The box’s bell rang, announcing the end of calculations with a sound that came to Arabella through her feet as much as through the hot, noisy, storm-shot air. “Half a point to larboard,” she told Fox after inspecting the dials.
“Aye aye,” Fox replied, giving the ship’s wheel a slight nudge to the left.
“Sir?” said Liddon, addressing Fox. He seemed uncharacteristically uncertain.
Arabella pulled her attention from the planet rolling so enormous overhead to Liddon, who was extending a trembling finger ahead and a few points up.
Something shimmered there. It looked like a whorl in the roiling, overheated air, only tighter and much better defined than any air current she had ever seen before. And then, a moment later, it was gone.
“Did you see…?” asked Liddon, and Arabella acknowledged that she had. But Fox had not.
“Strange phenomena,” Fox said, and left it at that. It was time for another course correction, and they had no time or attention for any thing else.
Arabella took a moment to look upward. Mercury was now directly overhead, and its illuminated face had shrunken to a narrow, brilliant crescent with the gigantic Sun just about to vanish behind it. The sight was spectacular and beautiful, and she had no time or attention to appreciate it. “We will be in shadow in less than a minute!” she told Fox and Liddon.
She had no idea what would happen when they crossed from perpetual broiling day into Mercury’s shadow. But there would almost certainly be a precipitous drop in temperature, and that might be accompanied by an unpredictable change in the wind.
The enormous Sun dove toward Mercury’s horizon with astonishing speed. The illuminated crescent narrowed like a closing eye. The two met in a flare of light, and then … sudden darkness, and chill.
Arabella gasped aloud at the shock, which struck her like a dive into cold water. Fox, too, gasped “Oh!” in surprise.
And then the planet’s shadow swept across the sky … and the stars came out.
So many stars! They peppered the cloudless sky in vast profusion—a sight she had not seen since that endless night of pedaling the Draisine from Brighton to Greenwich.
And more! In the sudden darkness the cratered dark side of Mercury leapt from impenetrable black to mottled gray—a bleak and pock-marked face which, nonetheless, inspired awe as it rolled overhead like a stone about to crush them all.
Then Liddon cried out “Aaah!”—a shriek of terror like nothing she had ever before heard from him, not even in the most desperate moments of battle. Following his gaping eyes, Arabella turned and looked to starboard.
She could not help but cry out herself.
An enormous, glowing, twisted shape stood out from the cratered surface above. It looked like a curl of fire—a whole nest of such curls—carved with a knife from the glowing sky and spread out across the planet’s face. But it was not actually upon the planet; it was plainly much closer, and huge. A gigantic form, a physical thing, and much bigger than Touchstone.
Even as they watched, the glow faded, dimming so that the monstrous thing was plainly visible as a living creature rather than as a ragged patch of glowing sky. Illuminated by sky-glow like the gray craters beyond it, it resembled nothing so much as a gigantic squid!
Squids on Earth, Arabella knew, changed their colors to disguise themselves from their prey. This creature—this aerial kraken—plainly took on the brightness of the sky behind itself for a similar purpose.
She could not imagine why so huge a creature might need to disguise itself. But then she noted the double rows of scars that marked the length of its body … marks like those that might be left by the toothy jaw of a great bull wind-whale.
All of this ran through Arabella’s mind in an instant as the creature became visible. But then Fox cried, “Forward pulsers! Smartly! Smartly! Put your backs into it!” A moment later the ship jerked beneath her feet, nearly knocking her over despite the stout leather straps that held her to the deck. She clung to the greenwood box, not certain whether it was saving her or she was saving it.
But though Touchstone surged forward with vigor, the kraken had resources of its own, and jetted toward them with even greater rapidity. Its many tentacles—eight? ten? more?—whipped through the air, seeking to envelop and crush the ship, which was nearly the size of a wind-whale but far stiffer and more fragile. Arabella found herself looking up into a vast black eye, big as a hogshead, which gleamed with intelligence in the light of the stars beyond.
Tentacles closed in from every direction, blotting out stars and planet and every other thing. A gigantic beak, like a pair of toothy ship’s prows, gaped above the deck, preparing to bite and crush.
And then came a tremendous rattling b-b-ba-bang, accompanied by a lancing flash of flame that drove away the darkness for a moment, only to leave Arabella blind. When sight returned, she saw the kraken coiling away from Touchstone, tentacles writhing against the craters beyond. A minute later came a second ba-ba-bang. This time, not quite so surprised, Arabella understood what she was hearing and seeing.
It was Diana—brightly illuminated abaft, as she had not yet entered the planet’s shadow. She was firing her twelve eight-pounders at the kraken. Arabella let out a cheer, which was barely audible even to her own gunshot-deafened ears.
“All hands to the guns!” Fox shouted through the scuttle to the airmen belowdecks. “Fire as the creature bears!” He spun the wheel, simultaneously calling commands to the topmen, to bring the ship about so that her great guns faced the kraken. Touchstone’s chasers and rifles were already being discharged in its direction, but the little wounds they made seemed to discomfit the great creature not at all.
Soon both ships’ guns were firing at the creature, vast noise tearing the air and gouts of flame lancing out to pierce its scaly hide again and again. It jerked and spasmed in response, flares of light and color flashing across its body and tentacles lashing in every direction. One flailing appendage whooshed through the air just a few feet from Arabella and smashed the starboard mast to flinders. Topmen tumbled shrieking through the air in the tentacle’s wake.
But despite the damage to both ships, their guns gave them the advantage. Minutes later the battle was over—the kraken was reduced to a twitching mass of dying flesh, black blood leaking into the air—but the peril was not. Gasping, reeling, half-faint with shock, Arabella found her sextant and took a sighting on Jupiter. “Ten points starboard!” she shouted in Fox’s face. “Now! Ten points!”
“Aye aye!” Fox replied, and turned the wheel to the right.
It was a good thing she had gone over the maneuver so frequently and so thoroughly in the last few months. She knew exactly what she needed and exactly how to set the greenwood box to get it. Again and again she adjusted their course, sometimes by vast and desperate degree, in a frantic attempt to return the ship to her proper heading.
The planet rolled on by above.
The kraken’s ruined corpse was left behind.
The ship emerged from Mercury’s shadow, returning to blinding light and sweltering heat.
And suddenly the deck surged beneath Arabella’s feet like a huresh that had sighted the barn.
Was this another strange phenomenon of the near-solar atmosphere? Or had something else—another kraken, or a whole pod of enraged wind-whales—attacked them?
But no. This surge went on and on, pressing Touchstone forward like the rush of a mighty river. Raising the sextant with trembling hands, she took a sighting on Jupiter, and on Mars.
The readings were unambiguous. “It’s the Swenson!” Arabella cried. “The Swenson Current! We’ve found it!”
“Huzzah for the Swenson!” cried Liddon, and soon the rest of the crew took up the cheer as well. “Huzzah for the Swenson!” they cried. “Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!”
But Arabella did not join in the cheer. She was searching, instead … searching the sky for any sign of Diana. Of her beloved, faithless, brilliant Judas of a husband.
; Nothing abaft or ahead.
Nothing to starboard or larboard.
Nothing above or below.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
But then, rising from below the horizon of the quarterdeck rail … veiled in gunpowder smoke, her bow-sprit shattered by a flailing tentacle … there came Diana. At this short distance it was unquestionably she, with the figurehead of proud Diana herself plainly visible beyond the torn sprit-sail, and the tattered ensign of the Honorable Mars Company fluttering behind her whirling and undamaged pulsers. And there, on the quarterdeck …
The lean, upright, dark-skinned figure of Captain Singh.
The pursuit might continue. But at least her captain yet lived.
“Huzzah!” Arabella cried. “Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!”
8
REUNITED
Further observations confirmed Arabella’s initial impression: despite the kraken’s intervention, they had managed a successful planetary circumduction and were now fully embedded in the Swenson Current, speeding toward Mars at a speed of over seventeen thousand knots. But as damage reports filtered in to the quarterdeck, the full consequences of the battle rapidly became clear. Touchstone had lost her starboard mast and half the mizzen to the creature’s thrashing tentacles, while Diana, sailing along with them in the same current only a few hundred yards away, had only suffered some damage to her bow-sprit. Any attempt to run or to fight would be doomed before it began.
“Well, we gave it a good try,” Fox said as they watched Captain Singh’s gig push off from Diana’s deck. The light aerial boat was pedaled by two crewmen and carried only the captain; this was no boarding-party. But the gun-ports in Diana’s bow remained open, her twelve guns run out and pointed directly at Touchstone, and shining Venusian eyes blinked from behind the cannons’ gaping maws. Clearly this would be a negotiation from a position of strength.
Despite the obviousness of the situation to all concerned, the formalities must be observed. The lookout at the mainmast head called “Boat ahoy!” and the gig’s coxswain replied “Diana!” The gig drew alongside then, and Captain Singh’s strong distinctive voice called clearly across the short distance, “Permission to come aboard?”
It was the first time Arabella had heard that voice in months. The last time he had been begging her to return to his side, having just horribly disappointed her, but she had continued with chill determination down the stairs. She had spent every minute since then doing all she could to distance herself from him, in terms of her sentiments as well as her physical body, but now it was clear that she had failed in every respect. He had found her, he had captured her, and from the breath that caught at the back of her throat there was no doubt that she had never, despite her best efforts, escaped her love for him.
Captain Singh stepped with regal dignity down from the gig onto the deck, propelling himself in free descent with light touches of fingers and toes such that he gave the appearance of moving in gravity. Unlike Captain Fox, who often lounged horizontally in the air, Captain Singh always kept his feet pointed to the deck, and she could not fail to note that, even in this horrific heat, he was fully attired in the formal dress uniform of a captain of the Honorable Mars Company, down to the white Venusian silk gloves.
“Welcome to Touchstone, Captain Singh,” said Captain Fox, bowing in the air. “First, I would like to offer you my personal thanks for your assistance with that despicable creature. Furthermore, I commend your restraint in not blowing us out of the sky even when you held the upper hand. I believe I speak for the entire crew when I say that, although we disagree most fervently with the Prince Regent’s plans for Mars, we acknowledge that we have been bested fairly and will accept the consequences for our actions.”
“I thank you for your congenial reception, Captain Fox,” Captain Singh replied with reserved formality, “and for your gratitude. However, your understanding of the situation is incorrect.”
“I see,” said Fox, straightening in the air. His face showed that he was trying to prepare himself for the worst.
“You have not been bested,” Captain Singh continued. “Not in the least. Indeed, it is you who have bested me. Your navigation, and your handling of your ship, through that unprecedented maneuver were astonishing. I had thought that I knew what you were about, and that with Aadim’s help I would easily catch you up as you entered Mercury’s Horn. But I understand now that you had a completely different aim in mind, one which I had not anticipated and could not duplicate. Had I not simply followed your lead around the planet, Diana would now be nothing more than a heap of shattered timbers upon the planet’s surface.”
Captain Fox blinked in surprise and incomprehension. “I am honored,” he said after regaining his composure a bit, “but your compliments are, in fact, due to Mrs. Singh.” He inclined his head to Arabella. “It was her greenwood box which made our course possible, and her navigation after the creature’s attack which made it successful.”
“Ah yes, the greenwood box.” Captain Singh bowed deeply and respectfully to Arabella. “An excellent device. But, of course, it is the operator’s knowledge and skill which make the difference between success and failure.”
Now it was Arabella’s turn to blink in incomprehension. “You say you have not bested us,” she said, “but you also said that you planned to catch us up in Mercury’s Horn … and you have, indeed, now caught us. Is your intent not to return us to Earth to stand trial for treason?”
Captain Singh’s expression, constrained as always, did not alter. “Not in the least,” he said. “I am here to join forces with you, to aid in the defense of Mars against the Prince Regent’s scheme.” His gaze dropped from Arabella’s eyes to her feet, and his voice, though still reserved, took on a tone of contrition. “Even though we are no longer man and wife, I have become persuaded as to the validity of your concerns and the rightness of your cause. I intend to assist you to the very best of my ability.” He looked up again, his brown eyes softer than she had ever seen before. “If you will have me.”
Without thought Arabella suddenly found herself in her captain’s arms. “Of course I will have you,” she said. “I greatly respect your abilities, as you know; I admire your sense of honor, even when we disagree … and I love you with all my heart.” She kissed him then, upon the lips … right there on deck, in every one’s view, heedless of propriety.
“Really, Mrs. Singh,” called a familiar voice from some distance away. “That is quite enough.”
Arabella disengaged herself from her husband and looked over his shoulder to Diana, which had drawn even nearer during their conversation. There, upon the quarterdeck, floated Lady Corey!
“Mrs. Fox!” cried Fox. Immediately he shoved off from the deck, sailing unerringly between the two ships and ending neatly at her side. “What a pleasant surprise!”
“I trust you have comported yourself properly in my absence?”
Even across the several fathoms of air that separated them, Arabella noted Fox’s eyes flick briefly to her. “I have been a perfect gentleman,” he said, returning his gaze to his wife and bowing over her hand.
“He has,” Arabella called to Lady Corey. Though, in truth, she had to acknowledge some imperfections on his part … as well as her own. Still, under the circumstances, she felt that both of them had behaved acceptably.
Captain Singh pressed Arabella tightly, then released her and held her at arm’s length, gazing admiringly into her eyes. “Well, my dear,” he said after a time, “we have much to discuss. May I invite you to breakfast?” He glanced to Captain Fox. “You and your officers are invited as well.”
“It is closer to supper time, for us,” Fox replied, “but I am happy to accept your invitation.”
* * *
The party was so numerous that they were compelled to dine in Diana’s ward-room rather than in her captain’s great cabin. For Arabella, after so many months in the constrained and rather shabby confines of Touchstone, it felt as grand as a palace. And the pre
sence of her husband, now reunited with her in spirit as well as body, by her side made it grander still. Despite the unremitting heat, it took all her will to keep her hand from stroking his leg.
“I must begin with an apology,” he said after the syllabub. “To my dear wife, who saw more clearly than I the inexcusable inhumanity of the Prince’s scheme of conquest.” He bowed his head to Arabella. “I had thought—I had the arrogance to presume—that such a scheme could be … ameliorated, with proper direction. But it cannot. The rot goes all the way to the root. Evil such as this cannot be managed, it can only be resisted.”
“What was it that changed your mind?” asked Fox, not unreasonably.
“Have you ever heard of ulka?”
The faces of the Dianas present showed that they were familiar with the word, and that they did not like it. But Arabella was not, and plainly neither were most of the rest of the Touchstones. Fox, however, frowned. “It is a Venusian word, from the sound of it,” he said. “I believe I may have heard it mentioned from time to time in the gambling-hells of Marieville. I do not recall ever having learned its meaning, but its associations are … not salubrious.”
“Insalubrious indeed, Captain Fox. It is a drug, one refined from a plant native to Venus. The refined version renders the user indolent, suggestible, feeble, and highly dependent upon further doses. Once habituated—and, depending upon circumstances, a single dose can be sufficient—the user suffers terribly if the drug is withheld, and will do nearly any thing to obtain more. And humans and Martians are as vulnerable to these horrific effects as Venusians.” He shook his head. “By the good graces of Lady Corey, I learned that it was Reid’s plan to import ulka from Venus to Mars.”
“Lord Reid did not inform the Prince of his plan to profit personally from English domination of Mars,” Lady Corey explained. “But he did share that information with his mistress. And that mistress, when properly lubricated, could be persuaded to confide in a dear friend.” She laid two fingers upon her bosom.
Arabella the Traitor of Mars Page 11