Haydn of Mars (20 page)

This tunnel had been dug into the rock which bordered the house, and was not a part of the main structure.

I became alarmed when the tunnel made a sudden turn.
 
There was no light behind or before me.
 
But then a heard the moan again, closer, and proceeded.

“Hello?” I called again.

There was an answering moan that was coincidental with my call, I was sure.

Abruptly, I found myself faced with a blank doo that was as wide as the tunnel.

Air moved from beneath what must be a door, a cool, steady breeze.

I knocked on the door, and was met with silence.

There was no knob, no handle.

I was faced with, I thought, a moral choice at that point.
 
This was none of my business.
 
Whoever was behind that door was part of Newton's life, and had nothing to do with me.
 
I should not even have come this far.

Suddenly, I resolved to go back, and turned around.

My path was blocked by a tall figure standing there.

“You might as well see her,” Newton's voice said.

His tone was neither surprised nor angry.
 
He sounded resigned.
 
He moved around me, and did something to the door, which opened with a hiss.
 
A dull light, bright in comparison with the darkness of the tunnel, issued forth.

“Please follow,” Newton said quietly.

We were in an ante chamber, and a second door led to the main room.
 
It was chilly to the point of being cold, and the same faint yellow light filled this second place.
 
There was a bed similar to the one in Newton's bedroom – in fact, the room was a duplicate of it, down to the full length mirror and the dressing table, which held a framed picture of a feline unknown to me, short and middle-aged with a grim, almost distrustful face.

The bed was empty.
 
But a chair faced the mirror, and in it sat, I could see by the mirror's reflection, a very old woman, seemingly asleep.
 
I had expected perhaps Newton's young daughter, but had been mistaken.

The woman's eyes opened, and she stared at the mirror and moaned.
 
Then she fell into troubled slumber again.

“She is my wife, Arma,” Newton said.
 
He had not taken a step toward the woman, but stood regarding her, I thought, with a mixture of pity and disgust.

“What's wrong with her?” I asked.

“Everything,” Newton said, in the same even tone.
 
“She refuses to face the world.”

I could tell that there would be more, so I said nothing.

“When our daughter died, five years ago,” Newton went on, “Alma became increasingly withdrawn.
 
At first she refused to leave the house, and then she refused to leave our bedroom.
 
And then, finally, she refused to leave her chair.
 
The doctors could do nothing for her, and finally they gave me the choice of keeping her here permanently or sending her to an institution.
 
I had this room built as an exact duplicate to our bedroom, and here she stays.
 
She is attended to, and, despite an occasional moan, usually in the night, this is how she exists.”

“It must be horrible for her,” I said, shocked.

Newton turned to regard me.
 
“In some ways she is the lucky one.”

I was further shocked at his tone, which sounded almost cold.

“How can you say that?” I replied.
 
“The woman lost her daughter; it must have been a terrible thing to bear.”

He was staring at me.
 
“Her brother Talon killed our daughter,” he said, and left the room.

At dinner that night he told me the rest of the story.
 
I noticed that he drank more than his usual measure of wine.
 
The stewards were almost constantly at his elbow with the bottle.

Finally he told them to leave the bottle with him, and withdraw, which they did.

“You must understand something,” he said, with a slight slur in his speech.
 
“My wife's family was fiercely loyal to the monarchy.
 
Her family is one of the oldest in Northern Mars.
 
The king was one small step lower than a god to them.
 
When the monarchy was dissolved by Augustus of Argyre they did everything they could to reinstate it, providing money and support, and, when necessary, soldiers to the monarchists, the F'rar included.
 
This is one of the reasons why the F'rar trust me, even though they are unaware that I was never in agreement with my wife.
 
In those days I mostly avoided the issue.
 
I had my work to keep me busy.
 
This, of course, was before the days of the secret Science Guild, when science could be done openly.

“But when our daughter Penelope came of age, she became a staunch republican, which infuriated Alma and especially her brother, Talon, who was working with me at the university at the time.
 
Despite his politics, Talon and I were very close.
 
He was brilliant.
 
But his disapproval of his niece's positions bordered on the obsessive.
 
Not only did Penelope support the republic with her words, but with her inheritance.”

He stared through his wine glass for a moment, lost in recollection.
 
“This dinner table was an unhappy place for a long time.
 
The arguments they had...”

He put his glass to his lips and drained it, then reached for the bottle and refilled his glass.

“When Augustus was assassinated things only became worse.
 
My wife and her family supported the monarchists, of course, and Penelope followed the rallying cry of the republicans.
 
I was powerless to reconcile them.
 
Soon there were no dinners at all, and then, when the F'rar took re-instituted the monarchy by violence last year Penelope went off to fight them...”

Again he stared off into a painful place.

“Penelope came home once, after the war began.
 
The quarrels were even more furious and embittered than before.
 
And then, while in a fit of madness, rather than let her go back to the fighting, my brother-in-law poisoned his own niece.
 
Penelope died in my arms, screaming in agony.
 
And, her mother soon lost her mind.”

He stared at his paws, and then took another drink.
 
Then he looked up at me.

“I was insane with grief.
 
The monarchy, to my mind, was responsible for the death of my daughter.
 
Even though he was dead, I blamed Augustus for my problems.
 
As I said, I was mad.
 
Augustus had a daughter named Haydn, and I swore that if I ever got the opportunity I would do to her what had been done to my own flesh and blood in his name.”

Wearily, he reached into his tunic pocket and drew out the box I had seen him with the first night I stayed here.
 
He opened it and drew out the delicate needle, half filled with blood, within.

“I obtained this from you after our first dinner.
 
You may remember the pin prick you felt when you sat in my most comfortable chair. As I told you we do many things in the Science Guild.
 
Blood analysis is one of them.”
 
He was barely whispering, staring at the needle.

“You suspected all along,” I said.

“I was sure almost from the beginning.”
 
He put down the box holding the needle and pulled his wine glass to his lips and looked at me blearily.
 
“But I cannot harm you, Haydn.
 
I have gotten over my grief, and you helped me do it.
 
I know now what my daughter was fighting for.”

His eyes lost their cloudiness and became hard.
 
“And I must tell you this.
 
Talon escaped my wrath with much scientific knowledge, which he took to the F'rar.
 
Of this I am sure.
 
He is a dangerous and brilliant man, an expert in ballistics and atmospherics, and he took many secrets with him.
 
He is no doubt developing them into weapons for the F'rar as we speak.”

“Was that his picture on the dressing table in your wife's room?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Almost on cue, the mournful sound of his wife's moan echoed through the house.
 
Newton grinned, and it was like the grin of a death's head.

“Do you like the way she sounds?” he said.

The next morning it was as if the previous evening had never occurred.
 
Newton had breakfast with me (I didn't touch my food) and then accompanied me across the garden to the guild hall.
 
I was put in Merlin's charge for two hours, and tried to stay awake (I had had a very bad sleep in Penelope's bed) and listen to her frankly tedious lecture about igneous rocks and basalts and ancient flood plains.

Newton came for me near noon, and I accompanied him to the door leading to the chamber below, which was open again.
 
We passed unmolested into the tunnel, and the door slid shut behind us.
 
Newton had almost returned to his old self, with a touch of ironic smile on his lips.

“You remember your unauthorized peek down here?
 
I thought you might like a closer look.”

I said I would.

At the end of the tunnel the far door was already open, and we passed into the vast chamber.

It was noisy today, and I noticed that the sleek black shape I had seen on my first visit was gone.
 
In its place was a shorter craft, also black, tapered at one end with a hatchway open.

As we approached a head popped out of the hatch and regarded us.

“Ah, Peter, this is...Ransom,” Newton said, making introductions.

Peter reached a paw out, covered in grease.
 
“Pleased to...sorry!”

He wiped the paw on the sleeve of his coveralls and this time I shook it.

He jumped out of the opening and stepped aside.
 
“Care to have a look?”

“Yes.”
 
Since Newton made no move to step forward, I did so and studied the inside of the structure.
 
There were two seats and gaggles of wires held in bundles.
 
In front of the seats, I noticed, was a thin wide window.

“What is it?” I asked, withdrawing my head.

Peter began to speak but Newton hushed him.

“Come, Ransom,” he said, leading me away to a corner of the theater where very loud work was going on.
 
It looked like the large sleek craft I had seen had been split into sections, and workers were welding canisters into one of them.

“Some sort of airship?” I guessed.

“Yes.
 
And not a dirigible,” he replied, correctly gauging my astonishment.

“
A flying ship
?”

“Yes.
 
The fuel is still the greatest problem, but we are working on it.
 
That book you brought us is already helping greatly.”

I was still staring at the black shape, a huge body with wings like a bird, in wonder.

“We know it was done in the past, by the Old Ones,” Newton explained.
 
“Certain expeditions have uncovered artifacts of some of those ships, and we've extrapolated from that.
  
We have some very good minds here, as you know...”

“A flying ship...”

“Yes.”
 
He almost laughed.
 
“I wanted you to see this.
 
Who knows?
 
Perhaps one day we'll fly to the stars!”

He stopped himself, and his demeanor became serious.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “you will accompany me and a few others on a large expedition to the oxygenation station near Arabia Terra.
 
I mentioned it to you weeks ago.
 
The trip will take almost two days.
 
It will be dangerous.
 
The F'rar are fighting rebels near the mountains at the moment, and we will have to be careful.
 
A writ of free passage, which I will obtain from Carson tonight, will only get us so far.
 
We will be passing into other jurisdictions.
 
But I want you to come with us.”

“I'd be happy to.”

“Good,” he said.
 
“Now let me show you the rest of this facility...”