Sebastian of Mars (8 page)

“But Rella – they’re going to
execute
her!”

His grip became tighter yet, and suddenly I
lowered my voice and tried to bring myself under control.

Xarr let go of my arm, and his voice grew
less harsh. “I know what she means to you. I should have counseled
you, but there was no time. For this I apologize. For what it’s
worth, I thought highly of her, myself. But this must be done.”

“
Why?
” My voice rose again in
anguish.

His own voice rose: “Because she is guilty!
Because she did the things she is accused of! Because of her, Frane
knows you are here! Jift had incontrovertible evidence!
She is a
spy!
”

“But –”

“Because of your F’rar friend, our position
here was given away almost as soon as we arrived.” Again he took my
arm, and shook me. There was controlled rage on his face. “Because
of that woman, every man, woman and child we managed to get here
will probably die in a matter of weeks –
because of her, you
will die, and along with you, the hopes of this planet!
”

I was silent, trying to bring my sobs under
control.

Xarr turned away from me, and began to walk
out of the tunnel, leaving me there.

“I’m sorry, Sire, but the power the
constitution gives me in times of war insists that I do this thing.
No matter what your own personal feelings are, or mine.” He walked
back out into daylight, which fell on him like a spotlight. “The
F’rar spy Rella must die in the morning.”

I
spent a bad night.
The hoot birds that inhabited some of the caves of the area of
Olympus Mons saw fit to visit, and their mocking cries kept me
awake even in the fitful intervals when I might have slept. I did
catch one brief moment of slumber, and was immediately assaulted by
a terrible dream: Xarr and myself on trial before Frane, who stood
before us in blood red robes, holding her fisted paws high and
cackling like a specter. Her eyes were lit with flame, and as she
pronounced our death sentences we burst into fire. I could feel the
heat of fire consume me as I woke with a start. My face was damp
with sweat.

This was soon mingled with tears.

No rising of the sun awoke me; it was rather
a guard who whispered solemnly into my room, “Sire, it is
time.”

I dressed, and arranged myself as if in a
dream. I was met by Thomas outside my door, who looked solemn, and
we were joined by the other council members, save Jift, whose role
was a special one this day, as we made our way to an assembly room
which had been cleared of chairs and converted into a hall of
military justice for this day. There were no other witnesses, and
Jift’s voice echoed in the room as he pronounced sentence. Rella
looked at me once as she came in, and then looked at nothing at
all, staring over our heads.

“Do you wish to say anything before execution
of sentence?” Jift asked. I could not abide the snarl in his tone,
and was repulsed by the way he seemed to be relishing this
moment.

“Only that I am innocent, and go to my death
with love for the Second Republic of Mars, and Sebastian, my King,
in my heart.”

My chest swelled, and I almost stepped
forward, but Thomas put a firm hand on my shoulder.

“It is out of your hands,” he whispered.

If she had looked at me I would have ignored
Thomas’ words, but she did not, and without another word or gesture
she walked to the gallows and mounted the steps. I felt my gut
clench. The executioner quickly cinched the rope around her neck,
and she refused the hood. She stood facing us, and then the
executioner stepped quickly back and pulled the lever on the
mechanism, dropping the floor beneath her.

As she fell, before I closed my eyes, she
looked at me and smiled–

“
No!
” I shouted, unable to help
myself.

I turned and ran from that place, as fast as
I could.

“Sire!” Thomas called, but I pushed my way
past him and bolted from the chamber. No one followed. Already I
felt the clutch of the thin air in my chest, and began to fight for
breath, but the image of Rella dropping to her death, the gasping
sound she made as the rope went taut, played through my mind like
an endless loop and I could not stop running. Even when my lungs
heaved for breath I drove myself on. I was blind with pain and
horror. I ran, and ran . . .

Finally, my lungs could stand no more, and I
fell to the ground and lay gasping. I listened for sounds behind me
but there were none. I had no idea where I was, and was half blind,
all thought only on regaining my breath.

Finally, my lungs were sated and I lay
breathing shallowly, thinking only of those horrible images –

I heard the faint slap and gurgle of running
water nearby.

I sat up, still taking little gasps.

I looked around, and my eyes widened in
wonder. I had run all the way to the cavern with the bones of the
Old One by the running stream. As I looked at the skeleton it
seemed to stare at me in mock accusation.

“
Followww
...”

My head jerked up, looking at the dark
opening in the top of the cave wall.

Something flickered and moved there, then
dissipated, a shadow.

“Hello?” I called tentatively, as I slowly
stood.

The opening was empty and silent.

I stared at it for a long moment, then sat
and removed my boots, carrying them with me as I once again crossed
the chill waters of the creek.

On the other side I put my boots back on,
staring at the silent pile of bones.

Without hesitation, I rose and walked to the
cave wall, putting a boot toe into the first artificial rung.

I climbed, noting that the rungs were almost
too far apart to accommodate a feline.

As I climbed, I kept an eye on the dark
opening above me, which remained empty and silent.

I hesitated at the last rung, looking down
and back over the water to the opening out of the cavern.

No one appeared to talk me out of my folly.
There was silence behind and before me.

I hauled myself up from the last rung into
the dark opening.

I lay there, breathing quietly, listening and
looking into the gloom in front of me.

There was nothing.

No form flickered and shone before me, no
sound echoed in the deep dark recesses. There were no shadows.

I stood, and began to
walk.

After a few yards the
tunnel turned to the right, cutting off the light of the cavern
behind me. It then split and then forked again. I stood at the
second fork, hesitating, but then I saw ahead to the left a faint
illumination, rising, I discovered, from the walls of the cave. As
my eyes became used to the gloom I saw that there were crude
pictures on the walls which glimmered faintly, of birds and
something that looked like the sun with circles around it. Attached
to each circle was a ball.

There were, I now saw, hundreds of these
drawings – things that looked like boats and others that looked
like strange airships. I stopped to study one huge pictograph which
stretched from floor to ceiling. It was once again of something I
assumed was the sun with circles around it and balls which must be
planets. Between the third and fourth of these planets was
suspended a sleek airship.

I thought of what Newton had told me about
travel into space . . .

There came a very faint sound in front of
me.

I stood still for long minutes, waiting to
hear it again, but was surrounded once more only by silence.

I proceeded, following the line of
pictographs – buildings, mountains, strange machines and strange
figures that looked like neither felines nor Old Ones. They were
slender but small, with large heads, and their paws and feet were
also too large. They walked on two legs but were strangely bent.
Their eyes were too large for their faces. Some were whiskerless,
others sported whiskers.

Then the pictures abruptly changed. All
scenes of the sun, of mountains and desert dunes and aboveground,
disappeared, replaced by renderings of caves and caverns and
tunnels. There was another huge pictograph of what might be Olympus
Mons itself, with literally hundreds of tunnels running through it
from top to bottom, and even beneath. I wondered how accurate it
was as some sort of map.

I was so entranced by this continuing line of
odd figures that I did not see the end of my current passageway
approaching, and bumped into a turn in the wall. The pictographs
ended there.

I walked a short tunnel to another turn and
then light began to glow in front of me.

I heard a rustling sound ahead, and hurried
on.

I was blinded by light, and stood stock still
at the opening to another massive cavern.

When my eyes adjusted to the return of
illumination, I gasped.

“I don’t believe it,” I whispered to myself
in awe.

Below me, on a cavern floor vaster than
anything I had seen within Olympus Mons, was a sea of bright
machines unlike any I had ever seen. There were so many, of so many
different shapes – boxes of all sizes, and tubes and oblongs and
two giant orbs with rows of windows and a silver rectangle a half
block long and hundreds of others – that I could not comprehend
what I was seeing. My mind was overwhelmed.

Forgetting the pain of the recent execution
of Rella, I was overcome by wonder, and turned to retrace my steps,
determined that I must find my way back and tell Thomas and the
others what I had found.

But something was in my way, slightly smaller
than myself, and I got a glimpse of huge eyes and felt hot sour
breath on me before a long thin arm with a massive paw rose and
came down, and I saw instant blackness.

I
awoke with a
headache, and in darkness. I could hear someone rustling close-by,
and again felt that wash of hot, sour breath move across my
face.

In the dimness, I saw two saucer-shaped eyes
regarding me. They blinked, a very slow process, and then there was
a sound, like a brushing, hoarse whisper.

“Foood?”

I shook my head no, and the sour breath and
massive eyes retreated a foot. I tried to sit up, and groaned.

On the back of my head was a lump the width
of three fingers.

Again the figure asked: “Fooood?”

“No!” I shouted, and was surprised to hear my
voice give a clanging echo. I lowered my tone. “No, I don’t want
any food, you fool.”

“Foood?” the figure asked again.

My eyes had adjusted to the dimness now, and
I saw that we were encased in a metal ball, perhaps one of the
structures I had seen on the floor of the cavern.

“Why is it so dark in here?” I asked testily,
and my companion gave a little hiss and stepped farther back away
from me.

“Niiiiight,” he said.

“Oh.” I looked up and saw a dark row of
windows which encircled the ball.

“Foood?” he asked again, which provoked me to
anger.

“I told you –”

“Have fooood?”

My anger drained. I suddenly realized that he
had been asking me if I had any food – not if I wanted any.

“No, I don’t have any food.” Again I tried to
sit up, pushing myself back against the curve of the structure. My
head did not hurt quite so much, and I rested the un-bumped side
against the metal behind me.

“Why are you hungry?” I asked. “How do you
normally eat?”

“Fishhh,” he responded immediately. “But no
catch, today.” He pointed to me, and rasped out something like a
laugh. “Catch youuuuu instead.”

For a moment a chill went through me, as
those giant eyes once again blinked slowly.

“Surely you don’t mean to eat me,” I said,
giving a short laugh.

Again the eyes blinked, which seemed to take
an eternity.

“Do you know who I am?” I asked.

He pointed up – and again I saw how large his
paws were in proportion to his body. “Topper.”

“Are you a Baldie?” I asked, abruptly
realizing that I might be dealing with an offshoot of that crazy
clan.

He hissed, jumping back, his mouth going
impossibly wide. His eyes flashed amber in the dimness. I saw claws
that must have been two inches in length emerge from his thin, long
fingers.

He continued to hiss, looking from left to
right.

“
Hate
Baldies,” he spat.

“All right, then, you’re not a Baldie. What
are you, then?”

“Downer,” he said, his hiss petering out into
what sounded like pride.

“Is that a clan?” I asked. I had never once
heard the word.

“Not a clan –
we!
” He stood and
pounded on his thin chest.

“Where do you live?” I asked.

He spread his arms out – and I suddenly
realized that I may have discovered an entirely new clan, if not
race of felines, that had never been seen before, who lived in the
bowels of Mount Olympus.

Newton would be more than proud of me.

I banged on the side of the curving metal
behind me and said, “And did you build this?”

He shook his head.

“Then who did – the Old Ones?”

Again, the long, slow blink.

Realizing he may not have understood the
term, I said, “Did the bigger ones make all these machines – the
tall ones who used to live here long ago?”

He began to blink again.

“Don’t you know
anything
?” I shouted
in exasperation, standing up to face him.

The eyes widened in
alarm, and the huge paw was raised again, and again I saw
blackness.

W
hen I awoke this
time the row of windows had flooded the metal orb with strange
shimmering blue tinted light. I was alone. I saw that my enclosure
was outfitted with internal instruments which centered on a round
panel. There were three seats clustered around it, facing the
panel. I climbed into the center seat and tried pushing various
buttons and pulling various levers, but nothing happened.