Arabella and the Battle of Venus

by David D. Levine

  * * *

  As they proceeded arm in arm up the gently climbing wooded path toward the manor house, the silence continuing as the captain occasionally nodded to acquaintances, the pressure within Arabella to say something built and built until she finally burst out, “I would have hoped you would be happier to see me!”

  He paused and looked around—there was no one nearby at the moment—before replying. “I must confess I am … disappointed in you, Mrs. Singh. In my every letter I emphasized that you should not attempt to join me here.”

  “I received only one letter,” she replied, trying and failing not to let her tone become defensive.

  “That is unfortunate. Which one?”

  She briefly described its contents—it was not difficult to do so, as she had read and re-read it so many times its every phrase was burned upon her heart.

  The captain sighed. “Then I suppose you may be forgiven, as that was the very first of them and our circumstances had not … decayed, to their current state. Still, even in that first letter I did request that you remain safely at home.”

  “But I could not! Once I learned that the dread Fouché had been appointed as Napoleon’s Minister of Police, I knew that I must at least attempt to inform you of the danger before his arrival.”

  “Ah, yes, the famous Executioner of Lyon. We have been well aware for some time that he is on his way; in fact, I received word only last week that he has already arrived on Venus.”

  Arabella was astonished at how coolly the captain reported this intelligence. “How can you be so calm? Are plans for your escape so far advanced?”

  Again the captain looked in every direction before replying, and his face when he turned it back to Arabella was terribly grave. “There are no plans for escape, and you must put the very idea out of your mind. We are surrounded on all sides by miles of impenetrable jungle, rife with wild beasts and populated only by Venusians loyal to Napoleon. The majority of those who attempt escape are returned within days, to face the fiercest punishment; of the rest, we have heard nothing at all. We must assume they have fallen to the many hazards of this unpleasant planet.”

  The sound of footsteps on the path ahead interrupted their conversation, and they resumed their upward progress until the other party—a group of three Venusians in native dress, carrying empty leathery panniers and presumably headed to the market in Marieville for provisions for the manoir—had passed. As they walked, Arabella could not fail to notice how rigid were the muscles of the captain’s arm beneath its sleeve.

  They walked together for a time in silence. “I did not come to Venus without resources, sir,” she said when the Venusians had passed out of hearing range. “I have done considerable reading on the subject of escape by prisoners of war, and I am aware that a key factor in a successful escape is money—which may be used to bribe guards, hire transportation, procure documents, and the like. To this end I have brought with me a letter of note, in the amount of five hundred pounds, from the Bank of Fort Augusta.” She patted her reticule, into whose lining the note was securely sewn. “Such an amount might perhaps be sufficient to secure the cooperation of even the butcher Fouché.”

  “A generous sum indeed,” the captain replied, “but much will be lost in the conversion to French livres. Napoleon has absolutely prohibited the bankers of Venus to answer any English bills for more than a hundred pounds. There are means of evading this prohibition, to be sure, but their costs are dire. And Fouché, despite his barbarity, is far too loyal to Napoleon to be swayed by mere money.” He shook his head. “No, that note cannot effect an escape. But it can be used to better the men’s conditions, and could in fact have substantial consequence in that area.” He glanced sidelong at Arabella. “A husband can compel his wife to turn such a note over to him, for whatever purpose he desires. I would not, of course, do any such thing, and under our … current circumstances, I may not. But I can request that you do so.”

  Just at that moment they rounded a copse of trees and came upon the manoir, a large square house of whitewashed clapboard bustling with people, both human and Venusian. An enormous French flag flapped languidly in the damp, oppressive breeze.

  “I will take your request under advisement,” Arabella murmured as their feet crunched onto the gravel path leading to the entrance portico.

  13

  SURGERY

  They were ushered into the sitting-room by a Venusian in an old-fashioned coat and powdered wig, which sat oddly on the wide skull behind his protuberant eyes. “Attendez ici, s’il vous plaît,” he croaked, and left them to wait upon Lefevre along with several French officers and a Venusian in native dress.

  Arabella chose to wait in silence, rather than pretend light conversation with a captain with whom she was, to be frank, rather cross. In the absence of conversation, she took the opportunity to observe the Venusian carefully. He—or was it indeed a he? She had seen few of the natives so far, and had noted no distinctions of sex in dress or form among them—squatted comfortably on the floor between the provided chairs, wearing a shirt and long trousers of sheer white fabric and a vest of some leathery material. The fabric, she realized, was Venusian silk of the very highest quality—the same first-rate stuff, light and strong and air-tight, that made up the balloon envelopes of airfaring ships. Such an ensemble would be beyond the means of all but the most wealthy aristocrats of Earth or Mars, and yet a Venusian who gave every appearance of being a common tradesman wore it as though it were nothing but cheap linen.

  The buttons on his vest, too, were unusual—highly polished stone, from the look of them, or perhaps wood, with an intriguing pattern of black and pale red. Perhaps they were coral? As she attempted to discern whether they were attached with thread or sinew, the Venusian reached into the leather pouch at his hip and drew out a short pipe of black clay, which he proceeded to fill with something resembling tobacco and set alight with a flint and steel. The smoke was pungent but not entirely unpleasant, and as the Venusian rocked back on his heels and puffed contemplatively she realized that, despite his bare webbed feet, he was no mere savage but a civilized creature. What thoughts, she wondered, ran through the mind behind those shining eyes?

  Just then a human aide-de-camp appeared at the sitting-room door and brusquely bid Captain Singh accompany him to Lefevre’s office. “I do not know when I shall return,” the captain told Arabella as he rose. “Perhaps half an hour, perhaps more.”

  “I shall endeavor to occupy myself until then,” Arabella replied with chill formality.

  “Until then, my dear,” he said, pointedly ignoring her tone, and departed with a deep respectful bow.

  In the wake of the captain’s departure, Arabella found her sentiments in turmoil. She was, to be certain, quite disappointed with his secrecy, his aloofness, and his apparent lack of interest in escape. But the very sight of him—the strong brown hands with their long fingers, the full lips which carried a slight smile even in these unpleasant circumstances, the posture still erect and unbowed despite his captivity—gladdened her heart, and as long as he was with her she felt that, somehow, all would be well.

  “Arabella Ashby,” she chided herself, “you are a silly, silly girl.”

  “You are looking well, Mrs. Singh,” came a voice, as if in response to her unvoiced thought. Startled, she looked up. It was Lady Corey!

  “Lady Corey! I am delighted to see you.” And, in truth, she was, though her feelings toward the older woman were still somewhat mixed.

  “And I you.” She seated herself upon the hard bench beside Arabella, pointedly choosing the side away from the Venusian and his pipe. “When I saw Captain Singh in the hall I suspected that you might be here.” Her mien turned serious. “How do you fare, in the town?”

  “Well enough, I suppose. I share a room with the captain and two of his officers, though they have hung a cloth between our side of the room and theirs. The food is acceptable, though I gather it is quite expensive. And we must report for roll-call twice
a day.”

  “How many beds?”

  “Two,” Arabella replied with deliberate ambiguity. She had not, she realized, considered the question of to-night’s sleeping arrangements—the prospect of compelling her dear captain to sleep in a hard chair again pained her, but the alternatives were equally untenable.

  Lady Corey nodded, though Arabella thought from her expression that she had noted Arabella’s equivocation and chosen to accept it at face value rather than raise uncomfortable questions. “As for myself, I have been treated well. I have a small room to myself, and I share a Venusian servant”—her nose wrinkled—“with an American called Fulton.”

  “Fulton is here? I had not understood that he was present in person. He is the inventor of the iron plantation … I suppose he must be very clever.”

  “He certainly thinks himself so.” Again her nose wrinkled. “We had not been acquainted for more than five minutes before he began to boast to me of the canal-digging machines, steam-powered river boats, and submarine vessels he has invented. Fancies himself a painter into the bargain. He even had the cheek to invite me to sit for a portrait! ‘After,’ he says, ‘the current work is completed.’”

  “And what ‘current work’ might that be?”

  “I have no idea. Something terribly clever, I am sure.”

  “Hm.” Arabella pondered the question. Judging by the large swaths of forest which had already been cut down, the iron plantation had been running for some time—years, perhaps—and its operations in the town seemed to be well in hand. An American with so many inventions to his credit would surely not content himself with the simple operation, or even improvement, of a process so settled. “I wonder what such a talented man is doing here, so very far from civilization. Perhaps you could make discreet inquiries?”

  Lady Corey, clearly understanding the thrust of Arabella’s query, nodded. “I shall.” But then she tilted her head back slightly and regarded Arabella with an appraising eye. “Something is troubling you.”

  The simple truth of Lady Corey’s statement caused Arabella’s earlier disordered sentiments to return with renewed force—so strong indeed that she was compelled to bite her lip and turn away rather than burst into tears. “It is nothing.”

  “You are still a terrible liar, my dear girl.” She patted Arabella’s hand and rose from the bench. “Let us walk in the garden, such as it is.”

  * * *

  The “garden” proved to be a simple patch of open ground behind the house, filled with plants in orderly rows. Large gourd-like growths on some of them implied it was a source of vegetables for the manor.

  “Now,” Lady Corey said once they were well away from any one who might overhear, “what is the matter?”

  Arabella had been considering her answer ever since they had left the sitting-room, but still she hesitated before replying. For her to confess her mixed feelings toward her captain seemed a betrayal—of her fiancé, and of her own previous self—yet she could not simply deny that any thing was wrong. “I do not know how to behave in such a situation,” she said. “This … place is made for men; it has no room for a lady. Yet I feel I must do something.”

  Lady Corey’s expression turned calculating. For a moment she seemed about to call Arabella to account on her prevarication, but what she said was this: “The main and inescapable duty of the upper classes, especially in time of crisis, is always to support, the common, people.” She emphasized each word with a firm gesture of her closed fan in the air, and her determined face showed how important she felt this advice to be.

  “Gentlemen,” she continued, “are taught from the cradle to plan and strategize, to command decisively, to stand bravely in the face of the enemy. They lead from the front. We gentle ladies, in our turn, must support the cause from the rear, by providing aid and comfort. In time of war, we visit the sick and wounded, to raise their spirits with kind words and gentle touch. We console the bereft and bring food to the hungry. Even in the unlikely case of defeat, we hold our heads high as we walk through the rubble, to show that the English are never, ever beaten.”

  The prospect was daunting. “I … I am not certain I am equal to the task.”

  “You underestimate your own abilities, my dear. I have seen you keep your head in situations that would cause most women—even, I daresay, most men—to run mad with despair.”

  “But that was different! During the siege of Corey House, I had duties—actions, negotiations, plans to make—and I was familiar with Mars and the Martians. Here, I am idle and ignorant!”

  “Nonetheless, your inner strength is the same.” She patted Arabella’s arm. “In all circumstances, no matter how difficult, a gentle lady’s role is simply to be present and calm—to visibly display unswerving fortitude, no matter our inward feelings—so as to hearten and encourage those around us. And you are entirely capable of that.”

  Arabella took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I will endeavor to keep your advice in mind. But it will be difficult.”

  “Of course it will. If it were easy, any commoner could do it.”

  * * *

  They returned to the manor house, where they found Captain Singh in the sitting-room, engaged in conversation with another English officer. Though Arabella had not been able to discuss the true source of her agitated emotions with Lady Corey, the conversation had nonetheless been of some help to her, and after taking their leave of Lady Corey and the English officer she walked out on the captain’s arm with greater confidence than before.

  But the captain’s mind was clearly elsewhere, and once they had departed the manor house he confided in her that his discussion with Lefevre had not been fruitful. “He insists that these ‘entertainments,’ as he puts it, are necessary for the officers’ morale, and absolutely refuses to shut the gaming-house. He did hint broadly that a substantial payment, presented to him personally, might persuade him to change his mind, but I fear that such a transaction would only lead to further and greater such requests.” He shook his head. “We have no alternative but to take up a collection to pay the debts of those men who have been most deeply ensnared. Though I fear the wealthier officers are already tiring of these requests.”

  “Perhaps you can approach the less wealthy men—they may have less to give, but surely there are more of them. If nothing else, the request may serve as a reminder of the dangers of gambling, and help to prevent others from falling into the same trap.”

  “An excellent suggestion.”

  They walked in companionable silence for a time. “Is this,” Arabella asked, “one of the uses to which you are thinking my five hundred pounds might be put?”

  “Not in the least,” he replied with some heat. “The officers who have indebted themselves at the gaming-house have no one but themselves to blame; it is mere common courtesy to redeem them. But the men who have been captured by the ogre Napoleon and put to work—horrendous work—in defiance of the laws of war … their conditions are no fault of their own, and it is our duty as Englishmen—and women—to ameliorate them as much as possible.”

  Surely, Arabella thought to herself, the best amelioration would be to escape this town and this planet completely, but knowing this suggestion would fall on deaf ears, what she said was “Please help me to understand the men’s conditions, so that I may put the money to the best possible use.”

  The captain looked to Arabella with an inspecting eye, then cast that eye upward at the brighter spot in the clouds which represented the Sun. “Some eight hours remain until they return to the barracks. We officers are not permitted to visit them at their work, but we may observe them from a distance, if you like. Though I warn you, their situation is horrific.”

  “I believe that I must,” she said, thinking back to her conversation with Lady Corey. “And to visit them at the barracks when they return there. It is, as you point out, our duty as gentlemen and ladies.”

  “Very well.”

  At the next turning, the captain directed them
to a different path than the one by which they had come. This one twisted back upon itself and rose precipitously. “Mind your step, here,” the captain warned at one point.

  “I noticed you consulting the Sun for the time,” Arabella said after they had cleared the difficult patch. “What has become of your pocket-watch?” The captain, an aficionado of all things mechanical, had possessed a very fine pocket-watch, an instrument of unsurpassed accuracy which showed the orbital positions of the major planets and chimed on the hour.

  “I sold it,” he replied without emotion. “Watson required medicine.”

  Arabella remembered Watson, one of Diana’s midshipmen, with considerable fondness; during the mutiny, he had leapt to her defense when she had been threatened with the lash. “I see,” she said, and her feelings toward the captain warmed still further.

  Eventually they found themselves atop an outcropping of stone from which they could look down into the valley. “There,” the captain said, pointing.

  Following his finger, Arabella made out the tiny figures of men at one end of a long strip of bare ground in the midst of the forest. Two of them labored rhythmically, one on each end of a long saw, to bring down a massive tree; others used axes to hew a previously-felled tree into pieces of manageable size. Nearby stood a group of round structures, each some thirty feet in diameter, from several of which threads of smoke rose into the air.

  “What are those? Are they huts?”

  “Those are the charcoal mounds, where the wood smolders into charcoal over a period of weeks. That French officer is the collier, in charge of the work. He supervises the men as they stack the wood and cover it with mud and leaves; there is no opportunity to sabotage the process.” Indeed, she saw that the officer—readily distinguished from the filthy prisoners by the bright white, red, and blue of his uniform—kept a close eye on the work and was accompanied by several Venusians, also in uniform and armed with swords and pistols.

  “Why is that man jumping up and down atop the mound?”