Writers of the Future, Volume 28 (6 page)

“I guess.”

“His created assistant with enchanted woven baskets where only it can remove the contents
?
” At his hesitant nod, she added, “A perfect hiding place, don’t you think, for something a man wishes to never see the light of day as proof of his betrayal.”

“I . . .” Lan couldn’t think of a good response that either didn’t insult the queen or incriminate Haigh, so he shut the tiny hole of his mouth as much as possible.

“I wish you to remove all the contents of every. . . cavity. Now.”

“But . . .”

“But
?
” She took another step forward. “Do you have any idea what that cretin stole from me
?
” Not waiting for a response, she continued, “When I gave birth to my second child, he was perfect and wonderful, destined to serve my daughter in a ranking position when it came time to rule. But my son sickened quickly with disease, his body becoming a frail husk, him unable to even turn his own head to suckle and swallow.

“Haigh promised he could save him.”

Lan glanced over at Jaddi, but she wasn’t looking at him, her eyes instead upon the floor and the thin line of her mouth turned down as when she was upset. His breathing was steady, from having a woven body and a throat that could never constrict, but his mind was racing despite the dull ever-present ache.

“And did he
?
” asked Lan, when it became obvious that was what Yula wished.

She stepped back a pace and her voice dropped some of its fierceness. “He took my son from his body, coercing my child into a trinket. A filthy bauble, not even fit for my child to play with, let alone
live
in. And then had the gall to tell me he could put my son into another’s body, if a boy of his age was brought to him.

“Naturally, I refused. How could I, though I am a queen, ever force that pain on another mother
?
So, instead I banished him, thinking he’d given me the correct trinket he’d placed my son into. I treasured it, sang to it, as if it held my son’s soul, only to find it was empty when we finally found a boy who had a body, but no soul to use it.”

“And you think I have it now
?
”

“When my guards arrived, they found him already dead and most everything ruined, so I can only assume he anticipated that I would discover his betrayal and hid my son in you.”

Jaddi gave a strangled cry from behind Yula. “You don’t mean . . . he couldn’t have!” She covered her mouth, swallowing whatever else she was thinking and Lan saw her shoulders shake. He wanted to comfort her, though he didn’t know how he could as he knew what Yula said to be a dreaded truth he’d not wanted to admit to before. It was easier to think Haigh had left them unwillingly than of his own accord.

Yula glanced from Jaddi to Lan, then back again. “So, I guess that makes a sort of sense. I’d probably not have let him off as easy as he let himself.”

Lan glowered at the side of the queen’s head, hating how she could dismiss his death as the act of a coward. “You think he was scared of what you would do to him
?
”

“I know he was,” said Yula, casting a dangerous eye at him. “He was my Apothecary long before he’d brought a bunch of crappy intertwined
baskets
to life.”

He bowed his head, a part of him whispering that Haigh really had no other reason but fear to do as he’d done. Lan shook the thought away, refusing to dwell upon it. “Fine, you can have your son back.”

Behind Yula, Jaddi passed Lan a horrified expression through her tears. “Don’t . . . Lan. He—”

One of the guards moved to drag Jaddi from the room. She gasped, but the frightened look in her eyes didn’t speak of pain.

“Stop . . . just leave her alone. Just leave us all alone.” The guard stopped and glanced to Yula, who nodded tightly. Lan asked, “So what was he in
?
”

“We don’t know,” said Yula, “But I’m sure I’ll know it when I see it.”

Lan doubted that, not if she’d been singing to an empty bauble for over fifteen years before this, but he began to unlatch a lid (chest, leftmost column, first). Jaddi suddenly became calm in the guard’s grasp, watching with a closed expression.

He put the vials of butterfly innards upon the workbench and began on the next latch as Yula stared in shock. Then basket, after basket he unlatched and opened and placed its contents next to those vials. The workbench overflowed onto the chair. The chair overflowed onto the floor. Broken flower petals and seeds were underfoot, crystallized tonics and the diamond beaker glinted in the sunlight. The emerald hummingbird ducked her head, hiding behind much larger things Lan pulled out and hopping away from the embalmed rat when it plopped beside her.

He expected his body to slowly fill with aches and pains as he emptied himself, but the empty, lonely feeling of those baskets never came. Maybe the anger staved it off, or maybe it was the way Jaddi calmly watched him or the truth that was buzzing about his mind.

Maybe it was because he knew Queen Yula to be wrong about Haigh. He’d run through a burning building to rescue Jaddi once, after all. Had then yelled at Lan in a crazed voice, in fear that Lan would come too close and become kindling. No, Haigh was not afraid of a painful death. But he had been afraid of losing something dear.

Yula searched among the things he’d spread out, mumbling occasionally to herself. “This would have been easier had Haigh been still alive. Which do you think it is
?
” she asked finally.

“I have no idea. Why don’t you take it all
?
” He shoved the mess forward upon the workbench, startling the little hummingbird, who shot into the air, her wings flashing. Yula jumped back, and to her credit, swallowed any shout that’d risen to her throat.

“Catch him,” she commanded. The guards moved, but too slow. The hummingbird dashed about the room for a moment, then dove over a guard’s hand and slipped through the crack in the window.

Yula sighed angrily. “That had to be him. Go after it.” Two of the guards disappeared out the door chasing down the emerald hummingbird. “And collect the rest; we’ll bring it all back with us.”

“It’ll take years to test it all,” started Lan, but stopped at the quick finger Jaddi put to her lips. “But I’m sure you’ll find him,” he finished.

“Unless he was the hummingbird,” said Yula, her voice so sad, Lan almost relented and told her his suspicions.

A few thoughts stopped him. Her horrified expression when she realized that
her
son was Haigh’s crappy intertwined baskets was one. However, it was knowing how happy he was, right here being the Apothecary for Otaor and the surrounding towns and maybe one day, even farther. Being happy right where he’d been raised by Haigh his whole life.

Another guard collected everything that’d once been inside of Lan. He felt a small twinge when everything was finally gone, his insides light and airy in their emptiness. It passed quickly, as quickly as the queen left with her guards and retinue that’d been waiting outside.

He stood with Jaddi, watching the last of the royal caravan disappearing, idly wondering how many of the townspeople had gathered to watch the queen pass, for what was surely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the majority of them.

“It’s sad to see everything gone,” he said. “I’d been carrying his things for so long.”

Jaddi smiled at him brightly through her tears. “I have a feeling that what Haigh cared for most is still here.” Then she hugged him, rubbing against his unlatched lids, her tears leaking into one and pooling inside. He closed and latched that lid (chest, center-right column, fourth down) when she pulled away.

“There,” said Lan, “I can start my own collection.”

“That’s a great idea. I never much liked seeing that rat tail every day anyway.”

It was later, much later, when he was finally finished sifting through Haigh’s journal pages, that he stumbled across a very short piece, one of many that Haigh had been trying to hide.

“. . . for the other experiment: I don’t know if the boy would have been better with a real body, flesh and blood. He’s taken to the one I had Jaddi weave readily enough. He has an amazing memory, one to rival even the queen’s recorder, and a knack for anticipating my needs in the workroom. He’ll be great one day, but not as a king. Definitely a boy after my own heart, one I could l . . .”

Lan folded the tiny scrap of paper gently and placed it in his head, latching the lid tightly against the threat of emptiness.

The Rings of Mars

written by

William Ledbetter

illustrated by

J. F. SMITH

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

William Ledbetter was born in a small Indiana town the same year humans first flew in space. He grew up watching
Star Trek, Lost in Space
and real moon landings, but his first introduction to written science fiction was by accident, when during a library visit at age twelve he checked out a copy of
On the Beach
believing it was a war story. He’s been hooked on science fiction ever since, and those wondrous and formative years instilled in him a belief that all things are possible, a belief that is still reflected in his writing.

Now living near Dallas with his family and a bunch of animals, William is a mechanical designer in the aerospace/defense industry and an avid speculative fiction writer. He’s also an unrepentant space geek and loves to travel (so far only over the Earth’s surface). His fiction has appeared in numerous publications and his winning Writers of the Future story will be his second professional sale, the first having been to Jim Baen’s Universe in 2006. He just finished the first novel in a trilogy about humanity’s next rung on the evolutionary ladder and our expansion into the cosmos.

William also runs a Dallas-area writer’s group called Future Classics, is an active member of the National Space Society of North Texas, is the Science Track coordinator for FenCon, is an editor at
Heroic Fantasy Quarterly
and runs the annual Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest for Baen Books and the National Space Society.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

J. F. Smith was born and raised in the Washington, DC area. He took art classes in high school and college but never pursued art as a career. After spending ten years in the US Air Force, he went on to finish his bachelor’s degree and is currently working in the airline industry.

He never lost his love of art, though, and started painting again after a long hiatus. At this point James is in the process of improving old skills and developing his own unique style.

The Rings of Mars

Y
ou can’t run away from me, Jack,” I said into my helmet mic. “I can radio base and get your suit coordinates.”

“Screw you, Malcolm,” he said, then refused to talk again. I followed his trail and tried not to think about why my oldest and closest friend in two worlds, and his robotic digger Nellie, had left me far behind.

Instead, I concentrated on perfecting the loping stride Jack had taught me months before. It was an awkward, unnatural rhythm, but he assured me it was the most efficient method. And of the humans on Mars, no one had covered more ground than Jack.

Tiny dervishes lifted from the dust churned by Nellie’s tracks, swirling on a delicate breeze, but my passage was enough to cause their collapse. Everything on Mars seemed ancient and tired, even the wind.

Jack’s boot prints—wide apart and shallow—were on a straight course and easy to follow, but Nellie’s tracks peeled off in strange directions many times. She must’ve sniffed out oxide-rich gravel patches to melt in her electrolysis furnace, but no matter how far she went, the robot’s path always returned to Jack’s. I followed their trail and tried to rejoice in being one of the few humans to ever see Mars like this, but my regrets persisted.

Against all reason and expectation, Jack thought himself more colonist than explorer and was willing to trample anyone in that pursuit. If devious resourcefulness was typical of Martians, then Jack was a good one.

An alarm squawked in my ears, surprising me enough that I stumbled and skidded to a floundering stop.

RADIATION ALERT! RADIATION ALERT! ETA, 47 MINUTES. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER.

Forty-seven minutes
?
My suit’s magnetized outer skin was protection against the ambient radiation, but not huge solar flares. I fought growing panic as I turned in circles, looking for a cave, stone outcropping or even a boulder, but saw only dust and scattered rocks. The nearest ridge line was blurry with distance. Anger also grew in the wake of my fear. Nellie provided our only radiation protection, and Jack had taken her. They were probably digging in already, and I had to find them if I wanted to survive. I started running.

“Malcolm
?
Jack
?
This is base, do you copy
?
” I could hear the tension in the communication’s officer’s voice.

“I read you, Courtney,” I said, my voice jarred by running. “Why so little warning
?
I thought we were supposed to get it days ahead of time
?
”

“I don’t know, but you and Jack had better get to shelter. There’s no way we can get a truck or the dirigible to you fast enough.”

“I’m trying,” I said and signed off.

Then Jack’s voice crackled into my helmet. “Malcolm! We’re coming back for you. Follow our trail to meet us and run!”

I ran faster.

Their dust cloud was visible long before I could resolve shapes, but they kept coming and soon Nellie’s squat hexagonal form appeared at the head of her rooster-tail dust plume. I didn’t see Jack. Five minutes later, I staggered and gasped to a stop next to the robot as Jack climbed down from her back. The creep never mentioned we could ride her.

She trundled back and forth over a large flat spot, then, finding a suitable location, jolted to a stop. Her treaded drive units separated and rotated on their mountings, raising the shoulder-high robot into the air on its toes like a three-footed ballerina. Panels slid open between the tracks, revealing large spinning cutters that folded out and locked into place. Nellie sank rapidly into the ground as sand jetted skyward from tubes on her back.

The alarm sounded again, this time giving us less than twenty minutes. I glanced at Jack, but he stared at the robot’s interface panel on his sleeve and said nothing.

Nellie disappeared below the lip of the hole and within a couple of minutes, the dirt stopped flying. Jack tapped out a few more commands and a cloud of dust poofed from the hole. He ran to look inside, then pulled an aluminum rod from his pack. With several twists and pulls, it became a telescoping ladder with rungs folding out from each side. He dropped it into the dark excavation and climbed down, motioning for me to follow.

I peered over the edge just as Jack opened Nellie’s top hatch and disappeared inside. I was confused, because there wasn’t room for us both, but followed him down and through. Once inside I understood. Nellie had split in two, with her upper half forming the airlock and her lower part a larder and mini-lab. The pieces were connected by a telescoping post in the center and mottled gray plastic surrounded us, sagging in pleats like a discarded skirt. Jack had designed her well.

As I dogged the hatch behind me, Jack flipped a switch, and Nellie started inflating the plastic envelope with oxygen she had collected through her rock melting electrolysis procedure. Air pushed the big plastic bag open until it tightened against the dirt and rock walls, creating a fifteen-foot-diameter by seven-foot-tall pressurized donut-shaped habitat.

“We’ll leave our outer suits here,” Jack said, indicating where we stood in the donut’s hole. “Use nose plugs until we’re through the second seal.”

When the status light turned green, Jack released his helmet seal with an equalizing pop. I did the same and held my breath until my nose filters were in place, then started breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, a routine everyone on Mars had mastered within the first few days.

“Can we get a comm link down here
?
” I asked, while loosening the seals on my excursion suit. “How will we know when the radiation storm is over
?
”

Jack ignored me as he removed his suit’s radiation skin, leaving only the biomaintenance layer, or what he called
million-dollar long johns
. The nano-plied material absorbed moisture, adjusted body temperature and used a powerful elastic netting to maintain the skin’s surface tension at about a third of Earth normal. Only the helmet held pressurized air. They were extremely efficient, but they fit too snugly, and mine was already chafing in sensitive spots.

We slipped through two overlapping seals to enter the main chamber and I was surprised by the noise from Nellie’s fans. She was pumping and filtering enough air to maintain half Earth normal pressure. Coupled with the heat she was generating to warm the burrow, it must be a huge drain on her batteries.

“So how long will Nellie’s batteries let us stay down here
?
”

Jack didn’t answer, but opened a flap, pulled a long clear tub from Nellie’s guts and looked at the water sloshing inside.

“Looks like she collected about half a liter,” I said. “Is that good or bad
?
”

He still didn’t respond.

“We’ll be stuck down here for hours, or maybe even days. How long are you going to keep up this childish silent treatment
?
”

He turned to glare at me. The dim light provided by Nellie’s lamps gave him a menacing appearance.

“Shut the hell up, Malcolm.”

I wasn’t going to leave it alone. This trip would be my last opportunity to see him face-to-face for years, or if his present state was any indicator, the rest of my life.

“You did this to yourself; why are you blaming me
?
” I yelled over the fan noise.

We’d been best friends since our sophomore year at Purdue and he’d never in fifteen years been so angry at me. I hadn’t caused the board to order him home, but I had supported their decision. To Jack, it was the same thing.

He glared at me for a second and then moved around the donut where I couldn’t see him. I followed. When he lowered himself to the floor against the outer wall, I sat down facing him, making sure he knew I wasn’t giving up.

“I warned you this would happen,” I said. “I tried to help you.”

“Did you ever consider—for even a second—that I knew what I was doing
?
”

“Well, yes, but—”

“And I wanted to take this last walk alone,” he said, barely audible above the fan noise. “I invited you to come on every walking trip I took, and you always turned me down. Why now
?
”

Because you
didn’t
invite me this trip, I thought, but didn’t say aloud. Jack could disable the locator on his excursion suit and with Nellie’s help, easily hide until the Earth-Mars cycler window passed. That would give him an extra six months.

“Because this will be our last chance to do this together,” I said. “You’ve been telling me for a year that I hadn’t seen the real Mars. Now is your chance to show me.”

He scrambled toward me on all fours, stopping inches from my face, close enough for me to smell his stale sweat. “Together
?
Go to hell, Malcolm. I wanted you to see what I’d found, because you
were
my friend. But your job and that stinking corporation are more important to you than anything else.”

I shoved him out of my face. “Bull! I busted my tail to get you up here. I pulled strings and called in favors. Because you
are
my friend and I knew you would love it here, but you screwed it up. That
stinking corporation
flew you to Mars and is paying you a salary to find mineral deposits big enough to justify building a permanent colony. You need satellites and robot flyers for that. Not even a hot jock geologist like you can do it wandering aimlessly around the surface.”

He shook his head. “You’re a planetologist, for God’s sake. One of the first in history to actually walk on another world and yet you’ve never even seen it.”

“I spend every day studying this planet. I go out in the field—”

“Don’t give me that crap,” he said. “You fly to a spot, get out and walk around for a few hours, then come back to a nice cozy little office. You don’t know this planet.”

“Well, here I am. Show me.”

He shook his head and again moved around to the opposite side.

I gave up and leaned back against the curved wall. My muscles ached from the unaccustomed workout, but the cool Martian soil behind the plastic felt good against my throbbing head.

I didn’t remember falling asleep, but I woke stiff and cold to the sounds of Jack rummaging through supplies in Nellie’s larder. I sat up with a groan. He tossed me a nutrition bar and a water bag.

“It’s morning and the radiation warning’s over. We’re leaving.”

We emerged under a sky thick with brilliant stars. I almost made a nasty comment about it not being morning, but was stunned into silence. One couldn’t see anything like this through Earth’s atmosphere, even out in the mountains and at the base, work and safety lights diminished the brilliance. Man always had to leave the cities to see the stars. That hadn’t changed.

Jack ignored me and watched Nellie struggle from her hole like some cybernetic land crab. My helmet prevented me from looking up for very long. I wished I could remove it and see that sky without the reflections and scratches of my faceplate, to feel the soft breezes and smell the air, but we never could. Someday humans might feel the Martian wind on their faces, but it wouldn’t be me or Jack and it wouldn’t be the same Mars.

Dawn came quickly in the thin atmosphere and while I watched, the stars faded and the black-and-gray landscape bloomed purple and orange. I’d seen two Martian sunrises outside the base, and both had been in passing while loading trucks for field excursions. Never had I taken the time to actually
experience
dawn on our new world. Not like this.

“Thanks, Jack,” I said. “If you show me nothing else, that sunrise was worth the trip.”

“It’s always been here.”

Once the anemic white sun peeked over the hills, we started east, this time slowly enough for me to keep up.

A few hours later, after Nellie had once again topped off her oxygen tanks, we descended a long grade into a deep, narrow canyon. The wind picked up, showering us with blowing sand and the occasional dust devil. I marveled at the simple beauty of the untouched stone surrounding us. The canyon walls were painted by purple shadows, but where the sun struck the sides, bright bloody reds and sandy whites sprang into stark and sudden brilliance.

We rounded some rocks and Jack stopped. I stopped too. Ten or twelve black twisted shapes stood alone in the middle of the broad canyon floor. The largest stood over ten feet tall, with arms stretching toward us and others reaching to the sky. My pulse raced and I made myself move forward. They were black stone. Some were pitted, porous and a few polished to an almost mirror finish. I could see that some of their lengths had been recently uncovered, evidence of Jack’s previous visits.

“Basalt
?
With the surrounding soft stone eroded away
?
”

“Maybe they’re Martians,” Jack said.

“They do look like tormented souls, frozen in their misery. The lava must’ve squeezed though some tight spaces, fast and under extreme pressure to form that way.”

“Odd, isn’t it
?
” he said.

His tone made me turn to look. He was staring down into a shallow depression between the figures, then turned toward me. His haunted expression made a chill crawl up my back. For the first time in my life, Jack frightened me.