Sebastian of Mars

by Al Sarrantonio

  We waited in our cutout for more than an hour, until Quiff was sure they were gone.

  During that time, I never enjoyed the odor of rotting fish more.

  Sixteen

  A day later found us in more hospitable surroundings, within sight of the surface but unable to reach it.

  It was a strange feeling, smelling fresh air but not being able to stand on the surface of the planet. We were in such a safe spot that Quiff felt confident enough to build a fire and cook our latest catch, a silvery-white fish, long as an eel, the likes of which I’d never seen. I had become used to this underground world and its mysteries, it’s rivers which appeared and then disappeared, winding out of a cut in a rock wall and into a cut in an opposite wall, or, once, running overhead and unseen. I had expressed my fear to Quiff at that time that the entire ceiling above us might come down in a shower of tons of water at any time, but he had merely laughed.

  “Never happened in a milllllion years!” he said.

  This latest wonder, a smooth-walled cavern so near the surface that we could see the caves leading out a mere hundred feet above us, but were unable to get to them. The walls were smooth as glass. A waterfall fed by a near-surface aquifer plunged from the mouth of a yawning cave just below the ceiling and spread in a crystalline pool of blue-white at our feet. Quiff proclaimed this some of the best fishing in all of the “downside” areas.

  But we had been here nearly three days, lounging and sleeping and fishing and eating, and I was once again growing restless. My strength growing, I had taken to running sprints around the perimeter of the cavern, and swimming in the waterfall’s pool. I was bored and energized. Quiff, on the other hand, seemed completely at ease.

  “It won’t be longggg,” he assured me, as he had since we had reached this place.

  But he would not tell me what we were waiting for.

  “Can’t you give me a hint?”

  For the first time since I had met him, his eyes twinkled with amusement.

  “It won’t be longgggg.”

  I ate my tenth meal of eelfish, and settled down to my tenth restful nap.

  When I awoke, my life changed.

  The cavern was nearly filled with people. I heard laughter, and smelled something more than fish cooking. It smelled like poultry! And there was singing coming from one side of the cavern, with answering singing ringing from the other.

  Was I in a dream?

  Or had I awakened into one?

  “He’s awake!” someone shouted, a basso voice, and there was instant silence.

  I looked for Quiff, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes, then threw my blanket aside and stood up.

  “What –?” I began.

  The hundreds of faces surrounding me looked down as one, and the hundreds of bodies bowed, as one.

  One portly gentleman, who owned the basso voice, stood up close by me and locked eyes with me. Those eyes were both merry and serious.

  “It is our pleasure to serve you,” he said, his voice deep and resonant as a well.

  “But – who are you?”

  “I am Radion,” he replied, his voice booming and deep, “and these are my people.” His accent was odd, made odder still by his deep voice: a little of the north, a bit of the west, an unrecognizable emphasis on consonants that I had never heard before.

  I studied him carefully as he straightened. He was wide, with a wide, luxuriously furred face of orange and white, with thick whiskers. He eyes were golden brown. He was dressed in odd raiment’s, black boots and a brightly colored tunic, belted at the waist, as well as a bright red feathered cap.

  His companions, both men and women, were dressed similarly, though with not quite as much girth.

  “What clan are you?” I inquired.

  Radion looked startled, and then he laughed. In a moment the cavern was filled with laughter.

  “Begging your pardon if I say that we are the only clan that matters.”

  My back stiffened, but before I could say anything, Radion continued:

  “We are the Romeny.”

  “Gypsies!”

  Again he bowed, though the others retained their bemused looks.

  Radion said, “Again, at your service. You speak our name as if we do not exist. No?”

  “But you don’t exist! You’re a myth!”

  Radion’s smile hardened, just a little. “A myth that can bite, my friend. Let us just say that we have . . . chosen to remain invisible.”

  “But even Newton says you aren’t real!”

  Radion’s smile was back. “We have dealt with Newton, on occasion – though I doubt he knew who we were. It has served us well to blend in, wherever we are. We can be any clan, when the need suits us. We have dealt with everyone on this planet, topsider or downsider, at one time or another.” His smile widened. “And we pay no tithe, and no taxes, by being” – he shrugged, and turned to bring his people into the joke – “a myth.”

  I was flabbergasted. “Gypsies . . .”

  The laughter had died down. “And,” Radion said, we have a job to do. A trade we made with One, for your safety, to deliver you to a certain place. We will leave as soon as we have eaten.”

  It was then that I remembered Quiff. “Where is the fellow who brought me here?”

  “Quiff?” Radion shrugged again. “He has gone home, after delivering most of what was agreed. The fellow stank of fish, so it was good to be rid of him.”

  I was a little disappointed, and sad, that my erstwhile companion had left without even saying goodbye.

  But I had little time to think of these things, because Radion was looming over me.

  “And you stink of fish, too!” He made a motion, and two of his compatriots took hold of me and, without ceremony, drew me to the edge of the water. Radion followed, making a great show of holding his nose.

  “Would you like to bathe with your clothes on, or not?” he asked.

  Before I could answer, the fellows holding me had hoisted me up and thrown me, fully clothed, into the lake.

  “Question answered!” Radion roared. “And anyway, your clothes stank of fish, too! Bathe well, and then eat with us! And no fish!”

  At that he turned away, and almost in signal, cooking fires roared up around the camp. As I bobbed in the water, succulent smells came to me – more poultry, perhaps dog, a few other delicacies I had eaten, it seemed, a lifetime ago.

  Resigned to my position, I drew off my clothes, washed them well, and then myself. I was a bit unnerved by the interest one of the species of fish that Quiff had lately cooked took in me, drawing near and rubbing against me once or twice, then turning its face up toward me and opening its many-toothed mouth.

  As I climbed out of the water Radion studied the creature. “We do not eat these things ourselves, unless necessary. But I can tell you that if you had stayed much longer, he would have eaten you!”

  I looked back, and felt suddenly faint. The fish had been joined by a dozen others. “Man eaters?” I croaked.

  Radion nodded vigorously. “I’m surprised Quiff didn’t tell you. They could strip your bones of flesh in five minutes or less!”

  Radion unexpectedly slapped me on the back. “You are a brave man to bathe in such waters.” I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. “Dress yourself, and come have a feast fit for a king!”

  Now he turned his massive head toward me, and winked.

  I dressed quickly, with the smell of roasting meats gaining me strength by the moment.

  “One has made an odd request, this time,” Radion said, as we both sat sated in front of a smoldering fire. He was the only gypsy who commanded such respect, since the other cook fires were crowded with jostling men and women who continued to eat, drink wine from dog skin flasks, and, occasionally, break out into song:

  The gypsy life!

  Not for us the world of cats

  In fancy pants

  And fancy hats –

  The gypsy life!<
br />
  The road is ours

  Everywhere

  On planet Mars –

  The gypsy life!

  And so on, with verse after verse.

  My belly was full, my strength returned. I had asked many questions, some of them stupid, which Radion, absorbed in his own reverie, swatted aside unanswered like flies. Others which interested him he fielded deftly, and, when I went over his answers later in my head, I realized he had told me nearly nothing about his people, their ways, where they slept, how they made their living, who they knew and who they didn’t know. The one thing I did learn is that they seemed to know everyone – the pirates, the F’rar – and my mother.

  “She was a great woman, from what I hear,” Radion said. He paused to belch, which, when he did it, seemed a sign of thoughtful respect. “I did not meet her but I know felines who did. She sacrificed much for some foolish ideas.”

  “Foolish!” I said, outraged. “Do you call an attempt to unify all the people of Mars in a representative and fair government foolish?”

  “Has it worked?” Radion answered immediately. “Has it ever worked? Before Queen Haydn there were kings, and wars. For a time there was a first republic, and war. After her there was a second republic – and war.” He shrugged, a grand, shaggy gesture. “This is why the Romeny remain to themselves.”

  “You would never be part of a true republic?” I asked. “Where your people could vote with every other clan, in equality?”

  He belched, and this time it was not out of respect. “We have no need for anyone else. We never have. It is our code, and our way.”

  “Do you think Frane would respect your way, if she knew of you?”

  In alarm, I watched his eyes fill with anger.

  “It is because of Frane that we help you,” he said, nearly growling. I noticed that the singing had stopped, and there was near silence in the camp save for the snap of meat fat over spitting fires.

  “What did she do to you?”

  His eyes had hardened, and his booming voice filled the cavern with an almost supernatural wrath. “Hear me!” He stood up, unsteadily, for he had been drinking wine throughout the meal and after. “And hear me well! Romeny bend to no feline! Romeny will always be free!”

  There was dead silence, until Radion, breathing heavily with anger, sat down again.

  Eventually, as Radion sat staring into our dying fire, the comradery around us slowly returned, and I heard the far off tinkling of a musical instrument, and the tentative beginnings of a new song:

  The gypsies are free

  And always they will be,

  But the hurts strike deep

  And gypsies, though they weep

  They never forget

  And yet –

  Gypsies remain free!

  It was a sad, defiant song, and as it was sung, gaining momentum, Radion eventually came out of his anger and introspection, and looked at me with a steady gaze.

  “It is simple, my young friend. Frane has tried to enslave us, as she has every other people on Mars.” He smiled, an unpleasant sight. “She will not succeed.”

  I opened my mouth to speak but he held a thick paw out for silence. His voice was subdued, but the bass tone of it still carried weight and authority. He seemed to be studying me the way he had studied that man-eating fish.

  “They told me you were weak,” he said, his gaze never wavering from me. “But felines have been wrong before. Your bones are scrawny, and I’ll bet your grip is ladylike, but you have a sinewy character to you. You are physically unstrong, yes, but that might change. We will do what we can for it. It is your head and heart I wonder about, and we shall see that, too. But I have a feeling about you, Sebastian of Argyre, and I am never wrong about men.”

  “So you do know who I am,” I said.

  “Hm?” He waved his paw in dismissal. “Bah! Of course! Do you think the Romeny would walk with anyone without knowing him? And I’m sure you will make a fine king – even if you don’t know who you rule. After all, the Romeny are a myth, right?”

  Some of his humor returned when I nodded.

  “Good! Then let’s see about your brain.” He roared, “Bring the Jakra cards! Let’s see if this whelp can take a beating!”

  The fires were cold and the rest of the camp, save for the sentries I saw strategically and quietly placed, asleep when we finished our last game. We had nearly worn the crude deck, pictured with the great Martian feline composers, out with our shuffling and dealing. I had to call a halt because I could not keep my eyes open and was nearly asleep myself. He was a very good player, the best outside of Newton I had ever played with.

  “But we must play one more game!” Radion protested. “We are even, and cannot remain so! You know the rules!”

  “Very well,” I nodded sleepily. I quickly dealt and lost, letting him beat me for the sake of sleep.

  “Bah!” he said disgustedly, throwing his cards down. I had watched him drink two flasks of wine over the last hours, with no loss of concentration or stamina. “You have let me win! This will not do!”

  My chin was on my chest. “It will have to do. I cannot stay awake.”

  He leaned over the dead embers, and said, with, I thought, a measure of warmth on his sour breath, “Then I will beat you all the more decisively the next time.”

  I nodded, and then I felt myself being lowered to the ground, a blanket placed on me.

  I felt Radion’s sour hot breath at my ear.

  “Sleep well, King. For tomorrow the real test begins.”

  Seventeen

  “A different kind of cards,” Radion said, spreading three rows of three cards from a huge pictorial deck. I only caught a glimpse of the faces as he shuffled them – dogs with cat heads, Phobos impossibly close in a dark sky, the blazing sun circled by flapping birds – but I found them fascinating.

  “A real fortune teller’s deck?” I asked.

  He gave a baleful eye. “That is a fool’s term. We gypsies have used the deck for a thousand years plus a thousand more. It was given to us by great powers before our time.”

  “Who?” I asked, letting just the right amount of bemusement enter my voice. I had found in the last few days of travel with Radion and his people that while he barked like a dog, he often bit like a toothless grandmother. But this time I was wrong, for his look threaten to boil over into one of real ire.

  “You do not jest with the cards,” he said, his bass voice a warning rumble.

  I nodded, and composed myself at his makeshift table – a flat, knee high rock on an underground plain where we had camped for the night – with a look of rapt attention on my features.

  “I apologize,” I said.

  “Good,” he said, and pointed to the three rows in turn. “Past, present, future,” he said.

  I was a bit surprised that we were still underground. I expected that we would surface into hospitable lands, where more gypsies and their allies would shelter us. But this was not so. There was danger above, Radion had explained, though he would say no more. And so we had passed through cavern after tunnel after cavern. Sometimes a shaft of sunlight would brighten our underground passage; at other times torchlight or the glow of crystal caverns lit our way. We had passed ample water and there was ample food – though, thankfully, no fish, which the Romeny seemed to dislike. After my time with Quiff, who I found I still missed, my fast from that foodstuff was most welcome.

  Radion pointed again, and then again, to the three rows. Then he pointed to the three ranks and repeated three times, “Might be, will be, must be.”

  ‘What do you mean by that?” I asked, interrupting him, overcome with curiosity.

  He drew a line down the first rank. “The things in these cards, past, present, future, may or may not be true. In the next” – and he drew his short claw down the second rank – “these things are true, though fate can interfere. And in this last rank” – once again he pulled his finger along the last three cards – “these things in past, pres
ent, and future must occur. Nothing can alter them, not the heavens themselves.”

  “Nothing?” I said, and again a slight touch of bemusement crept into my voice.

  His eyes, dark as coals, pinned me and made me hold my breath.

  “Nothing,” he rumbled.

  “Very well,” I whispered.

  Radion continued to stare at me, and then opened his mouth to say something. But then I could tell he thought better of it, and closed his lips again. His dark eyes moved from me to the cards, and he flipped over the first card in the first rank with a loud snap!

  His face lit up with a smile and he barked a laugh. He tapped the face of the card with his blunt claw. It was a picture of a kit with four arms and four legs and two heads, one looking to one side, one looking in the opposite directions. Fur stood up on its body as if it had been electrically shocked.

  “Is this you? Is this a false image of the past?”

  I became defensive. “What does it mean?”

  “It means you were always falling over yourself, that you had the grace of a beast with too many limbs – ha!”

  “That wasn’t me,” I fumed.

  Radion leaned over the card and stared at me. There was a curl of smile on his face. “Are you sure?”

  I blushed. “Well, perhaps a little. I was rather awkward –”

  “I’ll bet you were! I’ll bet you were at that!”

  With that he snapped over the second card in the first row, revealing a riot of colors haloing a bright yellow crown. Radion studied it for a moment.

  “This is certainly you at the moment – do you need me to interpret?”

  “My crown?” I offered.

  He nodded. “But there is more.” He circled the halo of riotous colors. “This indicates turmoil, which is apt for a first card of this rank. So far the cards are very solid . . .”

  Something dark passed across his eyes, but I did not speak.

  He turned the third card.

  “Ah!” he said. “And this denotes the end of our particular journey.”

  I could not for the life of me see what he meant. The card was filled to the edges with green plants of every description – vines, thick stems bursting with red and yellow flowers, tall trees smothering the sky and throwing their branches out like sentries.