Haydn of Mars (15 page)

Newton, who had sat on his own mount through all this with an amused look on his features, bowed slightly toward the figure and then toward me.

“Soler, meet Ransom.
 
Ransom, Soler.”

“So pleased to meet you!” Soler said in a high, almost wheezing voice.
 
She sounded genuinely pleased.
 
A pair of spectacles hung around her neck on a piece of twine, and she absently drew them up onto her nose, squinting at me through them.
 
She was stout and broad-faced, with a long mane brushed back away from her pinched features.

She reached a sudden paw up and shook my own.

“Welcome!” she said.

“Ransom has been informed of her status,” Newton reported.

“Excellent!
 
Are you hungry?
 
Do you require a meal?”

“We ate at the
Eagle
, in Shkovkii,” I said.

She laughed, almost a cackle, and the glasses dropped back down around her neck.
 
She turned and clapped his hands.
 
“Then you definitely require a meal!
 
Luther!”

A short, dark cat appeared, hunched over, almost walking on all fours.
 
He had a dour disposition.

“Make a luncheon for our guest and for Newton.
 
Come to think of it, I'll join them also.
 
I haven't eaten since–”

“Since your last meal forty minutes ago,” Luther said in a desultory way.
 
He turned, shaking his head, and slouched off.

“We shall dine in my office!” Soler announced, and we moved off through a sea of milling workers split into teams.
 
The cavernous floor of the complex was roped off, literally, into what seemed to be work areas.
 
Each had one or more benches and tables covered with bizarre instruments or machines.
 
A spray of sparks went into the air at a distant table, and there was a groan followed by a hoot of pleasure.
 
The place was unbearably noisy.

As we made our way through this madness I looked up: the ceiling was crisscrossed with catwalks and electric lamps.
 
There were duct openings, and a thin line of windows at the very top of each wall.
  
Somewhere a generator hummed.

With a start, I realized that some of this equipment was very similar to what I had seen in the ruins the Mighty had taken me to.

“We're underground...?” I said out loud.

“Of course!” Soler shouted above the din.
 
“Only way to keep things hidden!”

Suddenly the noise went down and then almost disappeared as Soler ushered us into a dark stuffy little room and slammed the door behind us.
 
The space was cluttered with boxes and shelving and papers –

– and books of the Old Ones – on a bottom shelf beneath two crammed shelves of more petite, smaller feline volumes!

There was an entire row of them, ten at least, with binding of different colors, behind the desk where Soler now sat.
 
She told Newton and I to sit also, and as there were no chairs I followed Newton's lead and cleared a crate of piles of papers and used it to sit.

Almost immediately the door opened, letting in noise and Luther, who bore a tray as if it would break his back.

He complained constantly as he served us, then was gone, leaving a last insult behind him.
 
The door banged shut behind him with finality.

“You enjoy soup?” Soler asked me, putting her spectacles back to her nose to study me.

“Of course.
 
Though I have been used to dog stew.”

“Dog!” she cried in alarm, and dropped her glasses.
 
“How barbaric!”

“Our guest was living with the equatorial bedouins,” Newton explained.
 
“Though I venture she was not born to them.”

I held my head up proudly.
 
“Too much culture for a Yern?” I asked.

“No.
 
More the way you took to city clothing when you abandoned your robes.
 
As if you had been quite used to them in another life.”

“Perhaps.”

“Perhaps you'll tell me about it.”

Under his intense blue eyes, I answered, “Perhaps.”

“Now!” Soler interjected.
 
“Let me begin by thanking you for bringing us Hermes' chemicals!
 
We had quite given up hope of ever seeing them.
 
When he was...when he met his unfortunate...when...” He looked at Newton for help.

“When he was killed by the F'rar, we thought our work would have to stop.
 
But now that you've taken on his routes...” Newton smiled.

“I didn't say that,” I replied.

“I know.
 
It was mere hope on my part.
 
Is there any chance?”

“Frankly I wouldn't know where to begin.”

Soler's countenance darkened.
 
“Oh, dear.
 
So this means that what we have now will be the last that we see?”

Newton turned to her.
 
“I am working on other avenues.
 
They will not be as convenient as Hermes was, though.”

“And you're sure he did not give us up?”

“I think we would have heard from the F'rar by now if he had.
 
But my ears are still to the ground.”

“Good.
 
Good.” Soler bent to her soup again, using her wide spoon to slurp it into her mouth, until she stopped suddenly with a pained look on his face and turned her head sideways to squint at me.

“You did say
dog
?”

“Yes, it was quite tasty.”

She shivered and went back to her meal, shaking her head and saying, “Barbarian,” between mouthfuls.

“May I ask you about your books?” I ventured, after trying the soup myself.
 
It was bland enough, with overcooked vegetables, a hint of leeks.

At first there was no response, but then Soler had finished her soup, tilting the bowl up to her mouth with her paws.

When I repeated the request she blinked at me and said, “Yes?”

I pointed to the shelf behind his head.
 
“Your books.”

“Yes, of course!
 
You like their colors?”

“Excuse me?”

She swivelled in her chair and plucked a volume from the shelf.
 
It was blue all around, with a blank cover.

My heart sank, and continued to sink as she opened the book to show blank pages.

“Are the rest just like this?”

“Of course!
 
We call them ‘notebooks of the Old Ones.'”

I noticed that Newton was regarding me quietly with his blue eyes and ironic mouth.

“I have something that might interest you,” I said, and got up.
 
I felt Newton's gaze following me as I left the office, made my way through the labyrinth of noise and commotion (I watched two young assistants bent intently over a silver box which suddenly spurted flame, driving them back with cries) and went to Standard, my horse.
 
I retrieved my treasure from his saddlebag and returned to the office (passing the same two young assistants, their faces covered with soot, once more studying the same singed box, if anything from even closer quarters now), shutting the door behind me.
 
When I regained my seat I saw that Soler was studying my half-full soup mug with barely concealed interest.

“This will make you forget soup,” I said, handing her the hefty volume.

For a moment she looked at it with indifference, studying its bland brown cover, but then her eyes widened as she opened it at random and saw columns of figures.

“Oh!
 
Oh!” she cried, overcome with excitement.
 
She rifled through the pages and held it up for Newton's examination.
 
“Look!”

“I've already seen it,” Newton said wryly.

“I figured as much,” I said to him.

“The innkeeper Pavin was going to make off with it, but I convinced him otherwise.
 
I was waiting to see if you would do the right thing.”

“The right thing?”

His wry smile widened a millimeter.
 

“Or you would have confiscated it,” I stated.

“Of course.”

Soler was lost in her enthusiasm, giving little bleats of happy disbelief.
 
“Where did you get this?” she asked.

Newton seconded the question, and I told them of the facility the Mighty had taken me to.

“An oxygenation station,” Newton said, with certainty.
 
“We must mount an expedition if possible and see if there is anything else of use there.”

Soler nodded absently.
 
“Naturally...”

Newton said to me, “Much of the facility you are in now was outfitted with equipment from a similar station twenty kilometers from here.
 
It was in very bad condition, but we saved what we could.
 
There is another station near Robinson, and rumors of others in the south.
 
At one time, long ago, we believe they produced oxygen and pumped it into the air.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it was needed,” he replied.
 
“Some of our people believe that at one time Mars had a very different atmosphere.
 
It is one of the questions we are trying to answer here.”

Soler held the book up again, pointing with a trembling finger to a particular page.
 
“I'm not sure, Newton,” she said, her whiskers trembling with excitement, “I'm not sure, of course, but this book might provide us with...”

“It might at that,” Newton answered cryptically, but when I looked to him for explanation he said nothing.

Soler looked at me.
 
“Thank you, Ransom!
 
Thank you!”

She half rose, tumbling the book to the floor, and after retrieving it with a startled cry and laying it gently on the table, she reached out and took both of my paws in her own.

“You have done us a great service,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.

“We should go,” Newton said, as Soler nodded and sat down, opening the book at random and immediately losing herself in it.

“You can have my soup, too,” I said as I rose.
 
Soler mumbled thanks, not hearing a word I said, as she ran a bitten-to-the-nub claw over one page and then another.”

 
“You don't realize how happy you've made her,” Newton said outside, raising his voice to be heard above the din.

“What did she mean when she said that volume might provide you with something?”

Newton shrugged.
 
“We're working on many things here, Ransom.
 
Perhaps I'll tell you another time.”

“Perhaps,” I said, wryly.

He smiled thinly and led me on.
 
“There are things I must attend to,” he said.
 
“But I'll leave you in good hands.”
 

We stopped at a table where nothing seemed to be happening.
 
There was an anatomical chart on a stand, and a slender fellow with a long, thin face in a chair so deep in his own thoughts that he didn't even acknowledge our existence.

“Is he blind?” I asked.

“On the contrary,” Newton replied, clapping his paws in front of the fellow's face.

The other made a startled sound and then looked at Newton as if trying to focus on him.
 
Suddenly he did and leaped out of his chair to take the other cat's arm.

“Newton!
 
So happy to see you!”

“I have someone I want you to meet, Jeffrey,” Newton said, and introduced us.

Jeffrey took my arm and said exuberantly, “Hello!”

Newton pulled up a second chair, and told me to sit in it while he spoke to Jeffrey in private for a moment.
 
Then he turned his attention back to me.

“I will find you later.
 
We will dine together.
 
As we speak, some of Hermes's spices – the real ones – are no doubt making our bland soup taste better.”

He took his leave, and I was faced with Jeffrey, who once again had sunk so deeply into his own thoughts that he seemed in a trance.

“Jeffrey?” I said tentatively.