In the Courts of the Crimson Kings

by Stirling, S. M.

  He’d had six months’ practice with Martian gravity. The boy flew ten yards, arms and legs kicking, to land neatly in a two-wheeled cart filled with the droppings of various draught-beasts. Those were a lot drier and fluffier than their earthly equivalents; a big cloud of pungent brownish dust shot skyward. The boy tumbled out of it a few moments later, coughing and retching and beating at his garments. He stopped a moment to make three comprehensively obscene gestures at Jeremy, then took to his heels.

  “Suboptimal random breeding,” Teyud said, insulting the fleeing boy more than an avalanche of scatology could have done. “It would be public-spirited to cull him before he reproduces.”

  “Please do not kill anyone unless it is necessary to protect us,” Sally said. “That is a categorical instruction.”

  “Reluctant agreement,” Teyud said, then shrugged and slid the spiked throwing disk back to its place in her sleeve.

  For the rest, the crowds’ reaction was sidelong glances and low murmurs—and they were low indeed, pitched for the more efficient ears evolved in this thin air.

  You know, Jeremy thought, watching as Teyud za-Zhalt swayed along ahead of them, she really moves beautifully. Different from most Martians—she doesn’t give you that sense she’d fly away in a high breeze, even though she does look like someone took her by the neck and ankles and stretched her by about twenty percent.

  They came to a larger open space. One side of it was a semicircular border, a smooth olive green wall twenty feet high that vanished behind buildings on either side which, he knew, made a circle more than a mile around. Above that rose a glassine dome, and through it, he could see the tops of trees. A central tower reared gigantic in its center, but the fliers clustered around its thousand-foot peak were all warcraft in the red and black markings of the Despotate, the local government. Traffic was brisk over the russet-colored pavement, save where they swerved around a crew at work repairing a worn section.

  Several De’ming shoveled crushed rock from a wagon into the maws of creatures like twelve-foot furry bricks with stubby legs and flat paddlelike scaly tails. A third of their length was mouth, studded with dozens of thick square black teeth around a muscular purple tongue. They caught the gravel and began to crunch it down with every sign of enjoyment; the sound recalled that of a man eating celery, but a thousand times louder and with a metallic overtone.

  Some had already been fed, and lay on their bellies with an occasional contented belch. A circle of children crouched to watch and giggled with disgusted delight as the animals turned and projectile-vomited into the hole in the pavement in unison. A thick, vile, sour-smelling yellow sludge filled the hole, and the beasts turned at the foreman’s urging and smoothed it flat with their tails. By the time the Terrans and their guides walked by, the surface was already hardening and turning a slightly lighter shade of reddish-brown than the rest. The crew then moved on to the next gap.

  “Did you ever hear the expression ‘tough enough to eat iron and shit nails’?” Sally asked.

  “Yeah,” Jeremy began. Then he looked at her. “You don’t mean—”

  “Near enough,” she said. “Near enough.”

  Ahead of them, gold-robed warriors wearing masks like the faces of mantises and long ceremonial spears of translucent crystal stood before the huge circular gate of the fastness, graven with the solar disk. Above it was a symbol that looked like a figure eight laid on its side, surrounded by a glyph in the High Speech of ancient times: SH’U MAZ. Sustained Harmony, from time out of mind the motto of anyone who wished to claim the status of Acknowledged Ruler.

  A much smaller portal accommodated the real traffic. The guards beside it carried swords and dart pistols, and one of them held a beast on a leash. It looked a little like a dog, perhaps a starved, elongated greyhound with teeth like a shark, a high forehead, and disturbingly versatile paws. All four of the party stood while it approached and sniffed them over.

  “Ssssstrannnngeee, master,” it whined to its handler, growling a little. “Ssmmmeelll sssstrannngeee.”

  “Are they on the list?” the bored trooper asked, giving the leash a jerk and waving a collection of strips of cloth bearing the scents of those authorized to enter the central dome.

  “Yesss.”

  “Pass, then.”

  The door rolled aside as the beast flattened itself on the ground beside the guard, watching them walk by with slitted eyes. Sally and Jeremy turned and shook hands.

  “Tomorrow at the docks,” Sally said.

  “Tomorrow,” Teyud said. “I anticipate our joint labors.”

  Mars, City of Dvor Il-Adazar (Olympus Mons)

  Palace of Restful Contemplation

  February 1, 2000 AD

  Genomic Prince Heltaw sa-Veynau watched the children running silently through the gardens beneath the dome, weaving in among tall, slender trees whose trunks bore masses of flowering vines, their blooms trumpets of orange and crimson and purple-striped white. The thick, dense mat of vegetation beneath their feet was composed of soft ochre fibers, a strain that had once been nearly as common as atmosphere plant, but which in these times was rare far from the Mountain. The mountainside bowl that cupped the palace gardens rose beyond and all around, parts left rough in the native reddish tufa veined with black and gold, others carved in the fanciful elongated animal style common in the Orchid Consort Period, eight thousand years ago.

  A small fountain burbled within a column of glassine, and birds like flying jewels trilled the songs for which his remote ancestors had designed them. He had followed his customary program before making important decisions: a light breakfast, a bout of sword practice with his trainer, parareproductive coitus with his partner, and a period of nonreflective contemplation.

  Now it was very restful to lie here as the recliner gently massaged his back, smell the wadar incense, and watch the children at play under the careful eye of their nannydog; they were his sister’s offspring, and he had none of his own . . . not yet . . . despite being well into middle age, sixty years this spring.

  Or a hundred and twenty, as the Wet Worlders reckon it, he thought; they had been much on his mind of late. Reproduction, in my position, would have been evidence of unseemly presumption, or, to phrase the matter more bluntly, suicidal.

  The captain of his guards waited—taking knee as court slang had it—on his right knee, with the scabbard of his sword in his gloved left hand, and the right on his left thigh. His personal Coercives wore black robes and hoods, and unmarked harnesses; he believed their attire conveyed a sense of disciplined seriousness, in contrast to the ironic detachment or frivolous archaism so common here in the City That Was A Mountain.

  “Competitive patience is a trying form of contest in this regressive era,” he remarked.

  “Query, Prince Heltaw?” the soldier said.

  “I characterize my contest with the Supremacy. The Emperor is among the most skillful practitioners of waiting the Crimson Dynasty has ever produced. So skillful that it is never entirely certain that he is, in fact, waiting and not merely mired in sloth and resignation.”

  “Prince, I would not care to wager anything with which I would grieve to part on the latter hypothesis.”

  “Neither would I,” Heltaw said dryly. “Especially not after the little display with the Terrans earlier this year.”

  “The pumps, Prince?”

  “Correct,” he said. To himself, You are perceptive. Perhaps troublingly so? No, merely competent.

  “No other of the Tollamunes has actually increased the available water resources for a very long time indeed,” he went on. “And to do so with the tembst of the vaz-Terranan, which is accessible only through him . . . and to exhibit the anomalous Terran who did not arrive as the others . . . yes, that was quite skillful. It will give those who might otherwise hasten the succession pause for thought, and give credence to his claim to restore Sustained Harmony.”

  “Yet in a contest of patience, you possess the matchless advantage of compar
ative youth, Prince,” the guardsman pointed out. “Since neither you nor the Supremacy have close and immediate heirs, this would appear to be a balance which can only tilt in your favor. Sh’u Maz is impossible where succession is not clear.”

  “Unless one of us were to have an heir,” Heltaw said. “If I had done so prior to this date, my demise would have been unfortunate, widely received with grief, accidental . . . and entirely certain.”

  The guardsman’s hand moved in a spare ironic gesture, an acknowledgement of the humor. “Given the length of time in which the demise of the Supremacy has been anticipated, the same might be said of him. Leaving aside capacity, surely he would not be in a position to socialize an heir to maturity.”

  “I have obtained news from my sources in Zar-tu-Kan,” Heltaw said quietly. “A Thoughtful Grace mercenary by the name of Teyud za-Zhalt has been engaged to command the landship and escort of two vaz-Terranan savants seeking the lost city of Rema-Dza. This person is not at all as she appears.”

  In the narrow slit of the headdress, the Coercive’s eyes widened slightly. Heltaw approved; the man would be useless if he required long explanations.

  “Kill, capture, or incapacitate?” he said.

  “Capture, if possible. Kill only if essential to prevent escape. Keep a full sustainment kit ready to prolong the life of a reproductive sump of the body if killing is necessary, or at the very least to preserve viable ova. This is a formidable individual; take all precautions. Also, at least two other groups will be seeking to preempt you.”

  “I will begin the necessary research immediately, Prince,” the guardsman said.

  “A unit of Paiteng will be made available,” Heltaw said. “You will, to a high degree of probability, have a very narrow window of opportunity. When you strike, strike swiftly. You are, of course, not the only resource tasked with this mission.”

  An eyebrow went up. “You have made an open offer, Superior, rather than entrusting the task solely to your permanently affiliated Coercives?”

  “There are several offers concerning this individual, at least one other of which I know simply for delivery of the detached head. It is the reproductive organs that are my optimum target, preferably attached to a living body. Hence, I have let it be known that a larger reward is available for a capture in order to present disincentives for entrepreneurial activity contrary to my interests. I cannot, of course, prevent freelance individuals and groups from contesting the matter.”

  “This is a straightforward and sensible course, Superior.”

  “I will, of course, pay a substantial bonus above the stated open reward if the personnel you lead accomplish this task to my satisfaction,” Heltaw said. “My personally affiliated Coercives justly anticipate treatment more favorable than temporary employees.”

  “As always, you optimize incentives, Superior. As you order, we will endeavor most earnestly to accomplish—subject to event and randomness.”

  When the Coercive had left, Heltaw reached out and took a biscuit from the table with the incense burner, warming and scenting it briefly over the flame before nibbling at it. The time for patience would soon end, but until then . . .

  The Prince smiled slightly to himself as one of his nieces stood, laughing at the half dozen birds that perched on her slender arms and sang counterpoint to each other.

  Until then I must be patient. Or my Lineage will die to the seventh degree.

  That was as far as the Expeditors could push a purge; he was in the eighth degree from the Ruby Throne himself. Officially, there was none closer.

  Mars, City of Zar-tu-Kan

  May 1, 2000 AD

  “Do you know anyone who wishes to inflict harm on the Terrans?” Teyud asked as she and the spice merchant turned away from the portal to the inner city.

  “No,” Jelzhau said.

  His ears cocked forward as he turned his head toward her. “Do you suspect malicious conspiracy?”

  She frowned slightly, scanning the crowd in the plaza. It could be compulsive suspicion . . . but then, compulsive suspicion was a survival characteristic in the greater world as well as in Dvor Il-Adazar.

  “I suspect that we were followed. By relays of very skilled operatives.”

  Jelzhau pursed his lips. “I will have enquiries made. Losing the profits of their trade would grieve me to the point of melancholy.”

  Or perhaps they are on my trail again, Teyud thought.

  It was an unpleasant and surprising speculation, but not one that could be disregarded.

  Randomness has a fortunate configuration in that case; I will be voyaging to the Deep Beyond with the vaz-Terranan. One can see a menace more clearly when away from a city’s crowds.

  “Though,” he went on, “I anticipate with gladness the end of close association with the hideous things.”

  Teyud absently adopted a pose that acknowledged the remark without commenting on it. Sally Yamashita was indeed very strange-looking, at one moment like a dwarf, at another like an aged child. Jeremy Wainman, on the other hand . . .

  One could very nearly call him handsome. And he has a pleasantly effervescent personality.

  The U.S. Consulate had once been a local notable’s city palace. It did duty for the Commonwealth and OAS countries and Japan as well; their flags flew over its front entrance. It wasn’t particularly large, about the size of the White House, and like most buildings under the dome it was built in a light, airy style in total contrast to the blank massiveness of most of Zar-tu-Kan outside, all tall slender columns and translucent window-doors and balconies.

  Robert Holmegard and his wife Dolores, who was also his assistant and a biologist of note, gave a dinner for the explorers on a balcony of clear crystal supported by two curving braces of the same material shaped like slender snakes, a structure that seemed nerve-wrackingly fragile if you didn’t know the strength of the stuff.

  To the stomach it was still nerve-wracking, particularly as it was sixty feet to the tough reddish-green sward that made up the roadway below. Even in one-third gravity that was a long way.

  “God, it’s good to see some Terran faces,” Holmgard said.

  “Yeah,” Dolores said. “I knew I’d been here too long when I read the latest Newsweek and wondered which candidate for president was going to establish the most Sh’u Maz.”

  Her husband chuckled and shuddered at the same time. “It’s been months! I know there were storms, but . . .”

  Jeremy shuddered a little in turn. “Storms” didn’t begin to describe what the Martian polar winter was like—and seasons lasted twice as long on this planet. Sometimes more, if you were unlucky enough to be in the hemisphere that got the downside of the eccentric orbit that time around. It gave you a lot of time to brush up on your research and perfect your game of atanj, though no Terran had yet become more than mediocre at it.

  “Bob, we came as soon as we could,” Sally said soothingly. “And we’ve got that disk from Susie and Joyce.”

  The Holmgards brightened and stuck the disk into the reader on the table; it was a bit of incongruously homey Texas Instruments bluntness amid the stretched elegance of Martian glassware. The screen came alive and showed two children of twelve and ten, their looks halfway between Robert’s hulking Minnesota-Swede blondness and his wife’s dark Peruvian-Spanish delicacy.

  Jeremy paid attention to the entertainment while they listened to the message: Not far away a bird the size of a six-year-old sat on a perch and sang a song with a haunting minor-key melody, now and then making sounds like wind chimes to accompany itself, and moving wings like living Tiffany glass in time to the music it made.

  “Dammit, we should have a fiber-optic cable between here and the base by now,” Holmgard said, turning off the message and sighing. “Given what the weather does to radio.”

  Jeremy nodded. That had been tried once, and had failed at hideous expense—there were limits to what the USASF budget could bear, especially now that the first flush of wonder had worn off and the voters
weren’t quite so enchanted with pouring tens of billions yearly into space. And the peculiarities of the Martian atmosphere limited wireless bandwidth.

  The Holmgards tore themselves away from their children’s disk with commendable speed and devoted themselves to their hostly duties. Jeremy speared a strip of grilled rooz and nibbled it; despite the fact that it came from a bird—more or less—it didn’t taste at all like chicken. A bit like beef, a bit like pork with a soupçon of shrimp, meltingly tender and spiced with something that tasted like a cross between garlic and chili with a hint of flowers. There was a heat to it that hit you after a moment of hesitation, like slow-motion napalm.

  Although it’s better not to remember it’s cooked over dung fires, he thought, taking a drink of water that had a slightly metallic taste.

  Granted, the animal in question essentially shat thumb-sized pieces of pure charcoal, but the thought was still a bit off-putting if you dwelt on it.

  “Okay, let’s go over your mission,” Bob said.

  He touched the screen with fingers that were thick, muscular, and nimble. A map of Mars sprang up, then narrowed down to the section around Zar-tu-Kan; it was the product of satellite photography combined with local knowledge.

  “If your interpretation of the chronicles is right, there’s not much doubt that the lost city of Rema-Dza is around here,” he said. “Out where the dead canal runs. But that’s bad country—dust storms, nomads, God knows what. Keep in close touch. Even the atmosphere plant dies out there sometimes.”

  Jeremy and Sally nodded soberly. That low-growing, waxy-leaved plant was the Martian equivalent of grass . . . and also, ecologically, of oceanic plankton; it kept the oxygen content of the air. It had a fantastically efficient version of photosynthesis, flourished nearly everywhere, and stood at the bottom of nearly every food chain. An area too hostile for it was likely to be bleak indeed, even by this dying planet’s standards.