THE AETHERS OF MARS

ERIC FLINT

Sequel Novella by Charles E. Gannon

THE STELLAR GUILD SERIES

Mike Resnick, Series Editor

published by Phoenix Pick

An Imprint of Arc Manor

P. O. Box 10339

Rockville, MD 20849-0339

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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The Aethers of Mars: In the Matter of Savinkov copyright © 2014 by Eric Flint. All rights reserved. The Aethers of Mars: White Sand, Red Dust copyright © 2014 by Charles E. Gannon. All rights reserved. This book may not be copied or reproduced, in whole or in part, by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise without written permission from the publisher except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual persons, events or localities is purely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author and publisher.

ISBN (Digital Edition): 978-1-61242-131-5

ISBN (Paper Edition): 978-1-61242-130-8

* * *

Table of Contents

A Greeting from the Series Editor

Book One: In the Matter of Savinkov, by Eric Flint

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Introducing Chuck Gannon

Book Two: White Sand, Red Dust, by Charles E. Gannon

Part One: White Sand

Part Two: Red Dust

* * *

A Greeting From the Series Editor

.

Greetings, and welcome to another Stellar Guild book.

As many of you are aware, the purpose of the Stellar Guild is to team a superstar science fiction writer up with a protégé of his own choosing. The star writes a novella, the protégé writes a long novelette set in the same universe and shares a book that’s guaranteed to get him or her better exposure that 98% of first novels do.

Our stars in our previous volumes have been Mercedes Lackey, Kevin J. Anderson, Harry Turtledove, Robert Silverberg, and Nancy Kress, each with a truly talented protégé, and the one after this will feature Larry Niven and two protégés.

But this volume takes a back seat to none of them. Our star is Eric Flint, author of numerous bestsellers, former editor of Jim Baen’s Universe, and currently the editor-publisher of the Grantville Gazette.

His protégé, with whom he has also co-authored 1635: The Papal Stakes, is Charles E. Gannon, a very talented fellow.

A wonderful adventure awaits you in the pages up ahead. I hope you enjoy it.

Mike Resnick

* * *

THE AETHERS OF MARS

BOOK ONE: IN THE MATTER OF SAVINKOV

by Eric Flint

Chapter 1

“Look, Charlotte! Look!” said Adrian Luff. “It’s the aethership!”

Charlotte went to his side and peered up at the area of the sky he was pointing to through the window. She had to stoop a little to see under the swell of the gasbag. Her eleven-year-old brother was short for his age, and she was tall for a fourteen-year-old girl.

She had to restrain herself from exhibiting the same public enthusiasm as her brother. Charlotte was quite excited herself, of course, this being her first extra-planetary voyage. But she was a young lady now, no longer a child. Adrian could behave indecorously, but she needed to maintain a proper demeanor.

After a moment she spotted what he was indicating. “I don’t think …”

By then their father Edward was at their side. Being a large man, he had to stoop quite a bit more than Charlotte in order to bring the object into his view.

“That’s not the aethership, Adrian,” he said. “That’s the transfer station.”

Adrian frowned. “Are you sure?”

Impatiently, Charlotte was about to answer of course he’s sure! But her father placed a hand on her shoulder and said genially, “Well, I could be wrong, of course. Let’s ask someone who’d be certain.” He looked about, spotted one of the stewards on the observation deck, and waved him over.

That was typical of him. He was very careful not to be overbearing toward his children, especially since their mother had died. But while Charlotte generally appreciated his attitude, there were times …

Especially involving her brother!

Of course that wasn’t the aethership. After her father had told his children that his researches would be taking them all to Mars, she’d read up on the famous vessel that would transport them to the red planet. The craft they were approaching was much too small, for one thing. Now that the airship they were riding in had come closer, and she’d had more time to examine the object, she had a better sense of scale. That thing was not much bigger than their grandparents’ house in East Finchley. Taller, to be sure, but no bigger in terms of volume.

Granted, that house was large; much larger than the average home in England. Their mother Emily’s parents had been quite wealthy.

Charlotte made a face. She didn’t like her grandparents. They were polite to her and Adrian, when they visited, but were never very welcoming and certainly not warm-hearted.

From things her parents had let slip in her presence, from time to time, Charlotte knew that the Danbrooks—the entire family, not just her grandparents—had disapproved of Emily’s marriage to Edward Luff. True, he came from a respectable middle-class family, but he was a scholar—which is to say, from their viewpoint, barely this side of penury.

Had he been an economist, or a respectable historian of Britain—at least France or Germany—they could have let the matter slide, perhaps. But … but …

An historian of South Asia? A man who mucked about in the legends and myths—you could hardly call them histories—of Hindoos and Mohammedans?

Had Charlotte’s mother still been alive, the family’s scandal would have become even worse. After Cecil Rhodes publicly revealed his expeditions to Mars and the existence of intelligent creatures on the planet, in April of 1900, Edward Luff had shifted his field of study and become one of the world’s very first “areologists,” as such people styled themselves. That is to say, from the standpoint of the wealthy and oh-so-respectable Danbrooks, an outright charlatan—and never mind that his change of scholarly focus enabled him to obtain much larger grants to pursue his new field of studies, such as the one from the Meredith Foundation that had made this voyage possible. The Danbrooks viewed such financial acquisition as no better than swindling or embezzlement.

The steward arrived. “What may I do for you, Mr. Luff?”

Stooping again, Charlotte’s father pointed …

“Oh, it’s now out of sight.” The airship had come close enough for the huge gasbag to have completely obscured the view. Her father straightened back up. “I was wondering—my son and I were wondering—if the ship we were nearing—are nearing, I should say—is our aethership or the transfer station?”

“That would be the transfer station, sir. You’ll have a four- or five-hour wait there before the Agincourt arrives.”

“Why so long?” asked Adrian. He wasn’t being cross, simply curious.

For her part, Charlotte was wondering why the BEPC, the British Extra-Planetary Company, named their aetherships in such impolitic ways. Among the other dozen or so were included the Poitiers and the Crécy. Did Cecil Rhodes have some special animus against the French? To be fair, on the other side of the ledger was the Hastings. Then again, from what she knew of the famous man’s racial views, Rhodes probably didn’t consider the Normans to be French.

She’d asked her father once. He’d shrugged and said: “I don’t know. But it’s not as if anyone really cares what the French think. Politically speaking, at least, their nation is the joke of Europe.”

Which was also impolitic, of course—but at least it was said in the privacy of a home, not blazoned across the flanks of the world’s most famous and glamorous vessels.

Did one refer to the sides of vessels as “flanks”? She’d have to find out.

“… the delay,” the steward was saying. Charlotte had missed the first part of his response in her musings. “You were supposed to be the last airship, but there will be another coming, it seems. It’s expensive for an aethership to come this close to the surface, so the Agincourt’s captain decided to wait until the final passengers were aboard the transfer station.”

* * *

Less than half an hour later, the airship docked at an entryway located on the very top of the hovering transfer station. It struck Charlotte as an odd arrangement—she’d been thinking more in terms of a traditional gangway by which one might board a steamship—but with the hindsight of this new experience she understood the logic. The huge gasbag that provided their airship with its buoyancy would have made it impossible to come alongside the transfer station. This way, aligning the bottom of the airship with the top of the spindle-shaped transfer station, they could lower themselves onto the station through a hatchway in the deck of the airship. Much the way Charlotte imagined one might board a submarine.

Once aboard the transfer station, they were greeted by a steward who murmured polite and vacuous phrases, ending with: “Do make yourselves comfortable.” He gestured in the direction of chairs bolted to the floor some distance away, and then moved off to attend to other duties.

There were quite a few of the chairs; fifty or sixty, arranged in three arcing rows that spread across half the space of the transfer station’s central chamber. The chamber itself was perhaps twenty yards in diameter. The chairs were upholstered and looked very sturdy and well-made, with headrests, but were simple in design. Most of them were taken up already by other passengers waiting for the aethership to arrive.

Charlotte’s attention was drawn to one end of the seating arrangement, occupied by a large group of rather exotic-looking people. They seemed to be an extended family, judging by their obvious familiarity with each other.

As they drew near the chairs, Charlotte tried to determine the language the group was speaking. It was certainly not Slavic, although the people looked vaguely Bulgarian to her. But then, for whatever peculiar reason, all dark-skinned Caucasians looked vaguely Bulgarian to her. She had no idea why, since she’d never actually met a Bulgarian. The closest she’d come were a couple of her father’s academic associates. One of them was a visiting professor from Poland; the other, a Russian of uncertain profession who worked at nothing Charlotte could discern. She suspected he was a refugee from the Tsar’s notorious secret police, being given shelter at the university. But when she’d inquired of her father, he’d been unusually close-mouthed and claimed he knew nothing himself.

That was nonsense, of course. Charlotte’s father knew something about everything.

Leaving aside the group’s national origins, Charlotte also wondered as to the reason for their presence here. They ranged in age from a trio of elderly women to several small children. There was even a babe in their midst. And they looked … well, not poverty-stricken. But certainly not well-to-do, either. For one thing, they were carrying an alarming amount of baggage, presumably because they hadn’t wanted to pay the—quite modest—surcharge of having their belongings handled by the BEPC’s staff. That was what Charlotte’s father had done, even though he’d had to pay for it out of pocket. The voyage itself was being financed by the Meredith Foundation, but they didn’t cover what they presumably considered frills.

Edward Luff had inherited very little from his wife. Her family had seen to it that when she married him against their wishes she was provided with nothing more than a modest annuity—which they discontinued immediately after her death. Yet, even on the none-too-fulsome salary of a university professor, he hadn’t hesitated to pay the luggage surcharge.

That meant—had to mean—Charlotte prided herself on her skills at deduction—that this family (or group of whatever kind; she cautioned herself not to jump to conclusions) was of limited means. So how were they managing a voyage to Mars aboard the prestigious flagship of the BEPC’s fleet of aetherships? And why?

Had they been about to cross the seas in a steamship—say, to America—Charlotte would have thought the hypothetical family of Bulgarians would be traveling in steerage. But she was fairly certain there was no such thing as “steerage” on board an aethership.

Variations in the quality of the cabins, certainly. Even great variations—the sumptuousness of the Founder’s Cabin was well-known. That cabin was always reserved for Rhodes himself on the now-rare occasions he returned to Earth from his retreat on Mars. But even the smallest and most austere cabins on the Agincourt, such as the ones they’d be taking, were quite expensive.

Travel between the planets was still very new, and there just weren’t that many aetherships in existence yet. Great Britain had less than twenty, all told, most of them owned by the BEPC and the rest by the Royal Navy. The Germans, less than ten. The Russians, no more than a handful, and the same for the French. She thought the Americans had three or four and the Italians perhaps as many. And that was about it, so far as she knew.

There were certainly not enough aetherships to allow for the luxury—using the term in a perhaps ironic manner—of having poor people crossing to the other planets in steerage.

Would that be called “steerage” on an aethership? She’d have to find out.

Then, alas, her father demolished her pleasant exercise in deduction. Spotting someone in the little mob, he smiled and strode forward, his hand outstretched.

“Vijay!” he exclaimed. “I thought you’d be aboard the Agincourt already.”

A short, slender man about her father’s age rose from one of the chairs and the two men shook hands. He looked rather harassed. “I had expected to be, Edward. Yesterday, in fact. But …”

He made a vague gesture toward the rest of the group. “I’m afraid that herding a Brahmin family is akin to herding cats. Argumentative cats, at that.”

Charlotte’s father studied the group, now smiling widely. “You brought them all?” He nodded toward one of the women in the group. Her black hair was streaked with gray at the temples. Charlotte made a tentative hypothesis that she was the Vijay fellow’s wife. She seemed older than he was, but certainly not old enough to be the man’s mother. His sister, perhaps … except they didn’t resemble each other in the least, other than both being Indian. And the fact that she was older than her husband wouldn’t be surprising. She knew from comments made by her father that Indian customs on these matters were often quite different from those of Europeans.

“Sumati,” her father said. “You’re looking well.”

The Sumati woman looked even more harassed than her husband. (Tentatively classified husband, Charlotte reminded herself; one mustn’t jump to conclusions.) “I most certainly do not, Edward. But I thank you for the pleasantry.”

Charlotte’s father turned his attention back to Vijay. “How …”

“The Nizam insisted. He’s a young fellow, you know, very full of modern ideas—and insistent that Hindus take their rightful place in the human race’s solar expansion. I think he has daydreams that by shipping to Mars an entire clan—well, smart part of one, at any rate—he will somehow have advanced that project.”

He shrugged. “He may even prove right, in the end. All I know, at the moment, is that trying to conduct a scholarly quest”—here he winced slightly, as a babe squalled—“in the midst of chaos is not what Sumati and I had in mind. It would be nice if the Nizam’s purse were as expansive as his notions, so we could have afforded a few nannies and more than one tutor. As it stands … grandmothers and great-aunts make excellent caretakers of children, but they invariably have demands of their own.”

Edward Luff chuckled. “You have my heartfelt sympathies. And now, some introductions are in order.”

He turned back to face his son and daughter. “Charlotte, Adrian, allow me to introduce you to Vijay Shankar and his wife Sumati. They are two of the world’s pre-eminent scholars of Mars. Vijay is an historian like myself; Sumati, a linguist. Vijay and Sumati, this is my daughter Charlotte and my son Adrian.”

He smiled slyly. “All that I brought with me of my own small clan, happily. And”—he nodded toward a heavy-set woman approaching them—“I even managed to persuade the Foundation to let me bring our nanny. Her name is Mrs. Smith. Helen Smith.”

“Oh, lucky fellow,” muttered Shankar.

Mrs. Smith arrived. She also looked harassed. But then, she usually did.

“When will we be boarding?” she asked. She hadn’t heard the earlier exchange with the steward because she’d been busy fussing with another steward who’d been overseeing the entryway. About … something. Charlotte made it a point not to investigate the source and nature of Mrs. Smith’s fusses. First, there were too many. Second, they were invariably boring.

“Soon,” her father replied.

Four or five hours was not Charlotte’s conception of the term soon. But Mrs. Smith seemed satisfied. She moved over to one of the chairs and lowered herself into the seat.

Time moved differently for Mrs. Smith than it did for Charlotte. As long as the woman had no tasks or chores to perform, she seemed quite content to sit and do nothing at all, for hours on end. It would drive Charlotte mad.

She was not an unpleasant woman, Mrs. Smith. Quite conscientious in her duties; and if she was not what one would call enjoyable company, she was not nasty or rude either. Just … boring.

* * *

Chapter 2

The expression on the face of the airship’s officer was decidedly unfriendly, as Alexander Evalenko and his companion Ilya Drezhner came aboard. But he said nothing, and Alexander thought silence on his own part was the best course. It was hardly surprising that employees of Great Britain’s premier transportation company would be irritated at having the departure of their flagship delayed in order to await the arrival of two unexpected passengers.

Alexander wasn’t happy about the situation himself. If word got out, as it almost certainly would, the conclusion anyone would come to was that political pressure had been brought to bear. There was no doubt at all that their quarry would draw that conclusion. And, having drawn it, be made more alert to the possibility that he was being pursued.

Alexander moved toward the other side of the airship, seeking to get away from the unfriendly scrutiny.

“He seems a bit testy,” Drezhner said softly.

Alexander’s mouth quirked. “Puzzled, too, I suspect. He’s probably trying to figure out how the Russian government could bring enough pressure to bear to make such a schedule change. Given that we are not—ah—held in any great regard in Britain these days.”

Relations between the United Kingdom and Russia were always shaky, despite the two nations being officially allied. Right now they were on particularly edgy terms, given the tensions over the Peshawar Incident. Even the Irish nationalists, normally so pragmatic in accepting aid from any party in their quarrel with the English, were hostile to Russia. As such malcontents almost invariably were, the Irish were rabid republicans—and the Tsar of All the Russias was universally considered the world’s premier autocrat.

As it happened, although political interference had been necessary to get the last airship shuttling passengers and supplies to the Agincourt to delay its departure, it had not been pressure from the British government. So far as Alexander knew, the British authorities were quite unaware that the BEPC’s premier interplanetary aethership’s schedule had been altered.

“Luckily for us,” Alexander said, in the same soft tones, “Cecil Rhodes thinks well of the Okhrana. Rachkovsky himself sent the radio message to Rhodes—a polite request, no more—and, voila, c’est fait.”

His French was fluent and unaccented, as you might expect of one of Russia’s top secret agents in Paris.

He and Drezhner came to a stop against the windows on the far side of the airship cabin. The craft had lifted as soon as they came aboard and they were now at least a thousand meters high. Through the panes they could see the soft countryside of southeastern England below them.

“I hadn’t known that,” said Drezhner. “About Rhodes. I thought he despised Slavs. What did he call us? One of those most detestable …” He waved his hand in a gesture that indicated a minor loss of memory.

Alexander smiled wryly. The pronounced racial views of Cecil Rhodes were a byword in Europe. To be born English is to win first prize in the lottery of life was his best-known axiom on the subject, but he had many others.

“The phrase he used was ‘the most despicable specimens of human beings.’ He wasn’t singling out Slavs, however. And the man’s theories have their quirks as well as their … ah, fervor. He’s quite partial to Germans; considers them almost as good as Englishmen. And while he generally sneers at Slavs, he makes an exception for the Russian aristocracy.”

“Ah.” Drezhner smiled. “That old business about Kievan Rus being ruled by Nordic conquerors and adventurers.”

“Exactly so. And since the Okhrana officially recruits only from the Russian army, and the army does not allow Jews in the officer corps unless they convert to Christianity, Rhodes has concluded that the Tsar’s secret police are stout fellows. It doesn’t hurt at all, of course, that we generally co-operate with his own intelligence service.”

Alexander spent a moment contemplating the view before continuing. “The odd thing—the man has his foibles, there’s no doubt about it—is that Rhodes is not particularly hostile to Jews. Or, at least, no more so than any English gentleman. It’s that he presumes—so I was told by Rachkovsky, who knows him rather well—that the Russian army’s anti-Semitism indicates a generally stringent attitude toward the acceptance of lesser breeds. By his logic, if you won’t find Jews among the Russian secret police, you won’t find lowly purebred Slavs and Mongols, either.”

“Ah.” After a moment, Drezhner said: “But we have a number of Jews in our ranks. Including—”

“No names, please.”

There was silence for a bit, as the airship continued to rise, heading toward the transfer station. When they were perhaps three miles high, Drezhner commented: “Can’t say I much care for the yids myself.”

Alexander shrugged. “Such is the world we live in.”

* * *

The steward who welcomed them aboard the transfer station was more polite, or at least more diplomatic. As they came into the main waiting room, they were greeted with the sight of three rows of chairs, all of them now occupied.

“Marvelous,” muttered Drezhner. “A tribe of gypsies. How on Earth did they get aboard?”

In point of fact, the people in question were obviously south Asians, not gypsies. Hindus, at a guess, although they might be Muslims. But by now, more than a week since they’d made their acquaintance, Alexander understood that his new junior partner was something of an ignoramus as well as a bigot.

The second fault was minor. The first was not. Especially since, in Alexander’s estimation, Drezhner’s ignorance was willful. Lack of knowledge could be repaired. Willful ignorance was not far removed from outright stupidity.

But such was the nature of the world he lived in.

* * *

Vera knew who they were—had to be—the moment the two men came aboard. She hadn’t been expecting them, precisely, but from the beginning there had been a chance the Okhrana would learn of the project. Not very much, probably, but enough to send a team in pursuit of Gavril Savinkov.

She wasn’t especially worried that the Okhrana agents would be able to spot Savinkov. But she’d have to take steps to evade detection herself. Fortunately, the arrival of the new party presented her with a better opportunity than trying to fit herself into the large group from Hyderabad. That had been her best option prior to their arrival, but it hadn’t been a very good one. Her features could pass as those of someone from south Asia, but her skin tone was far too light.

Being careful not to move too quickly and draw attention to herself, she slid into a seat behind a tall young girl sitting next to a man she assumed to be her father. The girl was pretty, in a modest sort of way. Northern European, clearly: pale skin; dark blonde hair; blue eyes. Not one to draw the attention of most boys immediately, but a girl who’d have no trouble fascinating any boy who did become attracted to her.

Vera leaned over the shoulder of the girl and asked: “How much longer will the wait be, do you know?”

The girl turned to look at her, a bit surprised. She hadn’t heard Vera take her seat. “I’m not really sure, Madame. But I don’t have the impression it will be much longer.”

“Let’s hope not.” Vera smiled ruefully. “These chairs are sturdy but not very comfortable for long stretches.” The rueful smile expanded into something more cheerful. “Fortunately, I am—ah, how to put it in English?—‘well-padded,’ perhaps? In my native German, I would say zaftig.”

Vera extended her hand. “I am Vera Duchesne.”

The girl extended her own and they shook hands. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Charlotte Luff. I thought Vera was a Russian name, not German.”

Vera took a brief moment to wish a silent curse upon all precocious girls. Only a brief moment, though. Having been one herself, the curse was half-hearted anyway.

The best way to deal with such girls was to intrigue them. Trying to fend off their curiosity was pointless.

“You’re quite right—although the name is widespread across the Slavic lands, not just Russia. My given name, however, was Verena.” Here a bright, gleaming smile, hinting that the girl was being drawn into conspiracy. “Which, despite its Latin origin—from vereri, it’s thought—is now properly Teutonic. But my late husband was half-Russian on his mother’s side and since he thought the name was a bit grandiose—”

The girl clapped her hands gleefully. “Oh, yes! If it’s from the Latin, it would mean ‘to fear’ or ‘to respect.’ Certainly nothing a husband would favor.”

Vera took a brief moment to wish a silent blessing upon all precocious girls. “Exactly what he said himself. So he insisted on substituting Vera. Being honest, I prefer the name myself. ‘Verena’ is so … so …”

“Stand-offish,” the girl supplied.

“Precisely.” Now joined in mutual conspiracy, the plump middle-aged woman and the slender teenage girl exchanged gazes of mutual admiration.

Mission accomplished. Immediate mission, at least.

The girl shifted on her own seat. “They’re really not very comfortable, are they? I think they’re designed this way in case of emergencies. Look—they even have some sort of safety harnesses.”

* * *

The spirited discussion Charlotte was having with Madame Duchesne drew her father’s attention. He’d left off his discussion with Mr. and Mrs. Shankar and taken a seat between Charlotte and Adrian. He looked over Charlotte’s shoulder and smiled.

“Indeed, they are,” he said. “Aetherships have difficulty with strong magnetic fields at times. The engines which keep this transfer station in the air are essentially the same as those in aetherships. If the Earth’s magnetic field gets unruly, which can happen from time to time, the transfer station could undergo rather severe turbulence. Hence the design of these chairs. They keep the passengers from being flung about and injured.”

Adrian’s attention had also been drawn and, as usual, he became obstreperous. “But that doesn’t make sense, Father. Shouldn’t they have them all around, then, instead of only on one side?”

“I imagine the weight in those compartments across from us fairly well counter-balances our own, Adrian,” their father replied. “In any event, as heavy as this transfer station is, I doubt if the weight of the passengers is all that great a concern.”

“How fascinating,” said Madame Duchesne. She returned Edward Luff’s smile with a very friendly one of her own. For a moment, Charlotte wondered if the woman might be trying to flirt with her father.

No, that would be ridiculous, she decided. Madame Duchesne was apparently a widow and she was attractive enough, in a fleshy sort of way. She had intelligent eyes, so dark a brown they were almost black. Quite striking, really.

But—

She was much too old; at least five years older than her father.

It was too bad, really. After Charlotte’s father celebrated his fortieth birthday, just a few months earlier, she had set herself the goal (among many) of seeing to it that he remarry. Madame Duchesne was an interesting woman—quite perceptive, obviously—and would have otherwise made a suitable match. Preliminarily speaking, that is. Inquiries would have had to be made, naturally. A woman from the continent—formerly married to a Frenchman—one never knew what one might encounter under such circumstances.

It would have made for an interesting investigation, actually. But there was no point to it, given the age difference between her father and Madame Duchesne. Five years. Practically an eternity, even for someone at the mature age of fourteen. Had the genders been reversed … possibly …

But, no. Out of the question. They were not Hindus, after all.

* * *

Chapter 3

The wait aboard the transfer station seemed to take forever to Charlotte. Very soon, Madame Duchesne was drawn into a conversation with her father and the Shankar couple concerning the intricacies of Martian history. It turned out the widow was a scholar of sorts herself. She was an amateur, not a professional like Edward Luff and Vijay Shankar. But amateurs played a prominent role in areological studies, at least if they were wealthy enough to devote themselves to the pursuit. Apparently Monsieur Duchesne had left his wife a sizeable inheritance.

There really wasn’t anything to do aboard the vessel, whose furnishings were as austere as those of a small-town train station. There wasn’t even that much to see out of the viewports. The craft was kept hovering far above the ground—eight and a half miles, Charlotte was told by one of the stewards—and within a short time after their arrival the cloud cover had filled in completely below them.

But, finally, a dong-dong-dong announced the arrival of the Agincourt. Like most of the passengers, Charlotte moved back to the observation windows to observe the aethership. But she made it a point not to rush eagerly and gawk avidly as did her brother.

It was hard not to gawk, though, when she caught sight of the craft. The aethership was huge, much bigger than the transfer station or even the airship. And whereas most of the airship’s volume—you could hardly call it “bulk”—was composed of the gasbag, the Agincourt’s hull was made of steel.

Charlotte had studied the ship before they left Earth. Being the BEPC’s flagship, there was a great deal of literature on the Agincourt. So she knew the vessel was really no larger than an ocean liner—and smaller than the very largest of those. She weighed a little under 15,000 tonnes, about the size of the German ocean liner SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse but only three-fourths the size of its sister ship the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II. And the Agincourt would be almost dwarfed once the Cunard Lines launched their Olympic-class super-liners, a trio of ships which would include the Titanic and the Britannic. Those would each weigh around 46,000 tonnes.

That was measuring solely in terms of weight. The Agincourt’s design was radically different from that of a sea-going ship. It was much longer than any ocean liner, measuring just over three thousand feet from the tip of one aether-drive chamber to the other. One couldn’t refer to them as “fore” and “aft” chambers because they were quite interchangeable. An aethership, unlike an ocean liner, could readily move in either direction.

Most of that length, however, consisted of the slender pylons that connected the aether-drive chambers to the main body of the Agincourt. The powerful electromagnetic forces involved in propelling a spacecraft through the aether needed to be kept at a considerable distance from the living quarters.

The main body of the Agincourt also bore no resemblance to any ocean-going craft. It was shaped like a stubby cylinder, two hundred feet from top to bottom (front to back? hard to say, since the ship was completely ambidextrous, propulsively speaking) and approximately three hundred feet in diameter. One might, somewhat fancily, depict the Agincourt as being a can of tinned meat with two long rods sticking out from the center of the top and bottom of the can—understanding that “top” and “bottom” were arbitrary terms in this application—which ended in two knobs.

But such a depiction would be a gross simplification. For one thing, the outer rim of the cylinder—the “tin can” of her fancy—contained the hydroponic gardens that provided the ship with breathable air and some of its food. Its huge water tanks also provided the living quarters located in the interior with shielding against radiation. Most of the dangerous radiation encountered in space travel was shielded against by the aether-drives themselves, but having a water bulwark could be critical in case of unexpected solar flares or bursts of cosmic radiation.

At the moment, the great windows that would be exposed in the voyage to provide the gardens with sunlight were covered by steel shutters. The insides of those shutters also served as mirrors that would concentrate the light as needed, when the ship moved far enough away from the sun, or would serve as photoelectric power sources whenever the sunlight alone was sufficient for the vegetation. Charlotte had seen photographs of what an aethership looked like once the shutters were fully exposed. The “tin can” of her analogy would then look far more like some sort of bizarre coral formation than any sort of neatly defined cylinder.

For another thing, the term “knobs” was also a gross oversimplification, referring to the shape of the aether-drive chambers. True, the chambers were roughly spherical in design. But they had a multitude of protuberances and whatnots which served the engines in whatever peculiar manner was needed to make them work.

* * *

The Agincourt docked with the transfer station by extending a long tube from a hatch in its flank to the same entryway at the very top of the station that they’d used to gain access to it. Two long tubes, rather—there was a much smaller one extended to a narrower entry not far away. Charlotte’s guess that this smaller tube would be used to transfer supplies and luggage was confirmed by her brother. As was to be expected of boys his age, Adrian was a font of excessively detailed information about all things mechanical and electrical.

The bigger tube, of course, was the one used to transfer passengers and crew. It was rather exciting, actually. The tube was flexible—like a stiff garden hose, not a flimsy stocking—which made the process something of an adventure. It was as much like climbing a rope ladder as a set of stairs.

Charlotte’s father handled it with aplomb. He assisted Madame Duchesne as well, although from what Charlotte could see the widow didn’t seem to need any help at all. That was male gallantry at work, even if it was quite wasted under these circumstances in romantic terms.

But perhaps she was being unfair to her father and his gender. Edward Luff extended the same assistance to several of the elderly Shankar ladies, after all.

Those ladies were not shy about expressing their displeasure with the whole business. Silly of them. What did they expect? A barge to take them across?

Adrian didn’t help things at all when he piped up to explain to the Shankar women that their fretting and fussing over the unsteady footing was completely misdirected.

“The worst that a fall or slip caused by a sudden sharp flex in the tube would do you would be a broken leg.” The wretched boy rapped the wall of the tube with a knuckle. “This is what should be making you nervous. If such a flex were to rupture the wall …”

He waved his hands and widened his eyes in the silly melodramatic manner that was so typical of eleven-year-old males. “Whoosh! We’re at almost twice the elevation as the very tip of Mt. Everest. The air outside is much too thin to breathe. Not to mention the temperature! Be a race to see whether we froze to death or died gasping for breath.”

“Enough, Adrian,” chided their father. He bestowed a reassuring smile upon the now-more-worried-than-ever Brahmins. “Don’t listen to him. It’s quite safe. There’s never been a mishap in such a transfer—”

“But that’s not true, Father,” protested her brother. “Just last year—”

Charlotte’s father got a pained expression on his face. “Involving any BEPC vessel,” he continued firmly. Again, the reassuring smile made its appearance. “The unfortunate incident my son is referring to involved naval maneuvers. Entirely different matter.”

The Shankar ladies didn’t seem mollified. But at least their heightened apprehension caused them to fall silent as they concentrated on the task at hand.

And, eventually—it probably didn’t take more than a couple of minutes, really—they came aboard the aethership.

“Welcome to the Agincourt,” said a hearty voice. Looking up, Charlotte saw a ship’s officer extending a hand. With a little lift, he helped her make the final step up into the vessel.

At last—everything she’d been expecting. The entry chamber she now stood in was everything the transfer station had failed to be.

No provincial train station environs here! The carpet underfoot was thick and luxurious. Gleaming brass everywhere you looked. Except the lamp fixtures, which looked to be gilded.

“Oh, how splendid!” exclaimed Adrian, following on her heels. He pointed to the side. “Look at that magnificent barometer, Charlotte!”

Leave it to her brother to marvel over the one and only instrument in the room. And the only item that seemed to be completely utilitarian.

This would be their environment for the next several weeks.

Weeks. Their cabins would be on the small side, of course. But they were probably even more luxurious—and the food aboard the Agincourt was reputed to be superb.

Weeks, without any of Mrs. Smith’s sturdy but unimaginative cooking to endure.

On the other hand …

Weeks, putting up with her brother in close quarters.

Weeks, with nothing for Mrs. Smith to do—which meant weeks watching her stare at nothing like a cow in the fields.

Madame Duchesne came aboard. Charlotte must have been frowning, because the widow placed a friendly hand on her shoulder and murmured. “Just think, Miss Luff. We’ll have so much time for conversation, with no chores to distract us.”

Charlotte wondered what sort of “chores” a wealthy woman such as Madame Duchesne had to deal with. But the thought wasn’t sarcastic. In truth, she was looking forward to those conversations herself. Duchesne was interesting—for a girl like Charlotte, without question the cardinal virtue in a traveling companion.

* * *

Chapter 4

Alexander Evalenko examined his cabin with distaste. The furnishings were luxurious, true enough, and the bed—it might be better to say, deluxe cot—looked comfortable. But the room seemed more like a glorified closet than anything Alexander associated with the term “cabin.”

His claustrophobia was heightened by disorientation. The peculiar design of the cabin made the cramped quarters seem ever worse. He understood the reason for that design: the furnishings needed to be swiveled around and work at a ninety-degree angle once the aethership was in outer space and was set spinning to mimic gravity. But that knowledge did little to alleviate his discomfort.

Perhaps that was just the residue of his provincialism at work. He’d been raised in the countryside on a large estate in Perm Guberniya. His family, although part of the hereditary nobility, had not been wealthy and had lived in rather primitive wooden dwellings. But even for the peasants in the region, a “cabin” had been spacious compared to this room. And there had certainly been nothing exotic about its construction.

On the positive side, he wouldn’t have to share the room with Ilya Drezhner. The cabin was barely big enough for one person, much less two. Alexander found Drezhner’s company increasingly tiresome. The man was intelligent, technically speaking, but full of so many biases and fixed notions as to make him effectively a halfwit.

Ah, well. The life of a secret agent tasked to seek out and destroy anarchists, revolutionists and agitators was not an easy one. Alexander had known that from the moment he decided to resign from the army and join the Okhrana. He reminded himself that Drezhner was a veritable sage compared to the imbeciles he’d had to contend with in the cavalry.

Once he’d packed away the few belongings he’d brought with him, he drew out the message that Drezhner had brought to him in Paris. The only reason he was looking at it again was from long habit. He’d found that if he studied a message several times, over a period of two or three days, he could destroy it without fear of forgetting anything.

The note was from one of Okhrana chief Semiakin’s assistants. The exact identity of the assistant was unfortunately not specified. Drezhner had not thought to inquire, and his description of the man could have fit any of three clerks stationed at the Okhrana’s headquarters in St. Petersburg. One of those assistants was brilliant, one was competent, and the third only had his post because of family connections. Alexander would have liked to know which of the three had composed this message.

Gavril Savinkov reported en route to Mars. Probable conveyance BEPC vessel. Probable destination Tryddoc Aru or Crenex. Probable targets include:

Cecil Rhodes

Prince Mikhail Ivanovich Vorontsov

Prince Pyotr Pavlovich Saltykov

Count Vasily Fedorovich Kamensky

Count Pavel Andreyevich Shuvalov

Arrest Savinkov if possible for questioning. Essential his mission be thwarted by whatever means necessary.

The last part was straightforward enough. Obviously, it would be ideal to apprehend the man and subject him to questioning in hopes of learning the identity of his accomplices and associates. But, above all else, his plot had to be stopped. If that meant killing him on the spot, so be it. Savinkov was a leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party’s Combat Organization and its most notorious assassin.

The first part of the message was also reasonably straightforward. The Okhrana’s sources, whoever they might be, had not been able to specify the exact vessel Gavril Savinkov would be taking. That was unfortunate, of course, but in this instance not especially troublesome. There simply weren’t that many aetherships available for someone to travel to Mars. Narrowing the possibilities to those craft owned by the British Extra-Planetary Company was also helpful. It hadn’t taken Alexander more than an hour to ascertain that there were only two possible vessels unless the assassin was willing to wait another three months, which he thought highly unlikely.

And, of the two possibilities, the second aethership—that would be the Blenheim—was a much smaller vessel than the Agincourt; and, better still, would not set off to Mars for another two weeks. That would give the Paris bureau of the Okhrana, the largest in Europe outside of Russia itself, plenty of time to assemble a sizeable counter-assassination team.

The problem lay with the Agincourt. It was scheduled to depart …

Alexander had literally yelped when he discovered the Agincourt’s departure date. It was leaving on the morrow! There had been just enough time for he and Drezhner to race across the Channel and board the airship bringing the last passengers aboard—and even then, they’d only managed it because Rachkovsky had put through an emergency message to Rhodes to get the needed delay.

It was the middle part of the message, however, that was now causing Alexander’s worries. Five possible targets, in two different cities—and he had only one agent beside himself. Once they reached Mars, they’d have no choice but to split up, each to a different city.

Hopefully, of course, they would have apprehended Savinkov—or killed him, which Alexander thought to be more likely—before they arrived at their destination. But he was not sanguine about the prospect of doing so. Any assassin as successful as Savinkov would be expert at disguising himself. Insofar as the phrase “disguise himself” had any meaning at all in this instance. The Okhrana had never gotten a clear description of the man.

There were hundreds of passengers aboard the Agincourt. It was even conceivable that Savinkov had somehow managed to infiltrate the vessel’s crew. That was extremely unlikely, in Alexander’s estimation, but the possibility couldn’t be ruled out altogether. For someone with the assassin’s skills, hiding himself in plain sight aboard the Agincourt would not be difficult.

Had this been a Russian imperial vessel, Alexander could simply have applied force majeure. When need be, Tsarist officials would not hesitate to sequester an entire crew and complement of passengers and subject them all to rigorous interrogation until the assassin was uncovered. But that wouldn’t be possible here. Rhodes’ willingness to cooperate with Russian police agencies only went so far. The man was fiercely proud of his fleet of aetherships, especially its flagship. There would be no chance he’d agree to tarnishing his reputation, as he’d see it, by allowing Okhrana agents to effectively take control of the Agincourt.

Barring good fortune, therefore, Alexander had to assume that Savinkov would successfully complete the voyage to Mars. They’d have to catch him after he began his operation. The point where an assassin’s target was in greatest danger was also the point where the assassin himself was most exposed and vulnerable.

He’d take Tryddoc Aru, of course. That was the most important Martian city other than the multi-city area in the Vallis Agathodaemonis known as the Octad Gentillus and the city of Crenex, which dominated the rich lands around the Ogygis Regio depression.

More to the point, it was the city which Cecil Rhodes had seized outright in his initial expedition to Mars in 1898. He’d even killed the local despot himself, although Alexander had been told that was more a matter of surprised self-defense when the despot attempted treachery rather than any derring-do. The despot must have been mad to make the attempt. His forces had been overwhelmed by Rhodes’ mercenaries, hardened by years of fighting Boers and Zulus in southern Africa and armed with lever-action repeating rifles and revolvers that completely out-classed Martian weaponry.

Martian societies were highly ritualized and the customs in most Martian lands gave great weight to their version of a code duello. That gave Rhodes’ coup d’état something in the way of cultural legitimacy, given his personal killing of the potentate. He’d made Tryddoc Aru his capital and the city had become a major commercial as well as political center under his rule. Rhodes maintained his own residence there, as did the Russian imperial envoy to the planet, Prince Vorontsov. Count Kamensky, the prince’s military adviser, resided there as well.

That would be Gavril Savinkov’s most likely destination. It certainly provided him with the richest targets.

Prince Saltykov and his own military adviser, Count Shuvalov, resided in Crenex. They were much less important figures and he thought it unlikely Savinkov would be aiming for them. The Esers, as members of the S-R Party were commonly called, were perennially short of funds. They wouldn’t have spent the money to send an assassin to Mars to attack a secondary target.

He spent a minute or so considering the possibility that Rhodes himself was the target. The Esers might be engaged in a complex tit-for-tat, allied at least temporarily with a non-Russian revolutionary organization. They’d kill Rhodes in exchange for their allies targeting a very prominent Russian official. The logic being that Rhodes’ security service and the various Russian police agencies would be looking for danger from the usual parties, not foreigners who had no personal involvement or motives.

It was certainly true that Rhodes had no shortage of enemies. What was left of the Boers hated him with a corrosive passion, for a start. While their own paramilitary forces had largely been crushed or dispersed, some Boer individuals had escaped with their fortunes, mostly to the United States. Any one of them, or a small cabal, could have financed a sole assassin’s voyage to Mars.

There were other possibilities, too. Rumors continued to swirl that Rhodes had been involved in the assassination of Queen Victoria, despite the official finding that Fenians had been responsible. What was no rumor at all but well established was that it was Rhodes’ aetherships which had bombed from orbit and destroyed or badly damaged several naval units from the North Fleet. The units had mutinied after the newly formed Loyalty Party used its majority in Parliament to pass sweeping new laws and ordinances which shredded ancient British liberties and legal customs. Most of the United Kingdom’s military had accepted, however grudgingly, the new black uniforms decreed by the Loyalists—but it was open knowledge that many British officers and enlisted men still considered themselves “redcoats.” A cabal emerging from those disaffected ranks might have decided to employ Russian terrorists instead of risking direct action on their own.

All possibilities, certainly. But Alexander thought they were unlikely. Occam’s Razor applied just as much to assassination as it did to other areas of human activity. The more complicated you made a scheme, the more likely it was to fail.

Furthermore, Rhodes’ Martian stronghold was heavily guarded by his own security forces, whereas all the Russian officials on Mars had by way of protection was a small number of guards. Not more than half a dozen in any one place—and Cossacks to a man, to make things worse. Alexander didn’t doubt the Cossacks were splendid on a field of battle, but for this sort of work they were well-nigh useless.

No, he was sure the target was Vorontsov. The prince was a detested enemy of Russian revolutionaries. As one of the chief lieutenants for Police Director Vyacheslav von Plehve, during the early 1880s Vorontsov had been responsible for the destruction of a number of terrorist groups affiliated with Narodnaya Volya—the so-called “People’s Will” organization. Two decades had gone by since then and Prince Vorontsov had left the Interior Ministry fifteen years earlier for the Tsar’s diplomatic corps. But the Socialist-Revolutionary Party had been founded largely by former members of Narodnaya Volya after they were released from imprisonment. They had long memories and were as unforgiving as a Siberian winter—which many of them had experienced firsthand, thanks to Vorontsov.

That explained why the Esers would send Savinkov. If anyone working alone could succeed in assassinating a Russian official on Mars, it would be Savinkov.

There was a knock on his door. Opening it, he saw Drezhner standing in the corridor outside. The young agent had a crooked smile on his face. “Weird cabins, ha? When will they shift all the furniture around?”

“It’ll be a while yet.” Seeing no reason to remain cooped up in the tiny cabin, Alexander came into the corridor and closed the door behind him. Then, after making sure it was locked, he headed toward the center of the ship. “We may as well go to the main observation deck and see if we can find out anything.”

The corridor was just as peculiar as the rooms. Ladders—rungs built into the walls, rather—ran horizontally along the ceiling of the corridor. Once the Agincourt began to rotate, the corridor would become a vertical shaft and they’d move to and from their cabins using those ladders. There were a few spiral staircases as well that would come into play, but none of them were nearby.

“What an adventure!” said Drezhner cheerfully.

* * *

Chapter 5

Charlotte’s reaction to her cabin was very different from Alexander’s. She found it all quite exciting, and was especially charmed by the complex design that allowed the cabin to function with two different axes of gravity. Or centrifugal force, she reminded herself. One had to be careful to understand the distinction, even if in practice it would mean very little while they were in flight.

“Oh, look here, Mrs. Smith.” She pulled a drawer out all the way in order to better examine the mechanism. “It’s on some sort of gimbal system. After we pack away our belongings they’ll remain undisturbed even when the ship begins to rotate and our present floor becomes a wall.”

The governess with whom she was sharing the room stared at her. It was obvious she hadn’t understood anything Charlotte had just said.

Well, it had been foolish to make the statement. Charlotte reminded herself to accept Mrs. Smith’s limitations. It was hard, at times. The limitations were so … so …

Limited.

“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Smith. She continued to stow away their belongings, quite oblivious to the sophisticated engineering that had turned a simple closet and cabinet drawers into mechanical masterpieces.

Charlotte didn’t offer Mrs. Smith any assistance. That wasn’t laziness on her part, simply long experience at work. The governess had fixed views concerning what her duties consisted of, and those views did not allow for the possibility that a teenage girl might be perfectly capable of packing away her own clothes.

“I think I’ll go down to the observation deck.”

“Yes, dear.”

* * *

The first thing Charlotte did when she came onto the observation deck was subject it to the scrutiny she’d given the closet and drawers. She was delighted to discover that the same marvelous engineering had been applied here also—except on a much grander scale.

The deck was huge, with a ceiling about sixty feet high. That was more than a quarter of the overall length of the Agincourt’s central hub, measuring from bow to stern.

Or should that be top to bottom? She wasn’t sure if sea-going terminology applied to spacecraft. She’d have to inquire. It was important to get these things right.

The reason for the towering ceiling was obvious at a glance. Once the vessel entered deep space and began to rotate, centrifugal force would turn that sixty-foot wall into the floor of the observation deck. The ceiling would then become the forward wall. She knew that once in flight, the observation deck would also serve the Agincourt as its main dining room. None of the chairs and tables were present at the moment, though. They’d have to be attached directly to the wall to keep from falling off in the ship’s present configuration.

There were windows all along the deck, forming the final six feet or so of each wall/floor. Heavy steel borders joined them together where they met at a ninety degree angle. One would be able to look through them either way the ship was …

What term should she use? Heading? Flying? Proceeding? Configurating? It was a bit confusing.

Most of the people on the observation deck were standing, although there were a few comfortable-looking chairs scattered about. The reason for that was also obvious—the observation deck circumnavigated the entire hub and people were walking slowly along the rail that kept them from stepping onto the windows.

The Earth was not visible from Charlotte’s current position. The ship was already rotating, but very slowly; not enough to provide any significant centrifugal force, just enough to eventually bring any part of the deck into sight of the planet below them. Most people, however—as Charlotte planned to do herself—were not waiting for that to happen but were walking toward it.

There had been perhaps thirty people visible from where she had first come onto the deck. Once she got a third of the way around and came into sight of the Earth, the population got much thicker. There were at least a hundred people crowding at the rail, looking at the spectacular view below them.

Far below them, Charlotte saw, once she squeezed her way into a space at the rail. The Agincourt must have begun its departure almost as soon as the last passengers came aboard. The transfer station, hovering some 45,000 feet above the planet’s surface, was no longer in sight. They were very high by now. The curvature of the Earth was quite visible and the sky had not a trace of blue left in it. Stars were appearing against the darkness of space.

She’d known in the abstract that aether drives produced very little in the way of acceleration—not more than one or two percent of standard Earth gravity. They did not operate by applying brute force to the laws of motion, the way a cannon or rocket did, but by seizing hold of the very fabric of space and drawing the craft forward. Hence the supremely smooth manner of its motion. Undetectable, really, unless you had instruments or could visibly see the progress.

Her brother tugged at her elbow. “Let me see, Charlotte. Please let me see.”

Reluctantly, she allowed Adrian to take her place at the rail.

“Oh!” he exclaimed. “We’re already in outer space!”

A man next to him looked down and smiled. “We’re still in the atmosphere, in fact. What they call the mesosphere—that’s the part above the stratosphere but below the thermosphere.”

He was a rather nice-looking man, younger than Charlotte’s father but no longer in his twenties. His English was fluent and idiomatic, but had some sort of accent Charlotte couldn’t place. A bit Frenchy, but there was something else. Not German, she didn’t think.

“Really?” Adrian looked profoundly disappointed. “When do we reach outer space, then?”

“That depends on your definitions,” the man continued. “The term ‘deep space’ is ambiguous. It’s generally agreed that low Earth orbit begins about one hundred and sixty kilometers—that would be one hundred of your English miles—above the surface. Anything lower than that, and your orbit degrades very quickly. But even low Earth orbit is still in the highest reaches of the atmosphere, so you get some drag. You need to get two thousand kilometers away from the planet before your orbit is really stable.”

“So that’s where outer space begins? Two thousand kilometers?”

The man shrugged. “So some would say. But the diplomats wrangling over the matter seem to be settling on a definition that would begin much lower, at one hundred and sixty kilometers—that is to say, low Earth orbit. On the other hand”—he smiled again, more widely—“space voyagers themselves seem to believe that ‘outer space’ is a purely practical term, which they define as that point at which they begin rotating their craft and centrifugal force replaces gravity from the standpoint of the vessel’s crew. And passengers, in our case.”

“When is that?”

“It varies from ship to ship. At five hundred kilometers altitude your weight will only have decreased by a little over ten percent. There’d be no point in beginning the centrifugal rotation, since the most that will achieve is between ten and thirty percent of standard Earth gravity, depending on the radius and speed of the rotation. You need to wait until the gravitational force of the Earth has declined below that.”

Adrian was frowning, as he tried to follow the logic. Charlotte was a bit at a loss herself and had to concentrate on maintaining a smooth brow. Frowning was uncouth, in her opinion, especially for girls.

“Well, then …” Adrian shook his head. “When will this ship start rotating?”

“I don’t know, since I’ve never traveled on it before. But it’ll be quite a while, I suspect. The Agincourt is a luxury liner, not a naval vessel. Spinning too rapidly makes a lot of people uncomfortable”—his easy smile reappeared—“which is not something the BEPC wants to inflict on wealthy customers. So they’ll use a very modest rotation. I don’t believe the resultant centrifugal force will exceed fifteen percent of gee. That’s just enough to counteract the medical problems caused by microgravity, at least for a voyage lasting weeks instead of months or years.”

Charlotte was able to make sense of that, thankfully. More for the sake of seeming intelligent than because she really cared about the answer, she asked: “Couldn’t they increase the centrifugal force if the ship had a bigger radius?”

Now, the man chuckled. The sound was good-natured rather than derisive, however.

“In theory, yes. But this is already—by a large margin—the biggest spacecraft in existence. Its hub has a diameter of one hundred meters or so. That’s more than twice the diameter of any other space vessel.” He waggled his hand. “Well, at least vessels using the torus-on-a-spindle design. There are some ships using other designs, that can attain much greater gee force. But those aren’t very practical for large passenger vessels.”

He seemed a pleasant man. Charlotte decided introductions were in order.

“I am Charlotte Luff. This is my brother Adrian.”

“I am Alexander Evalenko. From Russia, although I’ve lived in Paris most of my adult life.”

That explained the accent. Slavic with a heavy French overlay. Charlotte was pleased with her perspicacity.

“We’re accompanying our father,” Adrian said. “He’s Professor Edward Luff. He’s a scholar of Martian history.”

“I am on a business trip, myself.” Alexander made that same hand-waggling motion. “Too complicated to explain easily.”

* * *

Alexander thought that sounded better than I am here to apprehend or execute a notorious terrorist. Probably the latter. They seemed like nice children.

A large man came up and placed a hand on Adrian Luff’s shoulder. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you.”

If that was a reproof, the tone was mild. As it should be, given the boy’s response:

“I did wait for you, Father. But you and Mr. Shankar got—”

“Yes, yes, I know.” The person now revealed to be Professor Edward Luff grimaced ruefully. “We got rather preoccupied. But all’s well that ends well. What a magnificent view!”

“Isn’t it?” Charlotte gestured toward Alexander. “This is Mr. Evalenko, Father. He was kind enough to explain some of the—ah—astronautical matters to us. He’s a businessman. From Russia originally, but he’s lived mostly in Paris.”

The professor extended his hand and Alexander shook it.

So. The first suspect could now be eliminated. Under other circumstances, Alexander would have given Luff a careful and thorough scrutiny. Youngish—somewhere around forty—and of a seemingly athletic build despite his reputed scholarly status. Perfect British accent but Savinkov was reputed to be a superb linguist.

But Alexander couldn’t imagine even the most ruthless assassin bringing his own children on a mission. And these had to be his children. The boy couldn’t be more than ten or eleven years old; not the age for the sort of hardened accomplice such a mission would require. As for the girl …

Alexander recognized the type. Teenage; precocious; not as mature as she fancied herself but not so far off, either; given to questioning established wisdom but only within acceptable limits; rather charming, in a gawky sort of way. The sort of girl the English seemed to produce as if they had a factory for the purpose.

If he’d still been a teenage boy, Alexander would have found her very attractive. But those days were far behind him now. What remained as evident as the full moon in a cloudless sky was that Charlotte Luff was no sort of revolutionist, much less an Eser fanatic with a revolver or bomb always ready to hand.

He looked around, examining the crowd without seeming to do so.

He spotted Drezhner some distance off. He was sightseeing! All his attention fixed on the slowly receding blue orb below them.

To a degree, Drezhner’s distraction was understandable. This was, after all, the young Okhrana agent’s first voyage into space where it was Alexander’s third—albeit the first to another planet instead of Russia’s orbital station. He could well remember how exciting, even exhilarating, he’d found the first such experience. Still, even then, he’d never let himself lose sight of his mission—which had been a far less critical one than the task they’d been charged with here.

The damn fool. This was probably the best opportunity they’d have to detect Savinkov, or at least narrow the number of possible suspects. Most of the passengers, having found their cabins and stowed their belongings, would be coming to the observation deck. Until they neared Mars, this was the most splendid sightseeing opportunity they’d have on the voyage. “Outer space” sounded very dramatic, but there was only so much time one could spend staring at stars wheeling slowly across the view as the ship rotated.

He gave the professor and his children a polite smile. “I must be off. Business to attend to, I’m afraid.”

The Luffs paid him no mind at all, outside of an answering smile from the daughter. They were quite engrossed themselves in the magnificent vista.

He’d have to give Drezhner a subtle elbow as he passed him by, since they couldn’t risk being seen engaged in conversation this early in the voyage. Part of the reason they had separate cabins was to establish that they didn’t know each other. The main reason, of course, was that Okhrana field offices—even the Paris office—were also chronically short of funds. The only exceptions were the occasions when members of the imperial family traveled abroad. At such times the Okhrana was showered with money to make sure no harm came to whatever grand duke insisted on enjoying the glaciers on the Ile St. Louis or the view of the Eiffel Tower from the Trocadero.

Alexander was skeptical that the deception would work very well. The problem, as always when Russian agents operated in western Europe, was that the accents were almost impossible to disguise—especially an accent as pronounced as Drezhner’s. It usually worked better to employ local agents; mercenaries, hired for pay. But such people would have been unusable for this sort of mission.

* * *

He gave Drezhner the requisite elbow, then passed on his way without looking back to see if the idiot got the hint. In any event, he was preoccupied with trying to spot someone who might be Savinkov in the crowd pressing against the rail on the observation deck.

* * *

Savinkov had considered staying in the cabin but decided that might look suspicious. Almost no passengers except those ill or indisposed or blasé from many space voyages—there couldn’t be more than a handful of those in the entire world—could resist the urge to see the Earth receding from view as the spacecraft departed for Mars. All an Okhrana agent would have to do would be to get access to the cabin logs to see which passengers had stayed in their cabin. At one stroke, they could narrow down the list of suspects far more quickly than they could looking for their target in the mob.

So, a sightseeing jaunt it would have to be. Besides, Savinkov could use the opportunity to start gauging the members of the crew. Before this voyage was over, there was a good chance the SRP agent would need to suborn one of them, in whatever manner proved possible.

Blessedly, Cecil Rhodes shared the most common characteristic of great capitalists. He was a cheap, chiseling bastard when it came to paying his own employees, however much largesse he might spread elsewhere.

The tools of the trade the public at large associated with revolutionists were incendiary pamphlets, incendiary devices, bombs and pistols. In Savinkov’s experience, however—very extensive experience—they were often cast in the shade by the humble bribe.

* * *

Chapter 6

As the hours passed while the Agincourt moved slowly away from the Earth, Vera kept a wary eye out for the two men she was almost certain were with the Okhrana. They would be looking for Savinkov, not her, but it was still essential that she do nothing to draw their attention. If at any point the Okhrana agents took an interest in her of a political nature, they might be able to ferret out the identity and whereabouts of Savinkov.

The younger agent seemed like something of a dolt, from what she could see of him. To begin with, he apparently found it next to impossible to spy on people surreptitiously. Where a glance should have done, he stared. And if the object of his scrutiny was an attractive female, the stare bordered on an outright ogle.

That was all to Vera’s advantage, though. She was in her mid-forties, much older than the young Okhrana agent, and her figure had long ago lost what it had ever possessed in the way of supple nubility. But it was still, as it had been since she was fourteen years of age, a demonstrably—one might even say, flamboyantly—female figure. Her clothing, moreover, though certainly respectable, had been designed to subtly emphasize her impressive bust. She was sure that the not-really-glances the agent sent her way whenever he passed near her had failed to register anything about her beyond her membership in the biological class of mammals.

The other Okhrana agent, unfortunately, was a different matter. He was older, for one thing. Still quite a few years short of Vera’s own age but no longer a callow youth, if he’d ever been one at all. He had an intelligent air about him, and the glances he sent at the people he was inspecting—quick glances; no dull-witted staring here—seemed to absorb a great deal in a small amount of time.

From his appearance and habits, she was fairly sure she even knew his identity. He was probably Alexander Evalenko, one of Rachkovsky’s top agents.

Thankfully, she’d been able to attach herself to the Luff party before Evalenko caught sight of her. No matter how shrewd a man might be—even a woman—it was exceedingly difficult not to let first impressions sway one’s assessments unduly. The first sight he would have had of Vera would have been her conversing with a vivacious teenage girl; and the second, the obvious interest taken in her by the girl’s father. The fact that the father was several years younger than she was wouldn’t matter. A man entering middle age; with children; a woman somewhat further into that period of life but still very “well-preserved,” as the expression went.

The exact nature of the relationship would be unclear to Evalenko. But the one thing that would have registered on him was not the one I’m looking for. Not Savinkov, certainly; not anyone of interest.

She’d need to maintain the connection with the Luffs, at least in public. But Vera didn’t expect that to be a problem.

She’d first considered encouraging the father’s interest. Vera was not exactly what the French meant by the term femme fatale, but she was not far removed. A member of the genus, as it were, if not the species. Given Professor Luff’s obviously healthy and active constitution, she’d probably have a good chance of seducing him.

That was still an option. But there could be complications, and to follow that course at the outset would almost certainly alienate Luff’s daughter, whom Vera judged to be a simpler and easier target. All she had to do, really, was be herself—at least, part of herself. Besides, the girl seemed likeable and might very well prove to be more enjoyable company than her father. Such men could sometimes be …

Tiresome. She should know, being the widow of a university professor. The fact that her husband Vladimir had died in a Tsarist prison because of his revolutionary sympathies did not alter the fact that he’d often been buried in the minutiae of his scholarly pursuits. During the worst of such periods she might as well have been married to a cabbage.

Yes, the girl, definitely. That meant dealing with the brother as well, of course. But Vera was of an age where the behavior of boys was no longer very annoying. It was certainly no worse than the behavior of academics.

* * *

By the time the Agincourt reached the turnover point, Alexander had come to the same assessment of his associate’s abilities as Vera Duchesne. To put it simply, Ilya Drezhner was a dolt.

Other terms came to mind as well, in several languages. Lummox, dummox and dimwit, from English. Dummkopf, from German. Durak from his native Russian. And of course imbecile was always ready to hand from English, French—oh, any number of languages.

Was it impossible for the man to examine someone without calling attention to himself? Couldn’t he understand that at this stage of their endeavor all they could hope to do was a rough winnowing of the terrorist chaff from the innocent—or at least irrelevant—wheat? All they could do at the moment was narrow down the potential suspects to a manageable number.

There was no chance that Savinkov would expose himself in any obvious manner. So what was the point of drawing attention to oneself by an excessively drawn-out scrutiny of the persons on the observation deck?

He’d even managed to irritate one fellow enough to cause a small verbal ruckus. Thankfully, that had resulted from Drezhner’s ogling of the man’s wife, not the man himself. Since the woman in question was obviously not Savinkov, Alexander could hope that if Savinkov had been present and witnessed the affair he would simply conclude that Drezhner was a boor rather than a Tsarist agent.

Not that the two were mutually exclusive. The Okhrana had its full share of boors.

Still, most of those boors were at least competent at their work. If only the Paris office hadn’t been so short-handed when the news arrived! Alexander could have picked one of his known associates to accompany him rather than this numbskull just arrived from St. Petersburg.

Ah, well. Such was the life of an Okhrana agent. It was still better than dealing with cavalrymen and the slightly dumber beasts they rode.

* * *

“Attention! Attention! Ladies and gentlemen, may I please have your attention.”

The hubbub of conversation on the observation deck died away. Everyone present in this section of the deck turned to look at a ship’s officer who’d just stepped onto a small platform he’d positioned by the railing. Not much more than a stool, really.

In the distance, both to her left and right, Charlotte could hear the voices of other officers calling out the same summons.

Attention! Attention! Ladies and gentlemen, may I please have your attention.

Attention! Attention! Ladies and gentlemen, may I please have your attention.

The observation deck went all the way around the ship, and there was no way to see all of it from any one vantage point. Apparently the passengers were being assembled in several groups simultaneously.

The officer addressing Charlotte’s part of the deck continued:

“We have reached the turnover point and we will shortly be re-orienting the ship. As you have no doubt noticed, your weight has been steadily dropping as we’ve moved farther from the Earth.”

He gave them all the too-sweet smile of a man pleased that his charges had not behaved badly over the past period. “Let me take the occasion to thank all of you once again for not indulging yourselves in potentially dangerous gymnastics.”

That had been a bit hard to resist, in truth. The constant reiteration by the ship’s officers and crew of the perils of cavorting in low gravity had been counter-productive, in Charlotte’s opinion. They served more to remind the less responsible passengers of the possibilities at hand than to deter them from partaking in them.

At one point, their father had had to physically restrain Adrian from leaping about. When a boy his age discovered himself weighing not more than a fifth of what he’d weighed back on Earth, he was inevitably tempted to emulate a gazelle.

No one had been forced to physically restrain Charlotte, needless to say. But she’d not deny having been tempted herself.

“We are now ten thousand miles removed from the Earth’s surface,” the officer went on, “and effective gravity has dropped to approximately ten percent of that experienced on the planet’s surface. Hence, it is now time to begin rotating the ship and substitute centrifugal force for gravity. As I’m sure most of you know, prolonged exposure to null or even very low gravity is deleterious to health.”

“How fast will we be rotating?” asked a portly middle-aged man a few yards away from Charlotte. He shook his head irritably, realizing that he’d posed the question badly. “What I mean is, what will be the effective gravity produced by the centrifugal force of the rotation?”

“About fifteen percent of standard gee,” replied the officer.

“Will that be sufficient?” nervously asked a woman standing next to the man who’d spoken. She was probably his wife, judging from her matronly appearance. “In terms of our health, I mean.”

“For this length of voyage, most certainly. If we were an exploratory ship headed for the outer planets with the prospect of a voyage duration of months rather than weeks …” The officer’s expression indicated some mild uncertainty—you could hardly call it apprehension. “I suppose we might want a somewhat faster rotation.”

Adrian leaned over and whispered to her: “Ha! I’d like to see that, on this ship. Start spinning the Agincourt like a top! Half the people here would start puking their guts, you watch!”

He obviously found great satisfaction, even glee, at the thought.

Boys.

Charlotte knew what he was referring to, since she’d taken the time to familiarize herself with the basic issues involved in space travel. She’d done so partly out of curiosity but mostly to forestall her brother from bombarding her with loftily knowledgeable and exasperating little lectures.

The range within which a spacecraft could establish what amounted to artificial gravity using centrifugal force was determined by several factors.

First, obviously, diameter of the craft. Diameter of the rotation, rather, using the term “diameter” loosely. The Agincourt’s torus design was the most common but not the only one possible. You could accomplish the same thing by spinning two nacelles around each other connected only by a pylon or even a cable.

The limits here were set partly by engineering but mostly by economics. Building an aethership the size of the Agincourt was fiendishly expensive. The cost of building one that significantly exceeded its torus diameter was simply not practical. Not today, at least.

Second, the existing diameter determined the possible centrifugal force by adding the simple element of rotation. It would be very easy to rotate the ship fast enough to achieve a full standard gravity at the rim of the torus. Theoretically, you could do that with a ship whose diameter was much smaller than the Agincourt’s.

Unfortunately, a large percentage of people simply couldn’t handle rapid rotation. They got queasy, even sick. A naval vessel or exploratory vessel could select its crew from those people who were resistant to such effects. But not a passenger vessel; certainly not a luxury liner.

In practice, it was not possible to rotate a ship the size of the Agincourt at a speed much greater than one revolution per minute. That was enough to produce an effective gee force of about fifteen percent of standard Earth gravity. As the ship’s officer said, just enough to counteract the medical risks of microgravity.

There was a slight bustle at the edges of the crowd as a few newcomers made their appearance. Mrs. Smith was among them, looking quite aggrieved.

“They made me leave the cabin,” she complained. “Quite rude about it, they were.”

Charlotte discounted that last. Their governess was firmly of the opinion that anyone who contradicted her desires, unless that person was her employer, was by definition being rude. Never mind how politely they spoke or comported themselves.

“We’ve moved all passengers out of the cabins and assembled everyone here on the observation deck,” explained the officer. “This is the best place for everyone to be as we make the transition from one configuration to another.”

“Oh, this’ll be splendid fun!” said Adrian.

* * *

It was rather entertaining, actually—although certainly not to the extent Adrian imagined it to be.

All the passengers were first assembled against the railing. Then, the crew brought out bizarre-looking staircases—portable steps, rather—that could be swiveled to span the gap between the railing they were against and the railing above them that stood out from (what was now) the wall of the deck at a ninety degree angle.

Then, very slowly at first but soon picking up speed, the ship began to rotate. As the stars began wheeling past, Charlotte could feel the centrifugal force starting to force her against the railing. (In that direction, rather; there were two rows of people between her and the railing itself.)

Once the force became palpable but before it became a problem, crewmen extended the staircases and began assisting passengers in making the combined climb and transfer over to the wall that was becoming a floor for the newly configured observation deck.

Had the existing gravity remained at one gee and the centrifugal force been of equivalent effect, the result would have been calamitous. Particularly athletic or agile people—Charlotte herself, for instance—could have made the transmission without mishap. But most people would have suffered injuries of one sort or another, up to and including broken bones.

At an effective gravity of 0.1 gee in both directions, however, even the plumpest and most sedentary person could manage the business quite easily. At least, with the assistance of crew members.

Not without complaint, however. Many complaints; great complaints; constant complaints. The clientele of a luxury aethership like the Agincourt was mostly made up of very wealthy and (self-)important people. That is to say, the class of people for whom complaint, reproof and criticism of their lessers comes trippingly off the tongue.

Charlotte refrained from blowing any raspberries or making other rude and ribald remarks at the expense of the complainers.

Her brother did not. And for once—she had to be honest about this—Charlotte was pleased by Adrian’s rambunctious behavior.

So, she was quite sure, were the ship’s crewmen.

* * *

Finally, it was done. The transition complete; fancy chairs and tables brought forth to provide solace to the passengers as they rested from their labors; the finest delicacies and drinks made available to assuage all grievances and griefs.

“Oh, what a splendid adventure!” said Adrian.

* * *

Chapter 7

It didn’t take Charlotte very long to figure out three Profound Truths about space voyages that would last for weeks and keep what was actually quite a small number of people, somewhere around five hundred passengers and one hundred and fifty crewmen—once you factored in “weeks” and “rather limited space”—in close proximity forever and ever and ever.

The first of the Profound Truths was that confining hundreds of people for long stretches of times in an enclosed space which could not in the nature of things be aired out—the vacuum of space not being suitable for the purpose—produced aromas that could most delicately be described as “fatiguing.” Privately, she did not disagree with her brother’s preferred term of “stinky” but she found his constant use of it also fatiguing.

The perfumes and colognes that many people started slathering on to compensate for the problem only made it worse.

The second of the Profound Truths was that listening to scholars like her father and the Shankar couple discuss the arcane complexities of their field was to tedium what little brothers were to aggravation.

The third of the Profound Truths was that sophisticated, intelligent, friendly, middle-aged women of somewhat exotic origin were to salvation from boredom what water was to thirst in the desert.

The only fly in this ointment was that Adrian figured out the Truths as quickly as she did. Still, even little brothers were not as irritating as usual when you had someone like Madame Duchesne around. The German widow handled Adrian’s eleven-year-old lack of couth gracefully and easily, without ever needing to neglect her primary mission on this voyage, which was to keep Charlotte herself from going mad.

* * *

“Oh, no,” Madame Duchesne said, smiling. “German bureaucrats aren’t everything legend makes them out to be. I assure you, they don’t refuse to eat breakfast until their wives have presented them with the menu in triplicate.”

She paused, to admire a particularly striking vine that wove all through the grid making up the side of the corridor. Charlotte was not familiar with the vine, despite its flamboyantly colored flowers. That was not surprising, since they were in a portion of the hydroponics promenade that was tropical in its temperature and humidity. None of the flora was remotely English.

Still examining the vine, Madame Duchesne pursed her lips. “Well … Prussians, maybe. But certainly not Bavarians or Swabians. Do be careful, Adrian. That glass panel—”

Turning her head, Charlotte saw that her brother was reaching out to touch one of the huge glass panels that allowed sunlight reflected from mirrors to bathe the hydroponic garden.

“Oh, it can’t be that fragile,” scoffed Adrian, “or it’d be too risky—ow!”

He snatched back his hand and stuffed his forefinger into his mouth.

“—is likely to be quite hot,” Madame Duchesne finished, in a mild tone of voice. “They have some sort of shielding embedded in the glass to deflect radiation. Quite effective, but it tends to absorb a lot of energy. You do need to be cautious in space, you know.”

Adrian winced, and kept sucking on his finger.

Served him right!

* * *

“It has to be one of those four men,” insisted Ilya Drezhner. “Who else could it be?”

Alexander stifled his temper. By now, halfway through the voyage, practically anything Drezhner said was aggravating, due to the man’s insufferable self-assurance. For Drezhner, all things came in clear hues and tones. He recognized the existence of gray, yes—but for him, gray had no shades, no indistinctions. It was a color every bit as clear and sharp-edged as black or white.

Alexander didn’t even disagree with him, in this instance. He was almost sure himself that Gavril Savinkov had to be one of the same four men Drezhner’s suspicion had fallen upon. But …

There was always a “but,” in their peculiar occupation. The only colors one encountered in counter-revolutionary work were hues of gray.

The simple truth was that there were no clear descriptions of Savinkov, despite the assassin’s notoriety. The man was reputed to have organized the assassination of Dmitry Sipyagin, the Minister of the Interior, as well as that of two provincial governors and a deputy commander of the Imperial Corps of Gendarmes. Yet, somehow, less was known of him than any other top leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party or any member of the SRP’s Combat Organization.

According to the reports available, Savinkov was male, probably of average height and build, probably in his late thirties or early forties. If various rumors were to be believed, he was probably Jewish too, but that was of little help. A very high percentage of Russia’s revolutionaries were Jewish in their origin, though almost none of them observed the faith any longer.

It was the commonly held opinion of the cavalry officers whose company Alexander had once shared that Jews could be easily detected by their mere appearance. One only had to look for a large, hooked nose, dark and close-set eyes, and a shifty expression. The same cavalry officers, of course, also subscribed to every idiotic superstition known to man or beast. Most of them could have been outplayed at checkers by their mounts if the horses had only had opposable thumbs to move the game pieces.

Alexander knew a great many Jews, partly because he encountered them as enemies and partly because the Okhrana employed many Jews. (Of necessity, and regulations be damned.) Of that number, only one of them shared any resemblance at all to the stereotype—and that was simply because the man’s nose did have a distinct curve, although it was not especially large.

The problem with Savinkov’s description was not even so much that it was hopelessly vague. Could it even be trusted at all? Years of experience had taught Alexander that revolutionists could at times be fiendishly clever. (Also, at times, incredibly foolish—but only an incompetent agent or one who was a fool himself relied on his enemy to make mistakes.)

It was possible, therefore, that Savinkov was tall, or fat, or bald. It was possible that he was considerably older than the reports. It was also possible that he was a young man, although that was unlikely given his long string of accomplishments.

For that matter, it was even conceivable that all the reports were entirely inaccurate and “Gavril” Savinkov was actually a woman. Russia’s revolutionary organizations had many women in their ranks, some of whom had become assassins themselves. As far back as 1879, in one of Russia’s very first terrorist incidents, Vera Zasulich had seriously wounded Colonel Theodore Trepov, the governor of St. Petersburg.

Zasulich had been captured but later escaped. In fact, she was still at large.

Alexander was quite sure Zasulich herself was not aboard the Agincourt. Her description was not only well-known, he’d seen photographs of the woman.

But it simply couldn’t be ruled out entirely that the Okhrana’s intelligence was wildly off the mark. Perhaps Savinkov was actually a woman. Perhaps he was indeed a man, but a woman impersonating him was undertaking this mission. For that matter, perhaps the whole mission was a figment of the Okhrana’s imagination and he and Drezhner were wasting their time altogether.

Perhaps—perhaps—perhaps—

Such was the inescapable epistemology of the counter-revolutionist’s trade.

To which truth his companion Ilya Drezhner seemed completely oblivious. Why had this man ever joined the Okhrana in the first place? He seemed ideally suited for leading cavalry charges.

Alexander reminded himself that another of the great truths of the counter-revolutionist’s trade was that you worked with the material available, as inferior as that material might be. He’d once even had to work with a Lapp reindeer herder, who had been completely illiterate and possessed of an odor that was quite indescribable.

But—he suppressed a sigh, here—the Lapp had actually been a rather intelligent man, given his limitations. He’d certainly not suffered from Drezhner’s rigidity of thought. It seemed that herding reindeer was a profession that taught a man to avoid dogmatic assumptions, whereas riding horses did the exact opposite.

Back to the matter at hand, he told himself firmly. His reservations and caveats were simply the product of the scrupulous intellect of a good agent. On balance, he did not really think the accepted assumptions about Savinkov were incorrect.

Which meant … he was indeed one of the four men Drezhner had pointed out.

* * *

“Look here, Edward,” said Vijay Shankar. “It’s a passage from the Black Yajur Veda.” He swiveled the volume on the table between them so that the writing faced Luff. Then, tapped his finger on a particular line of text.

Edward Luff’s knowledge of Sanskrit was passable, but only that. It took him a moment or two to understand the meaning of the lines indicated.

From Earth I have mounted to the atmosphere;

From the atmosphere I have mounted to the sky.

“And here,” Shankar said, laying a second, more slender volume atop the first. “This is in the White Yajur Veda.” Again, he tapped his finger on a line.

The line was very short:

Earth! Ether! Sky!

Luff made a face. “That all depends on the translator, Vijay. The term ‘ether,’ I mean.”

“True. But what’s indisputably clear is that a tripartite—not a dual—distinction is being made. Earth and sky, which is common to any ancient tradition. But then there’s something in between. Something else.”

“And it’s not just a reference to air, either,” said Vijay’s wife Sumati. She leaned over the table and flipped a few pages in the book. Then, mimicked her husband’s finger-tapping. “Look at these lines.”

From earth to air’s mid-region have I mounted,

And from mid-air ascended to heaven.

From the high pitch of heaven’s cope

I came into the world of light.

Edward had to admit, the passage did seem like a description of interplanetary travel. The first journey, via an airship, to a transfer station; then the journey into space aboard an aethership.

Except …

“Doesn’t this all seem very … call it vague, if you will. Why use such poetic ways to depict what is ultimately a mundane matter? Would you use iambic pentameter and a slathering of classical allusions to depict a train journey?”

Shankar shrugged. “We know very little of Indian history during the Vedic period—any part of it, much less the earliest stages. The Rig Veda is the oldest of the sacred texts and it dates back at least three and a half thousand years.”

Sumati chimed in again. “And remember that if our theory is correct, what we’re calling the Martian period would have antedated Vedic civilization, possibly by thousands of years.”

“Almost certainly by thousands of years,” said Vijay. “Which means that the references in the Vedas came much later than the activities they depict. The analogy might be with Homer’s epics, which were almost certainly composed long after the events they speak about.”

“Except, if you’re right,” mused Edward, “the gap between the actual events and the Vedic record was measured in millennia rather than centuries. That would certainly explain the imprecision of the texts. In essence, you have people in a technologically primitive period trying to depict what their ancestors remembered of an ancient society whose science and industry was highly developed.”

He chuckled. “And, of course, your theory has a built-in explanation for the lack of an archaeological record.”

The Brahmin scholar shrugged again. “Yes, granted. But the mere fact that it’s convenient to our theory doesn’t make it incorrect.”

“No, no,” Luff agreed. “It is indeed true, as counter-intuitive as it might seem to most people, that the archaeological remains of primitive civilizations will long outlive the remains of highly advanced technical societies. The pyramids of Egypt have survived for three thousand years and will undoubtedly survive at least that many years into the future. Whereas if modern civilization collapses, none of its works will survive much more than a few centuries except some gold, silver and jewelry—items which will reveal very little of the technical development of the society which produced them.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Is there more?”

Sumati brushed back her long hair. “For one thing, there are frequent references throughout the Vedas to two worlds.”

“Sometimes multiple worlds,” said Vijay. He smiled. “And before you raise the objection that most religions make a distinction between this world and a more spiritual one, these references seem—to use your term—rather mundane. It can’t be proved, but the … call it ‘feel’ or ‘flavor’ of the texts seem to be matter-of-factly referring to two actual worlds. That is to say, physical worlds.”

Luff nodded. “And what else?”

This time, it was Sumati who took the larger of the two books and flipped through the pages until she found the one she was looking for. She laid the book down in front of Edward, after turning it so the text faced him again.

Her finger tapped three times in quick succession, indicating three separate lines. Luff leaned over and studied them.

That most auspicious One whose hue is coppery and red and brown

May he who glides away, whose neck is azure, and whose hue is red

Homage to him the Azure-nested, the thousand-eyed, the bountiful

When she saw that he was finished, Sumati leaned over and flipped a few more pages. Then, tapped twice. “These two lines also.”

Pursuer, Lord of Soma juice, thou cleaver, colored blue and red

… their necks are blue, their throats are white

He leaned back again. “Vague, so blasted vague. But …”

He cocked a semi-skeptical, semi-fascinated eye at the Hindu couple sitting across from him. He was by now quite oblivious to the murmuring voices that surrounded them. The table they occupied was just one of many in the crowded observation deck. “Do you really think these are references to the so-called Old Ones?”

Shankar raised his hands and spread them in a gesture that somehow mirrored Luff’s expression: half-doubt; half fierce interest.

“At the moment, I can’t say. Ask me in a few weeks—best say, few months—when I’ve had a chance to examine the Martian texts in the vaults at Ghlaktora. But one of the things that all references to the Old Ones that I’ve seen share in common is their coloration. It’s always red—or reddish, at least—but especially blue.”

“The necks in particular?”

It was Vijay’s turn to chuckle. “Alas! One of the things the texts definitely do not share in common is a morphological depiction of the Old Ones, other than a general sense they were monstrous. It’s not clear that they even had ‘necks’ at all, at least as we use the term.”

“The clearest description seems to picture them standing on four legs,” said Sumati, “with a torso of some kind and a head at the top. But the shape does not seem to have been a terrestrial one. From what I can tell, the torso went straight up from the legs, the way a camera sits on a tripod—not the way you’d picture something like a centaur or a sphinx.”

She spread her hands also. “Whether there was any sort of neck is entirely unclear.”

“If they existed at all,” said Luff.

“If they existed at all,” agreed Shankar.

* * *

Chapter 8

The voyage to Mars had now lasted six weeks, and the Agincourt was much closer to its destination than to its planet of departure. Savinkov felt confident, therefore, that the two Okhrana men still had no idea concerning the real identity of the notorious assassin.

The problem that remained would surface at the moment of their arrival. The passengers would then scatter to their various destinations, and unless steps were taken there was the risk that Savinkov would be exposed because the agent had no clear destination. More precisely, had no clear reason to choose that destination in the first place.

Had Savinkov known the Okhrana would manage to place two agents aboard the aethership before it left Earth, the assassin might have chosen a different cover identity. That of a reporter, perhaps. But it was too late now.

It was not a large risk, granted. Savinkov was not headed for Tryddoc Aru, which was the obvious place an Eser terrorist would go. Still, the older of the two Okhrana agents was shrewd. That was Evalenko, one of Rachkovsky’s chief lieutenants. Just the sort of man whose suspicions would be aroused by anyone behaving in a manner whose logic wasn’t readily apparent. It was best to be careful.

So.

Savinkov had planned for this and placed the necessary bribes—the first, three weeks ago; the second, yesterday; and the third and last would come after the deed paid for had been done. That would happen shortly before their arrival at Mars.

As deeds went, it wasn’t a particularly dark one. Nonetheless, Savinkov felt a certain amount of regret at the necessity. The victim of the upcoming deed was quite blameless in the affair, with no connection at all to the bitter struggle between Russia’s revolutionary forces and the Tsar’s instruments of oppression and reaction.

But, it had to be done. The goal of the mission was too important. Savinkov couldn’t afford to take any chances that might in any way be forestalled or mitigated. The scheme was clever; clever enough, the agent was sure, to continue deflecting Evalenko’s attention elsewhere.

* * *

As it happened, Alexander Evalenko’s attention had now settled almost exclusively upon two men. There was only a fortnight left in the voyage, and the Okhrana agent no longer had the luxury of taking his time and carefully weighing all possibilities.

The first possibility was the man known as Klaus Kuhn, who claimed to be a Swiss pharmaceutical representative. To begin with, Kuhn was the right age and had the right appearance—at least, insofar as that term could be applied to someone whose description was as vague as Savinkov’s.

The same could be said of several other men on the ship, of course. But Kuhn’s behavior had been suspicious throughout the voyage. He was rarely seen, spending most of his time in his stateroom—which was all the more odd given that his stateroom, 17 F, was one of the smaller ones. When he did appear, it was only at odd hours. He’d make brief visits to the cafés on the observation deck and hydroponics promenade and order very little besides coffee. Alexander had spied on him and seen the man, on one occasion, steal some of the bread and fruit that were placed on the tables to attract customers. The word “steal” seemed appropriate, even though the food was given out at no charge, because Kuhn surreptitiously slid the items into the pockets of his coat and took them away. Presumably, he’d eat the stuff later in the privacy of his cabin.

Clearly enough, this was not the behavior of a pharmaceutical representative. Certainly not a Swiss one.

His speech seemed wrong, too. His German was fluent and idiomatic, as was Alexander’s own. But something about Kuhn’s accent didn’t seem right for someone from Switzerland. Alexander wasn’t sure exactly what it was, since his own accent was far worse.

But—but—but—

The fact that Kuhn’s behavior could be explained as the behavior of a Eser assassin didn’t mean that it couldn’t be explained as something else as well—which they were missing because they didn’t know the man’s history.

By way of analogy, a man is seen to gesticulate and speak to no one in sight as he walks down a street. Clearly this is the behavior of a lunatic. But when accosted by the police and questioned, the man—now quite embarrassed—explains that he has to give a speech to a luncheon club and was practicing on his way, not realizing how publicly he was behaving.

The problem with Kuhn as their suspect was that he was too suspicious. Would an Eser terrorist—any of them, much less Savinkov—behave in such a manner?

Steal food? That made no sense at all. The SRP’s Combat Organization was not that short of funds. If they could afford to send their top assassin to Mars by way of the human race’s most prestigious aethership, they could certainly afford to give the man enough money to pay for meals along the way.

No, Kuhn wasn’t their man. That he was guilty of something or other, Alexander didn’t doubt at all. But whatever Kuhn was up to, he wasn’t working on behalf of the SRP. Or any organization, for that matter, revolutionary or otherwise. His semi-desperate behavior was the earmark of a man running on the edge, entirely on his own.

* * *

So, finally, Alexander settled on his other principal suspect, a man going by the name of Antoine Jelinek. He was supposed to be a Frenchman of Czech extraction; a dealer in exotic art, heading to Mars in search of extra-terrestrial—i.e., super-exotic—objects of art.

The story was not that implausible, actually. The reason Jelinek had drawn Alexander’s attention was that the story’s very plausibility provided the Frenchman with an excellent rationale for traveling anywhere on Mars he chose to go without creating any suspicion. He could be in Ogygis Regio one day, over in the Great Spillway a short time later, then in Protei Locus—hopping all over the red planet like a flea, losing anyone who might be curious about him …

And then, suddenly, he appears in Tryddoc Aru. Bringing with him strange objects of Martian art that could easily be used to smuggle weapons and explosives into the most carefully guarded city on the red planet.

* * *

“I’ll follow Jelinek, once we arrive on Mars,” he told Drezhner. “You go after the Underwood fellow. He’s the only one we know for sure is headed for Crenex.”

“I still think Kuhn—”

“Forget Kuhn. I’ve told you already—he’s behaving too suspiciously to be Savinkov.”

From the expression on his face, Drezhner was going to continue protesting. But Alexander had lost patience with the man. It was time to simply use his authority.

“Enough,” he said coldly.

Drezhner was nothing if not stubborn. His contrary nature having been thwarted on the matter of Kuhn, he chose to plant himself on different ground. Much the way a mule, barred from the house, might try to force its way into the barn.

“But you said yourself the most likely place Savinkov was headed was Tryddoc Aru.”

“Yes, I know—and so it is, still. But we are now nearing the end of our voyage, after having spent weeks investigating what we could. This means that we now have facts at our disposal as well as pure logic. And the facts are these.”

He began counting off his fingers. “Fact One. The only people aboard the Agincourt who have indicated their destination is Tryddoc Aru are people we do not suspect of being Savinkov. Or have you changed your mind and decided that Reginald Barnes and Bertram Stans—one or the other or perhaps both, if their inseparability is a sign of mystic co-existence—are really our Russian master terrorist?”

Ilya glared at him. Barnes and Stans were two English bankers travelling together. The chance that either one of them might be Savinkov was nil. Their bona fides were too well-established, too solid—not least of all, too easy to check. Prominent bankers in the City of London were anything but obscure people.

“Now let’s move on to Fact Two. Of the remaining suspects—leaving aside Jelinek, Underwood and Kuhn, for the moment—none of them are men of a suitable age or constitution to be active assassins. Unless you suspect that Edward Luff’s two children are actually Eser midgets—well, one midget, anyway; the girl’s close to full grown—who came along to provide Savinkov with a cunning disguise.”

“If Luff is actually Savinkov, those probably wouldn’t be his own children at all,” Ilya said sourly. “Have you ever thought of that possibility?”

“I did, as a matter of fact. By that scenario, the Duchesne woman would be an auxiliary Eser agent, who came along to spirit the children away when the proper time arrives so that Luff—Savinkov, that is—would have a completely free hand. But it didn’t take me long to conclude that such a scheme was too elaborate, too ornate—not to mention too expensive. And how do you explain Luff’s connection with that mob of Hindus? Is he planning to strike down Russian officials on Mars by the sheer tedium of their scholarly debates?

“Besides, Ilya”—Alexander waved his hand impatiently—“we know Luff’s travel arrangements. You were the one yourself who bribed the purser’s assistant to find out.”

“That just tells us where their luggage is supposed to go.”

“So? Terrorists need to change their clothes on occasion just like anyone else. Especially since on Mars they’ll find precious little in the way of garment shops or laundries.”

That was purely a guess on Alexander’s part. He had no idea how native Martians handled such matters. But it didn’t matter. The notion that Edward Luff might be Savinkov was so outlandish that Alexander saw no reason to waste his time and mental energy trying to come up with detailed and careful rebuttals. Drezhner himself wasn’t that stupid. He was just being pigheaded.

He was still glaring at him, too. What an insufferable man!

This was a waste of time. “Just do as you’re told,” he commanded Drezhner. “After we land, you follow Underwood. There’s a radio station at our embassy in Crenex which you can use to report to me.”

“Report to you where? You said yourself that Jelinek will be moving about.”

Alexander managed to restrain himself from responding angrily. It was a legitimate question, after all, even if he was sure Drezhner had only raised it to be obstreperous.

Unfortunately, radio communication on Mars was difficult, and could only be done at all by using large transmitters—which meant there weren’t many of them. The problem, he’d been told by the technical expert at the Paris office, was the planet’s ionosphere. Unlike Earth’s, it was ill-suited to transmit long-range radio signals. Even the powerful radios at the Russian embassies and consulates on Mars had poor and erratic reception if the signal came from any great distance.

“We have a consulate at one of the cities of the Octad Gentillus in the Vallis Agathodaemonis. Mooktar, it’s called. It’s less than thirty kilometers from the city of Coprates, where we’ll be landing. You can send a message there as well as to the embassy at Tryddoc Aru.”

Tryddoc Aru was located in the Sinus Aurorae region. With the embassy at Crenex and the consulate in Coprates, the three radio stations made a roughly equilateral triangle with each other. In the event Drezhner had to communicate with him, Alexander should be able to get the message soon enough no matter where he went.

Soon enough, at least, given that he didn’t think his subordinate was going to encounter anything that required an urgent response. The likelihood that Underwood was Savinkov was quite low, in Alexander’s estimate. He was almost certain that Jelinek was the assassin—if Savinkov was on Mars at all, which he might well not be. The longer the voyage had lasted, the less confident Alexander had become that the Okhrana’s intelligence was accurate.

He was not dismayed by the prospect that their mission might turn out to be completely pointless, however. Blind alleys and fruitless expeditions—what the English called a wild goose chase—were simply part and parcel of the life of an Okhrana agent. One might as well be dismayed by the sunset or the tides.

* * *

Chapter 9

“So where will you go first, Vera?” asked Edward Luff. The voyage was almost over and he’d long been on first name terms with the Duchesne widow. “Vallis Agathodaemonis or the mountain?”

“I’d do Nix Olympica, for sure!” exclaimed his son. “It’s not only the solar system’s greatest mountain—it’s a volcano.” A moment later he added, “Not active at the moment, though.”

He sounded quite disgruntled, as if having a gigantic volcano erupt in their midst would be some sort of splendid adventure. Charlotte rolled her eyes.

Madame Duchesne just smiled at the boy, however. She had the patience of a saint.

“For you, perhaps, Adrian. But I’m a creaky old woman.”

“Oh, I’d hardly say that!” protested Edward. No token protest, either. It was by now obvious to Charlotte that her father had become attracted to the woman in the course of their voyage. To the point where Charlotte herself was beginning to reconsider her previous assumption that the age difference involved was an insurmountable obstacle.

Smiling more widely now, Duchesne fluttered the fingers of her left hand. “Well, perhaps ‘creaky’ is overstating the matter. But I’m still of an age where sightseeing among the exotic cities of the Octad Gentillus is more enticing than climbing up the side of a mountain that is approximately the size of Iceland and three times higher than Mt. Everest.”

Adrian rubbed his hands gleefully. “Not to mention that at its peak, Nix Olympica sticks up out of Mars’s atmosphere! That’s how tall it is!”

Charlotte was startled—enough, in fact, to express herself out loud, something she tried never to do in response to one of her brother’s inane factoids.

“You’re joking!” she exclaimed.

“I am not!”

“Not joking perhaps,” said their father, in a tone of mild reproof. “But you are exaggerating. I believe at the very top of Nix Olympica that the atmosphere still exists, although it’s only ten or fifteen percent of the planet’s normal atmospheric pressure.”

Madame Duchesne made a face. “Either way, much too thin for me. I’m a creature of bistros, not barometers. I can only hope that bistros—or some reasonable equivalent—exist on Mars. But if they do, I think my best chance of finding them would be somewhere in the Octad Gentillus.”

They were all sitting at a table which they shared with Vijay and Sumati Shankar, as well as Mrs. Smith. The rest of the Hindu group was seated at three adjacent tables. Outside the windows that surrounded the observation deck, the stars wheeled by. The magnificent view of Mars which they’d enjoyed for the past few days was no longer in evidence, however. The Agincourt’s crew had carried through the reconfiguration of the ship the day before. The planet they were nearing was now located beneath the floor of the observation deck; not visible unless one was standing at the railing.

A choking sound came from the other end of the table from where Charlotte was seated. Leaning over and looking to her left, she saw that Mrs. Smith had her hand on her throat. Her eyes seemed to be bulging a little. She seemed quite pale, too; more so than usual.

Again, the woman made that peculiar choking sound. As if something were lodged in her throat, although her mouth was open and she was breathing normally. Well, perhaps not normally—but she was breathing. She couldn’t be choking on something.

“Are you quite well, Mrs. Smith?” asked Charlotte’s father. He was frowning slightly, as a man does when he’s concerned but not yet really alarmed.

Mrs. Smith looked at him. A bit desperately, Charlotte thought. And, again, she made that choking sound.

“Something is wrong,” said Madame Duchesne. Her tone was firm; even decisive. She rose from her chair and went around the table to take Mrs. Smith by the shoulders.

“Come, dear. We must get you to the infirmary.”

Madame Duchesne shifted her grip under the woman’s arms and lifted her up out of the chair. She did so with complete ease, from what Charlotte could tell. The German widow’s ample figure obviously included quite a bit of muscle.

By now, Charlotte’s father had risen and come over as well. “She’s absolutely right, Mrs. Smith. We must get you to the infirmary at once.”

The governess gave Charlotte’s father an apologetic grimace. She then tried to take a few steps away from the table, with Edward Luff’s hand under one arm and Madame Duchesne’s under the other.

And promptly collapsed.

Fortunately, Charlotte’s father caught her before she fell to the floor. As he held her up, Madame Duchesne inspected her face.

“She’s breathing but she’s unconscious, Edward. We need to hurry.” Charlotte’s father picked up the governess and cradled her limp body in his arms. He was a large man, and rather strong despite his sedentary occupation.

Vera was already moving toward the infirmary. But within seconds, three stewards arrived. One of them offered to carry Mrs. Smith, but Charlotte’s father shook his head.

“I’m fine. Just clear the way to the infirmary.”

* * *

Edward Luff returned to the table half an hour later and resumed his seat.

“What’s wrong with Mrs. Smith?” Charlotte asked.

“They don’t know. Something, clearly. She’s still unconscious. Fortunately, all her vital signs seem … well, adequate, at least. She’s apparently not in any immediate danger. But …”

He seemed a bit lost. “But …”

“But she won’t be able to resume her duties tomorrow. When we land on Mars.” That came from Mr. Shankar.

“Ah … no. I don’t imagine there’s any chance of it. In fact …”

“She may not recover for some time,” Mr. Shankar said. “Days, possibly weeks.”

Charlotte’s father sighed. “Yes. Exactly. There is a hospital—for humans, I mean—at Coprates. Where we’re landing. It’s in the city itself, of course, not out at the aerodrome.”

“I think it’s ‘astrodome,’ Father.” That was her brother Adrian’s utterly useless contribution to the crisis.

“Yes, yes,” her father replied distractedly.

“Where’s Madame Duchesne?” Charlotte asked.

“She’s staying with Mrs. Smith for the moment. I told her I’d be back as soon as possible.”

He still looked distracted. Charlotte saw Mr. and Mrs. Shankar exchange what seemed to be a meaningful glance. Then Mrs. Shankar leaned over and said softly, “Charlotte, why don’t you and your brother go see to Mrs. Smith yourselves, for a short while.”

Charlotte might have protested, but she was fairly sure she understood the purpose behind Mrs. Shankar’s suggestion. She’d given the matter some thought herself, over the past few weeks, and while she hadn’t come to any definite conclusion she was inclined toward the positive.

“Come along, Adrian,” she said, rising to her feet.

Naturally, her brother—oblivious as boys were—put up a protest. But their father seconded Mrs. Shankar’s suggestion. Rather firmly.

* * *

After the children left, Sumati got straight to the point. “I hope Mrs. Smith will recover soon, and suffer no permanent ill effects. But I have to tell you honestly, Edward, that I think of this as something of a blessing. Given”—here she looked very stern—“that you’ve been incapable thus far of making what seems to both Vijay and myself a clear and simple decision regarding a clear and simple matter.”

Edward smiled crookedly. “Leave it to a woman to call such a thing ‘clear and simple.’ I think it’s anything but that.”

He looked to Vijay, seeking support from another male.

But the Brahmin scholar shook his head. “I am an Indian, Edward. On this subject I share my wife’s hard-headed and practical attitude, not the phantasmagories of you Englishmen.”

“I don’t think ‘phantasmagories’ is a real word, Vijay,” Luff said.

“Perhaps not in London. But I assure you that in my native Punjab it comes quite trippingly off the tongue of those Indians who speak English at all, after they meet their first Englishman in the flesh.”

“Ours was an arranged marriage, as you know,” said Shankar’s wife. “I think it’s turned out very well. Vijay and I met for the first time at our wedding. He was a seventeen-year-old virgin and I was the nearest thing possible, being the widow of a first husband who was sixty-three when I married him and not in good health. So what are you complaining about? You’ve had weeks to contemplate the subject of Vera Duchesne. Weeks. In close and constant proximity, to boot.”

“Is it her age that concerns you?” asked Vijay. He smiled at his wife. “Sumati is almost ten years older than I am. Trust me. It’s never been a problem. To the contrary—there are many advantages to having an older wife.”

Luff shook his head. “No, it’s not that. To tell you the truth, I never think about Vera’s age any longer. She’s … ah …”

“Quite attractive.” That came from Sumati. Stated firmly, flatly—something not to be disputed.

“Well. Yes.”

He sighed and ran fingers through his hair.

Hair which was beginning to grow a bit thin. Edward was still in good health, but he was no longer a young man.

“Your children are already fond of her, you know,” said Vijay.

“Yes, I know. Don’t think I haven’t thought about that. Especially in terms of Charlotte. It’s hard for a girl her age, not to have a mother to turn to for advice when … well. When she needs to.”

A throaty little laugh came from Sumati. “And when it involves matters she’s not about to raise with her father.”

“Well. That. Yes.”

Again, he ran fingers through his hair.

Sumati leaned over and placed a hand on his arm. “Edward, you don’t have to propose to the woman within the next hour. You need simply ask her if she’d be willing to forego her tourist plans in order to accompany us to our destination. Because with Mrs. Smith being ill, and you committed to your work—you have no leeway in the matter, given that the Meredith Foundation is paying for it all—you desperately need help with the children.”

“And what if she declines?”

Sumati sat back and shrugged. “Then that is the answer to your unspoken question along with the spoken one.”

She left unsaid the obvious corollary. If Vera Duchesne said yes, she’d also be replying to an unspoken question as well as the one spoken aloud.

Edward wasn’t sure which made him the most nervous. But he wasn’t actually obtuse, despite being a male, a scholar, and an Englishman. The very fact that he was nervous about both outcomes made it clear he needed to ask the question.

* * *

“Yes, Edward. Of course I’ll come with you to Ghlaktora.” Vera Duchesne waved her hand airily. “My own plans were simply those of a bored, well-to-do widow. I can always be a tourist again. If need be.”

* * *

The English governess had had a worse reaction to the poison than was normal. The waiter who’d placed it in her food came to Savinkov’s cabin in a panic late that night.

“You said she wouldn’t die!” he hissed. He was quite agitated, but trying to keep his voice down. His gaze shifted nervously back and forth, scanning the corridor for passersby.

“And she won’t,” the assassin replied confidently, trying to soothe the fellow. “She’s just having a bad reaction. A few people do. It will pass, in a few days, and she’ll be fine again.”

“They’ll investigate. Suspicion will fall upon me.”

The waiter’s anxiety was excessive. If all the people at his table had been affected, he might indeed come under suspicion. One person falling ill could be caused by anything. But there was no point wasting time in an argument.

“Wait here.” Savinkov went back into the cabin and emerged perhaps ten seconds later, with a small vial in hand. “Take this. Place a bit of it in the food of … let’s say four people, at breakfast. Make sure most of them are seated at tables served by other waiters.”

The waiter took the vial and stared at it, wide-eyed. His expression was apprehensive—but also, at the edges, hope was emerging.

“The symptoms will be the same, but milder. The ship’s doctor will conclude that some sort of illness was spread around. Food poisoning of some kind, most likely.” Savinkov’s soft laugh had an acid tinge to it. “At that point, of course, the BEPC will squelch any further investigation. The last thing they want to get bruited about is that their precious Agincourt had problems of that nature.”

The waiter still looked uncertain. “But … the port authorities …”

“In Coprates? Because of the spaceport, the city is practically an outright fiefdom of Cecil Rhodes. In case you’ve forgotten, he’s the man who owns the BEPC in the first place. The largest shareholder, at least. The authorities in Coprates will do exactly what Rhodes instructs them to do.”

After the waiter left and Savinkov retired back into the cabin, the assassin spent the first half hour in bed considering the best way to handle the situation.

What most people would assume to be the natural inclination of an assassin was more likely to cause problems than solve them. In any event, Savinkov had strong ethical principles and was unwilling to kill anyone except in self-defense or if they were legitimate political targets. Killing the waiter would be murder, pure and simple.

And there was no need for it. Another bribe, passed to the waiter just before leaving the ship, should do the trick. When in doubt, in Savinkov’s experience—very extensive experience—the humble bribe was usually the most reliable option. The terrorist’s equivalent of Occam’s Razor, you might say.

* * *

Chapter 10

Alexander wanted to make sure he was one of the very first passengers to disembark from the Agincourt. That required a bribe to the head steward, which he explained to the man as being due to vaguely defined commercial competition, but the steward didn’t really care anyway.

As the favor asked was a small one, it didn’t need to be a large bribe—thankfully, since Alexander’s funds were starting to run low. He was hoping he’d be able to replenish his purse once he made contact with the Russian embassy at Tryddoc Aru. Prince Vorontsov was a wealthy man, and given the nature of Alexander’s mission here on Mars—which began with protect Prince Vorontsov—he was fairly confident the prince would be reasonable.

Only fairly confident, though. Vorontsov was known to be a prickly man, difficult in his dealings with subordinates. “Difficult” was the term Rachkovsky had used. Translated from the diplomatese that the head of the Okhrana’s office in Paris tended to use when referring to high-ranked Russian nobility, the term meant “the man’s an ass.”

The Martian magnetic field was so weak and localized that the enormous aethership was able to land directly on the planet without any need for cumbersome transfers. That was another thing Alexander was thankful for, since trying to maintain surveillance on their suspects in the course of two vehicular transfers—aethership to transfer station, transfer station to airship—would have been difficult. As it was, Alexander would be able to disembark before any of their suspects and place himself in position to observe them as they came off the Agincourt.

Meanwhile, his junior partner Drezhner would leave the ship after their suspects had done so, to keep them under observation. There was no real need for that. But Alexander had managed to keep his connection to Drezhner veiled throughout the long voyage and saw no reason to undo that work by having them be associated during the disembarkation. One never knew what might develop. There was no point in losing an asset for no purpose.

Besides, it meant he didn’t have to be in Drezhner’s company any longer. Once they’d quit the Agincourt, they’d each be going their separate ways. Yet another thing to be thankful for.

* * *

When the gangway ramp came down, the Martian daylight flooded the large disembarkation compartment—using the term “flooded” loosely. The light was rather feeble compared to Earth’s. It reminded Alexander of the illumination produced by a late autumn sunrise near the Arctic circle. While still a cavalryman, he’d once been stationed in Archangel, on the White Sea. (For no good reason he’d ever been able to determine; but such was the nature of cavalry service.)

Alexander didn’t pay much attention to the light, however. Following closely on its heels came the aromas of Mars. Those were …

Not feeble. At. All.

Behind him, he heard several people gasp and one person even gag a bit. But Alexander was made of sterner stuff. True, sewage was clearly present among those odors. Raw, open sewage and quite a bit of it, judging from the stench. But you couldn’t be a soldier for long—certainly not a Russian cavalryman—without becoming intimately familiar with vile smells. And while the other odors he detected were not always pleasant, Alexander found them intriguing. They were unfamiliar, exotic, hinting at adventures to come. He was reminded of the time, as a very young officer, that he first arrived in the Tsar’s holdings in central Asia.

One of the Agincourt’s officers began to speak.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “you are now free to leave the ship. Please make your way steadily to the bottom of the ramp, where you will find your personal luggage. Any freighted goods can be claimed with the aid of the assistant purser, whom you will find at the cargo ramp amidships. Please observe caution …”

Alexander ignored the rest, it being nothing more than the usual speech given by officials of a commercial establishment on such occasions. The gist of it, translated into the common tongue, was: you’ve been duly warned so don’t even THINK of filing a lawsuit if you stumble and break some bones.

Alexander was the third passenger to set foot on Mars. Where the first two immediately began gawking at their surroundings, however, he picked his suitcase from the pile at the bottom of the ramp and made his way to an overhanging shelter positioned some thirty meters from the bottom of the ramp. The shelter looked for all the world like the sort of shelter provided for people waiting at a train station, but there were neither trains nor rails anywhere in sight. The Okhrana agent had no idea what its purpose was, but he didn’t care. Right now, he just needed a place from which he could observe the disembarking passengers without being easily seen himself. Once he took position deep within the shelter, he would be well-nigh invisible to anyone who casually looked his way.

* * *

He was too preoccupied with the task at hand to give much attention to anything not immediately relevant to his purpose. That was bizarre, looked at a certain way. The first time he’d visited Paris, years before, Alexander had spent a full day just wandering around and sightseeing. Yet now, visiting for the first time not a foreign capital in a country which was not really all that different from his own but another planet, he barely noticed the landscape and the inhabitants. But on that visit to Paris he had simply been reporting for reassignment to another bureau, not on a critical mission with narrow time constraints.

Some idle part of his brain which had somehow escaped the lash of the taskmaster did observe a few things:

The native Martians looked astonishingly human-like. He thought the term was humanoid. They were skinny to the point of being skeletal and had some facial features—especially the ears—that went outside any human parameters. Still, if you dressed them in winter clothes and put a hat on their heads, passersby would pay no attention to them. Not in cosmopolitan Paris, at least. People would simply assume the Martians were Asians of some sort, perhaps Malays: short of stature, their skin color ranging from ochre to a dull yellow, eyes which at a casual glance seemed to have the distinctive Oriental appearance.

He could see almost nothing of the terrain itself, because of the nature of Martian construction. The natives favored tall, very slender buildings made mostly of some sort of reddish stone—and then built them right next to each other. The roofs were flat, which was not surprising given that they never had to worry about the accumulation of snow. The surface of the ground looked to be covered everywhere in that same reddish stone. You couldn’t really use the term “cobblestoned,” though, because the stones were flush with each other and very tightly fitted. It was almost like walking on tile.

Even here, at what passed for a landing site, the Martians crowded the area with their edifices. No human nation—no civilized one, at any rate—would allow dwellings and commercial buildings to be erected so close to a field where enormous craft landed and took off. But the natives were either oblivious to the danger or simply chose to ignore the risk.

That indifference might result from necessity. The population density was astonishing. It brought to mind tales Alexander had heard about Calcutta and Cairo. Everywhere you looked, natives seemed to be scurrying about. “Scurrying” was the best term to describe their locomotion, too. Alexander didn’t spot a single Martian who looked to be on a casual outing or a simple stroll. All of them seemed intent on whatever their business was, and all of them were moving quickly.

While the landscape surrounding Coprates couldn’t really be seen, the sky was almost overwhelming. The color was a light rose, quite striking in itself. But the centerpiece was the low clouds. Those were colored a bright scarlet due to airborne algae which lived within them. High above were other clouds, wispy and colored white much like the clouds of Earth.

Alexander had read of the scarlet clouds of Mars, but had assumed that was poetic license. He’d been expecting something that, while certainly reddish in color, would be far duller than the tales.

But, no. Those clouds were scarlet, and they floated in a rose-colored sky that was almost as bright as the blue sky of Earth.

* * *

Among the first passengers to come down the ramp after him was Klaus Kuhn, the supposedly Swiss pharmaceutical representative whom Drezhner had suggested might be Savinkov. Alexander thought the notion was ludicrous, but he did keep an eye on Kuhn while he continued his surveillance of the other disembarking passengers.

As a result, he didn’t miss the altercation that erupted when Kuhn tried to retrieve his luggage from the midships bay. He was almost immediately accosted by a man in the distinctive black uniform which had been recently adopted by the English military. A sergeant, if Alexander was reading the insignia properly. He was apparently overseeing a squad of men belonging to Rhodes’ private little army, which was theoretically a security force for the British Extra-Planetary Company. On Mars, apparently, the distinction between Rhodes’ men and the official military blurred at the edges.

Alexander was too far away to hear the words being spoken, but he didn’t think the exchange was a friendly one. That much became obvious a moment later, when two of the BEPC soldiers seized Kuhn by the arms and the British blackcoat drew his revolver. Some more words were spoken. Then the two English bankers, Stans and Barnes, came up to the group and joined in. Alexander still couldn’t hear whatever was being said, but the Kuhn fellow was looking more unhappy by the moment.

With good reason, as it turned out. The sergeant suddenly drove the barrel of his revolver into Kuhn’s belly, almost doubling him up. Not more than a second or two later, the soldiers in his squad began beating the man with their rifle-butts. Very soon, he was on the ground and unconscious, whereupon two of the BEPC troops seized him by the ankles and began dragging him out of sight.

The dramatic conclusion of the affair drew the attention of many of the passengers who had by now disembarked. That was a fortunate break for Alexander, because it meant that dozens of people were milling around, gawking at the scene by the midships bay—and paying no attention at all to him. He was able to carefully examine everyone to see what they were about.

But … there were no surprises, no mysteries. Jelinek and Underwood both made their way to the area that had been cordoned off for people who wanted to take one of the Martian airships to their destination. Alexander would be joining them himself before long, but there was no need to hurry the matter. None of the airships would attempt to land in the area until the huge bulk of the Agincourt was gone.

The large group of Hindus drew his attention for a short while. Edward Luff and his children were with them, as was the Duchesne woman.

Nothing suspicious there. Alexander knew the widow had been planning to sightsee the cities in the Octad Gentillus, but once the Luffs’ governess came down with whatever malady had struck several of the Agincourt’s passengers, Duchesne had agreed to help the English scholar. Ilya had found all that out by questioning one of the cabin boys. He’d expressed some suspicion of the whole thing, on the grounds that he could see no reason a wealthy woman like Duchesne would agree to such a thing.

But that was just Drezhner being obtuse again. The widow’s motives were obvious. She’d developed a personal interest in Edward Luff; it was as simple as that—and hardly an unusual story.

By the time Drezhner made his appearance coming down the ramp, almost the very last passenger to do so, all the persons involved in l’Affaire Kuhn had vanished, and the crowd of onlookers had broken up. Alexander was grateful for that. The last thing he needed was to get into an argument with Drezhner about Kuhn. It was a given that Ilya would think the fracas suggested Kuhn was Savinkov, when it was blindingly clear it demonstrated the exact opposite. No Eser agent as canny as Savinkov would have gotten himself into such a mess in the first place. Whatever had aroused the suspicions and antagonism of the English sergeant, it certainly had nothing to do with Russian affairs. At a guess, he’d been caught smuggling something that either the English authorities or Rhodes’ people didn’t want on Mars.

Once Drezhner left the Agincourt, Alexander hurried after Jelinek. He could rely on Drezhner to catch up with Underwood and follow him to Crenex. Ilya was an unimaginative blockhead—it might be better to say, an excessively imaginative blockhead—but he wasn’t incompetent when it came to the basic skills of counter-espionage. Besides, as tailing assignments went, this one was easy. Approximately one fourth of the passengers disembarking from the Agincourt were headed for Crenex. There was only one airship scheduled for that trip today, and it wouldn’t be leaving for almost two hours. Drezhner would have plenty of time to mingle with the crowd and keep Underwood under surveillance without needing to behave in a suspicious manner.

Alexander’s assignment, on the other hand, was much trickier. He’d been able to find out that Jelinek’s first stop was Kralladin, a small city located just a bit more than two hundred kilometers from the easternmost of the Octad Gentillus cities. The problem was that there was no regular airship travel to Kralladin. The dirigibles that were used by Martians for travel between major cities, such as the one Drezhner and Underwood would be taking to Crenex, were designed roughly like human airships. But they were generally used for major and regular travel routes. For something like the short trip from Coprates to Kralladin, Martians used their version of aerial tramp steamers. These were oddly designed airships that looked like nothing so much as airborne canoes or longships. The vessels were carried aloft by collections of long, slender hydrogen-filled tubes.

Such a design would never have worked in Earth’s heavy, turbulent atmosphere. But they did well enough on Mars, with its thin atmosphere and much more predictable weather and wind patterns.

The problem posed immediately, however, was that such vessels were small. They normally didn’t carry more than a dozen passengers, if that many. It would be impossible for Alexander to travel on the same ship that Jelinek took without being immediately noticed. And while he might be able to explain his presence there—once—he could hardly do so if he kept re-appearing on vessels that Jelinek took as he followed his purchasing route up the complex of canals called the Aromatus, which brought water from the Great Spillway down to the rich benchlands of Sinus Aurorae and Vallis Agathodaemonis. The Aromatus stretched roughly west by northwest, and between the Octad Gentillus and Tryddoc Aru there were many cities, but none large enough to require a regular route by one of the large dirigibles.

If Alexander had enough money, he’d hire one of the longship-style airships for his own private use. But even on Mars, where European currencies stretched very far, such a vessel would be much too expensive.

There was no help for it. He’d have to take whichever small longship was the next to make the run to Kralladin, and hope that he arrived before Jelinek had left. If his quarry had already departed, he’d have to do whatever investigation was necessary to discover where he’d gone.

Were this pursuit taking place in almost any country in Europe—and a fair number in Asia and the Levant—Alexander would have been quite confident he could manage well enough. Here on Mars …

Who could say? He had no idea how difficult it would be to ask questions of the planet’s peculiar natives, even assuming he could find ones who spoke one of the human languages he knew.

Such was the life of an Okhrana agent. It was never easy, even on his home planet.

On the positive side, he reminded himself, there were no horses on Mars. Hence, no cavalrymen.

* * *

Chapter 11

Charlotte found the journey to Ghlaktora absolutely fascinating, especially the last stretch when they had to use the Martian riverboats. From Coprates to the main city in Protei Locus, Uddakit, they’d been able to travel on one of the Martian dirigibles. That was quite engrossing in its own right, although the native airships of that design weren’t too different from human ones.

If the design of the dirigible wasn’t too different from anything you’d find on Earth, the same could not be said for the terrain. The landscape of Mars was far more stark than anything Charlotte had ever seen on her own planet. At least in western Europe, she had to caution herself. She’d never been anywhere else on Earth.

Everything seemed to divide into two sorts of regions, very different from each other: the lowlands and the tablelands. She knew that there were also some huge mountains on Mars and some vast basins in the northern hemisphere, but those were not within sight. Their airship was traveling down one of the benchlands—she wasn’t sure of its name—following the canals that seemed to run all along its length. Whether from the action of the canals or the nature of the terrain itself, the result was a huge valley: about twenty miles across and stretching up and down as far as the eye could see.

Although the dirigible was following the valley, they were high enough in the air that Charlotte could see over the rims that marked both sides of the benchlands. There lay the famous Martian tablelands, the terrain that covered most of the planet’s surface.

Their appearance was rugged, but quite uniform: rocky, barren, dry, mostly a sort of red-orange in color. There seemed to be very little life out there, of either a plant or animal nature.

The outstanding exception to that general lifelessness was the area immediately adjacent to the rims of the benchlands. There, for perhaps a mile back on both sides, the vegetation was quite lush. Even at this distance Charlotte could see large animals moving about, although she could make out little of them beyond their size.

When she remarked upon the matter to her father, he said: “That’s called the floramargin. It’s quite dangerous, apparently, if you travel through it on foot. And look there!”

Charlotte followed his pointing finger and saw in the distance ahead of them a peculiar structure. As they neared, she could see that it was a peculiar combination of an enclosed staircase rising up from the benchlands below and what looked to be a small citadel on the very edge of the rim.

“That’s one of their hunting lodges,” her father explained. “Only the top nobility can afford to build and maintain them. They retire to them during the worst time of summer—it’s much cooler up there, as you might expect—and amuse themselves in the chase. Apparently, being a noted hunter of the sort of large and dangerous game found in the floramargin brings considerable status.”

* * *

Once they got to Uddakit, everything changed.

(Apparently, the proper Martian pronunciation would have been something like Oo’h!dha?kgit. The “!” indicated a Martian guttural inhalation that Mrs. Shankar said was roughly equivalent to the clicks used by Hottentots and some of the Bantu tribes of southern Africa. The “?” indicated a glottal stop not too dissimilar to those used in Arabic and a number of other tongues. It was all quite interesting but Charlotte was perfectly happy to use the practical “Uddakit.”)

Uddakit served the Protei Locus region as something in the way of a capital city, although Mr. Shankar said the term “capital city” didn’t really capture the heart of the matter. To humans, that term signified a town or city that served as the seat of government for a distinct geographic realm, be that realm a fully sovereign state or a region within it such as a province, district or prefecture. But Martian political relationships were more fluid. Nations in the sense that humans used the term didn’t really exist on Mars. Instead, the planet’s population was organized politically in a multitude of what humans would consider city-states, all which had the most complex—it might be better to say convoluted, sometimes even tortuous—relations with each other.

So, according to Mr. Shankar, Uddakit could more accurately be depicted thusly:

The dominant metropolis of the Protei Locus region, understanding that “dominance” in this context is a complex phenomenon which can be better measured as the sum of mutual debts and obligations in which Uddakit is what you might call the principal creditor, rather than a simple matter of command and obeisance.

To get from Uddakit to any of the subordinate cities of Protei Locus one could no longer travel by dirigible unless one was prepared to risk life and limb in the bizarre Martian airships which looked more like inflated canoes than anything else Charlotte could think of. Naturally, her brother Adrian was keen to do so, but fortunately their father put his foot down.

“I don’t think so, son,” he said genially. “Mind you, I wouldn’t mind trying it myself”—he was ever the diplomat dealing with Adrian—“but don’t forget we have all of the Shankars to deal with. They’d hardly agree to risk it, especially the elderly ladies.”

So, they travelled by barge—understanding by the term “barge” the Martian rivercraft that were much narrower in their beam than any human vessel of that name. They reminded Charlotte of the wherries you saw on English rivers and canals, except the bows were squared off like punts. They were propelled by two Martians standing in the stern of the boat using oars, much like pictures she’d seen of Venetian gondolas, except the gondolas only had one oarsman.

That was not surprising, though, given how small Martians were compared to humans. They weren’t all that much shorter than humans, but they were built along more slender lines, to the point of seeming gaunt. She didn’t think any of them weighed more than seven stone.

She found them to be a bit horrid, actually. The problem was that they looked so human, allowing for a few notable differences. The most outstanding of those were their ears, which were foxlike: very tall—the tips often rose above the crest of the skull—and very thin, although they were as hairless as a human’s. The eyes were set wide apart and were also quite thin. They brought to mind the eyes of Japanese or Chinese, except there was no epicanthic fold.

It was the Martians’ close resemblance to humans that bothered Charlotte. She thought she’d have been less unsettled if they’d been distinctly alien in their appearance.

She made a comment to that effect to her father and he said: “Well, they are related to us, you know. Much more closely than any of the great apes, in fact.”

They were standing in a group on a pier along one of the many small rivers that passed through Uddakit. Mr. Shankar was standing next to them, and he overheard her father’s remark.

“Be careful, Edward!” he said, smiling slyly. “If the august professors at Oxford learn of your heresy, you’ll never hear the end of it. Wouldn’t surprise me if you were denounced by name at the next meeting of the Royal Society.”

“What’s the Royal Society?” demanded Adrian. Snoopy as ever, her brother had overheard the exchange.

“It’s short for ‘The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge,’” said Mr. Shankar, smiling more widely still. “Founded in 1660. It’s considered the most prestigious learned society in the entire world—”

“Not by me,” grunted her father.

“—by all save hopeless cranks who advocate such preposterous theories as continental drift and the common ancestry of humans and Martians.”

“Blithering idiots,” said her father. “It’s blindingly obvious we’re of the same evolutionary lineage as Martians. The number of morphological features we have in common number literally in the hundreds. How else—”

“Convergent evolution, convergent evolution,” said Mr. Shankar, intoning the phrase as he might a religious incantation.

“Blithering idiots, I say it again.” Her father was frowning rather fiercely. “The odds that convergent evolution would produce such a huge number of common traits is literally astronomical. There’s as much chance that two people born next door to each other of completely different parents were as close as identical twins.”

Mr. Shankar shrugged. “I don’t disagree with you, Edward. But it will take a great deal of work to overturn the existing biases—all the more so, given that the political authorities and economic powers have a vested interest in maintaining the notion that humans and Martians are species as separate and distinct as oysters and buffalos.”

“Why is that?” asked Adrian.

Her father and Mr. Shankar looked at each other. Then her father shook his head. “I’ll explain some other time, son. It’s a somewhat delicate matter, and”—he pointed his finger—“I do believe our boats have arrived.”

* * *

To Vera Duchesne’s relief—mild relief, since she’d been expecting it; but relief nonetheless—the two Okhrana agents were left behind as she and her large party departed from Uddakit on the three boats that Luff and Shankar had hired to take them to Ghlaktora. Apparently they’d persuaded themselves that other people were more likely candidates for being Savinkov, or harboring Savinkov. That was true enough, to be sure, but there was always a certain element of chance in these things.

And they might still change their minds, however unlikely that might seem at the moment. She’d need to remain vigilant once they arrived at their destination. But, for the moment—really, for the first time since she’d boarded the Agincourt—she could relax.

“Look, Madame Duchesne!” exclaimed Adrian. The boy was pointing toward something in the distance. “I think it’s a real Martian!”

His sister frowned, glancing at the two Martians in the stern of the boat, rowing them forward. “Be polite,” she hissed at her brother.

Adrian responded with a magnificent sneer—or what he imagined to be one, rather. It was really not possible for someone his age to produce the sort of lip-curling expression that caused foes to reel in dismay and subordinates to cringe and abase themselves.

“Those aren’t real Martians,” he stated firmly. “Didn’t you listen to Papa? They’re just funny-looking almost-people.”

Again he pointed into the distance. Far away, across the bleak landscape they were now passing through, Vera could barely discern some sort of creature moving slowly along the skyline.

It looked … odd. Very odd. The creature—was it intelligent? should she rather think of it as a “being” than a creature?—seemed to be stumping along on four equidistantly positioned lower limbs. The movement reminded her more of the way a sensate derrick might locomote than anything she’d ever seen an animal on Earth do.

“Be quiet, Adrian,” Charlotte hissed again. “You’re being rude.”

Vera had grown quite fond of the Luff children. Charlotte more than Adrian, but that was probably just a passing thing. She remembered her own two brothers at the age of eleven. Vexatious creatures, they’d been—and in their case, “creatures” was indeed the right term to use.

But she forced those memories away. Along with them came too many other, more painful ones. Valentin had died in the Tsar’s prisons when he was only eighteen. Of disease, the police said, but the bruises and abrasions on his corpse suggested otherwise. Her older brother Dmitri had survived the three years he spent in Siberia, but he’d never been the same afterward.

He’d been badly beaten also, on several occasions. The Russian police and prison officers were brutes, always quick to use the knout. He’d survived reasonably intact—measured in physical terms, at least. But mentally …

He seemed to have aged a decade for every year he’d lived in exile. It was seeing him return home when she was nineteen that had crystallized her own attitude toward the Romanov dynasty and the brutal regime it oversaw. She’d hated them since she was a girl. Now, she resolved to work toward their overthrow. She’d joined the SR Party less than a month later.

“What are you thinking, Vera?” asked Edward Luff, his voice tinged with concern. “You seem very sad all of a sudden.”

She shook her head, more to remind herself of the need to remain vigilant than anything else. The company of friends carried its own perils.

“It’s nothing, Edward. I was just remembering my brothers. One of them died very young and the other … well, he’s been sickly since he suffered some mishaps.”

On impulse, she took Luff’s hand in her own and gave it a little squeeze. He returned the grip and leaned a little closer.

She still hadn’t made a decision regarding that issue. The problem wasn’t an emotional one. Not any longer. Luff was a fine man whom it would be easy to come to love as time passed, and she was already attached to his children.

The problem was Savinkov, as always for her these past few years. What was she to do with the man? Her obligation toward him and everything he represented outweighed everything else.

Still, she did not relinquish her grip on the hand of the man standing beside her. Not even she, after all that had transpired, was immune to sentiment and feeling.

* * *

They arrived in Ghlaktora on the morning of the third day after they disembarked from the Agincourt. It had been a slow voyage—the Martian canal boats were no faster than their earthly counterparts. But Charlotte had found it to be a pleasant one nonetheless.

The ever-growing closeness between her father and Madame Duchesne was now so obvious that even her obtuse little brother had noticed. And, for once, had not been a nuisance.

“I like her a lot,” he’d declared. So he’d not be an antagonist, after all, as she schemed and maneuvered to bring about the logical and beneficial end result.

No one would ever really be able to replace her own mother. But Vera Duchesne would serve splendidly as a stepmother—she’d be a vast improvement on Mrs. Smith!—and what was more important was that her father’s loneliness needed to be brought to an end. He was not by nature well-suited to being a widower.

Charlotte came to that final conclusion before they reached Ghlaktora. Quite a bit before, in fact. She spent the last day and a half of their journey basking in the glow of her own maturity. Already rather wise, she was—though still two months shy of fifteen.

Earth months, that was. Did they have months on Mars? She’d have to find out.

* * *

Chapter 12

The five days Alexander spent chasing after Jelinek managed to be simultaneously nerve-wracking and tedious. Nerve-wracking, because following the art dealer as he worked his way through several small Martian cities was hard to do without being spotted. Tedious, because all of that tense work produced absolutely nothing in the way of results.

By the third day, Alexander had stopped placing quotation marks in his own mind around the phrase “art dealer.” He no longer had any real doubt that Jelinek’s profession was exactly what he claimed it to be. The man not only stopped the places an art dealer would frequent, but he also made the sort of purchases you’d expect him to make.

By the fourth day, Alexander’s suspicions that Jelinek might be Savinkov had faded almost entirely away. The only logic behind those suspicions had been the possibility that Jelinek/Savinkov might use whatever art objects he acquired to smuggle weapons into Tryddoc Aru.

A nice theory, in the abstract—and brought down, as theories so often were, by a crude fact. In this case, by the fact that Jelinek turned out to be a very specialized sort of art dealer. He didn’t seem to be the slightest bit interested in Martian sculpture or the peculiar carvings they made from the knobby outer bark—if such it was; Alexander was not a botanist—of the gnarled and stunted trees—if such they were; the same caveat applied—that grew on the planet’s arid tablelands.

Either of those could have served as hiding places for weapons and explosives, especially the carvings. But the only objets d’art that Jelinek seemed interested in were the small tapestries that Martians used for curtains in their homes. The tapestries might have served to disguise weapons or munitions, if they were accumulated in sufficient number. But as soon as Jelinek bought one, he immediately had it mounted in a thin frame made of some Martian substance that seemed like a cross between heavy cardboard and thick leather. Protection for the long voyage home, presumably.

Nothing much deadlier than a large knife could have been hidden in those flat parcels, and no one armed only with a blade was going to pose any threat to Russian officials on Mars. Not important ones as closely guarded as Prince Vorontsov, at any rate, and an assassin like Savinkov wouldn’t have come all the way to Mars simply to murder a minor consulate officer. Cossacks had limits, but dealing with men wielding blades was not one of them.

So, by the fifth day, Alexander was more than ready to relinquish the chase—if the term could be used at all. Happily, Jelinek ended his travels by returning to Mooktar and Alexander was able to reach the Russian consulate before noon. From there, he’d be able to check on Drezhner’s progress and, more importantly, re-open communication with Rachkovsky. The Paris bureau of the Okhrana had a very powerful radio at its disposal; powerful enough to reach Mars with Morse code.

As it happened, when he arrived at the consulate there was already a message waiting for him from Rachkovsky, along with another from Drezhner.

He read the one from Rachkovsky first.

SAVINKOV DISCOVERED TO HAVE DIED TWO YEARS AGO. IDENTITY AND MISSION OF SRP AGENT ON MARS UNKNOWN, IF HE EXISTS AT ALL. MAY BE A RUSE. TAKE WHATEVER MEASURES SEEM NECESSARY.

Alexander stared at the slip of paper. Savinkov … dead? So for the past two years …

Who had been taking his place? Who had been responsible for the reports—not many, but some—that had trickled in to the Okhrana placing Savinkov in various places?

He shook his head. This would take some contemplation. In the meantime, he might as well see what Drezhner had been up to. Nothing very useful, most likely.

Drezhner’s message was also in Morse. It didn’t take Alexander more than a few seconds to read it.

“That cretin!” he exclaimed.

YOU WILL HAVE SEEN MESSAGE FROM RACHKOVSKY. NOW OBVIOUS EDWARD LUFF IS SAVINKOV. I AM IN PURSUIT.

Alexander felt like tearing out his hair. It should have been obvious to Drezhner that the most likely situation was that they had been chasing a phantom all along. Didn’t the message itself caution if he exists at all? But even if one assumed that there was an unknown SRP agent on Mars—Savinkov or someone else, it mattered not—the notion that the English scholar was the agent was …

He groped for a suitable term. “Moronic” came to mind immediately. The more long-winded “fevered fantasies of an imbecile” came right on its heels, followed by “monumentally stupid.”

Drezhner was likely to cause an international incident. Alexander turned to the embassy clerk who had handed him the message. The consul himself, Evgeny Kireyev, was standing right next to the clerk, but Alexander had already taken his measure. Kireyev was the sort of minor nobleman who filled such unimportant posts for the Russian empire. By mid-day, they were usually drunk.

By now, it was afternoon and Kireyev was sodden. The clerk was likely to be more useful.

“What’s the fastest way to get to Ghlaktora?” he asked.

“Where’s Ghlaktora?” The clerk was not inebriated. But obviously not an intellectual titan, either.

“It’s one of the smaller cities in Protei Locus,” Alexander explained impatiently. “It’s famous as a repository of ancient Martian texts.”

“What’s Protei Locus?”

Fortunately, the consul had something in the way of a functioning brain, awash as it might be in vodka.

“Part of the Aromatus,” he said. Then, belched. Then: “Were me, I’d hire a—belch—gondola thing.” He waved his hand vaguely. “You know. One of those funny-looking airships with the gasbags on the bottom instead of the top where—belch—they should be.”

“What do they cost?”

Bleary-eyed, the consul looked at the clerk. That worthy now demonstrated that his brain, minuscule thought it might be, did hold at least a few facts.

“About eight ootyuk a day. Twelve, if you hire a crew as well, which I’d recommend.”

“And an ootyuk is … what, in Russian currency?”

When told the sum, Alexander decided he could manage the business—with the assistance of Kireyev. Consulates always had a certain amount of discretionary funds at their disposal.

Kireyev put up a protest, but between his drunkenness and Alexander’s insistence, he capitulated soon enough.

Not soon enough, though, for Alexander to hire a “gondola thing”—which was called a fluybakh in the local tongue, as it turned out—and set off for Ghlaktora the same day. By the time he finished haggling with the fluybakh’s owner and captain the sun was setting. And as it turned out, Martians were unwilling to fly by night. Not, at least, in a fluybakh.

Alexander wasn’t clear on the reason for that attitude. It might just be superstition. But he didn’t press the matter. He could use a night’s rest—not to mention the services of the consulate’s laundry.

Tomorrow would be soon enough, he figured. Not even Ilya Drezhner could get into that much trouble in just a few days.

* * *

Edward Luff stared down the long corridor that had been carved out of stone below the edifice in Ghlaktora that served Martians as the analog of a human library. Analog, not equivalent. Repositories of ancient texts seemed to have a religious function on Mars, not simply a secular one. But Edward couldn’t place the function exactly, since Martian religions seemed to operate on different principles than those of any human religion Edward was familiar with.

“How far does it go?” he asked, his tone hushed.

The Martian who was serving as their combined guide, text analyst and spiritual adviser—or perhaps that should be, metaphysical councilor; it was hard to tell—made the wrist-rolling motion that seemed to serve Martians as a shrug. “No one knows,” he said.

Joedheg’s English was surprisingly good, if not quite fluent, but Edward had to strain a bit to understand the fellow. Martians, at least in this region, spoke English with a pronounced accent. It reminded Edward somewhat of the way a German spoke English, but with a sibilant undertone quite foreign to any German-speaker he’d ever known.

“These halls are ancient,” the Martian continued. “We believe some of them date back as far as the Second Epoch.”

That would place them in a time of pre-history rather than history, properly speaking. The Second Epoch was the period in Martian history when the planet was conquered by the Old Ones, according to their legends. The identity of the Old Ones was not clear, although the texts seem to agree that they came from somewhere else in the solar system.

Somewhere other than Mars—and other than the Earth, as well. The same legends generally agreed that Martians had founded colonies on Earth during the Second Epoch, and it was from those colonies that the liberation of Mars from the Old Ones was finally achieved.

So who were the Old Ones? The most common theory posited a race emerging on Europa, or possibly Titan. But no one really knew, because Martians had lost whatever capacity for interplanetary travel they might once have possessed, and no human aethership had ventured farther into the outer reaches of the solar system than the asteroid belt.

That was assuming any of those ancient legends were true at all. Edward was a bit skeptical himself, but tried to keep an open mind on the subject. Seeing this immense complex of tunnels and chambers was making it much easier to do so. The labor involved made the construction of the Egyptian pyramids seem like the work of children on a beach building sand castles. It was a labyrinth that dwarfed anything of the sort ever constructed on Earth. At any moment, Edward almost expected to hear the distant bellow of a minotaur.

Only the first few miles of the corridors were used to house texts and other relics and artifacts. Thereafter, the tunnels fell into darkness and went … wherever they went, and however far that might be.

Smiling, he turned to his companion. “And what do you think of all this, Vera?”

* * *

What she thought didn’t bear speaking aloud, at least not to Edward—and certainly not in front of his children.

What I think is that Grigory Gershuni was right. We can forge a revolutionary movement in this vast labyrinth that no human regime will ever be able to eradicate. With the right alliances with other human movements and good relations where needed with Martian authorities, we will be indestructible.

That had been Gershuni’s hope, and one of the reasons the SRP leader had sent Duchesne on this mission. A Quixotic mission, she’d thought, and had only agreed because of the imperative logic of the other mission he’d given her on this voyage. But now that she had seen the reality for herself, she was fully persuaded.

And deeply relieved. Reconciling her missions with her growing sentiments for Edward and his children had seemed a well-nigh insurmountable challenge. Now …

It would be quite possible, she thought. Not easy, perhaps, but definitely possible.

As if seeking comfort from the vast solitude of the tunnels, her hand found its way into Edward’s. And stayed there.

* * *

“This is so marvelous,” enthused Adrian Luff. “I bet there are monsters somewhere down here. Just think, Charlotte! Minotaurs. Well, Martian versions, anyway.”

Leave it to her brother to take glee in the prospect of seeing someone devoured by a carnivorous quasi-bovine.

With any luck, if such a creature existed down here, it would choose Adrian for its first meal. Charlotte could make her escape while the monster shredded her brother’s flesh and plucked bone from annoying bone.

* * *

Chapter 13

The food was …

Interesting. That was the term Charlotte settled upon, after trying out a number of others. It seemed a more productive way of becoming accustomed to Martian cuisine than such terms as revolting and nauseating.

It helped not to consider the exact source of the provender. Vegetable, animal, fruit—who could say? The course they were dining upon at the moment, if Charlotte were foolish enough to analyze it, seemed to be a cross between an African horned melon she’d once eaten on a dare and some sort of arthropod. Most likely a lobster equivalent, she told herself, thereby avoiding such terms as giant cockroach.

She could stand to lose some weight. She was a bit distressed at the way her body was developing of late. Given its location, the adipose tissue she’d been acquiring was aesthetically acceptable—even pleasing, apparently, to men—but she felt increasingly awkward. Madame Duchesne was a hefty woman in all proportions, so her bust was counter-balanced by her abdomen. Charlotte, on the other hand, retained her slender girlish figure everywhere … except.

She felt top-heavy. As if she might topple over due to a minor stumble.

Her brother was starting to make stupid remarks on the subject, too.

She decided not to finish the meal. She’d eaten enough for propriety’s sake, she figured. Besides, the two Martian dignitaries seated at one end of the table didn’t seem to care much whether humans enjoyed their food or not. They were every bit as engrossed in the scholarly discussion/debate/dispute taking place at the table as her father, Joedheg, and the Shankar couple. They probably wouldn’t even notice when the servants took the plates away.

“—can’t refer to the indigenes of the tablelands,” Mr. Shankar was insisting. “None of them is in the least bit blueish, and even their reddish coloration is more in the way of a brown ochre than anything which can properly be labeled ‘red,’ or even ‘brick-colored.’”

The larger of the two Martian dignitaries leaned forward, gesticulating vigorously. That seemed to be a common characteristic of the red planet’s natives. It was as if they viewed gestures as necessary auxiliary verbs.

“But you are overlooking the obvious, Vijay,” said Th’taba. “The tableland natives are most likely devolved from their earlier forms. As you’d expect of a declining species, their coloration has changed to enable them to blend more easily into the landscape.”

Charlotte’s father cleared his throat. “Assuming these ‘native indigenes’ exist at all. You said yourself, Th’taba, that reports of their sighting are few and sketchy.”

Th’taba made the Martian wrist-rolling gesture. “Yes, yes—but that just further buttresses my argument. If the indigenes are a figment of the imagination, then obviously they are not the beings referred to in various passages of the Vedas.”

He gave Mr. Shankar a look that Charlotte would have called “beady-eyed” if a human had bestowed it upon him. But she had no idea what that expression signified on a Martian’s face.

“Not to mention that Vijay is but playing at the devil’s avocation.” The Martian paused for a moment. “Is that how you say it?”

“Playing the devil’s advocate,” Vera supplied.

“Yes, that. I don’t think he believes any more than I do that the references in the Vedas are to anything but the Old Ones.”

Mr. Shankar smiled. “Well, no, I don’t. But someone has to put the squeeze on notions to make sure they aren’t—”

He was interrupted by a great crashing noise. A moment later, the door to the dining hall was flung open and two men barged in.

The one in front had a fierce look on his face and was brandishing a revolver. Charlotte recognized him as one of the passengers she’d seen on the Agincourt, although she hadn’t taken much notice of him at the time. The man just behind him was wearing some sort of uniform and was carrying a rifle, but seemed uncertain of himself.

The smaller Martian rose abruptly to his feet. That was Jhu Klagna, the owner of the building they were dining in. “Jhu” was a title, not a name. He was one of Ghlaktora’s officials; something between a magistrate and a tax assessor, as near as Charlotte could figure out.

“This is irregular!” Klagna exclaimed. “Grievances must be—”

He got no further. The man in front struck him in the forehead with the revolver butt, knocking him to the floor. There, the official moaned softly and rolled over on his side. He seemed semi-conscious at best.

“Everyone sit still—and be silent!” commanded the man wielding the revolver. “Or I’ll shoot!”

He waved the revolver about in a menacing manner. Then, lowered it to point at Charlotte’s father.

“Get up, Savinkov—or whatever name you go by.” He made a jerking motion with the weapon, as if to pull Edward Luff to his feet by sheer force of will. “Get up, I say!”

Slowly, Charlotte’s father came to his feet, his fingertips spread out on the tabletop. “What is this all about, if I might ask?” His tone was mild. “I believe you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

The man with the revolver began to reply but was distracted by Th’taba, who was now rising to his own feet.

“Sit still, I said!”

“I am not bound by irregular conduct,” the Martian replied, with great dignity.

Snarling, the man glanced at the soldier and jerked his free hand toward Th’taba. “Keep your weapon on him, Kapral Baranovsky. If he makes a threatening move of any kind, shoot him.”

“Yes, Captain Drezhner.” The soldier did as he was told, holding his rifle against his hip and pointed in the direction of Th’taba.

At least the madman now had a name. Charlotte clutched at that fact as a way to keep from panicking. Seated next to her, out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Vera had lowered her gaze and placed her hands in her lap. She looked to be praying. That surprised Charlotte a bit, since the woman had never indicated any religious sentiment previously.

Drezhner turned his attention back to Edward Luff. “Here’s how it will be,” he said coldly. “You will accompany me and Kapral Baranovsky to the plaza—whatever it’s called—where we have an airship waiting. We will take you to the embassy at Crenex, since that’s the nearest. There—”

“Whose embassy?” her father asked, still in that mild tone of voice.

Drezhner’s face tightened with anger. “Don’t play the fool, Savinkov! Whoever you are. The Russian embassy, of course.”

Suddenly, Charlotte’s brother erupted from his chair. “You leave Father alone!” he cried, picking up a Martian utensil that was a cross between a spoon and a butter knife and hurling it at Drezhner.

Adrian’s aim was good. The utensil would have struck Drezhner in the face except he brought up his arm in time to deflect it away.

Not the arm holding the revolver, though. Whoever he was, Drezhner was no stranger to violence.

Adrian was now coming around the table, snatching up another utensil and brandishing it as if it were a sword.

“Adrian!” their father cried.

It was an insane thing to do, but Charlotte felt a surge of admiration for her little brother. Followed instantly by a still greater surge of fear.

Drezhner’s face was still, cold. He aimed the revolver and fired.

Blessedly, he was not shooting to kill. The bullet struck Adrian in the meaty part of the upper thigh, just to the side of the bone. Her brother was sent flying, his leg a bloody mess.

Now Charlotte’s father, his own face filled with fury, began coming around the table on the other side.

“Stand, Savinkov!” Drezhner shouted. “Stand or I’ll shoot!”

His attention was entirely fixed on Edward Luff. Charlotte was paralyzed, not knowing what to do.

The matter was taken out of her hands. Vera’s hand seized her by the shoulder and dragged her down, the chair coming with her. Dear God, the woman was strong!

BOOM! BOOM!

Half on her back, Charlotte stared up. Duchesne was now standing, a revolver in her own hand which she had pointing forward. Her face was like a carven idol; not quite human. Her eyes were fixed on something or someone Charlotte couldn’t see.

Drezhner, of course. Again, Vera fired the revolver. BOOM! BOOM! Two shots, quick but not hurried. Dimly, Charlotte realized she was observing someone quite familiar with the use of sidearms.

She heard a muffled thud, a sigh, as if a body had fallen in a heap to the floor. Then saw Vera swivel slightly to bring the revolver to bear elsewhere.

“Do. Not. Move. Kapral Baranovsky. Be assured I will shoot to kill. And as you can see, I am an excellent shot.”

There was a moment of silence. Vera seemed to relax a bit. “Edward, if you would be so kind, please disarm the corporal. I believe he has seen reason.”

Charlotte couldn’t stop herself from giggling. If Drezhner was in the condition she suspected he was—with four bullet holes in him and dead, dead, dead—she didn’t doubt herself that the corporal was now the very font of logic. He seemed quite young, no more than twenty or so. And probably repeating to himself over and over: I’m too young to die.

A few seconds passed. Then Vera stretched down her left hand to Charlotte. That was the one not holding the revolver, of course. The revolver itself stayed level and steady, as if it were held by a machine.

Charlotte took the hand and Vera lifted her to her feet. Displaying, again, that rather incredible strength of body.

Now able to see the whole room again, Charlotte immediately spotted Drezhner’s body, lying sprawled against the far wall.

Drezhner’s corpse, rather. There was no question that he was dead. His whole shirt was soaked in blood from the collar down. Every bullet fired by Madame Duchesne seemed to have struck him squarely in the chest. At least one of them, quite possibly more, must have penetrated his heart.

Charlotte felt no grief for the man. He’d been a ghastly brute. Still, she was shaken. She was trembling, in fact.

Where had Vera Duchesne learned to shoot like that? Charlotte hadn’t even known the woman possessed a gun. Yet, she must have had it hidden somewhere on her person. True, it was a very ample person and the revolver did not seem like an especially large one. Still …

She shook her head, trying to clear it. A yelp of pain from a different part of the room drew her attention from Drezhner’s bloody corpse. She saw that her father was now attending to Adrian.

Trying to, rather. From the helpless look on his face, it was apparent that the skills of a scholar did not extend to emergency medicine.

Madame Duchesne headed toward him, glancing toward Kapral Baranovsky on the way. It was a brief glance. The young soldier had been disarmed and was looking even more helpless than Edward Luff.

Vijay Shankar had taken the man’s rifle and was holding it in the very gingerly manner that someone who has no familiarity with guns does such a thing. But Shankar wasn’t the one holding the corporal at bay—if the term “holding at bay” applied at all. That was being done by Th’taba, who had drawn a very wicked-looking dagger (dirk? Charlotte had no idea) from somewhere on his person. He seemed to be looming over Baranovsky in a most threatening manner, despite being several inches shorter than the rather tall young soldier. Joedheg was there also, although he did not seem to be armed.

Seeing that Baranovsky no longer posed any danger, Vera turned all her attention to Charlotte’s brother and father.

She began with the father.

“Edward, you obviously have no idea what you’re doing,” she said, sinking to her knees next to Adrian. “Please move back a bit and give me some room.”

Still looking helpless, Charlotte’s father did as she bade him. Vera then went to work immediately on Adrian.

Charlotte had no idea what she did, exactly. For one thing, she wasn’t standing at close hand. All the blood in the room was now making her feel ill and she wanted to keep her distance.

There was some tearing of cloth involved, probably from Madame Duchesne’s own dress. Adrian yelped several more times, but then grew quiet. Duchesne murmured what sounded like encouraging words to him.

Charlotte’s sentiments veered wildly back and forth. She alternated between wanting to hug her little brother and scream furiously at him. What had the little maniac been thinking?

After a short while, accepting his own inefficacy in the matter, her father came over to her and placed his arm around her shoulder.

“You are unharmed, yes?”

She shook her head. Then, burst into tears. It was rather mortifying.

She wondered if Vera Duchesne had ever burst into tears, even once in her life. At first, she didn’t think so. But after a time, with further thought, she realized that she must have. Somewhere, completely hidden beneath the iron-mask face and the deadly precision of the shots, must lie a monstrous amount of pain.

Either that, or the woman was a crazed, cold-blooded killer.

Could one be crazed and cold-blooded at the same time? Charlotte wasn’t sure.

She’d have to find out. But how would you find out such a thing?

She burst into a half-choked laugh, then. Which was even more mortifying than the tears.

Of course. She’d ask Madame Duchesne. She would know.

* * *

Chapter 14

By the time Alexander reached Ghlaktora, the international incident he feared had already happened. Drezhner—the monumental ass!—had managed to get himself killed in the process of infuriating the local authorities.

And had accomplished nothing. No, worse. If Luff or anyone in his party had been Savinkov, as unlikely as that was, the assassin was now beyond reach.

Beyond Alexander’s reach, certainly, or that of any Russian official on Mars. It was conceivable that Cecil Rhodes could bring enough pressure to bear on whichever petty native potentate ruled Ghlaktora to get them to relinquish a might-be-Savinkov, but would he? Probably not. His own reaction, once he heard of Drezhner’s conduct, was far more likely to be hostile to Russians than to Martians. All the more so since the likelihood that Savinkov—no, a Savinkov substitute; Savinkov himself was apparently dead—was actually on Mars was vanishingly small. Alexander was now almost certain that the whole affair had been a ruse on the part of the Esers. Probably to distract everyone while they plotted a strike at some target in Russia.

And besides, even if Rhodes agreed to coerce the local nawab into removing his protection of maybe-Savinkov-substitute, it probably still wouldn’t do any good. From what Alexander had been able to learn about Ghlaktora and the Protei Locus region, it was riddled with underground catacombs and passageways. In the unlikely event there was a maybe-Savinkov-substitute in the city, he’d certainly have the skills to find shelter there.

Judging from what Alexander had heard, it would take an army to search that labyrinth. He had no army at his disposal. Neither did Prince Vorontsov.

For that matter, neither did Cecil Rhodes. The English imperialist maintained his power on the red planet in the same manner he’d established it in the first place. He’d used what you might call the Mongol Method—a ruthless, even savage, application of force and violence precisely because he didn’t have a huge army of soldiers and bureaucrats to rule by direct administration.

The Martian authorities were afraid of him, certainly. But that sort of fear did not lend itself to launching a systematic search of gigantic labyrinths. How was Rhodes to know if they carried out such a search effectively, since he’d have no way of overseeing them? If they did it at all, they’d do it in a slack and lackadaisical manner.

No, best to just let the whole unsavory affair die a natural death. Had Ghlaktora’s authorities tried to keep Kapral Baranovsky under arrest, things would have taken a nasty turn. But they were perfectly willing to turn him over to Alexander’s keeping, once he arrived. They even gave the soldier his rifle back, although they kept the ammunition.

No matter. Kapral Baranovsky was even less inclined than Alexander to stay in Ghlaktora and cause any further trouble.

“I was just assigned to guard the embassy at Crenex,” the young corporal said plaintively. “Drezhner made me come with him. He wanted to bring a whole squad of the embassy’s guards, but Count Shuvalov wouldn’t let him have anyone but me.”

He looked aggrieved. “Because I was the youngest, I think.”

The youngest—and clearly the least useful, once that imbecile Drezhner forced matters to gunplay.

The one surprising thing Alexander learned was that Drezhner had been killed by the Duchesne woman.

“She terrified me,” Baranovsky confessed. “When she turned her gun on me after—after Drezhner died—I was sure she was going to kill me as well. Her eyes … They were empty. Just like a snake’s.”

Alexander wondered …

But it made no sense. If Duchesne were an SRP terrorist, she’d surely have killed Baranovsky along with Drezhner in order to silence any witness who could bring the tale back to the Okhrana. Why let him live? Given the circumstances, no one would have blamed her if she’d gunned down the corporal as well. He’d come with Drezhner, armed; he was another threat; he was dealt with.

Case closed.

* * *

The fluybakh took them back to Mooktar. From there, within a day or two, they’d be able to find an airship which would fly them to Coprates or Tryddoc Aru. Mooktar was not large enough to have regular service to any other Martian city, but there were a number of small dirigibles that crisscrossed the planet, providing whoever needed it with passage wherever they wanted to go. For a price, of course—usually a steep one, if the customers were human.

Alexander didn’t care. He still had sufficient funds and, by now, all he wanted was to leave the miserable planet altogether and return to Paris.

He adored Paris. He couldn’t wait to get back.

* * *

Everyone else had settled in for the night. Adrian had fallen asleep hours before. Only Charlotte and her father remained awake, along with Mr. and Mrs. Shankar, sharing the domicile’s equivalent of a living room with Madame Duchesne.

“Vera …” Edward Luff seemed uncertain of what to say. “This … ah … Savinkov whom Drezhner was raving about …”

“Gavril Savinkov does not exist,” said Madame Duchesne. “He never did. He’s a figment of the Russian secret police’s imagination.”

She smiled, thinly. “Admittedly, we did everything in our power to give the Okhrana that illusion—and then to maintain it.”

Charlotte’s father cleared his throat. “‘We’ being …”

“The Socialist-Revolutionary Party’s Combat Organization. Of which I am, and have been for many years, a member.” She wiggled her fingers in a familiar gesture. “Well, not that. The SRP was only formed recently. It came mostly out of the Northern Union of Socialist Revolutionaries and the Workers’ Party of Political Liberation of Russia, which were formed in the 1890s. I was one of the Workers’ Party’s cadres. Our leaders were—still are, along with Victor Chernov—Catherine Breshkovsky and Grigory Gershuni. But the armed struggle goes back much farther than that, to the days of the Narodnaya Volya.”

“Ah. Yes. The ‘People’s Will’ organization. I’d heard of them. Of Catherine Breshkovsky also.” Edward Luff was still fumbling. “Vera … Ah. When did you …”

“After my brother came back from Siberian exile. He’d been ruined by the experience. One of my brothers, rather. The younger one had already died in the Tsar’s prisons. He’d been beaten to death.”

Her expression was calm; her tone of voice, cold.

“Duchesne is an invented name,” she continued. “I was indeed married, but my husband’s name was Vladimir Natanson. He was Jewish, one of the founders of the Circle of Tchaikovsky, Land and Liberty. He also died in prison. From disease, in his case.”

Her face was mask-like again. Moved by a sudden, powerful impulse, Charlotte rose from her seat and went over to sit next to Madame Duchesne—no, Madame Natanson, it now seemed.

She decided she would call her Madame Vera from now on. It seemed less confusing.

She took the older woman’s hand in her own. Or maybe she would just call her Vera.

Edward Luff stared at his daughter, for a moment. Then, sighed and ran fingers through his hair.

“I’m sorry, I’m just trying to catch up. So, why did you come to Mars then, Vera? I assume it was not a simple desire to sightsee.”

She chuckled. “Hardly. I’m afraid I’m not actually a rich widow. Widow, yes; well-to-do, no. I’ve been traveling on the Party’s funds. On Party business.”

His face looked a bit drawn. “And that business is …”

Again, she chuckled. The sound had a harsh ring to it, this time. “Poor Edward! No, I am not here to shoot down some Tsarist official. Not that the stinking bastard wouldn’t deserve it. My mission is of a very different nature.”

“And—if I might ask—that mission is …?”

Mr. Shankar cleared his throat. “Actually, she’s here to see me, Edward. Me and Sumati.”

Luff stared at him. “You?”

Shankar made a face. “Please, Edward—don’t look quite so shocked. I assure you that Russia is not the only land where the professions of scholar and political activist get combined.”

Charlotte’s father was still staring at him. The Hindu’s expression seemed to harden somewhat.

“Give it a few years under the new dispensation brought by Cecil Rhodes and his thugs, Edward. You may come to understand what it means to be an Indian under English rule.”

His wife spoke. “A rule which is now certain to be much harsher, given Rhodes’ ascendancy. And it is already not pleasant, for us.”

Charlotte grasped the heart of the issue before her father did. She would have clapped her hands except one of them was still being gripped in Vera’s.

“Oh, I see! You’re here to forge a conspiratorial alliance between Russian and Indian revolutionaries.” Her brother would have been thrilled, if he hadn’t been asleep. He adored the thought of conspiracies.

But her mind was racing ahead, as more things fell into place. “And do it on Mars, where you’ll be beyond the reach of either the Russian or English police agencies.” She pursed her lips. “At least, so long as the Martian authorities look the other way.”

Vera’s chuckle, this time, was quite rich and full of humor. “‘Look the other way!’ My dear Charlotte, some of those Martian authorities—including those who oversee all the cities of Protei Locus—have joined the conspiracy themselves. They have no love for Rhodes either.”

“Really?”

“Really?” echoed her father.

“Yes,” said Sumati Shankar. “It was one of them—our supposed ‘guide’ Joedheg, as a matter of fact—who first approached us. You may remember that our employer, the Nizam of Hyderabad, visited Mars himself last year. That began the process. The Nizam spoke to us, we communicated with Vera—whom we’ve known for years, at first through her husband Vladimir—and she discussed the matter with Grigory Gershuni, the head of the SRP’s Combat Organization.”

“You need to understand the stakes involved for us,” said Vera. “With Rhodes’ ascendancy in Britain, all the major powers of Europe except France are now controlled by reactionaries, and France is irrelevant because of the chaos of its political affairs. Only the United States remains as a bastion of democracy, and they are across the Atlantic and preoccupied with their own affairs. The pressure on us—on all democratic and revolutionary movements and parties—in Asia and Africa as much as in Europe—is becoming fiercer all the time. The possibility of creating here on Mars a political fortress—a refuge, if you will; a safe haven—which can shield us while we rebuild our strength …”

“That is the heart of it,” said Mr. Shankar. “That is why we came here.”

Vera spread her hands. “And here we are. And now we invite you to join us.”

Her father’s eyes widened. “Me?”

“Why not, Edward?” said Mr. Shankar. “You plan to be here for years, do you not? By the time you’d have been ready to return to Earth—trust me on this matter—you’ll have found England a very different place than the one you know. And by then, there will be Englishmen in our ranks as well.”

“What Englishmen?”

“From the military, to start. Have you heard of ‘redcoats’?”

Her father rubbed his jaw. “Yes. I have.”

So had Charlotte. There were reputed to be elements in the British military, especially the Navy—officers and enlisted men both—who were disaffected with the new regime put in place by Cecil Rhodes and his people. The so-called “blackcoats,” named after the color of the new uniforms.

There was silence for a while. Then her father said: “I’ll need to think about it.”

“Yes, of course.”

“In the meantime …” He glanced at the handclasp between Charlotte and Vera. “I must thank you for saving my son, Madame Natanson. And me. And perhaps my daughter as well.”

“Oh, please, Edward. I’m still Vera. Not really so different from the one you thought you knew, either.”

He smiled at her. “Vera, then.”

She smiled back.

Charlotte squeezed her hand. Vera squeezed back.

Adrian awoke then, in the adjoining room. “Where is everyone?” he cried out, plaintively. “I need some help!”

Thereby ruining the moment. It was so exasperating.

* * *

Chapter 15

As he waited in the aerodrome’s guest facilities for the Blenheim to land, Alexander spotted someone familiar. It was the portly face and figure of the Luff governess. What was her name? Mrs. Smith, wasn’t it? The one who’d come down ill just at the end of the voyage to Mars.

She seemed rather lost. Partly out of natural sympathy and partly out of curiosity, Alexander approached her.

“May I be of help, Mrs. Smith?”

She stared at up at him with blank eyes. Alexander’s impression on the voyage had been that the woman was not especially intelligent. That assessment was strengthened by the woman’s dull, confused expression.

“I’m Alexander Evalenko. You may remember me from the voyage. I was also on the Agincourt.”

That seemed to register. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I remember you now.”

She looked around, clutching her large valise as if it were a life vest. “Do you … Mr. Valenkin, is it? Do you know where I could catch the airship to Ghlaktora? I need to rejoin my employer. I was told I should look for something called a ‘float back.’ Something like that.”

“A fluybakh.” He turned and pointed toward a distant door in the facilities. “You need to go through there, Mrs. Smith. You’ll find a fluybakh available on the grounds beyond. Several of them, most likely.”

He decided not to mention that she’d find riding on one of the rather flimsy airships quite a bit more … ah, exciting, than she was perhaps expecting.

As she started to move in that direction, Alexander asked her, “Are you feeling better now?”

She turned back, grimacing. “Oh, yes. It was a miserable week or so, but after that everything was fine.”

“What was it, do you know? I was told several other people on the ship came down with the same ailment.”

Now, she looked indignant. “They never found out! Would you believe, the silly doctor they had told me he thought I might have been poisoned. Poisoned! Who would do a thing like that to someone like me? It’s ridiculous! And he was an English doctor, too. Said he was, anyway. But you have to wonder, coming up with preposterous notions like that.”

And off she went, stumping forward vigorously if not gracefully. As a mode of locomotion on Mars, with its low gravity, “stumping” had its drawbacks.

Alexander stared after her.

Poisoned …

His mind began to race. What if the Duchesne woman was an SRP agent with a long-term mission here on Mars? He’d been thinking simply in terms of the usual assassination attempt. Poisoning Mrs. Smith—some sort of mild, non-fatal substance; Alexander could think of two offhand that might have served the purpose—would provide Duchesne with the perfect excuse to join the Luff party after the end of the voyage. That was why Alexander himself had dismissed Drezhner’s suspicions.

Then …

That would also explain why Duchesne hadn’t killed Kapral Baranovsky along with Drezhner. If her mission required remaining on Mars for months, even years, she needed to remain close to the Luff family.

Alexander closed his eyes, picturing the scene as it had been described to him by the young corporal.

Here, Drezhner. There, Duchesne. Firing—one, two; then again, one, two; four shots in all. Three of those shots had been fatal. Even the fourth might have been.

Not one shot had missed its mark. The signs of a skilled and experienced killer.

Over there, watching, was the Charlotte girl. How old was she? Fourteen? Fifteen?

She’d have been shocked by Duchesne’s actions. Yet, so far …

The woman had just been defending the girl’s father and brother. Almost anything could be forgiven—even forgotten, in time—under those circumstances.

But if Duchesne had gone further, had gone on to slaughter a young soldier too confused and frightened to pose a threat …

Just to silence an inconvenient witness …

No. The girl would never have forgotten that. She’d never have been able to regain her trust in Duchesne. As time went by, the situation would become unmanageable.

Alexander tried to imagine what sort of person could be so calculating, so cold-blooded, as to gauge all that and come to the right decision in the middle of deadly gunfire. Decide instantly, even as he—she—fired shot after unerring shot.

Savinkov. Only an assassin of that caliber could do such a thing.

He began to rise. And then …

Sat back down.

This was all speculation. Perhaps wild speculation. Even if he brought the matter to Rachkovsky’s attention, and Rachkovsky brought it to Semiakin’s, they’d probably decide the notion was preposterous. Alexander’s reputation, already bruised by this mess, would be damaged still further.

Worse still, what if they decided the notion was correct?

There’d be no way to apprehend Savinkov, no way to track him—her—down. Not here, not on Mars. All that could be done would be to maintain a more vigilant guard on Prince Vorontsov. Which duty …

Would surely fall to Alexander Evalenko himself.

Stuck here on Mars. For months. Years. With no company but that of Cossacks.

Which is to say, the world’s premier cavalrymen.

No.

Clearly, it was nothing but a wild surmise on his part. A silly notion, really. Why would the SRP waste the talents of someone like Savinkov—for months; even years—simply to kill a prince? Russia had lots of princes.

Alexander sighed in soft relief.

“Attention, please. The Blenheim has landed. Passengers should prepare to board.”

He rose, holding his bag. Paris awaited.

* * *

Chapter 16

Deception within deception. Such was the nature of the struggle against the Okhrana, driven by harsh necessity. The Tsar’s secret police surpassed any other in the world, in their subtlety as well as their brutality. It was they who had forged the Protocols of the Elders of Zion; they, also, who had perfected the use of double agents and provocateurs.

So, the SRP’s Combat Organization had responded in kind. A traitor had been found, Maxim Pechkin, uncovered by Vladimir Burtsev and his small band of counter-infiltrators. The man would normally have been executed by Eser agents, but this time he was allowed to run free for several years.

Years in which the Combat Organization slowly and carefully built up the legend of the master assassin, Gavril Savinkov. Then, two years ago, Pechkin was finally executed. The deed was done in secret, shortly after the assassination of a provincial governor. The body was left in a place where it could eventually be discovered, with evidence planted that suggested it was the corpse of none other than Savinkov himself. Dead of wounds incurred in the course of the governor’s assassination, it seemed.

When the time came, an anonymous source notified the Okhrana of the body’s location. The master assassin, gone at last.

* * *

Deception within deception. Gavril Savinkov had never existed, and the Okhrana now believe the phantom to be dead. But Savinkov …

That master assassin did exist, and was still quite alive. And now, in position to strike the needed blow when the time finally came.

A time which would certainly take years, before the conditions had matured. Years in which a new and powerful revolutionary alliance could be forged; with Mars as its bastion; an alliance that could finally confront the world’s oppressors. Years in which the master assassin could slowly blend into the target’s surroundings; learning all that needed to be learned; preparing all that needed to be prepared.

Throughout, the Okhrana would remain blind to the danger, for no Russian was Savinkov’s new target. Not even the Tsar himself.

Cecil Rhodes. When the time came and the alliance was finally forged, he would be the one brought down. He was the master of the space-going warcraft that had destroyed the Boers and broken the English Navy’s resistance. With him gone, and the great alliance ready to rise up, there would be no power left that could rescue the world’s tyrants and autocrats.

* * *

“It’s time to go, Vera! It’s time!” Adrian Luff was practically dancing with eagerness. “Just think! We’ve never gone so deep into the labyrinth before! Maybe we’ll run across a minotaur!”

Charlotte rolled her eyes. Edward Luff just smiled and extended his hand.

Savinkov took the hand. There was no reason not to enjoy life in the meantime, after all. Wounds were healing, Savinkov’s as well as the physical ones Drezhner had inflicted on the boy. The master assassin would make sure the family that provided the ultimate shelter for the mission would emerge unscathed, when the time came.

If it came at all. There was no way to know.

Rhodes might die of natural causes. Or a Martian might kill him. He was hated by a great many.

The possibilities were endless. A horse might even learn to sing.

* * *

Introducing Chuck Gannon

Eric Flint

I met Chuck Gannon in 2009 at Lunacon, New York City’s science fiction convention. I was the toastmaster at the convention that year, but the real draw for me was that Dave Freer was the Guest of Honor and Mercedes Lackey and her husband Larry Dixon were also attending. Dave, Misty and I have been working on the Heirs of Alexandria series for more than a decade now, but we’d only managed to meet once with all of us present. That was at the 2000 Worldcon in Chicago.

The problem lay with Dave, who had the ill grace to be born and raised in South Africa. South Africa is roughly 9000 miles from the American Midwest, where Misty and I both live, and you have to cross one and a half oceans to get there. Needless to say, in-person meetings were few and far between. I’d been able to meet with Dave on a second occasion, at the World Fantasy Convention held in Madison, WI, in 2005, but Misty hadn’t been able to attend.

So Lunacon would be only the second time all three of us would be able to get together, and only the third time I’d be able to meet Dave in person. By then, Dave and I had co-authored five novels together in addition to the three we’d written with Misty, something which would have been quite impossible before the advent of the internet.

It turned out that serendipity was alive and well. While I was at the convention, I met Chuck—and he and I have since gone on to co-author one novel (1635: The Papal Stakes), with two more in the works and, of course, the project that you now hold in your hand: The Aethers of Mars.

The way we met was the way these things so often happen at conventions. We both wound up on a panel together, and things went from there.

Being honest, my memory of the occasion is fuzzy. All I recall was that there was this fellow I’d never met sitting at the other end of the table, and in the course of the panel discussion he advanced opinions which struck me as lucid and well-reasoned, being as they generally agreed with mine. I attribute this imprecision in my recollections to my advancing years—not, I hasten to add, resulting from decrepitude or dementia but from the simple fact that as one ages one steadily grows wiser, which has the inevitable side effect of crowding out memories which are not essential to said increase in sagacity.

Chuck, being of more tender years and thus still burdened with trivial recall, says that what happened was this:

* * *

“On March 2, 2009, at Lunacon, and in the Brundage room, there was a 3:00 PM panel entitled “Military SF vs. ‘War Porn.’” You were there, as was Dave Freer, the GoH (for whom you had been invited as Toastmaster), and Chuck Rothman. Tom Kratman was scheduled but did not attend, as I recall.

At any rate, most of the conversation had, as often happens, morphed into a related but distinct topic: in this case, writing action sequences. At some point, after I remarked on how economy in description in writing action has parallels to fast cuts in cinematic action, you leaned over to look down the table at me, and uttered the first words ever exchanged between us: ‘Have you sent me anything?’ (You were referring to Jim Baen’s Universe at the time.) When I responded in the negative, you said, ‘Then send me something.’

We chatted afterward, which ultimately moved on into the hallway for a longer chat, just at the margins of what was then a buffet restaurant. You weren’t sure that JBU was going to survive. We had talked about 1632, but then you were waving it off, saying that you generally did not invite pros there, that it was minimum SFWA rate and a lot to learn and etc. etc. etc.

I waited for you to finish and explained that, yeah, I had pro credits, but that was quite a while ago, and I had no illusions or qualms about paying dues to re-enter the market. Was glad for the work and thrilled at the opportunity. And so things began …”

* * *

Given that Chuck’s memory seems more complete than mine—more detailed, for a certainty—I see no point in wasting my time rewriting the biographical notes he sent me, when the notes themselves are perfectly coherent. He goes on to say:

* * *

“The chat we had alongside the restaurant was where my background was set out. In 2009, it had been seventeen years since I’d worked in TV. That and my fiction career had ended at the same time, I explained. And this was the story (sounds like I’m introducing an episode of Naked City …)

I had been working freelance in TV (about 75% FT) and filling in the rest writing for games. And fiction. At pretty much the same time in 1991, after getting my first pure SF credit by publishing a novella in Pournelle’s War World (#4: Invasion), I had three novel contracts pretty much fall into my lap. One was an offer to do the next War World novel with John Carr. He’d already been in possession of a 35K word story, really liked my writing, started putting together a letter of agreement. About the same time, the game company approached me to write two novels as product-support (write for hire deals), one SF, one a kind of urban fantasy/near sf/horror project.

I was elated. I was also strapped for time. Went to the TV folks. Who told me: good you came to talk to us about work. We want—need—to hire you full time. I explained I had come needing to cut back to no more than half-time. They wished me well and told me not to let the door hit me on the ass on my way out: there were (literally) hundreds of people who’d kill to get the job I was turning down. And they were probably right. (I suspect they overstated the number willing to commit homicide: that was probably only dozens.)

Then, as happens in this biz, fate intervened in a most unwelcome fashion. The game company’s management changed and the contracts were killed: change in direction (introducing them to the concept of a kill fee required a lawyer, sadly). Shortly thereafter, Jerry Pournelle declared an immediate and across-the-board cessation of all his anthologies—and all related projects. The War World novel was gone, too.

I had gone from three novels to no novels in a matter of months. And the game company which had been an increasing part of my income was now “the party of the other part” in an arbitration over the kill fees for seven killed contracts. My freelance line of income was dead, and the TV bus had left. So I activated plan B: academia. A way to make a living and do some writing. How little “some” was only became evident when I was married and started having kids. And so, in 2007, we moved and I took the plunge—not taking another academic job but going FT writing.”

* * *

And there you have it. The career of one Chuck Gannon, SF author, known in his former life as Dr. Charles E. Gannon, Distinguished Professor of English at St. Bonaventure University. Professional fiction scribblers invariably shed titles rather than acquire them and our terms of appellation slide from “Esteemed Colleague” and “Professor” to “Hey, You.”

The first things Chuck did for me was to write a couple of pieces of short fiction for one of the anthologies in the 1632 series (aka the Ring of Fire series). Those were “Birds of a Feather” and “Upward Mobility,” which appeared in Ring of Fire III, published by Baen Books in 2011. We then started working on a collaborative novel in the series, 1635: The Papal Stakes, which came out in October 2012.

By the time it did, however, a novel which Chuck had co-authored with Steve White in the Starfire series had also come out. That was Extremis, published in May 2011.

Chuck’s first solo novel, Fire With Fire, came out in April of 2013, followed by a novella he wrote for David Weber’s latest Honor Harrington anthology, Beginnings. That came out in July, three months later.

The speed with which his career took off explains the awkward fact that his appearance in this volume as a “fledgling” and “undiscovered” author is starting to look a bit ridiculous. Hey, how was I supposed to know? When I was approached by Mike Resnick to do one of the volumes in this series, which are supposed to couple a well-established author with a newcomer, Chuck had practically nothing published yet.

Chuck and I discussed several possibilities for this volume. We finally decided on a steampunk setting because: a) Chuck had already worked out most of the background—see my remarks above on the subject of not wasting time—and b) I’d never written a steampunk story and it sounded like fun.

So. Introducing Chuck Gannon. You’ll be seeing a lot more of him, unless I’m wildly mistaken—and I’m not. See comments concerning wisdom and the sagacity of age above.

* * *

BOOK TWO: WHITE SAND, RED DUST

by Charles E. Gannon

Part One: White Sand

September 1902: Cairo, Earth

A sudden blast of white-yellow light awakened Conrad von Harrer despite his sleep-lidded eyes. Then, without warning, he seemed to be falling away from that brightness, which dimmed as a great weight pulled him down under the surface of a roiling expanse of hallucinations and memory fragments that thickened and darkened about him …

Struggling back up, Conrad willed his eyes to open … and discovered that they already were; this time, he realized that it was the white of the ceiling that was roaring into his head with a pain so sharp that it blurred his vision.

He shielded his eyes with his left hand, felt strangely detached from that motion, from his arm and his body: no, the opium hadn’t worn off yet. He rubbed at the sleep sand crusting his eyes—which occasioned a second, sharper stab of discomfort. But this pain was at the base of his skull, clearly defined and with a faintly stiff quality. It was the aftermath of a hard physical blow, the kind used to incapacitate, or even kill. Something had happened last night, someone must have attacked him …

Sluggishly, an image rose up to meet that conjecture. Conrad saw a triumphant smile on a sharp, swarthy, hard-eyed face. He remembered the first blow of the calloused fists, remembered the impact to the side of his head, just below and behind his ear, how it had staggered him, weakened him, and so, invited the next inevitable blow. He remembered falling flat, no longer seeing the fists, even though they continued to thud down into his chest and abdomen. All he could remember was that exultant, savagely smiling face. A familiar face. He could not recall the name that went with it, but he was sure of its identity: one of Akim Al-Aftal’s guards and—sometimes—deliverer of Conrad von Harrer’s increasingly sparse measures of opium.

Opium. Merely thinking of the word sent a burning through his muscles. But suddenly, the familiar craving for the pungent smoke Conrad loved and hated became an abrupt muscular contraction which triggered a parallel but even more intense mental reaction. It was as if the world was folding in upon him, and he upon himself, that there was some tiny, dense particle that he was destined to shrink down to, and when he did—

Implosion. Sudden sweat and rage brought Conrad up into a sitting position, panting and homicidal. The transition had been so abrupt that he could not recall how or even why his current emotional state had arisen from the sensation of suffocating diminution that had preceded it. But he knew this much: this was not an effect of opium.

Opium let you float. If anything, its greatest threat was in its seductive lassitude, in the loss of energy and will. But this reaction: this was new and wholly unpleasant. And it stripped away the last, if perverse, shred of dignity that von Harrer had carried north into Egypt, out of the hell holes that Cecil Rhodes’ Company troops had made of the Boers’ cities and the camps of their German and Austrian allies. Conrad had clung to one, last, simple dignity: the power to elect how he would leave this world. Aided by opium, at least he could elude the incessant sleeping—and waking—nightmares of carnage, and ultimately die in a time and a manner of his own choosing.

But this new sensation—whatever it was, whatever it came from—seemed certain to steal even that. This was not the soothing miasmas of opiated forgetfulness he had sought and in which he had taken grateful refuge. This was a usurpation of his will and his body that was not only intense, but that threatened to make him an agent of indiscriminate violence.

Von Harrer felt sweat cooling on his back as heat started building along his brow: a spark of humiliation that flared into a full-blown conflagration. Since this wasn’t a side effect of opium, the only reasonable conjecture was that Al-Aftal’s jackals had slipped something else into the tarry wads he had bought from them. There were drugs—the names of which were only whispered—that were rumored to spawn dependencies as violent as they were intense. Instead of inducing a blissful torpor, they made their victims mad dogs, animals desperate for the very toxin that would kill them in the end. Is that what Al-Aftal had done—slipped some measure of such a drug into the opium?

Von Harrer felt his hands grow cold, the way they had before the midnight attacks on Lord Roberts’ redoubts outside of Port Elizabeth: not only did the bastards beat me and take the last of my money once I had bought the opium, they slipped a poison into it as well. Conrad felt his teeth grinding: he had only wanted to buy forgetfulness at an honest price, but in Cairo, even that simple hope had been insipidly naive. Al-Aftal’s street jackals had not acted spontaneously. It was clear, in hindsight, that they had waited for the opium to do its slow, steady work. He could now remember how they had increasingly observed him with the same unhurried, seldom-blinking stare of vultures watching a man reeling in the desert. Except in his case, he had begun reeling from want of opium.

Opium. Reflex turned his head toward his battered wooden night table. Resting on the stained top, a cracked and yellowed meerschaum imp adorned the Hungarian-made bowl he had purchased for his well-worn opium pipe. His two eyes locked on the imp’s. If only he could outstare it, then he could reject it. But the meerschaum imp was like the opium; the more one tried to defy it, the more one realized that there was nothing to defy except oneself. It was a game, the type a child plays when trying to trick its own reflection in a mirror.

A honey-thick torpor overcame him while his gaze was still fixed on the pipe. Time passed and the difference between seconds and minutes—or hours—became indistinct, meaningless. He watched as the imp’s face lost its yellowish glaze, deepened to a dim orange as the sun began to set. The laughing eyes still glared upward: puckish, sardonic, leering. A leer like those worn by the fire-bleached skulls outside Mafeking, Kimberley, and in the ruins of Johannesburg; leers which evoked no mirth, only oblivion.

When Conrad’s eyes finally showed him the world of the present once again, he saw that the last light was fading, giving way to darkness. The orange sun had grown larger and murkier, diffusing itself across the light-smeared horizon. On his first approach to Al Qahira, von Harrer had tarried to sit on the sands at Giza and watch the sunset glaze the pyramids: fading triangles that sat squat and timeless on the horizon. His mind’s eye could still make out the cowl of the sphinx, the faint light limning its supine contours. It was an enigmatic posture, a recline that did not suggest rest but, rather, endless watching. A pitiless gaze which had seen the death of many an age, perhaps many a species. It was easy to believe that such blank eyes had always looked out on barrenness, knew nothing else, could augur nothing else.

Von Harrer let his own gaze slip from the window and back into the room, rolling like a lazy ball from one empty corner to another. His eyes touched the spaces that had once been occupied by his possessions: a lamp with crystal pendants, a little mahogany liquor cabinet, a roll-top desk, and a dresser. Faint shadows on the floor marked their old territories, darker where the boards had been spared the bleaching stare of the sun.

All gone now. All gone to the same place. He turned his eyes back to the meerschaum pipe-bowl. All gone there.

Cravings jumped up at the thought, the sight, of the pipe. The meerschaum eyes laughed, invited: just once more.

He turned away, looked at the bare wall against which his bed was pushed. He could still feel that mocking leer boring into his back, the dull ivory eyes promising: you’ll almost forget.

You’ll almost forget the clusters of dart-shaped steel rods that screamed down from nearly twenty miles above Johannesburg, glowing with heat when they impacted, the ground vomiting upward in waves, shot through with flame—right before the blast knocked everything flat.

You’ll almost forget the airships hovering out of rifle range, dropping bomb after bomb, only leaving to get more from Rhodes’ secret arsenals of death, hidden safe behind the British lines.

You’ll almost forget the endless litter of civilian dead on the retreat back through what was left of Johannesburg, particularly the children, their little bodies blown apart by the concussive forces, their little heads—blonde, brown, and black—rolled up against walls or into ditches like those of decapitated dolls.

You’ll almost forget the defeat, the camps, the dysentery, the hunger, the understandably vengeful African guards and, finally, the stumbling silhouettes of the internees who were evicted due to disease or frailty. Within the first one hundred yards, each one unfailingly attracted a loping cluster of cape dogs or jackals, whose patience was invariably rewarded by a taste of human flesh.

But opium’s promise of forgetfulness was a lie. The memories never evaporated; they were simply disordered. Even when his head was filled to the point of nausea with the musk-sweet fumes, visions of the past always trespassed upon the present. But instead of complete scenes of the South African war, they came as splintered flashes of carnage, each image frozen onto a separate shard of the shattering mirror that was his mind, his memories.

He looked out the southwest window toward Giza again, wished he could see the pyramids: there, death and order were made one. It might be just a glorified version of “burial detail,” but at least it had been raised to the level of an art form, a triumph of human construction over the forces of time. Thousands had worked so that the memory of at least one man might transcend death, his identity combined and transmuted into the sheer awe of the towering stone, pointing out the way to his communion with the gods. It did not matter that the beliefs upon which it was built were sheer nonsense: it was a testimony to the human determination that the force of memory should overcome the power of death.

But that age was past. Now, men destroyed more than they built, left no legacies other than churned earth, smoldering ruins, and mass graves—just like the ones paupers inherited, here in Al Qahira. Paupers who, like he, had lost everything. Von Harrer scanned the room again: the walls and floor stared back, blank—except for his night table and the demon perched upon it, the smiling lips faded but seductive, wearing the same grin that had been on the face of his brutal assailant the previous night.

Which is why, Conrad realized suddenly, he remembered that smile more than the blows which had damaged his body. Because the greatest wounds had been inflicted by the unspoken words behind that savage grin: Now you are nothing. No law protects you, no promise made to you need be kept. You have no pride, no power, no respect; you are not a man. You are nothing.

Von Harrer’s left arm uncoiled like a striking snake, swatting the pipe across the room. Meerschaum shattered against the far wall, spattered into smaller chips as those pieces hit the floor.

He lay motionless for a long second, observing himself as though from a great distance. And then, without warning, the distance was gone. Conrad felt himself return to his body, felt a chill ripple down his torso, his arms, his legs—and sensed that he was about to implode into a cold, focused murderousness once again. He discovered he could check that plunge—barely—by concentrating on not doing so. But then his mind began to slip, he felt himself start to tumble down into himself—until he fixed his concentration on the shattered pieces of meerschaum. He started to count them, taking care to note the peculiarities of each shard’s shape so that he would not count it twice …

By the time he had counted to seven, he discovered that he had swung back from the steep slope that led down to where the implosion of his selfhood would evert, threatening to burst forth as mindless sociopathia. Evidently, the narrowing of consciousness that this new drug could impart during a crisis also helped him fight off any residual effects of the opium. Which meant that, at least for now, whatever Al-Aftal had put in his last pipeful was ironically helping Conrad get through the earliest stages of withdrawal. And the more control he had, and could keep, the better.

So: he would live without the opium. And while life might be no more precious now than it was a minute ago, his final scrap of pride—the power to be the arbiter of his own demise—was not only still in his possession, but might ultimately become the cornerstone upon which to rebuild what the opium had eroded.

That realization—and resolve—was refreshing, like alpine water splashed sharply into one’s face. But von Harrer knew he could not maintain the sharp-edged clarity he needed unless it was fixed upon an object of intense urgency, something more riveting that counting broken pieces of meerschaum. And he already knew the best way to both maintain that focus, and also harness the ever-incipient implosion into murderous sociopathia to a useful purpose. He would go to Al-Aftal’s and take back what had been taken from him.

He stretched his neck to test the extent of pain and, crudely, the limits of the muscle damage. Well, not so bad after all. Much less extensive than the concussion he had received from being too close to a flurry of dirigible-dropped dynamite bombs on the retreat from the siegeworks around Port Elizabeth. Of course, he had had the discipline to master pain easily then. Since coming to Al Qahira and into the embrace of opium, that strength of will had slipped from him even faster than his possessions. But it had not disappeared entirely; calling upon it now, he could feel it stirring, returning, wavering but glad for the summons, like a neglected hound staggering back to its master.

He looked out the window and directly into the setting sun. 5:30 PM in this latitude, plus or minus 15 minutes. He could feel poppy-nurtured lethargy threaten his focus as he studied the horizon—and realized that he could not afford any quiet reveries: he needed to remain in motion, to stay active in pursuit of specific tasks, until he collapsed into exhausted sleep.

Conrad rose to his feet, felt strong. Surprisingly strong. Stronger than I should, he realized: probably another strange gift of whatever was put in my opium. That, and the energy that came from having a strong purpose once again—such as seeking personal redress and, perhaps, a bit of vengeance.

Square-legged, he stood at the small, narrow dresser that served as his night-table, opened its battered bottom drawer, and removed the last bundle of his old possessions, all stored in the grey, standard-issue haversack that had accompanied him on the long journey from Bavaria to Africa. He removed his last possession of any value—a 7.63 mm Mauser with extended magazine well—and, inspecting it, watched as its long, tapering 6” barrel caught a final spindle of the red-orange sunset. Its wooden holster—which doubled as a detachable stock—was still sound, as were the twelve, fully loaded stripper clips of ten rounds each. He released the safety, opened the action, inserted one of the clips into the top of the magazine, pushed down on the vertical stack of bullets until the topmost—the last—was seated firmly. Maintaining light pressure on the hammer, he repeated the process with another of the ten-round “chargers”, after which he removed his thumb from the hammer. He pulled out the empty clip, and the bolt ran home with a sharp crack.

He placed the weapon and its holster on the bed before removing the last contents of the haversack: his old fatigues, tightly rolled around cedar shavings. The swirl of memories that were released when he unrolled them, both bitter and sweet, nearly staggered him. Once again, he felt the camaraderie and purpose that suffused his regiment when it had debarked at Luderitz in German Southwest Africa, the thrill of impending victory less than five months later, and then the horror and despair that had rained down upon them in the shape of bombs from dirigibles and rods from beyond the clouds, from the very edge of space itself.

He pushed the images away: no, no memories tonight. Not for a long time. Memories made him susceptible to his craving for opium, weakened him, slowed him, broke the chain of action. Action. He needed action. And he needed it now.

Pulling on his fatigues with fast, rough familiarity, he planned out his route to Al-Aftal’s house: he would head west, but not along the main road, the shari Al-Azhar. Rather, he would wind through the labyrinth of alleys to its north, avoiding any official eyes that might later remember him, any blackcoats that might detain him. But once he had finished his—visit—to Al-Aftal’s, then where? After tonight, Al Qahira would not be safe for him. So he had to think beyond retrieving his money, beyond avenging himself and rejuvenating the last scraps of pride he possessed: he had to think about how he would get out of the city, where he would flee to, and what he would need for that journey.

By the time he had set that firm task list for himself—and realized that the answers to these questions would largely be determined by what occurred at Al-Aftal’s—he found himself already standing in his fatigues, four more fully loaded chargers in his pockets. The detachable stock bulged awkwardly in the haversack that was slung low behind him, just above his rump. The holster-stock inside it was both concealed and cushioned by the shoddy street clothes he kept only because they might be a useful disguise, or a dinar’s worth of barter, sooner or later.

Yet, as little as he was carrying, Conrad still wished he could shed weight. Sustained combat in South Africa had taught him the true meaning and value of “traveling light,” and he momentarily regretted that he possessed the bulkiest of Mausers: it was considerably more cumbersome than those whose frames incorporated a customary ten-round magazine. But the trade-off—a weapon that was somewhat more clumsy but with twice the magazine capacity—was probably a blessing in disguise tonight. Al-Aftal usually had at least a dozen of his half-fed bandits around at any given time and they would not give Conrad the chance to reload very frequently—if at all. About which the close assaults into the Port Elizabeth trench lines had taught him one extremely relevant, and invariably true, lesson: that when the shooting starts, it is best to be able to keep rounds going down-range—almost without interruption—until the combat is over.

Von Harrer moved to the window. The light in the west was too dim to silhouette the far horizon behind which the pyramids were hidden. He decided he would miss those gargantuan tombs; although forbidding, they might also be the sentinels of something good in man. Nothing as lofty as hope, but at least they epitomized that perverse, persistent resolve to be greater than death. And maybe even a dogged will to survive. And for now, that was good enough for him.

He turned to leave, saw an eye peering up at him from the floor. A section of brow still curving inquisitively above it, the meerschaum pupil held his gaze for a second. Then, with great deliberateness, Conrad von Harrer took his first step toward the door. Meerschaum ground dryly under the heel of his boot. He strode briskly out, shut the door tightly behind him, heard the lock snap into place, pulled the key out of his breast pocket, and slid it under the door.

Truly, now, there was no turning back.

* * *

Hidden in the nighttime shadows not far from where Al Qahira’s Old Wall met the bricks of the Bab al-Futuh’s western tower, Conrad von Harrer watched as a caftaned figure strolled away from the door of a house across the small square. For the third time this evening, that figure began to walk a slow circuit around the isolated building, one hand settled on the hilt of a narrow tulwar. The guard’s glittering eyes swept across the lightless windows that flanked the street, his head turning slightly and pausing at the faintest sound from an adjacent roof.

The Cairene turned the far corner and into a narrow street, hard-packed sand rasping under his receding sandals. Using that sound to mask his own movement, von Harrer slipped out of the shadows, across the square, and around the other side of the house. Keeping close to its wall, he moved to the rear of the building and edged the left half of his face around that corner. The guard had not reached the opposite rear corner, but the steady rasp of his sandals was drawing closer to it. Five yards behind the house was a large cistern at which von Harrer had occasionally relieved his thirst. He crossed to and slid behind it as he unsheathed a short, broad knife and merged into its shadow.

That shadow fell eastward, away from a dim but steady light that sprang up from the direction of the Nile. That light was unlike the softer, wavering glows that emanated from oil lamps and ebbed out of shuttered windows into the Old City’s dusty lanes. This was a steady, whiter halo that stretched across half the western skyline. It limned the flat, stacked roofs that it crested and marked the ceaseless activity in Al Qahira’s European quarter. There, the nightly gaiety at Shepeard’s Hotel threw bright electric harshness up into the sky. It marked the parks and clubs on Gezirah Island, where gowned ladies spun in silken whirlpools at military balls. It marked the docks at Baluq, where steam-smoking river liners disgorged streams of tourists who brought money and the inclination to spend it freely. And not just in the clubs and the suqs—the congested, trackless bazaars that Al Qahira was famed for—but also in the less-well-advertised districts and establishments that lurked like dark secrets behind Al Qahira’s bright facade of colonial propriety.

Since the South African War, many of von Harrer’s fellow Europeans—but particularly the English—had become bolder, had begun to discover the exotic pleasures of opium, hashish, kat. And slowly, he reflected with a brittle smile, they, too, discovered the gnawing dependence and mounting cost of what they had mistakenly imagined would be an occasional, discreet, but deliciously wicked indulgence.

The guard’s steps were coming closer, the scraping having lost the accompanying whisper of a trailing echo. That meant the sound was no longer funneled down an alley, which in turn meant that the guard had turned the corner. The business-like stride broke briefly: von Harrer peeked around the well-shadowed side of the cistern.

The guard had stopped, his eyes losing their watchfulness as they seemed to succumb and be drawn to the same alluring glow over the western rooftops. The guard resumed his circuit, albeit more slowly, but his gaze was still westward.

Von Harrer hefted a small rock, moved to keep the bulk of the cistern between him and the guard as the sandals scraped closer and then abreast of his position.

The guard’s eyes finally left the night-lit horizon, blinked as they readjusted to the surrounding darkness.

Seizing that moment, von Harrer tossed the stone back behind the guard—

—who, hearing it clatter in the alley he had just left, spun. Tulwar starting to clear the sheath, the Cairene had almost fully reversed his facing to confront whatever was behind him—before starting to swing back again almost as quickly.

Even as von Harrer launched himself toward the guard’s back, he admired the street-senses that had checked his adversary’s first reaction. The Cairene had evidently discerned that the sound made by the stone was either too faint or too atypical to signify a human approach, that is was merely a pebble thrown to distract.

Stepping outside the guard’s turn, von Harrer used his left hand to catch and curl around the guard’s mouth, pulling sharply backward in the same motion. His stubby knife entered just to the left of the Arab’s spine and arced up under the shoulder blade: a surgeon’s thrust that found and stilled the heart.

Fearing the sound of the body’s fall, he clutched the guard’s corpse close. Together, they were an irregular mass of darkness that swayed softly, then steadied. Slowly, Conrad lowered the inert half of the shadow to the ground alongside the cistern. Remaining crouched, he flowed back around the rear corner and toward the front of the house.

Once there, he sidestepped up to the first shuttered window, listening. A dim murmur of voices. Von Harrer sunk lower, scuttled beneath the window and rose slightly once he had cleared to the other side. He listened briefly and then drew closer to the faint horizontal bars of yellow light that leaked out from behind the European-style shutters. He squinted, trying to see beyond the slats and the curlicues of peeling paint that clung to them.

The figures inside were distorted by the shutter-sliced view. Were there four of them, or five? There were either two or three standing on the left, faced by two on the right who did not move. The thickest of the figures on the left feigned a laugh, sat down. The two on the right remained silent, standing.

Von Harrer frowned; bad timing. Tactically fortuitous, of course: Al-Aftal—the thick figure—was distracted by visitors, and that was good. But the visitors were an unknown quantity. There was a low but undeniable chance that they were not part of Al-Aftal’s criminal traffic, that they were simply uninvolved, innocent people. More likely, they represented the tip of another monstrous tentacle from Al Qahira’s sprawling underworld. No, this was not the best time to press an attack, but it was also too late to stop. Surprise would only be on his side one time, and someone was sure to miss the steady tread of the guard. Very soon.

Von Harrer reached into the worn haversack that hung back against his right buttock, cast a quick glance into the darkness behind. No sounds or movement there. He angled his long-magazine Mauser out of the bag.

As he snapped the weapon’s safety to “off,” the light from the window began to waver slightly: one of the occupants was adjusting an oil lamp, which guttered as the wick receded. The bright bars that the shutters painted across Conrad’s face dimmed from yellow to amber to orange.

He checked that the other ten-round stripper clips were snug and ready, and discovered that he was panting. Panting because entering the house meant fully embracing the old terror that had been reborn at the foot of the cistern behind it, meant doing what he had sworn he would not: become a killer once again. Ever since Cecil Rhodes had bombed Johannesburg into flinders, ever since he had staggered out of that smoking moonscape with a handful of others, the mere thought of death, or killing, made him flinch toward the closest mental or physical bolt-hole he could find. It was bad enough that destruction had become so impersonal, but that it should become so sweeping, so arbitrary, and so swift—Conrad swallowed, realizing he was frozen in front of his enemy’s window, teetering on the edge of being paralyzed by fear. Again.

Anger welled up; he clenched his teeth, pulled in breath through flaring nostrils—and caught a stray wisp of the opium scent that was still on his clothes. His traitorous memory magnified that hint of pungence into long hours of blissful distraction, opened a trapdoor into the drug’s deep and trackless land.

Conrad forced himself to ignore the memory. Tipping forward, he put out one hand against the wall of Al-Aftal’s house, and spent a few seconds regathering his will. His ears were ringing slightly as he fought the lingering urge for opium—which became, with a sudden, almost dizzying twist, the same detached eagerness that once again obliterated everything else: time to act.

He pushed back carefully from the wall, noticed that the lamplight had faded to a small amber glow. Crouching, he ran his fingertips beneath the lower margin of the shutters, feeling for the eyehook that, as he had seen during prior visits, held them closed from within.

The eyehook was fastened. Not a major concern, but it meant that there would be a moment’s resistance before the shutters swung inward. Only a fraction of a second, true, but a very risky one: he could not afford to be caught coming through the window, framed as a perfect target. No, his entry would have to be in two stages: first, open the window and clear the room; then, go inside.

He backed up a half step, came forward again, kicking waist-high with his right foot. The shutters crashed open, one splintering off its upper hinge. Inside, four men stood stunned, gathered around the seated, extraordinary bulk of Al-Aftal. They were already turning toward Conrad, but before they did, he saw what had held their interest so intently: there was a book—a ledger maybe?—open on Al-Aftal’s commodious lap.

Von Harrer pushed close against the left side of the window sill for cover, secured the Mauser by snugging his left hand under the barrel in front of the magazine, and began to squeeze the weapon’s trigger. The smaller (but faster) of Al-Aftal’s own two men splayed backward with a groan, his right hand flying up, interrupted in its grab toward the .455 Webley revolver which Conrad had seen him carry. Al-Aftal’s other guard took a moment longer to react, and in that second, was falling backward, two of three rounds catching him dead on the body’s centerline, just above and below the clavicle.

Al-Aftal was rising out of his seat, puffing in rage and surprise—and sat down heavily when two more rounds from the Mauser cut through his softer flesh, both slightly lower in the chest. He quaked, grunted twice, and was still.

But, surprisingly, it was the other two—the ones who had been nearly motionless up until this moment—who now reacted with the greatest speed. One swept an unthinkably fast hand under his jacket; the other swept up the book that had fallen from the folds of Al-Aftal’s lap.

Even as von Harrer turned toward the first of the unidentified pair, he saw a small revolver already in that man’s hand, bearing upon him.

Conrad rocked away from the window as the weapon spat and clipped splinters from the shutter he was sheltering behind. Without losing the momentum, von Harrer rocked back and fired four return shots from the Mauser, aiming from memory.

Only one of the four rounds hit the man—but that one struck him almost directly in the heart. Von Harrer was preparing to shift his aim to the second figure when he realized that the man he had just undoubtedly killed was still, impossibly, upright, revolver wobbling back in his direction. Conrad, trying to remember if he had ever seen a man survive a shot so close to the heart, popped another round into the thin fellow. Then another. And another.

Von Harrer felt a sudden flash of mortal fear—why won’t this one die?—when, just before firing a sixth round into the narrow chest, the man’s body tilted slowly, stiffly backward, almost as though it was already suffering from the onset of rigor mortis. Conrad swallowed as he tracked after the second fleeing figure, peering over the Mauser’s wand-like barrel—and was startled to see that this new target had already reached the mouth of the passageway that led to the back bedrooms. As Conrad fired, his suddenly redoubled focus explained how the second man had covered so much ground already: this one is moving too fast, faster than any human can move.

The eerie chill of that realization was washed away by shock—and then, as if summoned forth by his own sudden panic, Conrad’s sense of detachment abruptly increased. And along with it, his physical senses suddenly burgeoned outward and attained a monstrous acuity. Despite the darkness, he saw—clearly and undeniably saw—the round he had fired at the fleeing man punch through his clothing in the vicinity of the right kidney. The wound staggered the fellow into the mud-brick wall, but the almost gaunt figure pushed away and was upright almost instantly, the book clutched under his free arm, his hips flexing to recommence sprinting.

Von Harrer ignored his surprise—at his own suddenly sharpened senses, his enemy’s resilience, and their startlingly similar speed—and fired three more times. One round missed, one round struck his target in the left scapula, and the last one cut into the base of his neck. The book still clutched to his chest, the man toppled forward as rigidly as a felled tree. Just like the other had.

For a moment, the house was quiet around von Harrer—except for his own desperate and startled panting. What in the name of God is happening? How is it that they—and that I—am able to—?

From the rear of the house, muffled cries of alarm vied with excited, clumsy movement. Upstairs, sleep-thick voices were shouting questions, cursing.

Conrad vaulted into the room, moved stealthily toward the hallway that led to the rear of the house—

A guard—the same one that had beaten him so brutally last night—rounded that corner, raising a Lee-Enfield rifle. With an inarticulate cry of surprise, and maybe rage, the Cairene hardly bothered to aim before squeezing the trigger—but instead of loosing a wild shot, he loosed a savage oath: he had forgotten the safety.

Conrad brought up the Mauser smoothly, told himself that this was his moment of vengeance—and discovered that the ruthless doppelganger inside him did not care. Only the killing—the quick, efficient meting out of death—seemed to matter. His first shot chopped messily through the man’s chin, just beneath the teeth which had smiled down in cruel triumph over him last night. The second bullet went directly into his heart. And von Harrer swallowed, afraid—not at the man, who was quite dead—but at himself: he was a good shot, but not this good, and certainly not this swift. And stranger still, he did not feel as though he was moving particularly quickly. Rather, it felt as though the world was slowing down. And as each shot became easier, and more sure, the more distant any echoes of human compassion and empathy became. Not because the instinct of self-preservation had overridden them—as usually happened in combat—but because he found it increasingly harder to perceive any kinship between himself and the humans he was killing.

But even that troubling realization did not deter him; as soon as the Cairene had fallen, von Harrer sank into a lower posture and resumed his sprint toward the rear hallway’s entrance. He checked the Mauser’s magazine as he ran: one round left.

As he slid to a stop against the wall flanking the doorway, he heard movement in the adjoining hall: scrambling feet, hoarse mutters. He ejected the last round in the magazine, snatched a single ten-round charging clip out of his breast pocket, inserted it, slammed the bullets down into the gun, yanked the empty charger out of the weapon.

As the bolt ran home with a clack, four local thugs came rushing out, knives and pistols ready—but not expecting the point-blank and unerring fusillade into which they emerged. Two were down before any of them were aware they were being fired on. Another fired a wild shot before he fell. The last—who had stumbled as his tightly packed comrades sprawled around and into him—took a bullet through the forehead as he was trying to get back to his feet.

Some part of von Harrer’s mind stuttered distantly—and all done without effort, or fear, or a single missed shot; how is this possible?—while he watched his machine-like hands yank two more chargers out of his pocket, and push their loads, one after the other, into the Mauser.

Von Harrer listened as he eased the bolt forward, the pistol now heavy with twenty rounds. The movement in the upstairs loft had become stealthy. There was at least one person up there, but maybe two. And then, with a clarity that he had never experienced at such a distance, he distinctly heard the soft kra-click, kra-click of rounds being loaded into a rifle. All the way up in the loft. Then, more hushed words and footfalls. Two sets of them.

He moved into the kitchen opposite the stairs into the loft, snatched up a light chair, re-crossed to the wall, flattened against it, and set the chair down so it was just barely concealed from the stairway, tucked behind the near corner.

Von Harrer could hear each step of each foot as they crept down, knew the moment that the first one’s foot touched the last step just around the corner from him. He waited until he heard, less than two feet away, a soft intake of breath, a rustle of rushing fabric as the man began his charge: at the same moment, Conrad brought up his Mauser and tipped the chair out beyond the corner so that it fell in front of the staircase.

The first thug’s galabiyah became a whirl of confusion as he tumbled into and over the chair, an old Martini rifle spinning away. Wasting no time on that one, von Harrer swung halfway around the corner into the stairway, firing as he did so.

Two of the three rounds hit the startled Arab who was standing there, hapless and the plainest possible target.

Ignoring the body bumping down the stairs, Conrad turned back to the guard who was scrambling to get disentangled from the chair and back on his feet. One round to the sternum ended those struggles. Von Harrer stopped, rotated his head, listened for further sounds in the house.

Nothing. Old training came back as a set of almost reflexive tasks, with which Conrad displaced an almost reflexive compulsion to find and move on to the next kill—wherever it might happen to be. So, Leutnant von Harrer, tactical review. The answer was immediate: twelve enemies accounted for, ten from this house. Probably all that were here. He could count on at least ten minutes before authorities would show up. Probably longer, but if there were any blackcoat patrols who had moved into the area after Conrad had finished scouting it during his approach, he could not count on more time—and he had to be gone long before any authorities arrived.

Mauser held in front of him—quavering slightly now that he was no longer possessed by what felt like an alter-ego killer instinct—Conrad moved quickly through the cluttered rooms. He had not started toward Al-Aftal’s house with any clear intent other than to reclaim the monies which had been stolen from him and which he had spent on the poisoned opium. But halfway on his circuitous approach, he realized that he had to do more than simply reclaim his money: he could not afford to ignore the other resources that would be there for the taking. He would need them—all of them—to make good his escape from Egypt.

Conrad paused, reluctant to abandon the scruples he had always maintained in regard to the dead. He had steadfastly refused to strip fallen enemies in South Africa. Conversely, the Boers had merely shrugged at his chivalry and taken “his share”: the war had taught them that the dead have no need for possessions, have no pride to injure, have no protest to offer. And the Boers could not afford what they considered his fine, aristocratic scruples.

And now, he admitted, neither could he. Von Harrer set to work briskly; he snatched up empty bags he found in the kitchen, and began his piratical circuit of the rest of the house.

By the time he had returned to the front room four minutes later, his primary concern lay in deciding how much of the spoils he could carry, and therefore, which items were the most valuable or necessary, those criterion not necessarily being one in the same. The money—156 pounds sterling (six of which were his, along with a shilling and tuppence), 228 francs, 531 lira, and almost 1000 dinars—was both portable and useful and therefore already stuffed in his pockets and haversack. The two British .455 Webley revolvers he had found were in good condition and supplied with a reasonable amount of ammunition; he’d sell one, but keep the majority of the rounds. The pistols went into his belt, the ammunition into his haversack. The other pistols were archaic, single action revolvers; not worth the weight of carrying, nor worth the further trouble of finding the now-rare ammunition. Of the two rifles, the Martini was both inferior and in poor repair. The Lee-Enfield was quite modern, well-maintained and had over 100 rounds, still in tidy British Army-issue boxes. But how to carry it inconspicuously?

Memory obliged; Al-Aftal had a small paddock on the right side of the building, the side opposite the one he had used earlier. Checking the flimsy enclosure, he found two sour-looking (and -smelling) camels kneeling there. Satisfied, he moved back inside, snatching up a pair of saddlebags as he went.

Rice, loaves, lentils, goat cheese, and water skins went into one. The other quickly bulged with a few better articles of local clothing, and the rifle’s ammunition. The Lee-Enfield found a home in the center of a hastily rolled and tied-off rug. Satisfied, Conrad gave one quick look around the outer room, ignoring the bodies as best he could. Not that he was squeamish about death; he hadn’t been to begin with, and any lingering childhood training to either fear or revere corpses had been well-purged from him in South Africa.

What troubled him now was his certainty that, if a new threat arose, and his other, sociopathic doppelganger identity emerged again, the accumulation of even more corpses—like the bodies littering the room around him—would suddenly be of no greater concern to him than adding to a collection of broken coffee tables. And the more he added, the less they would all matter.

Forcing himself to move away from reflection, from unfocused thoughts of any kind, Conrad scanned the room: was there anything else he had missed? Nothing but fripperies, questionable objets d’art, a few dusty tomes—

—Wait. The book. The book on Al-Aftal’s lap. That might be worth something. It had certainly earned the rapt, even greedy attention of Al-Aftal, to whom the word “avaricious” had been applied as a comic understatement. Von Harrer turned to get the book—

—and stopped. Getting the book involved wresting it from the hands of the fellow who had been running with frankly inhuman speed, and who had only fallen to three bullets that would each have incapacitated or killed most men.

The hair on the back of Conrad’s neck prickled and rose at the memory. He had seen men do impossible things in the war; charging with their intestines shot away, lifting caissons off pinned comrades, throwing themselves out of second-story windows and then jumping up and running away. But finally, even those extraordinary actions had somehow looked natural when undertaken; despite the impossibility of the feat, it had been done with human fluidity, at a human speed.

Conrad approached the book-bearer’s body: this man’s sprint had been eerily different. It wasn’t that his strides were longer, or particularly rapid. It was rather that he had looked almost mechanical, like a kinescope Conrad had once seen of a dancing puppet, run at double speed.

As drew up to the body, he prodded it with a testing boot. No response. Reaching down, he rolled the man over; he was as stiff as a tightly rolled rug. Conrad pried the book loose from the chest-clenched arms, looked down at it.

And started. The cover was titled in an unreadable, serpentine script. From his days at Heidelberg—where he had skipped classes in medical science to audit others in anthropology—Conrad knew enough about the globe’s many forms of writing to know that it was not Arabic of any kind or epoch, nor Sanskrit, nor even the fiery scripts of Nepal or Siam. These letters—if that’s what they were—were not merely unfamiliar; their shapes and calligraphic flow were like nothing he had ever seen before.

The tome’s scent was equally unique. The first whiff suggested—unsurprisingly—the extreme age of the volume; a slow, murky odor that left him with images of tombs and dark places that have never seen the sun. But then, upon bringing his nose closer, Conrad detected—what? A strange mix of cloves, almonds, and cardamom, blended with what smelled like rotting incense. It was simultaneously compelling and repulsive.

Wondering if there were any answers to be found on or in between its pages, Conrad carefully thumbed at the cover, found it held fast. He soon found the cause: each side of the volume was secured with what looked like a brass lock—or perhaps a Byzantine puzzle-box?—of unusual design. And more of the same serpentine script adorned each.

Von Harrer held the book back from him for a moment. Was it an ancient artifact? Perhaps the treasure of some archaeologist-turned-grave-robber, now fallen into the clutches of the black market antiquarians who were reputed to be as ruthless as they were obsessed? There certainly were enough of them about, these days. Some of them were even sending their larcenous lackeys to Mars, eager to find objects that would command thousands of pounds—at the very least—from the new, richly funded Areology departments of many of the world’s most prestigious universities—

“It does not have the answer you seek.”

Conrad felt his hairline yank backwards, felt his lungs cease in mid-breath, discovered that he had leaped at least four feet to the rear without having any thought—or awareness—of doing so.

Because the dead man had spoken.

Well, not dead, obviously, but from all appearances, he ought to have been. His pallor and the rigidity of his flesh evoked childhood stories of the dead that prowled the night, hungry for the flesh of living humans.

But ghouls did not bleed, or swallow with a sound like cardboard grinding, or smile. A smile made horrible by its inhuman calm and certainty.

“I—I don’t seek any answer,” von Harrer stammered down at the near-corpse, peering over the barrel of his Mauser.

The smile widened. “Yes. You do. You just do not know it yet.”

Strange. The man’s English was accented, but he was no Arab. Nor an Asian or an African: European. And not merely thin, but gaunt. “So if the book does not have the answer I seek, what does it contain?”

“It sets forth the question.”

“The question I have not yet discovered I am asking?”

“That. And all other questions, as well.”

Von Harrer frowned. “I have no time for pointless riddles.”

“When a small child hears a scholar speak on his chosen subject, it sounds like pointless riddles to the child. Doesn’t it, Herr von Harrer?”

Conrad felt a rush of heat run up his body, then a wave of cold chase it back down. He shuddered. “How do you know my name?”

“The Cleansed always know the names of those they would Clean. So you are known to us.”

“And who are you?”

The man’s smile became more terrifying: it was as beatific as that of a true-believing Inquisitor boiling a heretic in oil. “I, we, and now you, are the Cleansed.”

Conrad tried to keep his pistol hand from shaking. “I am Cleansed? Of what?”

“You have been Cleansed of the delusions of selfhood, of community, of speciate destiny. You have been purged of the perversity of pride. Once again, you are pleasing to the Elder Gods.”

“Maybe not so pleasing as you think. I came here tonight—killed you tonight—because I still have some pride left. And it is growing.”

“You are wrong: it is dying. Although, in the act of killing, you feel power, and you may mistake that feeling of power for pride. No matter; it is not uncommon. I believe I had much the same journey before my Cleansing was complete, but I cannot remember. It hardly matters, anymore. Deeds do not matter, we do not matter, time does not matter. You will feel this soon enough. The Cleaner is new in you and so has had only a little time to work.”

“The Cleaner?”

“Yes: the substance that was mixed into your opium.”

Von Harrer grimaced: so I’m right, I was poisoned. “What is this Cleaner?”

“An herb infused with the effluvia of special animals. The mixture is harmless unless burned and inhaled. In that state, miniscule organisms within it—smaller than most cells—survive the combustion and settle in your lungs. Where they breed.”

Conrad blinked. So—not a drug? A bacteria? A virus? “Is there a cure?”

But the smiling man either did not hear Conrad or did not care to. “The Cleaner takes a month or more to complete its purging of the host, in most cases. The process may even last half a year, if the host has both an especially strong body and strong perversities of pride. But sooner or later, the Cleaner will pervade your flesh and you will know the glorious peace that comes with freedom from cares. The Freedom you feel when the Cleaner speaks to you—as it is already doing, I perceive.”

“You call this—this senseless mania for killing ‘freedom from cares’?” Von Harrer brought up the Mauser sharply, angrily. “You aspire to live without a conscience?”

The beatific smile grew wider than ever. “Of course we do. See: you have made the connection yourself. The only way one can be free is to live without a conscience. Without laws. Without promises. Without cares. Without worry. And so, ultimately, without fear or even want. To live without constraints.”

“And without hope.”

“That is the pinnacle of achievement, brother. To be Cleansed of hope is to be Cleansed of life. Then, one simply is. Until one is not.”

“A nice way to say that you are simply walking around when you are already dead inside.”

The man’s smile seemed to sharpen; his eyes sought von Harrer’s. “No. The truth—now and always—is that from the moment we are born, we are merely walking dust. It is our fate. And our only happiness—our only freedom—lies in accepting that truth. And final acceptance means an embrace of it.”

Conrad heard the man’s voice faltering into thready unsteadiness, realized that he was slipping away. And realized a moment later that, when this man was finally dead, there would be no way to learn anything further about what he—and evidently others—had done to Conrad. He also realized that, by now, the blackcoats were probably on their way. “So even if I managed to—to ‘stop’—the Cleaner, it wouldn’t matter. My fate is sealed.”

“At birth, brother.”

“So then you have no reason not to tell me how to stop the Cleaner?”

“No, I don’t—but I am not the one who knows how to stop it.”

“Who is?”

“The Triumvirate.”

“And who are they?”

“I do not know their names. But they have knowledge of who grows the mloolj, and the Cleaner in which it grows, that is even now Cleansing you into dust.”

“And this Triumvirate, they have a cure for it?”

“That is the rumor.”

“And where can I find this ‘Triumvirate’?”

The man’s response was hoarse; his eyelids fluttered asynchronously. “They reside in Thrynoo’ul, farthest of the Bowl Cities.”

Von Harrer frowned. “Thrin-oo-ul? Bowl Cities? What are you talking about?” Had the man become so weakened that he was now hallucinating, or, perhaps, aphasic, spouting nonsense-words instead of the ones he intended?

But that did not seem to be the case. His eyes swiveled around to meet Conrad’s again. “Ignorant children should not be impatient with their learned elders. Thrynoo’ul is in what you call Dirce Fons.”

Well, that at least sounded like a place. Latin, even. “This Dirce Fons: is it an old Roman colony that I might know by another name?”

But at the words “old Roman colony,” the dying man emitted a weak gargle of laughter. “No. Dirce Fons has known the banner of many empires, but not Rome’s.” He smiled. “That conquest would have been beyond even legendary Caesar’s ambition. He never—could not have—heard of Dirce Fons. It is simply a prideful Latin name scribbled on a map.”

“A map? Of what?”

“Of Mars.”

Von Harrer felt the sparse contents of his stomach move up quickly; he clenched his teeth, tightened the muscles in his throat and diaphragm, forced the vomit to remain where it was. “Thrynoo’ul is on Mars?”

“Was I not clear the first time? It is …”—the man’s eyelids faltered, his mouth began to slacken—“… far. Very far. Bowl. Cities. They remember. Dust. Sleep. Perchance dream. Sleep. Sommeil. S’endormir. En poussière. Que la poussière. Poussière. [Sleep. To sleep, In Dust. As dust. Dust.]” 

His end was sudden and harsh. His body jerked once, so hard that his upper back and lower legs spasmed off the ground, his eyes suddenly wide and staring, his mouth open to scream—but the only sound that came out was a flutter of old cardboard and a faint gargle.

The lifeless back and legs eventually sagged back into contact with the ground; the man’s face remained as fixed as a death mask, his limbs rigid, his neck cords still taut and in high relief against his wasted neck and shoulder.

Conrad took a step away from the body. He had known that attacking Al-Aftal’s house would necessitate a flight from Al Qahira, and probably Egypt as well—but all the way to Mars? He looked back at the body, frozen in its final hideous contortion, but more terrifying for what it had lost before it died: all pride, all hope. And if there was only one way—and only one place—to avoid coming to such an end, then Conrad von Harrer had little choice as to his next destination: the Fort Napoleon aerostation in Alexandria.

A distant street bell rang. Much further off, a blackcoat whistle—those issued to the military provost troops—shrilled an almost inaudible reply. That might be in response to any one of a dozen felonies probably under way within the surrounding square mile—but to presume that was to tempt fate. The odds were that the body of the guard he had killed outside had been seen, and, after much fretful indecision, finally reported. And now the Cairene night watch was calling its colonial overlords to the scene of the crime.

Conrad scanned the room one last time: nothing more of interest. Hefting the last of his bags up higher on his shoulder, he stretched out a foot toward the small lamp that had silhouetted Al-Aftal and his visitors at the start of the attack. He tipped over the small three-legged table on which the oil lamp still burned low. A small but spreading blaze resulted.

He turned and went to load the camels. Smelling smoke, they would no doubt be unusually willing to move, and rapidly.

* * *

Three hours later, wrapped in a galabiyah taken from Al-Aftal’s, Conrad von Harrer sat upon the sand beneath the south slopes of the Citadel of Salah Al-Din. He sighed, felt the weight of twelve more lives bearing down into his mloolj-infected lungs, and exhaled forcefully, as if that might expel both the toxic guilt and microorganisms. No looking back, he reprimanded himself; his actions at Al-Aftal’s had been regrettable but necessary. And to revisit them, to even think about them—well, down that path lay renewed cravings for opium.

The camels stirred behind him, making a strange noise halfway between mewling and growling. He would wait for the next day’s inevitable caravan—a grandiose name for the collection of petty merchants who made a humble living by crossing and recrossing the twenty miles between Al Qahira and the town of Helwan. The new railway linking it to Al Qahira had been rushed to completion to help consolidate the blackcoats’ ready reach further up the Nile. So, for the past year and for the foreseeable future, materials and personnel earmarked to fuel the further southward extension of the railhead at Helwan had first priority on the trains.

As a result, Helwan—population booming in response to its new importance—had more need of food and wares than ever. And the considerable population of rail workers had appetites that were both larger and more diverse than those that could be satisfied by the plain company rations, goods, and prostitutes that made the trip south along with the supplies and tools that fed the building of a railway.

Consequently, there were daily “caravans” from the southwest extent of Al Qahira to Helwan. The merchants gathered an hour or so before sunrise so that they might travel together in accord with the unspoken and traditional axiom that strength in numbers warded off bandits. As they gathered, von Harrer would go down to them slowly, giving them ample time to assess him while pretending not to notice him. They would see his white skin and weapons and translate them into their own mercantile terms: that this infidel was probably no danger to them, but probably a considerable danger to bandits. He would be accepted, would not be spoken to. And he would not speak to them as they made their slow passage south.

Once in Helwan, he would part from them with small, wordless tokens of his thanks—nothing so lavish as to be particularly memorable or suspicious or insulting, but enough to signify that he had been grateful for their forbearance in letting a stranger—and an infidel Frank, no less—travel in their company. And if, by any chance, that made those petty merchants a shade less willing to report him to whatever authorities might possibly drift south to seek a German national for questioning up in Al Qahira, it would be money well spent.

For the two days after that, von Harrer would sell his wares to company employees, who always had some European currency and enough of it to afford to spend more than the regular residents. He would take one used English suit in exchange, as well. Keeping only the best of the guns, he would book a common fare on the return train to Al Qahira, but also, buy a continuing ticket that would take him all the way up to Alexandria. It was likely that by the time he returned to Al Qahira, the blackcoats would no longer be watching the main rail station, having presumed that anyone intent on fleeing the city by train would have done so immediately. They would also have presumed that a fugitive would not flee south, but north. Where, of course, an outlaw would long since have disappeared into one of the populous cities of the Mediterranean coast, in which further avenues of escape and opportunities for hiding were plentiful.

Fortunately, the train from Helwan came in just across the platform from the Alexandria line, and Conrad would make the switch between them just a few minutes before the departure of the latter. Of course, his luggage would already be on board waiting for him, carried over by a porter well beforehand and checked through to Alexandria. Conrad was loath to let so much fine equipment leave his immediate possession, but on the other hand, he conceded that no matter how casual he kept his movements, a man hurriedly carrying a rifle and ammunition-laden bags just might attract official attention. With all the soldiers, mercenaries, and corporate troops in the area, the portage of arms themselves was not noteworthy—unless a single individual was carrying a disproportionate amount and in haste.

Once in Alexandria, von Harrer would waste no time: he would head straight to the Fort Napoleon aerostation and book swift passage to Mars. It would be expensive, but if he traded well in Helwan and lived as simply as possible, he would be able to afford the ticket that would allow him to climb aboard one of the air ferries that would take him almost a mile and a half up to the mid-air transfer station. And once on that station—part balloon and part aether-lifted platform—he would witness for himself what the whole world had been talking about for two years, in tones at once admiring, awestruck, and anxious: he would see a true aethership. A marvel of engineering that traveled between the planets. A liner that carried tourists and troops, investors and adventurers, to see, and often seize, the ancient wonders of decaying Mars. A ship that was simply a larger version of the craft which, from unthinkable altitudes, had announced the achievement of spaceflight to the world by dropping flurries of penetrator rods on Johannesburg—and so, wiped it off the map in five minutes’ time.

The camels mewl-growled again, made a grating noise as they settled into the sand to sleep. Conrad admitted that sleep seemed like a good idea, particularly since, at this particular moment, he was free of the withdrawal symptoms of the opium. So, resolving to get any rest that his unpredictably rebellious body allowed, he stretched slowly out upon the sand, wrapped himself tighter in the galabiyah.

He did not reflect upon his past deeds, or uncertain future, but simply concentrated on what his senses reported to him. He smelled the musky stink of the camels, felt the light breath of the wind, and saw the stars clear and unblinking overhead. He stared at them gratefully, wondered how he could have forgotten how reassuring they could be.

Reassuring enough to give the gift of untroubled sleep.

* * *

Part Two: Red Dust

As the winged, wedge-shaped aetherboat broke free of the thin clouds, a growing hum rose to match the faint, harmonic vibration now running down the centerboard of the observation gallery, from which Conrad von Harrer stared down at the surface of Mars.

Despite all the detailed tourist circulars and after-dinner areology lectures by the academics on board the SA Agincourt, Conrad still found his first glimpse of the so-called Red Planet arresting. Firstly, seen up close, its surface was not a uniform red at all, but a dull, mottled mélange of ochre and dusty brick expanses. At a distance—particularly during the last four days of approach—these details had still been invisible to the naked eye, and so the color had been a bright roseate glow, thanks to the play of the sun upon the whole hemisphere—clouds and all. But now, with the thin, tapering clouds behind and the irregular ground rising up, the almost metaphysical beauty of Mars as seen from deep space had suffered the corrupting effects of closer observation. Its coloration was not only patchy and distempered, but stretched across a surface that appeared to have been savagely scarred by both smallpox and machetes.

Directly below, the largest of these geological cicatrices yawned impossibly wider as they approached: it was the immense Vallis Agathodaemonis. Despite the Latinate label that had been affixed to it by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiapparelli, it was not, in fact, a valley at all, but a steep-sided tectonic rift that dwarfed equivalent terrestrial structures. Whereas America’s famous Grand Canyon was up to 18 miles wide and slightly over a mile in depth, the Vallis Agathodaemonis was 120 miles wide and almost 5 miles deep in places. And whereas the Grand Canyon meandered over a course slightly greater than 250 miles in length, its Martian analog was visible even to terrestrial telescopes as a 2500-mile gash in the dirt-red surface of that dry world.

As they began to slip down past the upper fringes of the northern canyon walls, the humming and vibration in the keel-following gallery increased and their descent slowed even more. Now they seemed to be floating downward—and heading directly toward the center of what appeared to be, at this range, a gyre of immense, multi-colored leaves, spinning slowly up or down as the drafts might take them.

“Damn Martians and their twice-damned balloons,” groused the man next to Conrad in the direction of what no longer looked quite so much like an airborne clutter of swirling leaves. “Fifty million miles from London, and still there’s no escaping the bloody traffic.”

Conrad stole a careful look at the man. His bowler, conservative suit, mustaches and accent identified him no less certainly than his business card would have: John Bull, Esq.; Senior Representative of any London Bank You Cared to Name. A stout fellow of the Old School who didn’t care a whit for nine-tenths of the modern rubbish being peddled by stores, at schools, around the hearth, or in the bedroom. At his club, he was a dauntless Champion of Christian Charity, White Man’s Burden, Social Darwinism and all that rot. At his office, he was a sharp-eyed New Imperialist who was proud of his signed photograph of Cecil Rhodes, proud of his Anglo-Saxon heritage, and proud that he could squeeze every last tuppence of concessions from any member of the Lesser Races, no matter their particular color, continent, or planet of origin. In short, he was one of the new masters of the British Empire, whose propensity for ruling abroad through force had begun to increasingly inform the means of maintaining order at home. Goodbye John Stuart Mill; welcome back Loyalty Oaths, bills of attainder, and oubliettes.

His traveling partner—a lean, dapper man who was nonetheless a cultural twin of the first—smiled faintly at the loud gaiety the appearance of the Martian dirigibles occasioned in the other passengers. Then he glanced down the brass railing at Conrad. “Pardon the intrusion, but have you been out to Mars before? You do not seem to be afflicted by the gushing enthusiasm of so many of our fellow travelers.”

Von Harrer almost started. He had sat down next to these two fellows precisely because he wanted to minimize his contact with any of the other passengers. He had therefore conjectured that insinuating himself into the ranks of the infamously reserved English would be his best armor against social interaction. But some of the English could be damnably social, and in that easy, affable way that made any rebuff so unwontedly boorish as to be surprising. And surprise—any reaction that was likely to call attention to itself or be remembered—was exactly what Conrad wished to avoid.

He looked into the second man’s patient, pale blue eyes and shook his head, deciding against trying to conceal his accent: his English was not good enough to assay it. Not with native speakers. “No. It is my first trip.”

The huskier, irritable Englishman looked up sharply. “You sound to have an accent, sir.”

Conrad longed to point out that the liner they had just left was as thoroughly international an environment as could be imagined, and, from that perspective, everyone had an accent. But Conrad suppressed that retort and merely nodded. “Yes. I am from Switzerland.” Which had regions where the enunciation was similar enough to his Bavarian accent—sibilant and with more relaxed slurring than Hoch Deutsch—to ensure safety from further suspicion.

The one with the blue eyes smiled with his mouth, but his eyes opened a bit, as if he was mildly surprised. However, the first Englishman underwent a considerable change: his glowering frown melted, gave way to a slight, sardonic smile. “Ah, well, that’s all right then. Sensible folk, you Swiss. Your accounts are always to the penny. And you stay out of fights that aren’t your business. Not like those damned Germans and Austrians, boarding troopships in Hamburg and Trieste so eagerly you’d have thought they were going to fight for their own colonies, not the bloody Boers. I don’t envy you, having the Kaiser for a neighbor: one day you might wake up and find his spike-helmeted Huns marching through your streets.”

“Tut, tut, Reggie,” commented the other. “You know as well as I do those Germans were volunteers. The Austrians, too.”

“Volunteers, eh? Whole regiments, ‘volunteering’ to a man? Quite a uniform show of unsolicited fellowship, I must say.”

Conrad felt heat rush into his face as Reggie concluded his uncomfortably accurate observations on the German involvement in the Boer War. Conrad’s regiment, like the others, had been “asked” for volunteers—but it was understood that two times their regular pay was to be provided as “a token of appreciation” by contributions from German industrialists, many of whom had Dutch partners in Amsterdam. It was also understood that those who fought in South Africa would be first in line for promotions and decorations when they returned. Which, given the anti-British sentiment that the press had been drumming up for years, was all it had taken to induce over 95 % of the six regiments to report en masse to the troopships in Hamburg. And Conrad, looking back, felt a cold, gnawing shame at not only his gullibility, but at his callow belief that war might earn some measure of the respect and public distinction that would have accrued to him had he become the doctor that it was now quite obvious he was never going to become.

“I say, you’re looking rather unwell.” The Englishman with the blue eyes was surveying him carefully. “First flushed, now pale. Haven’t been suffering the mal d’espace on the journey, have you?”

“Some,” Conrad lied. “I spent much of the trip in my cabin, I’m afraid.” Which was, conveniently, quite true, but not because of space-sickness. By the time he had reached Alexandria, the symptoms of opium withdrawal had been upon him like a rabid animal. It had taken a whole day just to walk from the train station to the aerostation, due to the debilitating fevers, chills, nausea, diarrhea, and convulsions. By the time he got to Fort Napoleon, he had to detour to the bay, and, in the dark of the night, he disposed of his much-soiled clothes and cleaned his reeking body: there were no public facilities to speak of in Alexandria, and he had no knowledge of where to find those that existed.

Once at the entry gate to the grounds of the aerostation, garbed in an admittedly seedy set of Western clothing, he encountered the stony stares of the blackcoats who presumed him to be what, in fact, he was: an ill or addicted vagrant, most of whom came to seek alms. Had it not been for the contrary evidence of his luggage and funds, they would no doubt have shown him the street with the same brusque indifference that they expelled the native beggars. In that one regard, the King’s Own were truly blind to race, color, and creed. No matter one’s origins, appearances had to be maintained and decorum preserved: civilization depended on it.

Once inside the station, merely purchasing a ticket had been akin to climbing a sheer-faced mental mountain. The numbers—costs, departure, arrival, freight and parcel charges—kept bleeding out of his mind. It did not help that he almost started responding in German: it was extraordinarily difficult to keep track of language choices, when remaining fully conscious required almost more of an effort than he was capable of.

In the end, von Harrer bought a more expensive ticket than he had wanted, forgot to leave enough of a cash reserve to have meals delivered to his stateroom (not having the attire or health to take his meals in the dining room), and did not have enough presence of mind to have his rifle and other weapons crated beforehand (which would have sealed them away from overly curious eyes). However, he did remember to put his remaining pounds sterling and other provocative but comparatively light possessions into an inexpensive form of safekeeping: a parcel mailed to himself, under an alias.

The trip that followed had been even more awful than the booking of it. The first half of the journey had been a misery of withdrawal and insufficient food, since he was not yet well enough to be seen in public without attracting undue attention. As he began to recover, he also began habituating the small cafes on the observation deck and at the head of the hydroponics promenade. But only during their off-hours, and only when the staff was inattentive enough that he could fill his pockets with the fruit and loaves that were set out on the tables as complimentary enticements to prospective diners. After each such provisioning, he fled back to his berth, where he shivered, ate, and then slept as much as possible. Which, fortunately, had been a fair amount.

“Feeling better now, I hope?”

It took Conrad a moment to remember where he was, and then nod at Reggie’s curt inquiry after his immediate health. “Much better, thank you.”

“And what line of work are you in? Not another one of these carping professorial types, are you? Telling us that Mars once had culture and machinery that we would have envied.” He puffed out his chest, did not wait for a reply. “To which I make the learned answer of ‘bollocks.’ Seems to me that they never got much beyond the Romans. Well, Romans with gunpowder and balloons. And so what’s to envy about that, I’d like to know?”

His traveling companion smiled indulgently. “Perhaps you should have volunteered to give one of the after-dinner talks, Reginald.”

“Maybe I should have, Bertie. You’ll not find me making apologies for a planet-full of spindly shirkers. ‘Lost Martian greatness,’ my little finger. We’ve heard the same tripe about India, too, I might point out. And see what practical experience has taught us in both those places and countless others: the lesser races don’t have the discipline—the strength of mind or character—to build a durable empire.” He huffed, stared down through the great glass panels in the belly of the aetherboat at the scene below. “India, China, Africa, Mars. All the same. The names may change but they’re wogs, every one of them.”

“Bertie’s” smile was undiminished—but Conrad noted that the amiability signified by the curve of his lips was rarely reflected in his ever-watchful eyes. “I believe Reginald’s enthusiasm for his own expertise in matters of areology deprived us of your answer to his question. What line of work are you in, Mr. …?”

“Kuhn, Klaus Kuhn.” It was the alias Conrad had adopted from the moment he booked his ticket to Mars. The name was his maternal grandfather’s. Easy for him to remember, impossible for any Cairene authorities to have traced yet. Assuming that they had ever established the identity of the person (or, they would probably presume, persons) who had killed all the occupants of Al-Aftal’s combined residence and black market emporium. “I am in pharmaceuticals, Herr—?”

“Oh, pardon me,” exclaimed the dapper one. “How rude of us! Allow me to introduce myself: Bertram Stans, at your service, sir.”

The other one nodded curtly. “Reginald Barnes. Bank of London. Pleasure, I’m sure. Pharmaceuticals, eh? So you’ll be poking around those rat-warrens they call cities, chasing down their supposed alchemists?”

Conrad shook his head, thought carefully: in case anyone had noticed his rifle and other less-than-pacifistic equipment being off-loaded, this was an excellent opportunity to slip in a logical explanation for it. “No, Herr Barnes, my job will take me well beyond the cities. Probably into the fringelands or beyond. It is suspected that the fauna of Mars may have very useful chemicals in their bodies.”

“Eh? Based on what?”

“Based on Herr Rhodes’ own amazing recovery, sir. Since arriving on Mars, his life-threatening respiratory and coronary ailments have all but vanished, we are told. Indeed, the pictures of him bear this out. And his last return to Earth—where he rapidly relapsed—largely eliminates the possibility that his recovery here was a matter of unrelated serendipity. Because upon returning to Mars, and remaining, his health has evidently become more robust than ever.”

Bertram Stans’ eyes were not simply very interested; Conrad could see that they were also very shrewd. “So you are seeking the source of Mars’ salutary effects upon tuberculosis, asthma, and heart strain? How interesting. Tell me: what company are you working for?”

Von Harrer felt the eyes watching him carefully, but without betraying any clue as to the intent behind that scrutiny: was he hoping to learn about new investment opportunities? Was he suspicious of Conrad’s story? Or was he a spider-like predator who feigned enthusiasm and encouragement in another’s ideas, only to steal them? But worst of all, Conrad did not have a ready fabrication with which to answer the inquiry. And he could not refuse to answer, nor fumble after one, lest that call exactly the kind of attention to himself that he wished to avoid. “I am not working for a company—yet,” Conrad answered.

“Yet?”

“Let us simply say that in my time working for other firms, and at the University of Heidelberg, I saw what happened to persons—like me—who put forth revolutionary ideas to their corporate superiors. They rarely received a reasonable measure of credit, and they never received any share of the financial rewards that their work brought to the company. So I contacted interested parties who are funding my research. And if I am correct in my hypotheses—”

“Then you will be one of the owners and receive both the acclaim and compensation you deserve. Well done, Mr. Kuhn, very well done indeed.”

Barnes’ interest had snagged and settled on an earlier point, however. “So, you were at Heidelberg?” He growled like a distempered dog with a vexing bone. “Wouldn’t have thought you’d be happy spending time up to your armpits in treacherous Huns.”

“Herr Barnes, a man must go where education—and opportunity—afford themselves. Surely, as a man of the world, and of business, you have found yourself in all manner of places that you would not otherwise have chosen to visit?”

Barnes shrugged and grunted sourly, but both gestures seemed to express rueful affirmation rather than irritation. He waved away the porter who was approaching with a tea-pot and stared down through the mural-sized windows beneath them.

Mars—or at least the Vallis Agathodaemonis—had changed dramatically. They were now descending past the level of the pocked and fissured plains of rust that were the Uplands. In the valley itself were long, verdant swaths fanning out from the canals and waterways that spread and twined across its floor like thick blue arteries and capillaries. Holding pools—miles across—shone up at them. Newly introduced rice paddies checkerboarded away into the distance. And slightly to the west—beyond a city of towering rose and lavender spires—was a body of water many miles wide, white triangular sails chasing across its deep azure sheen like so many pieces of purposefully moving confetti.

“It’s—it’s beautiful,” Conrad breathed, before he could think the better of it. Do not speak—do not share anything—more than you absolutely must.

But Barnes seemed oblivious and Stans seemed to join in Conrad’s appreciation of the view. “Yes, it’s quite spectacular. Hard to believe this dusty old world actually still has a few seas.”

“That’s not a sea: that’s a lake,” muttered Barnes.

“Reg, old boy, whatever else it is, it is called the Sea of Coprates.”

“Yes, and whatever it’s called, it’s less than 100 miles long, not quite 15 miles wide at most, and barely 500 feet deep. Lots of Russian and Scandinavian lakes bigger than that. And the damn thing would disappear without a splash into one of the Yanks’ Great Lakes.”

“All true, Reggie, but here on Mars, it’s a sea—called so simply because it has water in it all year round. Which is why almost all the major cities are here—and why the biggest one controls access to it and the agricultural regions that run away in both directions.”

“Coprates, you mean?”

“Actually, I think the Martian word for it is Q’oodpryxos. Which just happens to sound a little bit like ‘Coprates’ and so even the locals are starting to use that name.”

“Bertie, you’d better watch yourself or you’ll become another of those hand-wringing areologists. And then there’ll be no suffering you. Don’t know how I put up with you, as it is.”

“Because of your large heart and tolerant nature, Reggie. Mr. Kuhn, you seem to find all this information rather novel. Tell me: didn’t you have time to familiarize yourself with Mars before undertaking your mission—or at least, while you were closeted in your stateroom?”

Damn it. Stans saw me gawking. “My familiarity is mostly with the fauna—what little we know of it. As to knowledge of the wealthy, more populous regions—I was going to familiarize myself on the voyage, as you say. Unfortunately, my reaction to space made it singularly hard to concentrate.”

“Ah,” said Stans. He peered out the mural-like windows again.

Glad for the silence, wondering if he could concoct some excuse that would allow him to disentangle himself from the unnerving pair, Conrad stared down along with Stans.

They approached Coprates—first city of the Octad Gentillus—while descending directly through the slow-motion aerial ballet of Martian dirigibles they had seen from afar. Most of the airships had long, underslung gondolas, while others appeared to be—impossibly—shaped like airborne canoes or longships.

Upon closer inspection, though, von Harrer discerned that what looked like the clinker-built “hull” of these latter vessels was actually a collection of long, thin tubes, clustered together. The tubes seemed pliable, almost like gas-filled sausages—which, von Harrer realized, is probably exactly what they were. According to one snippet he had read, one of the larger creatures of the Martian Uplands had intestines which were completely impassable to hydrogen, and retained that property almost indefinitely if they were not cut and, therefore, became dry. So the Martians evidently filled them with hydrogen and then set them one atop another, like the planks in the hull of a ship. Or, he realized a moment later, they could also be configured as wings, or saucers, or kites: he observed just such variform airships floating around them now. Conrad had the momentary impression of their own aetherboat shuttle as a stolid grey submarine, wending its ponderous way through an aquarium of strange, wondrously shaped and colored fish. Up ahead, the spires of Coprates glistened in the midday sun, the sky a deep blue behind them, the green skirts of the fertile lowlands wide around their bases. For a moment, it was easy to forget that Mars was an unforgiving, cold, desert planet. Or that it was a planet at all: it seemed more akin to an impossibly detailed, otherworldly opium dream …

A light tap on his shoulder. “I say, Mr. Kuhn, sorry to disturb you.” Stans was on his feet, pulling a glove on his left hand, the hook-like handle of a thoroughly iconoclastic umbrella looped snugly around that wrist. The mouth under his trim, silvering mustache was smiling; his eyes were watchful, assessing. “But didn’t you hear the call?”

Conrad swallowed. “No.”

“Debarkation procedures are to commence in fifteen minutes, Mr. Kuhn. Time to start your Martian safari!”

* * *

Half an hour later, the gangway ramp lowered.

Comparatively weak light flooded into the spartan egress bay. Following close behind it was a singular odor that pervaded the space in moments. It was sewage and perfume; it was freshly broken flint and slow-cooking grains; it was iron filings and swamp-musk. And yet, it was none of these things, entirely: it was a mystery that was also, somehow, a promise. But of what, Conrad had no idea.

Most of the passengers recoiled from the mélange of odors. Another sizable group—mostly seasoned travelers to the colonized expanses of Earth—were indifferent to it. A very few—like Conrad—leaned forward to immerse themselves in it.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” announced the Agincourt’s executive officer, and commander of its aetherboat shuttle, “you are now free to debark. Please make your way steadily to the bottom of the ramp, where you will find your personal luggage. Any freighted goods can be claimed with the aid of the assistant purser, who you will find at the cargo ramp amidships.

“Please observe caution when moving: Mars’ gravity is one half of Earth’s. So it is a bit more than what you felt when the Agincourt’s hull was spinning. However, just as you became accustomed to the seeming gravity imparted by the centrifugal force, you may also have become accustomed to its Coriolis effects. So bear in mind that now, things fall down directly and fly straight.

“And of course, we reiterate our safe travel warning one last time. Do not wear any jewelry or watches until you are within the walls of a traveler’s or diplomatic compound. On the open streets, Martian thieves are usually quicker and subtler than the most proficient of their ilk on Earth.

“Finally, it has been our pleasure having you on board the SA Agincourt, and Cecil Rhodes expresses his personal welcome to Mars—and reminds you that if you remain alert, you will remain safe during your many adventures on this exciting and exotic new world!”

Conrad had edged slowly but steadily forward during the announcements and was now only one rank back from the roped-off end of the ramp. On the one hand, he did not want to look suspiciously over-eager to debark; on the other hand, he did not want the rather singular contents of his stowed luggage to be on extended display.

The aetherboat’s executive officer removed the rope barrier. As the crowd started down the ramp, Conrad began scanning for his luggage: a mismatched pair of well-worn railway valises he’d purchased for a few dinar in Helwan. As he neared the bottom of the ramp, he spotted them, back near the amidships luggage bay. He reached the ground and turned casually in that direction: so far, so good.

As he approached the amidships luggage pick-up, he noticed that the local stevedores—thin, wiry fellows with ears so tall that they crested the tops of their heads—were being overseen by the private troops of Rhodes’ British Extra-Planetary Company. And overseeing those surly looking guards was a British blackcoat, rust-colored dust having turned all the white piping of his uniform the color of muddy henna. No reason to be anxious, Conrad told himself, walking past the Lee-Enfield-armed troops; this looks like standard precautions against theft.

The assistant purser looked up as Conrad approached. “Name, please?”

“Kuhn, Klaus. Cabin 17 F.”

“Thank you, sir. Receipt for luggage?” Conrad produced it. “Thank you.” The assistant purser inspected it, nodded, put it aside.

“Excuse me, but I would like to get—”

“If I could trouble you for just a moment more of your time, sir; we need a special detail to convey your goods to you.”

Conrad felt a sudden flash of heat on his brow. This might be a routine procedure when it came to releasing weapons back to their owner, or it might be the first step in—

“Mr. Kuhn, I wonder if I might ask you a few questions?”

Von Harrer turned, saw the man he expected to see: the blackcoat. From either side, a Company guard who had been watching over the valises and trunks a moment ago now drifted into a position on each of his rear flanks. Damn it. I’m going to have to run for it, leave the weapons—

But the soldier—a sergeant in his forties—must have seen the look of impending flight in Conrad’s eyes. The blackcoat nodded; the Company guards on either side each grabbed an arm and twisted it up behind Conrad as the sergeant took a sharp step back, drawing a Webley as he did. “Mr. Kuhn—if that is your real name—I wonder if you could explain why you are carrying a British rifle, a heavy handgun, and a large automatic pistol in your luggage. Planning on starting a war?”

“I am planning on going hunting,” Conrad said. Even in his own ears, it sounded too rehearsed, too facile.

“Yes, Sergeant, that’s what he claims,” commented a familiar voice.

Conrad looked up; Stans was smiling down at him from the top of the luggage ramp.

“However, Switzers do not usually hunt with the Empire’s latest Lee-Enfield bolt-action rifles. Which, unless I’m much mistaken, is exactly the kind of muzzle I see poking out from the end of that longer valise.

“But I could be wrong. About his being a Swiss national, that is. I’ve spent some time attending to banking matters in Zurich, you see. And unless I am much mistaken, his is not a Swiss accent. It’s a reasonably good imitation of one. I’d guess he’s actually Bavarian or from the west of Austria. His accent would doubtless be good enough to fool most foreigners—but not quite good enough to fool me, I’m afraid. Ich spreche ganz gut Deutsch, wissen Sie. [I speak extremely good German, you know.]”

Von Harrer kept his voice level. “My background is my own affair. As is the rifle I choose to hunt with.”

The sergeant looked from Conrad up to Stans. Barnes was now there as well, his puffing mustache and florid cheeks reminiscent of the popular parodies of Kitchener. “The man’s got a point, he does, sir,” observed the blackcoat deferentially.

“Yes,” mused Stans, “I suppose he does. But when I reported my suspicions about Mr. Kuhn to the purser a quarter hour ago, we found something else that is, I think, rather definitively incriminating. Please check the shorter valise.”

The sergeant did so, stopped as he opened it. “Crikey! That’s army issue ammo! Still fresh in the boxes!”

“And so it is,” observed Stans with a smile. “I wonder how Mr. Kuhn came by that. Don’t you, Sergeant? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you found some other objects of interest in his luggage, objects that the assistant purser and I may have missed in our haste. You might find it rewarding to make a closer examination. And as for you, Mr. ‘Kuhn,’—happy hunting!” With a final smile sending crinkles out from the sides of his pale blue eyes, he started down the personnel walkway on the side margin of the cargo ramp. Behind him, Barnes glowered at Conrad, spat inexpertly—a broad spray rather than a single gobbet of focused hatred—and snapped, “Hun scum.” He followed Stans down the ramp and toward the bow of the shuttle.

Conrad shrugged and shook his head. “Sergeant, I won’t make any trouble—”

“Damned right you won’t,” snarled the blackcoat, who punched the Webley, barrel first, straight into von Harrer’s gut.

Doubling over, and feeling the first of what were to be a sustained flurry of rifle butt-strokes slamming into the small of his back, Conrad had a final glimpse of Stans walking lightheartedly toward the lavender and rose towers of Coprates, jauntily twirling his umbrella like a walking stick.

* * *

As Conrad swam back up toward full consciousness, he felt himself being pushed roughly upright against a dusty mortar wall. Curses in Spanish—Spanish?—were loud in his ear: Qué idiota. Deja de caer abajo! [What an idiot. Stop falling down!] Well, there might be reason to assert he was an idiot—but if he’d been falling down, he couldn’t remember it. Hands were moving swiftly, inexpertly, through his pockets, though. He tried to push them away—

He got boxed so hard on the ear that he almost fell down again. Staggered, he turned, looked up, saw one of the corporate guards from the luggage reclaim ramp looming over him, rifle in one hand, the last few of von Harrer’s francs stuck in the other. There was resentment in the Spaniard’s eyes, as if he’d been cheated out of a promised reward: his eyes narrow, the Company guard jammed the money in his own pockets, and angled the Lee-Enfield so as to be able to work its safety. Conrad tried to reel back up, realized he was too dazed and weak to fight, too disoriented to run, that only if he bought some time would he be able to—

And then, as if some demon put on his body like a suit of clothes, Conrad was on his feet, closing with the Spaniard. This time, the effect of the Cleaner was not discernible as a descent into sociopathia: suddenly, it snapped on throughout him, his body instantly primed as if it had been an electric engine responding to the throw of a switch.

The Spaniard had considerable reflexes of his own, though; hopping backward, he brought up his now-readied rifle—which Conrad swatted so hard that it flew aside and clattered against the other wall. But the rifle had intercepted the blow intended for the Spaniard himself—who, back-stepping further, unsheathed a dagger so long as to almost qualify as a short sword. Undaunted, Conrad moved directly toward him, calculating that if he struck quickly, he might kill the Spaniard before taking more than one stab to his abdomen or chest. With any luck, he might live—

But then the Spaniard’s combat-eager grin became wide-eyed surprise, and he gagged, once. As he looked down, blood stained the front of his shirt—just before he toppled over, revealing a slender-hilted knife protruding from his back and a slender Martian stevedore standing behind him.

With the threat of immediate combat diminishing, the murderous demon inside of Conrad had half-shrugged its way out of his body. He sagged unsteadily against the wall. “Thank you. I am grateful for your—”

“I do not care about you,” the Martian said sharply as he shrugged out of the over-large stevedore’s coveralls. “I must find your luggage. Where did they take it?”

“You want—my luggage? For the guns?”

“No, the book. Where is the book?”

With nothing to his name, Conrad realized that he now had exactly one thing left to him of any value, that might help him improve his unpromising odds of survival: he had something this Martian wanted. “If you want to know how to find the book, you’re going to have to help me.”

The Martian stared at him narrowly through thin, wide-set eyes, and his ears actually swiveled forward, like those of a suddenly alert fox. Except the ears were taller, thinner, and quite hairless. “You do not seem to be in a position to make demands.”

“You do not seem to know where the book is—or how to get it.”

The Martian considered. “Your help is merely a convenience. I saw the men who seized you. I can find them again without you.”

“If you were sure of that, you wouldn’t have come back here to rescue me.” And then Conrad understood. “No, you already looked in my luggage. But you couldn’t find it. So when the sergeant split off with the other guard, you could only choose to follow one target: him, or the one who was dragging me off to rob in an isolated spot. And you chose me. Because even once you relocate my luggage, you still need me.”

The Martian—who wore what looked like a stiff leather jerkin under a knee-length frock joined to a traveling cape—frowned. “I had only a moment to go through your goods. If I had more time, I am quite certain I could have—”

“But you didn’t have the time, and you didn’t find it. Meaning there’s only one question that matters: how long are you going to argue about whether you will agree to help me or not? Which is to say, how long a head start to you want to give the bastards who robbed me?”

The Martian closed his eyes, sighed, his ears rotating away. “Very well, I will help you.”

“For as long as I require it.”

“What? I am not about to become a life-bondsman to a human, to a Pink—”

“I mean, you will help me until you—until we—have delivered the book to whomever you’re fetching it for.”

The Martian’s ears rotated forward again, and his eyes narrowed. “I am not delivering it to anyone. I work for myself.”

“Nonsense. The book is the key to power—great power. But only in the hands of captains or kings. Your hands are not the ones that are ready to wield it. Yours are the hands that have been sent to get it.”

The Martian retrieved his dagger from the Spaniard’s back, considered Conrad with a glimmer of genuine interest. “How do you know this?”

“Your mission—to find and steal a book, undetected if possible—is a job for a thief. If this book were a gem, perhaps I would not be so sure you were not working for yourself. That is the kind of treasure that a single, knowledgeable thief can sell to the right persons who do their business in the right shadows. But this book is not a treasure in the usual, monetary sense of the word. I saw the lust in the eyes of men holding it, men who had just enough power and ambition to know what it was worth to a person who truly had the high position and influence to be able to afford—and wield—the knowledge contained in it. But such persons, who understand what the book is and to whom it is so valuable, are no longer persons who undertake tasks of—acquisition—themselves. They are the brains that plan and decide. And you—you are one of their deft hands.” Half of Conrad’s confident assertions had been, of course, sheer guesswork, but the Martian’s body language had sent faint, ongoing confirmations of his conjectures almost as clearly as a human’s would have.

The Martian sheathed his dagger, picked up the Company trooper’s rifle, handed it to Conrad. “Very well, I will help you. But it is not enough that you guide me to the book and tell me where it is. You must help me get it. And you do seem to have recovered enough now to be helpful.” He studied Conrad more closely, scanning his eyes and, it seemed, the sides of his neck. “So, you were given the tainted mloolj.” He sidled back along the wall to where the alley opened into a small lane. “We were not sure if those reports were true.”

“Reports? What reports?” asked Conrad as he pocketed the Company soldier’s ammunition. “And made to whom? Who is ‘we’?”

The Martian led the way out of the alley, detaching and handing his cape back to Conrad. “Do you always ask so many questions, Conrad of the House of von Harrer? An answer to any of the ones you just asked might well mark you for death, for knowing too much.”

“At the risk of asking another such dangerous question, how is it that you know my name, as well?”

“It stands to reason, does it not, that if we know you may have smoked the tainted mloolj, that we would at least know your name as well?”

“That answer is no answer: it merely explains why knowing one thing makes it likely you would know another. It does not tell me how you know any of them.”

The Martian smiled. “You are not easily distracted, Pink.”

“Not even by veiled compliments. But since you are obviously not going to share how you know my name or anything else about me, then at least tell me what I may call you.”

“That request might be the most dangerous of all, since I take any steps necessary to ensure that my deeds remain anonymous.”

Conrad wrapped the cape around the Enfield. “Perhaps the drug—this mloolj—has made me incautious.”

In front of him, the Martian’s ears seemed to become a bit more erect. “Hzzzhhh. You remind me of a Pinker animal I have seen.”

“What is a Pinker?”

“You. An Earthman. You are pink. Even those of you who are not pink on the face still have pink on parts of your body. A most unusual color.”

“Oh. And this animal that I remind you of?”

“I believe you call it a ‘cat.’ A most cautious creature—and yet, it cannot suppress its curiosity.” He changed his posture; he was slightly stooped now. As he drew closer to Conrad, his head tilted deferentially. Suddenly, he appeared to be nothing more than a spare-framed native guide and footman. “You are like that animal, that cat, I think. You may be cautious, but your curiosity may kill you yet.”

“Well, I just hope I have all its lives.”

“All its—?”

“There is an old saying, that cats have nine lives.”

“I have observed that they always land on their feet, yes.” He studied Conrad again as they emerged onto a street that paralleled the aerostation at a distance. “Perhaps another way in which you are similar. We shall see. And if you do not do so openly, you may call me Szurthål Hyshmrua. Now let us make haste.”

* * *

Szurthål was, naturally enough, singularly adept at moving through the streets swiftly and unobtrusively. But his instinct about where the luggage had gone was entirely incorrect. When he nodded his head in the direction of the nearest Company patrol station, Conrad shook his head. “No, not there.”

“No? You were arrested, and your goods were seized.”

Conrad smiled. “Is that what happened? Really?”

Szurthål folded his arms. “Apparently not. Educate me.”

Conrad leaned against a clay-brick and mortar wall, let the wrapped Enfield slip into his shadow. “I was not arrested. They never read charges, and at any rate, it would not have been a Company matter—not with a blackcoat present. And did you see the black armbands on the Company soldiers?”

“Yes.”

“That signifies that they are nominally under government authority; they are ‘deputized,’ you might say, but only the blackcoat can give official orders, make arrests, act in the name of the Quee—well, the King, now.”

“I see. But it was he who apprehended you.”

“He did not apprehend me. He simply dragged me away after beating me senseless. And that was after Stans—the human with the light blue eyes—pointed out that there might be further ‘objects of interest’ in my luggage.”

Szurthål’s ears rotated forward. “Ah. Now I see. This Stans was implying that the sergeant might find more goods of value in your luggage—goods that would not need to be accounted for, if they were not reported. And which Stans implied he could not report, since he ‘had not had enough time’ to conduct a complete survey of the contents.”

“Exactly. And Stans—whoever he may really be—is not, at least, part of the official chain of command here on Mars. So the sergeant knew he could pilfer my goods without fear of report or reprisal.”

Szurthål smiled. “So, to the Black Market district, then.”

“Yes, I think so. Tell me, do you have much experience with, er—such establishments?”

Szurthål sneered; the narrow face and long features that were characteristic of his race made his expression seem even more disdainful than the equivalent human reaction. “Well enough to run one myself.”

Conrad smiled. “What an oddly appropriate turn of phrase.”

* * *

Lying prone on the ledge of the defunct secondary aqueduct that had once supplied the Old Market District with its fresh water, Conrad peered over the sights of the Spanish guard’s Lee-Enfield. He watched as the sergeant and the other Company trooper entered the street through a crumbling portcullised arch. The guard carried his rifle at the ready; the sergeant carried the luggage. They looked up the street expectantly.

After a moment, a dusty, cloaked figure stepped from a shadowed doorway and made a gesture that, to a casual observer would have looked as though he was batting at an insect. Three times. And then, after a precise four-count, he batted twice more.

The two humans began walking forward; a moment later, the cloaked figure did the same. In perhaps half a minute, they would meet in the middle of the street, near the shin-high rim of a half-collapsed cistern.

Conrad estimated the range, slapped the tangent sight of the Lee-Enfield flat. He had not fired a weapon yet in the Martian air, but it was notably thin—like the air at the highest alpine reaches—and extremely dry. Bullets would have less atmosphere and humidity to fight through and should have flatter trajectories over the course of their marginally longer ranges.

The Enfield was in reasonable shape. Its action wanted a full field strip and wipe with an oil-cloth in order to remove the finer dust, but the barrel’s rifling had no visible defects or erosion, and the action still cycled smoothly. Optimally, he would have liked to have had the opportunity to put a few rounds through the gun on a range, get a feeling for the idiosyncrasies that it—like any firearm—possessed. But this was not an optimal situation and this was no time to reflect upon things one did not have.

The two humans and the dusty Martian had almost reached each other when the latter held up a hand. Both sides stopped; unheard words were exchanged.

Conrad snugged the weapon’s stock into his shoulder, snapped the safety off, leaned his eye down to sight along the barrel.

Down in the street, the unheard words were apparently not congenial ones; fierce gestures were being exchanged by the sergeant and the Martian. The latter seemed to want to see the contents of one of the valises; the sergeant evidently wanted to see something the Martian possessed. Money, Conrad imagined. He let the tip of the front sight drift up into the v-notch of the back sight—

The Martian shook his head sharply and turned to go. The sergeant stepped forward, angry, voice loud enough to be heard as a dull, indistinct roar all the way up on Conrad’s perch, almost fifty yards away and twenty yards up in the air.

Conrad brought the sights into alignment on the chest of the Company soldier, was mildly surprised to feel no anticipation of remorse: nothing. The Cleaner was doing its chilling work upon his conscience once again. He curled his finger lightly, moving the trigger through its first step, exhaled lightly, squeezed it home.

The Enfield barked. The Company soldier went down, the bullet just to the right of the sternum. He was kicking weakly as the sergeant spun around to check the status of his sole back-watcher—and then began reversing that turn quickly, experience evidently reminding him that he had been a fool to take his eyes off the most proximal threat—

Before he came all the way back around, the long-caped Martian closed the distance to the blackcoat in a fluid, leaping step and ran a long, thin dagger into his back three times, the interval between the strikes so swift that Conrad could not follow the motions.

The sergeant fell, clutching his diaphragm with one hand and the valise with the other.

Staying low, Conrad shouldered the rifle, rose into a crouch, and prepared to scoot back to the point where the aqueduct emerged from the roof of an abandoned tower. But not before he looked down in the street and saw the Martian’s face—Szurthål’s face—smiling up from beneath the cape’s hood. He snatched up the valises and ran away into the tangled labyrinth that was the southwestern slum of Coprates’ Old Market District, which, it just so happened, petered out at the foot of the same tower to which Conrad himself was headed.

* * *

Once at the tower, the two split Conrad’s luggage between them. They made quickly for what Szurthål called a vashatum or “narroway”: one of the thin, shallow canals that were the tangled capillaries in the aquatic circulatory system handling Coprates’ non-pedestrian traffic. After securing the services of what looked like a hybrid between a sampan and an elongated punt, they hunkered in its hide-covered midsection and pulled its front and rear blinds: if the human authorities somehow managed to mount a quick search, they were notoriously amateurish at capturing criminals who remained on the move within the labyrinthine narroways.

Szurthål watched, arms folded, while Conrad checked the valises. His last few dinars and lira were gone—no surprises there—but everything else seemed to be in order. Conrad resisted the urge to grasp the Mauser to him jealously. “Strange that the sergeant hadn’t sold the weapons—or anything—yet.”

Szurthål grunted. “It would have been strange if he had sold anything yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that, here on Mars, a blackcoat is always protected by his official position and by his uniform. So he had no need to sell these goods at the first reasonable offer. That is why he was still moving between the dealers, allowing them to make competing bids, driving up the price. But where is the book? I do not see it.” Szurthål frowned. “Of course, I did not see it last time, either.”

Conrad smiled, swayed slightly as the punt bumped against the smooth-worn sidings of the narroway, reached into the shorter valise. He pulled away a length of amateurish stitching with which he had repaired a split seam, separated the canvas folds, slipped two fingers inside. He drew out a small piece of paper.

Szurthål frowned. “I hope that is not all that is left of the book.”

“No; it is the book. In a manner of speaking.”

“Speak in a more plain manner, then.”

“This is a postal receipt. I did not carry my most valuable currency—my British pounds—or the book onto the ship with me. When I bought my ticket, I sent these items to myself—under an alias—to the postal depot here in Coprates.”

“Not Coprates: Q’oodpryxos,” corrected Szurthål. “So you are telling me that the book was never lost?”

“Not to me. But if you had not rescued me when you did, you would not know where it was. And even if you had, you would not have known the name under which it was sent, or to which it was to be delivered, or the location of this receipt—without which the postal clerk will not release the parcel.”

Szurthål folded his arms, leaned back. “You are a most annoying Pink, Conrad von Harrer. Let us go to this postal depot and then deliver this book to its rightful owner.”

Conrad nodded. “Is he—the owner—here in the city, or farther away?”

“Farther away.” Szurthål smiled. “In a manner of speaking.”

* * *

Eight days and 1500 miles later, Conrad was unable to restrain his curiosity any longer. Folding his arms and leaning against the wind-swept bow-rail of the dirigible’s double-decker gondola, he finally succumbed to same question he had heard children ask parents in trains, trams, coaches, and ferries his whole life: “When are we going to get there?”

Szurthål smiled, glanced sideways. “You are to be congratulated on your patience, Pink. It is uncommon in your species. So is your tolerance of high altitudes—relatively speaking.”

“What do you mean, ‘relatively speaking’?”

Szurthål gestured out at the uplands they were approaching, the dirigible rising slowly along with the ground. “I mean that most humans find it difficult to travel in our cloud galleys at all, even when we follow the canals and stay well under the crests of the tablelands.”

Conrad looked out across the forbidding expanses to which Szurthål had referred. From this altitude, the tablelands of Mars—its “sea-level” surface, as some early areologist had oxymoronically defined it—were smooth expanses of tan and rust, perturbed here and there by a ripple of darker rock. If he looked closely, von Harrer could make out the patchy scrub growth that speckled it, punctuated by occasional stands of mauve, waist-high brambles. Farther off, he spied what might have been mile-wide puddles of standing water. “Hard to believe anything can live up there,” murmured Conrad into the wind.

Szurthål, who enjoyed the phenomenal hearing common to all his people, shrugged. “Hzzhh. There are worse places. The Dust Seas, for instance. But we will not see those. Happily.”

“Tell me that means we are almost at our destination.”

Another shrug. “Three days, maybe four. It depends upon whether we find ourselves moving into a headwind or a tailwind when we top the Hydraxes Maximus—the Great Spillway—and glide down over its city, Looghpur, and thence down into what you call the Margaritus Sinus.”

“And which you call?”

“We call it the Chabråni Oopreth, the Wide-Gather of the Great-Melt’s Flow. From there we head due east across those lowlands to reach the Oxus canal, which we will follow northeast to our final destination.”

“The Dirce Fons?”

Szurthål waved a corrective hand. “That is the region, only. We travel to Thrynoo’ul, furthest of the Bowl Cities, forgotten home of forgotten gods.”

“And why are they called ‘Bowl Cities’?”

“Do you always have another question? Because the cities are in bowls, of course.”

“Of course. Cities in bowls. But seriously, why—?”

“I am being serious, human.” Szurthål called him “human” much more than “Pink,” now. But only rarely did he use “Conrad.” Still, it was progress—of a sort. “The Bowl Cities are in what our scholars suspect are ancient craters—deep enough to provide air that is more thick and comfortable, and in which we may grow our crops. The benchlands—those that line and fan out from the canals in the valleys and rifts—are the wellsprings of our life—our ‘oases,’ you would call them. Even when such fertile lands are distant and isolated, like the scattered craters of the Bowl Cities, they are too precious to be wasted.”

Conrad squinted forward toward the wide mountain pass that Szurthål had called the Great Spillway and suddenly realized that what he had thought was a purely natural terrain feature had, in fact, been partially converted into a gargantuan array of reservoirs and sluiceways. Collectively, it dwarfed any engineering project ever attempted, or even imagined, by humanity. Von Harrer pointed at what appeared to be stairs built into the side of the northernmost mountain, each one several miles wide and at least half a mile high. “Are those all—locks?”

Szurthål looked, nodded. “Yes. They are the Kunamzhai Jopurti, the Little Downward Stairs.”

“‘Little’?”

Szurthål smiled: the arrestingly sharp features of the Martian face seemed to resist the requisite curve of lips and brow, Conrad had noticed. “Yes, ‘Little.’ You should see the Uthramshup Jopur—the Big Upward Stairs, the locks that carry the waters of each year’s Great Polar Melt up into the highland reservoirs that we shall soon be flying over. But it will be night-time when we pass over the ‘Uthrams.’ Perhaps some other time.”

Conrad was almost glad he would not get to see the Big Upward Stairs; the Little Downward ones left him nearly breathless. The sluices were the size of rivers; the machine towers for the lock gates were at least 500 feet on each side, and 700 feet high; and there was a spider web of what from the distance looked like gossamer filigree—until closer approach revealed it to be a bewildering maze of aqueducts and secondary runoffs and catch tanks. The sheer size of the construction—which had converted a mountain pass into one vast water-management system—defied ready comprehension because, even from this altitude, Conrad could not take it all in at once; it was simply too large to be seen in one glance.

“Do you find it more difficult to breathe?” Szurthål asked with the faintest hint of solicitousness.

“No, why?”

“Because your mouth has remained open for an unusually long time.”

Conrad snapped his jaw back up into place, sought for something to provide a new topic of conversation. Anything would do—anything that prevented Szurthål from making another respiratory inquiry that would ultimately reveal that Conrad had simply been gaping at the Martian feats of engineering like a simpleton. He pointed at brown and green strips that followed up along the skirts of the Kunamzhai Jopurti. “What are those?”

Szurthål looked at the strips, then back at Conrad in surprise. “Perhaps the distance—or the scale—has tricked you. Those are what you call paddies—seeded with your planet’s ‘rice.’”

Conrad nodded. “Yes. The scale—disoriented—me.” He reflected on the numerous other paddies—albeit far smaller in scope—they had passed during their flight over what areologists called the “breadbasket of Mars”: the lowlands that writhed from west to east, just south of the equator. Beginning with the deep, rich Vallis Agathodaemonis, it rose and broadened into the Sinus Aurorae and finally tapered out into the paired channels that comprised the Canali Aromatum, at whose ends the green reached up toward the skirts of the Great Spillway itself. “It has only been a few years since Rhodes brought rice to Mars. How could it be so widespread, so quickly?”

Szurthål shrugged. “Because Rhodes sends his agents out to the potentates and satraps of the greater cities. And as they decide and act, so do their vassals, who have always spent more effort imitating their betters than thinking for themselves.” He frowned. “But that is the lesser part of why the lords and landowners of Mars have so rapidly converted to rice. The primary reason is the rice itself: it is vastly superior to the canal millet that we have relied upon until now.”

“Superior? In what way?”

“In every way, human. It furnishes twice the sustenance of the millet, and is far more digestible. So there is less famine, and since infants eating rice have less colic, they gain weight and are stronger sooner—and so, fewer of them succumb to diseases.”

“What you describe is a godsend, but from your tone, it sounds like you are describing a curse.”

Szurthål nodded. “Because you are right: it is both a god gift and a curse. In exchange for his rice—and the men who know how to grow it—Rhodes has done more than take possession of our satraps’ vast treasuries of opals and peridots and spinels; he has taken possession of our souls. Of all of us.”

“What do you mean?”

Szurthål looked off into the distance. “Your Mr. Rhodes—the so-called Overlord of Mars—discovered we would pay anything for his rice. And why not? What price would you not pay to give your newborn babes a threefold increase in the chance that they would live to have babes of their own?”

Conrad simply nodded: Szurthål’s question was so obviously rhetorical that any response would be either idiotic, insulting, or both.

“And so, when your Overlord of Mars finished taking our gems, he took our backs and our arms: he purchased the Guild of Thrall-Reckoners.”

“The what?”

“The Guild of Thrall-Reckoners. Ah, I forget: you would not be familiar with this concept. Conrad, until Rhodes came, we had never had the kind of slavery you have had. Perhaps because our forms of servitude were individual and were less brutish, we have never attempted to do away with them. Many of our workers are still what you might label thralls, or bondsmen, if I understand those words correctly. And among our people, the accounts of these thralls—the tracking of the kind and duration of servitude they owe—has been overseen by a Guild.”

“A guild? Managing slaves? How can the Guild’s overseers be trusted to be fair?”

“Hzzhh! Do you consider the alternative better? Is it more likely that a master can be trusted to keep fair accounts of his thralls? The Guilds of Thrall-Reckoners—for at one time, there were many—have been a part of our world for as long as we have record of its affairs. Scholars say that, in earlier days, Thrall-Reckoners were called into being by potentates who wished to reduce the possibility of revolts by bondsmen whose masters falsified their accounts, wishing to retain their services perpetually.”

“So these Thrall-Reckoner Guilds worked like … like … accountants? Auditors?”

“Yes, auditors. But as time went on, the Thrall-Reckoners themselves became quite powerful, and were often owed money for services provided to masters whom their audits had, ironically, financially crippled.”

“So how did they collect those debts?”

Szurthål shrugged. “By taking over the remaining bond-time of those thralls the master could no longer afford to maintain, but whose time of servitude had not yet elapsed.”

“So the Thrall-Reckoners became Thrall-holders, themselves.”

“Not directly. That was deemed a conflict of interest. But the Reckoners ‘leased’ the remaining time of those bondsmen whose unresolved accounts were transferred into their keeping, and thus, their debts were paid. So, although the Thrall-Reckoners Guild has never held the bonds of a thrall for its own direct service, it has served as a bourse for the labor the thralls represent.”

Conrad thought about how Rhodes might have manipulated this resource. “And so Cecil Rhodes has bought up all the outstanding labor, all the undischarged bonds held by the Guild?”

“Worse than that—or better, from Rhodes’ perspective. He effectively ‘bought out’ the businesses of the individual Reckoners. First he offered them most of the opals and peridots he acquired from his rice-growing advisories if, in exchange, those Reckoners became ‘shared companies.’ Er, no that is the wrong term. Ah. ‘Shareholder companies’: that is the correct term, yes? So, once that was accomplished, Rhodes paid further exorbitant sums for the majority of the shares in each company. This is what you call ‘buying them out,’ am I right?”

“Yes.”

“However, he did not buy the majority of these shares himself. He provided funds to his Martian vassals to make most of the purchases. And then he placed a final condition upon the original Reckoners who, although still the largest single ‘shareholders’ in their own companies, were much weaker than the unofficial cartel that Rhodes controlled.”

“And that final condition was?”

“That the original Reckoners, or their heirs, would continue to run the businesses for the next 15 years.”

“Again, with a generous salary.”

“That is an understatement.”

Now Conrad understood. “So although the businesses are still technically held by Martians and run by Martians—”

Szurthål nodded. “Rhodes controls them. Entirely.”

“So, in principle, he now ‘owns’ the bond-promised labor of thousands of Martians.”

“Many, many thousands. And there is more: think how having so much labor allows Rhodes to intimidate our leaders, or to destroy his rivals. With these immense labor reserves, and his plentiful money and natural resources, he can flood any market, any farm, any manufactory with cheap labor. So even if one of our greatest potentates, one of the PentaCruxi, defies him—

“—Rhodes simply goes to a rival potentate—a different ‘PentaCrux’?—and provides him with almost unlimited amounts of free labor. That allows the second PentaCrux to steal the market away from the first, defiant Crux. And I suspect Rhodes did not need to do that many times before there wasn’t a single PentaCrux who was willing to challenge him again.”

“He did it twice. Once to a mere Crux of a minor city called Thecna Chur.”

“And the second time?”

“He brought low the PentaCrux of Coprates himself.”

Conrad stared: that was bold, even for Mars’ new human Overlord, even if he was trying to make a point as well as make a profit. “What was it that Rhodes wanted from the PentaCrux?”

“Cooperation. Which turned out to be a great deal cheaper to the PentaCrux than the alternative that Rhodes threatened.”

“Which was?”

Szurthål turned to look at the rice paddies that were now behind them. “To starve the city into ruin and chaos. Rhodes was ready to strike a dire deal with the new independent rice-producers in the Vallis Agathodaemonis.”

“Let me guess: in exchange for Rhodes’ free labor, they would agree to sell all their crops directly to him.”

“Exactly. At most a generous, prefixed rate, mind you. But for the PentaCrux of Q’oodpryxos—”

“He and Coprates City would have been hostage to whatever Rhodes decided to do: to starve it out of existence, or charge a bankrupting price for the rice. And the PentaCrux wouldn’t have had any realistic alternatives. As we’ve traveled, I’ve seen what it costs to move cargos whenever we put down in a canal town: every lock, every city, is another tariff. The cost of importation would have been almost as bad as what Rhodes would have charged. And given the number of mouths the PentaCrux had to feed in Coprates City—er, in Q’oodpryxos—he’d never have been able to get enough food into the streets in time.” Von Harrer shook his head. “We have a word for this kind of business practice on Earth: monopolism. And we have a special name for men like Rhodes, although he is arguably the virtuoso expert: he is a robber baron.”

Szurthål started. “So, on Earth, Rhodes is actually an outlaw noble?”

Conrad laughed. “No—at least, not a noble. And since he more or less owns the courts in England, right now, he does not need to fear being cast out from the law. He is above it.”

Szurthål nodded absently, stared down through the grates in the weather deck at the cloud galley’s two long columns of cranksmen, who were currently leaning on their levers, enjoying a rest due to the following breeze that was moving the dirigible along nicely. “If we are not careful in our dealings with you humans, all us Martians will wind up like them.” He nodded through the grating at the narrow, glistening backs. “Slaving away for a pittance, hanging on to a few narrow threads of personal choice that we will tell ourselves is ‘freedom.’” He turned to Conrad. “No doubt you think I am overreacting, that I am starting at shadows, that I sound like a madman.”

Conrad swallowed. “No. I think you are right.” He remembered the treatment of the African tribes in their own lands, displaced from their villages by Europeans of every nation, all spouting legitimations of every conceivable kind. “You are absolutely right.”

Szurthål stared at him, made a long, low, contemplative hzzhh sound, and turned his eyes toward the titanic, mountain-scaling Spillway steps they were now finally cresting. Conrad came to stand alongside him, and, as he did, the cloud galley drew over the top of the last step. Appearing suddenly, the great upland reservoir seemed to roll out before them like an endless satin carpet into the darkling horizon, reflections of stars sprinkled across the water’s smooth, blue-black expanse.

“No human—or Martian—can be Overlord of this. Not even Cecil Rhodes,” Szurthål murmured after a while.

Conrad nodded, but did not speak: there was nothing to say.

* * *

After having seen the Kunamzhai Jopurti, Conrad started to become more accustomed to the immense scale of structures—both natural and engineered—that seemed commonplace on Mars. Consequently, while the journey to Thrynoo’ul was still striking, it did not so astound Conrad that he found himself at a loss for words or even adequate terrestrial analogs.

The trip up the Oxus canal was completely unlike their prior paralleling of Martian waterways. Here, there was no benchland, no skirts of green around the usually arrow-straight channel, because it had been cut out of the native rock. The sides—which soared up thousands of feet to the tablelands above, were absolutely sheer. What few locks there were along this waterway were not furnished with cities, but simply attended by hypertrophied towns, most of them cut high into the sides of the gorge like some impossible Anansi pueblo engineered by Venetians. The rock was discolored most of the way up to the bottom tier of these overhanging gallery-villages, marking the highest level of the surge that came from the Great Polar Melt. And when the cloud galley had need of rising up out of the confines of the narrow cut of the canal, it emerged into the same forbidding tablelands that dominated the Martian surface, but here they were slightly greened at the edge of the gorge, thanks to the nighttime condensation.

About once a day, they came to a Bowl City, the gorge suddenly widening out into a crater of immense proportions, often with a central spire. Shrines and catch basins crawled up the side of those weathered pinnacles, and at their base, palaces and villas crowded each other in some mysterious competition for pride of place—although what pride of place was to be found about the base of a wind-eaten butte was beyond Conrad’s speculation.

Invariably, the Bowl Cities themselves were tiny in comparison to Coprates, but compared to the often decaying, lock-tending communities of the Oxus canal, they were veritable meccas of civilization. Even so, the passage of a large airship was evidently still a relative rarity. Faces tilted upward at their approach. Men in rim-kine armor and with their right cheeks adorned by tattoos watched the cloud galley pass in silent assessment. Women, pin-sized opals and peridots glittering where they were embedded along the sharp, fine bridges of their brows and noses, stared, exchanged comments behind cupped hands, stared again.

Early on the fourth day, their ship entered another such urbanized “bowl,” but also began to descend more rapidly than on prior occasions. Conrad, who had finally recovered from his various wounds and post-addiction infirmities, glanced at Szurthål, who nodded and said, “Yes, we have come to Thrynoo’ul. I must take the book now—and put your possessions in safe keeping. Then you may meet the Triumvirate.”

* * *

Meeting the Triumvirate was distinctly anticlimactic. Firstly, given that it was a Triumvirate, von Harrer had expected to meet three Martians. Instead, he was ushered into an audience chamber containing only one old fellow who was finishing a meal, diffidently attended by a servant who looked more ancient than his master. A guard lolled in the shadows, his vantbrassed arms cradling a matchlock musket with a pitted black barrel.

Szurthål made a gesture that was part salute, part bow. “Second Keeper of Truth, I have brought the Earth-being Conrad von Harrer to you.”

The old Martian looked up from his meal—spiced canal-mullet and fricasseed mud-eel, if Conrad’s eyes and nose were not misleading him—and fixed Szurthål with a sour glare. “And why have you done such an inadvisable thing, Hand of Truth Szurthål?”

“It was a condition the human placed upon my solicitation of his help.”

“He helped you?” The Second Keeper of Truth put down the mouthful of food that was halfway to his thin and wrinkled lips. “In what way?”

Szurthål recounted the events that had transpired in Coprates City. The Second Keeper did not interrupt, but did grunt twice and raise an eyebrow once. At the end, he stared at his Hand of Truth Szurthål and the stray human he had brought home. Then he sighed and turned back to his meal. “You had no choice but to bring him, I suppose. But you have discharged your obligation to him. He is free to go, and free to take his equipment, although I will make an offer for one of his rifles.”

Conrad looked over at Szurthål, whose eyes were still respectfully downcast since the Second Keeper had not signaled that this audience was at an end. He looked back at the Second Keeper, who seemed to be choosing which piece of eel to spear next. Conrad stepped forward—

The lolling guard was on his feet in the blink of an eye, his musket aligned on a vector that intersected von Harrer’s belly.

The Second Keeper waved the musket down—none too stridently, Conrad was disheartened to note—and stared at him. “You have something to say?”

“Second Keeper of the Truth, since you know my name, and since you know I was poisoned with the tainted opium, you must also know why I came to Mars: to seek you. To seek a cure; to rid my body of the Cleaner.”

“Yes? And?”

“And—Second Keeper of the Truth, may I not prevail upon your sense of justice to—”

“To what? To cure an addict so he may return to the habits which will surely kill him? Better that you make a quick end of it here.”

“Here?”

“Well, up on the tablelands, to be precise. You will become—quite unmanageable—in the weeks to come. Within two months’ time, you will think of nothing but killing and eating. A month after that, you will lose your interest in food, as well.”

Conrad’s arms were so chilled by the calm dismissal of his death that he could feel goose bumps jumping up with painful abruptness. “Second Keeper of the Truth—”

“Please do not call me that; you do not even know what it means. Nor that it is an affront to our people, coming from the lips of an invader.”

“Then—what am I to call you, sir?”

The old man sighed and put down his utensils, glanced at Szurthål. “He’s not going to stop, or give up, is he?”

“As I informed you, Second Keeper, he is surprisingly tenacious for a human. And resilient.”

Conrad almost missed the Second Keeper’s assessing gaze as he realized the implicit revelation lurking beneath Szurthål’s choice of words: “As I informed you” meant that somehow, Szurthål had been sending messages ahead of their arrival here. Which meant that the Second Keeper’s apparent ignorance about and indifference to Conrad’s plight was a sham. Which made this conversation some kind of test.

Which, judging from the improved posture of the Second Keeper, Conrad just might be close to passing. “So. You may call me Cuthur Troep’eth. And you may be interested to learn that you are the first Pink to ever set foot in Thrynoo’ul.”

Conrad tried to copy Szurthål’s bow-salute. “I am honored.” What he got in return were snickers, but looking up, saw that there was no disdain in the Martian eyes he met; simply amusement, and even a shade of indulgence. “Perhaps a courtier—of protocol—could instruct me in the finer points of your chamber’s etiquette,” he added.

This had a most unusual effect on Cuthur: he sat up very straight, seemed to concentrate furiously, ending with a sudden blink of surprise and then a fast, hard stare at Szurthål. “Are you familiar with what ‘von’ means in front of human names, Hand?”

Szurthål, surprised by the sudden and unpleasantly keen attention, stammered, “N-no, Second Keeper, I do not.”

“It signifies aristocratic origins, if my information is correct. Is it, Sir von Harrer?”

Conrad considered, and immediately rejected, the full explanation as overly complicated. “It does, Cuthur Troep’eth, but the privileges and wealth once associated with such designations are much diminished. In many cases, such as mine, they are all but gone.” “Yet you are accustomed to the concept of court protocols, and comport yourself as if you have personal familiarity with them. Is this so?”

“I have some familiarity with them, sir.”

Cuthur studied him narrowly. “Well, this makes you much more interesting to me than you were a minute ago, Conrad von Harrer. It would be useful to talk to, to learn from, you. We do not understand the changes that we hear are transpiring on your Earth, even now, among your classes. In particular, we hear reports that your nobility is vastly diminished and that many who used to be aristocrats are now what you call ‘professionals’: scholars, healers, adjudicators.”

Conrad felt thoroughly disoriented. “And why is this of interest to you, Cuthur Troep’eth?”

“Is it not obvious? Because it is clear—at least to the Triumvirate—that whether we must work against or with humans, it is imperative we learn as much about them as we can. You are new to us. Most humans who have come to Mars are greed-driven adventurers, or their even less self-aware lackeys. But you may be different. It is said that many of your class are, and that your education has also given no small number of you broader perspectives and views. It would be wise to understand such people as well as we might.”

Conrad wondered if it was in his best interest to point it out, but he did anyway: “Cuthur Troep’eth, your judgment flatters me, but I am sad to say it may be somewhat out of date. There are now many learned areologists—scholars interested in Mars—who are arriving daily in—”

“Them?” Cuthur scoffed. “Most of them are worse than the adventurers. The adventurers are at least cognizant of why they are truly here: to steal this planet’s riches or rule its people. Or both. But the scholars? Behind their veneer of interest in our ‘unique culture’ there is a clinical detachment that they are not even fully aware of themselves. To them, we are, first and last, objects of study, not flesh and blood beings whose world could be snatched away from them. The great majority of them are no less motivated by greed than the adventurers: the only significant difference is that their greed is for fame and prestige in their field, not opals and peridots.

“But you have come out of need, not greed. And in coming here, have helped us. I note that you did not attempt to barter with Szurthål for the book, other than to be brought here.”

“In all honesty, Cuthur Troep’eth, I was a desperate man: money means nothing if you are dead.”

“Ah, but that is precisely where you are different, Conrad von Harrer. Most of the other humans that set foot on Mars never stop thirsting after the objects of their greed—even when their lives are in immediate peril.”

“With respect, Cuthur Troep’eth, I think so absolute a statement would be a misperception of my species.”

The elderly Martian frowned, then nodded. “That is well-said. I am judging from those we have had contact with, and they may not be truly representative of the people of Earth.”

“If I may, sir, the ones you are judging us by are typical of those groups that gravitate to new lands where there is wealth to be had by exploiting the persons already there. Not all humans are like this. And those who are will, to a one, travel long and far to capitalize on such opportunities. The hint of easy wealth draws them like flies to a carcass.”

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.”

* * *

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!

The Stellar Guild – previous books:

Tau Ceti

Kevin J. Anderson and Steve Savile

Reboots

Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin

On the Train

Harry Turtledove and Rachel Turtledove

When the Blue Shift Comes

Robert Silverberg and Alvaro Zinos-Amaro

New Under the Sun

Nancy Kress and Therese Pieczynski