Arabella of Mars

by David D. Levine

  The captain steadied his elbow upon the forward rail, staring carefully for a long minute. “Perhaps,” he said at last. “Is there any better landing site within”—he glanced up at the balloons again—“three miles?”

  Arabella and Stross exchanged a glance. They had argued long and hard over the charts and Arabella’s memory of the plantation, so much so that his cold civility toward her had threatened to crack. “No, sir,” Stross replied. “Anywhere else is too far from the drying-sheds, or too stony, or too steep. Even if we manage to make a safe landing at any of the other sites, we’d likely never take off again.”

  The captain snapped the telescope shut. “Then I fear we have no alternative but to land there as planned, and prepare to defend the ship if necessary.” He nodded to Richardson. “Distribute the small arms.”

  Arabella stared forward, through the forest of masts and cables, hoping against all hope that she’d been mistaken.

  * * *

  How many times had she traveled this road? Hundreds, certainly; among her earliest memories was awaking on the rocking back of a scuttling huresh, her cheek pressed against her father’s warm leather-clad flank, with the field Martians hooting a greeting as she and her father passed through the outer gate.

  No one greeted them now.

  The gate that drifted past beneath Diana’s keel lay open in silence, the great doors half unhinged and peppered with crossbow bolts. The packed and hardened sand around the gate was scuffed and marked with the tracks of many men, Martians, and beasts, and great dark splashes steamed gently here and there in the slanting late-afternoon sun.

  In a moment the manor house would appear, rising like a pale square sun above the prominence her brother had named Observatory Hill.…

  But the first sight that met Arabella’s eyes above that hill was not nearly so reassuring.

  A thin column of black smoke.

  “No…,” she breathed, her hands clasped beneath her chin.

  But the house, as it began to appear, was not entirely destroyed. The north wing, housing the kitchen and stores, lay in blackened ruins, but the main house with the bedrooms and her father’s—no, Michael’s—office still seemed intact.

  She must not lose hope, she reminded herself.

  “Bring her down,” the captain muttered to Richardson.

  “Back pulsers!” Richardson called.

  From below the deck came the grunting chant of the men at the pedals, followed shortly by a low grinding sound from abaft as the propulsive sails, long silent, began to turn. Soon the grinding had risen in tone, accompanied by the low repetitive rushing sound as the sails themselves sped past. With each rush, a strong breeze swept forward, the moving air bringing the ship’s forward motion to a halt.

  The captain nodded, and Richardson cried, “Out anchors!”

  With a great clatter of wooden pawls, the two sand-anchors, one forward and the other aft, descended rapidly on their thigh-thick ropes. The booming thuds of their contact with the Martian surface below were plainly audible.

  “Belay pulsers! Set anchors and prepare to warp in!”

  The chanting of the men at the pedals ceased, while two airmen hopped over the rails fore and aft and began to shinny down the anchor ropes.

  Arabella looked over the rail, watching the man descending the aft rope dwindle into the distance, recalling her terror as she herself had been lowered over the rail less than two months ago. The distance to the ground had been very much greater then, and her experience very much less. She wondered if, had her sex not been revealed, she would be one of those descending now.

  If she were the one clambering down that rope right now, she thought, she might not be so terrified as she actually was. The certainty of a dangerous task was better than the uncertainty of what she might find in the partly destroyed manor house.

  The man on the rope had now reached the anchor far below. With hands and feet he wedged it firmly into the sand, waving his cap and hallooing.

  “Warp in!”

  A new chant now broke out, closer to hand, as men on deck heaved at the capstans. Bare feet skidding on the polished khoresh-wood of the deck as they hauled in a circle, they wound the great anchor-ropes back onto the hogshead-sized spool belowdecks, pulling Diana gradually down toward the sand.

  Arabella clung to the rail as the deck jerked unsteadily downward, peering anxiously toward the manor house. But there was no motion visible there.

  Despite the vast conspicuous bulk of Diana floating above, despite the creak of the capstans and the plainly audible chanting of the men … no one was hurrying from the manor house to greet them. “Captain…,” she began, but he cut her off with a gesture, barking commands to Richardson as he strode the quarterdeck.

  Stross stepped to the rail next to Arabella. “Where are they?” he muttered to her, gesturing with his chin to the manor house.

  “I do not know,” she responded. “They should certainly be coming out by now, out of curiosity if nothing else.”

  Stross turned from her to address the captain. “I don’t like the look of the situation, sir.”

  The captain’s eyes flicked from the balloons to the anchor-ropes to the horizon. “Understood,” he replied. Then, to Richardson, he said, “Prepare to strike envelopes.”

  A moment later came a long whispering crunch as the ship’s keel settled into the sand, followed by the soft double thuds of the sand-legs touching down. “Strike envelopes!” Richardson cried, and a man at the base of each balloon pulled hard on a slim line that had been kept, up until now, made fast to a cleat.

  A large circular flap opened at the top of each balloon, fluttering like a pennant in the shimmering draft of escaping hot air. Teams of chanting men shepherded the descending loops of fabric and rope into their cabinet as the balloons deflated and collapsed.

  “Well, we’re well and truly landed now,” Stross said, shaking his head.

  Beneath Arabella’s feet, the ship seemed to sigh as she settled deeply into the red sand beneath her keel.

  Just then, a great clattering burst out from the watch-tower at the northeast corner of the manor house—a clatter like the mharesh call with which Martians greeted the dawn, but harsher and more strident.

  A moment later the clatter was joined by other sounds: the harsh rustle of Martian voices, the susurration of feet on sand, and the clash and snap of steel on armored carapaces.

  A huge crowd of Martians boiled from the manor house like angry thuroks from their nest, surging to surround the helpless Diana.

  19

  SURROUNDED

  In every direction Arabella looked, she met glaring eye-stalks, bared swords, and the wicked tines of forked spears. Hundreds of Martians, perhaps even a thousand, surrounded the ship, with more pouring out of the manor house and joining the periphery of the crowd even as she watched.

  But though the Martians were fully armed, every one clad in their bright clan colors, with steel blades fixed to the joints of their carapaces and spikes on every elbow and shoulder, it was the behavior of the men aboard Diana that frightened her more. All along the gangways, and leaning aggressively over every rail, they held pistols and rifles at the ready; many gripped cutlasses and boarding axes. Belowdecks, she was sure, men she could not see were arming themselves as well.

  “Captain,” she importuned, rushing to his side, “you must tell the men not to fire.”

  Stross and Richardson both glared at her. “Miss Ashby,” Richardson replied, “you should retire to your cabin and leave the defense of the ship to the crew. For your own safety.” His dark and furrowed brow put the lie to his protestations of concern.

  The captain’s brow, too, was drawn, but he did not speak. He simply looked to Arabella, apparently awaiting some explanation for her statement.

  “Can’t you see they are not attacking?” she said.

  “I can see the cowards are just waiting until they have us outnumbered twenty to one!” Stross replied with considerable heat, pointing
to the Martians still streaming from the manor house.

  “They are maintaining a distance of twelve korek.” She gestured to the front of the crowd, where a broad red strip of bare sand stretched between the tightly packed Martians and Diana’s hull. Each anchor, as well, was surrounded by a circular bubble strictly empty of Martians. “This is traditional upon meeting a group of strangers in time of conflict. They are awaiting a formal invitation.”

  “A formal invi—!” Stross stammered, going red in the face.

  Arabella turned to the captain. “Please, sir, I beg of you, do not antagonize them. Their customs and formalities are every bit as strict as ours, but a failure of etiquette in this case could result in far more than our ostracization.” Behind him, she could see the mass of Martians packing tighter and tighter, their spears held aloft and quivering with rage.

  “Sir, I must protest!” said Richardson, but the captain silenced him with a gesture.

  “What would you suggest we do, Miss Ashby?”

  “We must invite their rukesh—their leaders—aboard, and permit them to inspect the ship. They will be quite thorough. We must also present them with gifts. Parchment and whisky are traditional.”

  “Parchment!” sputtered Stross. “Sir, are you seriously considering entrusting the ship’s safety to the mad advice of this girl? What use have these savages for parchment?”

  Arabella turned to him and spat, “Do you not know your history, sir? It was Captain Kidd himself, on the very first English voyage to Mars, who discovered the Martians’ fondness for it.” She returned her attention to the captain. “Any form of leather will do, sir, but parchment, well-inked and well-handled, is best. I believe there are some charts of the Venusian approach that could be spared. And the whisky should be of the very best quality.”

  Richardson’s eyes had gone wide with astonishment. “And if we do not perform this ridiculous ceremony?”

  “They will inspect the ship, sir,” she told him, “one way or another. If they are not invited aboard they will force their way inside, and their inspection in that case will not be courteous. And if they are offered violence they will respond in kind. But if we observe the proper forms, the inspection will cause no damage.”

  “Sir!” Richardson protested again, and again the captain gestured him to silence. But he did not speak—he merely looked out over the surging crowds of Martians, brow furrowed and lips pressed tightly together.

  Finally he turned back to Arabella. “You were born and raised here?”

  “Up to the age of sixteen, sir. You must believe me, sir.”

  Just then one of the Martians stepped forward into the cleared area, raised her spear above her head, and chuttered out a statement whose meaning Arabella could only guess at. Arabella’s command of the language was spotty at best, she knew, and between regional dialect and excess of emotion this Martian’s speech was nearly unintelligible to her.

  “What’s that he said?” Stross demanded of her.

  She turned and looked at him. The entire quarterdeck had fallen silent, all eyes fixed on her, none more intensely than the captain’s.

  “She requests that a party be allowed on board to inspect the ship,” she said. It was almost certainly the Martians’ desire, even if not a translation of the actual words. “I don’t know how much longer they will wait.” That much, at least, was completely true.

  For a long moment the captain’s intense brown eyes inspected her face. Then he turned to Richardson. “Mr. Richardson, you will do exactly as Miss Ashby suggests, without hesitation or compromise. That is an order, Mr. Richardson. Do you understand?”

  Richardson’s face darkened, jaw quivering, but then, between clenched teeth, he muttered, “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Arabella swallowed and addressed the captain. “May I give them the charts of the Venusian approach, sir? They will … they will not be returned.”

  “Yes. And the whisky. How much will be needed?”

  “One bottle will be sufficient, I should think.” She looked out over the crowd, whose agitation was visibly growing. “We must make haste.”

  As quickly as her skirts would allow, Arabella hurried to the great cabin, where she shoved Aadim aside and extracted the rolled charts from the cubby behind his desk. “Excuse me,” she whispered to him, though his green glass eyes bore no reproach.

  Emerging from the great cabin, she met Stross on the deck. “Here’s your whisky,” he said, holding out a heavy cut-glass decanter about three-quarters full of a dark amber liquid. “It’s Ledaig, from my own private stock. The very best.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she replied. “I am certain the Martians will be duly impressed.” She was surprised at the confidence she heard in her own voice.

  “If this doesn’t work,” he muttered in her ear as he handed the bottle over, “I’ll kill you myself.”

  She chose to behave as though she had not heard his words.

  * * *

  Arabella, the captain, and Richardson descended to the hold, where the cargo hatch had already been unsealed. Even as they arrived, two burly carpenter’s mates knocked out the last of the wedges and swiveled the hatch open, letting in the clattering sound and dusty cinnamon odor of the crowd of Martians. Four airmen then ran out the gangplank, which raised a puff of red dust as its end thudded to the sand some yards below.

  The Martians grew silent. No one moved.

  The captain spoke low to Arabella. “What do we do now?”

  “I believe we should meet them on the sand,” she said with as much confidence as she could muster.

  Arabella’s knees wobbled as she made her way down the steeply canted gangplank. She tried to tell herself it was because of the unaccustomed gravity. Ahead of her, the captain’s long dark hands gripped each other tightly behind the broad back of his best uniform coat. Behind her Richardson followed, muttering under his breath, the stopper of the whisky decanter rattling gently with his steps. Arabella herself held the rolled chart ahead of herself as though it were an offering, minding her footing carefully—her absurd ladylike slippers offered little purchase on the well-worn boards.

  They arrived at the bottom, and finally she felt beneath her feet the familiar cool crunch of Martian sand. For how many months had she longed for this moment—her return to Mars, to Woodthrush Woods, to the sands of her birth. And yet she had never dreamed that the situation might be any thing near as dire as this.

  Four Martians stepped forward from the crowd, the blue and gold tassels on their hats marking them as the group’s rukesh. They paused before the three humans. Arabella, the captain, and then, hesitantly, Richardson each dropped to one knee, backs straight and heads held high, a formal Martian posture of greeting which Arabella had thought might be the most appropriate under the circumstances. The Martians glanced at each other, then bowed in the English fashion, which Arabella took as a good sign.

  The captain returned to a standing position. “We are aware,” he said in his deep clear carrying voice, “that we are an armed group entering disputed territory in time of conflict. In accordance with ancient Martian custom, we offer you hospitality”—here he gestured behind him to Arabella and Richardson, who likewise stood—“and invite you to inspect our ship.” The wording was something that he and Arabella had worked out, based on her recollections of Khema’s lessons in Martian history. She hoped that she recalled those lessons better than she did the Scripture verses she’d gotten from her mother.

  The Martians did not respond. They only continued to exchange glances among themselves, their eye-stalks twisting independently.

  Arabella’s heart pounded, and she felt a trickle of sweat run down her side. Did these Martians even speak English? If not, she feared that her small command of Khema’s tribal dialect would be entirely inadequate to diplomacy.

  Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward and extended the rolled chart to the nearest Martian.

  The Martian took it, the worn brown vellum crinkling in her hard, jointed
hands, and inspected it carefully, the other Martians watching her with great interest. Then she unrolled the chart a bit, tore a palm-sized square from the corner, and crammed the torn-off corner in her mouth.

  Beside Arabella, the captain’s back stiffened, while Richardson gave a small but audible gasp. But though Arabella had expected nothing else, she now waited with her heart in her throat for the Martian’s response.

  The black lidless eyes seemed to glaze over as she chewed, the hard champing mouth-parts making short work of the soft translucent vellum. When it had been completely consumed, the Martian tore off additional bits and gave them to her compatriots, who devoured them with equal concentration.

  “The whisky,” Arabella whispered urgently to Richardson, who stepped forward with the decanter. The glass stopper continued to clatter even after he came to a halt, and she realized he was terrified. The captain still exuded confidence, his back straight and chest elevated, but after so many weeks in close quarters she could see from his tight-set jaw just how concerned he was.

  One of the Martians took the whisky from Richardson and, after peering minutely at the bottle, delicately extracted the stopper with two sharp pincer-like fingers. She then took a small but deliberate sip, and after contemplating the flavor passed the bottle to the others.

  The decanter was returned to Richardson, who nearly dropped it in his nervousness. The chart they kept. The rukesh then conferred among themselves, their low susurrations and clatters meaningless to Arabella.

  Suddenly they turned, as one, and bowed to the humans. “We thanks for you hospitality gifts,” said the one with the purple hat in heavily accented English. “We accepts you inspecting invitation.” She then turned to the mob behind her and called out a long chuttering statement, which was received with low clatters and rustles. A large group of Martians then detached themselves from the crowd and moved purposefully forward, forcing the captain, Arabella, and Richardson to step aside or be trampled.

  “Be sure to remind the men not to interfere with the Martians under any circumstances!” Arabella told the captain as the Martians clattered up the gangplank.