Return - Book III of the Five Worlds Trilogy (17 page)

“I have already communicated my discomfort at the Machine Master’s absence to you. In fact, the more I think on it, the more convinced I am that you are the man to lead the search parties that stay behind.”

The color drained from Ramsden’s normally impassive face. “Surely you don’t mean—”

“Surely I do, Ramsden. Send in Pynthas Rei on your way out.”

There was a hitch in the general’s military march as he left the room. In a moment Pynthas Rei arrived, his face, as always, filled with terror. But now that terror shared expression with an emotion even more noxious—pity

“Y-yes, High Leader?”

“Stop looking at me like that! I’m not dead! At least not yet!”

“Y-yes, High Leader!”

“Have you made all the necessary preparations with my staff? Everyone is ready to go?”

“Of course, High Leader!”

“And the carapace for Cornelian Secundus, is it safe?”

“Packed away and under guard, in the Cupola Room …”

The High Leader’s weak eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with you, Pynthas? You seem even more edgy and frightened than normal.”

“I—I—” Pynthas stammered, not daring to look at the High Leader.

“Tell me what’s on your mind,” Cornelian whispered sharply, “or I’ll find a way to strangle you without using my hands!”

“I …” Giving out a long moan, Pynthas Rei blurted out, “I want to stay behind!”

The High Leader blinked in surprise. “Did I hear you correctly?”

“Yes! I want to stay on Mars!”

“But why? As much as I despise and revile you, I want you with me on Venus. I won’t go so far as to say I need you, but it would be … comfortable to have you around.”

“I??? want to stay! To be with my … places!”

Realization dawned in Cornelian, but still he scoffed. “You want to stay with your volcanoes? Those dead mounds of dirt?”

“I can’t leave them behind, High Leader! Please! Venus is not for me—Mars is my home—I want to stay!”

Pynthas then astounded the High Leader by crawling forward to clutch at the bottom of Cornelian’s blankets; he wept copiously, pleading all the while, “Please! Please!”

Seeking to interrupt the spectacle, the High Leader moved his soft, twisted foot within the blankets to kick the toady away; though he cursed the weakness of his limbs, the mere movement within the swaddle had the desired effect of causing Pynthas Rei to throw himself backward and lie prostrate on the floor, all the while continuing to moan and cry.

“Please, High Leader! Please!”

“All right!” Cornelian said in his loudest whisper. “If that’s what you want, you can stay! Stop blubbering!”

Pynthas Rei rose up on his knees, clutching his hands together and smiling through his tears. “Thank you, High Leader! Thank you! Thank you!”

“Get out!”

“Yes, High Leader! Yes!” And crying in happiness, the toady crawled on all fours from the room.

F
aintly from below, Prime Cornelian heard the dying whine of the last mason’s saw. From where he sat, still bundled like a baby in his quarters, his chair set before the open window, he watched the late afternoon of a quiet Mars.

Below him, the streets of Lowell City were deserted. The Great Lawn before the former residence of the High Prefect of Mars was empty of strollers and picnickers down its entire kilometer length; a few stray birds pecked at leavings. The streets beyond were empty of people and traffic; again, only an occasional wheeling bird broke the stillness in the background. Beyond the limits of the city, at the misty horizon, the walls of Wells Crater mimicked, as always, low mountains that pointed to the lowering orange sun and, above the star in a strange line up the sky, the three huge comets, their heads glowing malevolently in the daylight.

The High Leader stared, but did not say good-bye. There came a hush of complete stillness followed by a bump.

P
rime Cornelian blinked; and when the blink was over, he was on another world staring at the same sun, though much higher; and the comets were smaller and barely visible, their line turned horizontal in the blue sky.

All alone, the High Leader held his breath.

There were real mountains in the distance; a glint of diamond light where Carter Frolich had built his Piton near the summit of mighty Sacajawea Patera. It was more vivid than in the Screen images. Below the mountain, which was dotted with fir trees, were brightly flowered plains, and waves of what looked like water but that were, the High Leader realized, fields of wild wheat moved by the wind. Closer in, the fields turned to cleared lands dotted with houses and, closer still, the newer permanent barracks of the Martian Marines, glinting red in rows and ranks.

The silence was gone; in the warm afternoon wafted the cries of drill sergeants, the laughter of menial workers, and the wails of infants; the streets were filled with bustle and activity, the roar of tools, the hum of machines.

From far below, the High Leader heard the renewed whine of the mason’s saw as a workman corrected an inexact fit.

The High Leader forgot the twisting, persistent pain in his body, forgot the disappearance of the Machine Master, the kidnapping of Tabrel Kris, the uncertain whereabouts of Wrath-Pei and Dalin Shar—forgot everything but one thing. Quietly, so quietly that he was the only creature on Venus to hear it, the High Leader worked the ruined and dying mechanism that was his voice and hissed out of the window to no one but himself, as he stared at the sights before him with ruined yet cold and penetrating eyes.

“Welcome,” he whispered, “to the One World.”

Chapter 22

I
n her orbit beyond the Oort Cloud, Kay Free felt a presence.

She turned, knowing it was Mother even before she registered Mother’s distinct energy pattern.

“I’ve come to say good-bye,” Mother said.

“You’re leaving?” Kay Free said in surprise. “I thought you would stay with us until the end.”

Mother said, “The end is closer than you think, Kay Free. And I have work to do elsewhere. Work less pleasant than this, I’m afraid.”

Sensing Kay Free’s puzzlement, she laughed. “You’ll learn, in good time. You’ve done well here, and are almost finished. I’ll recommend that the three of you continue elsewhere. Mel Sent and Pel Front would do well in a matched environment, I believe. You, I think, will be ready for a solitary assignment.”

“But Mel Sent and Pel Front do nothing but fight!”

“Yes! Which makes them a perfect match. Don’t tell them, but my evaluation is that neither of them would succeed alone. You, on the other hand, will.”

“I … don’t feel ready. And I have doubts about the present situation.”

Mother’s laugh was loud. “Now I know you’re ready to work alone! Doubt is always part of it, my dear!”

“But what if we make a mistake here? What if—”

“There is nothing else you can do here, Kay Free. You already know that. You must wait and see.”

“But what if it comes out wrong?”

“Then it will come out wrong. My evaluation is that you have done splendidly. There are not many of us who go on to work alone, you know. I was first paired with two very much like Mel Sent and Pel Front. I miss them, sometimes; they stayed a matched pair, and still, from what I hear, fight all the time!”

“But I’ll miss you!”

“Yes, you will! And I’ll miss you and the others! When I told Mel Sent I was leaving, she was beside herself! But the work goes on, Kay Free—this is what we are!”

Mother began to pull away from Kay Free, out beyond.

“But how will I know when to finish here?” Kay Free called.

Mother, pulling away at an accelerated rate until her form was spread into a long thin line of energy, called back, in a fading, warm laugh, “You’ll know, Kay Free! We’re not bad at dealing with life, for machines …”

And Kay Free, feeling even more alone than she had, turned from the immensity before her to face the tiny sun so far away, so cold at this distance and penurious of light, to wait.

Extra page.

Chapter 23

A
nkus-Pel, a native Martian of the old school in politics, manners, and breeding, thought that anything that did not bespeak Mars itself did not belong on Mars. He had never (so he boasted) tasted Earth food; neither had food from any of the other worlds passed his lips. Always, he had carefully inspected any item before buying it, insisting that its origin be Mars, of Martian hands. Once, on discovering that a certain piece of furniture, a table of beautiful light cedar (a reddish wood greatly prized on Mars and grown in the Noachis Terra region) had indeed been manufactured on Mars but had been assembled on Titan, he had returned to the shop where he had purchased it in a fury, his thin sharp face florid. Angrily, he had thrown the piece down at the store manager’s feet, where it had splintered into wooden shards.

“You will not, sir, fool me again!” he had fumed. “For you will no longer have my business!” He had then stalked out. The matter had dragged on for many years in various Martian courts, the store manager seeking payment, Ankus-Pel countering with nationalism. After the ascent of Prime Cornelian, the matter had been dropped by the store manager, and Ankus-Pel had gained his victory.

There had been many such victories, especially since the High Leader’s ascendancy. Ankus-Pel’s own son-in-law had been dragged away by the Red Police, and there were those in the family who whispered that Ankus-Pel had been the cause, due to the young man’s unkind (and confidential) remarks about the nature of Cornelian’s rule. After that there had been little discussion of politics around the old man, who eventually found himself estranged from family and friends.

But still his views had not changed; had, indeed, hardened to the point where he had divorced his wife, severed his relationship with his business partner, “a treasonous Martian if there ever was one,” in Ankus-Pel’s own accusatory words—though in this case the old man’s indictment turned out to have little effect, since Ankus-Pel’s partner proved to be more adept at politics (in the form of bribery) than Ankus-Pel himself, who relied on patriotism. Bribery will always win out in that contest, and Ankus-Pel found himself, at the age of seventy, with only a lot of credits and a burning nationalism to sustain him.

And so he had moved to the famous Syrtis Retreat, with others of like mind, mostly old men with memories of long-past glory and dreams of future glory to come. Their retreat, a club of men and fewer women, was at least a magnificent place to reminisce. A former private reserve of two thousand hectares owned by the late Senator Own-Yei and appropriated by Prime Cornelian, it had subsequently been turned over to Ankus-Pel and his Fellows in return for services rendered during the High Leader’s consolidation. Also, in the High Leader’s estimation, it had been a way to consolidate these powerful, rich, and rabid followers into one place where they could be monitored. The two thousand hectares, besides containing the High Leader’s monitoring equipment (unknown to the members of the Elect, of course), also housed a magnificent mansion of sandstone containing some forty bedrooms (fifteen utilized), a game room containing a billiard table with brilliant red top, a bar (much utilized), a Screen room with seating for a hundred, a solarium, bathhouse, secret room containing pornographia (frequented by most if not all of the fifteen), as well as planetarium, pool house, indoor tennis facilities, indoor barqui facilities (a game for younger Martians, which left this particular facility to the dust and sand bugs), as well as outdoor tennis courts, outdoor barqui facilities, and, for a reason no one associated with the retreat since the demise of the senator could explain, an outdoor baseball diamond: baseball being a sport that had never been played on Mars since its independence.

But by far the most utilized facility in the Syrtis Retreat was a room that had been added since the Elect’s establishment on the premises: the Historical Room, which contained all of the artifacts of Mars’s current ascendancy and its bloodthirsty past.

There were relics in this museum room of the torturer Ran-Kel, whose ruthless tactics at the right hand of Corvus-Mei, the Martian ruler during the early years of the planet’s war of independence with Earth, had, until the rise of the High Leader, been long suppressed. Here were his most prized instruments: golden rods spiked with razor points, used for beatings; a whip made of sewn Earth-human skin; a ring of human eyeballs in the shape of a crown, interlaced with electronics to make the wearer think he was wearing the crown within his own skull. There were lesser exhibits of Martian cruelty, cruder instruments of torture and mayhem fashioned by lesser artists than Ran-Kel, as well as racks of weapons dating back to the earliest made on Mars itself.

But the most evident of exhibits, and those taking the most room (three of four walls) belonged to the special atrocities of the High Leader himself.

Here, then, were all of Prime Cornelian’s special moments: the individual dismemberments, caught forever as Screen images; the fits of pique ending in loss of life; and, most prominently, the mass carnages resulting from the High Leader’s profound application of the theories and weapons of the Machine Master of Mars, Sam-Sei.

Here were diagrams of the workings of the plasma soldiers: their initial and subsequent campaigns; full-length holographic renderings, a rare (and covertly shot) Screen video of the Machine Master at work, complete with all the genius tinkerer’s mumblings and profound silences.

It was all here, all the glories of Mars past and present—and it was in this room, before dawn on this day, that the Elect chose to have this most important of meetings, to talk of the Machine Master’s latest invention, a gift from the High Leader himself.

A
nkus-Pel, resplendent in crimson robes of the finest satin (sold to the Elect as Martian but, in fact, of Plutonian origin, by way of Titan, where the silkworms were bred), his thin, somber face topped by a miter of equally red hue, called the meeting to order.