Asimov's SF, February 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  She raised an eyebrow. “Be careful, sir. This is an English drawing room, and you are very forward.” She glanced at John Clavell. “You don't want to be dueling over my honor, do you?” [I may remark that this is an abbreviated account, turned to the author's favor, of a rather more coarse conversation.—A.C.] I had a reply ready, but she cut me off. “Ben, you must pay attention. I suspect we have little time before the Napoleonic storm hits, and it is important you begin to learn what is asked of you. Come—meet Miss Herschel."

  I was brought to the middle-aged lady who sat by the window, and she stood, grave, composed, her rheumy eyes very sharp. After we were introduced, she said with a sharp Teutonic accent, “You have never heard of me, but you have heard of my brother William."

  I gathered this was a standard opening salvo from the old battleaxe. I could not fail to know of the astronomer, immersed as I had been in engineering circles all my adult life—and you know him, he is the man who discovered the planet Uranus, a globe beyond Saturn that is the first new world to have been found since the ancients first counted the wandering stars—which is a remarkable thing. “Odd. I always imagined he was English!"

  "We are from Hanover,” she said. “Refugees of French aggression, under the old regime. My brother found work as a musician first, actually. But gradually he developed his interests in astronomy. And when I joined him we began to make significant observations, and discoveries."

  Anne said, “Mr. Herschel's most recent telescopic observations have a bearing on the case of the Phoebeans. Indeed, they were mandated by the Grand Council."

  I nodded. “Very well. So why am I meeting the sister rather than the brother? Where is he, at this time of crisis?"

  Anne and Caroline shared a glance. “Not here,” Caroline said. “Fled to the north, where the Cylinder is being built.” Which was the first mention I had heard of this device! “But it is of no matter. I can explain the Martian observations to you as well as he could have. After all, it was I who made the bulk of them, and analyzed the rest."

  I got a whiff of the sibling rivalry which dominated the household of the famous astronomer. With my own experience of Fulton, I sympathized; this Miss Caroline wasn't the only junior to have had her credit stolen by a more glamorous partner. But I was growing impatient, and picked on the key word. “'Martian'?"

  * * * *

  VII

  It had all begun with the first descent of the Phoebeans.

  I learned that far from being inviolate since the Norman landing in 1066, England had suffered an invasion as recently as 1720, and not by the French or any human enemy, but by Phoebeans, a foe from beyond the sky. The key truth of these creatures is that they are animals of the cold, not the warm; they can barely stand our earthly temperatures, and it was the thaw of a spring day that year that halted their advance, not any human action. Still, after the Ice War, they persisted in the cold fastnesses of northern lands where the ice never melts.

  The Phoebeans had fallen in a shower across the world's northern latitudes, and other battles were fought, though England took the brunt of it. In other lands, though, across intervening decades full of the usual famine, war, pestilence, and revolt, the strange episode of the Phoebeans was largely forgotten—not in England, though. And even here their great splashing across the north was made a secret—the incident was ascribed instead to the fall of a comet—because it was hoped that the Phoebeans could be harnessed to Britain's national interest. Typical English!—I thought.

  Anne said, “Even as that first assault ran its course, the government established a Grand Council of philosophers to study the issue—Isaac Newton was its first president. Ben, your own ancestor, Sir Jack Hobbes, was involved in the ‘20. Accounts vary, but it seems he saved Newton's life! And that was why he was knighted. He became a rich man, but briefly..."

  "Ah! That explains some of my family's murkier secrets.” Sir Jack, having dissipated one fortune in England, came to the colonies in search of another in the tobacco plantations of the southern states. He disgraced himself even by the standards of that rough and ready region, and disappeared, but the family did inherit his native cunning. I was lucky enough to convert a certain mechanical and mathematical aptitude into employment as an apprentice engineer in the dockyards of the north-east states—where, eventually, I fell into the company of Robert Fulton, with his dreams of installing modern steam engines in American boats and mines. “But I am not a ‘sir,'” I said regretfully. “The title vanished along with my father's older brother, and the family silver. And so I am to face the foe once matched by my ancestor, eh?"

  I learned that the Phoebeans themselves had caused little problem on earth since 1720. In ‘45 the Jacobite rebels had tried to use wild Phoebeans from the Highlands to support their assault on English towns—an experiment that cost more Scottish lives than English. Captain Cook, probing the northern latitudes, had spotted signs of Phoebean activity in the Canadian Arctic. The philosophers of successive generations had pondered on the nature of the Phoebeans, and where they had come from. But meanwhile, it seemed, a new threat from the Phoebeans was gradually discerned.

  "It is believed that the inner worlds are rock, predominantly, like the earth, like the dead moon,” Caroline said to me. “This is because they are warmed by the sun. But the sun's heat falls off with distance by an inverse square law, as a Newtonian analysis shows. And there is an imaginary frontier in the solar system, called the ice line, beyond which the worlds—like Jupiter's moons, perhaps, or my brother's discovery Uranus—must be dominated by ice. It is cold out there, Mister Hobbes. Cold enough for the Phoebeans to prosper."

  "Then let them have those icy worlds, for no human could live there, and thank God for that!"

  "But,” Anne said, “there is a world on the border, as you might say—"

  "Mars,” I guessed.

  I learned now, to my surprise, that the surface of the planet Mars can be seen from earth through the great telescopes, and for more than a hundred years banks of what may be snow and ice have been observed at that world's poles, to wax and wane with Mars's own seasons.

  Caroline said, “Where there is ice, the Phoebeans may play. Even before the Ice War, the Italian astronomer Maraldi observed a strange sparking of light at the Martian ice banks—that, it was retrospectively determined, coincided with the passage by Mars of the very comet that brought the Phoebeans to the earth."

  "Good Lord! Phoebeans landing on Mars, do you think?"

  "You will understand that since ‘20 Mars has been examined intensively for evidence of Phoebean activity, by astronomers under the direction of the Council."

  "Ah. And now you believe you have found such evidence?"

  "Over the last few years my brother and I have observed the clear growth of a patch of ice far from Mars's poles, quite an anomaly. I can show you the drawings. Some observers believe they see movement—I cannot be sure, but I do not dismiss such observations—and Phoebeans on Mars could surely grow to a mighty size."

  I saw the drift. “You fear that Mars is the Phoebeans’ Boulogne! That they are massing forces to jump to Earth!” I tried not to laugh, but failed; the grave figures gathered around the campaign maps looked on me as if I had giggled at a funeral. “The Phoebeans have Jupiter and Uranus! What would they want of little Earth, where they cannot live anyhow?"

  Caroline shrugged. “What does Napoleon want of England? Yet he is here."

  "We can't take the chance, Ben,” Anne said. “That's what the Grand Council believes, and the Minister of War concurs—and the Prime Minister. Even as we face the French, we must deal with this incipient threat from the sky. We must ensure the Phoebeans do not cross the ice line."

  "Deal with it? How? By blockading Mars, as your father and his navy chums blockaded France for a decade? Oh, this is all—fantastic!"

  Caroline said gravely, “You must absorb what has been said to you, younker. For there is a responsibility for you to bear, and much for you to learn."

/>   Maybe so, but now wasn't the time to learn it, for Collingwood himself came stalking over from his map table, a fresh note in his hand, his face like thunder. “We must leave,” he said. “We must reach the Cylinder site at Ulgham before it is overrun by the French—and complete the mission."

  Anne gasped. “It is confirmed?"

  He held up his missive. “I have Pitt's final orders to proceed."

  Anne hesitated one breath, then nodded. “We're ready, father.” She was a brave spirit, and a sturdy support for the Admiral! “But I thought we would have a little longer."

  "So did we all.” He drew us to the table, and showed us a big summary map. “Our defenses have folded more rapidly even than we feared. Of the army groups, two out of three buckled under the Ogre's usual tactics, the concentrated artillery fire and the rapid infantry advances. Two of three! Only Wellesley holds out, to the south. Refugees from Kent and Sussex are already in the capital, streaming over the bridges and clogging up the movement of men and materiel. And French advance units have been seen as far forward as Richmond and Greenwich. Their drums and trumpets can be heard in the city—damn them! Wellesley must fall back, and regroup, for he is England's last hope now.” He grasped his letter from Pitt. “And we have our own mission. Come! You too, Clavell—Hobbes—Miss Herschel ... I pray it is not too late already. Bounce! Here, boy...!"

  * * * *

  VIII

  So we hurried from a household that was already decanting into a series of broughams, each driven by tough marines. But there were not enough vehicles, and I found myself jammed into a requisitioned London cab with Lieutenant Clavell.

  As we rolled away I peered out of my cab, fascinated by London in the full daylight. Above a carpet of houses rose the threadlike spires of Wren churches, and to the east floated the dome of St. Paul's. On this dull December morning, a pall of yellow-orange smoke from the night's fires hung over it all. But already I could see new smoke plumes rising up, all around the skyline. This, I learned from Clavell, was the work of the Londoners themselves, or their government; the city would be burned to the ground rather than afford Bonaparte any succor.

  We galloped north, through St. Pancras and Islington and Highbury, and out of town. My cab, an affair of lacquered black wood with padded button-leather seats and a wooden knee protector that you swung into place, was a comfortable enough vehicle for rolling half a mile down the Mall, perhaps, but Collingwood meant to make for Newcastle and beyond at a cracking pace of fifty miles per day [a pace we bettered in the event—A.C.], and though England's turnpikes are better than most you'll find in America, for me with my poor face blasted by the north wind it was a damn uncomfortable trip—and made worse by the fact that for most of it I had the company of the spiky Clavell.

  That's not to say, of course, that we were not among the more fortunate on that route. Even now the refugee flood was gathering, with the main arteries like our own fast becoming clogged with carriages and carts, and folk on foot and loaded with goods like bipedal snails—even rolls of carpet and couches on their backs, or their servants'. I wondered what the Phoebeans’ strange telescopes might make of London if they saw it that day, a city of millions of souls like an ants’ nest stirred by a burning stick.

  And we saw worse, even on that first afternoon of traveling. In towns like Watford and Tring and Leighton Buzzard and Bletchley [spellings have been corrected.—A.C.] I saw the signs of plundering and looting, even whole districts burning, and in places the roadside was strewn with dead horses, broken carts, scrapped ammunition boxes, and silent mounds of corpses. I saw it in America, and I was not surprised to see it again. Clavell, though, looked shocked, and I felt a stab of mean pleasure at his shame—for no French soldier had yet penetrated this far. The depredation had surely been inflicted by English soldiers, reeling from their defeat and now fleeing north, a mob of armed savages driven by lust, drunkenness, and hunger.

  We traveled through the night and for much of the next day, at the end of which we came to a bridge across the river Nene and entered into Northampton, where we would stop the night. This town was populous enough to have deterred the retreating English units, and far enough from London that the lurid news from the south seemed not yet to be believed. Again I had come to a town pretty much at ease with itself. It would learn; it would learn.

  Clavell arranged for lodgings, supplies, and fresh horses, and Miss Herschel requisitioned a room in a hotel. Collingwood went off to consult at an army field headquarters that had been established in a cattle market, just north of the river. As Anne accompanied him, I went along. The Admiral walked with a terrible stiffness, his rheumatism not helped by the hours on the road.

  Somewhat to my surprise, Wellesley was here. Having been given a promotion by the Duke of York to some generalship or other and made field commander of whatever forces the British could still assemble, he was falling back in anticipation of making a fresh stand somewhere in the north, his sappers blowing up every bridge and mining every road behind him. But the French were pursuing him, whole army corps having bypassed London, and it was a lethal chase that could end only in battle.

  I actually saw Wellesley, briefly, though I was not introduced to the man, as he greeted Collingwood. A good-looking fellow in his late forties, with reddish-brown hair and a prominent nose, he wore a plain-looking uniform that was all the more impressive for its lack of ostentation. I did not hear him utter a word. Of course the whole world will know Wellesley by the time this war is won [more familiarly as the Duke of Wellington.—A.C.]; I wish I had cut a lock of his hair!

  While Collingwood met with the general and his staff, Anne and I walked around the camp. The men were setting themselves up under canvas. A brigade of riflemen arrived as we watched, weary from the road, each man laden with a heavy pack and his weapon, either a Brown Bess musket or a Baker rifle. A cart drew up loaded with their wounded, and as a surgeon unwrapped one man's bandaged leg you could see the flies buzzing, and I turned away before Anne did.

  For the journey Anne had changed back into her mannish gear, of trousers and boots and jacket, and with her fair hair done up in a bun under her hat. “I suppose you think we are all cowards, we English,” she said suddenly.

  The remark startled me. “Why do you say that?"

  "Because since Worthing you have seen our armies fold and our citizenry flee and our towns burn. Even Wellesley, our best soldier, plots a retreat."

  I shook my head. “I sense Wellesley knows what he's doing; he will pick a fight with the Ogre on his ground and his terms. And you're no coward to flee a hurricane. I saw the French armies at work in America, remember—you Europeans have yet to have a real taste of it."

  She frowned. “The French campaign in America was not much mentioned here, in the newspapers. There was little respect for the American show of arms, and I suspect the French effort was belittled because of it."

  "And so you underestimated us, and Napoleon."

  I had seen some of it, as I had been in New Orleans when Napoleon's army descended in the summer of the Year Three, a sneak landing of a force supposedly sent over to subdue Santo Domingo—this at a time when some in the government hoped that Napoleon would cede all his remaining possessions in America to Washington! I was working for Fulton then, and doing some business for him in that French territory to progress his steam engine projects, there being little enthusiasm in America, and little cash.

  It's difficult to remember now, but much of the world then had high hopes of Napoleon, as a champion of liberty around the globe. Well, what he was championing was the interests of his nascent French empire against the British, and once landed he burned his way inland, stirring up a ferment and liberating the slaves in each state he crossed even while his soldiers plundered. His purpose was evidently to turn North America French all over—and, ultimately, to use the mighty resources of the Atlantic realm to wage his wars against England and the monarchies of Europe.

  "We put up a fight,” I said to Anne
, “and I saw some of it; but we were a young country with a small army, and officers that were either sixty-year-old veterans of the War of Independence or political appointees, and beyond that only the militia, ill-trained and worse equipped—and we had no money to fight a war anyhow.” That was in part because of the British blockade of trade, an action I always believed would have led to war were there not bigger fish to fry. “There was a decisive battle at Savannah, after which the army was licked and only the militias remained, but Napoleon rejected peace overtures from both federal and state governments, and went on until he had sacked Richmond, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and at last besieged New York City itself.

  "Yet the country is not subdued. The militia pretty quickly dissolved into fighters for freedom—irregular soldiers if you like, cutting at the French and melting back into the woods and the mountains. But the French strike back by executing townsfolk and farmers.” I fell silent, my head full of one image I had seen: a woodsman naked, castrated, his hands and feet cut off and his eyes put out, nailed upside down to a tree; alongside him a Frenchman in similar condition. I spared her these details. [And if he had not, for I had the stomach for it, I might have thought better of him.—A.C.] “It's become a bitter but low-level struggle, ma'am, with atrocities on both sides. A new sort of war, not between armies, but between nations."

  "If Wellesley fails, so it may be here,” Anne said grimly.

  "You'd better pray not. Of course it need not have come to pass if the British government had come to America's aid, as requested."

  She bridled at that. “It is a bugbear to my father, how Jefferson's administration railed against all things British and courted Napoleon, only to come crying for help when the Ogre turned. Anyhow the British government did send arms to the continent."

  "To equip an Indian army under the Shawnee! Thus hoping to create an even bigger problem for the Americans in the future. Perhaps Pitt and his predecessors should have spent the nation's money on the Royal Navy, rather than chasing phantoms from Mars, and if so he'd have had the muscle to stop Napoleon striking across the Atlantic at us—and indeed to have given Nelson a fighting chance at Trafalgar."