The Aethers of Mars

by Eric Flint

  Cuthur Troep’eth nodded. “I do not know what a ‘fly’ is, but I hear your words. It is not so different among our own people, when you explain it that way.” He stood. “Come. Let us set you on the path to being rid of the zhrat-kaffa growing in your lungs.”

  Conrad’s purely personal relief was short-lived. In his travels—first to Helwan, then to Alexandria, then to Mars, and finally to this room—he had realized that there was a problem he had to address that went well beyond his poisoning. He swallowed. “Cuthur Troep’eth, despite my profound gratitude, I must ask for your further help.”

  “In what matter?”

  “In the matter of the poisoned opium that is being sent to Earth from Mars, and which is obviously so dangerous to us that one exposure sets us on a path to homicidal madness and eventually, death.”

  Cuthur frowned. “Firstly, it is unlikely that your infection was effected by one exposure. The small organisms that are released when you burn the zhrat-mloolj—the slaughter-drug—are not particularly compatible with your tissues: Al-Aftal probably laced your opium with it many times before it took hold of you. However, it is true that once humans are infected, there is nothing to deter the spread of the zhrat-kaffa organisms. Unless there is some way for your blood to be given the resistance of our own, the zhrat-kaffa will do exactly what you describe.

  “So you will take steps to prevent any further—?”

  “I can do no such thing. Firstly, I am not acquainted with who is sending the zhrat-infested mloolj to Earth. I do not even rule out the possibility that it is a human plot, rather than Martian. Secondly, while the reach of the Triumvirate is long, it is not very powerful. We can ill-afford to become involved in underworld conflicts with persons who have enough resources to traffic in drugs between our two worlds. But lastly, I simply do not care what this unknown group is doing with the zhrat-mloolj. From your perspective, it is a potential assault on your world. True enough. But from my perspective, it seems like a fairly modest counter-invasion, at most. How many persons will succumb to the zhrat-mloolj, or be slain by its users? A tiny fraction of the many you have already killed, maimed, or enslaved here on Mars.”

  “Which is also wrong. So is it best, then, to answer a wrong-doing with another wrong-doing?”

  “You argue well, Conrad von Harrer: you have spent hours at the knees of scholars. I can almost hear them speaking through you. But your fine words change nothing. I am powerless to do anything and could not be bothered to act differently if I had more power: your planet brought this on itself. It may look to itself to correct it—particularly since the purveyors of the zhrat-mloolj which infected you were not Martian interlopers, but persons of your own species.”

  “Perhaps. But they must have had instruction here on Mars. I know something of the death cults of my planet, and what the Cleansers espoused, and the rhetoric they used, are not of Earthly origins. And besides, they had the book—and claimed that it held the answer to all things, that it was both the articulation and exhortation of their hastening humans to become as dust.”

  Cuthur looked like he might spit in disgust. “Hzzhhh. Of course, that is how they would see the book’s teachings. Cretins.”

  “And how do you see the book’s teachings, Cuthur Troep’eth?”

  Instead of the deflection that Conrad was expecting, Cuthur fixed him with a steady, serious gaze. “If I told you that the answer to your question would change how you saw the worlds—this one, yours, others—would you still want the answer?”

  “More than ever.” Which, Conrad learned to his surprise, was utterly true.

  “And if you had to work hard and journey long and uncertainly to understand the answer you were given?”

  “It is said that no answer worth having was ever easy to acquire.”

  “Hssssu!” Cuthur’s hissing sound suggested surprise, maybe even a hint of approval. He turned to Szurthål. “This Pink may have promise.”

  Szurthål shrugged, looked away—possibly to hide a smile? “I suppose that is possible.”

  Cuthur turned back to Conrad. “So be it. You shall see the pages of the book for yourself, and judge as you will, Conrad of the Family von Harrer.”

  “But—but I cannot read it.”

  “Of course not. So that is your first challenge: to go forth and learn our language, our writing.”

  “And then—?”

  “And then you can read it. But you will still not necessarily understand it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because learning to speak and read Martian is but half your journey, Conrad von Harrer. The remainder of your challenge is to learn to think as a Martian. Then—and only then—will you fully understand the book you have brought back to us.”

  “And how should I learn to think like a Martian?”

  “To live like one, of course. To the extent your body will allow you to. And you shall learn those limits soon enough.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Cuthur made a gesture behind him. The elderly servant disappeared into an adjoining room, reemerged bearing the Lee-Enfield as if it were a nobleman’s first-born infant son. Cuthur spoke as the gun was placed in Conrad’s hands. “You must travel to the tablelands to the north. This will be a relatively short journey. There you must find and kill a kaffa-nool. That creature—an ill-tempered shrub grazer of the fringe-lands—is the source of your antidote. Of all the creatures of Mars, it is not merely immune to the zhrat animalcules, but destroys them. But be warned; confronting kaffa-nool is a difficult task.”

  Conrad nodded. “And then?”

  “And then you will go forth from here and find the limits of your body in the many environments of Mars. Some of those limits are quite severe: you require more oxygen than we do, and more warmth. And although you are larger and stronger, you tire more quickly and recover more slowly. But by testing your limits in her fringelands, Mars will teach you about herself. And that will be your first step in understanding us—if you survive the rigors of those lessons. The first of which is this: our environment is a hard taskmaster. We are shaped by its implicit lesson; that to survive, one does what one must. But part of what we must do is keep enough honor that we may trust each other enough to live together.” Cuthur sat, took up his utensils, poked at his cold food. “Now take your weapon and confront the kaffa-nool. Szurthål, go with him. But only as his guide; he must make his own way in our world. To compel him to do less would undermine the acquisition of the strength he will need in all the days to come. Now go. I want to finish my lunch.”

  * * *

  Once they had scaled the switchback paths that led them to the lip of the tablelands, the kaffa-nool were not hard to find. Only five miles into those forbidding wastes, Conrad and Szurthål saw movement in the low scrub ahead. The Martian nodded. “There are two, I think. Are you ready?”

  “Almost. Give me a moment.” Conrad sucked air in deeply. Although still several thousand feet beneath the “median” elevation of Mars’ surface, the air was punishingly thin.

  As Conrad pulled the cold air into his burning lungs, Szurthål casually produced what looked, at first, like a canteen—but instead of drinking from it, he sucked air out of it.

  “What is that?” Conrad asked.

  “Oxygen.”

  “What?” Conrad goggled.

  “Oxygen,” Szurthål repeated. “Several tableland species separate oxygen from hydrogen in some of the water they drink or absorb. They keep the oxygen in reserve bladders for when they have to either flee to, or pursue prey in, the higher altitudes.”

  Conrad nodded, stared at the apparently dense bottle: probably equipped with some modest pressurization valves, he conjectured.

  Szurthål put the heavy flask away with an apologetic shrug. “Are you ready now? They’re moving off.”

  Damn you, thought Conrad as he saw the airbottle go back to its place on Szurthål’s broad belt. But what he said was. “I’m fine. Let’s get this over with.”

  * * *<
br />
  The hunt of the kaffa-nool was even more anticlimactic than Conrad’s meeting with one third of the Triumvirate. The two creatures’ appearance vaguely resembled a much-horned and -tusked cross between a mole and a pangolin, but about the size of a mountain goat. Hearing the Martian and human approach, one fled, the other came round aggressively.

  Conrad thought it was going to charge, but instead, it reared up, front claws raking the air in what was clearly a threat display. And which provided a very nice, relatively stable, target. He snapped the safety off as he brought up the Lee-Enfield, got the sights aligned on the creature’s exposed midsection and fired.

  The beast’s end was almost pathetic: it ceased all motions, as if too stunned to act, then emitted a hoarse squeal, and fell over. Quite dead.

  “A fine shot,” commented Szurthål. “How did you know its heart was that low down in its abdomen?”

  “An inspired guess,” Conrad lied.

  “Ah, yes. Of course it was,” Szurthål agreed with a roll of his eyes.

  As soon as they began to approach the inert form of the kaffa-nool, Conrad detected a smell at once putrid and astringent—as if some madman had decided to see what dung and rubbing alcohol would smell like if they were mixed together. “Pach!” Conrad exclaimed—and regretted doing so: every expenditure of breath was becoming acutely painful, now.

  “What does that mean?”

  “That is a sound humans—well, some Germans—make when we smell something bad. Very bad.”

  “Ah, yes. Your sense of smell. Much more acute than ours.”

  Which made sense, Conrad allowed; in this air, scent would not carry well at all. Hell, he was beginning to wonder if there was any air left up here …

  “You must complete the process, now. And quickly,” Szurthål urged.

  “‘The process’? What process? Do you mean we have to skin—or gut—the creature up here?” Which was quite logical, come to think of it: carrying the animal’s carcass would be enough of a task in a normal atmosphere. Up here—Conrad expected he’d get maybe one hundred yards before keeling over from the effort.

  “Gut it? Well—yes.” Szurthål looked at him oddly. “You could put it that way. Although we do not need all of its viscera.”

  “What do we need to take with us?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? Then how—?”

  And suddenly Conrad understood what Cuthur had meant by “confronting kaffa-nool.” Not confronting “a” kaffa-nool, or “the” kaffa-nool, which would mean the creature as a creature. No, “confronting kaffa-nool” was idiomatically different: it meant confronting the substance of kaffa-nool. The way one on Earth would have said, “confronting haggis” or “confronting tripe” or “confronting cod liver oil”.

  Conrad looked at Szurthål. “What part do I have to eat?”

  Szurthål showed him where to cut. When he did so, a slightly distended sac sagged out. The stench was overpowering.

  “And I have to eat it raw, of course.”

  Szurthål may have looked slightly apologetic. “Of course.”

  * * *

  Still laboring to keep the mouthfuls of raw kaffa-nool gut from coming up in a rush, Conrad discovered he was staggering sideways instead of following a direct line back to the edge of the tablelands.

  Then he was scraping dust out of his eyes, and discovered he was on the ground. Tried to pull in air, couldn’t, speculated that he might be dying. But at least he wasn’t nauseous anymore. Well, not much, anyway.

  Szurthål kneeled next to him, his voice oddly flat, and a little distant. “I am not permitted to help you, Conrad.”

  “I know.”

  “You must get up.”

  “I know.”

  Szurthål waited a long time. Conrad tried to bring as much air as he could into his lungs, slowly, steadily. It hurt but his head was clearing. But not for long—and his lungs were getting too weary to try to overload them again. Szurthål sounded slightly concerned when he finally spoke. “You must get up. Now.”

  “Yes,” Conrad murmured. And still did not move.

  Hearing that fainter tone, Szurthål came closer—as Conrad had hoped. Twisting around sharply, Conrad flung his left arm at the side of the Martian’s head: he felt the impact, locked his hand on the sprawling Martian’s sleeve, let Szurthål’s fall tug him along.

  Which, as he rolled, gave Conrad the opportunity to rip the airbottle off the Martian’s belt. He popped the top of it and sucked at it greedily. A thin stream of very cold oxygen surged into him: almost immediately, the shapes around him became marginally more distinct.

  Szurthål, momentarily stunned, rolled away and up to his feet. Only then did he notice that his airbottle was missing—and that it was jammed in between the human’s lips.

  “You thief! You deceitful—”

  “Strange accusations, coming from you.”

  “You are thrice damned! You have learned nothing, nothing about how to survive in the Martian environment this day—” He came toward the bottle.

  Conrad brought up his rifle.

  Szurthål stopped, then raised his chin. “And why did you not simply get the bottle by threatening me earlier?”

  “Because that wouldn’t have worked. You may be a thief—or not—but you are called the Hand of the Keeper of Truth. Which means—as I have seen—that you have principles and honor. Of a sort. Which means I probably would have had to shoot you to get the bottle if I threatened you with the rifle. But now,”—he took another deep draught of the oxygen—“I have the bottle. You can’t best me in a straight fight; I’m bigger and stronger. So you could try your knife—but then I’d have no choice but to use my rifle. And we didn’t come up here to kill each other, did we?”

  “No. But, in addition to purging the zhrat from your body, you were also to learn what is required to survive in this environment, how every breath is a resource, how every action and asset must be measured.”

  “Well,” observed Conrad, rising to his feet, “according to those terms, I’ve been a model pupil today. I did use every breath and every action as an asset in order to get the one asset that I knew could save my life, didn’t I? And what was the final rule Cuthur stressed? ‘Do what you must to survive,’ I think it was.” Von Harrer shook the bottle, smiled, and fastened it to his belt.

  Szurthål almost smiled back. “I suppose there is a measure of truth in that ridiculous statement,” he admitted.

  “Then,” concluded Conrad as he lowered the rifle and began walking steadily toward the path that led down from the lip of the tableland back to Thrynoo’ul, “I seem to have taken a first step in learning to be Martian.” And a first step in learning to live with purpose, once again. Here on a planet of dust, where I was told I would find my end as walking dust, I have found hope in my hour of despair. I have found friends among those called my enemies. And I have found new life springing up in me as I walk the barrens of a dying world.

  A few steps more brought Conrad to the first vantage point down into the bowl that held Thrynoo’ul, watched as its pink spires rose over the bramble-covered upland ledge. To one side of the arched aqueducts that served the city’s lower tier of tightly packed roofs, the cloud galley that had brought them was dipping down to replenish its many tubules of hydrogen, its graceful lines mirrored in the unrippled surface of the crater’s spire-rimming lake. Canal boats converged slowly on it as well, bearing provisions that showed themselves to the sky in the open clay urns that lined the decks: canal-millet, spices, salt, fresh water, smoked mud-eel, and rim-kine sweet meats. And, abruptly realizing that this scene was no longer surprising, but somehow familiar, Conrad von Harrer reflected that perhaps he truly was learning to be a Martian. And perhaps that was not so bad a fate.

  Not so bad at all.

  # # #

  Thank you for reading!

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