The Emperor of Mars

by Patrick Samphire

  “He’s not a friend,” I said. “He’s a monster. A killer.”

  “God.” She covered her face in her hands.

  “It’s all right,” I murmured. “We’ve beaten him before.” Or Freddie had. But I wasn’t about to mention that.

  Apprentice took a step forward, off the lip of the roof. His cloak snapped open behind him, stiffening. The hundreds of mechanical bugs attached to it spread their wings, and he lowered through the air as though he were wearing a helichute.

  He had changed since I had seen him last. Back then, he’d only had the mask over his mouth and nose, and that had been bad enough. Now he’d added two glittering glass-and-metal half spheres over his eyes. Except they weren’t just goggles. They went through his skin and flesh all the way down to the bone. Just seeing them made me feel sick. I couldn’t imagine how much they must hurt, but Apprentice didn’t show the slightest expression. Maybe he couldn’t under all that metal. My stomach turned over again.

  “We need to get out of here,” I said. “Now.”

  I ran for the main door, waving my free hand as I ran. Mina and Putty followed. The fliers spun toward us.

  Loud clicks sounded from Apprentice’s mask. The armored men swung around to form a line between us and the door. Guns swung smoothly up.

  “Back the other way,” I shouted.

  “No,” Mina said. She reached into her backpack as she ran, pulling out a cluster of glass balls. They were too small to be photon emission globes, and anyway, something black moved inside them like smoke and water. She threw them just as the first man fired.

  The shot snatched at my jacket. I stumbled and almost lost my footing again. We were going to die. They were going to kill us.

  The glass balls shattered. Something fine and black sprayed across the men in clockwork armor. Within a second they were slipping and falling in a tangle.

  “Micro-oil!” Putty squeaked. “I never thought of using it for that. Papa uses it in his tiniest devices. It has almost no friction.”

  The armored men were trying to get up, but they couldn’t get their footing. They slipped and flailed.

  “Jump!” Mina said as we ran toward them.

  Jump? That was even worse than one of Putty’s plans.

  I closed my eyes and jumped.

  On Earth, I would never have made it. Even here in Mars’s low gravity, I nearly didn’t. One of the men snatched for me. His fist closed around my trouser leg, but he was still coated in micro-oil. His hand slid free.

  I hit the floor and tumbled forward. Behind us, propellers whined, and the fliers came chasing after.

  Mina reached the door. “Quickly!” she shouted.

  I scrambled to my feet and lunged. Putty grabbed me and hauled me through. Mina slammed the doors shut behind us and dropped the latch.

  Something crashed into the doors, shaking them on their hinges.

  The main entrance of the museum stood open at the front of the lobby. Bright sunlight shone in from the square beyond. There was no sign of the militia guards.

  The doors shook again. This time, one of them cracked. One more blow, maybe two, and that would be it.

  “This way,” I said, and headed further into the museum.

  Dr. Blood was after the sarcophagus. I had to assume he’d found out where it was kept. Apprentice would head for the storeroom. No matter how thick the door or how strong the lock, he would get through. Dr. Blood would get what he wanted, and then he’d come after us.

  “What are we going to do?” Mina yelled.

  “We get the sarcophagus before Apprentice does,” I said. “We destroy it. Then they won’t have any reason to come after us. We’ll stop their plan in its tracks.” Whatever that plan was.

  I hoped.

  The doors behind us burst from their hinges. Propellers beat the still museum air. Heavy metal footsteps sounded on stone.

  I took a quick left into a hallway that cut behind an exhibit of artifacts from the tomb of the boy emperor Gre-Eb-Tol.

  “They’re coming,” Putty called.

  The first flier dipped into the hallway. Its enormous propellers barely cleared the high ceiling. Its sinuous arms trailed across the ancient red rock walls. A second flier followed, and then half a dozen men in automatic armor. Air from the propellers buffeted along the hallway.

  “Any more ideas?” I panted.

  “Run faster?” Mina said.

  “Get to a corner,” Putty said. “They’ll have to slow down or they’ll get stuck.”

  The hallway stretched ahead. The nearest corner was nearly thirty yards away. “Great.”

  A whir of cogs sounded behind us. Small portholes opened in the lead flier. Spiny spheres, like metal sea urchins, spun from the portholes. I ducked as one whizzed past. It hit the wall, then ricocheted away, bouncing from the floor and ceiling. Putty flung herself to the side.

  The sphere smacked into a wooden statue standing on a plinth just ahead of me. The spines dug in. A moment later, the sphere exploded. The shock wave knocked me from my feet. Splinters sprayed overhead.

  I scrambled up, feeling dizzy. My feet didn’t want to do what they were told. I stumbled again.

  “Keep moving!” Mina said.

  More spheres rebounded from side to side. I dodged and ducked. Behind us, the fliers whirred closer.

  Mina rolled, reaching into her backpack as she went. She came up with a cylinder in her hand and tossed it into the air. A spray of silvery strips erupted from it, filling the air like gently falling snow, hiding the flier from view.

  We dashed around an empty display case pushed against one wall. Sweat was running into my eyes, making them sting. The corridor blurred in front of me. I swiped my sleeve across my eyes and glanced back.

  With a whine, the flier emerged from the shower of silvery strips, nosing its way carefully out, but the moment it was free, it sped up. Portholes slid open again.

  I darted around the corner, just behind Putty. A sandstone statue of an ancient emperor loomed almost up to the ceiling. The emperor’s features had been worn away by time and the scouring winds, leaving a massive, featureless block of stone. Ten yards beyond, a narrow staircase led down to Dr. Guzman’s storeroom—and the sarcophagus within.

  “Let’s tip that into the corridor!” Putty said.

  “You’re mad,” I said. “We’ll never move it.” I grabbed her shoulder to shove her onward.

  She shook free. “It’s just mechanics. It’ll be easy.”

  “Easy? It must weigh tons!”

  Putty rolled her eyes. “It’s just like a lever. Push at the right place and it’ll topple.”

  “And where’s the right place?” I said.

  Putty looked up. “The head.”

  I stared at her. The head? “That’s twenty feet up.”

  “I’ll do it,” Mina said.

  “But—” I started.

  “I’m a better climber than you.”

  “That’s true,” Putty said. “Edward’s useless at climbing.”

  She was right. I’d never get up there in time. But Mina could be killed, and none of this had anything to do with her.

  I ground my teeth. “Fine.”

  The first flier appeared at the corner, turning carefully on its axis as it maneuvered in the tight space. Mina leaped for the statue, clambering up like it was a ladder.

  Putty and I sprinted for the stairway that led down to the storeroom. As we reached it, I glanced back to see Mina climb onto the statue’s shoulders and tie something around it. Beyond, the flier worked free of the corner and started toward us.

  Putty grabbed my hand. “Come on.”

  Then everything happened at once.

  The wall opposite Mina exploded in a shower of stonework. She lost her grip and fell. Great metal arms appeared, ripping away at the wall, widening the gaping hole. Black smoke and steam billowed into the hallway as something shouldered its way through.

  “Mina!” I shouted.

  She hit the grou
nd with a cry of pain. Fragments of stone spun through the air. I ducked as they ricocheted against me, as hard as punches.

  Through the gap in the wall, a gigantic, troll-like machine emerged. Its shoulders took up half its squat body, supporting titanic arms. Steam and smoke pumped from twin chimneys where its head should have been.

  With a last heave, it ripped away most of the wall. The ceiling creaked and sagged above us.

  The machine shuffled back.

  I pulled Putty to her feet. My pulse was pounding so loud in my ears I could hardly hear the grinding machinery and shifting stone. The clouds of dust and smoke clogged my throat and nose. I struggled to drag in enough clean air.

  I started toward Mina, but Putty pulled me back.

  Figures had appeared in the gap left by the troll-machine. Desperately, I rubbed at my streaming eyes.

  Apprentice and half a dozen men in clockwork armor stepped through. He stopped beside Mina’s sprawled body and stared down at her with his strange, metallic eyes. The thousands of button-sized clockwork beetles on his cloak seethed restlessly.

  He would kill her! She couldn’t defend herself and she couldn’t get away. She was at his mercy.

  I scrambled around for a chunk of stone large enough to throw. My hand closed on one.

  Then Apprentice stepped around her, and his men followed.

  I stared. He’d let her go? Why? Did we bother him so little that he just didn’t care?

  Putty pulled on my hand again. “Come on, Edward!”

  Apprentice and his men swung toward us. A stream of clicks emerged from the mask over Apprentice’s mouth, and his men raised their weapons.

  Reluctantly, I retreated, backing away from the stairs and the storeroom.

  One of the guns spat a bullet in a hiss of compressed air. It smacked into the wall above my head. We stumbled back faster. I pushed Putty behind me.

  Without a word, Apprentice turned down the stairs and disappeared from view.

  Damnation! I had nothing. No weapons, and no way of stopping him.

  The moment Apprentice’s men followed him down, Mina scrambled to her feet and limped over to us.

  “He let you go,” I said.

  “He let all of us go,” Mina said. She felt her shoulder with long, nimble fingers and winced. “Maybe … maybe he’s not so bad?”

  I stared at her. Not so bad? She really must have hit her head too hard.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure he’s let us go,” Putty said.

  Propellers beat the air. Wearily, I lifted my head. The lead flier dipped down as it accelerated toward us and long, clawed arms reached out.

  13

  A Suspicious Savior

  I stepped forward, out in front of the flier. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t know how to fight something like this. We’d tried everything and it just kept coming. There was nowhere left to run. Maybe if I distracted it, Putty and Mina would be able to get away. I took a deep breath, then tensed to leap.

  “Get down!” a voice shouted from behind.

  I dived for the floor as a tall figure stepped out at the far end of the hallway and raised a long rifle to his shoulder. I glimpsed broad shoulders, a wide hat, dark brown skin, and a scarred face.

  The rifle gave a deafening crack.

  The bullet smacked into the flier, dead center, and the flier tipped. The propellers whined desperately. The metallic arms whipped back and forth.

  The point of the back propeller caught on the wall, and it shattered. Fragments of hardened steel thudded into the sandstone walls and skittered from the marble floor. Mina swore behind me.

  The flier lunged forward, driving itself into the floor. Metal crumpled and glass burst. Something inside exploded, making the machine buck like it had been kicked.

  I threw myself back, rolling away from the toppling flier.

  For a moment, it balanced on its front, jutting like a finger into the air. Then the still-spinning front propeller pulled it forward and the flier came crashing down.

  I got to my feet and ran, pushing Putty ahead of me. Mina followed, her harsh breath panting at my shoulder.

  With another great crash, the top of the flier hit the ground and it disintegrated. The coiled springs unwound with a fury that tore the machine apart. The museum building groaned as one of the walls took the full force of the eruption.

  The tall man was waiting around the corner, back pressed against the wall. His gun was propped, its butt on the floor, the barrel in one of his hands. He spat something into the barrel, then pulled a narrow rod from its clip and plunged it down the barrel.

  “You used gunpowder!” Putty said. “I didn’t think anyone actually used that.”

  He glanced up at her. His scar pulled one side of his mouth up into a permanent, lopsided smile. “I like the smell. And I’m a good shot.”

  He removed the rod, flipped it, and shoved it back into its clip.

  “Who the devil are you?” I demanded.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “I’ve seen you,” I said. “Spying on us. And you’ve been asking questions.”

  “This isn’t exactly the time.” The man glanced back around the corner. “We need to get going. That won’t hold them for long.”

  I shook my head. “We’re not going anywhere with you. Not until I know what the hell you want.”

  He laughed. “I was told you’d be like this. Your cousin sent me.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “My cousin Harry, you mean?”

  “Freddie,” the man said. “You don’t have a cousin called Harry. And Freddie’s not actually your cousin. You just call him that.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a sealed letter. “He couldn’t come, so he asked me to keep an eye on your family. He’d heard some rumors.”

  I took the letter and unsealed it.

  “It’s Freddie’s handwriting,” I said reluctantly.

  “What does it say?” he said.

  I scanned through the letter. It sounded like Freddie, too. Not the idiot Freddie act he put on to fool people, but Freddie the spy who always knew what to do. “It says we should trust you.” I looked up and caught his eye. “What’s your name?”

  “George Rackham. Is that what it says in the letter?”

  Freddie had said he was sending someone to keep an eye on us, but how could I be sure Rackham was Freddie’s man?

  “Letters can be forged,” I said. Jane had forged a letter from Papa so well I’d hardly been able to tell the difference. It would be easy for a professional. This man had been spying on us, following me, watching, asking questions.

  “You think you have a choice right now?” George Rackham said. “In two minutes, so much firepower is going to come around that corner you won’t even be a memory. I can’t defend you. Not here.”

  I still wasn’t ready to trust him. He could be working for Dr. Blood, looking to trick us somehow.

  “Why would you risk your life to help us?” I said. “We’ve never even met before.”

  “I owe your cousin a favor,” Rackham said, his scarred lip twitching up. “And I didn’t have anything better to do. Think of it this way: I could have put that bullet through your head as easily as I could into the flier’s cogs. Now, we need to get going. Quickly.”

  I hesitated, glancing back to where Apprentice had gone.

  “There are some battles you can’t win,” Rackham said.

  “He’s right,” Mina said. “Nothing’s worth getting killed for. Whatever those people want, let them have it.”

  Dr. Blood wouldn’t let it end here. He wouldn’t let us stand in the way of whatever he had planned. We’d stopped him and Sir Titus Dane once before. He wouldn’t risk us doing it again. He would come after us, and he’d keep coming until we were dead.

  Beneath the floor, a great whoomf sounded, followed by the clatter of metal. The floor shuddered, and I staggered to one side.

  “What…?” Mina said.

  “They’re into the storeroom,” I
said. Apprentice was through the steel door.

  “I’ve got a boat,” Rackham said. “I can get you out of the city.”

  “We can’t,” I said. “Not yet. We have to get Mama. She’s still at home. She hasn’t got a clue what’s going on.”

  “All my things are there, too!” Putty said. “Dr. Blood can’t have my things. I’ve spent ages on some of them.”

  Rackham cast one last look around the corner. “Then we move. Now. Keep up and do what I tell you, and we might get out of this.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  For now.

  * * *

  There were signs of Dr. Blood’s men everywhere. As we hurried through the museum, I saw smashed display cases and glass that had been crunched under the heavy feet of the clockwork armor. Statues and delicate artifacts had been toppled and knocked to the ground. But nothing seemed to have been taken. They really were only after the sarcophagus. Why? It was worthless. Unless there was something hidden in it that we’d missed.

  Our pace was painfully slow. At every corner, Rackham paused, listening, before looking around then signaling us forward. Each time he did it, I got more and more jumpy. Any second now, I expected Apprentice or one of his machines to appear behind us, and we’d be caught.

  Rackham stopped at another corner and I resisted the urge to scream. Rackham knew what he was doing. It was what Freddie would have done. But if we kept on like this, I would be chewing off my fingers.

  Ahead, I knew, the corridor doglegged back, then a door on the right led out to the museum’s own wharf and the river. From there, we could cut north toward our house, or south to the main commercial wharfs, where Captain Kol’s ship was tied up.

  Rackham held up a hand. He glanced back and mouthed, Someone there.

  I swore under my breath. Of course the exits were guarded. I should have realized.

  Rackham raised his rifle. “Stay.”

  There had to be another way out, one that Apprentice didn’t know about. Where? I racked my brain, trying to think. A side door. A ground-floor window that could be jacked open.

  Rackham took a quick step, swinging his rifle out, aiming down the corridor.

  Something flew through the air and caught him on the shoulder. He spun around, dropping to his knee and bringing the rifle back up again.