Phantasmical Contraptions & Other Errors

by Jessica Augustsson

  It was about an hour later when I saw her: a young woman, dressed in khaki and sporting an elegant but functional hat. She wore a small pair of spectacles, with lenses tinted indigo against the glare of the sun. She was walking through the canyon, carrying a bulky pack.

  As soon as she heard me coming, she raised a hand in acknowledgement of my presence, if not actual greeting, then stared at me, unafraid but wary. She assessed me cautiously. She left the rifle she was carrying slung upon her shoulder, but I have keen eyes and I saw her slip a brass-backed knife into her hand and conceal it behind her back. I couldn’t really blame her. This wasn’t a polite country park in Oxfordshire. We were in the wastelands of Mars. A man and a woman alone. Un-chaperoned. It would have been unwise of her to assume I was anything but a threat, at least to her reputation. I stopped Wellington with a conspicuous “Whoa!”, pulling the brake-lever to bring him to a halt a respectable distance away from the lady. I made a show of keeping my hands away from my holster, and, moving slowly, I politely raised my hat. “Good afternoon, Miss,” I called out. “Do you by any chance speak the Queen’s English?”

  She stared at me. Cautious. Weighing me up. I felt more than saw her relax. A little.

  “Yes, certainly I do,” she replied, in a high, almost musical, French accent.

  I was delighted. I’d been by no means sure she would understand me. The United States, Great Britain, France, Prussia, Japan, Bavaria, Russia, China, Belgium, Argentina and Mexico all had well-established lunar colonies. But attention had rapidly turned to more ambitious goals. The next great prize was the Red Planet. Many nations had already started settlements here and several others had their eyes on a share of Mars. New pioneers were arriving regularly. There was no telling where the lady may have come from. I raised my hat again, saying, “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m Marmaduke Aloysius Darrow, although my friends call me ‘Mad’. Because of my initials. I think. May I be so forward as to inquire whom I have the pleasure of addressing?”

  The woman peered at me over the top of her spectacles. She had one naturally bright green eye. The other was artificial. I could see it was made from a polished orb of pure jade. It reminded me of the marbles I used to play with when I was a child. Her features were not quite Oriental, more Eurasian. I thought her eyes contrasted beautifully with her dark red hair.

  The lady continued to stare at me, then replied, “I’m trying to make up my mind about you. You don’t look bad or dangerous. Though that doesn’t mean I should trust you. However, I suppose you’ve tried to be polite, so I shall too. But I’d be grateful if you’ll stay on your horse and keep your distance.”

  I removed my hat and bowed my head, as she continued. “To answer your question, my family-name is Ying. My father named me Chasteté. Or as you English say, Chastity.”

  I bowed my head once again, saying, “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Ying.”

  She smiled and corrected me. “Technically, it’s not Miss, but Doctor.”

  I apologized. “Since coming to Mars I have become unused to encountering those possessed of either intelligence or beauty and was quite unprepared to meet both at once. Are you working with the Planetary Red Cross?”

  She shook her head. “You misunderstand. I am not a doctor of medicine. I’m an academic.”

  I was puzzled but replied, “Well, in that case I am honored to meet you Doctor Ying. I would not normally be so forward, but given that we are in the midst of the wilderness, I’d be delighted if you’d call me Mad. May I in turn presume upon your friendship enough to address you as Chastity?” (I’m afraid I pronounced the name in the English manner. My knowledge of French had never been very good).

  “As long as that is all you presume upon, yes, certainly.” She looked me up and down then nodded, saying, “For what it’s worth, I think Mad suits you better than Mr. Darrow.”

  I grinned at her and was pleased that she returned the smile. I really wanted directions and to be on my way before it began to get dark, but I was exceptionally curious about Doctor Chastity Ying. Why a woman would choose to be wandering alone this far from anything that might pass as even a poor imitation of civilization was a veritable puzzle. Besides which, she was astonishingly pretty. I realized I was staring at her and quickly said, “I was about to ask for your assistance, but it occurs to me that you may be in need of mine? We’re many miles from the nearest town. I confess I’ve gone a little astray myself. I was hoping you might set me back on the right path. But could it be that you yourself are lost?”

  She looked at me again, with that cautiously appraising look. I suspect she was trying to decide what to tell me. Either how much, or whether the truth or a lie would be safer, given that I was a stranger. She nodded again, having made up her mind. “I’m not exactly lost,” she said, “but I don’t know this area very well and my compass has become highly erratic. I’m an archeologist. I’m researching the possibility that before human colonization, Mars may once have been inhabited. There have been occasional reports from settlers and prospectors who claim to have found relics in this area. I’m doing a field survey for a few days before heading back to my university in New Paris.”

  Life on Mars seemed a rather foolish notion to me, however I was far too polite to say so. But what really surprised me was that she was here entirely on her own. I was also rather disappointed that she wasn’t going to be able to help me find my way. I asked whether she knew how to find either Iron Springs, the Carter Canal, or any of the landmarks I knew of in the area, but she only shook her head.

  As I still felt my best bet was to get to higher ground and, once out of the red canyon, try to locate a landmark I recognized, I suggested we continue together. At least until our paths naturally diverged.

  She gave me another long stare with her cool green eyes, then nodded. I was glad to have the company. I suspect she was too. I offered her my horse, saying I was happy to walk for a spell. She seemed scandalized at the suggestion. “I know you are simply trying to be gallant,” she said, “but I’m not ill. I can happily walk. I can’t possibly deprive you of your mount.”

  I insisted that I couldn’t possibly ride and leave a lady on foot. I said that if she wouldn’t take my horse, I’d walk with her.

  In the end we settled on a compromise. “I’ll ride the mule,” she said. “It’s not over-laden and my weight won’t be much of a burden to it.”

  I must admit I didn’t consider it very chivalrous to put a woman on a clockwork mule, but I agreed. At least it would save us both from walking.

  “What do you call this thing?” asked Doctor Ying.

  “She doesn’t have a name,” I replied. “I’ve never quite decided what would suit her. Perhaps you’d care to name her for me?”

  Doctor Ying seemed amused by the suggestion and gave the matter some thought as we rode a winding path, heading ever upward.

  At length she announced, “I think Tick-Tock would be a good name for the mule.”

  “Tick-Tock it is,” I confirmed, as we slowly rode uphill, although I couldn’t imagine why she chose such a silly name. Perhaps she was merely winding me up and meant it as a joke.

  As we rode, I kept an eager eye out for any break in the rocks that might afford a view down across the landscape. It was late in the afternoon before the canyon walls stopped, abruptly. One moment we were riding through a narrow rocky pass, the next we emerged suddenly onto a bleak and desolate plain. I searched the landscape eagerly, hoping to see anything I recognized in the landscape below. But all I saw were dusty red rocks that offered no clues as to the surrounding land. I scanned the plain. We’d stumbled across a big open space, broadly circular, covered in red sand that shifted and swirled in the wind. The place was barren. Just dead stone and rock, for at least a half-mile across. The flat landscape was odd, even for Mars. It seemed somehow unnatural.

  It wasn’t long until dusk. A thin orange-red mist was already forming in the cooling air. As I scanned the landscape I c
ould see something ahead, perhaps half-way across the stony plain. It looked like a huge upright tree trunk. Or a lone telegraph pole. I pointed the shape out to Chastity.

  She shrugged. “I can’t make out what it is from here. It will be dark soon. We should find somewhere to camp.”

  I had to agree with her. But the strange column still puzzled me. It would only take a few more minutes riding to reach it. “Why don’t we go find out what it is, and camp there? At least it’s some sort of land mark.”

  Chastity could see the sense in that and we rode on. I think we both felt a little uneasy as we crossed the barren landscape. There was something about the place. An oddness. Something I couldn’t define. I had a nagging feeling that I’d heard about a place like this before. Not long ago. In some miner’s tall tale. Then, as we approached, I got a better view of the object. It stood before us. Above us. Towering. Dark. Completely black. Carved with strange twisting patterns and weird, stylized animal heads. It seemed ancient.

  “It’s some kind of obelisk!” I exclaimed over my shoulder, slowing Wellington to a gentle walk.

  Chastity urged Tick-Tock to catch up with me. “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” she said, staring. “The carving, the style... It’s all...peculiar. No culture I’ve ever heard of depicted things in that way. It must be Martian.” She was excited, and wondered aloud whether this could indeed prove that there had once been indigenous life on the planet.

  I shrugged. I’d seen a little tribal art in museums back on Earth. It always looked unusual to my eye. Admittedly, this was far more bizarre than anything I’d seen. It reminded me of something…but I couldn’t put a name to it. I stared at the obelisk again. I guess I could see what Chastity meant. It did look...alien. It had qualities that reminded me of Celtic knotwork, and other aspects that looked a little like African carvings. There was something about it that brought to mind the ornately carved dragon-heads of old Viking longships. But also something of the curious serpentine swirls depicted in the stranger types of Hindu art. Maybe some mining crew had put it here as a joke? What else could it be? I wasn’t about to start believing fairy-tales about native Martians.

  The obelisk seemed to have sets of faces, elaborately engraved and set one on top of another. I wasn’t sure what the animals were meant to be. One looked something like a ravenous wolf, or perhaps a rabid bear. Another had a beak and I guessed it might, in its rather twisted way, represent an angry vulture or a mad raven. A further face looked reptilian, perhaps that of a vicious dragon or maybe an evil crocodile. Others, well... I couldn’t even guess at what they might be.

  Then I saw the top-most face. I almost shuddered. It was hideous. Monstrous. It didn’t look like an animal. It certainly didn’t look human either. The face had an apelike quality. Yet it had scales. And three eyes. Two placed more-or-less symmetrically, and an oversized eye above them, burning between the creature’s brows. Its ears were pointed. Wrinkled. Batlike. Its lower jaw bulged forward, displaying tusks. But from its mouth there came a three forked-tongue which dissolved into a countless number of tentacles, like those of some kind of octopus or squid. They swirled and curled their way down from the thing’s mouth, becoming interwoven in the overall carving of the obelisk. They twisted through each other, wormlike, in complicated knots and spirals.

  Something about the shapes they formed sickened me. The coils reminded me of a mass of maggots, writhing in rotting meat, or spider-silk wrapping and trapping some poor doomed prey. The tongue’s fleshy tendrils seemed to enfold the obelisk wherever they were carved, strangling it, like a parasitic plant throttling the very tree it lives upon. As foolish as it seemed, the whole thing made me feel nauseous. I was only too happy to look away.

  Chastity was still staring at the obelisk. “What do you think it’s made from?” she asked.

  I was about to reply but I realized I had no idea. Not wood, as there were no trees here. Maybe it was stone? Jet? Hematite? I examined it more closely. The artifact almost looked like it was made from metal, covered in a thin film of oil. Then I realized it must be some sort of obsidian, even though it was unlike any I’d seen before. I was about to reach out and touch it when Chastity pulled my hand away.

  “Don’t!” she said. I let my hand drop by my side. She was right. Something told me not to touch the object. I didn’t like the obelisk. Or this place. Not at all. I was about to suggest we move on and make camp elsewhere when I realized that the red mist that had been rising earlier was thicker now. In the space of a few minutes it had become a dense scarlet miasma, rolling across the landscape and concealing everything in foggy swathes of crimson. The mists were a by-product of the new weather systems we’d created when converting the atmosphere of Mars to make it fully breathable by humans. I didn’t even pretend to understand exactly how it had been done. Something to do with an oxygen-producing algae first discovered thousands of leagues under the sea, I believe. The greatest minds of the age had worked on creating the vast, floating Lungs Of Mars – in reality a hundred huge balloon-craft which sailed through the Martian skies. These aetherial craft, run by the multi-national Nautilus corporation, permanently cruised the red planet’s stratosphere and only occasionally would one return to pick up supplies from the central ballooning station, in the purpose-built Martian city of Helium.

  We called the craft “Airships”, for without them none of us would be able to breathe.

  I looked up. The sun was barely in the sky. The two Martian moons, Phobos, Fear, and Deimos, Terror, were clearly visible. It would be dark before we could cross the stony wasteland. Even if we tried, the obscuring fog could have us riding in circles. Or make my horse stumble and break a leg. I didn’t have a spare. It looked like we’d be camping beneath the obelisk after all.

  “Damn it!” I swore. Chastity raised an eyebrow at me. I apologized at once. “I’m sorry. I just realized. There’s no coal here and nothing else with which to light a fire. I barely have enough to fuel my horse. If I’d had my wits about me I’d have brought more.

  Chastity shrugged. “It can’t be helped. I have blankets. It’s not late in the season yet. I have cheese and bread in my pack. And a little rice wine. It’s no hardship to go one night without a fire.”

  I smiled at her. She was a lot tougher than any woman I’d met before. I had to admire her spirit. “At least I have an oil lamp with me,” I said, “so we needn’t sit in the dark.”

  I didn’t say it out loud, but silently I added, “Thank god.” There was something about this place that had got under my skin. It was starting to unnerve me.

  We put Wellington and Tick-Tock into neutral gears and left them cooling. I unsaddled my horse and found Chastity had already removed Tick-Tock’s pack before I had a chance to lend a hand. I used my tinderbox to light the oil-lamp and then lit myself a pipe. The comforting tobacco smoke put my mind at rest, and I settled down to sit on my bed-roll.

  Chastity sat opposite me. The lamp between us. It was quite dark now. The moons of Mars gave almost no light. The red mist had thickened into an impenetrable gloom. The sun barely showed in the sky, setting behind the obelisk and making the huge, hideous idol cast monstrous darkling shadows across our makeshift camp. Chastity chewed on bread and cheese, I puffed on my pipe, and we sat in companionable silence.

  At length, she asked, “What brought you to Mars?”

  I took another pull on my pipe and answered, “Money. Or rather, the lack of it. My parents are financially comfortable, but not wealthy. My eldest brother Albert will inherit their small estate when they die, along with an all but meaningless minor noble title and precious little money. My other brother Charles went into the army, and I gather is doing well enough for himself, already commanding a brigade of Her Majesty’s Light Sabres. As the youngest, it was assumed that after university I’d join the church and become a vicar, and in time perhaps a bishop. But I’m not exactly religious. And I have always had a taste for a little adventure. So in the end, I bought passage on a rocke
t-ship to Mars looking for fame and fortune. Or at least a bit of excitement. And here I am. A cobalt miner. So far, I’m enjoying it.” I was about to add, “Leastwise, most of the time,” when I was interrupted by a bizarre sound that cut through the stillness of the mist. Chastity sat up straight and extremely still. I almost dropped my pipe in surprise. I couldn’t remotely identify the sound. At first I’d thought it might be a sudden, distant clap of thunder. But there was something...different about it. Animalistic. Organic.

  It had spooked Wellington and Tick-Tock. Their ear-sensors were revolving wildly. I convinced myself the noise must have been thunder and hoped it wouldn’t rain.

  Mars has an axial tilt and a rotation period similar to those of Earth, so it has four seasons. Its day is about the same length as one on Earth, but a Martian year is almost twice as long as Earth’s. Its orbital eccentricity is greater too, which means the lengths of Martian seasons differ considerably. Several times each Martian month, the airships that circled in the skies above would seed artificially produced clouds in an attempt to irrigate the planet. The rains they made were unpredictable and sometimes became storms and monsoons. There was no real shelter here. If we were hit by a red monsoon we’d be in trouble. The most we could do would be to huddle beneath the scant cover provided by the obelisk. No sooner had I thought this than I felt the first few drops begin to fall.

  I crossed to Chastity and sat opposite her. “It looks like we may be in for a long, wet night.”

  “I’ve known worse,” she said matter-of-factly. Darkness fell rapidly, and with the combination of the mist and the rainclouds above, I found I could barely see my hand in front of me. I felt it was my turn to make conversation, and so placing the oil lamp between us, I asked, “If I’m not being too nosy by inquiring, where are you from originally?”