The Emperor of Mars

by Patrick Samphire

  “Dr. Blood,” I said. “He’s been behind everything that—”

  I didn’t get to finish my sentence. Papa was striding toward the men, and he was furious.

  “You!” he shouted, jabbing his finger at Dr. Blood. “I should have known from the shoddy nature of your mechanisms! You, sir, are a fraud. A scoundrel. A thief. An amateur!”

  Dr. Blood’s face turned as red as a wind turtle. “Amateur? I? I am the greatest mechanician that Mars has ever seen!”

  “Ha!” Papa shouted. “You are no mechanician! You never had a single idea of your own.” He swept his arm out to encompass the rest of us. “This … man … was a student at Tharsis University at the same time as me. Every idea he had he stole from me or from some other student.”

  “I perfected them!” Dr. Blood shouted. He was almost bouncing on the balls of his feet, he was so angry.

  Papa slapped his head. “Perfected? Your ham-fisted attempts—”

  “Enough!” Dr. Blood shrieked. “Shoot him!”

  Rackham’s rifle snapped up. “You’ll be dead before your men can move.”

  Dr. Blood sneered. “You have only one shot. My men will kill every one of you.”

  “And you will still be dead,” Rackham said calmly. “I never miss.”

  No one moved on the sand. The men in automatic armor stood motionless, their weapons fixed on us. Rackham’s rifle didn’t waver. Apprentice gazed at us through his metallic eyes.

  Dr. Blood took a deep, shuddering breath. “Hold your fire.”

  “You were always a coward, sir,” Papa said.

  “Papa!” I hissed. Carefully, I made my way toward him, hand outstretched, slowly so as not to spook the armed men. “Don’t agitate him. We’re still outgunned.”

  Slowly, I took Papa by the arm and pulled him back.

  “He’s a fraud, Edward!” Papa objected loudly.

  “A fraud with lots of guns.”

  “Do you know this man, Hugo?” Mama demanded.

  Papa nodded grimly. “This,” he announced, “is Archibald Simmons.”

  “That was my old name,” Dr. Blood spat. “My Earth name. I have taken a new name. A Mars name.” He lifted his chin. “I am Dr. Octavius Blood.”

  “You’re not even a doctor,” Papa said. “You were thrown out of Tharsis University long before you could obtain a doctorate, if ever you could have, which I dispute.”

  Dr. Blood didn’t seem to hear him. “We are Martians now. Mars is our mother, and she names us anew. We are reborn. All former things have passed away.”

  “You’re mad,” Papa said.

  “Am I?” Dr. Blood stepped between two of the armored men. Apprentice followed him, his heavy cloak seething restlessly. “Let me tell you something. When you had me expelled from Tharsis University, when I was still Archibald Simmons, I was forced to obtain employ as an engineer on a harvester platform in the air forests of Patagonian Mars. After all, my scholarship had been taken away and I had not yet obtained funds to set up as a mechanician. I was forced to labor, repairing and improving their machinery. Not a job for a great man, but it was a blessing, because there, in the high mountains, beneath the drifting air forests, I came across a great secret written on the bones of our mother. The truth was carved into the ancient rocks. I was transformed, and I became a Martian in truth. I became Dr. Blood.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Papa said.

  “No. You wouldn’t. You never looked up from your machines. Do you know, in the days of old, during the Inundation, the Ancient Martian emperors would float down the Martian Nile on great barges, their dragons at their feet, and the populace would bow to them? They would prostrate themselves to the emperors, and all Mars was one.”

  “I told them that!” Putty protested. “Edward, I told you first!”

  “Is that your plan?” I demanded. “To awaken a dragon’s egg and proclaim yourself emperor? To float down the Martian Nile and expect everyone to bow to you? It’s not going to work, you know. No one is going to bow.”

  Dr. Blood smiled. “Who better to be emperor? And I have something a bit more impressive than a barge in mind.” He shook his head. “How can you live on Mars and not see this? The Ancient Martian civilization was far greater than anything that Earth has produced. Compared to them, Alexander the Great was an infant squalling in his crib! The Ancient Martians ruled a world, and flew between worlds on the backs of dragons. Their technology made Earth’s greatest achievements look like toys. And yet Mars is reduced to this! A patchwork of colonies, subservient to the decaying kingdoms of Earth. Now, once again, another Earth upstart threatens to sweep across Mars and ravage its treasures. This so-called Emperor Napoleon. I will swat him like a child. Mother Mars will rise again.”

  “Except that you need the dragon’s egg,” Rackham said. “To get that, you’d have to cross the sand. And you can’t do that before I put a bullet in your head.”

  As if in response, Apprentice’s cloak rose and fell.

  “Do you have the key?” Dr. Blood shouted.

  Rackham’s forehead creased in confusion. But Dr. Blood wasn’t looking at Rackham or Papa or me anymore. He was looking over my shoulder to someone behind us. I turned.

  Mina was staring at Dr. Blood. Her face was pale, as though every drop of blood had drained from it. Slowly, she nodded.

  “Mina?” I demanded. “What’s going on?”

  She wouldn’t meet my eyes. She just kept staring down, as though there was something fascinating on the dry sand and she couldn’t tear her gaze away.

  “And the dragon’s egg?” Dr. Blood called.

  Mina glanced across at Putty, who was clutching the heavy canvas bag to her chest.

  “Take it,” Dr. Blood said. “Bring it to me.”

  Mina hesitated.

  “You don’t have to,” I hissed urgently. “Dr. Blood won’t dare do anything. Rackham would kill him.”

  “Now!” Dr. Blood barked.

  I could scarcely look at Mina’s face. She looked like she was being ripped in two. Her eyes looked like bruises. She didn’t even seem to be breathing.

  Then she shuddered, and took a single step toward Putty. Her arm came up, reaching for the bag, except it didn’t look like her arm. It looked like a clumsy puppet’s arm, being lifted by a string.

  “No!” Putty said fiercely, hugging the bag tighter. “It’s mine.”

  “Let her,” I said. My voice sounded hollow. There were too many guns pointed at us, and once someone started shooting, no one would stop.

  The look Putty gave me was wounded.

  Mina pulled the bag free and started across the sand. As she passed me, I said again, “You don’t have to do this.”

  Her expression was haunted. “I do.” She sounded like she’d swallowed stones. “He’s my father.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “I said you shouldn’t trust me.”

  Then she was gone, trudging toward Dr. Blood, Apprentice, and the armored men.

  I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I felt like she’d punched me so hard something had come loose inside me. I’d been so stupid. I should have known. I should have figured it out. Her turning up at the same time as Dr. Blood, wanting to get to know me, saving me. She’d been working for Dr. Blood all along, and all she’d wanted was the key cylinder and Putty’s dragon egg.

  She was a thief. Why did I ever think I could believe her or trust her? I was an idiot. Just because she had a pretty face, that didn’t make her a good person. She’d manipulated me, made me think I was her friend, just so she could get what she wanted.

  When she’d “rescued” Putty and me from Dr. Blood’s airship, she must have been laughing at me. She’d gained my trust, and I’d just given her the key.

  I’d believed her. I’d even thought she’d liked me. Then she’d betrayed me.

  “No!” Putty said, starting across the sand. “They can’t have it!” She looked furious.

  I grabbed hold of her and held her. “Let them go.”
>
  She stared up at me. I could see the same betrayal and shock in her eyes that must have been in mine.

  “Edward?”

  “They’ll kill you,” I said.

  “Very wise,” Dr. Blood called.

  I looked back over my shoulder at him. He, Mina, and Apprentice had climbed the ramp into the tunneling machine. Mina wasn’t looking back. She stood there, as stiff as a statue. Then Apprentice’s cloak rose like a shield, and I couldn’t see her anymore.

  One by one, Dr. Blood’s men retreated into the machine. With a whir, the ramp rose and closed. The screw began to spin. The machine tilted forward. The screw bit into the desert sand.

  In less than a minute, the machine was gone, the sand had stilled, and we were left there, alone, as the last of the daylight fell into shadow and night came down over the desert.

  PART THREE

  The Emperor of Mars

  19

  The Spy

  We looked a pretty sorry bunch as we trudged back to Rackham’s boat.

  Dr. Blood had the egg. He had the sarcophagus. He had the key. Jane had even translated the ideograms for him. We were nothing to him anymore. He hadn’t even bothered to kill us.

  Now we were stuck out in the desert, and all the strange creatures that hid from the burning heat of the day would soon be emerging. According to Putty, half of them could kill us with a single bite, sting, or lunatic diving assault into our eyes.

  I should have been angry that Mina had betrayed me. I should have been hurt. But I wasn’t. Not anymore. Finally, I could see clearly.

  I had been obsessed with getting the key to Mina when I should have been trying to work out why Dr. Blood had kidnapped Rothan Gal and where he’d taken him. I’d let Rothan Gal and Captain Kol down.

  I’d known from the first moment Putty and I had followed him that Dr. Blood must have a base somewhere out here in the desert. I should have been searching for it rather than helping Mina steal things for him.

  “We can’t just let him get away!” Putty protested as we lowered ourselves wearily into chairs in the below-deck drawing room of Rackham’s boat. Mama and Jane had retired already to bed.

  “It’s over,” Rackham said. “Take the victory. Walk away.”

  “What victory?” Putty demanded. “They stole my egg.”

  “And left all of you alive. That’s your victory. They could have killed every one of us.” He sighed. “We can’t fight him. He has a small army and deadly machines, and he intends to conquer Mars. I don’t know if he can do that, but I do know that we are not capable of stopping him. We need to inform the British Martian government of the threat. Let them deal with it.”

  “What about Rothan Gal?” I said. “Do we just let him die?”

  Rackham shrugged. “You can’t save everyone. I’ve fought in a lot of battles. This is not a game. It is a war, and we cannot win.”

  “How about your promise to Freddie?” I said. “You said you owed him. Was that just a lie?”

  “I said I would keep you safe, and I will. But I won’t do that by taking you into a war. This isn’t a negotiation. Tomorrow, I will take the crawler back to Lunae City.” His mouth lifted in its one-sided smile. “We don’t need to hide anymore. We can get help. In the meantime, we should rest. We’ve had a hard day.”

  I looked away. He was right. I hated it, but he was right.

  Putty shot me a bitter look. “This is all your fault, Edward. You gave him my egg. I trusted you.”

  I didn’t answer. The waves were lapping gently against the metal hull of the boat, sounding like leaves brushing against a window. I wondered how long it would take for the water level to rise enough to lift the boat and send it drifting off downstream again. Papa and Rackham didn’t seem to be worried, though, and they ought to know. My eyes started to drift shut. Maybe I’d just sleep here. For a moment. Not too long. A week or two.

  I stood. “I’m going to bed.”

  Tomorrow, we would get word to Captain Kol. Maybe he could figure out how to rescue Rothan Gal. We couldn’t do it alone.

  I pushed open the door to my cabin, dropped onto my bed, and kicked off my shoes. The cool air felt wonderful on my feet. My eyes drifted shut and sleep closed over me.

  My door clicked open. I sat up, my head suddenly pounding. What was it now? Had Dr. Blood come back?

  Putty crept in and shut the door behind her. I fell back on the bed.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Putty rolled her eyes. “Looking for you. Obviously.”

  I rubbed my hand across my eyes. They stung with tiredness. “Go to bed, Putty.”

  “What are we going to do about the spy?” she said.

  “What spy?”

  “The one who broke into Papa’s office and stole his papers. The one who sent up the message in the inertially-guided automatic courier. It had to be Miss Wilkins.”

  “Don’t start that again,” I said. “Your governess is not a spy, and for all we know, one of Dr. Blood’s agents planted the automatic courier on the boat.”

  “That’s absurd, Edward.”

  I had to admit it didn’t sound very likely. How would Dr. Blood know we’d be on the boat at all? But I just didn’t see Miss Wilkins as a spy.

  “It wasn’t Miss Wilkins,” I said. Maybe it had been Mina. I could certainly believe it of her. I could believe anything of her.

  “Well, I’ve got proof,” Putty said stubbornly. “Probably.” She pulled a sheaf of letters from under her shirt. “I stole these from her cabin.”

  I sat up. “You did what? Tell me you haven’t read them.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then put them back. You’ve got no right to read someone else’s letters. They’re private.”

  She looked stubborn. “Are you so sure she isn’t the spy? Are you so sure she hasn’t been stealing from Papa or working with Dr. Blood? They were in the same coffee house at the same time. Is that coincidence?”

  I was too tired for this. All I wanted was to get to sleep. “If I read the letters, will you promise to give up on this nonsense about Miss Wilkins?”

  “Of course,” she said. “But I’m right, you’ll see. The letters will prove it.”

  I took them from her reluctantly. How would I feel if someone was going through my personal letters, finding out all my secrets? Not that I had any letters, or any secrets with Putty around. I unfolded the first letter and read the tiny writing.

  By the time I’d finished, I wished I’d never agreed to this. I put the letters down softly on the bed.

  “She’s not a spy,” I said.

  Putty’s jaw dropped. “What? She’s got to be. You saw what she was up to.” She snatched the letters.

  “She’s married,” I said. Each word seemed heavy as I said it.

  Putty’s eyes widened. Then she leaped off the bed. “Yes! We’ve got her. I’ve won!”

  Mama would never employ a married governess. No one would. It would be completely inappropriate. Miss Wilkins must have known that, so she’d kept it a secret. Living with us in the Flame House, the only chance she’d had to meet her husband was on her evenings off. She’d snuck away to the coffee house to spend a few hours with him. And what was worse, it was clear from the letters that her husband was a native Martian. Mama would think that a complete scandal.

  “We should take these to Mama right away,” Putty said. She was so excited her eyes were almost glowing in the dim cabin.

  “Then what?” I said. “Miss Wilkins will lose her job. No one else will ever employ her when this gets out. She’ll be ruined. I know she’s awful, but she’s only doing what Mama wanted her to and she’s still a person. We can’t just throw her out on the streets to starve. I couldn’t live with that. And nor could you.”

  Putty’s face twisted in anguish. “I can’t let her stay. I can’t! She never lets me do anything.”

  That was true as well. Whatever she said, Putty did need someone to look after her. But not Miss Wilkins. Miss
Wilkins was too strict. She would either crush Putty, or Putty would explode. Putty needed someone who could rescue her from her worst scrapes but not get in the way of her ideas and schemes.

  “We’ll talk about it back in Lunae City,” I said, taking the letters from her.

  Putty glared at me. “You’re supposed to be on my side, Edward. First you give Dr. Blood my dragon’s egg, then this. You’re supposed to be my brother. You’re supposed to care.”

  “I do,” I said.

  “No, you don’t. You haven’t since we got to Lunae City. You haven’t cared about anything I do. If you don’t want to be my brother, then fine. Don’t. I don’t care. I don’t need you.”

  She threw open my door and stamped out into the corridor. I followed her.

  “Leave me alone,” she hissed. “You don’t even care about Rothan Gal or you’d be out there right now finding him.”

  I winced. She was right. I was failing Rothan Gal after I’d promised to help save him. But what else could I do? I felt like it was tearing me in two.

  But all I said was, “You need to get back to your cabin before Miss Wilkins catches you.”

  Putty crossed the corridor, then turned to give me an angry glower, before throwing herself into her cabin and slamming the door behind her. There was still a key in the lock. I slipped across, turned the key, and dropped it into my pocket.

  It would keep her out of trouble until the morning. Maybe then, when we’d all had some sleep, we could figure something out.

  * * *

  I must have been even more exhausted than I’d thought, because I only woke when the bright sun through my porthole worked its way across the cabin to fall on my face. Peering out, I saw the waters of the Martian Nile glittering in the light. The river had risen noticeably overnight, but the ship was still stuck fast on the sandbank.

  Yawning, I pulled on my shoes and ripped jacket, stretched, and wandered out into the corridor. Putty’s door was still locked. I fumbled in my pocket for the key. Putty was going to be furious with me. I just hoped she hadn’t spent the night constructing some awful trap to pay me back when I opened the door. I’d ended up with more than one bucket of water tipped over my head in the past, and once a whole tank full of eel-worms had been dumped down the back of my shirt when I’d burst into her room too quickly.