In the Courts of the Crimson Kings (7 page)

“Capture her?”

Both words were separately in Interrogative; the guardsman raised two fingers to his brow in apology. Sajir sa-Tomond moved a hand in a gentle curve that covered his words in a glow of affection:

“The offspring was female. And there is the
vas-Terranan
to be considered. There are implications of possession of the Tollamune genome that you do not know; suffice it to say that the Terran requires access to the genome. Prince Heltaw sa-Veynau, for example, wishing to rule through a puppet and gain access to the Tollamune genome. Possibly others, but certainly him.”

“The Terran?”

“Him. Unfortunately, he is necessary to my purposes. And I very much depreciate the high-probability consequences of his no longer needing
me
.”

“I will begin contingency planning immediately,” Notaj said. “The necessary information, Supremacy—identity and location?”

He gave the data—keys to the files, rather—and watched the brisk efficiency of the commander’s stride out of the entrance with wry amusement.

Then the man halted and turned in the doorway, his eyes going to the
atanj
board.

“Twenty-
five
moves, Supremacy.”

That also reminded him of a woman dead many years.

His loyalty is absolute, though intelligent and independent
, the Tollamune thought.
And now I have activated his own Lineage ambitions. He will operate at maximum efficiency. To promote this is to sustain harmony
.

With a sigh he rose from the recliner and walked to the crystal throne. Eddies moved within the dense redness of it, like wings of gauze. He gave a complex shiver as he sat, resting his head against the recess behind it and feeling the featherlight pressure against the scar on his neck, then a slight sting. Exterior reality vanished. A murmur as of distant hive insects seemed to fill his skull, but it was no
mere vibration of the air. An inexpressible sensation of draining, as his recent memories joined those of all his life, and of the Lineage of the Crimson Dynasty and their consorts since the beginning.

Visions: death, birth, love, hate, accomplishment and cruelty, glory and despair. The bowed heads of ancient kings kneeling before the First Emperor; the feel of his own blood pouring out over the crystal, and the knives in the hands of kin. The temptation to lose himself in that endless sea was strong and bitter, as strong as the taste of
tokmar
; he knew that, for a memory of it was here—not his, many generations removed, but as real as the weary weight of his own bones.

“For a moment,” he whispered. “Only for a moment I will see you again, my Vowin, so beautiful and so fierce. Then I will fight for the child of our union, until we are united once more.”

Encyclopedia Britannica, 20th Edition
University of Chicago Press, 1998

MARS
—History of Observation

The lack of the consistent layer of high cloud which rendered Earth-based telescopic investigation of Venus so difficult was partially offset by the smaller size of Mars and the rarity of close approaches. By the early nineteenth century, astronomers such as Herschel and Schroeter had determined the size, axial inclination, and seasons of the red planet. The presence of polar icecaps and the distinct yearly changes in their dimensions argued for a basically Earthlike world. However, the small size and poor definition of available refractors long delayed further definitive conclusions as to the surface features of Mars, although in the 1830s Beer and Mädler accurately located the
Sinus Meridiani
and determined a rotational period close to the true one.

Over the next two generations, several other features were discovered, among them the Hourglass Sea, and the seasonal
fluctuations in ice cover on the North Polar Sea. The Jesuit scholar Angelo Secchi, director of the observatory of the Collegio Romano in Rome, conclusively proved the existence of continents and seas during the opposition of 1858, a result confirmed by the British astronomer William Rutter Davies in 1864. The investigations of Giovanni Schiaparelli in the next thirty years discovered and began the mapping of the Martian canals.

These were extended and refined by the American Percival Lowell, beginning with his Arizona expedition for the opposition of 1894, and confirmed by E. M. Antoniadi in the same period. Lowell also made the first relatively accurate calculation of the density of the Martian atmosphere; the first positive though still ambiguous and disputed evidence of oxygen and water vapor was discovered by Walter S. Adams and Theodore Dunham, who attached a spectroscope to the 100-inch reflector at Mt. Wilson Observatory in the 1930s.

Conclusive proof that Mars had an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere similar to Earth’s, though somewhat less massive, was produced by Gerard Peter Kuiper at the McDonald Observatory in Texas in 1947. Since it was now widely appreciated that free oxygen can only be a by-product of biological action, this evidence removed the last serious objections to Lowell’s theory that the canals were a product of intelligent design, and created intense worldwide interest . . .

Mars, City of Zar-tu-Kan
May 1, 2000 AD

Jeremy Wainman grinned to himself as they followed the two Martians toward the Alliance consulate. Most people his age knew what a Martian city looked like, but . . .

Or they think they do. They haven’t lived it. I hadn’t, until now. They haven’t felt it or smelled it
.

He’d been born near Los Alamos, New Mexico, and raised there and points south before being selected for the Academy in Colorado Springs. Zar-tu-Kan reminded him of Sedona, down in Arizona—if you could imagine the colored buttes and cliffs as made by hands and minds, rather than by eroding wind and sand. Those
forces had smoothed and rounded here too, until every sharp edge had blurred; the streets of Zar-tu-Kan felt like random alleyways laid out by the wanderings of ancient Martian burros through a maze of low cliffs stippled in a faded rainbow of colors.

They weren’t; computer analysis had shown subtle planning, something like the deep patterns you got in a fractal . . . or it might be the result of constant minor adjustments over inconceivable lengths of time. The tall, blank walls of melted-looking stone on either side were mostly close, but they waved and curved like frozen water, usually giving you a place to step aside when a caravan of tall, spindly, hairy beasts laden with huge packsaddles went by, or a rider mounted on a
rakza
, an animal that might have been a big ostrich, except for the thick neck and massive hooked beak.

The
rakza
screeched and shook its head as a wagon blocked its path for a moment, flicking up the crest of green-gold feathers on its long skull, until the rider gave a sharp tug on the reins. A pair of patrollers paused at the sound; they rode on self-propelled unicycles, with dart-rifles slung over their backs and helmets with eyes on stalks peering rearward, ready to warn their masters of attack. When they saw the incident would die of its own accord, they leaned forward, swaying and turning to weave through the traffic.

Now and then they passed a doorway, which might be blank or elaborately carved wood with the sinuous glyphs the Crimson Dynasty had made the planet’s standard script, or cast with designs in imperishable frosted crystal, sometimes in styles so old that the Martians themselves had forgotten what they meant. Zar-tu-Kan had been a city before the Kings Beneath the Mountains began their rise half a world away. Fine lines showed against the sky, where anti-bird nets strung between the upper stories made sure no migrating predators would drop in for a snack.

Most of the passers-by were natives of the city or its dependent territories, with their hair in elaborate coils to denote occupation and status, and vertical stripes on their robes—farmer, smith, artisan, soldier, clerk, or occupations that had no precise Terran equivalent.

A scattering were from much farther away: Highlanders even more eerily elongated than the standard Martians and barrel-chested, goggles over their eyes,
Wai Zang
mercenaries in glittering black armor and visors with the faceted eyes of insects, and students in
carved masks abstract or whimsical or bestial, come to study at the Scholarium.

Sometimes the alleys opened out into an oblong space surrounded by shops and service trades, their clear glassine windows showing their wares.
Atanj
players looked up from their boards and spheres of essence as the Terrans walked by—and it wasn’t easy to pry a Martian loose from their equivalent of chess. Shoppers looked up, too.

And I wouldn’t mind shopping here
, Jeremy thought. Usually he was bored stiff by it, but that was in the hypermarkets back home.

Flaps of artfully arranged
rooz
meat looked a little like beef; red-purple canal shrimp swam in globular bowls and huddled back in tight knots when a storekeeper dipped a net in their tank; there were piles of mysterious vegetables and others of breads like fluffy pancakes. And there were other merchants with fabrics, weapons, tools, jewelry, animals of scores of specialized uses, the Martian books with their narrow pages bound at the tops . . .

Fliers passed by overhead; towers reared impossible heights into the pink-blue sky like skyscrapers in Manhattan, and above it all, the two small moons passed like rapid stars. It was nearly twenty years since the first Terrans had come out of the desert to the city, but they still attracted a fair bit of attention, though only the children showed it openly. They ranged from knee-high to almost grown, and the younger ones gaped and pointed and gave peals of shrill laughter.

“Cute little tykes,” Jeremy said as they passed a knot of them where two of the narrow streets intersected.

They were playing a game much like
atanj
, but with themselves for pieces. When the commander of one team maneuvered two of his pieces onto a single one of the other side, they gleefully pummeled each other.
Atanj
was supposed to be an analogue of war, like chess, but they took that more literally here.

“Don’t let the big eyes fool you,” Sally said, and then shouted in Martian,
“Don’t even think about it!”
as one of a slightly older group bent to pick up something unpleasant.

He—probably he, it was hard to tell when everyone was muffled up, and anyway Martians were less sexually dimorphic than Terrans—continued to bend for ammunition. Teyud wheeled to
face him and flicked her right hand. Something like a small disk with curled spikes along its edge appeared between finger and thumb, and her hand cocked back with lazy grace. The
atanj
teams dove out of the way, squealing.

Whoa!
Jeremy thought.
Let’s not let things get out of hand!

He tensed his leg muscles and jumped. The results sent the little almost-mob of near adolescents scattering, as he soared through the air as if launched by a hydraulic catapult. Twisting, he landed in front of the fleeing would-be dung-thrower, forcing him to backpedal furiously and nearly drop on his butt to stop. The boy’s eyes were bulging with surprise through the slit in his headdress. Jeremy didn’t give him any time to recover, or to go for any of the various unpleasant devices undoubtedly concealed under his ragged robe. One hand gripped the back of his neck, the other at his belt, and the Terran pivoted and
threw
.

He’d had six months’ practice with Martian gravity. The boy flew ten yards, arms and legs kicking, to land neatly in a two-wheeled cart filled with the droppings of various draught-beasts. Those were a lot drier and fluffier than their earthly equivalents; a big cloud of pungent brownish dust shot skyward. The boy tumbled out of it a few moments later, coughing and retching and beating at his garments. He stopped a moment to make three comprehensively obscene gestures at Jeremy, then took to his heels.

“Suboptimal random breeding,” Teyud said, insulting the fleeing boy more than an avalanche of scatology could have done. “It would be public-spirited to cull him before he reproduces.”

“Please do not kill anyone unless it is necessary to protect us,” Sally said. “That is a categorical instruction.”

“Reluctant agreement,” Teyud said, then shrugged and slid the spiked throwing disk back to its place in her sleeve.

For the rest, the crowds’ reaction was sidelong glances and low murmurs—and they were low indeed, pitched for the more efficient ears evolved in this thin air.

You know
, Jeremy thought, watching as Teyud za-Zhalt swayed along ahead of them,
she really moves beautifully. Different from most Martians—she doesn’t give you that sense she’d fly away in a high breeze, even though she
does
look like someone took her by the neck and ankles and stretched her by about twenty percent
.

They came to a larger open space. One side of it was a semicircular border, a smooth olive green wall twenty feet high that vanished behind buildings on either side which, he knew, made a circle more than a mile around. Above that rose a glassine dome, and through it, he could see the tops of trees. A central tower reared gigantic in its center, but the fliers clustered around its thousand-foot peak were all warcraft in the red and black markings of the Despotate, the local government. Traffic was brisk over the russet-colored pavement, save where they swerved around a crew at work repairing a worn section.

Several
De’ming
shoveled crushed rock from a wagon into the maws of creatures like twelve-foot furry bricks with stubby legs and flat paddlelike scaly tails. A third of their length was mouth, studded with dozens of thick square black teeth around a muscular purple tongue. They caught the gravel and began to crunch it down with every sign of enjoyment; the sound recalled that of a man eating celery, but a thousand times louder and with a metallic overtone.

Some had already been fed, and lay on their bellies with an occasional contented belch. A circle of children crouched to watch and giggled with disgusted delight as the animals turned and projectile-vomited into the hole in the pavement in unison. A thick, vile, sour-smelling yellow sludge filled the hole, and the beasts turned at the foreman’s urging and smoothed it flat with their tails. By the time the Terrans and their guides walked by, the surface was already hardening and turning a slightly lighter shade of reddish-brown than the rest. The crew then moved on to the next gap.