Authors: Al Sarrantonio
Tags: #mars, #war, #kings, #martians, #kingdoms, #cat people, #cat warriors
“What–?” I asked.
“Awakkkke?” he asked.
“Yes. I thought . . .”
He cocked his head to one side, just as Frane
had done in the nightmare, but there was no malice in his look,
only curiosity.
“I thought you were dead!” I blurted out.
He pulled back and stood before the captain’s
chair. He shook his head. “You sleeeep,
I
sleeeep.”
“But you weren’t breathing!”
He nodded. “Wassss. Sleeeep breeeeathe . .
.”
“And your pulse –”
Quiff held out his arm, and put my finger on
it, at the crook of the elbow, instead of at the wrist, as I had
done.
There was a pulse, low and steady.
He blinked at me, ever so slowly.
My attention was drawn away from his vital
signs by a distinct bump on the bottom of the vessel.
He looked nonplussed.
There came another bump, more pronounced, and
then other sounds from outside: a hum and rattle, the wash of
draining water.
“What–?”
“Arrivvvved,” Quiff said, simply.
He stepped away, and I saw through the huge
port window the beach of the lapping sea behind us, and a track,
which we obviously were on, leading back to the shoreline. Beyond
was a massive cavern, which made the one I had seen on first
entering the bowels of Olympus Mons a cave, its ceiling lost in
dark clouds. Creatures resembling ivory white birds flitted here
and there. What looked like a rainstorm raged in the distance, and
I heard a booming crack of thunder.
I thought I saw, just at the limits of
vision, a single long tapering tentacle uncurl, and then slide
beneath the waves, as if in farewell.
In the foreground, as another bump sounded,
the sand of the shore turned to rock, and then we were swallowed by
a tunnel. The opening appeared, shrinking to a lighted hole, and
then there was nothing but darkness.
“Now what?” I asked.
Quiff settled into the chair next to me, and
shook his head.
“How long?” I inquired.
In answer he closed his eyes, and once more
feigned death.
I determined to stay awake, if only to avoid
nightmares. It was not hard, for I was very hungry again, and knew
that fish would not be an option. The clack of the rails below us
was soothing, however, and I drifted into a doze which became,
thankfully, a dreamless sleep.
Once more I was awakened by the touch of my
companion.
“One is waiting,” he explained.
I had a hundred questions, and asked some of
them, but now he would say nothing.
We had stopped. The port window was now
closed, but light of some sort filled the row of windows near the
top of the ship.
My companion walked to the airlock, and
opened it.
It was framed in broken glass, but provided
egress from the ship.
I blinked as I stepped out. For a moment I
was sure that we had either never left the cavern I had originally
entered in Olympus Mons – or, perversely, that we had merely
circled the great sea and returned to our starting point. The huge
rock room I found myself in was exactly like the one I had left,
filled with wondrous machines as far as the eye could see. There
was even an opening in the far wall that exactly resembled the
tunnel opening which had led me to this place.
I turned to my calm friend. “Where are
we?”
“Arsia Monssss,” he answered.
“We’re in the bowels of another volcano?”
He nodded, and blinked slowly.
“One wants to see you,” he said, and began to
walk.
Before we did so, I took Quiff’s arm lightly
and said, “Even though you basically kidnaped me, and I’ve been in
nothing but danger since, I want to thank you.”
He blinked at me slowly, then again, and
then, strangely, bowed.
“You’rrrre welcommme!” he said.
I followed him through a maze of marvelous
machines. There were those – huge sleek needles and long wedges
with bare wings and massive blackened round openings in their afts
– that looked like they had been lit with fires like the sun and
that could only be used for flying in space. There were long
segmented tubes that resembled the chimneys at the oxygenation
stations Newton and my mother had studied. There were monstrous
boxes shined to brilliance without a break in their surfaces, and
numerous smaller machines with strange dials and white clock faces
circled with hundreds of unknown symbols. Things with coils. Broken
things, open with shining innards of colored weird parts. A long
tube, the only thing that I had seen that looked vaguely familiar .
. .
We wove our way to the edge of the room.
There was a door in the rock wall which opened silently in the
middle as we approached. It closed behind us. We were now in a
passageway with a high rock ceiling and lit at intervals by
illuminated bars. They looked like larger versions of my
companion’s cooking tools, attached to the ceiling. They gave an
even, pleasing light.
There was another door ahead of us, and it
opened at our approach, sighing shut behind us.
Now we were in near darkness. The light was
purple and faint. There were shapes that appeared as shadows. High
near the ceiling something revolved slowly. There was a faint hum
in the room, which sounded like vast energies elsewhere filtered
into this place.
Something moved in the darkness ahead of us –
a shape in what looked like a throne or chair set on a high
pedestal.
“Approach,” a startling, loud female voice
spoke.
My companion stayed rooted to his spot, but
urged me along, pushing me gently with his large hand.
I looked back at him.
He blinked once, slowly, in the dimness.
“One,” he whispered.
“Approach, please,” the too-loud voice
said.
I turned and walked toward the pedestal.
The purple light intensified. Beneath my feet
the walkway glowed, the same color. The pedestal took on inner
light, also, as did the throne.
The figure remained in shadow, an
outline.
I stopped at the pedestal, which, I saw, had
a shallow set of steps built into it.
“Please, come all the way up.”
I put my boot on the first step, and my heart
began to pound.
I hesitated, and then stepped back down.
“I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind,” I
said.
There was silence for a moment, and then the
too-perfect voice said, “We need to talk, King Sebastian.”
“Why do they call you One?”
There was another hesitation.
“Because there is only one of me.”
Now I detected the faintest hint of humor in
the voice.
I saw what looked like a hand shrouded in
darkness reach out toward me.
“Please come close. I want to see you.
Please.” The hint of humor was gone, replaced almost by
pleading.
I turned around, and my companion was
gone.
I put my boot on the first step, and then
went all the way to the top of the pedestal.
There was a faint electrical odor, like ozone
after a storm.
The vaguest of lights moved in the shadow
form, where a face would be.
Two eyes made of light stared out at me.
I saw what looked like a teardrop, made of
light, trail down the shadow face.
“The technology of the Old Ones made me
possible.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There is too much you don’t understand. That
is why I sent for you. You are more important to this planet than
you or others realize, King Sebastian. If you do not succeed in
this war against Frane, no one will be left alive on Mars within
ten years.”
“Because we’re losing our atmosphere?”
Another, longer pause. “Yes. I see you
already know this. If Frane is allowed to win, she will destroy
everything to do with the Old Ones that doesn’t have to do with
weapons, including the oxygenation stations to renew the
atmosphere. It would be a death sentence for Mars. Frane only cares
about destruction. She will get her wish in more ways than she
realizes, if she triumphs. That is why you must go on a quest,
Sebastian. I know something of the weapon she will use on Olympus
Mons, and I know how to disable it. And I believe you are the one
who must do it.”
“Why?”
“Because you are King, and because until you
show your strength the people will not be completely behind
you.”
“You speak of my physical weakness?” I said,
becoming angry.
The lit eyes momentarily grew brighter, and
One leaned forward toward me, a purple shape in the darkness,
before settling back again.
“Yes,” One said, simply, the artificial voice
completely flat. “Even now, there are sections of Mars that are
leaning toward Frane, because they see in her a strength that they
think you don’t possess. If this happens, Frane will win. And if
she reaches Olympus Mons with her weapon, she will win. But you can
stop her. There are others who opposed this course of action, and
that is why I brought you here.”
“Why should I listen to you?” I asked.
“Because it must be done!” the mechanical
voice shouted, and I trembled. “Because there is no other way to
save Mars!”
Silence stretched between us. The vague light
that was her face receded, and I thought that she was sleeping, or
had turned herself off. But then the eyes flared back on with
greater intensity – two eyeballs staring at me out of a dark and
empty face.
“You must go on this quest,” she said. “Will
you do it?”
I tried to look proud. “I am my mother’s son.
I will go.”
“Well said. But it will take more than pride
to do what you must do. You will need every ounce of your courage,
and you must draw from yourself a stamina that you do not as yet
possess. You must become a man, Sebastian of Argyre. Do you think
you can accomplish these things?”
“Yes.”
The eyes dimmed, and when they re-lit, they
were not as bright, and the voice was weaker. “I do not have much
time. My powers need to be regenerated. Listen, and listen well . .
.”
She told me what I must do.
I
n the days that
followed, I learned just how arduous my task would be. Quiff helped
me prepare, and I was happy to learn that he would accompany me.
There were others of his kind, some of whom I met, including one
who I took to be his spouse. They were indeed an unknown clan, who
spent most of their time underground. There were two young kits,
even stranger looking than the grownups, with eyes that looked
startlingly large in their little faces. But I must have appeared
strange to them, too, and one of them took to following me around
and staring at me with a curiosity that bordered on obsession.
Finally this kit tugged at my tunic and asked, “Are you a
fffffreak?”
Composing as solemn a look as I could muster,
I picked the goggle-eyed youngster up, looked straight into its
huge eyes and said, “Yes!”
Then we both laughed.
This little friend was with me for the next
few days while Quiff and I prepared.
As One had explained to me, Quiff and I would
travel underground and emerge somewhere behind Frane’s army. This
was not as easy as it sounded. On the maps Quiff showed me there
were vast areas that no one had explored for centuries, and others,
marked in bright red, that were considered nothing less than
dangerous. There were allies along the way, clans akin to Quiff’s
own underground people, but there were others of unknown
disposition.
I spent nearly two days roaming amongst the
marvelous machines in the great hall, nearly all of which would,
unfortunately, be useless for our purposes, because, though the Old
Ones had built them, their workings were now unknown to us. Which
led me to ask Quiff a question:
“Who is One?”
He gave me an excruciatingly slow blink and
then answered: “SSSShe iss One. That is all.”
“Where did she come from?”
He shrugged.
I learned that she had been discovered by
Quiff, which put him in an exalted position in his clan.
Which both startled,
and frightened me.
O
ne summoned Quiff
and I before her one more time before we left. She was much
diminished in energy, I could tell. Her voice, though still sharp,
was faded, as if a volume control had been turned down. Her eyes
were barely visible in the hooded purple blackness of her face.
“I must tell you this before you go,” she
said. I stepped closer, to hear her better, and again smelled that
ozone odor. There was a faint crackling sound.
She reached out a faint glowing finger and
set it gently on my paw, which startled me. The crackling turned to
a hiss, and I felt a run of electric shock faintly up my arm.
“You may not see me again,” she said. “I am
weak now, and must go. But I want you to remember me, and what I
have told you. Mars was once great, and can be great again.”
Her eyes once more glowed, and I was
astonished to feel a real tear on my paw. I looked deeply into her
fading eyes in her amorphous face. For a moment it almost became
solid, but then it turned to a ghostly image once more.
“Take care,” she said, her voice fading away,
“and be strong.”
And then she was gone.
The purple lights in the room came up,
showing an empty pedestal.
“Is there anything we can do for her?” I
asked Quiff, whose own huge eyes were filled with tears.
He shrugged helplessly.
“Nothing that I knowwww,” he said.
After a few moments of helplessness, I left
the podium, my fists clenched in anger, and stalked from the room.
I felt impotent and useless.
“We must go, Quiff,” I
said, and I looked back as I reached the entry to see him still
facing the empty podium, his huge hands covering his huge eyes, and
weeping.
W
e left the
following morning.