Queen of Mars - Book III in the Masters of Mars Trilogy (4 page)

“Good-bye, old friend,” I whispered, and lay
the first red rose upon the white marker. I would be followed by
ten thousand of his closest friends, his troops. I could bear no
more, and took my leave, nearly running to my chambers so that
others would not see their Queen cry. This man, this ancient
warrior, had bounced me on his knee when I was a kit and told me
stories of the battles he had fought with my grandmother and
father. In these stories, he had never been the hero, only a
servant of the republic, a humble soldier who did the best by his
men and gave his best for his Mars. There would never, I knew, be
another like him on the surface of the planet. He was already
missed, and would ever be so.

My sobbing, self indulgent, was
short-lived.

There was a message from my grandmother that
I must come at once, because war, once more, had broken out on the
planet Mars.

T
he aerial trip this
time was a glum and lonely one. Newton’s insistence that only those
who could absolutely be trusted be allowed access to me limited my
companions to Newton himself and two bodyguards. Even Rebecca, with
whom I could at least play a spirited game of Jakra, was left
behind. It was not even certain that she would be there when I
returned to Wells, unless she passed Newton’s vetting. I had
requested that Darwin accompany us, but was told that he was busy
elsewhere, doing Newton’s bidding.

We found Thomas, my father’s manservant, in
his accustomed spot, next to the King’s chair. But the chair was
empty.

“King Sebastian is being... regenerated,”
Thomas, who always looked as though he was about to fade to a ghost
himself, explained, and this satisfied Newton.

“My niece remains well?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied, and then I added,
suppressing, as always, a shiver, “Doesn’t any of this bother
you?”

“What do you mean?” Thomas asked.

“These...ghosts,” I said.

My grandmother, who was in a particularly
vigorous state, her outline a vivid blue, smiled slightly and said,
“I’ve asked myself that often. When you think about it, Clara, it’s
better than the alternative.”

“Is it?” I replied. I regarded Newton. “You
may take this as a royal order. When I die, I don’t want to be...
saved.”

Haydn chirped a laugh. “Are you sure,
child?”

“Yes,” I said adamantly. “You can have your
One and Two, but there will be no Three.”

“It is too bad this...process could not have
been used for Xarr,” Haydn said, her voice tinged with sadness.

“His poisoning was too severe.”

“Yes... I do find it curious that his
assassination came at an opportune time for Frane. According to the
gypsies, and Quiff’s people, who have been shadowing her, Frane is
now at the head of a Baldy army ten thousand strong, heading north
and east toward the Valles Marineris.”

“She means to make a stand there?” Newton
said, surprise in his voice.

“Apparently.”

“Is she truly mad?”

“Perhaps. This is why Xarr’s loss is so
strongly felt at this time. It is curious that he was murdered just
when Frane makes her first big move.”

“I see no coincidence in it at all.”

Haydn turned her steely blue gaze on the
scientist. “Has it occurred to you that perhaps the F’rar clan will
turn treacherous once more, and seek to destroy the republic once
and for all with Frane’s help?”

Though I burned with sudden anger, I held my
tongue as Newton immediately replied, glancing at me, “I would hope
that would not be the case. But the timing is more than, as you
say, curious.”

Haydn was abruptly looking at me. “You must
realize, Queen Clara, that even though you are half F’rar, this may
not be enough to stave off the F’rar appetite. Why have half a loaf
when you can have it all?”

“I will not let it happen!” I shouted.

Her voice still even, Haydn replied, “You may
have no say in it. There have been rumblings in the far provinces,
and already violence has broken out between F’rar and the other
clans. It is mainly incidental, because felines have good memories
and the F’rar have been treacherous twice in the last fifteen
years. I tried to heal the rift, your father tried to heal the
rift, and now you will try. The record has not been a good one.
These animosities go back centuries. The republic, we both know, is
the only hope of uniting Mars. But blood runs hotter than cold
intellect.”

“I said I will not let it happen!”

My own blood was running much hotter than my
intellect, and I spent the rest of the interview stewing in a
corner, clenching my paws into fists and listening to the mumbled
strategy behind me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my father’s
empty chair begin to fill with vague smoky blue light, which
eventually coalesced into the shape of King Sebastian. Thomas, now
filled with purpose, leaned over my father and whispered into his
ear as he became ever more evident, an almost solid blue light.

Again I shivered, and vowed anew that
they would never do this to me. When I was dead I would be dead,
like old Xarr.

L
ater, on the aerial
ride home, Newton left me to my own thoughts and then, eventually,
intruded on them.

“You must remember a few things, your
majesty. And it’s time you knew of others. There were things I
thought best to keep from your father, and now I think it was a
mistake. He did not know about Queen Haydn’s...regeneration,
because we in the Science Guild had no idea if what we had done
would last. It was a difficult decision even to try. The technology
had been gleaned, as most of ours has been, from the Old Ones. It
is very difficult for me to admit, because I am a man of science,
that most – practically all – of what I’ve accomplished has been by
standing on the shoulders of those who have come before me.

“We still know very little about the Old
Ones, and yet what we do know baffles us. Where did they come from?
Why did they die out? Was there a time when our two races
coexisted, and if so, why did we flourish while they were swept
away?

“Their few books that have survived, along
with a few of their fossils, have given us scant clues. It is
through their machines that we know them best. We know for example
that in their days on Mars there was an Old One named The Machine
Master who built, or designed, much of what we have been able to
make use of. We think that in that era the oxygenation stations had
already been shut down and abandoned, because we find no mention in
any of his records of any such devices. They must have been in use
before his time.

“This of course hinders us now, because what
records of The Machine Master that haven’t been destroyed are quite
complete and useful. He was a meticulous engineer. There are hints
of devices he made that are astounding. Your father and grandmother
were regenerated using a technology that is incomplete to us –
apparently a variation of it was used as a weapon. His notes
mention ‘plasma soldiers,’ though we have been able to find no
record of any such device.”

“He sounds as if he was a horrible creature,”
I said.

Newton, as if broken from his reverie, looked
at me blankly and then nodded. “Perhaps so. While much of his work
was benevolent, there is a darker side to his engineering that is
all too evident. There are hints that he was being driven to build
these destructive devices by a malevolent force – though we don’t
know what that was.” He smiled faintly. “What it does tell us is
that the Old Ones were not immune to war or cruelty, just as we are
not.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “There are hints at other
storehouses of knowledge which we have not yet discovered...”

“Let them stay hidden, then.”

“Would you have creatures like Frane make use
of such power, instead of the republic?” he asked.

I pursed my lips, because I had no
answer.

“I fear we will miss old Xarr greatly. I know
very little of military matters, and I don’t much understand this
move of Frane’s, to fight a great open battle when she has a stolen
weapon to draw on.”

“What exactly did she obtain by taking over
the Science Guild facility at Solis Planum?”

Newton’s eyes darkened. “The last remaining
concussion bomb on Mars, like the one which destroyed the city of
Burroughs in the First Republic War. It was kept for research
purposes, and now it is in her hands. There was an aerial machine,
very fast, as well as a few ground transports. It is the concussion
bomb that worries me most of all.”

“What will she do with it?”

“I don’t know, but I believe she must be
stopped before she has a chance to use it.”

The rest of our trip home was spent in
troubled silence.

X
arr’s absence was
already making itself felt. There had been defections from the
army, many of them F’rar. I was introduced to the feline who would
take the old general’s place, a much younger man in a crisp new
general’s uniform. He was prim and proper, with slicked back black
fur and pink eyes, and looked to me to be putting on an act, though
I learned later that he had fought hard in the first two Republican
Wars – on the side of the F’rar. I did not like him.

“And so,” he said, for at least the tenth
time, pointing to a spot on his tenth chart, a map of the Valles
Marineris region that I had to admit was detailed, “we will draw
Frane like a magnet toward the great chasm, and merely” – he made a
dismissive gesture with his paw – “push her in!”

“You make it sound so simple, General Reis.
Tell me, how do you propose to, as you say, ‘draw Frane like a
magnet’ toward the canyon?”

“It is simple, your majesty,” he said,
swelling up like a proud peacock. “She is already heading
there!”

“And how long will it take her to reach
Valles Marineris?”

“A matter of weeks, your majesty.”

“And your army will be there, waiting for
her?”

“Well...” He averted his eyes, pretending to
study his chart.

“How large is our army, after recent
defections?” I asked, keeping my voice level and businesslike.

“Those...figures are changing daily, your
majesty.”

“Today’s figures, please, general.”

Without looking at me, he pretended to rifle
through a stack of papers next to his chart. “That would be...”

“Let me give you today’s figures,” I said.
“While Frane is at this point leading an army of ten thousand
Baldies, with more arriving daily, the Army of the Second Republic
stands as of this morning at eight thousand, seven hundred and
fifty, with a defection rate of one percent per day. Does this
sound correct?”

“I would say...” he nodded. “I would say that
sounds correct, yes, your majesty.” He turned from his papers to
look at me hopefully. “But—”

“The word ‘but’ does not exist in this room,
general. We both know that if you were to give the order this
afternoon to march, with far garrisons joining you on the way, you
could not reach Valles Marineris, or wherever Frane chooses to
fight, in less than four weeks! And that’s at a forced march pace,
with defections bleeding away your army even as it’s replenished.
The defections we will work on. But the plain fact is that Frane
will choose the battlefield, and will be there, entrenched, waiting
for us.”

“‘Us,’ your majesty?” he said, his pink eyes
widening.

“I will be leading the army, General
Reis.”

He began to blubber. “But–but–but–this cannot
be!”

“What did I tell you about the word ‘but,’
general?”

His mouth clamped shut, and his pink eyes
bulged.

“I will lead the army, and you will do
everything in your power to assist me, and when the time comes we
will win a great victory over Frane, and destroy her and her Baldy
army. Yes?”

“As you wish, your majesty.”

“Good. Now kneel down, general,” I said,
holding out my right paw, “and kiss my ring of office in fealty to
me and the Second Republic.”

For a moment fire showed in his eyes, but he
did as he was told, and went down on one knee and bowed his head
over my outstretched paw.

I felt the lightest of kisses on my ring.

“From this moment on, you owe every ounce of
your allegiance to me,” I said. “You are F’rar, and I am half so,
and we have a great duty to our republic and to our planet. There
can be no further treachery by our clan. It cannot and will not be
allowed. Do you understand?”

He looked up at me briefly, before bowing his
head again.

“Yes, your majesty.”

“Good. With your help, I will stop the
defections in the army among our people. And we will march
tomorrow, at dawn. Yes?”

Again a brief, unreadable look.

“Of course, your majesty.”

“Good. And if you do not prove yourself
worthy to me, or your office, and betray either in any way, I will
kill you myself.”

“B
ut this is
madness!” Darwin said, as I knew he would.

“I am very tired, Darwin, and I don’t wish to
argue. I have made my decision. Please be happy with it.” I waved
an exhausted paw, from where I lay curled on my divan. Its soft
pillows felt like cool hands calling me to sleep. I wanted only to
give myself up to them.

“But if you must go, take me with you!”

I shook my head, and yawned. “No.”

“You cannot keep me here! You must take me so
that I can...cook for you!”

I laughed. “You pride yourself too much on
your cooking, Darwin. Just because you and my father were forced to
become chefs in the last war, doesn’t mean you’re any good at it.
From what I hear, my father was the much better cook–”

“In all seriousness, I cannot stay here.”

“I need you here to help Newton, and to keep
an eye on the senate and the assembly. I’m appointing you Queen’s
Representative. It’s all in my grandmother’s charter. You will have
powers second only to mine.”