Arabella of Mars (32 page)

 

19

SURROUNDED

In every direction Arabella looked, she met glaring eye-stalks, bared swords, and the wicked tines of forked spears. Hundreds of Martians, perhaps even a thousand, surrounded the ship, with more pouring out of the manor house and joining the periphery of the crowd even as she watched.

But though the Martians were fully armed, every one clad in their bright clan colors, with steel blades fixed to the joints of their carapaces and spikes on every elbow and shoulder, it was the behavior of the men aboard
Diana
that frightened her more. All along the gangways, and leaning aggressively over every rail, they held pistols and rifles at the ready; many gripped cutlasses and boarding axes. Belowdecks, she was sure, men she could not see were arming themselves as well.

“Captain,” she importuned, rushing to his side, “you must tell the men not to fire.”

Stross and Richardson both glared at her. “Miss Ashby,” Richardson replied, “you should retire to your cabin and leave the defense of the ship to the crew. For your own safety.” His dark and furrowed brow put the lie to his protestations of concern.

The captain's brow, too, was drawn, but he did not speak. He simply looked to Arabella, apparently awaiting some explanation for her statement.

“Can't you see they are not attacking?” she said.

“I can see the cowards are just waiting until they have us outnumbered twenty to one!” Stross replied with considerable heat, pointing to the Martians still streaming from the manor house.

“They are maintaining a distance of twelve
korek
.” She gestured to the front of the crowd, where a broad red strip of bare sand stretched between the tightly packed Martians and
Diana
's hull. Each anchor, as well, was surrounded by a circular bubble strictly empty of Martians. “This is traditional upon meeting a group of strangers in time of conflict. They are awaiting a formal invitation.”

“A formal invi—!” Stross stammered, going red in the face.

Arabella turned to the captain. “
Please
, sir, I beg of you, do not antagonize them. Their customs and formalities are every bit as strict as ours, but a failure of etiquette in this case could result in far more than our ostracization.” Behind him, she could see the mass of Martians packing tighter and tighter, their spears held aloft and quivering with rage.

“Sir, I must protest!” said Richardson, but the captain silenced him with a gesture.

“What would you suggest we do, Miss Ashby?”

“We must invite their
rukesh
—their leaders—aboard, and permit them to inspect the ship. They will be quite thorough. We must also present them with gifts. Parchment and whisky are traditional.”

“Parchment!” sputtered Stross. “Sir, are you seriously considering entrusting the ship's safety to the mad advice of this
girl
? What use have these savages for
parchment
?”

Arabella turned to him and spat, “Do you not know your history,
sir
? It was Captain Kidd himself, on the very first English voyage to Mars, who discovered the Martians' fondness for it.” She returned her attention to the captain. “Any form of leather will do, sir, but parchment, well-inked and well-handled, is best. I believe there are some charts of the Venusian approach that could be spared. And the whisky should be of the very best quality.”

Richardson's eyes had gone wide with astonishment. “And if we do not perform this ridiculous ceremony?”

“They
will
inspect the ship, sir,” she told him, “one way or another. If they are not invited aboard they will force their way inside, and their inspection in that case will not be courteous. And if they are offered violence they will respond in kind. But if we observe the proper forms, the inspection will cause no damage.”

“Sir!” Richardson protested again, and again the captain gestured him to silence. But he did not speak—he merely looked out over the surging crowds of Martians, brow furrowed and lips pressed tightly together.

Finally he turned back to Arabella. “You were born and raised here?”

“Up to the age of sixteen, sir. You
must
believe me, sir.”

Just then one of the Martians stepped forward into the cleared area, raised her spear above her head, and chuttered out a statement whose meaning Arabella could only guess at. Arabella's command of the language was spotty at best, she knew, and between regional dialect and excess of emotion this Martian's speech was nearly unintelligible to her.

“What's that he said?” Stross demanded of her.

She turned and looked at him. The entire quarterdeck had fallen silent, all eyes fixed on her, none more intensely than the captain's.

“She requests that a party be allowed on board to inspect the ship,” she said. It was almost certainly the Martians' desire, even if not a translation of the actual words. “I don't know how much longer they will wait.” That much, at least, was completely true.

For a long moment the captain's intense brown eyes inspected her face. Then he turned to Richardson. “Mr. Richardson, you will do exactly as Miss Ashby suggests, without hesitation or compromise. That is an order, Mr. Richardson. Do you understand?”

Richardson's face darkened, jaw quivering, but then, between clenched teeth, he muttered, “Aye, aye, sir.”

Arabella swallowed and addressed the captain. “May I give them the charts of the Venusian approach, sir? They will … they will not be returned.”

“Yes. And the whisky. How much will be needed?”

“One bottle will be sufficient, I should think.” She looked out over the crowd, whose agitation was visibly growing. “We must make haste.”

As quickly as her skirts would allow, Arabella hurried to the great cabin, where she shoved Aadim aside and extracted the rolled charts from the cubby behind his desk. “Excuse me,” she whispered to him, though his green glass eyes bore no reproach.

Emerging from the great cabin, she met Stross on the deck. “Here's your whisky,” he said, holding out a heavy cut-glass decanter about three-quarters full of a dark amber liquid. “It's Ledaig, from my own private stock. The very best.”

“Thank you, sir,” she replied. “I am certain the Martians will be duly impressed.” She was surprised at the confidence she heard in her own voice.

“If this doesn't work,” he muttered in her ear as he handed the bottle over, “I'll kill you myself.”

She chose to behave as though she had not heard his words.

*   *   *

Arabella, the captain, and Richardson descended to the hold, where the cargo hatch had already been unsealed. Even as they arrived, two burly carpenter's mates knocked out the last of the wedges and swiveled the hatch open, letting in the clattering sound and dusty cinnamon odor of the crowd of Martians. Four airmen then ran out the gangplank, which raised a puff of red dust as its end thudded to the sand some yards below.

The Martians grew silent. No one moved.

The captain spoke low to Arabella. “What do we do now?”

“I believe we should meet them on the sand,” she said with as much confidence as she could muster.

Arabella's knees wobbled as she made her way down the steeply canted gangplank. She tried to tell herself it was because of the unaccustomed gravity. Ahead of her, the captain's long dark hands gripped each other tightly behind the broad back of his best uniform coat. Behind her Richardson followed, muttering under his breath, the stopper of the whisky decanter rattling gently with his steps. Arabella herself held the rolled chart ahead of herself as though it were an offering, minding her footing carefully—her absurd ladylike slippers offered little purchase on the well-worn boards.

They arrived at the bottom, and finally she felt beneath her feet the familiar cool crunch of Martian sand. For how many months had she longed for this moment—her return to Mars, to Woodthrush Woods, to the sands of her birth. And yet she had never dreamed that the situation might be any thing near as dire as this.

Four Martians stepped forward from the crowd, the blue and gold tassels on their hats marking them as the group's
rukesh
. They paused before the three humans. Arabella, the captain, and then, hesitantly, Richardson each dropped to one knee, backs straight and heads held high, a formal Martian posture of greeting which Arabella had thought might be the most appropriate under the circumstances. The Martians glanced at each other, then bowed in the English fashion, which Arabella took as a good sign.

The captain returned to a standing position. “We are aware,” he said in his deep clear carrying voice, “that we are an armed group entering disputed territory in time of conflict. In accordance with ancient Martian custom, we offer you hospitality”—here he gestured behind him to Arabella and Richardson, who likewise stood—“and invite you to inspect our ship.” The wording was something that he and Arabella had worked out, based on her recollections of Khema's lessons in Martian history. She hoped that she recalled those lessons better than she did the Scripture verses she'd gotten from her mother.

The Martians did not respond. They only continued to exchange glances among themselves, their eye-stalks twisting independently.

Arabella's heart pounded, and she felt a trickle of sweat run down her side. Did these Martians even speak English? If not, she feared that her small command of Khema's tribal dialect would be entirely inadequate to diplomacy.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward and extended the rolled chart to the nearest Martian.

The Martian took it, the worn brown vellum crinkling in her hard, jointed hands, and inspected it carefully, the other Martians watching her with great interest. Then she unrolled the chart a bit, tore a palm-sized square from the corner, and crammed the torn-off corner in her mouth.

Beside Arabella, the captain's back stiffened, while Richardson gave a small but audible gasp. But though Arabella had expected nothing else, she now waited with her heart in her throat for the Martian's response.

The black lidless eyes seemed to glaze over as she chewed, the hard champing mouth-parts making short work of the soft translucent vellum. When it had been completely consumed, the Martian tore off additional bits and gave them to her compatriots, who devoured them with equal concentration.

“The whisky,” Arabella whispered urgently to Richardson, who stepped forward with the decanter. The glass stopper continued to clatter even after he came to a halt, and she realized he was terrified. The captain still exuded confidence, his back straight and chest elevated, but after so many weeks in close quarters she could see from his tight-set jaw just how concerned he was.

One of the Martians took the whisky from Richardson and, after peering minutely at the bottle, delicately extracted the stopper with two sharp pincer-like fingers. She then took a small but deliberate sip, and after contemplating the flavor passed the bottle to the others.

The decanter was returned to Richardson, who nearly dropped it in his nervousness. The chart they kept. The
rukesh
then conferred among themselves, their low susurrations and clatters meaningless to Arabella.

Suddenly they turned, as one, and bowed to the humans. “We thanks for you hospitality gifts,” said the one with the purple hat in heavily accented English. “We accepts you inspecting invitation.” She then turned to the mob behind her and called out a long chuttering statement, which was received with low clatters and rustles. A large group of Martians then detached themselves from the crowd and moved purposefully forward, forcing the captain, Arabella, and Richardson to step aside or be trampled.

“Be sure to remind the men not to interfere with the Martians under any circumstances!” Arabella told the captain as the Martians clattered up the gangplank.

The captain immediately reminded them of that, using the full-throated command voice that carried through storms and brooked no disobedience, ending with “and belay that lollygagging at the rail!”

Immediately the dozens of heads that had been peering over the rail vanished, the men returning to their duties.

From within the hull came clatters, clanks, and muffled thuds, along with occasional cries of despair from Quinn the purser.

“We should return aboard,” the captain said, “to supervise the inspection.”

*   *   *

The Martians were extremely thorough, but they worked quickly, and when they were done nearly every thing had been returned to its original place. Most of the Martians retreated, leaving the original four on the quarterdeck along with
Diana
's officers. “We thanks you for inspecting,” the one in the purple hat told the captain. “We welcomes you visiting our plantation.”

At that statement of ownership a cold anger seized Arabella's heart, but she pushed it down—it might merely be an error in the Martian's imperfect English, or reflect their current, temporary occupation of the property.

“Thank you,” the captain replied. “May we impose upon your hospitality? My crew require food, drink, and exercise. And we hope to negotiate for the purchase of coal, and the use of the furnaces in your drying-sheds, or else our visit here may well be of indefinite duration.”

The Martian conferred with the other members of her
rukesh
and replied, “For this you must speaking
akhmok
.”

The captain raised a questioning eyebrow to Arabella, who shrugged to indicate her ignorance of the word's meaning.

“Very well,” he said after a moment's consideration. “Take us to this … ‘
akmok
.'” Like most Englishmen, he could not properly pronounce the Martian
kh.

The purple-hatted Martian stiffened in indignation. “Not ‘us.' Not all. Only
rukesh
may speaking
akhmok
.”