Sebastian of Mars (2 page)

“What have we here? A midget King?” he
roared, and then he laughed, making the scar which ran from the
crown of his head down to the edge of his lip on the right side
blush with crimson color.

And then, to my shock, he hugged me to
himself and sighed!

As he drew me away to place me on the floor I
caught a good look of the room I had abandoned: a huge junto wood
table, nearly blood red in color, covered with charts and unrolled
maps and the leavings of gemel tea in their cups–

And that, until this day, was the only look
that I had ever had of the inside of the Council Chamber.

I was carried in today on a litter, feeling
embarrassed. I could feel the eyes on me of the Council members,
and was chagrined that I could not even enter under my own
power.

I was placed in a corner, where two chairs
had been pushed together seat to seat so that the cushion I lay
curled on could be put there.

“Move me closer to the table,” I said to the
two attendants, who ignored me.

“
I said moved me closer!
” I demanded,
and a whispered conversation between Newton and Xarr ceased,
bringing silence to the room.

Thomas made a motion to the attendants, who
immediately bowed and angled the chairs closer to the wooden table,
which did not seem quite as large as it had when I was a little
kit.

I nodded briefly, and the two servants bowed
and left the room.

Parum stood and cleared his voice, an
annoying habit. He tilted his head, covered in a coiffed mass of
reddish-brown fur, in my direction. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have
a distinguished guest today.”

It sounded condescending, and I frowned,
until a quick look from Thomas made me turn my features bland.

To my surprise, a host of warm looks turned
my way, and there was light applause.

Thomas stood. “The Prince sustained a slight
injury, or he would join us at table today.”

Again the warm looks, until Charlotte’s
father, the F’rar Senator Misst, stood and announced curtly, “I am
afraid that the Prince was injured during play, and that my
daughter was to blame – a thousand apologies!”

He bowed his shriveled, nearly hairless pate,
and the gesture, as well as the words, sounded genuine.

I was about to say something, but Thomas gave
me a quick shake of his head as Parum announced – putting both of
his large pawns, covered in copious fur the same color as that on
his head, flat on the table and leaning forward – “Very well, then!
Let us begin.” There was a gavel next to his right paw, and he
grasped it and rapped it once in practiced nonchalance.

Everyone was now seated – and for the next
twenty minutes I was entirely ignored.

And yet, I was fascinated. Every point that
was made – by Newton, mostly on scientific matters, by Xarr, on the
military angle, by the other Council members, the beautiful Rella,
Speaker for the Hall, charming Pellas, like Charlotte’s father a
prominent senator and also of the F’rar clan, and the others – was
glorious to watch. There was an ebb and flow to the proceedings; a
give and take that was impossible to describe or understand without
being there. I had read of government proceedings in countless
books, studied transcripts, even – but the real thing was much more
dynamic and alive.

This was how representative government – what
my mother had fought so hard for, and ultimately gave her life for
– worked.

I was in a trance.

So much so that when the meeting ended
abruptly, with Parum suddenly grasping and rapping his gavel again,
I was stunned.

“Is that all there is to it?” I said to
Thomas, as he approached me.

“It was a two hour meeting!” he said. “And
mostly dull as porridge!”

“It went by like five minutes.”

Thomas now stepped aside as the Council
members filed past me to give their best wishes, as well as
condolences on my most current injury.

I noticed that Parum was the only one among
them who did not do so, leaving abruptly through the same doors I
had snuck into when I was little.

Newton examined my leg. “Your injury is
nothing! It will heal quickly, I’ll wager. We will speak tonight
about the stars, before I leave?”

“Yes, please!” I nearly shouted, losing my
newly acquired royal bearing.

“Good.”

He was gone, leaving me alone with
Thomas.

“A word of caution,” Thomas said. “The next
time Rella addresses you, do not look at her like you would have
her served to you on a plate.”

“But she is beautiful!”

He laughed, the first mirth I had seen in him
today. “She is beautiful, and she is the Speaker of the Hall of
Assembly, the largest democratic body ever on the planet Mars – and
she is also married and also as devious as a serpent when she needs
to be. And she is F’rar.”

I must have blushed slightly, and he laughed
again, as he motioned the two attendants now waiting patiently in
the doorway to come and bring me back to my chambers. “And you
listened to my prime advice, and kept your mouth shut,” he said.
“Very good.”

T
hat night Newton,
as promised, came to see me.

I was tired, but brightened immediately when
he entered my chambers. Though he was an old man, he moved with a
grace I desperately wished to possess, and spoke always with an
elucidation I envied and sought to mimic.

“My petite prince!” he announced, smiling,
his lean face, lightly furred, breaking in a sly smile. “Have you
been studying the night sky while I was away?”

“You know what I wait for, Newton!”

“And with my next trip back from Sagan, you
shall have it. The Optical Guild artisans have been hard at work on
it – as well as other things.” His face darkened for a moment.

“Tell me about my telescope!”

“Ah!” he said, his face brightening. “It is a
fine instrument, better than my own, even. The lens will be 150
millimeters wide – a good diameter. Good enough to study Earth and
the other planets with, as well as some of the other riches in the
night sky!”

“It is cloudy tonight,” I said sadly,
pointing toward the open window of my room.

“Indeed. But I have brought another useful
toy that may prove instructive.”

He reached into his tunic and removed a tube
with a lens on the end.

“Bah!” I said. “That is nothing but a hand
torch! You brought me one last year!”

“This is a bit more than that,” he said
mysteriously, and then reached out to extinguish the electric light
in the room.

We were bathed in complete darkness, except
for the outline of the window which let in the faint lights of the
city of Wells.

“Watch,” Newton whispered.

There was a faint click and then the room was
filled with stars!

“You’ve banished the clouds!”

“Not quite,” he laughed, as I reached out to
try to touch the point of light nearest my bed. My hand went
through it, and now the point of light was painted on my paw
itself.

“You’ve shrunk the night and brought it
indoors!”

He laughed louder. “You are certainly your
mother’s son. Again, not exactly. But we have been able to
duplicate the night sky, and project it for study on nights such as
this.” In the dark, he handed the instrument to me. “I hope you
enjoy it, when clouds or dust storms come.”

“Thank you!” I said, and reached up to put my
paws around his neck.

He patted my back and then straightened. “You
are getting too old for such displays of affection, Sebastian!
Before you know it, your body will change in ways that are
remarkable. Soon, you will not be a kit anymore. Now, a short
lesson. Point the instrument straight overhead, so that it projects
on the ceiling. And tell me which is the brightest star and what
its name is.”

“It is spring . . .” I said. “Therefore, it
would be in the constellation of the Big Kite. Saurus! The King of
Cats!” I pointed toward a star toward the western end of the
room.

“Very good! Now find the Great Ladle.”

I did so, and we continued in this fashion
until I suddenly blurted, “But where is Earth and its moon? And the
other planets?”

He walked to the wall switch and used it,
making the faux night sky instantly disappear. “They wander, and it
would be difficult to project their progress since it changes each
night. The same with our own moons. But we are working on it.”

His face had assumed a serious demeanor. He
pulled Thomas’ stool close to my bed and said, “May we talk
seriously for a few moments, Sebastian? Or should I practice
calling you . . . Sire?”

The ghost of his smile traced his lips.

I must have reddened slightly, because he
quickly added, “You did the correct thing, today. I imagine you’ve
heard of Parum’s ambitions. Be assured that there are those of us
on the Council and elsewhere who oppose them. You have many more
supporters than your advisers believe. I would have to say you put
a scare into old Parum, who isn’t as smart or clever as he thinks.
He has been a good if not great regent, and I have the feeling his
time in that role may be coming to an end.”

“You’re talking of my assuming the throne
early?”

He nodded slowly. I noticed that he was not
concerned with lowering his voice, the way Thomas had been. “You
must remember, Sebastian, that I helped your mother write the new
constitution. She was a brilliant and far-sighted woman. She had
every intention of making sure the Second Republic of Mars was
successful, and impervious to the kind of corruption that destroyed
the first one.” I saw his eyes cloud.

“Yet you are still worried?”

He hesitated before answering.

“I am not a little kit anymore, Newton.”

Still he hesitated, and then he said,
carefully, “There will always be dangers, Sebastian.”

“Then tell them to me.”

I thought he was still studying me, but
instead I sensed he was studying his own internal catalogue. It
suddenly occurred to me who the real rulers and protectors of Mars
had been all these years of my growing up – not Parum and his
cronies but Newton, and Xarr, and probably others. Parum was the
face of Mars, but those like Newton were its beating heart.

“Tell me,” I repeated.

“I will tell you something frightening, and
then I will tell you something marvelous,” he said “You will
doubtless do nothing but learn such things in the next months,
especially if you do ascend early. But listen to this, because it
has import far beyond even our own republic or our individual
lives.”

It thrilled me – and frightened me – that
there would be something more important than the Second Republic of
Mars.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“Just this,” he said. “I will frighten you
first, because you are your mother’s son and can handle dire words.
I spoke once with you mother of this, years ago. Do you know the
various oxygenation stations scattered around the planet, abandoned
in the dim past by the Old Ones?”

“Of course!” I said brightly. I pointed
across the room to a table where some of my crude modeling attempts
lay. One of them was a diorama of an abandoned valley I had seen in
a picture, dominated by a stand of ancient structures, decrepit
buildings and a series of towering smokestacks.

Newton gave a cursory glance at my handiwork
and looked back at me with a wry grin. “Yes. You are aware. Well,
we may need to rejuvenate those complexes.”

“Why?”

“Because Mars is losing its atmosphere. It is
leaking into space like a pinprick in a child’s balloon. No, that’s
not quite accurate. Think rather of our atmosphere as a giant
balloon, and millions of pinpricks letting our precious oxygen
out.”

“Well, then, we will get the oxygenation
stations working again!”

“It is not that simple, Sebastian. You see,
we don’t quite know how.”

“What!” This came as a great shock to me.
“But you can do anything, Newton!”

His wry smile returned. “I’m no magician. The
fact is, we’ve been studying these structures for years, and have
only begun to understand them in a rudimentary sense. The Old Ones
were far more advanced than we are, if no wiser. You must remember,
Sebastian, that most of our science, including the recent advent of
powered airships, was gleaned from the leavings of those ancient
creatures. Electricity, motor propulsion, energy production from
water dams and aquifers – all of it.” His face darkened. “Even the
recent horror weapons were gleaned from hints and artifacts the Old
Ones left behind.”

He must have seen the crestfallen look on my
face – after all, he was a hero to me, infallible and in many ways
a father figure – for he brightened and said: “And so, that is the
bad news! I promised you magnificent news, too, and you shall have
it. We have continued our work on the new engines, and think that
one day in the not too distant future, we may be able to attain
space.”

I nearly jumped from my cushion. “Space! This
has been my dream since I was a kit!” I pointed again to my work
table, where various crude rocket ships lay in various states of
completion. Most of them were from the popular press.

Newton walked to the table and picked up a
particular model, made from carved junto wood, a sleek thing with
fins and a tapered nose. He held it up to the light and studied it.
“This is not so far from the truth,” he said. “Where did you get
it?”

“I built it from a picture I saw in a
publication.”

“Curious . . .” Newton said, frowning.

“Is there something wrong?”

He turned his attention to me. He smiled, but
it looked forced. “Of course not. May I borrow this?”

“You may keep it!” I said.

Idly, he dropped it into his tunic pocket and
again approached my bedside. He did not sit down.