Mars, The Deep Beyond
On board the Useful Burdens above Tharsis
May 23, 2000 AD
“Who strives to frustrate the will of the Tollamune Emperor?” Teyud said, looking down at the atanj board.
As worded in the High Speech, it carried an inappropriate overtone. As Jeremy would have put it, she’d asked who the Bad Guys were. She moved a Brute to the central apex, a conventional opening.
The transport that Notaj had brought from Dvor Il-Adazar was of moderate size, but the captain’s cabin was comfortable in an austere fashion; she sat on a cushion between walls of laced fabric printed with leaf patterns in pale blue and green, and ate fresh strips of rooz meat with crisp piquant chopped faqau and an excellent narwak paste of musky pungency for dipping. The air was thin enough at this altitude to be slightly bothersome, but she countered it by taking deeper breaths. That was sufficient if no great physical effort was necessary.
Notaj touched his finger to the Despot on his side of the game; it was the dark set, and so that piece could also be called the Usurper. Though, of course, a successful Usurper became Despot in all truth . . . and not only in the Game of Life.
From the outside of the hull came occasional thumping and scraping sounds. The crew were working there in oxygen masks, replacing the Useful Burdens’ paint scheme with another that would suggest an origin in a mercantile firm of the Wai Zang towns. It was a necessary delay, but . . .
Her hand clenched a little as her mind reverted to Jeremy; she saw his impossible, grotesquely charming grin at some whimsical joke . . . and thought of his possible excruciation or death. Then she pushed the thought aside with an effort of trained will, forcing her breathing and heartbeat to calmness. So often, feedback from body to mind was as important as the reverse.
If he has been taken alive, he will be kept alive to use against me; possibilities for action will present themselves. If not, not.
Instead she focused on the passing desolation below the flier, where the line of a dead canal glinted as it stretched through un-peopled wilderness. It was obviously imperative that she favorably impress Notaj; visible fretting over an erotic relationship, and with a Terran at that, would not do so. Thoughtful Grace prided themselves on their self-control and discipline.
Sustained Harmony, she told herself. Duty to Sh’u Maz and the Lineage, the Dynasty. Yet perhaps the vaz-Terranan have corrupted me in part. I become convinced there is also a duty to individuals for their own sweet sake. Though I overcome all resistance and reign as many centuries as did the First Emperor, it would be . . . deeply unsatisfying . . . if you were not there, Jeremy.
“Three parties seek to thwart your father,” Notaj said, making his first move. “It is a multiplayer game. First is a faction of the Imperial bureaucracy alarmed at the prospect of the Supremacy forcing them to engage once more in the lapsed functions attached to their offices. These, to a high degree of probability, are those who sought to kill you through their hired irregular Coercives.”
The term he used carried overtones of “pirate”. The two ships Faran hired had probably been pirates, or at least rather dubious freelancers.
Notaj continued, “They are prepared to wait until the Supremacy’s natural life span ends, but the prospect of a young and vigorous heir continuing these policies arouses their extreme distaste, the more so as it frustrates long-held expectations.”
Teyud nodded. “And since my acknowledgment is not yet official, they may seek to kill me and claim that they merely execute lawful punishment on the product of genomic treason. They will at all costs seek to prevent me coming into the public presence of the Supremacy.”
“Correct. Then there is Prince Heltaw sa-Veynau, an Imperial Kinsman of great resources and a one-sixteenth degree of relationship to the dynastic genome. And runner-up in the last Mountain Tournament.”
“He does not wish me to die?” Teyud said, raising a brow. “Strange, since he would be in a strong position to claim the Ruby Throne if my father were to fall without issue. But one would expect subtlety in a player of that level.”
“His calculations extend beyond the Throne to merging his lineage with the Tollamune genome. An offspring of yours and his would be in an unassailable position, and he has ample time to socialize it through to adulthood with a parental bonding.”
“And hence I must be preserved for the necessary reproduction.”
“Your ova or a reproductive sump would do, but that would introduce a higher degree of uncertainty; the tembst is not faultless.”
“Clarify his position,” Teyud said.
“In the last decade he has been required to reside at court,” Notaj said; that meant not trusted out of sight. “He occupies the Palace of Restful Contemplation in the northeastern quadrant, and possesses extensive estates in personality and as lineage head. Specifically, financial instruments, farmland, structural plantations, and water rights from the Grand Canal, and more near Long Aywandis, and manufacturing shops with the appropriate De’ming, skilled employees, and managers.”
Aywandis was the nearest of the other great volcanoes, never a city-state as wealthy as Dvor Il-Adazar, but rich enough by any other standard thanks to the water it reaped from the air. It was a typical asset profile for a prince.
“He retains the maximum permitted number of Coercives, and they are of high quality and well equipped; most are of lineages long associated with his, rather than independent contractors. And he owns Paiteng-breeding properties and training specialists. Hence I consider his involvement in the attack on your landship, particularly given the nonlethal emphasis, to be of a probability approaching unity.”
Teyud nodded thoughtfully. “You have maps of his properties here?”
He silently handed her a folder bound with vermillion tape; she undid it and began flipping up the pages, imprinting them on her memory.
“And the third party?” she asked, as she worked.
“The Terran.”
“Of the, ah, Eastbloc?” she said doubtfully; he’d used the singular-individual form of the definite article.
“No. They are less of an independent factor now than when you were conceived; subtle but energetic and successful measures have been taken to contain their autonomy. I speak of Franziskus Binkis. His relationship with your father is complex and ambiguous, with elements of both mutual aid and rivalry.”
He lowered his voice, and leaned forward in the position of clandestine-confidences: “He arrived in a most extraordinary manner, in the Shrine . . .”
Mars, City of Dvor Il-Adazar (Olympus Mons)
Pits beneath the Palace of Restful Contemplation
May 25, 2000 AD.
Captivity is boring beyond belief, Jeremy Wainman thought. I’m going crazy in here!
In the adventure fiction he’d read as a child—which nearly everyone of his generation on a Mars-and-Venus-besotted Earth had read—there had been plenty of heroes and heroines locked in various dungeons. The heroes escaped, and the various princesses, girlfriends, and sidekicks waited patiently offstage while the hero went through exciting adventures to rescue him, her, or it.
Yeah, except I’m beginning to suspect I am the fucking love-interest who patiently waits, he thought. I don’t even get a nice, dramatic revolving prison at the South Pole with the vicious daughter of the priest-kings waving a dagger at me just before the door cuts off the view that would keep you-know-who from going insane, at least, but I’ve got nobody to talk to at all!
Though to be fair—at the moment he wasn’t feeling inclined to be fair to the people who’d locked him in here, but long training made him look at things from other viewpoints—Martians were a lot less vulnerable to sensory deprivation than earthlings. Their minds didn’t become disorganized as easily, they didn’t experience that minutes-stretch-into-hours thing, and at seventh and last they could drop into hibernation or semihibernation and just doze long periods away. They wouldn’t enjoy being locked up alone indefinitely, but it wouldn’t
be the sort of mind-destroying ordeal it would be for him, either.
They can put the thumb up the bum and mind in neutral, as the Brits say, he thought; he’d worked a dig in England once, near Amesbury, and he’d heard the landlord at the Treadmill use the expression. But I’m not a Martian. I can’t turn myself off, no matter how much I want to.
Even Doctor Daiyar’s brief daily visits had become something to treasure, despite her lack of bedside manner. He’d mentioned that, and she’d given him the hairy eyeball and noted that she was not a pediatric specialist. Adults here considered the need for that sort of reassurance childish.
At least the cell they’d locked him in wasn’t altogether cramped; it was a piece of tunnel twelve feet long driven into dark brown rock, three-quarters of a circle in profile, with the bottom fourth cut off by the floor. A bench in the stone at one end held a pallet and, after some complaint, they’d given him a sleeping fur that let him keep from shivering. A hole in one corner served for waste disposal, though not as well as it would for a local. Terran wastes were wetter and more abundant, and it smelled a little even with the heavy ceramic plug in place. Another hole halfway up the rear wall over the sleeping bench served for ventilation; it was about the size of his head and covered with a grill—no convenient ductwork sized for crawling here!
The door was a circle that rolled into and out of a slot by the entrance, and it had a little swinging gate through which they fed him the equivalent of bread and water—a mush of asu-groats laced with dried grubs, and a cupful of the mineral-tasting liquid that came out of the taps here. It was too salty but if you could forget you were eating instant mashed potatoes with dehydrated maggots, the food was tolerable—fuel, if not a pleasure.
Jeremy tried not to chew too much; the fact that he was so hungry helped. He wasn’t getting enough to eat or drink, particularly considering that the temperature was in the forties, but he wouldn’t die of it anytime soon. They’d given him back his long johns and outdoor robes, too. He suspected that if the doctor who examined him hadn’t issued special instructions they’d have just ignored him. From the records he’d read, Martian jailers usually withheld food and water, forcing prisoners in long-term containment to hibernate to avoid starving to death. They were a lot less likely to cause trouble that way and it was cheaper besides.
“Goddamn their fucking superefficient metabolisms, too,” Jeremy said, pacing the eight strides to the door and back again. “I’m not the product of two hundred thousand years of famine and chilblains.”
Memories were beginning to haunt him. Memories of Teyud were too painful to dwell on, but memories of lying in a hammock on a beach in Hawaii sipping a drink full of fruit and topped by a little umbrella were also pretty tormenting. Not to mention the rich, meaty taste of a burger at Bobcats’ Bite, the little grill off I-25 just north of Santa Fe, which had the best hamburgers in New Mexico. And that homemade potato salad . . .
“Or just having a book to read or a movie to watch!”
At least he wasn’t in the dark. There was a patch of clear material in the center of the ceiling that gave off a diffuse glow for about half the day; he suspected it was some sort of fiber-optic light-distribution system, linked to receptors on the surface above. That would be typical Imperial plan-for-the-infinite-future tembst, expensive to install but requiring less maintenance than a glow-globe system; once it was installed you could just leave it for millennia. Unless you had an earthquake, all you’d need to do would be to make sure that the upper end didn’t get covered over, and you could shut it off by putting a lid on it. So far they hadn’t done that, so he could tell he’d been in here four days.
Subjectively it felt like a lot longer.
He kicked the door—not hard enough to hurt, though it was tempting. That didn’t even make any sound, beyond the light scuffing of his boot hitting the synthetic stone. It felt as if he’d kicked one of the cell’s walls, or the side of the Mountain. There was no sound from outside except when the little pivoting gate in the door was opened to reveal the day’s cup and plate, which had to be returned in precisely twenty minutes. Nothing to look at except the identical walls and ceiling and floor . . .
No, he thought, with a bit of a chill. Not quite identical.
He went down on his knees and looked at the floor. There were hair-thin cracks outlining rectangular plates; the walls and ceiling were solid rock, excavated by the usual enzyme-and-gnawing-critter methods and then polished smooth, but the floor was sections of extruded-digested stone laid down as a pavement.
He put his cheek to the cold smooth surface and looked. Yes, there was a worn path from the door to the sleeping platform and back . . . just barely perceptible but there.
The floor was laid as a wearing surface, so it could be replaced, he thought. Mother of God, how long has it been here?
He shivered. It was a couple of hours until feeding time, and he simply could not sleep anymore right now, despite being chilly and miserable. He began an exercise routine to keep in shape instead, although he resented the calories it burned; leaping back and forth from one end of the cell to the other, and standing on his hands and doing back flips back onto his feet, one-finger-and-thumb pushups, and fencing moves complete with stretches.
A slight sound came from behind him. A clicking, chittering sound. He whirled, jumping involuntarily with his head just brushing the light-fixture in the ceiling. Nothing . . .
Or is that a little movement behind the ventilator grill?
That was intriguing. He stood stock-still and stared, letting his eyes go out of focus very slightly to improve his peripheral vision. Yes, there was something moving there! After a moment it moved again, and he caught a momentary glimpse of two beady glowing eyes.
“Rats!” he said, smiling and relaxing. “Hey, I could tame you guys and teach you tricks.”
Although that meant he’d be here for a Château d’If length of stay, and that was another depressing thought. Despite that, he slowly inched nearer and nearer. When he was close enough he stepped up on the bench-ledge and extended a hand very slowly toward the grill.
“Easy, little fellahs, I’m not going to—”
Click! Jaws clamped on the grill.
“Shit!”
Jeremy jerked his hand back convulsively, swayed on the edge of the bench for a moment, then steadied. The animal behind the grill was about the size of a rat and he thought it was a mammal of some sort, as the body was covered with fur, not the feathers more common on Mars. But it had naked jaws with spade-shaped overlapping teeth, and a black-and-red nose above them that worked avidly as it took his scent. Paws reached through the grillwork and groped for him; the digits had black claws on their ends, but apart from that they were unpleasantly fingerlike. There was even a stubby thumb—not fully opposable, but nearly so.
“I don’t think you’re trying to shake hands, eh, are you, you little son of a whore?” Jeremy said, with a grunt of loathing. “I know what that means. It means, That’s food, lemme at it!”
He pulled off one of his boots to beat the thing back through the grill—and if he hadn’t already tested that it was unbreakable, he’d have been cautious about that. The ratlike beast retreated, but only after it had been whacked a couple of times. Then it squealed, a sound like uisouisouiso, and it was joined by others from further back in the ventilator shaft. There was a hint of squirming movement there, as if bodies crawled over each other and naked tails lashed.
Jeremy threw himself down on the bench, looking up at the grillwork and shuddering slightly, a thin film of sweat drying rapidly on his face and making him shiver a little. The thought of those things looking down at him while he slept wasn’t exactly calming, but there wasn’t much alternative. If he tried to block the shaft they’d probably just eat whatever he used, or take it away to line their nests somewhere in the pits.
“For that matter, they probably have some weird ecological function. Or the Martians used tembst to make them,” he muttered to himsel
f. “Icky I said, and icky I meant.”
Then something else occurred to him. Wait a minute . . . this city was here before the Cro-Magnons started giving Neandertals a hard time in Europe, probably complete with dungeons. That’s plenty of time for a new species to evolve just to fit the niche of the smaller ventilation shafts. Including hands to open latches and fiddle with doors.
Just to be sure, he checked again that the grill over the ventilation duct was solid, not detachable somehow. It was solidly bonded into the rock of the wall.
Then his eyes went to the waste pipe. The opening was funnel-shaped, with the actual chute about the same width as the ventilation shaft . . . or possibly exactly the same diameter; that would be typical. And they hadn’t left him with a close-fitting cone-shaped plug to block it just to improve the cell’s atmosphere.
He went over and pulled the plug up by the handle molded into the upper surface, and looked at the bottom closely. He hadn’t done so before, which wasn’t surprising considering where it went. But the area was suspiciously clean, at that.
Besides a thin film of mold, there were hundreds of scratches in the bottom of the plug. As if something with small, sharp claws on its fingers had pushed and scratched and worried at it, trying to get it to move. So it could get at the food beyond.
He replaced it with a shudder, retreating to the sleeping bench with his feet up on it.
“I really, really have to be careful to use the stopper every time I’m finished with the john,” he said to the air. “Because the consequences of forgetting and then going to sleep don’t bear thinking about.”
Then he stiffened. I have to squat to use the damned thing!
After a long moment he said aloud, “I’m so not going to complain anymore about how the diet here is too low in fiber.”
Mars, Approaching Dvor II-Adazar
On board the Useful Burdens
May 26, 2000 AD
“Traffic thickens, commander,” the helmswoman said.
In the Courts of the Crimson Kings Page 23