Haydn of Mars (17 page)

I followed him across the living room, with its carved wooden chairs covered in dark fabrics, its low lamps, its warm fireplace kicking sparks and filling the room with wavering dancing light, its precious musical instrument, to a smaller room beyond.
 
It was a kind of study.
 
It, also, was richly appointed: a huge carved desk of junto wood, a tall chair behind it and the desk facing a wall composed of another, smaller fireplace and a row of shelves above it.

He took something down from the shelf and handed it to me.
 
Remembering what had happened in Soler's office that after, my heart did not leap at the sight of this book, until I saw that its cover was graced by an inset picture.
 

“Open it,” Newton offered.

I did so, and a riot of color leaped out at my eyes.
 
It was
filled
with pictures of the Old Ones!

He took it gently from my hands and turned to a specific page.
 
“It is a picture book of great minds of the ancients.”

I continued to stare as he stopped at a particular portrait of an Old One, looking as always naked and wrinkly, the features sharp and almost frightening compared to our feline ones.

Under the picture was: SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

“It was after him I named myself, years ago.
 
I was not given his name at birth.
 
As far as I know I am the only feline ever to bear his name.

“Who was he?”

“A great scientist of the Old Ones.”
 
He closed the book and returned it to its shelf.
 
“Unfortunately, my picture book contains little more than pictures.
 
It may even have been intended for a child of the Old Ones.”

“So–” he began, but at that moment a doorbell rang off at the other end of the house, and he held his thought, waiting.
 
In another moment one of the servants, looking nervous, appeared in the door to the office and announced, “It is Carson, Sir.”

“Show him in,” Newton said.
 
To me he said, “It's best if you stay here, and out of sight.”

I saw why, a moment later, as Newton, suddenly stiff, slipped from the office, closing the door all but a crack behind him and marched forward, paw extended in greeting, to a red shirt commander who was just entering the living room.

“Carson!
 
So good to see you!” Newton enthused.

The other took his hand briefly, unsmiling, but settled himself without being offered into the most comfortable chair in front of the fire.
 
Newton took the lesser chair beside him.
 
The two apprentices appeared with a tray.
 
Soon the two felines were smoking and studying glasses of what looked by its familiar bottle to be brandy.

They talked, and I tried to listen, but the red shirt's tones were low and Newton spent much time nodding.
 
When one of the apprentices appeared behind them unannounced, Carson spun on him and shouted, “Get out, you rodent!
 
How dare you!”

The boy nearly ran from the room, as the conversation continued in even lower tones.

The fire was low when the red shirt commander stood and stretched.
 
The brandy bottle was nearly empty.
 
Most of it, I noted, had gone into Carson's gullet.
 
He staggered slightly on getting up, and laughed and this time shook Newton's paw vigorously.

“A good evening!
 
We will do this again soon!”

“Of course!” Newton rejoined, with less enthusiasm.
 
“Any time!”

The red shirt took a staggering step forward, and knocked something from a low table which broke.
 
Ignoring the damage Carson stumbled on, making it to the front hallway and then disappearing.
 
There was another crash, and then Carson was heard shouting, “Out of my way, you dolt!” before finally the front door was opened and slammed shut, and he was gone.

The two apprentices, looking haggard, appeared in the doorway to the living room and Newton dismissed them.
 
He knelt to examine the broken shards of what had been on the table, lifted them gently and held them to the light for a moment before placing them, just as gently, on the table from which they were disturbed.

He walked thoughtfully toward me, as I opened the door.

“Did you hear any of it?” he asked.

“Very little.”

He nodded, and opened his paw.
 
A tiny sliver of broken blue glass lay there.
 

“It was a present from my daughter,” he said wistfully.
 
Then he bade me come back with him to the living room, and, after fussing with the cushions, made me sit in the comfortable chair the red shirt had vacated.

I sat, and immediately felt a sharp, thin stab in my posterior which immediately receded when I shifted my weight.
 
I thought I had sat on another sliver of broken blue glass.

 
He emptied the brandy bottle into a new glass for me, and then stirred the fire into last life.
 
For a few moments we sat in silence and watched embers spark and settle, and listened to their sighing rustle.

“So you see,” he said at last, “that a man can wear many hats.”

“You're a collaborator?”

“Hardly, Ransom.”

“What do you do for that creature Carson?”

“As a scion of the oldest family in Sagan, it is my duty to safeguard its citizens.”
 
He turned and gave me a tired smile.
 
It was then that I realized that he was older than he looked.
 
“I'm helping the F'rar to track down the Science Guild, which is rumored to be very active in this part of Mars.”

“Carson is a fool.”

“Thank the One for that.
 
And pray he continues to be one.
 
Because of my station, my grounds and my garden have not been searched.
 
I am accorded this luxury.
 
I will do everything I can to continue in that fashion.”

He breathed deeply.
 
“I am very tired, Ransom.
 
It has been a long day.
 
I have arranged, if you are willing, for you to sleep in my spare room.
 
It is off the hall to the right.
 
Either that or you can find your way back through the garden and sleep with the other guild members.”

“Thank you, I will stay.
 
It is very kind of you.”

He nodded.
 
“The bed will suit your bedouin ways?”

I returned a ghost of his wry smile.
 
“I can always sleep on the floor.”

“Sleep well, nevertheless, Ransom.”

“Thank you.”

I got up as he did, and made my way to the hallway.
 
I turned right, and saw two closed doors, one on either side of the hall.
 
I walked back to the living room to ask him which door was meant for me.
 

I stopped dead in the opening, and observed Newton kneeling over the chair I had just vacated.
 
He was searching the cushion carefully for something, and then drew something up and into the bare light of the fire.
 
It was needle thin and silver.
 
He examined it for a moment, and then nodded and placed it in a small, long box which closed with a click.

Then he rose.

I retreated into the hallway, checked the door on the left which proved to be a bath, and then quickly entered the room on the right.
 
I closed the door softly behind me, and turned on the light, which was electric.
 
The room was bathed in faint light.

It was a girl's room.
 
The walls were a muted blue shade, tacked with lace at the corners.
 
The bed was small, lovingly carved, the headboard pictured with kits at play with two smiling moons overhead as if guarding them.
 
A delicate coverlet, egg colored, looked handmade.

There was a tiny table next to the bed, with a photo in a light blue frame.
 
It was of a young woman of about my age standing beside the railing of a bridge, smiling.
 
Behind her was a vast empty space, with a canyon wall in the hazy distance and a pale pink sky overhead.
 
She looked very happy.

I turned out the light, climbed into the bed, and was almost instantly asleep.

Somewhere during the night I started awake.
 
From somewhere deep in the house came a single long moan of despair, and then silence.

For the rest of the night, there were no more sounds.

My time in Sagan flew by.
 
Spring was already turning to summer.
 
The days grew hot, and dry.
 
While not a prisoner, I yet felt myself under guard constantly.
 
When not in Newton's company, which I often was, I was always given an escort, who usually proved to be more minder than source of enlightenment.

An exception was the geologist Merlin who, while in many ways as odd as the rest of the scientists I had met, was in other ways the least so.
 
She had an ardent interest in areas outside of her own, including, to my delight, music and dance.
 
The trouble was, while talking with her about one of these disciplines, she might without warning return to a problem she had been having in her own work.
 
A conversation about ballet might suddenly become one about aquifiers.

I learned that there were certain areas of the underground facility that were off limits to me.
 
One day while in Merlin's company we wandered unobtrusively into one of the many tunnels that led from the main building.
 
This one, I instantly noticed, was different.
 
The walls and floor were of smooth metal, and the slope indicated that it led farther underground than the main facility.
 
There were no dark windows in the walls save at the beginning and at the end, which we reached after a very long walk.
 
It was here that we were confronted by a lone, startled guard and a wide open door that led into a second facility nearly as wide, but not nearly as busy, as the one above.
 
Before the guard blocked my view I saw a long structure, a sleek black shape supported from below in many places which dwarfed everything around it.

“How did you get down here!” the guard, dressed in a brown uniform cinched at the waist with a bright gold belt, shouted.
 
Behind him the door was already sliding closed.

Merlin, taken out of her reverie, merely stared at the guard and then looked around us with confusion.
 
“I have no idea.”

Already, more guards appeared behind us, and we were escorted politely but forcefully back to where we had entered.

I noted that when the door closed, there was no indication that there was a tunnel there.

I continued to sleep in Newton's guest room, and to take meals with him.
 
That night at dinner, I waited for Newton to mention the incident, but he said nothing of it.
 
Overcome with curiosity, I brought it up myself, but he merely waved a hand and said, “We do many things here.
 
Not all of them are as evident as others.”

That very night I was awakened again by a single moan from somewhere in the house.
 
This time I rose and tried to find its origin, but I was unable, due to the brevity of the sound, to locate it.

I did discover that night that the doors to the house were locked against entry.

And, of course, exit.

One evening, perhaps three weeks into my time in Sagan, Newton proposed at dinner that I accompany an expedition mounted by Merlin to a geologic site not far away.

“It's a good time for it, and perhaps the only chance we will get for some time,” Newton explained.
 
“The F'rar army in this area has retreated for the moment.
 
The word from my people on the ground is that it is safe to do outside work.”
 
He paused.
 
“Since you are interested in F'rar progress, I'll tell you that we've heard from some of our southern friends, and that things are very bad there for the rebels.
 
We can expect, I would think, more refugees from the south, as well as more F'rar after them.

“I should also mention that if things work out, there will be another expedition in a few weeks, to one of the oxygenation stations to the east.
 
I would like you to accompany me on that.”

“Of course.”

“Since you've already visited one, you might find it of value.”