The Emperor of Mars

by Patrick Samphire

“What am I supposed to do with this?” I demanded.

  “Put it in one of the servants’ command slots.”

  I stared at him. “Are you insane?”

  “I would do it quite quickly,” he said, backing away.

  The automatic servants were advancing again, spread out in a line, blades held before them. Putty, Mina, and Rackham were being backed into a corner by another group of the servants.

  The command slots were in the front of the automatic servants’ chests, just below the shoulder line. It had always seemed a convenient place to feed them the punch cards that held their commands, but now I was seeing another design flaw. I couldn’t get anywhere near without being skewered.

  “Hey! You! Metal face!” I shouted at the nearest servant. “Yeah, you. Come and get me.”

  I pulled off a shoe and flung it at the servant. It bounced off the servant’s chest with a clang. They kept advancing, in line. Well. That hadn’t worked. And now I only had one shoe.

  I hobbled back. I needed to get one of the automatic servants away from the others, just for a minute.

  “Hurry up, Edward!” Papa called. A couple of automatic servants had noticed him and were now pursuing him back across the hall.

  I turned and ran parallel to the line of automatic servants. They followed, getting closer with every step.

  When I reached the end of the line, I was only a couple of feet clear. I dashed around another pillar, and the automatic servants followed.

  They were a fantastic invention, brilliant even by the standards of Martian technology, but they were still machines. They weren’t intelligent. They had been instructed to attack us, and so they were following mindlessly. They wouldn’t stop. They’d just keep on following. They trailed after me in a line, like homicidal ducklings trying to catch up with their mother.

  My foot went from under me on the polished marble. I just had time to curse myself for throwing my shoe away before my head bounced off the floor and everything went black for a moment. When my eyes popped open, an automatic servant was looming over me. Its left arm went back, then the blade shot forward. I twisted to the side and the blade shrieked across the marble, throwing up sparks. I grabbed hold of the arm above the blade. With a sigh of pistons, the automatic servant straightened, and I came up with it.

  I shoved the piece of card at its chest, too hard. It caught on the edge of the command slot and crumpled.

  I tugged it back and pushed again. This time, the card slipped into the slot. The mechanism took over and pulled the card in. I gritted my teeth, waiting for it to jam.

  A second automatic servant came up behind. I let go and fell back to the floor. More blades rose.

  Then the first automatic servant let out a series of high-pitched clicks and froze as solid as a statue. Around me, the other automatic servants stopped moving, too.

  I was lying there on the floor, surrounded by a forest of blades, and none of them were stabbing me. I wriggled my way out, holding my breath every inch of the way.

  “What have you done?” Dr. Blood shrieked. He’d abandoned his work on the egg and was staring at Papa.

  “These servants are my invention, Archibald,” Papa said, advancing on Dr. Blood. “Did you think I wouldn’t have some way of shutting them down?”

  “How about a big red button somewhere easy to reach next time?” I panted, clambering to my feet. Putty, Mina, Rothan Gal, and Rackham had worked their way past their immobile automatic servants and were now making their way toward Apprentice and Dr. Blood.

  Dr. Blood scrambled back away from us, up the dais to his throne.

  “Surrender,” Rackham called. “You’ve lost your army.”

  Dr. Blood glared down at us, looking tiny up there on his enormous throne. “You are cowards! You would rather let Napoleon’s armies overrun this planet like a plague of cockroaches than fight. I will not.” He jabbed a finger at Apprentice. “Kill them! Kill them all!”

  From Apprentice’s cloak, a cloud of metallic beetles rose, and as he stepped forward, they darted toward us, pin-sharp jaws spread wide in the air.

  23

  Run!

  I scrabbled away, but there was nowhere to hide from the clockwork beetles. There were too many of them, and they were too fast. They dived through the air, legs like tiny knives jutting forward. I threw up my hands.

  Mina jumped in front of us.

  “No!” she shouted. “Don’t do it.”

  Apprentice’s mask clicked, and the beetles came to a halt in the air, suspended by their beating wings. Apprentice’s head tilted to the side, as though he were asking a question.

  “You can’t,” Mina said, walking toward him, through the cloud of beetles. “You’re not a murderer. I know you’re not.” She reached out a hand and scooped one of the beetles from the air onto her palm. I flinched, expecting it to bite or slash, but it didn’t. “Don’t you remember? You made these for me when I was a kid. They were toys. I thought they were the most wonderful things in the world.” She lifted her other hand and held her finger an inch in front of the beetle. “They didn’t bite. They were beautiful. Then you went away, and when you came back, you were changed.” She shook her head. “I don’t care if he’s our father. Look what he’s done to you. Look what he’s made you.”

  “I have raised you up,” Dr. Blood shouted. “You were nothing. Look at everything I’ve given you.”

  Mina stepped closer to her brother. I stared at him, trying to figure out who he would be most loyal to, his father or his sister. Trying to be ready if he made the wrong choice.

  “He didn’t give you any of this,” Mina said, almost whispering now. “All these inventions, all these wonderful things. They’re yours. I recognize them. You drew them for me years ago. All he’s done is taken them from you and twisted them into something horrible.”

  “I will make you into a prince of Mars,” Dr. Blood said. “You and your sister were starving. You had nowhere to go and no hope of bettering yourselves. Nobody cared if you lived or died, but I will give you everything there is.” He leaned forward. “All you have to do is this one simple thing for me. For your father. All you have to do is kill them.”

  The beetles churned uneasily in the air.

  Mina straightened in front of her brother, staring unflinchingly into his metallic eyes. “You’ll have to kill me, too.”

  “Then do it!” Dr. Blood screamed.

  Apprentice turned his head slowly from side to side. He stepped back, a series of clicks emerging from the mask over his mouth and nose. I braced myself.

  The attack didn’t come. The beetles retreated, reattaching themselves to Apprentice’s cloak. He stood aside, leaving Dr. Blood unprotected on his high throne.

  “It’s over, Archibald,” Papa called, stepping past Apprentice and onto the dais. “It’s finished.”

  Dr. Blood ignored him. His face was so red it looked like he was about to pop.

  “You’re nothing!” he yelled at Apprentice and Mina. “You never were. You’re gullible idiots. Your father? Me? You really believed that?” He jabbed a short finger at the two of them. “You’re pathetic. You have no idea how easy you were to fool. You did everything I asked, all to please me. You would have believed anything.”

  Apprentice stiffened. His every movement stilled. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. It was as though a switch had been thrown that had turned him from a man into a statue. Then his head tipped back and he screamed. Even through the metallic mask that dug deep into the flesh of his face, I could hear it. It sent shivers spilling over my skin.

  His cloak snapped out behind him. Hundreds of metal beetles whirred. Apprentice shot into the air. He burst through the ceiling in an eruption of glass and was gone into the night.

  Mina let out a sob. I hurried across to her. Her face was white and she was trembling. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.

  “Come with us, Archibald,” Papa said, climbing the steps toward him. “It’s over.”

  D
r. Blood sneered. “You always were a fool, Hugo. Do you think me helpless?”

  Thick steel-and-glass walls shot up around the dais, trapping Papa and Dr. Blood in a cage.

  I threw myself against the glass, hammering it with my fists, but it was an inch thick and it felt like hitting rock.

  Beneath the dais, blades whirred, faster and faster. Slowly, it rose into the air.

  Dr. Blood threw another lever as Papa advanced on him.

  Up above, something rattled. Chains began to move. A shape fell from the ceiling with a clatter. I whirled just in time to see a second machine drop beside the first. It landed on metal legs, then straightened. The first machine looked like a giant spider with long, hinged legs and a body bristling with spikes. The other was flatter, its body lower to the floor, but it had an enormous arched tail that ended in a deadly sharp point, like a scorpion, and two sets of claws.

  “Get back!” Rackham shouted, pushing Putty and Mina behind him. I ran to join them, retreating toward the side of the throne room as the metal monstrosities scuttled after us.

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

  “We can get the spider,” Putty said, grabbing my arm.

  I stared down at her. “We can?”

  The spider had two deadly looking pincers where its mouth would have been. Its legs ended in razor-sharp claws. It would be less painful to jump into a pit full of spikes.

  “Good,” Rackham said. “We’ll take the scorpion.”

  He edged behind an immobile automatic servant. “Now!”

  He bent and heaved, lifting the automatic servant and sending it toppling toward the approaching scorpion. It lashed out with its tail. The spike drove into the automatic servant’s chest with a spray of sparks.

  Putty darted to the left and I followed her. The spider turned and scampered after us, fast over the floor as we ran toward the sarcophagus.

  “How exactly is this a good idea?” I gasped as the spider chased behind. Putty was faster than I was in just one shoe. I had absolutely no doubt who was going to be caught first.

  “The hose,” Putty said, pointing. “That one.” Half a dozen thick rubber tubes stretched across the floor to end above the sarcophagus, filtering pale gases down onto the egg.

  “What are we going to do?” I demanded. “Spray it?”

  “Do you think that would work?”

  “No!”

  “Then shut up and grab it.”

  I snatched one end of the hose and wrenched it free from the contraption above the dragon’s egg. Putty peeled off to the side and grabbed a loop of the same hose. Heavy metal claws skittered on stone just behind us.

  “What now?” I demanded.

  “Run,” she said, and jabbed a finger.

  I didn’t need to be told twice. Running away was my great fighting specialty. I took off, dragging the hose, trying not to think of the giant clockwork spider chasing after me.

  “Left!” Putty yelled, and I did what she said.

  The hose jerked in my hand so hard it threw me off my feet. I clung on as I hit the floor. The spider had gotten its legs tangled in the hose. It yanked, throwing me about like a fish on the end of a line.

  Putty raced around the spider and threw her loop of hose over its back. It reared up, dragging me with it.

  “Pull!” Putty shouted.

  I rolled my eyes. “Right,” I said through clenched teeth as I bounced off the frozen body of an automatic servant and went spinning across the smooth floor. “Pull. Got it.”

  I was starting to see a problem with Putty’s plan.

  The spider turned, tugging against the hose again, flipping me across the floor.

  One of the enormous, carved pillars loomed up. I twisted my body around and got my feet in place just in time. I hit the pillar with enough force to send judders all the way up my back. I bit my tongue and tears filled my eyes.

  For a moment, the hose went slack.

  I leaped up, pulling the hose with me, and darted around the pillar. Then I braced my feet and waited.

  The spider reared again, its legs flailing as it tried to get its sharp claws around the hose. But this time the hose didn’t give. It jerked tight. The spider’s legs came to an abrupt halt. For a second, it balanced on its rear legs. Then it toppled backward.

  It hit the marble floor with a crash. Something split, and cogs scattered. A spring ricocheted away to ping against the banks of machinery.

  I let go of the hose. My arms felt like they’d been stretched to twice their length, and I couldn’t feel my shoulders.

  “What were you doing?” Putty demanded as she ran up to me. “This isn’t a game, Edward!”

  I glared at her. “Next time you hold the hose.”

  Above us, on Dr. Blood’s flying dais, Papa had managed to yank Blood off the throne and away from his controls. They were wrestling on the steps.

  A crash sounded from the other side of the throne room. The giant scorpion was stalking Rackham, Mina, and Rothan Gal across the floor. They were ducking and weaving between the automatic servants, but they were running out of cover and Rothan Gal was staggering. The scorpion’s metal stinger lashed out again, knocking another automaton out of the way.

  “Are we going to help them?” Putty said.

  I rolled my shoulders. “Why not? If one giant metal insect doesn’t kill you, give it another go.”

  “They’re not insects, Edward.” Putty sighed. “They’re arachnids. Everyone knows that.”

  A yelp sounded from the throne. I glanced up. Dr. Blood had managed to get an elbow into Papa’s stomach. Dr. Blood scrambled free and slapped at a lever on the throne. Papa dragged him back, but too late.

  The moment Dr. Blood pushed the lever, a door rumbled open at the back of the throne room. A cloud of steam puffed out.

  In clatter of metal hooves, a massive mechanical bull trotted out through the steam. On either side of its head, where its horns should have been, two long, curved swords spun as fast as cycle-copter blades.

  “Or we could fight this one instead,” Putty said brightly.

  The bull lowered its head, still puffing steam. Its red metal eyes fixed on us and it charged.

  We ran.

  “Any ideas?” I demanded as we sprinted for the cover of the pillars.

  “So many.”

  “Any useful ones?”

  Putty grimaced. “Not yet. Although I’m sure I will soon. I’m good at ideas.”

  “Don’t take too long!”

  We ducked behind a pillar just as the bull thundered past. Clouds of steam washed over us. The spinning blades cut the air a foot from me.

  Unlike the spider, the bull was a solid lump of iron. Crashing into a pillar wouldn’t even slow it, and we could hammer at it all day without making a dent.

  “Maybe we could drop a house on it,” Putty said as we raced across the throne room. “Or throw it off the platform.”

  I risked a glance behind. The bull was working up speed, its head lowered.

  “You do that,” I said.

  She wasn’t wrong, though. It would take at least that much force, and even then I wouldn’t be surprised if it shook it off and got back up again. Maybe if we had a battery of cannons. But we didn’t even have a peashooter. Other than Dr. Blood’s mechanical nasties, there weren’t any weapons in the throne room at all.

  Who would build a giant, flying attack fortress and then not leave any weapons around?

  Well, no weapons except one. Papa had said that the banks of machinery were part of a weapon big enough to blow up a city. They ought to be enough to deal with one bad-tempered bull.

  Of course, that weapon was aimed outward, not into the throne room.

  “Dodge!”

  I leaped to the side just as the bull charged past. I stumbled and pushed myself back up.

  I didn’t know how much longer I could keep this up. My ribs ached where the automatic servant had almost impaled me, and my shirt felt sticky from the cut. My legs were
as weak as paper, my blisters burned like wire-wasp stings, and I still only had one shoe.

  I staggered toward the throne where Papa and Dr. Blood were fighting. Papa was lying on his back on top of Dr. Blood, pinning him against the steps. Unfortunately, Dr. Blood had his arm wrapped around Papa’s throat.

  “Papa!” I shouted, over the noise of the dais’s propellers. I threw a glance back to make sure the bull wasn’t coming. “You said the machinery stores and channels an electrostatic charge? Where exactly is the charge stored?”

  Papa tugged on Dr. Blood’s arm to suck in air. “Ah. Well. That is quite interesting, actually. You see—”

  The bull was ignoring Putty. Its eyes were fixed on me and it was pawing the marble floor. Clouds of steam puffed from its nostrils, and the spinning sword-horns sped up.

  “Just tell me where it’s stored!” I shouted.

  “The glass tubes,” Papa managed as Dr. Blood pawed at his face.

  “Good.”

  I turned to face the bull. It lowered its head and watched me through little red eyes. The swords on its head spun faster still. I waved my arms. “Come on, then!”

  It broke into a trot. This had better work. I turned and ran. Heavy hoofbeats followed. I had to get the bull far away from everyone else. I ducked around a pillar and sprinted for the other end of the throne room.

  There! A gargantuan glass tube stretched from floor to ceiling near the main doors. It was filled with some thick, cloudy substance that stirred and roiled slowly behind the glass. I put down my head and raced for it.

  Behind me, the hoofbeats thundered closer. Vibrations shook the floor. My shoeless foot slipped and skidded as I tried to push myself on.

  “Look out!” Putty shouted.

  Another ten feet, that was all I needed. Steam puffed over me. I heard the blades cutting through the air.

  This was going to hurt.

  I ran straight into the glass tube, twisting my body. I bounced off, falling sideways. The bull’s leg crashed into me, sending me tumbling over and over.

  Then the bull hit the glass tube, and the tube ruptured. Electrostatic charge ripped out.

  I had been expecting a big explosion, but nothing like this. The bull simply disintegrated. Metal and glass scythed through the air. Streaks of lightning crackled and burst across the machinery and up to the ceiling struts. Glass shattered and rained down. I covered my head and hugged the floor.