In the Hall of the Martian King (8 page)

The captain announced, “All right, no more aerobraking, and we’re not in free fall: You two can get up.”

Jak got off the acceleration couch. The grav was about a third of a g, downward, with a gentle noseward pull.

Day and night flashed by at hour intervals, twice; three times they passed under Phobos. There was something ominous about
the Jovian League’s major base hanging there, seemingly close enough to touch.

Every few minutes the captain talked to his purse, and the variable geometry of the warshuttle varied further. Fins grew to
wings, wings lengthened, then widened, then curved. After their third swift dawn, the warshuttle, still fifteen kilometers
up, took up a twenty-kilometer-radius circle around Red Amber Magenta Green’s landing field. The fuselage, which had been
nearly the whole ship on Deimos, was a small ellipsoid between vast wings.

At last they coasted a dozen meters above the hard-packed red sand, toward the mad jumble of spires, towers, arches, and domes
that was Magnificiti, the capital of Red Amber Magenta Green.
John Carter
dipped as if bowing to the towers, the linducer grapples coupled to the maglev rails, and they had grabbed the planet’s surface,
like a perfect catch on the trapeze.

Around them, the wings and fins rolled, folded, and collapsed back into the fuselage, until
John Carter
looked much as it had on Deimos, with only two meters of the boarding wing extended on the right side. The linducer track
carried the warshuttle on across the desert, as if it were a big, slow-moving Pertrans car.

There were five people waiting at the quai. Dujuv rocked back and forth like a small boy, and Shadow on the Frost stood with
exceptional straightness, the floppy feather-covered scent organs standing so straight up that he really did look like a bunny—at
least, like a very tall feather-covered bunny with a mouthful of saber-teeth. Erect posture was the equivalent of a broad
human grin; the Rubahy have no facial muscles and hence no expressions.

Sib and Gweshira stood by uncomfortably, too aware that Jak would rather they were not there.

The fifth person was a tall young woman, very beautiful even in a century when genetic modification and routine body sculpting
made everyone beautiful. Her gold-blonde hair and her all-but-jet skin were made more striking by her full, long white gown.

Captain Adlongongu clasped forearms with Jak and Pikia again, gripping Jak’s muscles like a vise, but closing as lightly as
a breath all the way round Pikia’s slender arm. “Well,” he said, “if (as you tell me) this mission is actually something that
might someday make the history books, make sure my ship gets a footnote.”

The boarding door dilated, and Jak walked out across the wing, onto the quai, and into a bear hug that could crush a pony.
“I missed you too, Duj, you big goon,” Jak managed to gasp. The six hours down from Mars to Deimos, and the ten hours back
up, and their tight schedules, had prevented their seeing each other since taking up their duty stations.

Dujuv released him and stepped back. Jak’s oldest and best tove was a panth, a breed the genies of the Old Martian Empire
had intended as bodyguards: mesomorphs with ultra-short reaction times, ultra-fast metabolisms, and far more fast-twitch muscle
fiber than unmodified humans. Natural gymnasts, wrestlers, pilots, or commandos, they were also modified to bond deeply—once
he was your tove, a panth could hardly help being anything else. They had a bit less verbap and mathap to make room for a
great deal more spatiap, and their speed at sorting out a chaotic situation was astonishing. A panth often won the fight before
anyone else in the room knew there was one.

Panths were naturally all but hairless; Dujuv’s only visible hair was his eyebrows, which were a mere scattering of a few
coarse hairs on his deep brown skin. They had little subcutaneous fat; naked, Dujuv looked like an anatomical drawing. “It’s
good to see you again, pizo,” Jak said.

“And to have you along on this, old tove,” Dujuv answered.

“The Rubahy say that a meeting of three old friends is seven gladnesses,” Shadow on the Frost commented. “Three who are glad
to be with each other as three; the gladness of each one not to be away from his toves; and the gladness of each pair. I feel
that saying at this moment. It honors me to stand in both your company.”

“And it honors us, your oath-friends, as well,” Jak said, giving the reply that he knew was correct—though even after five
years of friendship, Rubahy social customs were a permanent bewilderment to him. “Let me introduce my assistant, Pikia Periochung.”

Sib, Gweshira, and the silent young woman all gathered for introductions; when Pikia had been introduced all around, Dujuv
said, “And you are to receive your official greeting and welcome to the territory of the Splendor of the Splendiferous Chrysetic
People from Princess Kayadi Guntrasen, recognized second heir of King Witerio Guntrasen of the Gunemabuv Branch of the Kaesenedi
Dynasty.”

“If you call me anything other than just ‘Kayadi,’ ” she said, “I will slap you. My brother Prince Cyx, or Heir Number One
as I call him, is fond of ceremony. I have decided to let him have all of mine.”

A whirling cloud of dust bounced over the nearest hillside. Turning to follow Jak’s gaze, Dujuv said, “Oh, there she is now.”

“She?”

“What has sprung over our short Martian horizon,” Shadow explained, “is a hovercar, which is why it is kicking up such a large
cloud of dust, carrying Teacher Xlini Copermisr, which is why it is late.”

Dujuv shrugged. “She’s very dedicated to her work, so she never leaves it till the last second. Still, no one gets around
in the Harmless Zone better. She’s the first one I call when I need advice in dealing with some petty king. If they had let
her handle the whole deal, it would be done by now.”

“She said more or less the same thing about you,” Jak said.

Dujuv nodded. “She would. My predecessor told me to follow her around as much as I could, keep my mouth shut, and
listen
for my first two months. He should have said
three
months, or four.”

The hopping and leaping cloud was nearly on them. The hovercar burst from the base of the great pillar of dust, slewed sideways,
flared its flexible skirts toward them, and coasted to a sloppy stop beside the goal, throwing red-brown dust up toward them.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Teacher Copermisr said, hurrying up the walkway onto the goal, as if she were five years old and they
were going on a picnic.

Introductions were repeated, and then Kayadi said, “Well, I have to go stand around uselessly at a party all afternoon. And
no doubt you all need to confer. We set you up with the guest pavilion, Dujuv, with private rooms for everyone. If you like,
take one of the royal taxis there.”

“That will be fine,” Dujuv said. “Thank you for being the one who came out to meet us—this wouldn’t have been so pleasant
without you.”

“You mean it wouldn’t have been as efficient. With my father or brother you’d have had a brass band and a full military review,
and with my mother, my grandma, or either of my sisters, you’d have all been inspected for the presence of eligible men with
some aristo blood, for possible matching up with my minor cousins. But be sure you remember, Xlini, I’m counting on you for
an invitation to a dig this fall—otherwise I’ll be stuck going through my second social season.”

Teacher Copermisr grinned. “I wouldn’t let that happen to a tove. We’ve got some undersea excavation to do. You’ll probably
have to take off some of that hair for the helmet.”

“Ruined for
two
social seasons! Oh, Xlini, you’re a toktru tove! Good-bye, everyone, welcome to the Splendor!” A small robot limousine glided
up; Kayadi got in and it whisked her away.

Dujuv spoke into his purse. “Taxi for seven, bill to the King. To the guest pavilion.”

“Right,” his purse said. “And notify guest services at the palace?”

“Please.” Dujuv touched the reward spot, and his purse cheebled merrily. He looked up at the rest of them. “The plan for the
rest of the day is to do nothing,” he said. “To save up energy for tomorrow, when we’ll be doing nothing with great grace
and style.”

Jak worked out three times a week in a full-g centrifuge, and Martian grav is a bit less than 0.4 g, but the difference between
voluntarily working against weight for an hour, and having weight all the time, is painful and exhausting. Besides, he had
been in constant motion for thirteen hours. His aching bones and tired muscles cried out for a comfortable bath and early
bed. He took a muscle relaxant, and set up the conference room in his suite so that everyone could talk half-reclining.

Jak’s first conference was with Sibroillo and Gweshira. They had been awakened at their hotel on Deimos after only four hours’
sleep, flown down on a regular commercial launch into Bassoon, and caught a four-hour trip in a sleeper Pertrans car from
there to Magnificiti, and of course they were both more than a century older than Jak; it was hardly surprising that they
both looked strange. But there was something else as well.

Gweshira looked grimly determined. Sib appeared slightly hangdog and defiant, showing more of his bald crown than his face.
Gweshira said, “Jak, Sibroillo has something to say to you.”

“Well, it’s Gweshira’s idea, but she’s right, and I’m working my way around to feeling that she’s right. Jak, we’re only stringers
for Hive Intel. For them we’re strictly mercs, and all that they have officially asked us to do is to make sure that we are
participants in the process and that Hive Intel’s interests are looked after. It looks to Gweshira and me as if Hive Intel
is reaching hard for something that it would be better for it not to touch—if they capture that object for their exclusive
possession, it will cause enough negative blowback to be contrary to Hive Intel’s own interests—if only they had brains to
see that! So … we will look after their interests by just riding along—unless you appear to be completely crazy or stupid.”
Sibroillo winced slightly.

Jak had barely seen the flick of Gweshira’s fingers against his arm. She’d lost none of her speed in all the years he’d known
her. Sib hastily added, “And we won’t be too quick to make that judgment. Carte blanche, old pizo. I’m swallowing several
tons of advice right now, you know.”

“I know, Uncle Sib. I appreciate that.” Jak was touched, overwhelmed really, but his feelings were severely mixed. It was
good that there was no risk that Sib would snatch Nakasen’s lifelog himself, or take any of Jak’s credit away. Yet at the
same time, Jak really had not thought about whether it was a good thing for Hive Intel to have the lifelog or not.

“Well, then,” Gweshira said, smiling brightly, “we’ll be going now—I know there’s forty minutes left in the time for this
meeting, but if we stayed, poor Sib would compulsively spend that forty minutes finding ways to
not
give you advice.”

“Thank you, Aunt Gweshira.”

It was nice that Sibroillo and Gweshira would be letting him run his own show, but on the other hand that also meant he would
have
to run his own show. Oh, well, weehu, Principle 129 said that “The hardest thing to understand about a balance is that both
sides are equal; grasp that and the universe is yours.” In a way he wished they had stayed. Jak did not need forty minutes
before his next meeting to nervously arrange chairs—

His purse said, “High priority message from a high priority source.”

“Screen it.”

“From Myxenna Bonxiao, coded channels, and it came from
von Luckner.
Eyes only.”

Von Luckner
was a
Ranger
-class raider; raiders were the fastest ships in the Spatial and
Ranger
-class were the fastest, most modern raiders. A Hive Intel agent aboard one was hardly unusual, but Myxenna was also one of
Jak’s best and oldest toves, and for her to call him from
von Luckner
meant it was at least semi-official business.

“Can you do eyes-only protocol here?”

“It will take three extra minutes for bugsweeping.”

“Then do it.”

The door to the room contracted, the locks activated with a synchronous thud, and the windows opaqued. White noise roared
through the speakers. That must be some side effect of his purse attacking and defeating listening devices.

The screen flickered to life. “Hi Jak.” Myxenna Bonxiao had blue stars within her green irises, thick dark hair, freakishly
pale skin, big high breasts, trim little waist, tight round buttocks, and beautiful legs. Any reasonably hetero male had a
hard time looking away from her. She was also one of the smartest people Jak had ever met, both book-smart and people-smart
and able to use the two together.

“Jak, I’m on
von Luckner
because it’s delivering me to Mars, as quickly as it can. The Hive is still four months back from its next opposition with
Mars, so even at
von Luckner
’s top speed, it’s going to take about ten days for me to get to you. When next you see me, I’ll have the happy expression
of a girl who’s been mashed by nine g, one hour out of every six, for more than a week, with full grav in between.

“My job is to secure the lifelog if you haven’t. So if you’re going to grab that thing and save Clarbo Waynong’s career, you’ve
got ten days, and it won’t be easy. Did you know him in the PSA? He was two years ahead of us and always asking me out. For
every course he ever passed, his family had to create a scholarship, donate a research grant, or buy the athletics program
a new toy. He has a major self-confidence problem—he has
major
self-confidence and that’s a problem. When Caccitepe heard who would be assigned to retrieve the lifelog, he turned gray
and started shouting, and when he was done shouting I had this mission.

“Oh, and Clarbo is Patridiot to the bone, too, so the people he listens to most pride themselves on being as dumb as their
genes will let them and as ignorant as possible.