The Enceladus Crisis

by Michael J. Martinez

  “Certainly not as much as you, of course, sir,” Hawkins demurred. “I know that they are tribal and rather uncivilized, far beyond the most remote tribes of men in Africa. I know these tribes are sometimes differentiated by sub-species, others seemingly by culture or language. And I know you had personal contact with the Va’hak’ri, the tribe of lore-keepers. Their religion is a very primitive anima-based system that knows nothing of God or His Son.”

  Weatherby nodded. “All true, doctor. Of course, despite the Venusians’ primitive state when first discovered, you will find that many have mastered our language to the degree which different anatomies will allow, and some few, such as Gar’uk, can be taught to read and write. But perhaps most importantly, their grasp of the mystic sciences, I am told, exceeds their knowledge of other matters, and is tied closely to the alchemical nature of Venus itself.”

  “Due respect, Captain Weatherby, but that latter statement is merely theory,” Hawkins said, warming to the argument to the point where an actual hint of color touched his cheeks. “It is true their shamanistic rituals take advantage of known alchemical substances, or rather, the plants and animals from which they may be derived. But most researchers to date strongly doubt that there is much more to their rites than lore and legend, and any alchemical wonders derived from such primitive workings is the result of rote repetition born of some ancient happenstance, rather than systemic explorations of the kind that produces true alchemical knowledge.”

  Weatherby thought back to his first encounter with the Venusians and merely smiled at the doctor. “As you say, Hawkins. I do believe that if mankind were to approach the Venusians without bias or condescension, a more systemic approach to the mystic sciences may be realized.” Weatherby then raised his glass in salute. “Of course, I’m a mere ship’s captain, not an alchemist like yourself. Ah! And here is Gar’uk now.”

  The two men sat up as the diminutive lizard man approached, his neck frills in full spread and his reptilian eyes even wider than normal. “Am I late, Captain?” he said, his beak clacking slightly around the words.

  “Not unreasonably,” Weatherby said. “What news?”

  Gar’uk bowed quickly toward Weatherby, then Hawkins, his tail swishing excitedly behind him the whole while. “There is one of my tribe here, and he knew another of another tribe who speaks your French-tongue. And it was he who heard the French-tongue from the ship that came here two days past.”

  Weatherby turned and gave Hawkins a wicked grin; they had been searching for Franklin for the better part of five days. “The French must be worse off than we thought, Doctor! This is good news indeed. Go on, Gar’uk.”

  The little Venusian was jumping up and down now, and his clawed fingers seemed they would tear through the little shirt and breeches he wore. “And so the French-tongue-men, they went out to see the village human-doctor. They came back after night, got back on their ship, and left.”

  “Human-doctor?” Hawkins asked.

  “Alchemist,” Weatherby replied. “That would make sense, especially if their stores were fully depleted upon arrival here. Gar’uk, do you know the way to the human-doctor?”

  As it happened, Gar’uk did not. But the little valet dutifully led his captain to his Venusian kinsman, who then led the party to the laborer who knew French, who then led the now-larger party out of the city proper, up a small road through the dense jungle and, about a half-mile later, to a house situated upon the edge of a swamp, built in the Oriental flood-plain style with stilts and a pitched roof on all sides.

  “Hask’ara ura’sk na!” came a woman’s voice from inside, illustrating a surprising aptitude for Venusian linguistics, it seemed. “Na cela’sk agar gesh’ak!”

  “She says the human-doctor is not here, but she can help us if we have ills,” Gar’uk replied.

  Weatherby nodded at Gar’uk and then cupped a hand to his face. “I say, we’re quite well, but would much appreciate a word, if we may,” he called out.

  “Ah! Just a moment, then!” a muffled woman’s voice called back. “I’ll be right out!”

  Hawkins looked disparagingly at the house. “Who would live upon the edge of a jungle swamp?” he muttered quietly. “Surely an alchemist would do better for himself within the town itself.”

  Weatherby, for his part, grew pale, for surely, the voice from the house struck him as surely as lightning from a storm. He had assumed Finch’s gossip was just that—ill-founded rumor meant to assuage him. And yet . . . “That would be true if the alchemist in question sought to make a business of his abilities,” Weatherby said finally. Were it any other occasion, the captain might have marveled at Hawkins’ seeming lack of imagination. If it wasn’t in a text or manual, Weatherby often felt his ship’s alchemist would be at quite a loss. Yet Weatherby’s mind was elsewhere “There are those who devote themselves to research,” he added quietly, “especially here, with Venus being rich in so many different materials, as you know.”

  “And we are among the latter, sir. A fine deduction,” the woman called out from the house. “I should think, then, that you are not—”

  The woman’s voice stopped suddenly, prompting Weatherby to turn to look up at the home’s railed porch. The sight stripped him of words as well.

  The woman brushed a strand of blonde hair from her eyes, to join the rest that had been swept up casually in a bun. Her face was lightly tanned, as many were who spent a great deal of time on Venus, for even the clouds could not completely conceal the closer distance from the Sun. The woman wore a simple blouse and a long skirt that reached to the very boards of her porch, and had an apron haphazardly tied around her. Her eyes shone as she regarded the party below, especially Weatherby. A faint smile escaped her lips.

  She looked to be no more than twenty-five years old, though Weatherby knew that she was a decade older than that, for he had been but seventeen when they first met, she merely sixteen or so. And they had experienced much together in a brief time.

  “Hello, Tom,” the woman said, her smile gaining a twinge of sadness. “It is you they set upon the trail then?”

  He nodded. “More or less,” he replied, finally finding his tongue. “’Twas the ship named for our old friend, was it?”

  She smiled broadly now, genuinely. “It was. It made me think of him. And you, I must confess.”

  Weatherby’s face grew red and he straightened his waistcoat unconsciously. “I can say the same.” He then noticed his ship’s alchemist and three Venusians all looking confused, shifting their gazes between the captain and the woman above in the stilt-house. “Dr. Hawkins, please return to Fortitude and have Mr. Barnes prepare to make sail. We leave with the tide. And take our helpers here with you, if you please. Gar’uk may stay with me.”

  Hawkins prepared to protest, but the look in his captain’s eye was nothing like he had seen prior—a look of wistfulness, perhaps a touch of sadness, but also steel. “Very well, Captain.” After some fussing about, the doctor was picking his way back down the jungle path, two diminutive lizard-men croaking and chirping at his heels.

  “Captain Weatherby, is it?” the woman said, straightening up. “Do come in.”

  “Thank you, Miss Baker,” he replied, making his way to the steps of the home.

  “It is no longer Baker, of course,” she replied, leading him into the home, which was decorated with Spartan furniture and a surfeit of books, along with plain tables covered in alchemical laboratory fixtures, boxes and glassware. “Tea?”

  “Thank you, yes,” Weatherby replied, surveying the general disarray of the home. As the former Miss Anne Baker seemed not to be troubled by it, he would not make anything of it either. “So what shall I call you then?”

  The woman rolled her eyes at this. “Please, Tom. After all these years, the formality is hardly required.” She took a beaker of water and placed it under a strange apparatus. With the flick of a switch, a gout of flame covered the bottom of the beaker—the water would be ready in mere moments.

&nbs
p; “My apologies, Anne,” he said. “Old habits, I suppose. And to be fair, we did not part well, and for that I must apologize.”

  Anne pulled two teacups off a shelf and, sweeping away a pile of papers with her arm, placed them on one of the tables. “I suppose nineteen years is better than not at all,” she replied. He was about to protest when he caught the twinkle in her eye and the grin on her face. “It wasn’t meant to be then, Tom. And I would not trade my life now for it.”

  Weatherby blushed again, for he was thinking exactly of such a trade, and felt ashamed for it. “Of course, neither would I,” he replied, “though my behavior then . . . I was a young man, and foolish besides.”

  “And now?”

  “Merely foolish, I suppose,” he smiled. “Enough to still be chasing the French across the Void.”

  Anne nodded as she used a pair of tongs to pull the beaker off the flame and pour the water into the teakettle. “I had assumed you would come,” she said. “Well, you as in the English, at any rate. You specifically, that was a surprise.”

  “What did they want?”

  Anne placed the kettle on a tray, along with the cups, and brought it over to where Weatherby was standing. “Oh, damn your manners, Tom. Sit!”

  She may have looked twenty-five—no doubt the result of her own precocious knowledge of alchemy—but she spoke like a true matron. He dutifully sat upon a low sofa near one of the tables.

  “And as to your question, they wanted my husband,” she continued. “And they got him, too.”

  Weatherby stiffened at this. “Good Lord, they took him?”

  Taken aback, Anne fixed her gaze upon Weatherby oddly. “No, goodness no! He went freely, of his own accord!” she replied. “I heard but a little of it, but there was to be a journey and embassage of some kind, and they needed his talents. It was, he told me, quite an opportunity, though he would not share many of the particulars.”

  Weatherby took the tea she offered and sipped; it was a fine blend of Indian and Venusian teas, perhaps one of the finest he had tasted, which perhaps made the disheveled house even more of a conundrum. “You know not where he went?”

  “Even the most agreeable husband does not always tell his wife what she wishes to know,” she sighed. “And you know mine. He can be particularly obstinate when the mood strikes.”

  Weatherby halted in mid-sip, stunned a moment before he finally drew his tea away. “I know him?”

  Anne fixed him with a bemused, perturbed stare. “Thomas Weatherby! Was it so difficult a parting that you had not thought to seek out word of me for nearly twenty years?”

  It was, actually, and it had taken him at least half those two decades before he finally married another, only to lose her in childbirth. “I’m sorry . . . I had heard that the Count St. Germain had been mentoring you, and that you had traveled extensively across the Known Worlds. You met Finch back in ’93, if I remember.”

  She shook her head at this. “Damn him, that scoundrel, Finch,” she said, but with a small grin. “Of course he would omit such things with you. You’re lucky he’s a friend, you know. My husband is indeed Francis, the Count St. Germain.”

  It took Weatherby several moments for this to sink in. When he had last seen Anne, their differences seemingly had been too great to reconcile. And yet, through the years, Weatherby recognized he had been in the wrong. Despite his own subsequent marriage, and the birth of his daughter, his one, true unreserved joy in life, he had always felt remorse over how they had parted. It was, he felt, a missed opportunity—one that her mentor, the Count St. Germain, had not missed at all.

  “I see,” Weatherby said, struggling to regain focus. “So the Count . . . wait, does that make you a Countess, then?”

  Anne laughed at this. “You do realize, Tom, that the title was self-appointed. He’s no more a count than you’re a king. But . . . when you have a man who could conceivably turn lead to gold or find immortality, few argue the point. So yes, I suppose I’m a Countess!” She straightened her skirts and apron in an exaggerated, fussy way, prompting Weatherby to laugh despite himself and, in the process, completing his mind’s journey back to the present.

  “The Count is now working for the French,” he said simply, with a sense of finality. “That is . . . problematic.”

  “Not necessarily,” Anne cautioned. “Francis and I have made a point never to involve ourselves in the conflicts of nations. If there’s something going on between England and France, I’m quite sure that Francis is not involved in it.”

  Weatherby set his cup down upon the table and rose. “I’m sorry, Anne. The Franklin took part in an invasion of Egypt by the French. We captured it and were returning to Portsmouth with it when the prize crew was overcome and she made for the Void. You remember young midshipman O’Brian?” She nodded, concern growing upon her face. “Well, he is my first lieutenant, and he is aboard Franklin. At least, I hope he is, if he’s still alive at all.

  “Given all this, I must conclude that Franklin is off upon some errand of the French general, Bonaparte, and this has everything to do with the conflicts on the Continent. I am sad to say that I must find this ship and see what they are about, because I doubt it is merely embassage, and Dr. Finch—who is now investigating in Egypt itself—agrees that this invasion may conceal greater motives.” Weatherby drew nearer and knelt upon one knee before her chair. “I promise you, Anne, I shall do my best to see to the safety of your husband. One of my oldest friends is also aboard that ship, and I’ve no desire to shoot such a nobly-named vessel from the Void or sea.”

  Anne nodded. “Thank you, Tom. I believe you.” Her voice was quiet, and her eyes glistened. “I do not think I can help you, however.”

  There was little more to say. They both struggled through the cruel civilities of saying good-bye, but Weatherby eventually extricated himself from the house and, with Gar’uk in tow, made his way through the jungle by the dimming afternoon light, arriving in Esperanza and back to Fortitude just as the lanterns around the city had begun to be lit.

  “Captain Weatherby, sir, I trust you’ll find all in order,” Lt. Barnes said once the formalities of bringing the captain aboard were finished. “Your efforts went well?”

  Weatherby frowned slightly, and the gloom of the cloudy evening sky was mirrored by his countenance. “I fear not, Mr. Barnes. The Franklin was here, but she’s two days ahead, and we’ve no word of her destination. Gather the officers and Hawkins and have them meet me in my cabin. We need to chart the quickest route to the pole and see if there’s a port along the way they may have stopped at.”

  Weatherby turned and stalked to the door of his cabin, tucked under the quarterdeck at the stern of the ship. He opened it and entered, with Gar’uk right behind him, ready to gather his coat. However, the Venusian stopped suddenly and grabbed Weatherby’s hand. “Not alone,” the lizard-man said quietly, seemingly sniffing at the air.

  He was right. A dark figure was sitting at Weatherby’s table, silhouetted by the window’s at the ship’s stern. Another seemed to be standing up next to the chair.

  “Identify yourselves!” Weatherby shouted.

  A moment later, Gar’uk had lit a lamp, revealing the face of Anne St. Germain sitting at the captain’s table. Next to her was a boy of about twelve, perhaps thirteen years of age.

  “It would seem I need your help, Tom,” she said simply. He face had changed; where she was gentle and smiling just an hour prior, here now she was grim and determined. It was a look with which he was well familiar.

  “You know where he’s going, but not what,” Weatherby replied. He had an hour’s walk to mull things over, and that was one potentiality he had come upon. Alchemists by their very nature were orderly people, and it struck Weatherby that the home of perhaps the most legendary alchemist in history would be a bit more well-kept. It looked, when he pondered the matter further, as though someone had been rifling through it in search of . . . something. Given Anne’s lack of excuse for the state of her home, he w
as left to conclude she had been the one to do the rifling. Which meant she had her own questions.

  It didn’t even occur to Weatherby to ponder how they arrived ahead of him, nor how they stowed away aboard a ship of His Majesty’s Navy. He was thoroughly convinced of Anne’s alchemical mastery that she could do as she wished.

  “What you told me worries me more than you can know,” Anne said. “I need to know what he’s become involved in.”

  Weatherby nodded. “And this young man?”

  “My son.”

  Indeed, Weatherby could see Anne’s soft features in the boy’s face, but also his father’s sharp Roman nose. “And you are?” he asked.

  “Philip Thomas St. Germain,” the boy replied in the manner of the young seeking to impress their elders. “I have heard much about you, Captain Weatherby.”

  Weatherby spared the boy a brief smile before turning back to Anne. “And you know where he’s going?”

  “I believe so. I overheard enough to piece things together, I think, combined with what he took and what he left behind,” she replied. “I had tried to find out more, but he said little, other than that he might be gone for a year.”

  A year . . .

  A rap on the door was followed later by Barnes peeking his head inside. “Captain, I . . . oh, we have guests?”

  Weatherby turned. “Indeed we do, and they will be coming with us. Dr. Hawkins will make berth in the wardroom while our guests share his quarters. Have all hands make ready to sail immediately, if you please, and rig for Void-sailing. Set a course for . . . ?” Weatherby turned to Anne.

  “Saturn,” she said simply.

  Of course. The Xan. “Saturn,” Weatherby repeated. “At once.”

  CHAPTER 7

  June 17, 2134

  We’re a few hours away from insertion over Enceladus, and so far it’s going as well as can be expected,” Lt. Cmdr. Shaila Jain reported, her holographic head hovering over Diaz’ desk. “I mean, there’s a ton of crap out there that we have to sail through to get there. As you get farther out from Saturn, the rings grow wider and more diffuse, the particles get smaller. Our electromagnetic shielding is crackling several times a second now. It’s like flying through a popcorn machine. And the microwave emitter pops off every few minutes or so to take care of the bigger debris. It’s made for a stressful watch, but the automated systems seem to be doing a good job of it so far.