Arabella of Mars

by David D. Levine

  “What might ye be seeking?” called out a one-legged airman, who sat at the base of a nearby wall with his hat upended on the cobbles before him.

  “The Marsman Earl of Kent.” She sorted a farthing from her much diminished purse and tossed it into the unfortunate man’s hat.

  “I know her well,” the airman replied. “A fine ship, a soft berth. She were docked just here this very morning.”

  Arabella swallowed. “And where is she now?”

  An agony of waiting as the airman sucked his few remaining teeth, squinting and contemplating. “I calculate she’ll be well above the falling-line now.”

  “Which means?”

  “Just furling her envelope and swaying out sidemasts.”

  “Swaying out…?”

  “Just so, sir. A soft berth, the old Earl, but no air-clipper. Now, you want a fast ship, there’s better. Royal York, or Diana, she’d be halfway to the moon by now. Depending on the winds.”

  “So the Earl is still nearby?”

  “Nearby?” Again the old airman sucked his teeth. “Closer than the moon, aye, but above the falling-line.… Well, there’s nothing between her and Mars now save clean air and sweet winds, the good Lord willing.”

  “I see,” Arabella said, though in truth she understood little of what she had heard … save that the ship was well departed. “Is there any chance she might be forced to return to port? By storm or foul winds, perhaps?”

  The old airman shook his head. “She’d never have taken to the air in such case.”

  Arabella’s shoulders slumped. “I see,” she repeated miserably, and gave the airman another farthing for his help.

  “Thankee, mate,” he said, tucking the coin away in his pocket.

  * * *

  Stunned and dejected, Arabella wandered up from the docks, lacking any destination, letting the waves of humanity wash across her without feeling them. Her feet moved without volition, carrying her unseeing and uncaring though a dark fog of despair.

  Simon had gone. Vanished into the air, Mars-bound, with his pistol and his envy and his greed. In two months he would arrive at Mars, meet with Michael, and find some way to work himself into his cousin’s confidence. Plenty of time to work out a convincing story as to why.

  Michael could be so trusting sometimes. He would never suspect, until some supposed hunting accident or other artificial tragedy had already befallen him. And then Simon, all feigned distress and forged tears, would inherit Marlowe Hall and all the rest, and Arabella and her mother and sisters would be tossed out onto the street.

  Arabella knew the fate of women who lost the protection of their family fortune. They were thrown upon the kindness of relatives—not that Simon could be expected to offer any such kindness, nor were there any other relatives upon whom they might depend—or, failing that, must make their own way in the world, taking in washing or selling matches to earn their daily bread.

  Mother, for all her flintiness, was accustomed to a soft life. And Fanny and Chloë were barely more than infants. None of them would survive if they were forced upon their own resources.

  It would be up to Arabella herself to save her family. But how could she do so? She was only a girl … friendless, nearly penniless, and a hundred miles away from them.

  She must send a letter, she thought. The Earl of Kent was not a fast ship, the old airman had said. A letter, carried on a fast packet-ship, might reach Michael before Simon did.

  “Excuse me, sir,” she asked a passing stranger, “where might I find a receiving house for a letter to Mars?”

  * * *

  The nearest receiving house proved to be a stationers’, which among many other services received letters for conveyance to the penny, general, and aerial post. Her gracious bow to the proprietor, a thin and sour-looking man with pince-nez spectacles perched upon his nose, was met by a disapproving glare.

  Arabella was suddenly very aware of the appearance she must be presenting. She was filthy, her ill-fitting clothes had been stolen from a poor Oxfordshire farmer, and they had been traveled in, slept in, and subjected to extremely hard service for the last several days without proper cleaning or care. Even she had to admit that her odor was extremely unpleasant.

  Again she bowed. “If you please, sir,” she said in her politest tone, “I should like to send an express to my brother on Mars.” The cost of an express, she well knew, was extravagant, but when he read the news the letter conveyed she was sure her brother would be happy to have paid it. “My news is exceptionally urgent, and I wish to convey it immediately and by the fastest possible ship.”

  Apparently her fine diction managed to outweigh her rough appearance, for the shopkeeper’s disdainful expression softened somewhat. “You are in luck, then, boy,” he said. “The next collection for the aerial post is in only half an hour.” He extended his hand.

  Arabella stared blankly for a moment at the man’s open hand before realizing what it meant, then cursed herself for stupidity. “I’m sorry, sir, I have not written my letter yet.” She looked about at the stacks of creamy paper displayed behind glass on the shop’s walls. “And I fear that I lack paper.”

  The shopkeeper sighed, opened a cabinet, and drew out a sheet of fine cream laid. “Eighteen pence and a half,” he said. “And ha’penny for the use of pen and ink, if you should require that, as I suspect you do.”

  Arabella’s purse contained only three farthings—less than a penny all told. “Have you any thing more … reasonable?”

  He stared down his long nose at her, then sniffed. Slipping the fine paper back onto the stack, he reached below the counter and brought out a small, battered box. “Penny a sheet,” he said, “and you’ll find no better price in London.”

  Arabella swallowed. She had no doubt the man was correct in that. “I thank you for your time, sir,” she said. “I shall return with the money as soon as I can.”

  * * *

  Arabella’s hands gripped each other behind her back as she paced away from the stationers’. Tuppence might be sufficient to save her brother’s life, but even that modest sum was far beyond her now.

  She tried not to regret the money she had spent so far. The coach-fare, the shilling she had left for the clothing, the ha’penny she had given the old airman, the few pence she’d spent to assuage her hunger and thirst … all had been practically or morally necessary.

  Surely she could perform some small service for a farthing or two.

  But the metropolis’s bustling crowds cared little for the needs of a tattered, filthy young man. All those she importuned, on the streets or in the shops, rebuffed her entreaties—some with a kindly expression of regret, others quite brusquely, but none with any charity or offer of employment.

  Already the sun had passed its zenith. Increasingly frantic, she charged from street to street, her eyes scanning shop windows in search of one that might require her particular skills.…

  And then she recalled what she hoped might be the answer to her prayers.

  The clockmaker’s shop.

  The automaton artist.

  It took her some hours to locate the shop again. She had nearly given up hope when, finally, she found herself before the shop window with the flawed automaton.

  Eagerly Arabella peered at the exposed mechanism. It was complex, yes, especially being so much smaller than her father’s harpsichord player, but it lacked subtlety. Every gear and wire was connected, directly or indirectly, to the drawing hand; there was no attempt to counterfeit breathing or make the device’s head seem to follow its hand. And having understood this, the source of the problem became obvious. A simple bent rod, just one among the brass fingers that read the pins on the device’s controlling drum. Easily damaged, easily fixed.

  Hands trembling, she pushed her way into the shop.

  * * *

  The shop’s dark and ticking interior was crowded, nearly filled by the shopkeeper and his one customer, a tall dark foreigner in a buff coat.

  “Ma
y I help you, young sir?” the shopkeeper said, sliding his spectacles down his nose as he leaned to peer around the customer. The sir came weighted with a heavy freight of irony.

  Arabella swallowed, and again bowed with the greatest grace she could muster. “I wish to speak with you concerning your display model, sir,” she said. “The automaton artist. I see what is wrong with it, sir.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” the shopkeeper replied with a note of incredulity. “What’s wrong with it? There is nothing whatsoever wrong with it, my dear boy. Clarkson’s Clockworks sells only the very finest products, and I personally guarantee the function and performance of each and every one.” This last was clearly directed at the customer rather than Arabella.

  “It—it is but a small flaw, sir,” she stammered, her nervousness making it difficult to pitch her voice low like a boy’s. “It puts an, an extraneous line across the middle of the picture, sir. And I can repair it, sir, for a very reasonable fee of sixpence.”

  “An … extraneous line?” His already-sour expression soured still further. “It was Hodge who put you up to this, wasn’t it?” He turned his attention to the customer again, all obsequiousness. “My competitor, sir. He’ll stop at nothing. Day in and day out, spreading false rumors about the quality of my automata.” Now he returned to Arabella, and his words burned with scorn. “And I’ll tell you what I’ve told all the others who’ve complained about that line, and that is this: it is an artistic decision, a decorative flourish.”

  “No, sir,” Arabella insisted. “It is only a bent rod, sir. One of the pickups from the control drum. I can fix it, sir!”

  “You?” he scoffed. “A ragged, beardless gutter urchin?” Now he came out from behind his counter, begging the customer’s pardon, and stomped up to where Arabella stood trembling. He was a big man, and though his hands were very white and delicate, the forearms exposed by his rolled-up cuffs were thick with muscle.

  The shopkeeper grabbed her roughly by the collar and twisted. Choking out a squawk, she heard and felt fabric tear. “You are nothing more than Hodge’s creature,” he growled in her ear, “sent to humiliate me before my clientele. You will return to him, you will give him back whatever he has paid you, and you will tell him not to try this sort of stunt again or he’ll get from me himself what I give to you now!” Then he cuffed her hard across the ear and shoved her through the door, sending her sprawling across the cobbles and into the path of a passing gentleman, who cried out and gave her a good kick. Pain exploded in her midsection, joining the pain in her bruised ear and abraded hands.

  Eyes blinded with tears, she dragged herself around the corner and lay gasping against a wrought-iron fence, trying to recover her wits. But a few moments later she heard the shop door open and a loud voice calling, “Where has that boy gone? That ragged boy?” A man standing in the street immediately pointed in her direction.

  She had no idea why the man who had just thrown her out of his shop might now be seeking her, but she had no wish to find out, nor to endure any further abuse or humiliation at his hands.

  She ran.

  5

  THE MOON AND SIXPENCE

  Arabella ducked and weaved frantically between irate passersby in an attempt to evade the man, but no matter how many woolen-clad elbows she jostled or fine shoes she trod upon, his shouting and footsteps continued to dog her heels.

  After several frantic minutes—the thudding boots now nearer, now farther, but never completely eluded—she dodged into an alley, pressing herself against the wall.

  Her pursuer passed the alley mouth, his rapid footsteps pounding past and vanishing around the corner.

  Panting, exhausted, she slid down the rough bricks to the alley floor. The man had been diligent in pursuing her; she could not rest long.

  And then, pasted to the wall across from her, she saw a recruiting poster.

  GOD save the KING.

  To all Loyal British Subjects,

  Our beloved SOVEREIGN, seeing his Majesty’s AIRLANES

  threatened by FRENCH PRIVATEERS both rapacious and bold,

  has caused to be built and commissioned

  THE AERIAL CLIPPER

  ATHENA

  of Sixteen Guns

  a fine and exceptionally fast Ship

  Which now lies ready for MARS

  lacking only a few good Hands

  CAPTAIN

  SIR HIRAM WALTER

  who was not killed at Ceres as some have reported

  Commands her.

  The following BOUNTIES will be given by his MAJESTY,

  in Addition to Two Months Advance.

  To Able Airmen … Five Pounds.

  To Ordinary Airmen … Two pounds Ten Shillings.

  To Landsmen … Thirty Shillings.

  REPAIR,

  All who have good Hearts, who love their KING and COUNTRY,

  to Lieut. J. F. CONNOR

  at his Rendezvous, at THE MOON AND SIXPENCE

  MAKE HASTE!

  G. BONDHAM, Printer, Carrow-Street

  As she read the poster, Arabella recalled the old airman’s words: the Earl of Kent was no clipper. But here was a clipper, Mars-bound, a “fine and exceptionally fast ship,” and not only was she calling for volunteers, but offering a bounty as well!

  Even a landsman—into which class Arabella assumed she herself fell, owing to want of experience—would receive a bounty of thirty shillings, thus providing a solution to her financial problems … as well as passage to Mars!

  The game was not yet lost. She might be able to do better than send a letter … she might be able to beat Simon to Mars herself!

  “Excuse me, sir!” she called to a passerby, a tall gentleman with a shockingly long knitted scarf. “Do you know where I might find The Moon and Sixpence?”

  * * *

  The Moon and Sixpence, located in a narrow side way only a few streets distant from the poster, was a dark and low-ceilinged public house of a type Arabella had never before entered. Raucous conversation rattled the beams, rough tankards clattered against the tables, and a stink of sour ale pervaded the atmosphere.

  Hesitantly Arabella stepped down into the space from the stairwell, blinking from the light outside. Here, at least, her ragged and unwashed clothing would be no impediment.

  A serving-girl, carrying three brimming mugs in one hand and showing an indecent amount of bosom, came swaying past. “Excuse me?” Arabella said to her.

  “Aye? What’s yours?”

  “I am looking for Lieutenant J. F. Connor. Of the Athena.”

  The serving-girl looked her up and down. “The Air Service won’t take you before sixteen.”

  “I am seventeen years of age, miss.” That much, at least, was the truth.

  Suddenly the serving-girl reached out and drew a finger down Arabella’s smooth and beardless cheek, then laughed aloud. “Aye, and I’m a Martian.”

  At that Arabella laughed in return. “Indeed? Well, so am I, miss. A Martian born and raised.”

  The serving-girl tipped her head and grinned. “Cheeky little b____d. Well, you wouldn’t be the first to join the navy under false colors.” She jerked her thumb toward a table near the fireplace. “Connor’s there.”

  “Thank you, miss.”

  But as Arabella turned away, the serving-girl touched her shoulder. “Take care, now,” she said, her expression serious. “’Twould be a shame for a sweet young face like yours to get blown to bits by some pirate off Ceres.”

  “I will, miss.”

  * * *

  Connor lounged against the wall, drinking from a glass-bottomed tankard and talking with several companions. He wore a blue navy coat with airman’s red piping, but his neck-cloth was loose and stained; above it, his cheeks were ill-shaven.

  Arabella pushed down her fears and stepped forward. “Lieutenant Connor?”

  The airman looked up over the brim of his tankard, but said nothing.

  “My name is Arthur Ashby, sir. I saw the recruiting poster fo
r Athena. I would like to volunteer.”

  At that the lieutenant immediately excused himself from his conversation, drained and set down his tankard, and walked over to Arabella. “Delighted to meet you, Mr. Ashby.” His handshake was exceptionally rough and strong, like being gripped by a great twist of rope. “Allow me to stand you to a drink.” With a great show of cheer and camaraderie he ushered Arabella to the bar, where he ordered two pints of ale, handed one to Arabella, and raised the other. “The king’s health!” he cried, and drank off a great swallow.

  “The king’s health!” chorused all those in earshot, and Arabella chimed in, slamming her tankard down on the bar afterward along with the rest. Ale sloshed out, disguising the fact that she had not swallowed any. She felt she should keep her wits about her.

  “So, tell me why you wish to become one of His Majesty’s airmen.”

  “Mars, sir. I am filled with a great desire to visit the red planet. And such a fine fast ship as Athena is said to be, well, I figure she will get me there sooner than any other.”

  “That she will, lad, that she will. She’s a fine ship.” He took another drink. “Now, before you accept the king’s shilling and appear before the magistrate to take your oath, I have a few questions I must ask you. Are you a loyal subject of His Majesty the King?”

  Arabella straightened. “Absolutely, sir!”

  “Are you at least sixteen years of age?”

  “Indeed I am, sir! Seventeen in March.”

  He did not appear convinced, but seemed to decide not to press the matter. “Are you rated able airman?”

  “No, sir.” On this point she felt sure that lying would get her in endless trouble, by raising expectations about her capabilities that she could not fulfill.

  “Ordinary airman?”

  “No.”

  “Well then, can you reef, hand, and steer? Do you know the ropes, at least? There’s plenty of use for a sailor’s skills on an aerial ship.”

  Arabella ducked her head sheepishly. “I am afraid I have no idea what those even mean, sir.”