Shadows Against the Empire (Folkestone & Hand Interplanetary Steampunk Adventures Book 1)

by Ralph Vaughan

  The blackamoor nodded.

  “No, Barton” the Martian decided. “We must not be delayed further than we already have. And it would be imprudent to attack the ship below…with any weapon. There is too great a chance of observation in these sea lanes, and there is always the problem of survivors. Let them think it just some random debris from an air-freighter, if they saw anything at all.”

  “What about this dog?” the swarthy airship pirate demanded, fingering the hilt of his scimitar.

  “Bind his wounds and bring him to me,” the Martian said.

  Savas frowned, but replied: “As you command, Master, your word is law.”

  But he was talking to empty air. The Martian had turned and departed as soon as he had finished speaking, closely flanked by the remaining three. Savas grabbed Slaughter by the collar of his coat and yanked him up from where he had fallen, dangling him at eye level like a cur by the scruff.

  “Were it left to me,” Savas growled, “I would stuff you through that porthole!”

  “I’m so glad thinking is not left up to you then,” Slaughter said with a mocking smirk. “Shall we get these wounds taken care of? I don’t want you getting into trouble because of me.”

  The Mohammedan roared with bestial fury, face contorting even more, eyes flashing with murderous rage. Torn between his impulses and his orders, Savas flung Slaughter across the room. The Scotland Yard inspector smiled as he hit the deck, for he well understood what a good moment this would be to take advantage of the giant’s blind anger, to strike and then seek refuge within the bowels of the enormous cargo airship, to evade recapture, to find a good hiding place in which to lie doggo until a full escape could be made. He restrained himself, however, seeking satisfaction only from the knowledge that Savas had been manipulated, that he could have escaped, for he knew it was much more important to delve deeper into this mystery, and to do that he had to, at least for the moment, submit to his captors.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be taking care of these?” Slaughter taunted, raising his wrists. “Hop to it, boy!”

  Savas growled and pushed him through the door.

  Savas applied salve and bandages to the wounds with no trace of concern or gentleness, but for all that he did a good job of it. Even though the Turk was purposely rough, Slaughter maintained a gentle and distracted smile.

  “Come,” Savas directed when he had finished.

  Slaughter rolled down his sleeves and followed. As they trod empty corridors, Slaughter wondered how many people were aboard the craft. Normally, an airship capable of carrying as much cargo as he had seen in that single hold would have required a crew of at least fifteen, mostly trimmers and riggers, plus a command complement of at least four – captain, number one, navigator and aether-communications officer.

  Obviously, an awkward behemoth like Savas would never work on the hull in the rigging, and he was certainly not the type to trust with airship operations. As to the others…what the devil was a Martian doing on Earth lording such a motley crew?

  They paused for a moment before a door, and the surly Savas knocked timidly. At a sound, Savas opened the door and gestured insolently with his chin for Slaughter to enter.

  “After you, big fellow,” Slaughter said with a smile.

  The transformation of Savas’ features was startling. In the briefest of moments, they went from disrespectful toward Slaughter to terrified of what waited within.

  “The Dark Gods thirst!” Savas hissed loudly enough for Slaughter’s ears only. “You court death!”

  There was another sound from within, low and guttural, full of menace.

  Savas laid a meaty hand on Slaughter’s shoulder, shoved him roughly into the cabin, and slammed the door shut. Slaughter heard the man’s footfalls pounding swiftly away. He looked around the dimly lit cabin and did not at first see its occupant.

  The cabin was unlike any room Slaughter had ever seen on Earth, hung with tapestries and plaques never touched by human hands. Slaughter had never made the journey to Mars, but he had read the travelogues written by Giovanni Schiaparelli and Percy Greg, and like most citizens of the Empire who one day thought they might make the trip he had on his bookshelf a red-jacketed copy of Baedeker’s Mars for the Traveller, with Sections on Syrtis Major and Environs, the Interconnecting Canals, and All the Ancient Monuments Open to Human Visitation. The appointments of this cabin made him think of Mars as it had been revealed in the writings of others, and yet it was different, skewed from normal. If he had to pin it down, he might say that what he saw in the cabin could become the Mars familiar to the Empire with the passage of time…a long passage of time.

  Separated from the rest of the cabin was a small alcove mostly hidden by folding screens. Vaguely, Slaughter saw the flash of old silver, the glint of something dark and glassy.

  The room was dim and redolent of dust and strange spices.

  At the rear of the cabin was a raised dais in shadows, almost lost in shimmers of dark shades of fabric, as if an effort had been made to recreate twilight. Upon the dais was a throne with spindly supports made for a world of lesser gravity, and above it was a red disc surrounded by black fire. Before the throne rose a five-sided pyramid made from ancient weathered stone.

  “Come closer, human,” a voice hissed softly.

  Slaughter peered into the morass of shadows and fabric and saw a figure upon the throne. It was the Martian he had seen earlier.

  “Hullo, Guv’nor,” Slaughter greeted jauntily. “Quite a…”

  A bolt of bluish-white energy sizzled outward from the throne, like a bullwhip being cracked. It struck Slaughter in the chest and sent him flying back.

  A few moments later, he sat up, shook his head, and stood shakily to his feet.

  “Crikey, Guv’nor! That…”

  The second blast also hit him square in the chest, slamming him against the bulkhead. He slid down the wall and came to a seated position on the deck. This time he was not so quick back on his feet, and when he did regain them he stood regarding the Martian silently and warily, his aching muscles tensed for action.

  “That was a very low energy charge, Inspector Slaughter,” the Martian said, his tone almost one of distraction. “Had we wanted to kill you, it would have been an easy matter to boil your innards, to explode your brain.”

  “Thank you for your restraint,” Slaughter said.

  “The restraint was not out of any consideration for you,” the Martian replied. “Your life is of no consequence; your death even less. To us, you are less important than the mindless single-celled creatures that swarm in a drop of water. Your only value comes from your worship, your obedience, your fear, your blood.”

  “Well, it’s always nice to be valued for some reason, Guv,” quipped Slaughter, readying himself for a retributive strike, but which did not come.

  The Martian held silent, regarding Slaughter with black eyes that glinted like marble in moonlight. The Scotland Yard inspector suddenly felt a coldness within his mind, as if his brain were being squeezed by talons made of ice. There was pain, but there was also a feeling almost akin to pleasure, as a dog might feel at being praised by an abusive master; he fought both sensations.

  “My name is Daraph-Kor,” the Martian said after a moment. “You are here solely because my…associates believe you might have some knowledge of our activities on Earth. They want to know how much the authorities know.”

  “And you?” Slaughter asked, now that the peculiar feeling of intrusion in his mind had ended. “You must have a reason of your own, since you seem unconcerned with what they want.”

  Daraph-Kor’s eyes darted momentarily to the alcove, to the object hidden by the screens.

  “You know nothing, not even what you think you know,” the Martian said. “But we are curious of the path that led you here.”

  Slaughter waited, sensing there was more to be gained by not volunteering information. From what Daraph-Kor had said about his assistants, Slaughter had a feeling it would no
t be long before they asked him to ‘volunteer’ all sorts of information about his activities and knowledge.

  “Men like you are an irritant, like sand in the gears of the machines valued so highly by your empire,” Daraph-Kor said. “Other men are also irritating us, slowing down our machinations, standing in the way, preventing the day of our return.”

  “Whose return?” Slaughter asked.

  “By studying you,” Daraph-Kor explained, “we might gain insight into their motivations…and their weaknesses.”

  “You’ll find I’m a pretty ordinary bloke,” Slaughter said. “Whose return?”

  “That is all,” Daraph-Kor said dismissively.

  “The return of the Dark Gods?” Slaughter ventured.

  “You will be shown to your cabin. Stay there till we reach our destination,” Daraph-Kor said after a long moment.

  “Constantinople?”

  “Perhaps my associates are correct in their concerns.”

  Daraph-Kor glanced toward the screened alcove. Slaughter shuddered, feeling as if a beast had just passed by unseen, ancient and menacing, and he wondered whether Moses had experienced something similar in the wilderness. The door abruptly opened, but no one entered.

  “Go with Savas,” Daraph-Kor instructed. “He has orders to kill you if you resist.”

  Slaughter gazed upon Daraph-Kor a moment, but it was clear he had already ceased to exist for the Martian, who now sat quietly. But was he, Slaughter wondered, brooding or communing? And with what? Knowing there was nothing more to be gained here for the moment, Slaughter turned and headed for the open door. He would have a look at that alcove, somehow, but later.

  Savas was waiting. Knowing how much the giant wanted him to resist, Slaughter resisted the urge.

  Chapter 11

  Sergeant Felix Hand sipped from a thin crystal flute of Venusian wine. His rather homely face twisted into a terrifying grimace that made the waiter step back.

  “The vintage is not to your liking, sir?’ the waiter enquired. “If you wish, I can bring you another…”

  Hand settled back in the chair with a little sigh. “I don’t suppose you have Martian ale?”

  “No, sir,” the waiter replied. “Transit through the aether…”

  “And not a pint of Earthly stout, do you, mate?”

  The waiter shook his head, though not with much regret. “For the same reason, I fear.”

  “Humph.”

  “I could bring you a nice cuppa tea, sir,” the pale waiter offered. He was a Venusian humanoid, but with his attitude, he might as well have been French, Hand thought. “Perhaps a café latte?”

  Hand gazed at the thin amber liquid which sparkled and effervesced under the glare of the sputtering gaslamps ringing the restaurant’s riverfront patio. Off in the distance, he heard the throb of steamers upon the river, saw their dim running lights, heard the plaintive cries of their horns, Overhead, airships sped outward from Port Victoria, emissaries of commerce, and occasionally the glaring lights of an aethership vanished into the nighted clouds.

  “And no segir either I guess?”

  “No, not here, sir.”

  Hand perked up at the inference. “You mean there’s some establishment in this godforsaken city that serves segir? All I’ve seen since I got here are wine bars, tea shops and places what call themselves pubs but don’t have a pint of anything worth drinking.”

  “That is an apt description of Port Victoria, sir,” the waiter agreed. “The situation in private clubs is a bit different, but not by much…French wines and more imports from Earth.”

  “Listen here, mate,” Hand said, leaning forward. “When they told me I was sentenced to this hellhole planet of yours…no offence intended…”

  “None taken, sir,” the waiter assured him loftily. “Venus can be harsh on your kind.”

  Hand scowled. “My kind?”

  “Martians, sir,” the waiter explained. “Our planet’s weather, it is not – how you say? – conducive to your nature.”

  “You mean, it’s bloody hot!”

  “Yes, sir, it is that.”

  “Now, as I was saying,” Hand continued. “When I learned I was Venus-bound, the only thing that made it less than totally miserable was the prospect of finally getting segir at its source. I bloody well love that stuff.”

  “Many people do, sir.”

  “But on my first day, I get pushed into the Consulate, sat down at a tea shop, then whisked off to the hinterlands.” Hand explained. “No chance to look around.”

  “It is unfortunate.”

  “Most unfortunate,” Hand agreed.

  “Yes, sir, but now you have obviously returned.”

  “And no segir,” Hand said with a small pout.

  Normally he took his lot as it came, and pouting was not his usual reaction to anything, but he was a little tipsy. During his walkabout he had not totally shunned the wines, nor did he feel he could leave any of the pubs he found without giving the pints of the local jungle brews, bog waters and resin ferments a chance with his palate. None had proved satisfactory, but all had had some effect on him, at least after the first couple dozen.

  “You’re the first person,” he continued, “I’ve asked about segir who didn’t look at me like I had two heads.”

  “No, that race is extinct,” the waiter quipped.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind, sir, it was a small joke.”

  “Very small,” Hand agreed.

  “As you say, sir.”

  “Now, about segir,” Hand said. “Where in Port Victoria can I get a decent swig of segir?”

  “Nowhere in Port Victoria, I fear, sir,” the waiter replied.

  Hand looked mad, sad and bad all at once. “But you said…”

  “Not in Port Victoria, but across the river in Yzankranda,” the waiter clarified. “That is why everyone you met was so wary about the subject of our native whiskey.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Segir is distilled almost exclusively for off-world export, the planet’s largest, shall we say, legal source of income, so while it is plentiful on Mars and elsewhere, the only place to find it here is in the Old City,” the waiter explained.

  “Just in Yzankranda?” Hand mused. “Nowhere else?”

  The waiter looked about, then murmured confidentially: “In some of the other old cities maybe, in various sectors, you know, here and there, something like segir, but strictly local, definitely not for outworlders.”

  Hand nodded, pushed away the flute of wine, then stood. “Where in Yzankranda?”

  “You don’t really want to go there, sir,” the waiter said, his eyes wide.

  “I most certainly do,” Hand announced. “I am not leaving Venus without a glass or two, or three, of segir from the source. The way I figure it, if the segir you export is what it is, then what must you keep for yourselves?”

  “I strongly urge you not to go into the Old City,” the waiter said. “It is a very dangerous place.”

  “Not any more dangerous than where I’ve been – not that I can tell you about those missions – and probably a whole lot less dangerous,” Hand boasted.

  “But outworlders are not very welcome in the Old City,” the Venusian protested.

  “Listen, my good man,” Hand said, leaning forward and poking the waiter in the chest, “I am a non-commissioned officer in Her Majesty’s Martian Rifles, a duly authorized representative of the Admiralty, an emissary with papers registered with the British Consul, and a loyal subject of Her Imperial Britannic Majesty Queen Victoria, Monarch of the United Kingdom, Empress of India, Defender of the Faith, and High Ruler of the Martian Realms, the Venusian Sphere and all the Provinces Beyond the Sky – I go where I want!”

  “All right, keep it down, Sergeant,” the waiter said. “I did not mean to say you could not cross the river, but that you should not. Many outworlders enter the Old City for one reason or another, never to return. It is a very different place than Port Vic
toria, very much older and infinitely more dangerous.”

  “Just give me a general idea of where to go,” Hand said, “and leave the rest to me.”

  The waiter sighed, regretting now his involvement with this loquacious and slightly drunk Martian who was so fixated on segir and prideful of his British heritage. For a moment, the Venusian yearned for the old days, before all the nations of Earth, particularly the British, had come to Venus. Then, apparently out of nowhere, he was struck by another, even older remembrance from deep in the racial memory, of a time when people raised massive stone temples to Dark Gods, when sacrificial drums sounded continually, when the savage Nagas were their slaves, when blood flowed through the streets and…

  “Oi, mate, snap out if it,” Hand said. “You were going to tell me about the Old City.”

  The waiter blinked in confusion. He was where he spent all his evenings, working a hated job, subservient to lesser creatures. The thunder of the sacrificial drums in his mind ebbed to silence.

  “I am so sorry, sir,” the waiter effused. “I am sure I do not know what came over me.”

  “The Old City?” Hand prompted.

  “Yes, sir, but, should anyone ask, I never sent you over there,” the waiter cautioned.

  Hand nodded with a smirking lopsided grin. “Your secret is safe with me.”

  After Sergeant Felix Hand received information about the general layout of Yzankranda, he tipped the waiter generously and set out. He rather doubted the dire warning whispered by the thin pale waiter – what could such a fresh-faced pup know about that city of old secrets and older sins?

  Hand blamed his dismissal of the Venusian’s fears entirely on the lad’s youth and inexperience and not on his most unfortunate resemblance to a loathsome French corporal who had had the misfortune to slander Her Majesty the Queen – God save her!

  Despite all his bravado, Hand did feel some small qualms when he finally started across one of the three bridges connecting the Old City of the humanoid Venusians to the much newer Port Victoria, but he shook off the feeling. After all, what could he encounter there, so close to the heart of Britannic Venus, that could be worse than the horrors he had seen? Besides, he was on his own, and he could almost taste the segir.