

  Again and again the hammer blows of English broadsides fell upon Diana, rattling Arabella in the great cabin and shaking her confidence. Aadim’s workings stuttered and shrieked as some of the many cables, rods, and levers that extended throughout the ship were damaged … but after the Battle of Tekhmet she and the captain had fitted these extensions with special linkages which detached themselves if part of the mechanism became jammed, and he continued operating, albeit with reduced function.

  But still the English cannon roared, and khoresh-wood shattered, and airmen of all races howled in frustration and pain, and little by little the sense Arabella had of the ship—“It is as though you can feel the ship,” Captain Singh had said once, “whereas I must think of her motions”—told her that Diana was struggling. Penned up in the great cabin as Arabella was, she could not see the damage abovedecks nor the crew’s expressions, but she could feel the pulsers slowing, the broadsides weakening, the ship maneuvering more and more sluggishly as, one by one, her sails and yards were shot away.

  Grimly Arabella continued, pushing Aadim’s mechanisms past increasing, grinding resistance, pushing her own body through fatigue and pain and despair. She would not falter, she would not fail … she would not stand down until all other alternatives had been stolen from her.

  Then there came a lull—a pause in which, though cannon-fire still sounded all around, for the moment none of it seemed to be directed at Diana. Arabella took the opportunity to drain her water-skin, but even this brief respite was interrupted by a cry through the scuttle: “Navigator!” It was Morgan. “Report to the captain at once!”

  “Aye aye,” she replied automatically, and made sure to stow her tools and charts properly before complying. But even as she did so she wondered—worried, to be precise—what could justify pulling her from her post in the midst of battle.

  * * *

  Arabella came out on deck, squinting against the sunlight. Despite the miasma of smoke and wreckage all around, the light here was far brighter than that within the cabin, and for a moment it blinded her. But soon her eyes adjusted.

  She wished they had not.

  Diana was a wreck. Arabella had known she had taken serious damage, but she had not realized just how bad it was—certainly far worse than at the Battle of Tekhmet. Broken spars, tangled lines, and torn sails drifted every where, and tangled up in these like horrific fruit on some ghastly vine were bodies and parts of bodies, human, Martian, and Venusian. The mingled stinks of blood and powder were overwhelming.

  Coughing, batting bits of wreckage from her face—some of these, disturbingly, were soft and moist—Arabella made her way to the quarterdeck. There, to her great relief, she found Captain Singh still mostly whole, though his hat had vanished and his coat was bloody, sooty, and torn. Khema, too, was battered but not seriously injured. But both of their eyes held such serious expressions that she immediately dreaded what was to come.

  “Mrs. Singh,” the captain said.

  “Sir,” she replied with a Martian salute.

  There were so many other things she wished to say at that moment, but she feared that if she even attempted to articulate them she would break down in inconsolable, ineffectual tears.

  “Our situation is…” He paused, swallowed, started again. “Our situation is … untenable. The gun-deck is entirely demolished—it is a wonder the fire was contained—and even the bow-chasers are out of action. Only three sails remain to our pulsers, we have barely sufficient sheets and yards to navigate, and casualties … casualties have been substantial.” He swallowed again. “I have pulled Diana out of action momentarily, but the English flagship, Royal George, is in pursuit and will catch us up before long.” He gestured sunward to a gaudy first-rate, speeding directly toward Diana, not very much damaged and with both pulsers whirling. “After consultation, the admiral and I…” He paused, swallowed, began again. “We have a very particular request of you.”

  Arabella could not frame any reply. She simply stared at her captain, her husband, her love, trying and failing to retain some fragment of hope that she and he might yet find some solution to the horrible situation in which they found themselves.

  “I need you to ask Aadim to lay in a collision course with the English flagship.” Ignoring Arabella’s gasp, he continued, “Then take Admiral Khema, and as many of Diana’s people as you can, to safety in the captain’s gig. You can easily tow two lines of people, at least twenty or thirty, behind the gig. The rest will be released from duty to fend for themselves. I will remain aboard with a minimal crew of volunteers. Then…” He paused and looked away from her, his eyes fixed on the empty space over her left shoulder. “… we will open the gas-cocks and drive Diana directly into Royal George. With luck the resulting explosion will destroy the George, damage several other English ships, and put the remainder into sufficient disarray that you can reach shelter on the far side of Phobos.” He blinked and returned his gaze to her, though his attention still seemed distant. “Failing that, I am certain that if you are picked up by the English they will accept your parole.”

  Arabella could not bear her captain’s earnest eyes, and dropped her gaze to his top coat-button. It was badly scarred, its metal torn to a dangerous ragged edge. “Is this an order, sir?” she whispered.

  “I cannot order such a thing, Mrs. Singh. But … but I hope that you will find it in your heart to comply.”

  Miserably Arabella looked to Khema, hoping against all hope that her beloved itkhalya would have some word of advice, some reassurance that all would be well. But her eye-stalks were downcast. “We have discovered no alternative.”

  Arabella acknowledged this painful truth with a slight, slow nod. “I…”

  But no following word would come. How could she obey such a horrific request? On the other hand, how could she deny her husband’s final wish? Would it be selfish to insist upon dying at his side, when if she did as he requested Khema and many others might be saved? But how could she bear to lose her beloved captain … and Aadim as well? Should she argue in favor of honorable surrender? Or would that be a betrayal of the cause they had both believed in, and had worked so hard to bring about?

  “I—” she began again, still not certain what would follow, but hoping her voice might find a solution when her mind and heart could not.

  “Sail ho!” came a hoarse voice from the mainmast head, interrupting her before she could learn what she was about to say.

  “Where away?” Captain Singh called back, drawing his glass from his pocket and scanning all about—sunward, skyward, east, west …

  “North, sir! Eighteen
sail of ship, two points skyward of due north!”

  The captain turned his glass upward—a direction from which no ship would normally approach Mars. “The Jarvis…” he breathed with wonderment.

  Arabella’s mind whirled at this unexpected statement. The Jarvis Current, she knew, was, like the Swenson, one of the recently discovered currents which ran perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic. It was a wickedly fast current, unpredictable and hard to catch, but it did indeed flow near Mars at this season of the planet’s year.

  But who could possibly be making use of such an unusual breeze? And to what end?

  Arabella drew out her own glass. Through it she saw not merely eighteen but twenty-four … no, twenty-eight ships, and possibly more behind them just coming into view, and the swift Jarvis Current was bearing them toward the battle at a precipitous pace. They were not capital ships, by the look of them … even without full detail she could see they did not show the typical hexagon of a British or French ship-of-the-line, with six or nine masts in alternating triads. Indeed, as they came clearer she realized that most of them were of an entirely unfamiliar design: two masts, one aloft and one below, with stiff, wing-like sails. But one … one was a four-master.

  “No,” Arabella said, focusing her glass. “It cannot be.”

  But it was.

  “Touchstone,” she said—quietly, to herself, as though she did not dare speak the word aloud for fear of contradiction. Then, gaining confidence, “Touchstone.” Then she called out as loud as she could, “Touchstone! It is the dear Touchstone!”

  “Touchstone! Touchstone!” The cry was taken up all across the deck.

  The Venusians, too, were exceptionally pleased to spot the incoming ships. “Those are muglugunggna!” Ulungugga exclaimed. “Venusian traders!”

  “I care not who they are,” Arabella said, “so long as they are here to help!”

  “Signal ‘request aid,’” Captain Singh said to Watson, who immediately leapt to the mainmast to run up the appropriate signal-flags, and then to Morgan, “Ready the stern-chasers and distribute small arms. This battle is not yet over.”

  By now every one in both fleets had spotted the onrushing Touchstone and her Venusian companions, and the English ships were turning to face them—obviously assessing them, quite correctly, as the greater threat. But the khebek and game Diana’s little chasers continued to peck away at the English, dividing their attention. “Target Royal George’s quarterdeck!” Captain Singh called to the rifle-men, and though they were not the equal of the English Marines they did their best, harrying the officers and driving them to the cover of their armored great cabin.

  Arabella, peering through her glass at Royal George as the two ships continued to draw nearer each other, spotted one officer descending the ladder whose silhouette was distinct, un-Naval, and curiously familiar. A grotesquely fat man, his coat was lavishly ornamented with braid and medals that glittered in the sun. His hat, too, was extraordinarily large and ornate, bearing a white fringe and a substantial cockade. And his feet …

  One of his boots was black, the other white. No, not a white boot—a bandage.

  “Prinny, you self-important b——d,” Arabella muttered to herself as the Prince Regent vanished below. Immediately she shot across the quarterdeck to her husband. “The Prince Regent is aboard the flagship!” she informed him.

  “I had suspected as much,” he replied, “from Royal George’s curious unwillingness to engage until the battle was nearly won. We can use this to our advantage.” He nodded to Khema.

  Khema returned the captain’s nod, then turned toward Morgan. “Signal ‘engage the enemy more closely,’” she said, “and bring out a white signal rocket.”

  Captain Singh then returned his attention to Arabella. “To your post, Ashby. We yet require Aadim’s help to survive the day.”

  “Aye aye,” she replied, and headed to the great cabin.

  * * *

  Even as she reached Aadim’s desk, Arabella heard the whoosh of a signal rocket being fired, followed by cries of excitement and surprise. She put her head out the larboard window and looked forward, where the saw the rocket’s trail diminishing rapidly in the direction of the English flagship, the line of smoke immediately torn and knotted by the Horn’s winds. A moment later the rocket burst, a white flare of light so close to the flagship’s deck that airmen there were forced to duck and put up their hands to protect themselves from the flying sparks.

  “Lay in a course for Royal George!” called Morgan through the scuttle. “Bring us around behind her for a shot at her pulsers!”

  “Aye aye!” Arabella responded, and immediately took up her sextant.

  She and Aadim worked feverishly through the next few minutes, bringing the badly wounded Diana about and pushing her forward with all the speed her damaged pulsers could provide … toward the greatest threat in the vicinity. But the khebek fleet had seen the signal-flags and the white flare that Khema had sent up, and brought all their powers to bear upon that one ship. Harried from every direction, with her officers driven to ground by concentrated rifle fire, Royal George responded haphazardly, firing off her deadly broadsides at first one flitting target and then another. Several brave khebek were completely demolished in a single blow, but the others continued to press the attack at the risk of their own lives.

  Despite the annoyance of the khebek fleet, Royal George’s captain clearly knew where his enemy’s admiral was, and continued to attempt to pivot toward Diana. But Arabella and Aadim rode the wild winds of the Horn like a rearing huresh, dodging and weaving, drawing ever nearer to Royal George while avoiding the cone of death at whose apex lay her great guns.

  Captain Singh’s aim was to disable the English flagship’s pulsers. But with only two stern-chasers and a few rifles remaining to her, Diana was operating at a distinct disadvantage. Nonetheless, Arabella persisted, and Aadim rose to the occasion, devising maneuver after unprecedented maneuver to bring Diana close enough that those small guns would be sufficient to achieve the required result.

  And then, clearly audible over the tumult of the battle, came a sound dear to Arabella’s heart: the distinctive octuple ba-ba-ba-bang of Touchstone’s great guns! For even as Diana darted and lunged closer to the English flagship, the powerful Jarvis Current had been working all the while to bring Touchstone and the Venusian traders closer to the battle.

  Arabella dashed to the larboard window to risk a glimpse aloft. Touchstone was descending from northward toward Royal George with all sails set—a magnificent spread of silk to check the great forward velocity the Jarvis Current had given her—discharging broadside after broadside onto the English flagship’s decks all the while. Her peculiar companions were doing the same, many of them directing their fire to Royal George but others, on the peripheries of the fleet, attacking the rest of the surviving English ships.

  The Venusian traders were no match, nor even a serious challenge, to even a third-rate line-of-battle ship. Lightly armed, they moved in no formation at all, merely a rough untutored crowd of sails and hulls. But they did carry cannon, if only a few each, and they and their crews were fresh and uninjured, sailing into the fray with unexpected speed and from an unexpected direction. And out of the English fleet, there remained only a dozen or so still fighting, so the battle between the English and the newcomers was more evenly matched than it might at first have seemed.

  Arabella knew Touchstone to be a fierce fighter, a bantam rooster of a ship, her crew well-practiced with their guns and her passage through the Horn’s turbulent winds aided by an automaton pilot. The rest of the newly-arrived fleet were not so formidable, but what they lacked in speed and strength they clearly made up in enthusiasm. They fired with gusto rather than precision, but nonetheless disconcerted the English considerably. Their mere arrival, too, gave heart to the plucky khebek fleet, and these hammered their English prey with renewed vigor.

  The English airmen were strong, experienced, and numerous, well-fed and w
ell-trained into the bargain, and fought with the conviction that they served their King and the King served God. But though Arabella did not stand upon the deck as she had in some previous battles, she knew when this one was drawing to a close. She felt it in the creak of Aadim’s gears as she guided his hand across the chart. She heard it in the grunts and muffled cries of the airmen on the deck above. She smelled it in the waft of powder and of splintering wood.

  So, when Captain Singh’s triumphant order to “stand down and make all fast!” came echoing through the scuttle, she was not surprised. She smiled as she drifted off to an exhausted sleep, right there in the great cabin, with Aadim ticking and whirring beside her and the cheers of the Martian Resistance echoing in her ears.

  16

  VICTORY

  The mood aboard the captain’s gig was exceptionally mixed, despite the company being so small: Khema, Captain Singh, Arabella, Watson as coxswain, and two airmen at the pedals. There was jubilation, to be sure, at the rough and improvised Martian Navy’s victory over the best the English had to offer; but there was also sadness, anger, and shock at the horrific losses the battle had incurred; quiet pride; vicious glee at the thought of Royal George and all her highly decorated officers being brought low; and simple exhaustion. Every person present, Arabella thought, must be feeling all of these sentiments in the same confused gallimaufry that she herself did.

  Captain Fox had been invited, but had declined. “Some one must keep an eye on the fleet in Miss Khema’s absence,” he had declared, though every one present understood that it was he and Lady Corey who were keeping an eye, and possibly much more than an eye, on each other.

  Arabella had received a most enthusiastic greeting from Fox—though not quite so enthusiastic as his greeting to Lady Corey—when he had boarded Diana after the battle. “Your automaton pilot,” he had exclaimed to Arabella, “was essential—absolutely essential!—to Touchstone’s escape from certain destruction at the hands of the Ceres fleet.” The automaton, he explained, had permitted him to devise an apparently-fatal fall to Mars’s surface, to pull out of it once out of sight, and to navigate his heavily damaged ship away from Mars.