Further observations confirmed Arabella’s initial impression: despite the kraken’s intervention, they had managed a successful planetary circumduction and were now fully embedded in the Swenson Current, speeding toward Mars at a speed of over seventeen thousand knots. But as damage reports filtered in to the quarterdeck, the full consequences of the battle rapidly became clear. Touchstone had lost her starboard mast and half the mizzen to the creature’s thrashing tentacles, while Diana, sailing along with them in the same current only a few hundred yards away, had only suffered some damage to her bow-sprit. Any attempt to run or to fight would be doomed before it began.
“Well, we gave it a good try,” Fox said as they watched Captain Singh’s gig push off from Diana’s deck. The light aerial boat was pedaled by two crewmen and carried only the captain; this was no boarding-party. But the gun-ports in Diana’s bow remained open, her twelve guns run out and pointed directly at Touchstone, and shining Venusian eyes blinked from behind the cannons’ gaping maws. Clearly this would be a negotiation from a position of strength.
Despite the obviousness of the situation to all concerned, the formalities must be observed. The lookout at the mainmast head called “Boat ahoy!” and the gig’s coxswain replied “Diana!” The gig drew alongside then, and Captain Singh’s strong distinctive voice called clearly across the short distance, “Permission to come aboard?”
It was the first time Arabella had heard that voice in months. The last time he had been begging her to return to his side, having just horribly disappointed her, but she had continued with chill determination down the stairs. She had spent every minute since then doing all she could to distance herself from him, in terms of her sentiments as well as her physical body, but now it was clear that she had failed in every respect. He had found her, he had captured her, and from the breath that caught at the back of her throat there was no doubt that she had never, despite her best efforts, escaped her love for him.
Captain Singh stepped with regal dignity down from the gig onto the deck, propelling himself in free descent with light touches of fingers and toes such that he gave the appearance of moving in gravity. Unlike Captain Fox, who often lounged horizontally in the air, Captain Singh always kept his feet pointed to the deck, and she could not fail to note that, even in this horrific heat, he was fully attired in the formal dress uniform of a captain of the Honorable Mars Company, down to the white Venusian silk gloves.
“Welcome to Touchstone, Captain Singh,” said Captain Fox, bowing in the air. “First, I would like to offer you my personal thanks for your assistance with that despicable creature. Furthermore, I commend your restraint in not blowing us out of the sky even when you held the upper hand. I believe I speak for the entire crew when I say that, although we disagree most fervently with the Prince Regent’s plans for Mars, we acknowledge that we have been bested fairly and will accept the consequences for our actions.”
“I thank you for your congenial reception, Captain Fox,” Captain Singh replied with reserved formality, “and for your gratitude. However, your understanding of the situation is incorrect.”
“I see,” said Fox, straightening in the air. His face showed that he was trying to prepare himself for the worst.
“You have not been bested,” Captain Singh continued. “Not in the least. Indeed, it is you who have bested me. Your navigation, and your handling of your ship, through that unprecedented maneuver were astonishing. I had thought that I knew what you were about, and that with Aadim’s help I would easily catch you up as you entered Mercury’s Horn. But I understand now that you had a completely different aim in mind, one which I had not anticipated and could not duplicate. Had I not simply followed your lead around the planet, Diana would now be nothing more than a heap of shattered timbers upon the planet’s surface.”
Captain Fox blinked in surprise and incomprehension. “I am honored,” he said after regaining his composure a bit, “but your compliments are, in fact, due to Mrs. Singh.” He inclined his head to Arabella. “It was her greenwood box which made our course possible, and her navigation after the creature’s attack which made it successful.”
“Ah yes, the greenwood box.” Captain Singh bowed deeply and respectfully to Arabella. “An excellent device. But, of course, it is the operator’s knowledge and skill which make the difference between success and failure.”
Now it was Arabella’s turn to blink in incomprehension. “You say you have not bested us,” she said, “but you also said that you planned to catch us up in Mercury’s Horn … and you have, indeed, now caught us. Is your intent not to return us to Earth to stand trial for treason?”
Captain Singh’s expression, constrained as always, did not alter. “Not in the least,” he said. “I am here to join forces with you, to aid in the defense of Mars against the Prince Regent’s scheme.” His gaze dropped from Arabella’s eyes to her feet, and his voice, though still reserved, took on a tone of contrition. “Even though we are no longer man and wife, I have become persuaded as to the validity of your concerns and the rightness of your cause. I intend to assist you to the very best of my ability.” He looked up again, his brown eyes softer than she had ever seen before. “If you will have me.”
Without thought Arabella suddenly found herself in her captain’s arms. “Of course I will have you,” she said. “I greatly respect your abilities, as you know; I admire your sense of honor, even when we disagree … and I love you with all my heart.” She kissed him then, upon the lips … right there on deck, in every one’s view, heedless of propriety.
“Really, Mrs. Singh,” called a familiar voice from some distance away. “That is quite enough.”
Arabella disengaged herself from her husband and looked over his shoulder to Diana, which had drawn even nearer during their conversation. There, upon the quarterdeck, floated Lady Corey!
“Mrs. Fox!” cried Fox. Immediately he shoved off from the deck, sailing unerringly between the two ships and ending neatly at her side. “What a pleasant surprise!”
“I trust you have comported yourself properly in my absence?”
Even across the several fathoms of air that separated them, Arabella noted Fox’s eyes flick briefly to her. “I have been a perfect gentleman,” he said, returning his gaze to his wife and bowing over her hand.
“He has,” Arabella called to Lady Corey. Though, in truth, she had to acknowledge some imperfections on his part … as well as her own. Still, under the circumstances, she felt that both of them had behaved acceptably.
Captain Singh pressed Arabella tightly, then released her and held her at arm’s length, gazing admiringly into her eyes. “Well, my dear,” he said after a time, “we have much to discuss. May I invite you to breakfast?” He glanced to Captain Fox. “You and your officers are invited as well.”
“It is closer to supper time, for us,” Fox replied, “but I am happy to accept your invitation.”
* * *
The party was so numerous that they were compelled to dine in Diana’s ward-room rather than in her captain’s great cabin. For Arabella, after so many months in the constrained and rather shabby confines of Touchstone, it felt as grand as a palace. And the presence of her husband, now reunited with her in spirit as well as body, by her side made it grander still. Despite the unremitting heat, it took all her will to keep her hand from stroking his leg.
“I must begin with an apology,” he said after the syllabub. “To my dear wife, who saw more clearly than I the inexcusable inhumanity of the Prince’s scheme of conquest.” He bowed his head to Arabella. “I had thought—I had the arrogance to presume—that such a scheme could be … ameliorated, with proper direction. But it cannot. The rot goes all the way to the root. Evil such as this cannot be managed, it can only be resisted.”
“What was it that changed your mind?” asked Fox, not unreasonably.
“Have you ever heard of ulka?”
The faces of the Dianas present showed that they were familiar with the word, and that they did not like it. But Arabella was not, and plainly neither were most of the rest of the Touchstones. Fox, however, frowned. “It is a Venusian word, from the sound of it,” he said. “I believe I may have heard it mentioned from time to time in the gambling-hells of Marieville. I do not recall ever having learned its meaning, but its associations are … not salubrious.”
“Insalubrious indeed, Captain Fox. It is a drug, one refined from a plant native to Venus. The refined version renders the user indolent, suggestible, feeble, and highly dependent upon further doses. Once habituated—and, depending upon circumstances, a single dose can be sufficient—the user suffers terribly if the drug is withheld, and will do nearly any thing to obtain more. And humans and Martians are as vulnerable to these horrific effects as Venusians.” He shook his head. “By the good graces of Lady Corey, I learned that it was Reid’s plan to import ulka from Venus to Mars.”
“Lord Reid did not inform the Prince of his plan to profit personally from English domination of Mars,” Lady Corey explained. “But he did share that information with his mistress. And that mistress, when properly lubricated, could be persuaded to confide in a dear friend.” She laid two fingers upon her bosom.
“The profits to be realized from the sale of a drug so powerfully habituating,” Captain Singh continued, “are, of course, effectively unlimited.”
“Why did you not immediately bear this news to the Prince?” Arabella asked.
Captain Singh sighed. “That was my first thought as well. But Lady Corey, fortunately, stayed my hand.”
“Lord Reid, as you yourself discovered,” Lady Corey said with a nod to Arabella, “detests your husband. So he has prepared a considerable volume of false evidence—forged papers, suborned witnesses, and the like—implicating Captain Singh as the scheme’s author. If the plan is discovered, the drug is prohibited, or the whole scheme collapses of its own weight, your husband takes the blame and Reid walks away free. And if, at any time before that point, Reid desires your husband’s destruction, a few words in the right ears will accomplish that goal in short order.”
“If it came to my word against the Chairman of the Honorable Mars Company,” Captain Singh said, “I do not doubt who would be believed, and who dismissed as a Godless Saracen.”
“But now that you have departed,” Captain Fox observed, “Reid must surely have pulled the lanyard on that trap-door.”
“I am certain that he has. So now I have no choice but to throw in my lot with the Martians.” He closed his eyes and blew out a breath through his nose. “In any case, as I said, the rot goes all the way to the root. Once I became aware of Reid’s horrific scheme, I began to understand that, whether or not the Prince was party to it, it is part and parcel of his plan. Domination of Mars—imposition of the English will upon the Martian people—implies, indeed requires, domination of individual Martians by individual Englishmen. Even if Reid’s drug scheme could be prevented, some other scheme, equally foul, would surely spring up in its place.
“Once my eyes were thoroughly opened to the horror of the Prince’s scheme,” the captain continued, “I had no choice but to turn in my resignation at once. But I was fortunate in that I was able to leave my letter of resignation on the Prince’s desk shortly after his departure for Princess Charlotte’s engagement dinner in Brighton. Knowing he would not receive it for some days, I could take the time to recall my crew and equip Diana for a long voyage. I was also very fortunate to know your destination and general course”—he nodded to Lady Corey—“though not the astonishing details of your maneuver around Mercury.”
“I call it a planetary circumduction.”
“By whatever name, it is an extraordinary feat of interplanetary navigation.” He wiped his lips, folded his napkin, and tucked it under the clip which held it secure in free descent. “Now … we have the advantage of privileged information, and can expect to arrive at Mars some months in advance of the English. How can we best thwart the Prince’s scheme, with minimal loss of life and property?”
* * *
The Prince’s scheme, Captain Singh explained, was to take control of Mars in two stages.
The first stage of the invasion was a small advance fleet of some sixteen ships-of-the-line, each with a full contingent of Marines. “Their mission is to reinforce the existing Mars Company troops, perform reconnaissance, and prevent an effective resistance from forming. These ships lack Fulton’s improvements, and their captains are men of no particular distinction. However, they will arrive quite soon—perhaps even within the year—and among their number are several experienced with the Mars trade.”
“Within the year?” Collins gasped. “How can they possibly arrive so quickly?”
Captain Singh’s eyes grew distant. “Immediately after accepting the Prince’s commission,” he confessed, “I dispatched a fast clipper to the Ceres fleet with orders to send a detachment at once to Mars. The winds were favorable, and a fast, unladen ship with an experienced navigator can move far faster than a fleet.” His gaze dropped to the table between them. “I selected the very best navigator, and I also equipped him with Aadim’s most rapid course. And with the short distance from Ceres to Mars at this season, they will arrive within months after receiving their orders.”
Arabella was both impressed by her husband’s perspicacity and disturbed by the rapid pace of events. “But because they were dispatched before your … departure,” she said, “they will not be expecting an informed resistance.”
He hesitated briefly before replying. “We can hope so,” he said. “In any case, we must spend the time before the advance fleet’s arrival organizing a resistance. We will require as many allies as possible, Martian as well as English, and will need to establish stocks of materiel and train men for an extended siege. But our largest concern is the second stage: the arrival of the Prince’s fleet, which for reasons of planetary proximity can be expected in approximately twenty-six months.”
This fleet, he explained, made Napoleon’s planned fleet of armored men-of-war seem a mere flotilla by comparison. Though it had just begun construction when Captain Singh had left Earth, when complete it would consist of several dozen armored ships, the first-rates being larger and more heavily armed than Napoleon’s flagship Victoire, and based on a design improved by Fulton after that ship’s destruction. “The weakness at the stern,” he explained, “which permitted Diana to defeat Victoire, has been corrected in this new draught.”
Victoire, a single armored airship fresh from the ship-yard, had come close to defeating Lord Nelson’s entire fleet by herself. The thought of a fleet of dozens of Victoires—no, even worse, dozens of ships better than Victoire, all fully shaken-down and manned by the cream of England’s aerial Navy—descending upon Arabella’s home planet filled her mind with horrific visions.
“The one area,” Captain Singh continued, “in which the Prince’s fleet is inferior to Victoire is its source of hydrogen: the Venusians used animals, larger versions of our own beloved Isambard, to produce that gas, whereas the Prince is dependent upon chemical processes, requiring a large and expensive manufactory. By the time they reach Mars, inevitable hydrogen leakage may reduce the ships’ lift capacity to the point that some will be unable to descend safely to the surface.” Again he glanced downward. “I instructed the shipbuilders to spare no effort nor expense in finding a way to address this concern, and I have little doubt they will find a solution to the problem.”
“Do not berate yourself for doing your best,” Arabella said, placing her hand upon her captain’s beneath the table, “for the cause to which you had committed yourself at the time. Although we disagreed then, we are both on the side of Mars now, and I am certain you will do even better for us.”
“I thank you for your confidence,” he said, inverting his hand to hold hers. “I wish I could be as certain.” He closed his eyes. “I find myself contemplating a chess game in which, after a strong opening, I am compelled to change sides and defend a weaker position against my own very best strategies. I fear that even knowledge of those strategies may not be sufficient to carry the day.” He opened his eyes again, and they were filled with care. “The Prince’s Mars fleet will be the most powerful ever seen, and the most technically advanced. Even if we are able to interdict the drug and prevent the advance force from gaining a foot-hold, all Mars’s resources may not be sufficient to withstand his assault.”
“We can but make the attempt,” Arabella said. Beneath the table-top, she squeezed her husband’s hand in reassurance.
His hand pressed hers in return, but he did not meet her eyes. “Now … let us discuss our plans for resistance.”