Queen of Mars - Book III in the Masters of Mars Trilogy (14 page)

He was smiling now – still well-groomed,
still severe even in his prison rags. He had moved to the end of
his cot and sat looking up at me expectantly.

“You look a little like me,” he said, not
without some self satisfaction.

“I always thought so,” I replied.

He patted the cot next to him. “Come, sit
beside me. I won’t bite.”

“I know that. I’ve come for your help.”

“Oh?” He cocked an eyebrow. “I thought you
came merely to visit your old grandfather on his birthday.”

“Is it your birthday?”

“No.” The low chuckle again. “It’s just that,
I thought you might come.”

“Why?”

“Because you need me to keep the F’rar in
line, while you finish Frane off once and for all. I may be in
jail, Clara, but my mind isn’t.”

“I was told you were one of the sharpest
Senators ever to walk to floor of the Hall.”

“Oh, yes.”

“You were also a traitor.”

“Yes, again.”

“Why?”

His smile faded. “Do you have to ask that? Is
there so little F’rar blood in you that you have to ask?”

“I want to hear it from you.”

He stood up, and the veins in his neck stood
out and he pounded one clenched paw into his other open one.

“Because we are the natural rulers of Mars!
The F’rar were the first great race of felines! All other clans
were inferior, and always will be!” He turned to me and his face
was filled with pleading.

“Don’t you see this, Clara? You have done a
great thing – become Queen of Mars – but now you must use that
position to make the F’rar the true rulers of Mars – now and
forever!”

I stood. “I thought I could speak with you,”
I said, trying desperately to control my inner rage, “but I see
that you still don’t understand.”

He took hold of me. “Listen to me,
granddaughter! You are Queen! All you need do is declare your F’rar
blood, to the exclusion of all else, and the deed is done! All the
F’rar will rise to support you! Frane is history – you are the
future!”

“Is that madness in your eyes I see?” I
asked.

“It is allegiance to my race!”

I pulled away from him, and walked to the
door of the cell.

I turned around and said, quietly, “Frane has
kidnaped my mother.”

“What!”

“It is true. One of Frane’s confederates
slowly poisoned her for months, driving her mad, and now Frane
holds her.”

He was pensive. “You know I hate your mother
for putting me here.”

“I know that.”

“But I love her, and always will, because she
is my daughter.”

I waited, and finally, in the gloom, he spoke
again, quietly. “I will help you, of course.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.”

His coarse chuckle returned. “You know you
remind me too much of myself.”

“I was counting on that, grandfather.”

He broke out into a loud cackle of a laugh.
“Oh, I do believe I both like and love you, Clara!”

“Thank you.” I approached him, and held my
signet ring out in the dimness. “From now on you will address me as
your Queen.”

His eyes were steady on me, unwavering in the
twilight of his cell.

“And,” I continued, “once you kiss this ring,
you will have pledged fealty unto death to me, and to the republic
I stand for. You do realize that, grandfather?”

“Yes,” he said. His eyes had not left my
face, and he made no move to bend his head and kiss my ring.

“And you realize that if you were to break
that oath of fealty, your death would be swift, and certain?”

“I have never broken an oath.”

“I know that.”

He bent his head, and kissed my ring.

“I have never broken an oath until now,” he
continued, lifting his head. His smile, hard now, returned. “I once
swore allegiance to Frane – but now, for what she has done to my
daughter, she will die.”

“I know that before becoming a senator you
were a great general, is that not true?”

“It is true.”

“Then I will ask you to be a great general
again. We will march against Frane within the week, and you will be
at the head of my army with me.”

“It will be my pleasure to serve you. And of
course, you sought my fealty knowing that it would quell any
lingering unrest in the F’rar clan. By securing me you have secured
the F’rar. Clever girl.”

“Gaoler!” I shouted, and at once the huge
lumbering feline, jangling his keys, returned, standing before me
expectantly.

“Let us out,” I said. “This man has been
pardoned.”

A
long week of
preparation. My grandfather proved to be even more able than I had
hoped, and wasted no time in getting our army of three thousand
ready for war. This would be a cold weather campaign, and each
feline was outfitted with proper clothing and schooled in the arts
of winter fighting.

I left the army in General Misst’s capable
hands and traveled to the east with Newton by motor car to examine
one of the revived oxygenation stations. My king came with us, and
we made this a honeymoon of sorts. It was beautiful country,
farmland and junto tree forests all in the first bloom of
spring.

“It’s odd that we’ll be leaving spring
behind, to fight in perpetual winter,” I remarked, and Newton
concurred.

“I’ve been to the pole, and it’s a horrid
place,” he replied. “At the height of summer the temperature never
rises above twenty degrees Fahrenheit. At this time of year it will
be even colder.”

“It’s a fitting place for Frane,” I said.

Gloom descended on our party, until we
stopped an hour later for a picnic lunch. We were on a hill
overlooking a green and red valley. A thick wood sat at our back.
The pink sky was dotted with wisps of clouds, and the noon sun was
warm. There was the faint smell of newly bloomed flowers in the
air. I thought of the night of my wedding, when that same odor had
wafted through the garden, and how Darwin found me there...

He must have been thinking the same thing,
for he was grinning at me. “Would you like to take a walk, your
majesty?” he asked slyly.

We stole off, leaving Newton and our guards
to set a lunch, and found a spot in the woods.

“Listen,” Darwin whispered, and I heard
nothing but the rustle of new leaves overhead and our own
breathing.

“Isn’t it marvelous?” Darwin said. “Nothing!
No barking orders of generals, or the drone of air ships or motor
cars...”

“I wish it was always like this.”

“Yes...” Darwin said, and took me in his
arms.

Later, before we returned to Newton, Darwin
looked into my eyes and said, “I love you more every day, Clara. I
don’t know how, but it’s true.”

I kissed him once more, and we held
hands like the young lovers we were.

W
e camped that night
under the stars, which once more made me think of Copernicus, and
the next day, before morning was spent, when we topped a sandy
rise, having left the dotted green pastureland and forests of
Daedelus Planum for the rougher, redder, rockier landscape of
Arabia Terra, who did I see waiting for us at the gates of the
oxygenation station but little Copernicus himself!

I nearly ran to him, and drew him into my
arms, which embarrassed him greatly.

“Copernicus!” I cried. “How did you get
here?”

Newton, who had seemed younger and happier
since the beginning of this happy trip, chimed in, “I wanted it to
be a surprise, your majesty.”

“It is! And a wonderful one!”

“Well, I must say I’m pleased myself,”
Copernicus added, and I laughed.

“How did you get away?”

“Actually, Newton sent his black air ship for
me,” Copernicus explained. “It was my first ride, and I must say it
was fascinating.”

“After hearing about his aptitude from you,
your majesty,” Newton said, “I decided that Copernicus here was
much too valuable not to have with me.”

Copernicus threw out his chest proudly. “I’m
now a member of the Science Guild!” he boasted.

Newton smiled kindly. “Though self taught, he
has a remarkable aptitude for just about anything he puts his mind
to. And I must say I was fascinated by that paper from the Old Ones
which he found.”

“Is it genuine?” I asked.

Newton scratched his chin. “It may be. It is
a fascinating idea, that the Old Ones came from Earth.”

Copernicus broke in, “I have a few ideas
about the station here, to improve the efficiency...”

He and Newton went off, arm and arm, nodding
over technical terms that meant nothing to me, while Darwin and I
followed them through the gates under a stone archway and into the
station itself.

It was a huge, dilapidated structure made up
of many other structures: rows of what looked like bunkhouses and
other freestanding buildings. Towering over everything were three
huge stone smokestacks, one of which was intact, the other two
crumbling. They pointed to the sky like broken fingers. There was
debris and an air of quiet abandonment. But from somewhere I heard
the faint whine of hidden machinery, and a vague chuffing
noise.

Copernicus turned and gestured happily. “Come
into the main building!” he said, skipping ahead with Newton in
tow.

They disappeared into the largest structure,
which looked like a gigantic warehouse or hangar.

We followed, our boots echoing on the
debris-strewn floor as we entered under another archway and open
door. The space was filled with offices, machines of every sort,
pillars which disappeared through the high ceiling overhead.

Newton let Copernicus run on ahead, and
waited for us. He was studying the floor around him, his eyes
roving over a pile of what looked like a makeshift fence or
fortification.

“Your grandmother and I fought a battle with
Baldies here,” he said to me, when Darwin and I had joined him. “It
was Haydn’s first battle.” He pointed behind us to an open door.
“We all almost died in that room, barricaded against the horde
after our line was broken here. Your grandfather Kerl saved
us.”

He looked as if he was seeing ghosts.

“That seems as if it were two lifetimes ago,”
he said.

“Newton!” Copernicus called, his voice
echoing from the other side of the building. “You must see this!
I’ve gotten eight more percent out of the main generator!”

Newton’s eyes brightened, and he ambled
off to consult with his new protégé.

L
ater, as we made
camp for the night in the same room in which Newton and my
grandmother had fought their battle so long ago, Newton explained
the importance of the structure.

“This station,” he said, his face looking
even younger in the glow of our lamps, as we sat in a circle as if
around a campfire, “and the others like it, must be brought
gradually back into operation in the next two years if life on Mars
is to survive. I am already heartened by the progress we’ve made
here. And Copernicus, here,” he said, as Copernicus’s chest once
again swelled, “is proving invaluable in the effort. Already this
station is putting out 25% of the oxygen it needs to. The repairs
of necessary equipment have gone slowly, but, importantly, we are
learning the technology. We will be able to fabricate the new parts
we need, and, eventually, I think we will be able to manufacture
new oxygenation stations as needed. But it is imperative that these
structures we have now be put into operation, or we will never have
the chance to build new ones. My one concern is that, because of
war, we have not been able to guard the major stations like I had
hoped. If even one of them were destroyed we would be doomed.”

He took a deep breath. “But I am happy to
report this evening, your majesty, that the dire news I gave you
months ago is dire no longer. Copernicus and I have come up with a
schedule and a plan this afternoon, and, if things go according to
plan, as I now think they will, we will indeed be able to replenish
the atmosphere of the planet.”

He beamed – looking for the first time since
I had returned like his old self.

“That’s marvelous!” Darwin said. He produced
from somewhere a bottle of champagne, and we opened it and drank a
toast to Newton, and to little Copernicus, and to ourselves and our
planet. Overcoming my own distaste for wine, I even joined in the
celebration.

That night we slept peacefully, in a place
free of Baldies, content in our accomplishments, a little lighter
of heart, safe in the bosom of a place that would save our
world.

It was a last peaceful interlude in what
would be, very soon, a very dark time.

A
nd so we prepared
for war.

Once again I stood before a mirror, but this
time not in my wedding gown but in a ridiculous full length white
fur coat, which made me look huge and which weighed as much as I
did.

“It’s hot as blazes in this thing!” I
protested.

“You won’t complain when the temperature
drops to ten below zero,” my grandfather said, smiling knowingly.
“It’s designed for movement as well as utility. And with the red
F’rar sash—”

“I told you before, grandfather – I will wear
no symbol of any clan! Only the colors of all Mars.”

He tilted his head in a bow. “As you wish.
But you cannot fault an old man for trying.”

Growling with displeasure, I pulled the
monstrous cloak off, as General Misst withdrew to attend to other
matters. I saw Thomas, an almost constant presence these days,
glowering in the mirror’s reflection across the room.

“What is it now, Thomas? You never smile
anymore.”

“That is true,” he said enigmatically.

“You see demons in sunlight. Trouble where
there is none. You skulk around the halls like a wraith during the
day, and Creator knows what you do at night. You’re like a live
ghost, Thomas. You worry me.”