Sebastian of Mars (7 page)

“Sire!” Thomas’s voice shouted at me from
behind.

I quickly stepped down and turned to see
Thomas emerging, a frantic look on his face, from the far tunnel.
He stopped, nearly stepping on my skeletal find near the shore.

“Don’t move!” I shouted at him, and he stood
still. Behind him were three anxious looking guards.

“I’m all right!” I said making my way back.
“Look down!”

Thomas’ did so, and nearly jumped back.

“Oh!”

“We must preserve the skeleton, as is.”

Thomas bent down and was examining my find.
“This is a very fine specimen.”

I was already taking my boots off again to
re-cross the stream. For some reason I did not want Thomas to know
what else I had found.

There were no further whispers from above
me.

I made my way across the cold water, and put
my boots back on.

“There looked to be more bones across the
stream. But there was nothing,” I lied.

Thomas was still studying the skeleton of the
Old One. “You should not have dodged your keepers. This must not
happen again,” he scolded, distractedly.

“I promise I won’t. But you must admit this
is a find.”

“Yes . . .”

“We must save it for Newton.”

“Indeed...”

I followed him out of the cave, surrounded by
guards, the echo of that ghostly whisper still in my ears.

T
hus were my first
weeks in the bowels of the great Olympus Mons spent – more in
idleness and frustration, while my people fought and died in my
name – than anything else.

Finally I could stand it no more, and
convened a Council meeting. We met in one of the opulently
appointed spaces that had been built in a particularly roomy
cavern. The living and work quarters were like a city within a
mountain. Even a measure of royalty had been maintained, with a
copy of the table and chairs we had used back in Wells in the
palace. Nothing, however, could hide the fact that our four
manufactured walls were open at the top, revealing the arch of a
red cavern high above.

I noticed on entering this faux Council
chamber that Rella’s place was empty.

Thomas leaned over and whispered in my ear,
“Be patient. We will hear of this.”

Ignoring him, I demanded, “Where is Senator
Rella?”

Lieutenant Jift’s smirk was in good form
today. “She has been detained. I have proof that she is a spy,
Sire.”

“
What!
” I thundered.

Jift sat down, sated in his furnishing of
surprise.

Thomas put a hand on my arm. “We will speak
of these things.”

“Speak of them now!”

Jift took a deep breath, and stood. “Very
well, Sire. It is not on the top of our agenda, but I would be
happy to clear this up now. Quite simply, Rella of Hellas is a
spy.”

My glare must have told him to continue,
because he did so.

“She was caught with a message receiver in
her chambers. Apparently she had been trying to contact her cohorts
in Wells and give away our position.”

“How do you know that’s what she was doing?”
I demanded.

“It is obvious. She is F’rar, and so must be
a traitor –”

“She pledged an oath to me!”

The commander looked down at me as if I was
still a kit. He slowly spread his paws. “Sire, the evidence is
clear. She sought your destruction, and the destruction of the
republic.”

I held my tongue, and Jift took his seat,
smiling with satisfaction.

“Is there more business?” I snapped, my mind
still on this revelation.

“Indeed,” Thomas said.

At that moment old general Xarr entered the
room, blustering.

“Xarr!” I shouted, leaving my seat to embrace
him. It was not good form, but I didn’t care.

He returned my embrace, but his features were
grim. “Perhaps you will not be so content to see me when you hear
my report.”

I retook my seat and Xarr went to an empty
place and stood.

“The war is going badly for us, I’m afraid,”
he reported. “Frane’s treachery was incredibly well planned and her
influence widespread. In every city and town there were F’rar
traitors just waiting for her word.”

I thought of Rella as the general went
on.

“After Wells was lost, then Bradbury, the
twin cities of Sagan and Shliovski quickly fell, despite Newton’s
best efforts.”

Before I could interject, Xarr added quickly,
looking in my direction, “Newton and his people are safe.
Preparations had been made. But I’m afraid that the main facilities
of the Science Guild have been lost to the enemy – even if few of
Newton’s secrets were left to take.”

“He –”

Xarr nodded curtly. “Newton destroyed most of
the labs and underground bunkers, rather than have them fall into
Frane’s hands. But there were even a few F’rar spies in his midst,
and some of the facilities are now in Frane’s hands.”

A small gasp went up around the room, and
Xarr nodded. “Among them were some . . . sensitive material, I’m
afraid. One of the Newton’s closest advisors turned out to be a
traitor.” He took a deep breath and continued. “In other cities and
towns . . .”

Xarr went on for another fifteen minutes, but
I barely heard him until his summation: “So there we have it. We
have been pushed from the major centers of commerce and technology,
into the hills and dunes. We have become a desert army once more.
And . . .”

He looked at me with his one good eye.

“. . . Frane is now heading this way.”

Another collective gasp, and I saw Jift’s
smile widen ever so slightly, as if to say, ‘I told you so.’”

“How long before she arrives?”

“Weeks yet. She has headed out from Wells on
foot, gathering her army to her as she goes. I would guess she knew
of this fortress all along. When she gets here she will have
amassed forty thousand troops at a minimum. Perhaps many more.”

“Then we will be ready for her!” I said.

Even as I uttered the words I knew they were
foolish. It was Xarr who saved me from having to admit it.

“Sire,” he said, his voice a somber rumble,
“we have barely three thousand at present. Another four can get
here in the next two weeks when the call goes out – as, indeed, it
already has. We have certain defenses, but they are not
impenetrable. True, we are built to withstand siege . . .”

“Continue, Xarr,” I said.

His face, his tone, his visage, became, if
anything, even more somber. “But siege is not what Frane has
planned. I have a few spies of my own, still, and not every F’rar
is a traitor. It seems that Frane has no intention of siege.”

There was a complete hush in the room.

“What, then?” I asked, finally breaking the
silence with impatience.

Xarr turned his one baleful eye on me. For a
moment he could not speak. “Do you remember what happened to my own
city of Burroughs in the last war?” he asked, his voice choking
with emotion.

I went cold from my ears to my toes. “Yes . .
.” I said slowly.

“Apparently Frane has spent her time wisely,
developing an even greater version of the weapon that wiped my home
from the face of Mars. A concussion device of monstrous
proportions.”

“How–?”

Xarr banged on the table with his clenched
paw. “The how is irrelevant, Sire! It has been done. This is a
fact. Even though your mother destroyed her evil scientist, Talon,
she did not succeed in killing his knowledge. In the hills, all
these years, Frane and her cohorts have been building a weapon more
destructive than anything that has ever been seen on Mars.” He
sighed heavily. “The good news is that it is so massive that it
cannot be transported by airship. Otherwise she would have used it
by now.” Again he sighed, and his voice lowered. “At least then we
would have had a chance to shoot it down, or destroy it with one of
our own superior airships.”

“Why can’t we destroy it on the ground?” I
asked.

“Because we don’t know where it is, and
because it has been broken up into many pieces small enough to hide
in a massive army. It will be reassembled when Frane and her army
reach Olympus Mons, and then detonated.”

Xarr paused again.

“And then,” he said, his voice cracking, “she
will, in one moment, wipe Olympus Mons from the face of Mars.”

I
went to visit
Rella in her cell.

It was not a hospitable place. Dank and dark,
with drizzles of water pooling on the floor, it was well in the
bowels of the explored regions and well guarded. Jift did not want
me to go there but Xarr, who was about to leave for the East,
interceded on my behalf.

“It is good for the boy to see real life,” he
said, which was a mysterious thing for him to say at the time.
Later I knew what he meant.

She received me with courtesy, as always. It
pained me to see this object of my former puppy love so disheveled
and unhappy.

“Are they treating you well?” I asked, almost
timidly.

She looked at me curiously. “Well enough. Why
have you come here, Sire?”

“To hear from your own lips that you are
innocent.”

She turned away from me, and looked up at the
single window, cut high in the rock wall of the cell, which was
dark. It looked out not on daylight outside the mountain but merely
on the tunnel which led here.

“I had a son, your age,” she said. The
sadness of her voice tugged at my heart. She sounded as if she was
speaking to herself, or someone else long gone. “He was killed
after the last war, when violence against my clan peaked. This was
just after your mother’s victory. He was just a kit, and was in his
father’s arms.”

She turned to face me. “My husband was
murdered, too, trying to save my son. I had one of two roads to
take, then. I could take the road of vengeance, and try to pay the
republic back for what they had done to my family – or I could make
sure that something like the last war never happened again.”

She took a step toward me, and her eyes
flashed. “I wanted to take the road of vengeance. With all my heart
I wanted to. But I did not. My father was a diplomat, and his
father before him. We all opposed Frane. For their troubles, my
father and grandfather were murdered by their own people. I decided
to become a diplomat, too, in the new republic, and do everything I
could for my clan.” Her voice became a hiss, and she took another
step toward me, her eyes flashing gold, one hand thrust outward
with the short claws fully extended.
“But I did not betray you,
and I will go to my death protesting my innocence.
”

“Your death –” I said, momentarily
speechless. “Do you mean to say –?”

She straightened, and her eyes lost some of
their fire. “You didn’t know? The orders of execution were signed
by Xarr when he arrived yesterday.”

I felt my face flush. “I will not let this
happen!”

A knowing, almost kind expression came across
her face. “Poor Sire. I can see now that you had nothing to do with
it. This, at least, brings me peace of a sort.”

“No! This cannot be! I will not let –”

She held up a hand. “You know your own
mother’s document, do you not?”

I was still frantic. “Yes! But –”

“There is nothing you can do, sire.”

She stepped forward and suddenly enfolded me
in her arms. I felt like a blubbering kit, and was crying against
her bosom, just as I had so many times after my sister had teased
me, or some other childish fate had befallen me.

“Do you know,” she soothed, “that in a way I
came to see you as my own son? The mind doctors would say that you
were a substitute for my own loss, and I was one for you.”

“I will not allow this to happen!”

She pushed me gently away, and I saw that the
fire in her eyes had been completely replaced by a soft look.

“I did love you as my own. I always will,
Sebastian.”

I pushed myself completely away. “I will
speak to Xarr!”

I stormed out of there, pushing the guards
roughly out of the way at the entrance.

I caught General Xarr as he was preparing to
leave. He was mounted on his horse, in full armor, surrounded by
the small band of soldiers who would accompany him as he sought to
rally what troops stood between us and the advancing Frane army. It
was a grim task, and he looked grim.

The secret gates from our cavern entrance had
been deactivated, letting in a wash of sunlight that was doubly
dazzling because it had been so long since I’d seen the sun. The
far horizon was layered in mist and dust, and the plains and
rolling hills below, patched here and there with the green of
vegetation, looked a world away, we were so high.

“What is it, Sire?” he nearly snapped at me
when I stood in front of his mount, resplendent in deep red armor
itself. As if to mirror its rider’s sentiments, it snorted at
me.

I glared at him, and his own ire diminished.
He dismounted, and drew me aside, out of the sunlight and into a
small feline-made tunnel.

His one good eye stared at me balefully. “I
have much to do.”

“Yes, you do. You can begin by pardoning
Rella.”

He drew himself up. “Those execution orders
were drawn up by Jift. And, yes, I signed them, just as you’ve no
doubt heard by now.”

“Do you really believe her guilty?” My voice
was shrill, and the old general suddenly gripped me by my arm,
tightly, and drew me deeper into the passageway.

“With all respect, sire, shut your mouth!” he
whispered fiercely.

“Wha –”

His grip tightened, and he drew his face
closer. The scar which ran from his right eye to his chin looked
like a dry riverbed seen from a great height.

“You march in here, in front of my men – in
front of
your
men – wailing like a suckling kitten! What’s
wrong with you! This will be all over the camp before nightfall! If
you want them to respect you, you have to act like a man!”