The Emperor of Mars

by Patrick Samphire

  But he couldn’t escape the creature’s momentum. Its lower jaw smashed into him, throwing him back. He rolled, bouncing like a ball. I thought that he was going to go over the side, into the river. But at the last moment, he grabbed what was left of the rail and hung on. He dangled over the side, his feet banging against the metal hull.

  The sea serpent let out a screech that nearly deafened me. Its body convulsed. I heard something snap in the ship. The serpent’s head thrashed back and forth. It shook its mouth, trying to dislodge the spine. Then, slowly, it toppled, falling across the deck with a thump that shook the ship from end to end, and was still.

  I ran past it to where Rackham hung from his ship, and helped him pull himself up.

  “Your … plans … leave … something … to be … desired,” he panted.

  “We’re alive, aren’t we?”

  “Speak for yourself.” He staggered toward the fallen sea serpent. “We need to get it off before it wakes up. We want to leave it far behind. We’ll tip it into the river.”

  Now that it was lying unconscious across the deck, its coil loosely looped around the ship, the sea serpent didn’t look as big as I’d thought. It was still enormous, but I could have climbed onto its back without a ladder.

  “Won’t it drown?” Mina said. She was peering at the sea serpent’s eyes. The lids had closed, but the eyes were twitching behind them.

  “No,” Papa said. “It is a sea creature. It often rests for weeks on the bottom of the ocean after a large meal. Mr. Rackham is right. We should dispose of it before it wakes.”

  “I’m going to fetch the lifting gear,” Rackham said.

  He returned a minute later, just as Jane and Mr. Davidson emerged from below.

  Mr. Davidson looked pale. “Is it dead?”

  I shook my head. “But it’s safe now.”

  Rackham swung a long metal arm with a pulley, steel rope, and straps dangling from it out over the sea serpent. “This should do it.” He clambered onto the serpent’s back.

  Papa had been examining the creature, and just as Rackham looped the first of the straps around its body, Papa called, “Wait.” He peered behind the head frills. “Look at this.”

  I scrambled up next to him. A brass box had been attached to the sea serpent’s head, just out of sight behind the frills. Papa pulled a screwdriver out of his jacket and levered off the casing. Inside was a complex arrangement of cogs, levers, and rods.

  “See here,” Papa said, pointing to a set of dozens of rods that seemed to protrude into the sea serpent’s skull. He disengaged a lever and carefully drew out a long brass needle. “I’ve seen something like this before.”

  “That must go into its brain,” Putty said.

  “You are right, Parthenia,” Papa said. “The needles penetrate the creature’s brain at carefully selected points.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Why would anyone do that?”

  “I wondered why the creature would attack a ship, when it is not normal behavior for a sea serpent. This is why. When a needle is inserted into the creature’s brain, that changes its behavior. With enough needles being inserted and withdrawn in the right places, you can gain some rudimentary control over a creature’s actions. The sea serpent didn’t attack us by choice. It was forced to.”

  “You said you’d seen this before?” Rackham said. “I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

  “When I was studying for my doctorate at Tharsis University, I shared a laboratory with another student called Archibald Simmons. He was an unpleasant fellow and he was expelled for stealing ideas from other students, but he had a strange fascination with the idea of controlling creatures by manipulating their living brains in a manner similar to this. He was never successful, but it is possible that Dr. Blood came across Archibald’s ideas and has perfected them.”

  Rackham looked grim. “You know, it would be really useful if we knew what your Dr. Blood was planning. Then we might be able to figure out what he’s going to do next.”

  Everyone turned to look at me. Great. Now they all expected me to know what was going on, and I didn’t have any more of a clue than I had two days ago.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He’s got a fragment of unreadable ideograms from the museum, the stone sarcophagus from our dragon tomb, and he seems to have kidnapped Rothan Gal. Maybe he’s just crazy. Maybe he hit his head and he thinks he’s a crannybug building its palace.”

  Putty sighed. “Clearly, he wants Rothan Gal to translate the ideograms for him.”

  “You said they were impossible to translate.” I frowned as an idea came to me. “What if he had another fragment of the same ideograms?”

  Putty shook her head. “That’s not how ideograms work. Really, Edward, I don’t have time to explain right now if you still don’t understand them.”

  I hid my annoyance. It wasn’t my fault I wasn’t a genius like Putty. “So you’re saying Rothan Gal can’t read them no matter what?”

  “He really can’t.”

  “May I see them?” Papa asked.

  I pulled out the copy that Dr. Guzman had given me. I’d kept it wrapped in waxed cloth to protect it, and the water hadn’t penetrated. If anyone understood ideograms better than Putty, it was Papa.

  He wiped his eyeglasses on his sleeve, smudging them even more, and squinted down at the paper. He traced a finger across the marks, then sighed. “I fear Parthenia is right. The ideograms are too badly damaged. Too many are missing. They cannot be translated.”

  “But it has a key,” I said, pointing to a symbol above the rest of the ideograms. “Last time we had ideograms to translate, you said you needed a key. It’s here.”

  Papa nodded. “Even so. Ancient Martian ideograms are an odd form of language. Every individual ideogram changes the meaning of the surrounding ones. If too many are missing, there simply isn’t enough information to interpret what was written. Much of the ideographic writing we recover is like this. You must remember that they are thousands of years old, and even in the desert, time erodes. I am sorry, Edward.”

  I slumped. “So why does he want it?” I said. “Why did he go to such an effort to steal it?”

  Papa straightened, wiping his glasses. “I cannot say. Perhaps he does not understand ideograms well enough to realize the impossibility of the task. But this fragment will not help us. We must find another way to understand his plans.”

  “Wonderful.” I turned away.

  “Perhaps we might try?” Jane said tentatively. “Mr. Davidson is a scholar, and I might be of some help.”

  “Why not?” I said, and handed the paper over. She wanted to find a way to talk to Mr. Davidson, and this was as good a way as any. Maybe when he failed it would convince her he wasn’t such a wonderful intellectual. I had a sudden, horrifying vision of Mr. Davidson translating them, impressing Jane so much that she married him, and me never being able to escape his lists of Greek and Latin verbs. I almost snatched the paper back.

  Thank God it was impossible.

  I watched the pair of them disappear back into the boat and felt the weight of the day settle over me like a mountain of rock.

  “Maybe if we knew what other artifacts Dr. Blood has,” Putty said conversationally, “we could figure out his plan.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  Putty gave me a look. “Just because we know about the sarcophagus and the ideograms, Edward, that doesn’t mean he hasn’t got a hundred other artifacts we don’t know about. What do you think he’s been doing for the last eight months? You can’t see a whole painting when all you’ve got is a scrap torn off one corner.”

  I groaned. “So we don’t know anything.”

  Putty sniffed. “I know lots of things. A lot more than Dr. Blood. I’m sure I’ll work it out.”

  Great. This was really great. “Whenever you’re ready, then,” I said, turning away.

  “Come, Parthenia,” Papa said. “We must remove the device from the sea serpent. When it awakes, i
t will no longer feel the urge to attack. It will return to its natural state, and no one will be able to control it again. And I should like to examine the device.”

  Within a couple of minutes, Rackham had finished securing the straps to the sea serpent. He jumped down to the deck.

  “We should get to work,” he told me. “We need to be ready for whatever Dr. Blood tries next. As soon as we get the sea serpent off, I need to check over my ship. She’s pretty badly damaged.”

  “And I want to make sure the others are all right,” I said. “Then I want to find out where that automatic courier ball came from.” Because someone on this boat was sending messages back to Lunae City, and that was not good news.

  Mina let out a huff of breath. “Yeah, I don’t think we’re going to have time for that.”

  I turned to her. “What? Why not?”

  She pointed down the river, where the Martian Nile curved around a large sandbank. Three long arrowheads of water were cutting upstream, against the current, beneath the surface.

  “We’ve got more company.”

  17

  Disaster

  “Three?” I said. “Three sea serpents?”

  This was a bad joke. One had been almost more than we could deal with.

  Rackham grabbed my arm. “Get everyone. Your sisters, your mother, everyone. I want them armed.”

  “That’s not going to do any good. Bullets only made that one angry.”

  “You got a better idea?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then go. Hurry.”

  I turned and dashed for the hatch, followed by Putty and Mina.

  The cabins were at the other end of the ship, past a small below-deck drawing room. Jane had set up there. She was leaning over the table, an intent expression on her face. Mr. Davidson hovered ineffectually at her shoulder. They had only been down here for a few minutes, but the table was already covered in books and papers. Jane’s bag lay empty beside the table. It looked like she’d had more books in there than she’d let on to me.

  “We need you,” I panted, coming to a halt.

  Jane waved a dismissive hand. “I’m busy, Edward.”

  “It’s going to have to wait,” I said. “We’ve got trouble. Where’s Mama?”

  “Her cabin.” Jane looked up. “What’s going on?”

  “Sea serpents. Lots of them. We’re going to have to fight.”

  Whirring started up in the depths of the ship, growing louder with every second, until the whole boat was shaking.

  “What’s that?” Mr. Davidson shouted, cringing back.

  “The slingshot cannon,” Putty said. “It could knock a sea serpent’s head clean off. Come on. Let’s go and get some weapons.”

  The ship rocked violently as the cannon discharged. Mr. Davidson hugged a book to his chest.

  I left Mina and Putty to shepherd Jane and Mr. Davidson to the armory and went looking for the others.

  Mama, as Jane had said, was in her cabin, being comforted by Olivia and Miss Wilkins.

  “We need you,” I called. “There are more sea serpents. We have to drive them off or we’ll be sunk.”

  The fight with the first sea serpent had wrecked the cabin. There was broken glass on the floor, and a wardrobe had been overturned, scattering clothes and splintered wood.

  Olivia untangled herself from Mama. “I’ll come.”

  “Olivia!” Mama snapped, her fingers digging so tight into the material of her dress that it looked like it might tear. “That is hardly proper!”

  “I’d rather be improper than drowned, Mama,” Olivia said.

  “We need the rest of you as well,” I said.

  Mama wafted a hand to her forehead. “I feel faint.…”

  “Oh, forget it,” I said. I grabbed Olivia’s hand. “Come on.”

  * * *

  We reached the hatch leading up to the deck just as one of the sea serpents hit the side of the boat. The impact sent me sprawling to the floor. I picked myself up. I’d bitten the inside of my cheek and I could taste blood.

  I pushed Olivia up the ladder, then scrambled after her. Putty, Papa, Mina, and Mr. Davidson were already on deck, crouched near the rail, guns raised. Jane stood behind them, flares held in both hands. The water in front of the boat was still.

  “Where are they?” I demanded.

  “They dived,” Papa said. “Rackham’s shot bounced off the river.”

  “I could have told him it would,” Putty said. “It’s like skipping a stone.”

  “So they’re going to sink us without even emerging?” I said.

  Papa cleared his throat. “No. The nature of the sea serpent is such that it wraps itself around its prey and constricts it.”

  “Because being crushed to death is so much better,” I said.

  “There are worse ways to go,” Rackham said, emerging from a doorway.

  “And I’m sure you’ll tell us all about them,” Mina said, flashing him a smile that immediately made me feel furious. Why was she smiling at him?

  “Maybe another time,” Rackham said.

  Mina laughed as he pushed past and peered down into the silt-laden water. I glared at his back. Why was that supposed to be funny?

  “Something’s happening,” Rackham called. “Get ready.”

  I grabbed a flare from the box beside Jane and joined Rackham.

  A patch of water ten feet from the boat had turned smooth. Even the ripples on the river from the light breeze had gone. It was as though water was welling up from a deep underwater spring and flattening on the surface. I gripped the flare tightly in my fingers. If I could fling it right in the creature’s eye as it surfaced, I might blind it or hurt it enough to drive it away.

  Yeah, and while I was at it, I might defeat Dr. Blood and stop the Emperor Napoleon from invading. All with one puny little flare.

  Assuming the sweat from my hand hadn’t soaked it through.

  I was going to be eaten whole by some miserable sea serpent with a stupid clockwork control box plugged into its brain. What a way to go.

  The flat patch of river sucked down, as though something vast had opened its mouth and swallowed. Then the water rushed back, rising up and up and up, like a hill, bulging higher and higher until it seemed impossible that it wouldn’t burst or collapse back on itself. Water shouldn’t be able to hold a shape like that. Gravity shouldn’t allow it.

  Something came up inside the column of water. Like a preserved creature in a vast, liquid specimen jar, the sea serpent seemed to stare up at us.

  Then the water did burst, and the creature was rushing out of the river as fast as an arrow.

  I threw my flare. It blazed into bright life as it tumbled through the air toward the creature. Then the water swept over it and it was gone into the river. Around me, I heard the pop of compressed-air guns. The sea serpent didn’t even flinch.

  A second flare curved up from behind me. Olivia had waited until the water subsided before she’d thrown hers.

  The sea serpent arched back, its head instinctively pulling away from the burning light, and its body splashed back into the water like a falling tree. I cheered. One down.

  Something hit the back of the boat with enough force to make it jump in the water. The drive screws screamed in protest, and the boat lurched wildly.

  “It hit the rudder,” Rackham snarled. He pushed away from the rail and raced along the walkway, toward the stern. Snatching another flare, I followed him.

  The attack had broken something in the steering mechanism. The boat slewed back and forth as it fought its way downstream. The bulk of the first, unconscious sea serpent that was still wrapped around the ship wasn’t helping, either.

  “Don’t you have anything you can use underwater?” I shouted as I pounded after Rackham. The creatures were only showing themselves to launch attacks. There was no time to bring any of the ship’s heavy weapons to bear.

  “Never thought I’d need it,” Rackham called back.

  The boat
rocked, and a volley of shots sounded behind us. Metal crunched, and I staggered again.

  Rackham reached the stern ahead of me.

  “Damnation!”

  I joined him and peered down.

  The rudder was jolting awkwardly in the water. One of the couplings holding it in place had burst, and the rudder itself was bent.

  “One more blow and we’ll lose it completely,” Rackham said.

  “And then what?”

  “Then we’re helpless,” he growled.

  As opposed to now, when we were doing so well.

  The water behind the boat swirled.

  “It’s coming back,” Rackham said. He dropped his rifle from his shoulder and knelt. “I need you to get the creature to turn aside.”

  Turn aside? How on Mars was I supposed to do that?

  The sea serpent surged out of the water above the stern. The fringes and spines jutted erect around its head and along its thick body. Its mouth was wide, showing needle-sharp teeth as long as my hand. I shuddered.

  I waited until the wash of water had subsided, then tossed the flare.

  The serpent’s head whipped away from the burst of light, and for a moment I saw the metal control box clamped to the back of its skull. Then Rackham fired.

  The control box exploded. It looked like it had been hit by a giant, invisible hammer. Cogs, springs, levers, and brass plates spun through the air, like a firework made of metal.

  The sea serpent convulsed, as though hit by an electric shock. Its coils jerked and slashed through the water, throwing up rainbow sprays in the sunlight.

  Its tail swept around, coming out of the water and toward us. I shouted, but there was nothing I could do. It was like a clockwork express train bearing down on us, and we were trapped on the rails.

  Then, at the last moment, its tail fell. It crunched down full on the rudder. With a screech of tearing metal, the rudder ripped away.

  Another of the sea serpents crashed into the boat, shaking the iron hull. Without the rudder to straighten it, the boat lurched to the side. The powerful current caught the port side and swung the boat further around. The ship tipped, and I lost my footing on the wet deck. I grabbed the guardrail and hung on fiercely.

  “Cut the power!” Rackham roared.