The Emperor of Mars

by Patrick Samphire

  I wondered if we’d be able to hide down here by the river when Apprentice came. If we crouched down on the riverbank in the shadow of the wall, maybe they wouldn’t spot us.

  Papa led Mama through the door. I pulled it closed, cutting off the view of the Flame House, and locked it with the heavy iron key.

  “We’re out of time,” Mina whispered. The feeling of her breath on my ear made me shiver. She nodded toward Lunae City. There, rising above the rooftops, came the fliers.

  “They won’t see us,” I said. “Yet.” But the moment they reached the estate we’d be exposed. A couple of balloon-palms hung over the bank, their air-filled leaves drooping toward the rising river. Maybe one or two of us could hide beneath them.

  The fliers would aim for the house. Apprentice’s men would search it first. That would take time. The Flame House was a maze, as well as a hazard. If we were lucky, Apprentice would break his neck in there.

  But eventually they would spread out. We couldn’t stay here.

  The fliers were growing in the deep blue of the desert sky. The thrum of their copter blades sounded like the rapid heartbeats of some great monster from the Martian wilderness.

  I dropped down, my back pressed against the sandstone wall, and scanned the river. A couple of small boats had appeared on the river, but they were heading the wrong way and neither was paying any attention to us.

  Rackham had lied. He’d tricked us, or he’d gotten cold feet and fled. I reached out and gripped Mina’s hand. She looked startled, then squeezed back. At least she hadn’t abandoned us.

  Between Mina, Putty, Olivia, and me, perhaps we could think of something. Anything.

  The sound of copter blades reached a crescendo behind us. Then, with a roar, one of the fliers swept out over the river, curving around. The downdraft sent patterns skittering across the surface.

  “They’ve seen us!” Mina shouted.

  The flier swooped around again, passing over us, then coming to a halt, hovering over the river, fifty yards away. It turned slowly until it was pointing directly at us.

  “Move!” I shouted, hauling at Mama and Papa. We’d never all get out of here before it could fire. We’d never get through the door, and even if we did, the other flier would be waiting.

  Portholes slid open in the flier’s front.

  An enormous metal boat came sliding around the bend in the river, moving fast with scarcely a ripple on the water. It was the gigantic ironclad that Putty and I had seen tied up at the docks when we’d gone looking for Captain Kol. It was as tall as a house, with twin funnels sloping back from the rear half. Powerful engines drove it smoothly through the river.

  Black lines sprang from its side, like a hundred spears shot from giant bows.

  The hovering flier was snatched from the air and thrown back with the force of a hurricane, splintering as it tumbled. Fragments of shattered metal rained down into the river over a hundred yards away.

  Putty let out a whoop. “Did you see that? Did you see that?”

  “We could hardly miss it,” Mina said. She sounded like she’d lost her breath.

  The ship turned and slid close to the bank. The sound of the other flier had gone, but there were shouts from behind the wall.

  A metal gangplank emerged from the side of the ship with a whir of cogs.

  A door opened on the deck, and Rackham emerged. “Hurry!” he called. “You’re not safe yet.”

  I pushed Putty at the gangplank. She skipped her way on board, and Jane and Olivia followed. Mr. Davidson wobbled his way across on legs that seemed to be made of wet noodles. I was certain he was going to topple into the Martian Nile, but Jane reached out a hand and pulled him to safety.

  “I will not go on that thing,” Mama exclaimed. “This is ridiculous, Hugo. It is undignified.”

  Something smashed against the river door. Planks shattered and bowed outward. One of the hinges snapped. Mama shrieked.

  An armored face appeared at the gap. I snatched up a stone and flung it at the man. Despite the thick glass protecting his face, he flinched away, and I shoved the door back into position.

  Another blow and it would be destroyed.

  Mama, Papa, and Miss Wilkins were all on the gangplank now, creeping slowly across.

  “Got anything left?” I asked, nodding at Mina’s bag.

  She shook her head. “I’m out of tricks.”

  A whine started behind the wall, like a flywheel spinning up.

  I met Mina’s eyes. She took my hand again. Together we leaped from the riverbank.

  Behind us, the wall exploded.

  The force of the explosion threw us through the air. A fragment of stone punched into my back, kicking the air from my chest. If I hadn’t already been jumping, it might have shattered my ribs. Instead I hit the river still gasping for air. Water swirled into my throat, but I had no air in me to cough it out. My lungs shrieked.

  Mina’s arm curled around me, pulling me up. I burst from the surface, gasped in air, and coughed out water. I could hardly see.

  “You’re all right,” Mina shouted into my ear. “You’re all right.”

  A rope smacked the river beside us, and Mina grasped it.

  I blinked water from my eyes as the rope tugged us from the river and up the high metal side of the ship. My back was in agony.

  The gangplank was rolling back in. Mama, Papa, and Miss Wilkins had reached the safety of the deck. On the shore, a line of men in clockwork armor stood watching, Apprentice in their center. They made no move to raise weapons.

  A hand reached down and hauled me on board.

  “I told you I had a boat,” Rackham said.

  15

  Danger from the Deep

  Rackham settled us into cabins below deck. Above deck were a grand ballroom, a large dining room, and a couple of well-appointed lounges. The furniture in them was covered in heavy white sheets, dusted with the fine red sand of the desert.

  “Used to be a cruise ship on the Valles Marineris,” Rackham said. “I had it refitted.” He banged a fist against the thick iron plating that covered the ship.

  My cabin was decorated in fine paneled wormwood and fitted with a bed and wardrobe. The wardrobe was empty. A porthole showed the banks of the Martian Nile slipping by. I could scarcely feel the engines, but we were moving fast.

  I toweled myself down, grimacing at the pain in my back. My jacket looked like a cleaning rag that had gotten caught in an automatic servant’s cogs, and my shirt wasn’t much better. It hung off me limply and dripped onto the floor.

  I pulled off my jacket, bundled it up, and threw it into the corner, then made another futile attempt to dry my shirt. I was just wondering if I could turn the bedsheet into an outfit when the door opened. I turned to see Mina step in.

  “Don’t you ever knock?” I said, stepping past her and shutting the door.

  “Thieves don’t tend to. It’s against our code. Are you feeling better? You looked dreadful when I pulled you out of the river.”

  I gestured down at my ruined outfit. “I think it’s how I dress that makes all the difference.”

  I should have been shocked by the impropriety of her entering my bedroom, but I just didn’t care anymore. I was tired and bruised and wetter than a deep-sea sponge.

  “You look fine to me. Just…”

  “Wet?” I said.

  She grinned. “Very.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “So why aren’t you dripping as well?”

  “I’ve been up on deck. Come on. Everyone’s gathering.”

  I gave my arms another shake and sighed. It was no good. I wasn’t getting dry.

  My family, along with Miss Wilkins, Mr. Davidson, and George Rackham, was sitting in the forward lounge. Wide metal doors had been rolled back on both sides to allow a flow of cool air.

  “There you are, Edward!” Mama said. “What is the meaning of this? Why are you dressed like a vagrant?”

  “I apologize, Mama,” I said. “I was too busy
being blown up to dress properly.” I looked around the room. “Who’s steering the boat?”

  “It has the brain of an automatic servant,” Rackham said, “modified and integrated with the controls. Based on your own father’s invention.” He nodded to Papa.

  “You are a mechanician, sir?” Papa said.

  “An amateur,” Rackham replied. “It’s a hobby. I daresay you would make many improvements to my design.”

  “I would be happy to take a look.”

  “What I want to know,” Olivia said, from where she stood by the open doors, peering out, “is why Apprentice didn’t follow us. He just let us go.”

  “He didn’t need to follow us,” Rackham said. “Where else could we go? We’re nearly eight hundred miles from the sea. We can’t turn back without passing Lunae City and being seen, and this boat is too large to navigate any of the tributaries or to enter the canals. It’s not something we can hide. We can travel only one way. He knows where we are.”

  He’d only have to follow the course of the river and he’d find us.

  “Then we’re not safe?” Jane said.

  “We are for now,” Rackham said. “We’re well armed. But if the man who’s after you is truly determined and has sufficient resources, he might cause us trouble.”

  Mr. Davidson cleared his throat. “If we were to reach the sea—”

  “Dr. Blood is no fool,” I said. “He won’t let us reach the sea. If he really wants us, he’ll find a way to stop us.” Which just left the question, did he want us? Or did he just want us out of the way?

  “I shall be in my cabin,” Mama said. “I think … I think I must lie down. It is too much.” She raised a hand to her forehead. “I shall not think of it. Miss Wilkins…”

  Putty’s governess hurried over to take Mama’s arm. I headed out onto the deck with Putty and Mina. We had already left Lunae City far behind as the great engines of the boat drove ceaselessly through the water. On either bank, fields stretched away to where the mesas rose on both sides of the valley and the desert began. The fields had been harvested and lay bare, waiting for the floodwaters to rise and spread rich soil across the land. Here and there, on higher ground, stood the remnants of ancient buildings and statues. Once, this whole area must have been covered in temples and palaces.

  Why would any emperor need so many palaces? The Ancient Martian civilization must have been vast. Far greater than any empire on Earth. Yet it had fallen into dust and ruin, and nothing had risen in its place. Perhaps when you fell that far, it was hard to rise back up again.

  “What will you do?” Mina said. “If you can’t stop him, I mean. If he keeps coming after you.”

  I shrugged. “Run. Keep running. Hope he gives up. He should pay for all the people he’s killed or hurt, but that’s not my job. All I want is for him to leave us alone.” Although that wasn’t completely true. If I got the chance, I would capture him and turn him over.

  “How about Rothan Gal?” Putty demanded. “How are we going to rescue him if we’re running away?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, slumping onto the guardrail. “I don’t know any of it.”

  A shoal of hover-fish, floating twenty feet in the air, their long gills dangling down into the river, parted in front of the boat as it powered remorselessly along the river.

  “This is all my fault,” Mina said.

  I turned to stare at her. “What?”

  Her shoulders hunched. “If I hadn’t gotten you into my mess, none of this would have happened. You wouldn’t be in danger. None of you would be.”

  “I like danger,” Putty protested.

  “This isn’t your fault,” I said. “This is about Dr. Blood, not Lady Harleston. You were the one who saved Putty and me from both of them. You’re not to blame.”

  Mina looked away. “I don’t know why you’re so nice to me. I don’t know why you still like me.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, and I wasn’t sure I caught the last few words correctly. “You won’t,” I thought she said. “Not in the end.”

  I didn’t know what to say. How could she not know why I liked her? She was the most amazing person I’d ever met. What I really didn’t understand was why she seemed to like me.

  Metal doors closed behind us, and Rackham joined us on deck. He leaned next to me on the railing at the front of the ship, peering down at the water below. The water looked darker and heavier than normal.

  “Your family is resting,” Rackham said. “You could, too. This has been a hard day.”

  “Why do you carry a rifle that uses gunpowder?” Putty said. “It takes you ages to reload it, and I’m sure it’s not very accurate. A compressed-air gun would be much better.”

  Rackham blinked. “My rifle?”

  “You know,” Putty said. “The long gun. Shoots bits of lead.”

  He laughed. “Maybe I think it makes me look dashing.”

  “I don’t think so,” Putty said seriously. “It all looks a bit messy. And awkward.”

  “I was a soldier once,” Rackham said. “A rifleman. We were skirmishers in Spain and Portugal against Napoleon’s great machines of war. When you need to travel light and fast and you’ve got no easy way to get supplies, you’ll go a lot further and faster with a horn of powder and pouch of musket balls. A compressed-air gun is heavy and bulky, and you can’t carry enough ammunition.” He sighed. “Not that it would have made much difference. Even a cannon wouldn’t have slowed those machines down much.”

  “Were you very brave?” Putty said.

  “Very.”

  “I expect I would have been, too. Except I wouldn’t have lost the war.” She smiled up at him. “I think I shall be a soldier if Napoleon ever invades Mars. Maybe even a general. We could use your ship to destroy all his machines of war.”

  “If Napoleon ever comes to Mars,” Rackham said, “I’ll be heading in the opposite direction as fast as possible. The emperor isn’t much of an admirer of mine.”

  Putty’s jaw fell open. “Did you meet him?”

  “No. But I stole his money, and that really didn’t make him happy.”

  “You stole his money?”

  “Long story. I’ll tell you about it one day. Now, I’d suggest you all get some rest. This could get rough before we’re through.”

  He was right. Now that the terror of being chased through the museum and blown up had faded, I felt almost ready to fall over.

  “Come on,” I told Putty.

  “But I want to hear his stories.”

  “Later,” Rackham said, with a laugh. “I’ve got work to do. This boat might run itself most of the time, but I still have to prod the odd lever.”

  At least my clothes had dried in the heat of the desert.

  I took one last look over the edge of the boat at the mud-brown river flowing by.

  And there, in the water below, a face stared back at me.

  It was as though I was looking into some weird, distorted mirror. The face was enormous. It had two round, black eyes and an almost flat snout. Its mouth was wider than I was long, and I saw row upon row of sharp, curved teeth.

  I threw myself back, shouting, just as the face erupted from the water. It lunged up, higher and higher, rising above the rail. The ship rocked violently, as though we’d hit a rock, and I stumbled, falling onto the deck. Water cascaded over me as whatever it was kept climbing up and up into the air.

  Someone grabbed my arm and yanked me away. I blinked water from my eyes.

  The creature towering above us was enormous, as wide as a cart, but far longer—almost as long as the ship. Its scaled skin was black and lined with sharp, spiked fringes. Giant fins, each larger than a man, protruded from its body. A head the size of a bull stared down at us. A frill of scaled skin, stretched between long spikes, made a halo around the creature’s face. Water cascaded from its gills, down the length of the creature, making it glisten in the late sunlight.

  “Sea serpent!” Rackham bellowed.

  For a second, the serpent
peered at us. Then its body came crashing down, falling like a tower on the boat.

  I threw myself aside, hitting the wet deck, and skittered across it like a stone on an icy pond. The ship juddered. The railing came up at me and I thumped into it. Gasping for breath, I flipped onto my back. Rackham was herding Putty and Mina toward a door that led below deck.

  The serpent’s body lifted off the deck. Its head turned toward me. I pushed myself up, my back against the rail. Black eyes stared down at me. Then the sea serpent was coming again, snaking toward me, faster than a falling stone.

  I shoved myself off the rail, springing forward. If I lost my footing again, I was finished.

  The sea serpent’s head hit where I had just been standing. With a shriek of protesting metal, a section of rail ripped away from the ship.

  For a moment, the sea serpent’s body arched over me like a bridge, cutting out the evening sunlight. If it fell, I would be squashed.

  Then, with a screech, the sea serpent bucked upward. The metal rail had become wrapped around its head. It shook wildly, trying to throw off the rail. The ship pitched from side to side. I dived past. Behind me, the rail splashed down into the river.

  “Inside!” Rackham said, pushing me through the open doorway.

  Putty and Mina were waiting at the bottom of the flight of stairs beyond the door, peering up. I scrambled after them.

  The sea serpent hit the boat again with enough force to make it leap sideways in the water. I almost fell. I grabbed for the handrail and caught myself.

  I reached the floor just as the door at the far end of the hallway opened and Papa looked through. The rest of my family and Mr. Davidson crowded behind him.

  “What’s going on?”

  Rackham jumped down the steps, landing beside me and rising.

  “Sea serpent. We need to drive it off. Get back to your cabins. You’ll be safe there.”

  “A sea serpent in the river?” Olivia said, squeezing past Papa.

  Rackham was already hurrying down the hallway in the opposite direction. I turned to follow.