Queen of Mars - Book III in the Masters of Mars Trilogy (10 page)

“I’m afraid we’re in for it,” Copernicus
said, just before dawn. The keening sound had become a high
whistling howl, and the entire south and west were lost in a high,
roiling cloud of disturbed sand. Copernicus brought us to a halt in
a small valley. To my surprise, after securing our tent and filling
it with our food and water supplies, he slapped the flanks of both
horses, driving them away to the north. Needing no more
encouragement, they galloped away, bearing with them the rest of
our provisions and Copernicus’s beloved telescope.

“Why did you do that?” I asked, already
half-knowing the answer.

“If they stay the storm will kill them. This
way, without our added weight, there is a chance they will outrun
it. If so, I will see my telescope again. If not...”

He shrugged, resigned to fate, and we crawled
into our meager shelter and secured the flap after us. The howl
outside was becoming a scream, and now Copernicus had to shout to
be heard.

“We will get no rest, I’m afraid,” he said.
“Soon, you will not be able to hear yourself think. You will
believe you are going mad, with the roar of the storm. We must pray
that our stakes are deep enough to hold us in place – otherwise, we
will be blown away. And we must pray that the storm does not last
too long, or we will be buried alive, too deep to dig our way
out.”

“Cheerful thoughts!” I replied, trying to
smile and show him the courage I did not possess.

He shook his head. “There are no cowards or
heroes in sandstorms, your majesty. Only the dead, and the
survivors.”

As if in answer, the wind kicked up another
screeching notch, and I could no longer hear what the little fellow
was saying when he opened his mouth.

And so the storm went. I did not think that
any sound could be so loud, and yet it became even louder. I
pressed my paws over my ears and gritted my teeth against
screaming, and still it grew louder. Sand flew at our tent in
slapping sheets, like water without wetness. This thumping and
shearing sound only added to the din, which became unbearable. I
looked at Copernicus who was rolled up on the ground, his ears
covered, eyes wide, his mouth open – I could not hear his cries.
And still the storm mounted. I watched in horror as one of our tent
poles began to vibrate like a plucked string. It broke suddenly and
one end of our structure collapsed. The other pole, nearer to our
heads, also began to vibrate and, as I reached out to steady it, it
broke in my hands and the tent collapsed completely on top of us. I
felt a weight of sand pressing me down from above, and the wind
keened higher, and yet higher.

This seemed to go on for hours, as the weight
of sand steadily grew above us, pushing us down. It became
difficult to breath. I reached out for Copernicus, who was
shivering like a leaf.

“I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” he
screamed, a snatched whisper above the wind. I tried to push up the
tent above us, but the weight was too much, and I could not budge
it. It was as if a giant hand was pushing down on us, telling us to
succumb.

We waited for the end.

Then there was another sound joined to the
wind, now, a strange thumping and then scraping. I could no longer
believe my own senses. This scraping went on and on,
unidentifiable, and then suddenly the tent was ripped open above my
head. The tear grew until both Copernicus and I were uncovered. The
night was black, and sand beat against us mercilessly, and there
was a shape in the dark, a wrapped figure with dark eyes which
looked huge and reached down for me.

Before the world went away I heard Copernicus
screech once, a mighty fearful sound above the wind:

“Sandies!”

I
arose from
blackness.

I could hear nothing but the inner beating of
my own heart. I was in a dark place, but the dire howling of the
wind was gone. No, not gone – but distant, muffled, quieted.

I reached up and my paw instantly hit
something, a smooth wall or ceiling, not a foot over my head.
Behind me was another wall, and the toe of my boot found another at
my feet. To my left my paw found fur, an arm, a face which, I
determined by gentle probing, belonged to the sleeping form of
Copernicus. To my right – another body, this one awake.

A low chuckle was followed by a rasping
voice: “Sleep. That is all there is to do, now. Sleep through the
storm.”

“Who—”

“I said sleep.” The low chuckle again. “We
will discuss eating you after the storm is over.”

Again the chuckle, joined by other voices
giggling elsewhere in this box we were in.

I tried to sleep, but could only think
of those last words...

F
inally I did sleep,
but was awakened by a rough hand. I opened my eyes to brilliant
daylight. I closed my eyes against the harsh light but they were
immediately forced open by an ungentle paw. A wrapped face lowered
itself over me and piercing eyes looked into my own, back and
forth.

“There is no damage,” the voice, lilting,
reported.

“The corneas are clean?” a second voice, the
one I had heard in the box, inquired.

“Yes,” the lilt said.

“Good. They were not caught outside, which
means at least one of them is not a fool.”

The face over me retreated.

“May I get up?” I inquired.

The rasping voice replied, “Of course! Get
up! Dance if you wish! The storm is over and it is a brand new
day!”

The lilting voice laughed.

I sat up, blinking, and saw that there were
two of them. Copernicus was nowhere to be seen. The two, wrapped
from head to foot in brown cloth, looked to be man and woman, and
the woman looked to be with kit. Her belly under the cloth was
huge.

“Where is..?” I began, but before I could
finish, the gruff male, who was thin, replied, “We did not eat him,
do not worry. He is using the...facilities, as he said, or he has
run away. It is nothing to us.”

Noting the humor in the voice, I said, “You
saved our lives. Thank you.”

“It is what is required,” the thin feline
said, making a slight bow with his head. “It is nothing more than
the courtesy of the desert.”

“Nevertheless, thank you.”

Again he bowed his head, as did the
female.

“Are we your prisoners?” I asked, and now the
two of them laughed out loud.

“We are all prisoners of the desert,” the
thin one said. “As to whether we hold you, the answer of course is
no. You head north, I take it?”

“Yes.”

“Then you will reach it in a matter of days.
You will fight no more storms. Your ponies are safe, tethered at an
oasis an hour from here. We will show you the way.”

“That’s very good to know.”

Another bow.

I stood and stepped out of the box we had
been in, a red wooden coffin some six foot on a side, set into the
desert floor.

“We are lucky a takra was nearby when we
found you,” the man said. He lowered the lid of the box and began
to kick sand over it with his foot. The female joined in and, out
of courtesy, so did I, until the box was covered. I noticed a thin
red pole with a red flag on it which was attached to the back of
the structure which stuck out of the sand and made the structure
identifiable.

“Are there many of these?” I asked.

“All over the desert. One learns their
locations as one learns the oases. It is a matter of survival.”

“You’re not really cannibals, are you?”

“Oh, yes,” the lilting voice said, with mock
seriousness. She patted her stomach. “We also eat our own young
when they pop.” She uncovered her face for a moment, showing a
wolfish smile. “They are particularly tasty!” The smile broke down
into laughter.

“She jokes, of course,” the male said.

“You two are betrothed?”

The term seemed to mean nothing to them, so I
amended, pointing on to the other, “You are...mated?”

The male threw back his head and rasped
laughter. “By heavens, no! She is my sister!” His laughter
dissolved. “She carries the litter of our chieftain, as do all
females. This makes all of us sons and daughters of the
chieftain.”

“I see...”

He pointed to himself and then his sister. “I
am Tlok, and my sister is Fline.” He pointed to me. “And you
are...?”

I hesitated, and then said, “My name is
Clara.”

“Clara...” Tlok seemed to roll that around in
his head before deciding that it was acceptable. “Clara, yes. Very
good.”

His sister said, with a note of sarcasm, “And
you and the chubby one, you are...as you say, betrothed?”

It was my turn to laugh, as a very disturbed
and unhappy looking Copernicus appeared, trudging toward us.

“No,” I answered, “we are not—”

I was interrupted by Tlok, who said to
Copernicus in a mocking voice, “You had a nice walk?”

Copernicus at first ignored him, and then
said, “No.”

“He did try to escape! Ha! And what did you
find, little man?”

“More of you. Kits. They taunted me.”

“Ha!” Tlok laughed again. “Perhaps we will
let them eat you!”

Copernicus’s demeanor didn’t change. He
offered Tlok a quick, sour look. “Perhaps you would.”

Fline touched my arm lightly – I saw that her
claws did not retract but were out and sharp. “We will not harm
you,” she whispered.

But the look in her eye was mysterious,
filled with laughter, and something else, unreadable.

C
opernicus’s outlook
brightened a bit when we were presented with our horses, unharmed,
a few hours later. The trek to the oasis, where the mounts were
feeding and watering themselves, was uneventful except for the
cavorting troop of kits who accompanied us. They moved so fast,
bouncing and jumping and cartwheeling in the sand, that it was hard
to count there number, but I finally settled on seven. They, like
their adult counterparts, were dressed head to toe in brown cloth
coverings, and there were rough hewn sandals on their feet. Every
once in a while one of them would throw back his head and yip or
yowl, and his face cloth would slip, showing a variety of markings:
white and black stripes, one jet black, many shadings of brown, and
one curious mix of pure white and brown, each color on one side of
the face split exactly down the middle. This one seemed to be the
leader of the band, and directed them on their games, suddenly
running out away from us, followed by the others, and then bringing
this line of racing fellows back at top speed. They seemed to
particularly enjoy bedeviling Copernicus, who made the mistake of
letting them get under his skin. By mostly ignoring them and,
occasionally, smiling at their antics, I was soon deemed boring and
left alone. But poor Copernicus became the center of their universe
and the butt of their pranks.

“See what he has on underneath!” one of the
rascals squeaked, and for the next ten minutes Copernicus was
swatting the devils aside as one ran under his legs, trying to
dislodge his tunic, while another attacked from a different
angle.

I held my tongue as long as I could, and then
broke into laughter.

“Don’t encourage them!” Copernicus brayed,
pulling one away by the scruff of the neck while yet another darted
between his boots.

Finally he was sprawled in the sand, covered
by a mob of pecking kits trying to tear the tunic from his
body.

A single sound from Fline, a kind of
high-pitched yelp, and they instantly left Copernicus alone,
running off to reassemble into a dancing ring thirty feet away.

“I don’t trust them,” Copernicus whispered
fiercely, as I helped him to his feet.” I tried to get away before,
to get help, but those little monsters herded me like a heifer back
to camp. They’ll eat us yet, I tell you.”

“They seem hospitable enough, if a little
strange,” I answered.

“There’s nothing strange about them,”
Copernicus nearly spat. “They’ll find our bones in the desert, I
tell you. They’ll make a meal of me, then you.”

“Why you first?” I teased.

“Because there’s more of me,” he said, and,
perhaps realizing the silliness of what he was saying, he nearly
smiled.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just that I’m very
worried.”

“About what?”

Tlok and Fline had stopped ahead to wait for
us, and Copernicus’s words were rushed.

“Cannibalism aside, what they might do
with us,” he said.

B
ut there were our
horses, content and safe, and there were our provisions, untouched,
and Copernicus’s demeanor lightened.

Once we had taken our fill of water, I found
Tlok marking a stone with a flint knife. The markings were strange
to me. When he was finished he placed the stone at the bank of the
oasis’s pool (this one shallow, and not inhabited by a
Gigantus!).

“What are you doing?” I inquired.

“This is Bleen oasis, owned by that
chieftain, and though we may partake, we must leave thanks and a
message of reciprocity.”

“Reciprocity meaning that if he or his people
are in need of an oasis owned by your chieftain, he may partake in
kind?”

“Exactly!” He seemed pleased that I
understood the concept.

“You...” he began, sitting down by the edge
of the water.

“Yes?”

His face was serious. “You are intelligent.
We were told...”

My ears pricked up. “You were told what?”

He shook his head and stood up. “Nothing.
Please, we must go. We have already overstayed our welcome in this
place. And we have another place to be by nightfall.”

He walked away, gathering the kits together
with a loud whistle, and soon we were on our way, Copernicus and I
mounted, and, mostly, out of reach of the scampering, jumping kits,
whose energy had not flagged a bit, but Tlok’s words stayed in my
mind.

We were told.