The Emperor of Mars

by Patrick Samphire

  Two beams of light stabbed out from the man’s face.

  “What the…?” I stumbled back. The light was pouring from his eyes. “Death rays!” I whispered. Back in issue thirty-five of Thrilling Martian Tales, Captain W. A. Masters had been attacked by Kalian cultists wielding Martian death rays that had looked just like this.

  “Photonic goggles,” Putty said. “Papa’s company started selling them last month.”

  “Whose great idea was that?” I backed away, pulling Putty with me. “Can they see us?”

  “There wouldn’t be much point otherwise, would there?”

  Light darted from the other men’s eyes, pinning us in the crossbeams.

  Two of the men clattered down hidden steps, then approached us across the floor, hooked poles raised.

  “We surrender!” I called.

  “Edward,” Putty hissed.

  I shook my head. “We can’t escape.” I laid one hand on her shoulder to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid.

  “Look,” I said, shading my eyes against the light from his goggles. “We didn’t mean to get in your way. We were just—”

  “Shut up,” one of the men shouted. “Get on the ground.”

  Still holding my arm up against the glare, I knelt, keeping myself between Putty and the men. I might be able to take one of the men by surprise, but that would still leave another three, and there was nowhere for us to run.

  “Just let us go,” I tried again. “We won’t say anything. I promise. We don’t even know who you are.”

  Another set of footsteps approached, slow and light, as though the person was picking his way distastefully across the sticky floor. A pair of small, immaculately polished shoes came to a halt a couple of inches in front of me. I craned my head back to peer up at my captor.

  “That does surprise me,” Dr. Blood said, looking down from beneath heavy eyebrows. “Because I know exactly who you are. Master Sullivan.”

  * * *

  They left us in the hold of the airship, tied hand and foot, in darkness.

  “Where do you think they’re taking us?” Putty hissed.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Wherever Dr. Blood’s been holed up all this time. He must have a base in the desert.” I cursed. “We should have told someone where we were going.”

  “Really?” Putty said. “When? Were we supposed to run back and let everyone know? Maybe we could have asked him to wait around until we got back.”

  We should never have chased after Dr. Blood. We should have gotten word to the British-Martian ambassador. He could have sent agents after Dr. Blood. And we could have told Captain Kol. He would know people all over Lunae City. They could have tracked Dr. Blood down. Why did I always think I had to do things on my own? Now he knew we were onto him. He’d never let us go.

  I couldn’t tell how much time was passing here in the dark. All I could feel was the slow, steady beat of the propellers driving us further and further into the desert. But we must have been lying there at least twenty minutes when I heard a noise from the side of the airship, like metal forcing itself open.

  My pulse started to pound in my head.

  “How does this thing work?” I whispered to Putty. “This—what did you call it?—this gulper?”

  “Oh,” Putty said happily. “It’s quite clever. They take great gulps of the air forests, then they shoot steam out of the pipes to blast off the leaves and fruits and soften the wood. Then they haul anything they don’t want out the gills. It’s quite efficient, but I really think they could mechanize the whole process.”

  “Great,” I muttered. A blast of steam to fry us, then out into the night. We’d never be found.

  The creak of metal came again, then the sound of something breaking. Cool night air sighed around us. Pale moonlight slipped in through a gap, illuminating a single figure crouching just inside the airship. This was it, then. They were going to toss us out. Last year, we’d only just survived Dr. Blood, and then we’d had Freddie and Captain Kol on our side. This time, it was just me and Putty, and we were helpless.

  I pushed myself up. At least I could fight when they came for us. If I got lucky, maybe I could send one of our captors flying back out that hole himself. Maybe he’d even provide a soft landing when they chucked us out after him.

  I drew my legs up, waited until the shadowed figure was only a pace away, then kicked out with all my strength.

  The figure skipped aside. “Don’t do that!”

  A dim light flicked on in the figure’s hand. I saw long, straight hair. Dark eyes. Suddenly, I could hardly breathe. Every thought of Dr. Blood and horrible death fluttered out of my head.

  “Mina?” I gaped at the thief. “What are you doing here?”

  She crouched next to me and helped me upright again. “Rescuing you. What does it look like?”

  I could scarcely speak. My breath seemed trapped in my throat. “I came to meet you. Honestly. But Lady Harleston—”

  “I know. I saw you. And her.”

  “You did?” I heard the relief in my own voice. I’d been sure when I didn’t turn up that she’d think I’d decided not to help.

  Putty kicked me. “You told me you just went to the museum! You went on another rendezvous, and you left me behind again!”

  “I came looking for you,” Mina said. “Afterward. I was going to come to your home again, when it got dark.”

  “Again?” Putty squawked.

  “Then I caught sight of you near the coffee house. I was going to call out, but you went pelting out and stole that cycle-copter before I could get to you.”

  “I didn’t steal it,” I said, looking down.

  She looked skeptical. “Yeah? I bet that’s news to the owner. Anyway, I couldn’t let you out of sight again, so I stole another cycle-copter and came after you. Now I’m rescuing you. You know, it wasn’t easy to catch you up in this thing.”

  “You must really want that key cylinder,” Putty said.

  Putty was right. Coming after us like that when we were so obviously in danger—putting herself into danger—it didn’t make sense. Not unless the key cylinder was way, way more important than I realized. Right now, though, I was just grateful she had.

  “Let’s get out of here, shall we?” Mina said. “Before someone comes to check on you and we all get caught.”

  10

  Warnings

  With Mina’s help, we retrieved our floating cycle-copter, then slipped away unseen through the open gill.

  We put the cycle-copters down in a field on the edge of Lunae City, not far from the Flame House. I left them hitched to a balloon-palm. Maybe someone would find them and return them to their rightful owners.

  “Right,” I said awkwardly. “Um. Thanks. You know. For everything.” What on Mars were you supposed to say to a girl who’d just saved your life? Particularly when somehow she always made me feel as awkward and flustered as a jellyfish trying to ride a bicycle.

  Mina looked away. “Forgive me,” she whispered.

  I frowned. Had I heard her right? “Forgive you? What for? You saved us.”

  “For all of this.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. “Blame the men who kidnapped us. Blame Lady Harleston.”

  “Yeah,” she said, hunching up her shoulders. “The thing is, I thought you were just … you know? But you’re not. I’ve seen the way you are with each other. You’re…” She looked down. “You’re good people. Nice people.” Her voice dropped so low I could hardly hear her. “I wish I had a family like yours.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I wanted to say she wouldn’t think that if she lived with us, but her mother was dead and her father had abandoned her and she’d had to become a thief to survive. My family might be irritating, but I was lucky.

  So I just said, “I don’t have the key with me. I’ll bring it to you tomorrow. There’s a new gallery opening at the museum. We’re going. I’ll meet you just before, outside the museum.”

&n
bsp; She looked up at me with dark eyes. “You promise?”

  I nodded. My mouth felt too dry to speak. It must have been from all that dry desert air.

  She turned away. I watched her until she faded into the shadows and was gone.

  The first faint glow of dawn was just showing over the eastern mesas when we reached home. Even though the hallway clock showed only five in the morning, I went to wake Papa and sent Putty to fetch Olivia. We gathered in the drawing room and I told Papa and Olivia what had happened. I didn’t tell them about Mina or the key, though. I didn’t know why. I didn’t think Papa would approve. By the light of the old friction lamps, Papa looked haggard and tired. The parlor palm in the corner shed long shadows against the wall.

  “I don’t know if he knows where we live,” I said, “but he’ll be able to find out easily enough.”

  “You should never have gone after him alone,” Olivia said. Her voice was tight, and although she was sitting apparently calmly, her hands folded in her lap, I could hear the worry in her voice.

  “He wasn’t alone,” Putty protested. “He was with me.”

  “That’s worse.”

  Putty’s jaw dropped.

  “You said he was trying to steal things from the museum, Edward?” Papa said.

  I nodded. “I don’t know what, though, apart from that fragment of ideograms.”

  “I looked at them,” Putty said. “They’re too damaged. They’re indecipherable.”

  Papa ran his fingers through his already messy hair. His hands were shaking. “I will send a letter to the captain of the militia and ask for guards at the house and the museum. I will not let that man endanger this family again. I have some status in this city now, and the council wishes for me to expand my manufactories. They will provide protection.”

  “And I’ll write to the British-Martian Intelligence Service,” Olivia said. “They should be able to get a message to Freddie, although I don’t know if he’ll be able to get here in time to help.” She looked down. “Maybe they’ll send someone else.”

  I hoped it would be enough.

  * * *

  The Flame House might have been a disaster of mismatching rooms and confused corridors, but there were a good thirty rooms that could have been used for my lessons. Some had fantastic views over the Martian Nile to the fields and the remains of the dragon temples beyond. Others looked out over the bird’s nest of roofs jutting up from Lunae City. A couple of rooms were an education unto themselves, and one would probably kill you if you stepped in the wrong place.

  All of them would have been better than the horrible, hot, airless corner Mama had picked out for my lessons. Mr. Davidson was standing before the chalkboard, tapping a length of chalk impatiently on his trousers when I stumbled in. I’d managed to grab a couple of hours of sleep, but that had only made me feel worse.

  “There you are, Master Sullivan,” he snapped. His small face was pinched in disapproval. “Let us waste no more time! Get out your books. We shall begin!”

  By the time I staggered out of the small schoolroom into the burning heat of the Lunae Planum midday, I could hardly remember my own name, let alone conjugate another Latin verb.

  The daily airship was lifting off from its tether, heading back to Ophir City with its load of passengers. A swarm of glass butterflies fluttered around the great balloon like a halo, and as the propellers began to beat, they were swept back in spirals behind it, turning its slipstream into glittering quicksilver.

  I stood there for a few minutes staring at it, my mouth opening and closing like a confused frog, saying not much more than “Guh” until my brain slowly came back to life.

  Far away, on the southern horizon, a faint smudge of clouds like a line of charcoal showed that the winter rains had reached the hills that bordered the Lunae Planum and in which the Martian Nile began. Soon, the waters would rise and the floodplains on either side of the river would be covered. The Inundation would have arrived, bringing with it the rich, thick silt that would fertilize the fields. For a few brief weeks, the desert would come alive as rain clouds swept over it.

  If Captain Kol wanted to travel upriver and reach the network of Martian canals before the current became too strong and the river impassable, he would need to leave soon.

  We were running out of time to find Rothan Gal. I shook my head to clear away the last of my Latin verbs, then went looking for Putty.

  I finally found her up to her knees in a mole-snake burrow, looking far too pleased with herself. “Do you know what I’ve been doing all morning?” she said as we made our way through the crowded streets toward the docks.

  “Do I want to?” I asked. I was keeping more than half an eye out for Dr. Blood, as well as Lady Harleston and her thugs. I’d only had time to grab a chunk of bread from the kitchen for my lunch on the way past, and I was feeling hungry again already.

  “Of course. I’ve been trying to escape from Miss Wilkins.”

  “Well, that was a good use of the morning, then.”

  Putty looked pleased. “I thought so. She’s got the eyes of an arrow-hawk and the nose of a tracker-vole. Which pretty much proves she’s a spy, otherwise why would she be so good at finding me? She wants to organize every second of my day. Every second! As though I’m not busy enough already! I have things to do, you know!”

  “Like hiding from your governess?”

  “Exactly! Anyway, it’s a shame she’s not Papa’s governess instead of mine, because then think how well his company would be run. He’d make an absolute fortune. Except she’d steal all his secrets and give them to Napoleon. You wouldn’t believe what I had to do to give her the slip.”

  “I expect I would,” I said. “I just don’t want to know.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t tell you anyway. So there. Even though I used hover boots and a chameleon cloak.”

  We turned down a side street, and there at the far end was the forest of masts swaying gently at the dockside.

  “There’s no such thing as hover boots or a chameleon cloak,” I said.

  “There might be. Anyway, I expect I’ll invent them, then you’ll look silly. You know, the old Martian emperors floated down the river on their dragon barges every single Inundation for thousands of years. I bet some of them sank. I bet they’re still there on the bottom of the river. I bet they’re covered in gold and full of wonderful artifacts. If we had a submersible, we could go looking for them.”

  “It’s lucky we haven’t got a submersible, then,” I said.

  Putty sighed. “What do you think it would be like to be the emperor of the whole of Mars?”

  “Hard work.” The noise of the docks was rising as we approached. I could hear the shouts of sailors and the thump of cargo being loaded and unloaded. With the Inundation so close, the sounds were even more frantic than normal.

  “Honestly, Edward,” Putty said. “You’re a real misery today. What’s wrong with you?”

  I pushed a hand across my exhausted face. How did Putty look so fresh and awake? “Forgive me. I’ve got too much on my mind. There’s Lady Harleston, Dr. Blood, Rothan Gal—”

  “And Mina.”

  I blushed. “I wasn’t thinking about her.”

  “Of course you weren’t.” Putty waved a hand dismissively. “I’m sure we’ll sort it out. I’m rather good at things like this. Anyway, I think it’d be great being emperor. I’d be able to do anything I wanted.”

  “You already do.”

  “I used to,” Putty said darkly. “Not since Miss Wilkins turned up, though. What’s that?”

  We’d stepped out onto the dock. Hundreds of native Martian craft were tied up along the wharfs, but between them was a ship with an enormous metal hull that rose high above the docks.

  “I have no idea,” I said. I’d never seen anything like it before.

  The ship was almost a hundred yards long, and its deck stood higher than the masts of most of the vessels surrounding it. Two large funnels sloped back from the rear half. In fr
ont of them, metal walls punctuated with small portholes and iron doors reached sleekly to the front deck. A small upper deck stretched in a U shape around the front half of the ship, jutting out over the lower deck.

  “It looks like it’s got guns,” Putty said. “Dozens of them. And tangleshot and spine shooters, and that’s definitely a slingshot cannon.” She pointed at a flat cylinder jutting from the side of the ship. “Do you know, a slingshot cannon can fire a cannonball almost ten miles? I bet this is Dr. Blood’s ship. I bet he’s planning an invasion. We should sneak on board and sabotage it.”

  “I don’t think you invade by tying up at the docks,” I said. “And we’re not sneaking on board in full view of everyone. We’d be arrested.” I’d spent two days in a militia cell with Cousin Freddie; I didn’t fancy going through that again.

  Putty smiled up at me innocently. “So you think we should do it tonight instead?”

  I didn’t rise to it. “Dr. Blood had an airship. I can’t see him tucking it into the hold of a boat, can you?”

  “You could probably make a folding airship,” Putty said. “If you could compress the gas in the cells.”

  “The point is,” I said, “Dr. Blood was flying north, out into the desert. He’s got a base out there. If he’s holding Rothan Gal, that’s where he’ll be.” I thought for a moment. “Maybe Mina will know where it is.”

  Putty lifted a hand and pretended to wave it like a fan against her face. “Oh, Mina,” she sighed breathlessly. She fluttered her eyelashes. “You’re just like Jane.”

  I felt my face redden. Again. “All I mean is that she must have contacts. She is a thief, and Dr. Blood has to hire his thugs from somewhere.”

  Captain Kol’s boat was tied up at the wharf, but it had been prepared for sailing. Cargo and supplies were firmly lashed to the decks. Captain Kol came out of the forward hatch and waved us over as we approached.

  “You have news?” he asked.

  “I think so,” I said as I clambered down to the deck. “I hope so. I found where Rothan Gal was captured. You were right. He was in the museum. He was examining an old artifact when he was attacked. Both he and the artifact were taken.”