The Venusian Gambit

by Michael J. Martinez

  “You’re a real buzzkill, Gerry,” Diaz said, giving Shaila a wink. “I vote love.”

  Ayim shrugged as he fussed with the last of the connections between his equipment, the Tablet and his subjects. “As you wish, General. I believe we are ready. Shall we proceed?”

  Diaz nodded. “By the authority granted me by the President of the United States, you are authorized to proceed, Doctor,” she said formally, likely for the benefit of the recording devices and as a way to defer blame to a higher authority. “Good luck.”

  With a nod and the press of a button, Ayim activated the Emerald Tablet device. The slab started to glow even brighter.

  And then Stephane screamed—an unearthly scream that seemed to permeate the room with an eerie resonance, even as it caused all three observers to jump out of their skins.

  Reflexively, Shaila reached out and took Stephane’s hand.

  And her eyes suddenly filled with a green-white glow, blinding her.

  Shaila stood on the edge of a cliff. Behind her was a verdant field, covered in wildflowers and grasses, with an impossibly blue sky above her and a sun that seemed to shower the land with golden peace. Over the side of the cliff below her—far below, in fact, at least a kilometer—was a dark, blasted plane, covered in dark rocks and gray desert dirt, with clouds the color of coal and a river of black water running through it.

  And though it had to be at least three kilometers away, if not more, Shaila could clearly see someone standing there, wearing a very dark outfit, something that looked like it came from…Weatherby’s era. My God.

  “Weatherby?”

  The man turned, and Shaila saw it wasn’t a uniform, but merely a very dark suit. And the pallid man wearing it wasn’t Weatherby. It was Andrew Finch.

  “You!” Finch exclaimed, the distance between them suddenly immaterial and unimportant. “What are you doing here?” Then a thought crossed Finch’s face, and he grew wide-eyed. “You have the Tablet.”

  “We do, but Stephane is infected,” Shaila replied. It was the only thing she could think of. “Something possessed him. The Martians from your world.” She felt like she was shouting through gauze, even though her voice sounded very normal. And she was surprised, at such a distance, that she could see his face so clearly. It was so much older than she remembered. Lined, weathered, worn.

  “Venus,” Finch said. “They’re focusing on Venus.”

  He suddenly looked wearier, sicklier. It was jarring. Shaila struggled to concentrate. “What? The Martians? Why Venus?” Shaila demanded.

  “Souls. There’s a soul in him. That’s what they need. Souls!” Now Finch looked excited. It was as if he slipped on a new mask every time he talked.

  “I don’t get it. Souls? What are you talking about?”

  Now Finch looked worried, urgent. “Go to Venus. Go to Venus!”

  “Venus?!”

  Suddenly, the green-white light flashed brighter behind Shaila, and a tide of billowing darkness—as if leaden clouds suddenly mushroomed into being—rolled up behind Finch. Then all was light and dark, somehow at the same time. And then dark.

  “Shaila! Talk to me, Shaila!”

  Shaila opened her eyes to see Diaz hovering over her, looking worried. Then it occurred to her she was flat on her back.

  “General, please step away,” came another voice. It was Julie, sounding surprisingly commanding and in charge. Diaz faded from view, replaced by a masked and gloved Julie.

  “What happened?” Shaila murmured.

  “Easy,” Julie said as she waved a diagnostic sensor over Shaila’s head. “Yeah, it looks like the Cherenkov radiation isn’t staying there. It’s fading,” she called out.

  “Same with Durand,” Ayim responded from…somewhere else. “His levels are down sixty percent from before. But…yes, they are still there.”

  Shaila edged herself up onto her elbows. She was on the floor of the lab, next to Stephane’s cot. “I touched him,” she said. “I touched him, and…”

  “And you started shouting at someone,” Diaz finished. “So was Stephane. It was freaky as fuck. Who were you shouting at? We heard you say ‘Weatherby.’”

  This puzzled Shaila. “I wasn’t shouting. I was talking to…well, I was talking to Andrew Finch, actually.”

  “Come again?” Diaz said, perhaps a little louder than was necessary.

  “Finch. From Mars. And he knew we have the Emerald Tablet. He…he told me to go to Venus.”

  Diaz looked over at Julie and Ayim, who both gave the general a very neutral look. Shaila had seen it many times before on the faces of doctors and soldiers alike: Fuck if I know, boss. I don’t like it any more than you do. “All right, Jain. Let’s get you on your feet.”

  Shaila reached up for the general’s offered hand and easily stood. She wasn’t dizzy, or nauseous, or anything, really. It was as if she had simply been moved from one place to another, and back again. Disconcerting but ultimately…anticlimactic. “I’m good, thanks,” Shaila said, extricating her hand from Diaz’. “You mentioned some readings off me?”

  “Oh, definitely,” Julie answered, earning her a cross look from Diaz. “I haven’t checked yet, but it looked like when you touched the subject here, you suddenly gave off a huge Cherenkov pulse from your head—likely from your parietal lobe—and dropped to the floor. Then you started shouting about Martians and Venus.”

  A moan came from where Stephane lay. Ayim gasped. “General!”

  Before Diaz could respond, Shaila essentially shoved Julie out of the way. “What is it?” Shaila demanded.

  Strong hands grabbed her arms. “Jain, don’t touch him,” Diaz ordered from behind her. “Gerry, what’s up?”

  For once, the physicist looked utterly baffled. “I don’t understand how this can be,” he said quietly. “It didn’t work. The Cherenkov levels are lower, but…”

  “Shay.”

  Everyone in the room froze. It was hoarse and quiet, but it was Stephane’s voice. And it sounded like…Stephane’s voice. Not Rathemas’. Not anything else.

  Shaila shrugged off Diaz’ now-lax grip and rushed to his bedside, still mindful of Diaz’ warnings not to touch him. “Stephane?”

  His face still looked sweaty and pallid, his hair was slicked onto his forehead. But his eyes—they were red. They were swollen and half-open.

  But they were his.

  “Hello,” he said weakly.

  Shaila’s hand flew to her lips, her other hand gripping the railing of his cot. “Hey,” she replied quietly, tentatively—unwilling to test the moment too much, lest it slip away.

  “You messaged me every day from Armstrong, on the way back from Saturn, yes?” he said, his voice getting a touch stronger.

  “I did, Stephane. I did.”

  He smiled. “I thought it was a dream. It wasn’t. I’m glad.”

  Shaila blinked her way through tears. “Is…is he gone?”

  A shadow crossed over Stephane’s eyes. “No.”

  The room was silent, except for a single wracking sob from Shaila.

  “He is still in here,” Stephane said finally. “With me. But…for now…I think I have him. For now. I can’t say…how long…he will….be…”

  Stephane drifted off to sleep, and Ayim and Julie rushed forward to conduct their research. Diaz took Shaila by the hand and gently led her out of the room, walking her to an unused office next door. There, Shaila finally let out all those months of rage and sorrow and anger as Diaz held her and let her cry. And cry more. Even the Air Force general herself ended up shedding a few tears.

  It was worth it.

  Harry Yu was working his comms, trying to rebuild any sort of professional network beyond what Chrys VanDerKamp could offer, when he noticed the silence and stillness in the room.

  Typically, Greene and Huntington would be moving about, talking to each other, dialing up streams of holodata that prompted all kinds of computer-generated light and noise. Their computer models were constantly being updated, showin
g the various configurations of particle accelerators they were trying. A few looked odd—it seemed Greene was experimenting with scales both tiny and immense as he worked—but there was always something running in the background, using the quantum computers to cycle through billions of potential scenarios every second.

  Harry looked up. The noises had stopped. The holoscreens were frozen.

  So were Green and Huntington.

  The two former DAEDALUS members sat quietly, staring off into space immediately ahead of them. Both looked pale, and Greene had a few beads of sweat developing on his forehead. They sat…and stared.

  “Guys?” Harry said finally. “Hello?”

  Nothing. Just staring.

  “Guys?”

  Harry stood up and tentatively walked toward their workstations. They remained completely, unnaturally still. Even their eyes were locked on a fixed point, and Harry had to lean over and look at Greene’s eyes to see that, yes, he still blinked.

  “Guys, this is creepy as fuck. Is this how you do it? Is this how you’re in touch with the other side?” Harry asked, knowing just how insane it sounded. But the more he had thought about it, the more he came to believe that Greene and Huntington were not only in touch with the other dimension, but likely under the influence of whatever was on the other side.

  And there were safeguards in place for that.

  Harry pulled his datapad out of his pocket and quickly sent a series of six numbers to a predetermined destination. Maybe this was just some kind of hiccup, or maybe Greene and Huntington were gone, or done, or whatever. Didn’t matter.

  When he looked up, Huntington was standing right in front of him, smiling her feral, harrowing smile. “Thanks for the help, Harry,” she said. To Harry’s ears, it wasn’t exactly heartfelt.

  Then there was a loud click, and Harry felt a sharp, impossibly blinding pain blossom in his chest. And his heart started knocking around in his chest as if it wanted to burst out at all costs.

  “Shit,” Harry said quietly before he slumped to his knees.

  Huntington turned to Greene. “It’s time.”

  Greene was already packing up. As Harry fell onto his side, he could see Greene placing a number of data storage drives in a backpack. “We’re good. Everything is uploaded. The hardware on the satellites checks out.”

  The satellites, Harry thought. Paying attention to his surroundings was surprisingly easy for him in that moment. It kept his mind off the fact that he was probably dying from a gunshot to the chest. He coughed up blood, feeling it trickle from the corner of his mouth down his cheek to the shoddy carpeting beneath him. The satellites. They knew what Chrys was doing.

  Harry wondered if his former protégé knew about whatever Greene and Huntington were talking about. Maybe this was her screwing him over now, or maybe she was about to get screwed over like he just was. Maybe she’d get shot. Maybe…

  The thoughts deteriorated. His heart fluttered. He tried to focus on its rhythm, but in one cold moment, his last conscious one, he realized it wasn’t beating anymore.

  CHAPTER 11

  May 12, 1809

  Lady Anne Weatherby strode through the halls of Edinburgh Castle as though a woman possessed, her skirts gathered up in her hands so that she might walk faster. Indeed, only her son could keep pace, for he was a young man still, and while of a scholarly bent, took pains to exercise regularly. Yet even he hurried himself, for Anne was preternaturally healthy due to both mindful habit and alchemical improvement. The fact that such care and effort made her look half her forty-six years was but a bonus.

  At the moment, however, the Lady Anne did not seem to care one whit about health or appearance, and those that saw her knew it from her face; the courtiers and servants in the halls of the Royal Palace scattered as she approached, as if she had Moses himself by her side, parting the seas of humanity before her.

  So it was that when she entered one of the many small sitting rooms within the palace—one taken over by Lord Castlereagh as his temporary office—Lord Weatherby knew his wife had much upon her mind, and would not be dissuaded from speaking with him in whichever moment she chose, no matter if she interrupted conversation about hunting or the highest affairs of state.

  “My Lord,” Anne said as she entered, Philip trotting behind her. “I would speak with you if you have a moment for me.”

  Weatherby looked to Castlereagh, and the minister had a look upon his face of both surprise and amusement. “See to your wife, my Lord Admiral,” Castlereagh said gently. “Wellesley shan’t win Yorkshire whilst you are gone, I’m sure.”

  “My thanks, Lord Minister,” Weatherby said formally. “If I am to be long, I shall send Captain Searle in my place to discuss the health of our fleet. Now,” he added, turning to Anne, “shall we retire elsewhere, my love?”

  Anne merely smile grimly, then turned and stalked out of the room as quickly and abruptly as she entered, forcing Weatherby himself to quicken his pace as if he were a chastened midshipman rather than one of the senior-most admirals of His Majesty’s Navy. Thankfully, Anne saw fit to simply dodge into an empty salon quite near to Castlereagh’s office, whereupon she waited for her husband with her hands upon her hips, and her son looking slightly winded—and worried—beside her.

  Weatherby shut the door behind him and opened his mouth to speak, but Anne surpassed him in this. “We need to search Finch’s rooms,” she stated bluntly.

  Immediately, Weatherby shared the concern evident upon the faces of his wife and step-son. “Lord in Heaven, is he afflicted again?” he said.

  “No, no,” Anne said with a dismissive wave of her hand as she found a seat upon a finely wrought sofa. “Would that it were. I fear it is far more serious than mere drugs, though I’ll wager there is a form of addiction at play as well.”

  Thoroughly confused, Weatherby ventured into the room and sat across from his wife, leaning forward. “I do not take your meaning, Anne. Please…what is wrong with him? He is my oldest, dearest friend, and I worry overmuch about him as it stands.”

  Anne nodded, and glanced over to Philip, who spoke in her stead. “Have you experienced Uncle Andrew’s ability to move between places in an instant?”

  “Move between places?” Weatherby asked. “This is how he transported you from Oxford to Edinburgh, was it not?”

  “It was, my Lord. But the nature of said transport was like nothing I had ever seen from any practitioner of the Great Work,” he replied. “There is nothing of it in my father’s journals, and Mother can confirm that if such ability was within the grasp of the Count St. Germain, it was something he never showed.”

  “And you know how much Francis loved to show off,” Anne added with a small smile. She was quite sanguine about the facets of her late husband’s character, both good and ill.

  “Yes, of course,” Weatherby said quickly, clamping down upon a growing unease within his breast. “Yet is not Finch one of the foremost alchemists of our time? Did he not find a way—and quickly, I might add—to give our ships stability and speed so that they may race to Edinburgh to defeat the French invasion without flying off into the Void?”

  “Aye, and that’s the rub!” Anne said. “The Void-going properties of Mercurium would not allow such movement on its own, and both Philip and I analyzed the stores aboard Victory just this morning. There was nothing within its alchemical labs that would allow Finch to create such a feat!”

  Weatherby frowned, sitting back and crossing his arms across his chest. “And how is it that my wife and step-son, neither of whom have any authority aboard my flagship or the Royal Navy at large, were able to conduct such an examination aboard Victory?”

  There was another dismissive wave of Anne’s hand, though with a touch of red upon her cheeks to accompany it. “We lied and told the officer on duty we were there upon your errand,” Anne replied quickly. “That’s not the important part.”

  “Is it not?” Weatherby said, a bit of thunder entering his voice. “Would not it have bee
n meet for you to approach me with your concerns first, instead of violating the security of His Majesty’s Navy?”

  “Damn it all, Tom!” Anne said tersely. “We think Finch has The Book of the Dead!”

  And thus did silence reign in the room for several long moments as Weatherby’s consternation grew into wonderment, then fear, then around to anger once more, though the target of his ire shifted considerably. “Explain how you have come to this,” he said quietly, but with all the urgency and authority that came with an inviolable order.

  Philip cleared his throat. “Are you familiar with the current theories in alchemical circles regarding the nature of souls, and of life after death, my Lord?” Philip waited for Weatherby to respond, but from the look upon his stepfather’s face, it was quite evident he had no notion of it. “The current thinking is that there is a kind of shadow-world attached to our own, a dark mirror in which life is death and light is dark and the souls of those who passed on may yet dwell if they do not enter immediately into the Lord’s saving graces.”

  Weatherby shook his head. “How is it that you wonder-workers even have time for such investigations?” he asked, his frustration evident. “And to what end?”

  “Tom,” Anne said gently, putting her hand upon his knee, “some of these notions stem directly from our encounter upon Mars, those many years ago. You were there, my love. Can you not contemplate the idea of other places between the folds and creases of our own worlds?”

  This settled Weatherby to a large degree, and he felt somewhat guilty for being obstinate. “So, then. You have posited the Afterlife and believe it may be a place not unlike that which we encountered on Mars.”

  Anne shot her son a small grin. “I told you he’d grasp it, Philip.”

  For his part, Philip turned bright red, but soldiered on regardless. “Yes, well, it is this underworld that I believe your daughter and I glimpsed as we were whisked from Oxford to Edinburgh. We—that is, Mother and I—believe that by traversing the underworld in the manner of the ancient Egyptians as described in their legendry, we would cover vast distances in mere moments. Furthermore, if your ships’ lodestones were placed within the underworld—both partially and quite temporarily—they might indeed fly through the air rather than ascending directly into the Void as they should have.”