The Emperor of Mars

by Patrick Samphire

  Putty’s eyes widened. “But Edward! That’s where Miss Wilkins goes on her evenings off. I knew it! I knew it! She’s up to something!”

  That couldn’t be a coincidence. Could it?

  I took a deep breath. “I guess we’re going there together after all.”

  8

  Eaten Alive

  We waited until the house was quiet. Mama, Jane, and Olivia were in the drawing room, Olivia writing yet another letter to Cousin Freddie, care of the British-Martian Intelligence Service, and Papa had retreated to his laboratory to tinker with one of his inventions.

  “I always thought there was something suspicious about Miss Wilkins,” Putty crowed as we dropped over the garden wall onto the quiet street.

  “We don’t know that,” I said.

  “Oh, please. Don’t you think it’s suspicious that she would come to a coffee house on her evenings off?”

  I picked myself up and dusted off my jacket. “Native Martian women do it all the time.”

  “But she’s not a native Martian.”

  I gave a reluctant nod. A coffee house wasn’t the kind of place a respectable lady would visit on her own. If Miss Wilkins had been married, it might have been different, but Mama would never let a married woman be Putty’s governess. It would simply be too improper.

  “It doesn’t make her a spy.”

  Putty gave a long-suffering sigh. “Edward, Miss Wilkins has free run of our house and easy access to Papa’s inventions. Every week she comes to the same coffee house and disappears into the same private room. What else could she be doing?”

  Sighing, I gave in. “What exactly is the plan?”

  “We’ll wait near the coffee house,” Putty said. “She normally arrives about nine o’clock. Then, when she goes in, we can sneak around the back. I found a way to climb up to the room she always uses to meet that Frenchman—”

  “Have you ever seen this Frenchman?”

  “Well, no. But I did hear him once. He wasn’t speaking French, but then he wouldn’t if he was a spy, would he? Anyway, who else would she be selling secrets to? So we climb up and listen in on the conversation. Then we can confront her, capture her, and turn her over to the British-Martian Intelligence Service. We’ll be heroes, and Mama will never dare get me another governess.”

  “We’re supposed to be looking for the man Dr. Guzman told us about,” I said. “Remember?”

  “I expect he’s the one Miss Wilkins is meeting. We’ll get him, too, and he’ll tell us where Rothan Gal is. You wait and see. I’m always right. It’s down here.”

  She led me along a series of tight alleys before stopping at the edge of a square. On the far side, a wide, three-storied building spilled light across the dry earth. People were entering and leaving in a steady stream, laughing and chatting. A sign hung above the door showing a picture of a large, high-shouldered animal with a scaly tail and enormous jaws.

  Even though it was late, lights shone through the windows of The Snap-jackal. A large scorpion-crawler was parked outside, its eight articulated legs bent so that the cabin was lowered almost to the ground. The boiler at the rear was damped down, only allowing a few wisps of steam to escape into the chill night air. Beside it, a couple of cycle-copters bobbed on top of their balloons, tethered to the rail. A larger two-person airship was anchored firmly to rings on the outside of the coffee house.

  Putty and I crouched in the alley on the far side of the square, watching. We hadn’t been there for more than ten minutes when Miss Wilkins appeared and strode confidently across the square. Putty leaped to her feet.

  “Are you sure about this?” I said. “If we’re caught, you’re going to be in an awful lot of trouble.”

  She gave me a fierce look. “We have to prove it, Edward. I have to get rid of her. She’s a monster. If your tutor was a spy, wouldn’t you want to get rid of him?”

  I groaned. I almost wished Mr. Davidson were a spy. Then maybe he’d spend more time spying and less time torturing me with Latin verbs. But if I had it hard, Putty had it a hundred times worse. At least I had some freedom. Putty had done exactly as she pleased for most of her life. Now Miss Wilkins had arrived, and she treated Putty like a little automaton who had to do exactly what she was told all the time. It was no wonder they were clashing so badly. But that didn’t mean Miss Wilkins was a spy.

  Up above, a flock of moon birds had formed a perfect circle around the outline of Phobos, Mars’s largest moon.

  “I knew you’d understand,” Putty said. She stepped out of the alley. “Follow me! I know just the place. Even you’ll be able to climb it.”

  A man slipped out of the coffee house and headed for the small airship. He was short, no taller than I was, and he moved with a fussy haste, like a nervous bird.

  “Wait!” I grabbed Putty’s arm and dragged her back into the alley. She stumbled against a wall.

  “Ouch! What was that for?”

  My heart was thumping so loud I could hardly think. How could this be happening? How?

  “Look!” I hissed, jabbing my finger toward the small man.

  Putty’s eyes widened. “It’s Dr. Blood! What’s he doing here?”

  I could hardly force the words out. “I don’t know.” My throat clenched and every muscle in my body tensed rock hard. I was sweating, even in the cool night air. Dr. Blood was here. Here!

  I’d been so stupid. Dr. Guzman had talked about a small, fussy man who had asked him to steal something from the museum. Why hadn’t I suspected that might be Dr. Blood?

  Hellfire and damnation!

  Dr. Blood was supposed to be fleeing or hiding, not hanging around Lunae City trying to get hold of artifacts. Not approaching people out in the open in coffee houses like this one. Yet here he was. No wonder Freddie had been worried enough to ask someone to keep an eye on us. He must have suspected Dr. Blood might come back. If only Freddie’s friend had shown up.

  When Dr. Guzman had refused to steal the ideograms for Dr. Blood, Dr. Blood must have sent his own men to get them. They must have come across Rothan Gal studying them and attacked him. They must have taken him with them.

  But why? Dr. Blood had helped Sir Titus Dane try to loot the dragon tomb we’d found. Maybe he was still after something from it. So why had he taken those damaged ideograms that Rothan Gal had been so interested in instead and not something from the new gallery?

  And why had he kidnapped Rothan Gal? None of this made any sense.

  “We can’t let him get away,” Putty said. “Not if he’s got Rothan Gal. Not after what he did to us.”

  “No,” I said grimly. “We can’t.” Dr. Blood had tried to kill us. He’d attacked the airship we’d been traveling on and crashed it, and when we’d survived that, he’d hunted us across the Martian wilderness with his deadly machines. He was a murderer and a villain, and now he had our friend.

  Dr. Blood stopped at the two-man airship and unclipped it from the wall anchors. Once he was in the airship, he would fly off into the Martian night. This might be our only chance to capture him and find out what had happened to Rothan Gal.

  I held on to Putty’s vibrating shoulder until Dr. Blood had his back to us.

  “Now!” I said.

  We raced across the square as Dr. Blood clambered into his little airship. Without any hurry, he engaged the propellers, angled them down, and the ship began to rise, turning away from us. Dr. Blood settled on the upholstered double seat, control levers in his hands.

  I lengthened my stride. The airship was climbing slowly, still only a couple of feet above the ground. I put my head down and raced toward it.

  I was less than a dozen feet away when a red-faced man stepped out of the coffee house and right into my path. I didn’t have time to dodge. We collided and tumbled to the ground. I scrambled to my feet, but my legs were tangled in the man’s stick and he grabbed at my jacket. I fell back. I saw Putty’s legs flash past.

  I twisted my neck. The airship was already six feet off the ground.
>
  Putty leaped. Her fingers caught on a metal bar beneath the airship’s seat. The airship swung under the impact, but it kept rising. Putty clung on.

  I shoved the red-faced man away from me and sprinted for the airship.

  It was too high. By the time I was beneath it, Putty’s feet were well above my head.

  Let go! I mouthed.

  She shook her head.

  Dr. Blood must have known something was wrong. His airship swung awkwardly from Putty’s attempts to pull herself up. Brass flying goggles appeared over the edge of the seat.

  I ducked my head so he wouldn’t see my face. He twisted, trying to look beneath his airship. He must have known someone was hanging on from the way the airship was rocking, but the seat hid Putty from view.

  I spun and ran back to where the cycle-copters were tied to the rail.

  The red-faced man made it to his feet and came stumbling toward me, stick raised.

  I grabbed the first cycle-copter, pulled myself astride, and flicked off the restraining rope. The cycle-copter’s balloon beneath me took my weight, and it began to float up. I engaged the springs. The blades above my head started to rotate.

  “Thief!” the red-faced man bellowed, swiping at me with his stick. I fended him off with a foot.

  Dr. Blood had reached the rooftops, with Putty still dangling beneath. I grabbed the cycle-copter’s steering levers and directed it in pursuit. It wobbled horribly. I started to pedal as fast as I could, increasing the spin of the blades.

  I’d only ridden a cycle-copter once before, and it had been a disaster. I’d ended up trapped in the branches of an outraged fern-tree, and after that, everyone said I should stay on the ground.

  This was really hard to control! The cycle-copter dipped and bobbed and spun like a duck in a whirlpool.

  A building shot toward me. I jerked one of the levers and the cycle-copter swiped away.

  I fired a glance at Dr. Blood’s airship. It had risen above the buildings, but now it was swooping down again. The spiky rooftops jutted at Putty’s dangling body like a forest of spears.

  Desperately, Putty flung herself to one side. The rooftops swished by, barely missing her. Dr. Blood brought his airship up and around, ready to come in for another pass.

  I urged the cycle-copter on. I was beneath the airship now and climbing toward it. But now I saw another problem. I couldn’t come up directly beneath Putty. The beating blades of the cycle-copter would be in the way. Putty would be chopped to bits. And I couldn’t get in close enough to the airship to leap onto it, because its egg-shaped balloon covered it entirely.

  I swung the cycle-copter away, still pedaling, bringing it higher and higher.

  I would only get one chance.

  The airship swept across the rooftops again. Putty twisted between two sharpened spirals of wood. Her foot smacked against the shingles, and a spike caught on her jacket. For a second, she was stretched between the airship and roof, as taut as a fishing line. Then, with a rip of fabric, she came free from the roof.

  As Dr. Blood’s airship flew out over the street, I pushed both of the steering levers forward and sent the cycle-copter into a dive.

  I plunged beneath the airship and jerked the levers back. The cycle-copter leveled out, and I jammed the left lever forward.

  The effect was like a slingshot. Momentum threw the cycle-copter into an almost horizontal curve beneath the airship. I felt the cycle-copter slip down, no longer supported by its whirring blades.

  “Let go!” I shouted to Putty.

  I shot past under her, lying nearly flat. She glanced down then released her hold. She dropped onto me with the force of a falling rock.

  Wind whooshed from my body. Instinctively, I grabbed Putty with one hand.

  The cycle-copter tumbled. The balloon wasn’t enough to lift us both by itself. As the cycle-copter flipped, the street and the buildings whirled past me.

  “Grab the lever!” Putty screamed in my ear. She was dangling from the edge of the cycle-copter, her body being thrown this way and that as we spun, her arms tight around my waist.

  I gritted my teeth, released her, and snatched the steering lever.

  A building loomed up before us. I hauled back, and again the cycle-copter swung.

  We were too close. The tip of one of the blades screeched across the stone wall. For a moment, I thought the whole copter would shatter, sending metal blades ricocheting across the street, but then we were clear again and still flying.

  Putty swung her leg up behind me to straddle the cycle-copter. With a sigh, I pushed the levers gently forward and the machine dipped toward the ground.

  “What are you doing?” Putty demanded beside my ear.

  “Going down,” I said. “Before I kill both of us.”

  “Down? Chase him!” She jabbed a finger toward Dr. Blood’s little airship. It had passed over the rooftops of Lunae City and was now beating its way slowly north, angling over the river and into the desert.

  “We’ll never catch him,” I said.

  “Of course we will. You just need to pedal!”

  I groaned. She was right, of course. Nothing had changed. We still needed to catch Dr. Blood before we lost him for good.

  I angled the levers back and started pedaling again. The copter blades spun faster. Ponderously, the machine lifted into the night sky.

  Ahead of us, Dr. Blood’s miniature airship floated elegantly and effortlessly onward. Behind him, I pedaled and panted, my legs burning. Sweat dripped off my face and down my back. Putty leaned over my shoulder, whacking me enthusiastically.

  “Faster! He’s getting away!”

  Faster? My legs were ready to drop off.

  We flew out over the fields, leaving the city behind. Several miles away, on the far side of the Martian Nile, the vast, dark desert mesas rose. Deep canyons cut through them. There was nowhere out there for Dr. Blood to flee.

  I heaved a breath and pedaled faster. Our little craft surged forward. We were going to catch him.

  “Edward!” Putty shouted. “Watch out!”

  I twisted around. Looming over us was the enormous balloon of a giant airship. It was bigger than a whale and a hundred times more scary. It was so close and so big it completely blotted out the stars and the Martian moons.

  Where the front of the airship’s gondola would normally have been were two huge brass-and-steel jaws, stretched wide. Metal teeth glistened in the starlight. It had crept up on us on silent propellers while I’d been too busy panting and sweating to notice.

  It was going to swallow us!

  I smashed the steering levers forward. The cycle-copter dropped toward the desert, spinning out of control.

  Too late.

  The airship’s jaws closed with a snap around us.

  PART TWO

  Betrayal

  9

  Prisoners

  We plunged into darkness. One moment it had been stars and the faint glow of Mars’s tiny moons and the lights of Lunae City way behind us, then nothing. It was as if we’d flown into a giant inkwell and someone had slammed on the lid.

  I wrenched back on the cycle-copter’s control levers before we could smash headfirst into the floor. The cycle-copter swirled around, bouncing and lunging in every direction.

  “Watch out for the walls!” Putty shouted in my ear.

  “I can’t see the walls!”

  I stopped pedaling and hit the switch that disengaged the spring. The copter blades sighed to a halt and the cycle-copter fell again.

  We hit the floor with a jolt. The cycle-copter tipped. I tumbled to the floor with Putty on top of me. I snatched for the cycle-copter, but it was already rising away from us.

  At least we were down safe. I just didn’t know where we were down.

  I stretched out a hand and felt rough wood beneath my fingers. We must be on floorboards, but they were covered in a thin layer of sticky dust or pollen. Putty scrambled up, managing to jab me in the neck with her elbow. I grabbed hold
of her jacket to stop her from disappearing off in the dark.

  “Let go!” she hissed.

  “Not a chance,” I said. “You have no idea where we are.”

  “We’re in a gulper. They use them to harvest the air forests in Patagonian Mars. I told you all about them last year. Weren’t you listening?”

  “Well, what’s it doing here?” Patagonian Mars was halfway around the planet.

  “Gulping us, of course. Come on, Edward. We need to find a way out. Maybe we can take control of the airship.”

  “Or maybe we can walk around until we fall down a hole and kill ourselves,” I said.

  She sighed. “Why would anyone build an airship with holes in the floor?”

  “Why would anyone build an airship with giant jaws on the front?” I said.

  Before Putty could answer, a door opened forty or fifty yards away. Light spilled into the airship’s hold. From where we were standing, it looked like we were inside the chest cavity of an enormous beast. Brass ribs curved twenty yards up to the ceiling.

  “See?” Putty said happily. “No holes.”

  The light from the doorway outlined four men carrying long poles with sharp hooks on the end.

  “Yeah? Well, how about them?”

  “I only said there weren’t any holes.”

  Except the giant, airship-sized hole in our plan to capture Dr. Blood. Hell!

  “We can see you,” one of the men shouted. They were standing on a platform about halfway up the airship wall. The door must lead to the control room or crew’s quarters. “Give yourselves up.”

  “They can’t see a thing,” I whispered. The light was behind them, and they would be staring into the blackness. There must be a way out. But where? Behind us, the closed metal jaws cut off any escape, and we were at least a hundred feet up in the air. What were we going to do? Jump?

  Our cycle-copter bobbed gently at the top of the space, far out of reach. A dozen or more wide brass pipes ran along the ceiling and ended in mouths like horns, pointing down into the hold. Along the curved walls, tall, narrow flaps hinged along one edge, like fish gills stretching almost to the ceiling. Perhaps we could force one of them open. But then where would we go?