Putty’s breath was steady and her pulse was strong, but when I pulled up her eyelids, her eyeballs had rolled back. All I could see were the whites of her eyes. Her muscles were limp. I clenched my fists. First Freddie, now this. I couldn’t bear it.
Olivia grabbed my arm. “You have to get help.”
I stared at her. “Where?” We were hundreds of miles from anywhere.
“The airship. That’s where people will gather. There might be a doctor.” She looked directly into my eyes. “Don’t even think about arguing. Parthenia could die out here. I can look after her while you’re gone.”
“On your own?”
She raised her chin. “If I have to. I’m not going to lose my other sister.”
“Livvy, this isn’t—”
She cut me off with one hand, then picked up a bottle of water that had survived the crash, wiped it on her dress, and passed it to me. “You’ll need this.”
I gazed at her, uneasy. How was she going to survive? What if something came out of the wild? We might be able to fight it off together. On her own, she wouldn’t have a chance.
As if reading my thoughts, she picked up a broken branch. “If that thing comes back, it’ll regret it.”
I hesitated.
“You don’t have a choice, Edward,” Olivia said. “Neither of us do.”
She was right. We’d run out of choices. I tucked the bottle of water inside my jacket and pulled myself out of the lifeboat.
Under the hot sun, the mist was lifting quickly, revealing hills rolling further and further into the distance. I jumped to the leafy ground and started to hike uphill. I tried not to think of Olivia sitting alone in the wreck of the lifeboat with only Putty’s unconscious body for company.
Adventures had never felt like this in Thrilling Martian Tales.
* * *
I spotted the finger-trail of smoke on the horizon pretty quickly, but getting there was even tougher than I’d thought it would be. The land was broken into jagged ridges that looked like long knife blades as tall as houses coming up through the soil. The red rock was sharp and fragile. At one moment, it was breaking off in my hands; the next it was trying to cut them open. I sweated and cursed my way over them. To think, some people did this kind of thing for fun!
In between the ridges, the undergrowth was more tangled than Putty’s hair after a morning in Papa’s laboratory. Animal trails ran through the undergrowth, but it was so thick it sometimes grew over the top, turning them into tunnels. Clouds of tongue-bugs swarmed from the bushes, trying to lick the sweat from my skin, and tendrils shivered across the earth, snatching at my feet and legs. Once, an arrow-hawk plunged lightning-fast to spear some prey less than a hundred yards from me. Whatever had been attacked bellowed and writhed in agony, kicking down bushes and uprooting trees, before it finally fell still.
Here and there, great spikes of trees, like the one we’d crashed into, rose out of the undergrowth, looking like airship towers made out of wood and leaves.
It took me almost all morning, but eventually I got close to the smoke. The thick undergrowth had changed to finger-thick grass as high as my head. I struggled uphill toward the smoke. I’d almost reached it when I heard angry voices.
I dropped to my stomach and wriggled my way to where the grass ended. Just past where I was lying, the ground dropped steeply down. I’d come to the edge of a deep valley. It was full of great chunks of split red rock that looked like they’d been strewn across it by a giant in a really bad mood. On the opposite slope was the wreck of the airship gondola. Smashed wood and twisted metal had been thrown over hundreds of yards of rock. What was left of one of the great spring-powered propellers jutted into the air. The spring itself had unwound violently, scattering the pieces of broken airship and cutting a track through the ground. Smoke still rose in places from the smoldering wreckage. Just looking at it made me shudder. It must have hit with an almighty crash. I tried not to think about Freddie being caught in there when it smashed down. At least it would have been quick.
A group of men stood nearby, arguing. I recognized one of them straightaway. Dr. Blood’s face was red, and he was gesturing at the airship. He was probably worrying about his rock samples. I stilled my breathing and listened.
Dr. Blood’s voice drifted up to me from the valley. “I want his body found. If it’s not in the wreckage, you’ll search until you find it. Understand?”
I goggled at him. What was he talking about?
One of the other men mumbled something in reply. Dr. Blood’s hand whipped out, cracking across the other man’s face. The other man was far bigger than Dr. Blood, but he stumbled away, then dropped his gaze to the ground.
I pushed myself back behind the ridge. Why was Dr. Blood bossing those men about? Was he looking for Freddie’s body? That would mean that he’d been behind the attack on the airship. Wouldn’t it? Did that mean he was working for Sir Titus?
Sir Titus! I hissed under my breath as my brain reminded me, Ten days. Ten days until Sir Titus is done with your family.
He’d wanted to stop us from rescuing our family, so he’d crashed the airship in the middle of the wilderness. He hadn’t even cared that innocent people might be killed. Now we’d never even get close to the rescue airship with Dr. Blood waiting. How were we going to reach Lunae City?
The sun was burning hot, and my bottle was almost empty. I only had a single mouthful left. I’d crossed a small, dirty stream about an hour back and I’d filled the bottle there, but it was almost gone again. I swirled the water in the bottle. God, I was thirsty, but if I drank it now, I’d have nothing left.
As his men trudged across to the wreckage, Dr. Blood wiped his brow and walked over to a stand of umbrella trees a hundred yards away, and lowered himself into the shade.
“Good,” I muttered. I might be able to spot other survivors before Dr. Blood spotted me. Maybe one of them would be a doctor.
It was getting hotter. How was that even possible? I’d been in ovens that were cooler than this. My brain felt as if it was frying like an egg in the heat. And not even a nice egg. A pigeon-cat egg flavored with marsh-pepper. I fumbled for my bottle and drank the last of the water.
Yech! It was disgusting. How could water taste so vile? I licked at the rim of the bottle. If I didn’t get more water soon, I’d end up like one of those preserved Egyptian mummies. All I’d have to do was find some bandages.
Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe the other survivors would stay in their own lifeboats and wait for the rescue airships to fly over. Signal them with fire and smoke. Maybe they were too far away or they hadn’t been able to get to the airship. Maybe they were all dead.
I shouldn’t be lying here. I should be out looking for them.
Dr. Blood seemed to have plenty of water. There he was, sitting under his great big tree, swigging away. If I could just crawl around behind him, maybe I could grab some …
A shadow swept over me.
If it was a cloud, maybe it would rain on me. I flopped onto my back and stared up, my mouth open.
There, in the sky above me, flying low, was an airship.
Rescuers! Rescuers had come and they’d found us. I could bring them to Putty. We could fly there. I staggered to my feet and waved.
The airship slipped over and past. They hadn’t seen me. How could they not see me? They must be looking at the wreckage. It didn’t matter. I would reach them there.
Wait! My brain might be more cooked than one of our ro-butler’s pancakes, but some part of it was still working.
We’d crashed last night. We hadn’t been due to reach Lunae City until later today. There had been no time for us to be missed and rescue craft dispatched.
Maybe this was the daily airship heading the other direction, from Lunae City to Ophir. Maybe they had seen the wreckage below and come down to investigate. Except this airship was too small and it didn’t have the mark of the Imperial Martian Airship Company.
So maybe it was a private airship. Lots of rich people had their own private airships. Just like the one Sir Titus had used to kidnap Mama, Papa, and Jane.
My brain gave me another kick. Sir Titus! He’d planned the attack on our airship. He’d crashed it. Now his airship had come to make sure we hadn’t survived. And here I was, standing in full view on top of the ridge, waving like an idiot. I dropped back, hitting the earth hard enough to make me wince.
The airship circled around. Its propellers tilted to push it down. Dr. Blood came out from under his tree and waved at it. I slid back down the slope, dislodging pebbles.
Maybe I could get around to the high, jagged red rocks to the east of the valley. Then I’d be able to watch the whole thing. If they were real rescuers, I could reveal myself, but if they weren’t, I could get away.
If only I had some water.
I stumbled away, cutting a wide arc to stay hidden.
By the time I reached the rocks, the airship was down and tethered, its engines stopped. A group of men were gathered beneath its belly, at the bottom of a lowered set of steps. Dr. Blood stood in front of them, talking to a man I would have recognized anywhere.
“Apprentice,” I whispered. I’d been right. Dr. Blood was working with Sir Titus. Now he had reinforcements. I dragged my eyes away from Apprentice’s horribly mutilated face with its tight metal mask.
Dr. Blood snapped an order. Apprentice bowed, and the men with him hurried over to lower the luggage platform from the bottom of the airship. Three large crates sat on it. I squinted. Why were they unloading luggage here? There wasn’t exactly a hotel around.
Apprentice turned to survey the surrounding terrain. I sank lower.
Men gathered around the crates with crowbars and quickly popped off the lids. Apprentice leaned into each and seemed to fiddle with something inside. I couldn’t see what he was working on. All I could hear were the inhuman clicks coming from the grille in his mask.
The men stepped back, clearing the area around the crates. Then, at a command from Dr. Blood, they all stopped absolutely still. What was going on?
Glinting metal shapes climbed out of the crates and strode into the Martian sunlight.
The shapes were far taller than a man. If I’d been standing under them, I’d have had to jump to touch their bodies. They had three long legs, each with too many knees. Their bodies were squat and shaped like two plates, one turned upside down and put on top of the other. Three long, snakelike arms dangled from each body, ending in claws as wide and sharp as swords.
Apprentice said something again in his horrible clicking, and suddenly the tripods spread out, moving faster than a horse could run, racing up the slope.