Amidst Dark Satanic Mills (Folkestone & Hand Interplanetary Steampunk Adventures Book 2)

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  Both men grunted as once again their acceleration outpaced the ability of the gravity plates to compensate.

  “Did our work too well, did we?” Folkestone mused.

  “It appears so, sir.”

  “Damn!”

  A brilliant light flared behind them, obliterating the stars. The rear viewer dimmed automatically and they saw a rapidly expanding sphere of scintillating light. Within it, streamers of brilliant bluish-white fire writhed almost as if they were living things, animate at the heart of the expanding inferno. It was unlike anything either man had ever before seen.

  “I had hoped we would be able to…” Folkestone started to say.

  Then the concussion wave struck. They understood why the pirate craft had vacated the region with all possible speed.

  “Son of a…”

  The Martian’s words were lost as unbreakable metal was torn asunder by an irresistible sheer, as the hull of their fleeing craft was crushed by the force released in the unintended destruction. The boilers used to power ship operations and impulse jets were shattered, freeing the super-heated liquid within. Likewise, the motive forces bound within the aether-engines were released in an uncontrolled chain reaction. The Sky Dancer spun out of control. It vanished into the deep and endless night of space, its shattered hull wreathed about with bright luminous strands that seemed to writhe with a strange animation.

  ***

  Martin awoke drenched in cold sweat. At first he thought the screams came from his own lips, then realized they echoed only in the caverns of his mind. He sat up and looked around.

  He was alone in his quarters. Screams faded into terrifying murmurs in his mind. For the first time, he wondered about the fear felt by his victims, at the last. He had never believed in ghosts, but was wavering. Voices plagued his waking hours, making it hard to maintain a pretence of normality. They were worse when he slept. Dreams no longer brought comfort. What had once been a redoubt against a hostile world was now a prison. He avoided designated sleep cycles until exhaustion left him no alternative.

  Martin slipped out of bed. He glanced at the aether-radio’s hiding place. It had been silent too long, but he dared not initiate contact. Plagued by doubts, assailed by fears long buried, tormented by thoughts that were not his own, Martin found it hard to control his murderous impulses.

  Red streams flowing through the night…

  The black Sun calls you…

  Martin reached under his bed, pulled a long-bladed knife from its hiding place. He flew out the doorway. The knife slashed and flashed. Blood geysered. Red rivers rolled through corridors of the station, sanguinary rapids that carried the bodies of his foes to the house of darkness and dust.

  Then he found himself in the observation dome.

  The sky was red, awash with the blood of a dying universe, and the Sun was black. Its ebony streamers weaved through crimson space, then reached for him. The black tentacles snaked though the Mills, but the collectors were, Martin saw, shattered and protruded out the ground like broken black fingers. The ropy limbs of the black Sun surged across the plain, passed through the walls of the station, and grabbed him. He screamed and slashed at them with his knife, but nothing he did could keep them from gabbing his soul.

  “Martin!” a voice snapped with authority. “Are you all right?”

  Martin looked up and saw Mr Laplace staring at him. He was alone in the room and there was no knife in his hand. Space was black and the Sun was as it always was, dominant and unmoving above the plain where the dark satanic Mills did what they were designed to do. There was no blood on the floor, not a drop.

  “What…”

  “You’ve had a somnambulist nightmare,” Laplace said. “Go to your quarters and stay there.”

  “Something has happened,” Martin whispered.

  “Yes, there has been an incident,” Laplace confirmed. “But it has nothing to do with you. Return to your quarters. Now.”

  Martin nodded, turned and shambled away, wishing the knife had not existed only in dream.

  Chapter 10

  Captain Robert Folkestone’s eyelids slowly opened. A vague mist hung before him like a diaphanous veil. Through the haze he saw the luminous face of an angel.

  I am in Heaven, he thought. I’ve died and gone to ruddy Heaven. How the deuce did that happen? Wait half a mo’…

  The angel’s face was replaced by the misshapen features of a hideous grinning demon.

  “Bloody hell!” Folkestone exclaimed.

  The faces of good and evil floated side by side.

  “Ah, you’ve awakened,” the angel said. “Finally.”

  “Cynthia?” he murmured; then: “Lady Cynthia…”

  “You gave us quite a turn, sir.”

  “Hand?”

  Folkestone, realizing he was flat on his back, tried to pull to a sitting position. He was restrained from doing so, but even if his friends had not held him, he doubted he would have got very far before falling back into what he now knew was a hospital bed. In all his life, he had never before felt so fatigued and sore. He shut his eyes against the pain and concentrated on not passing out.

  “Am I dead?”

  “Not quite,” Lady Cynthia replied. “But the bookmakers of Syrtis Major weren’t taking any bets.”

  “A hair’s breadth it was, sir,” Hand said.

  Folkestone shifted his head so that the Martian’s wide homely face swam into view. “You look as bad as I feel.”

  “You’d have been worse off if Sergeant Hand had not got you into an excursion suit,” Lady Cynthia snapped. “You owe Sergeant Hand your life…again.”

  “The ship, it was hit by…” The memory of the craft crushing around him came back with painful clarity. “How did…”

  “Thank these Highlander lungs of mine, sir,” Hand boasted, thumping his barrel chest as if it were indeed a barrel. “Got you into a suit, then just made it into mine before everything blew. But even that would’ve been no good if Captain Wax and Lady Cynthia had not raced back to find us after that energy wave what hit us finally dissipated.”

  “Pandora? Anything left of it?” Folkestone asked.

  “Not much, sir.”

  “You two did much too good a job in shutting the place down,” Lady Cynthia said. “Best we can figure, it would have taken an hour to power up their defenses again, but they were trying to get a jump on that by transferring energy from some point near the Sun.”

  “Any idea on where it originated?” Folkestone asked.

  Hand shook his head. “Wasn’t Mercury.”

  “The best readings were from the instruments on your own ship but those were in even worse condition that you two,” Lady Cynthia said. “Our people are still trying to sort it all out.”

  Folkestone frowned. He wondered exactly whom she meant by ‘our people,’ but decided not to ask. His head felt bad enough already without adding conundrum to concussion.

  “Nor have we been able to puzzle out just what form of energy it was,” she added. “Certainly nothing to do with gravity, the aether, electromagnetism, or any aspect of kinetic or mechanical energy.”

  “It hit the station on Pandora, would have charged it up for another bout of that blasted space lightning, which would have cooked our goose right proper, but it had nowhere to go,” Hand said. “Those antennae were collectors of some kind, so with them destroyed they couldn’t control what they got.”

  “We would rather have had a chance to examine the station.”

  “But we’d be brown bread, wouldn’t we?”

  “Yes, there is that,” Lady Cynthia admitted. “We’re very glad you survived.” She glanced at Folkestone and raised a mischievous eyebrow. “Both of you. But we really would have liked a closer look at the facility, had a chance to suss it out, see how it relates to the information in the Poulpe documents.”

  “No survivors?”

  “Rather!” Then she frowned. “Of course, it’s had to say if it was manned at all. No remains.”
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  “Automated?” Folkestone asked.

  She shrugged. “It seems unlikely, but it is a possibility. The purpose of the station could have been nothing more than to study ways to collect, channel and utilize the energy being beamed from elsewhere.”

  “So the ‘space lightning’ could have been a byproduct rather than an intention?” Folkestone suggested.

  “Just a means to destroy intruders the Black Sails failed to drive off or plunder,” Lady Cynthia agreed.

  “What about the Black Sails?”

  “A few escaped, but most ended up being hoisted on their own petards, so to speak, caught in the energy wave,” she explained. “A ship took after us, but the Agamemnon came to our aid, escorted us back into the Belt.”

  “I was never so glad to see anything when the Princess of Mars hove into view,” Hand blurted. “Still a daft name, it is, but a bloody good sight she was.” He blushed. “Pardon my language, Your Ladyship.”

  Lady Cynthia smiled. “Quite all right, Sergeant. After spitting in the eye of the Grim Reaper, you’re due some latitude.”

  “So, the Princess snatched us from an icy death?”

  “Aye, sir,” Hand confirmed. “Faster and more maneuverable than the Agamemnon, plus they was watching out for pirates.”

  “The Agamemnon remained on site,” Lady Cynthia said. “It is now acting as the base ship for the two science vessels and the ships providing security.”

  “Security?”

  “The explosion was visible from most of the Belt, Mars and the Outer Moons,” she explained. “Also, it disrupted the orbits of most of the asteroids in the region, causing navigation problems.”

  “Debris?”

  “Some, but the main problem is in the aether.”

  Folkestone propped himself on his elbows. “The aether?”

  “The energy wave from Pandora seems to have locally warped the fabric of the aether,” she answered. “Perhaps permanently.”

  “How is that possible?” Folkestone gasped. Two of the main properties of the aether were is pervasiveness, its ability to permeate space and all forms of matter, and its immutability—it was possible to cause a deformity in the aether for a instant, but there was no known way to maintain it. “Is it a localized phenomenon?”

  “Thankfully, yes,” she breathed. “Ships entering the debris field are limited to impulse jets, the aether engines will not function. If the damage were to expand, the Belt would become impossible to reach from Mars and the Outer Moons would be cut off. Fortunately it seems restricted to a sphere a thousand miles in diameter. The only positive aspect is that it is helping us to keep curiosity seekers out of the region.”

  Folkestone settled back into bed with a sigh. “I take it I’m back on Mars?”

  “Syrtis Major Royal Hospital.”

  “How long?”

  “Six days.”

  Bloody hell, he thought and tried to get out of bed.

  “Robert Folkestone, don’t you dare try to get out of that bed!” Lady Cynthia exclaimed. “The doctors have not released you, and you don’t have any trousers on!”

  Folkestone scurried back under the sheets.

  Sergeant Hand grinned.

  “I am releasing myself,” Folkestone asserted. “And if you don’t want to be shocked, you should leave.”

  “I doubt you could shock me, Captain.”

  Folkestone blushed. “Sergeant, bring me my clothes.”

  “Stay where you are, Sergeant,” Lady Cynthia said.

  “That is an order, Sergeant Hand.”

  “Don’t you dare, Sergeant Hand.”

  Hand stood where he was, watching his two favorite humans glare at each other. He had suppressed his earlier grin, but it was trying to fight its way back onto his battered face.

  “Sergeant,” said Folkestone.

  “Sergeant,” warned Lady Cynthia.

  “Me, I’m just an old soldier who don’t know no better than to carry out orders,” Hand muttered as he made his way to the storage locker at the far corner of the room.

  “Don’t you dare, Sergeant Hand.”

  The Martian’s hand hovered near the latch.

  “Get my clothes!”

  “As you were!”

  “Well, I see you’re finally back with us,” Admiral Barrington-Welles blustered as he entered the hospital room. “About blooming time, wouldn’t you say?”

  Sergeant Hand breathed a sigh of relief.

  “You are absolutely right, sir,” Folkestone said. He looked to Hand. “You have your orders, Sergeant.”

  “Father, tell Sergeant Hand to stay where he is.”

  “What seems to be the problem?” the Admiral asked.

  Hand shrugged and made a helpless gesture.

  “Captain Folkestone is dead set on discharging himself from hospital,” Lady Cynthia explained. “He’s trying to force Sergeant Hand to get his clothes so he can leave.”

  “Seems like a good idea,” the Admiral said.

  “What?” Lady Cynthia exclaimed.

  “We can’t very well have one of our officers running starkers through the streets of Syrtis Major, can we?” the Admiral quipped.

  “Sir!”

  “Father!”

  “Right you are, sir,” Hand agreed, pulling Folkestone’s uniform from the locker and giving it an enthusiastic brushing down. “The Court of the Red Prince is right conservative about things like that. Next thing you know, people would be claiming Captain Folkestone done spent too much time with a savage Highlander.”

  “Shut up, Hand, and give me my uniform!”

  “Right away, sir.”

  “Captain Folkestone has not been discharged,” Lady Cynthia protested.

  “I am discharging myself.”

  “I’m afraid you haven’t the authority to do that,” the Admiral pointed out.

  “Thank you, Father,” Lady Cynthia said smirking triumphantly.

  “Sir!” Folkestone pleaded.

  “But go ahead and get dressed, Captain,” Admiral Barrington-Welles continued, ignoring the smoldering eyes of his daughter. “I talked to the nursing sister on the way in, and the doctor will release you as soon as he makes sure you’re not seeing double or anything like that.”

  Folkestone glanced at Hand and shuddered.

  Hand regarded Folkestone with narrowed eyes and tossed him his clothes.

  “Captain Folkestone has been through quite an ordeal and has just regained consciousness,” Lady Cynthia reminded her father. “If he starts banging around Syrtis Major too soon he’s bound to fall on his beak or topple into a canal.”

  “Is that anyway for a lady to speak?” her father chided. “As it happens, Captain Folkestone is going to have a chance to enjoy some complete rest the next three days.”

  “With two assassins prowling the city gunning for him and Sergeant Hand?” she demanded. “Somehow, I doubt ‘rest’ is on his agenda. He probably plans on searching for…”

  “Actually, Captain Folkestone and Sergeant Hand will have little to do but rest on the journey to Mercury,” the Admiral said.

  “Mercury?” Hand and Folkestone exclaimed.

  “Mercury?” Lady Cynthia murmured.

  “You know how boring space travel can be,” the Admiral said. “Time for some recreational reading perhaps.”

  “Mercury?” Folkestone repeated softly, disbelievingly. He still held his uniform, waiting for a measure of privacy.

  “Speaking of recreational reading,” Admiral Barrington-Welles said, reaching into his tunic. He withdrew several penny-dreadfuls bound together with a length of twine, which he tossed to Hand. “My batman recently cleaned out my office and found these squirreled away in various chairs, behind bureaus, and under a rug. No one knows where they came from, but I understand you rather enjoy this kind of thing.”

  Hand colored, forced a wan smile, but remained silent.

  “Seemed a shame to just toss them in the dustbin,” the Admiral remarked. “So, I thought you and
the Captain might enjoy them during the run in to Mercury.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Hand muttered, taking the proffered books, then moving them out of sight. “Very thoughtful. Much obliged. I’ll give them a try.”

  “You’re quite welcome, Sergeant,” he said, grinning slyly.

  “Why in God’s name are we being sent to Mercury, sir?”

  “Our engineers have finished analyzing the instruments from the wreck of the Sky Dancer—valiant little craft that—and it seems Sergeant Hand was quite right in his original assertion about it coming from near the Sun, but not from Mercury,” the Admiral said. “It’s taken our best scientists several days to come up with the same idea, but they’ve narrowed the origin to a region between Mercury and the Sun, but not from any ship or artificial satellite.”

  Folkestone groaned. “Not that old chestnut.”

  Sergeant Hand sighed in agreement. The idea of an intra-Mercurial planet, a small body orbiting almost in the Sun’s fiery corona, had been bandied about for awhile, but remained unproven. Astronomical observation that close to the Solar System’s central fire was difficult and physical exploration was perilous. While no one had actually disproved the existence of the innermost planet, not at all surprising since proving a negative was a fool’s quest, the idea periodically gained new life due to one-shot observations by planet-bound astronomers, not to mention tall tales related by drunken spacers in taverns on a dozen worlds.

  “That ‘old chestnut’ may be the key to this whole mystery and the MEDUSA organization,” the Admiral pointed out. “And it may have been what Poulpe intended when he wrote ‘Hephaestus’ in the notes you recovered.”

  “Sir?”

  “Hephaestus is a name used by one astronomer to designate the planet inside Mercury’s orbit,” the Admiral explained.

  Hand shook his head. “That don’t make any sense.”

  “Sense from a scientist,” the Admiral snorted derisively. “Quite a corker, Sergeant Hand.” He glanced back to Folkestone. “You and Sergeant Hand will meet with Professor Lewis Swift on Mercury, a staunch believer in that planet’s existence and the only one who refers to it as Hephaestus rather than its expected designation.”