“We are high,” I said, noting the thinner atmosphere.
“Yes,” the Mighty answered, and pointed ahead, over the rise, as my horse settled in beside his.
I gasped, and for a moment held my breath before whispering, “Oh my...”
The Mighty sat up straight on his horse, beaming. “I knew you would like it!”
Below us, in a bowl formed by our hill and others surrounding, was a mythical place from my childhood:
One of the places of the Old Ones.
The series of tall red smoke stacks gave it away immediately. The myth was that they were always in threes, and here were three sets of three stacks, as well as smaller sets of three around the perimeter of the site. Some of the stacks looked as if they had been through war. There were many buildings, some of them crumbling, some at least partially intact.
“Can we go down?” I asked.
“Of course. I suppose you will insist that the Old Ones built it.”
“They did.”
He shook his head and rode on.
The path down was a treacherous one, and more than once my horse slipped on rocks and pieces of debris that had been scattered by whatever calamity had befallen the site. There was a metal gate and fence at the bottom in a woven pattern, but torn and blasted apart in places. We entered through a wide open area where the fence was completely gone.
A building loomed ahead, silhouetting three massive chimneys behind it, one of which was unscathed. The other two had been nearly cut in half.
The building, made of blocks of sandstone with many broken windows, had a gaping hole in one wall. The Mighty pointed to it and said, “We can go in there. But you must leave your horse here.”
We dismounted and I followed him.
I passed broken pieces of machinery, a pile of broken wall.
Inside it was gloomy and cool.
I noted the many switches on the pitted walls. There was electrical cable everywhere, the skeletal wrecks of huge unknown machines – large vats, a perfectly square riveted metal monstrosity that rose nearly to the ceiling, where a series of catwalks, most of them partially destroyed, crisscrossed under strings of broken light fixtures.
“Most of the buildings look like this one,” the Mighty said, shrugging. “But I had no doubt you would find it interesting.”
“Do you know what this was used for?”
“Rubbish, no doubt,” he answered, kicking at dusty coil of frayed cable.
“There is a legend...”
He laughed, the sound sending a booming echo through the building. “There is always a legend, Ransom. For everything. That does not make it true.”
I was half listening to him, wandering on ahead. There were a series of rooms cut into the far wall, and I made my way to them, skirting two tall pillars studded with dials and switches.
“We cannot stay here forever, Ransom,” the Mighty said, behind me.
I noted the impatience in his voice but went on.
The first room was filled with what had once been furniture: metal desks and chairs missing legs. I had no doubt that whatever was useful had long been carted away by the Mighty’s people and other scavengers.
The second room was empty of everything save a carpet of dust, in the midst of which were a perfect set of strange footprints which led to the far wall and then back again – they were short and broad, like a naked cat somehow deformed.
“Ransom! We must go soon!” the Mighty called to me. I looked back to see him studying the ground idly.
I entered the third room.
It was shadowed, the windows blocked by more furniture which had been hastily assembled here – a desk on its side, bookcases –
Bookcases!
My heart raced for a moment, and I stepped my way over rubble to the partially visible furniture. In front of the two cases were piled chairs, and I pushed these aside until their pyramid crumbled and I was able to climb over what was left.
The left bookcase was bare, but the right one held two volumes in the lower shelf.
I strained to reach them.
The Mighty’s voice, suddenly close and sharp, hissed behind me. “Do not move, Ransom.”
I froze with my hands on one of the books, and turned my head to see a pair of emerald eyes in a shadowed face staring intently at me.
I turned my head a few millimeters more and saw the Mighty in my peripheral vision, frozen in place, his attention focused on the creature as he slowly removed something from within his robes.
He made a sign of silence, a finger to his lips.
The green eyes brightened, like two miniature green suns, and the thing leaped out of the shadows at me, hissing loudly. I saw long teeth and a broad snout and ears pressed back against its near-naked skull, and two gigantic paws full of saber-like claws flashing silver to either side–
Something hummed through the air, and the creature gave a startled cry of anguish and fell at my feet, its body tangling with a broken chair. It gave a rattling long gasp of pain and then was silent.
“A wild cat,” the Mighty said, stepped to remove his weapon, a long, wide blade handled in what looked like polished junto wood which I had never seen before, from the monster’s neck. He wiped the blade on his robe and then replaced it in the folds within. He cocked his head sideways to study the beast. “Not a particularly agile looking one, but he would have killed you.”
I looked from the dead carcass, resembling a cat only in superficial ways – it was smaller, its pelt thinner, the head narrower. I had only seen pictures of them. They never stood on two legs, and had been deemed long ago animals by our scientists, a rogue turn in development.
“Thank you,” I said.
He waved a hand in dismissal. “Come. We must go.”
“In a moment.”
I reached over the dead body of the beast to retrieve the two books. One of them, I saw to my disappointment, was only an empty binder, but the other was a real volume.
The Mighty had stopped in the doorway, and turned to regard my treasure.
“Why do you go after such trifles?”
“It is not rubbish.”
He started to speak, and then held his tongue. “Come. We must ride back now before twilight comes.”
That night I studied my treasure in my tent by lamplight. Myra and young Hera, intrigued by anything new, at first professed interest, but when they saw that each page was merely filled with scribblings much like the last, they grew bored and left me alone.
The language was similar to our own, but difficult to understand. Other such books had been discovered, but they were very rare. From what I knew, the ones that had lasted were made of fine paper and preserved in dry climates. I knew in my heart that I held an artifact of the Old Ones in my hand.
I had hoped for pictures, but there were only a few diagrams and charts. The book’s title, Fuel Sources from the Martian Subsurface, was meaningless to me, though I quickly gathered it had something to do with science.
An inscription in handwriting on the flyleaf was intriguing: To Ben, Who Travels a Long Way for Love of a Planet, from Mother and Father.
Much of the rest consisted of discussions of how much of various elements, such as oxygen, was locked in the planet’s soil, and how to remove it. The pages were very brittle, some of them flaking apart in my hands, so, after I while, I thought it best to put away my treasure, and did so.
That night, curling into my bed, I dreamed of an Old One named Ben, and of tall clean spires and working machines, and plants nearly as tall, sprouting huge leaves showing the faces of ancients.
Seven
Another month passed, and my belly grew to term. We had reached the central highlands, and the equatorial weather was warmer. There were pasture lands here among the dry plains, and no desert to speak of except in strange oasis which sprouted like dusty pits in our path. The caravan had again doubled in size, and seemed more like a traveling circus than the ragtag army it was. I observed one raid on a convoy
of L’aag tribesmen from the west traveling in steam motor vehicles; the Mighty and his fifty or so soldiers, men and women, swooped down from our hill position and routed them within minutes. Not a gunshot was fired, not an arrow or blade used, and the convoy was soon on its way again, bereft of tribute.
The Mighty rode up the hill whooping like a schoolboy, carrying something long and colorful in his hand. He jumped from his horse beside me where I lay nested on a bed of pillows, belly taut as a drum, and held it up triumphantly.
“A present for you, Ransom!”
He bowed and handed me the hat, a ridiculous thing of purple silk and a long yellow veil. I tried not to laugh.
“You don’t like it? Then I will give it to one of my harem!”
He dropped it on the ground beside him as he sat down.
“So, Ransom, tell me, when will the kit be born?”
“Any day now,” I answered. Feeling a pang in my belly I added, “Perhaps any hour.”
“And you are being tended to?”
“Overly tended to. Your harem bother me by the hour with their attentions.”
“You are not hungry?”
The thought made me gag. “No. Nor thirsty much, either.”
“But you do drink?”
“Yes. A little.” I thought of the bitter-tasting gemel tea, stronger and more bitter tasting than usual, that young Hera had brought me an hour before, and had insisted I drink. I had not felt quite well since.
Suddenly the pains came very strong in my stomach, and I clutched myself and tried to breathe–
“I’m afraid–” I began.
And then blackness dropped down upon me.
I awoke with terrible, dull pain.
It was still daylight, though much later by the height of the sun. I lay in my tent, on a mound of blood-stained pillows. Immediately I knew that something was not right.
Myra came in, carrying a bowl of water, and her eyes flared open to see me.
She dropped the water bowl and ran out.
“What–” I tried to say, but discovered I could barely speak.
I awoke again with my head cradled in Myra’s lap.
“Do not try to speak,” she ordered gently.
“My kits–”
“They are gone,” she said. “There were three, two male, one female.”
“What–”
“Shh, do not speak. The Mighty will speak with you later.”
I looked up into her face. There was a strange, distant, faraway look in her eyes.
Suddenly overwhelmed, I tried to cry, but the pain was so intense that I could only go to blackness again.
A third time awake, this time night.
It was warm, and I felt a limpid breeze on my face. My fever was gone. Mya was still there, curled on the ground beside me, asleep.
The breeze blew the tent flaps open, and I saw the Mighty standing there, staring in at me, stone-faced.
“You’ve come to see me,” I said.
He nodded, but would not enter the tent.
“What happened?” I asked.
“What happened is to my eternal shame. To think that I protected you these two months, only to let something happen right under my nose.”
“What...”
“There have been many prayers, and a Noon and two Moon ceremonies.” He turned away. “I hope someday to be forgiven.”
He heard me try to speak and said in a pained, angry voice. “She slept with you under the same roof! And to think she was part of my harem!”
He beat his breast viciously with his fisted paw.
He lowered his head. “She has been dealt with. She was the daughter of my cousin Depal. The F’rar took him prisoner while we were in the south and threatened to behead him if she did not return to our caravan and try to kill you. She waited until you were to give kit, thinking you would be weaker. The gemel tea she gave you was laced with maroot. There was enough to kill two men. But the brunt of it went to the kits, who died as I watched them. Myra delivered them and I watched while they died cradled in her arms. I cried! They will be buried in the morning, if you will allow my own ceremonies instead of your own. I am told it will be two days before you can rise.”
He covered his eyes and wept. “I am so ashamed.”
I could feel myself slipping back down into unconsciousness, but I managed to get out, “Don’t be...”
He walked away without acknowledging my words, and then Hera was awake beside me, putting a wet cloth to my brow as I went back to blackness and dreams of dead children.
Eight
Months passed, and winter was gone.
The moderate equator temperatures were beginning to flee, leaving a dry, blistering heat during the day and little relief at night. The caravan was packing, readying for the spring trip south and dispersal. In the end, after the various families of the clan had peeled off to their various ancestral homes, the Mighty would be left with the small band of family and harem he had ruled when I first met him.
He had become distant in the preceding months, praying much, aloof at other times. His attitude toward me had not cooled, but it was as if a part of him, out of shame or honor or something else, had been shut off the day I lost my kits. In the beginning he stayed away out of respect, but after a while I felt there was something else, more deeply rooted, that kept him distant.
But I had not spent my time looking at the past. Each day I set aside a time for grief, and indulged myself. But I found that, as the weeks went on, the time I needed became less and less. The kits I had never known would always hold a place in my heart, but it was as if that hollow hole was mending, leaving a tight, hard scar behind.
The rest of my time was well spent, also. I learned all I could about the ways of these nomads. Myra and I had grown as close as sisters, and I learned much about cooking from her and a fellow lately arrived named Hermes who, of all the clan, might be considered a chef. There were spices he used, gathered in his trips to the north, that were unknown even to Myra, and I watched with much amusement as she tried to glean these secrets from him with everything from flattery to threats of force. All the while Hermes would laugh, shaking his ample belly (he did like his own cooking) and waggle a claw-bitten finger at her.
“Never! Ne-ver will you find that out! Disguise yourself, Myra! Sneak up north like I did!” And then he would throw back his head and laugh as she hurled curses at him.
My body healed slowly, but well. In the end I became hard and strong, my face weathered and my muscles taut. I learned to ride much better, and I learned how to use weapons, and how to fight with my claws and my teeth if need be. I immersed myself in these things in the beginning to forget – but, after a while, when my heart began to heal also, I found that I gained a new strength from them.
When the Mighty and I did talk during dinner, it was not the same as before. I found that I missed these exchanges, and tried to re-ignite their fervor, but always he seemed to have his mind on other things. In the end I decided that we had become like a couple married too long. There was nothing left to say.
I didn’t really believe this, of course.
We had our first real discussion since the loss of my kits on the evening before departure. The wagons were loaded, the horses weighted with booty and foodstuffs, the tents packed. We would sleep this night under the stars. The sun had just set, leaving a deep purple mantle across the west. It was a beautiful twilight. Overhead Phobos moved like a slow tiny beacon. Moon ceremonies were being held and, having seen them more times than I could imagine, and knowing that, in their huge circle, noses pressed to the dust, they would be praying for a safe journey, good fortune and fine weather, I chose instead to study the horizon.
The Mighty joined me without my knowing it. One moment I was alone, and then he was there, beside me.
“You left the Moon Circle early,” I said, letting a teasing hint of scolding enter my voice.
“Yes,” he said, seriously. “There are things we must discuss, Ransom
.”
In the darkness I turned to regard him. He was staring straight ahead, and his voice sounded strange – tense and almost nervous.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He looked at me then, and I saw a look I had never seen before on his features – he was at a loss for words!
“If there’s something you must tell me, hadn’t you better start by opening your mouth?” I tried to be kind, but couldn’t keep the teasing tone in check.
“Don’t mock me!” he shouted.
Instantly I said, “I’m sorry,” and for the first time since I had known him, I put my paw on his arm. “What’s wrong?”
“You cannot come with us, Ransom. Unless...”
I waited for him to go on, but again he was tongue-tied.
“You’re leaving me behind?”
“Anything but that!” he said. “This is very difficult for me...”
“Take your time,” I said. “I’m listening.”
He nodded. “Yes, that is very good. You always did listen, from the first time I saw you, smelling like bad red wine.”
I smiled and he laughed. “I feel better now, and will ask you!”
He turned to face me, and something clutched in my heart.
“We have a way with our people–” he began, but I cut him off.
“You’re going to ask me to join your harem!”
He stopped with his mouth open. “I–”
Flustered, I began to get up.
He took my arm, gently but firmly, and pulled me back down.
“Please listen to me before you speak!”
He was so upset that I complied.
“All right,” I said.
He began again: “We have a way with our people. The clan leader, like me, has his harem when he is young, and foolish. And then, as the old women say, he becomes even more foolish and falls in love. And this one becomes his Queen, and the harem is disbanded forever. This is the way it is.”
He stopped, but I said nothing so he went on, now looking directly at me. “When I found you, you were with another man’s kit and I had no right of design on you. This was a matter of honor and law. When you lost your kit...”
Haydn of Mars Page 6