Dark Earth: Space - The New Frontier

Chapter 4: The Red Planet

The morning of November 8th 1885 had begun typically for the British explorers on Mars. A small fortified encampment had been established on the shores of Britannia Bay to accommodate the supplies and communications of exploration parties as they gradually ventured further inland and even a small stretch of land in from the beach had been flattened out for the operations of flying machines to augment their surveying of the new planet. It had been named Fort Albert after the Queen’s much loved Prince Consort, a particular supporter of the Royal Space Force’s Martian expedition. Two hundred and fifty of the expedition’s men manned the fort, defending it against the unknown and supporting the gradual exploration of Mars. Both spaceships remained within sight offshore, covering the fort with their guns and aerocraft. A small barbed wire fence ensorcelled to deliver a sharp electric shock to those that came into contact with it provided some measure of protection against the incursions of curious animals until a more permanent defensive erection could be facilitated.

It was this very purpose which lead to the momentous events of the day. A small patrol lead by Lieutenant Bradley Lyme had been dispatched to locate the lair or den of the friendly land squid in an effort to secure some of its young for study. They had proceeded two miles into the foothills of the rugged country leading up to the north of Britannia Bay when they came across a marauding reptilian creature of great size and ferocious temperament. It attacked the patrol, who returned fire with their rifles and pistols, seeming to fatally wound the beast. This however, proved to be an illusory victory as the now beserk monstrosity proceeded to launch an even more concentrated attack, seeming impervious to bullets. At this moment, the beleagured British were aided by the intervention of two 8’ tall green humanoids who wielded metallic scimitars in all four of their hands, which proved deadly to the beast.

The aftermath of desparate combat resulted in non-verbal communication of thanks and satisfaction from both parties and then the first halting attempts at speech. The Martians seemed fascinated by the Earthlings, their uniforms and particularly their weapons. With a ululating bellow, one of them summoned the rest of their hunting party and, through a series of gestures, they agreed to follow the British back to their fort to take them to their leader, once they had helped them cut the choice meats from the slain reptile. Lyme’s decision was coloured by more than simple gratitude, with his curiousity being picqued by the elaborate golden amulets and silvery cuirasses worn by the Martians, which indicated they were more than mere savages. A clockwork message bird was sent flying back to Fort Albert to inform his commanders of their course of action and prevent any unfortunate panic from occurring at the point of their emergence with their guests.

Two hours later, nine Britons and eight Martians strode through the main gate of Fort Albert, the latter amazed at the iron towers and the four Maxim guns which were placed in protective pits along the barrier entrenchment. Captain Ryan and his communications wizards received them and, through the agency of enchantment, the language barrier was crossed and the first halting conversation between the inhabitants of two separate planets occurred. The leader of the Martian hunting party was Bzgorekk Yor and his people were of the Klytl’v Hazm tribe of the kingdom of Atran. He called their land and his world B’arzz’m, which was swiftly and inaccurately transcribed by the steam-powered autoscribe as Barsoom. It soon became apparent that the British landing had occurred in a relatively unsettled and wild area of Atran and that the nearest major settlement was at least two weeks travel to the northeast. The Martian guests were honoured with a great feast around the central firepit of Fort Albert on that first night, during which it was discovered that they had great curiosity regarding tinned foods, a delighted relish for chocolates and sweets, a very low tolerance for alcoholic beverages and, most of all, a terrific appetite for tea and coffee, which seemed to have a great affect upon them.

This was soon reciprocated by an invitation to visit the Klytl’v Hazm village in the nearby hills. An expeditionary party of fifty men set off through the forests and arrived at the placid settlement of Vzong Teth. Apart from the obvious difference in the size of the dwellings and halls and the unique stylistic appearance of the various structures, it was not unfamiliar to the men of Earth. There was a well for water, fields for the cultivation of crops and orchards filled with trees heavy with ripe blue fruit. The young Martians, who only reached a paltry height of five to six feet, tended to hide behind the formidable females of the species, whose skin was a slightly bluer shade than that of the emerald green of the male hunters, but soon began to follow the humans around, attempting to engage them in high pitched chatter. The village chief was an imposing, corpulent specimen known as Zzang Tazze and he was gracious in his welcome to the British, accepting their gifts of cloth, tools, music-boxes and glass-steel with ebullient gratitude. The technological level of the Martian populace seemed to be akin to that of Earth in the early Middle Ages, showing knowledge of advanced metal working and the medicinal uses of plants, although the accounts of the natives indicated that their cities were considerably more sophisticated. There did not seem to be any local supplies of gold, but numerous gems were located in the nearby river, the Martians regarding them as pretty baubles for the amusement of their young.

It became clear to Admiral Bright and his staff that contact would have to be made with the rulers of Atran, a council of elders headed by an elected king who served for a single term of five years. Aerial reconnaissance had revealed the presence of a paved highway three days journey away on the other side of the coastal hills, although overflights of the settled areas of Mars were deferred at this time in order to conceal the full range of capabilities of the British expedition. Two dirigible airships were being assembled on an unpopulated offshore island and the dozen cavorite space flyers were reequipped with quick firing guns and aerial bombs in the case of hostilities. A column of 500 men set out for the capital city of Qluzhan on November 20th, lavishly equipped with steam waggons filled with trade goods and gifts and armed to the teeth with a squadron of steam clockhorses, a battery of 18pdrs and a dozen Maxim guns. They were to be arcanely shadowed by an cloaked flying machine at all times and an armed steam airship was to be held ready at Fort Albert to provide reinforcement and aid. The force was lead by Colonel Marmaduke Aldridge, a veteran of the Indian Army who had long experience fighting on the North-West Frontier.

Upon reaching the highway, more Martian villages were encountered and news of their journey spread as swiftly as wildifire, with hundreds and then thousands of Martians flocking to see these bizarre aliens as they passed along the royal road. On December 12th 1885, the British expeditionary column crested a steep hill and beheld the wondrous city of Qluzhan stretching out below them.

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“Good to see you, old sport! Fancy running into each other again.”

“I’m not given to believing in coincidences these days.”

Sylvester seemed to drop his jolly bon homie without skipping a beat. “You’re an interesting man to quite a few people, Fowler, among some of them my friends. Your work on the Congo turned a few heads in Washington.”

“Really?”

“Sure. We know what you’re doing up here and what you’ll be after down there.”

“If you say so.”

“Let’s get down to brass tacks, Fowler. We’re prepared to pay you $10 million for it, if and when you find it.”

“That’s an awfully large sum of money, but I don’t like the idea of betraying my country.”

“Betrayal? That is a harsh word. We’re all allies now, after all. You really think that you guys could do better than us with this baby? Would you prefer the Russians to get it?”

“We seem to be managing rather well.” Fowler gestured at the drydock below.

“That’s yesterday’s news. You know as well as I what we’ve got going on Minerva; Orion makes them both look like little kid’s toys. The rules of the game have changed, Fowler. This is bigger than just one little country or empire. This is for the big time.”

“Be that as it may, we are talking about something I may not even find.”

“Call it a contingency plan, buddy. Ten million and a new life in the U.S. of A or wherever else you want.” Sylvester walked out of the room without a backward glance. “Find the answer in your heart.”

Tom turned to look back at the Dreadnought that was even now disappearing as the Valiant continued its steady orbit of Deimos. He hadn’t been anticipating so overt an approach and so blatant an offer to betray his country. He had been rather expectiting more subterfuge and the main trouble to come from the Russians to boot. There would be some extremely interested Ministry of Space mandarins and RSF staff if and when he informed them of this development. It seemed inevitable that, with something as valuable as what he was after, the Americans would try to buy him, the Russians would try to recruit him, the Nazis would try to kill him and the French would try to seduce him. He just hoped that they didn’t muddle up their roles.

He kept his own council as he made his way to the cavernous hangar deck once again, carrying the cheap suitcase he had picked up in the commissary to replace his own possessions, now blasted into the void by those accursed space pirates. The hangar was buzzing with activity as the Royal Space Force prepared to convey its erstwhile Arcadian guests to the surface of Mars by Icarus spaceplane transports. Those great white swan-like craft stood off to one side, their rocket engines now fully fueled. Tom looked about for any familiar faces or figures who should not be there, but the thronging crowd made it too difficult to pick any but the closest individuals. As he did so, he felt the presence of someone behind him.

“Mr. Fowler, isn’t it?”

For the second time that morning, as he still stubbornly insisted on thinking of the time despite the thoroughly artificial nature of it onboard the spaceship, he was completely surprised. His interlocutor was none other than the legendary agent of his recent deliverance, Commander Dan Dare himself.

“Of course! I mean, yes, yes I am he. Sir. I am he, sir.” It was not every day that one of the idols of one’s youth and in a brief fleeting flight of fancy, he inwardly cursed the fact that he had not bought his battered old Royal Space Annual with him to get it autographed.

“Steady on there, old boy, I’m not royalty nor quite so fond of myself as Flashy.” Dare angled his head in a wryly bashful manner. “I merely wanted to wish you luck when you make it down there. When you get around to finding it, my job will get a lot easier. We’re all counting on you. Where do you think you’ll try first?”

Tom was momentarily lost for words. His instructions had been strict and to the point – discuss the mission with no-one, not even his own grandmother, unless they spoke the appropriate code phrases. Even then, he was to keep as mum as possible and let them do the talking. Surely it didn’t apply to high ranking heroes of the Empire and humanity, though? Dare was deep in the secret councils of the high and mighty, after all. Yet duty was duty.

“I’m not altogether sure, sir. I believe I’ll try to pick up the trail in New London and dig up a few stories about him.” There. That was sufficiently non-commital, obvious and also deceptive, even if it pained him to fob off his boyhood hero.

“Sounds like a jolly fine plan, old man. Good hunting, then. I look forward to seeing you afterwards. We could always use a sterling type like yourself in the RSF, you know?” Dare flashed him a dazzling smile and walked off quickly around the corner, leaving Tom quite chuffed for the whole experience.

Had he been inclined to follow Dare, he might have been rather more shocked, as, when just out of sight, the tall, spacesuit-clad figure seemed to shimmer and melt into someone and something very different. It was a short, balding man with a look of profound frustration on his face.

The cursed capitalist had not taken the bait. No matter. There would be another opportunity on the surface...

Fowler’s flight down to the Red Planet was smooth and uneventful, if lacking in the creature comforts and luxuries of his flight up from Earth. The interior of the cabin of the Icarus certainly showed its utilitarian military purpose, crammed with simple seats and with the viewing portholes on the walls firmly sealed shut. Tom was actually thankful for the lack of that feature, as after the events on the Arcadia, the prospect of reentry at twenty-five times the speed of sound was not something that filled him with the same degree of excitement. He barely seemed to notice as they skimmed along the upper reaches of the Martian atmosphere, gradually slowing the spaceplane as they went, which was mainly due to the stabilisation enchantment on the internal compartments.

After forty minutes, there was a distinct clunk throughout the whole craft as the engines switched over to jet power, followed by a sudden metallic whining sound as the porthole covers slid up, revealing red clouds obscuring a strange, purple-blue sky. Far, far below, through the crimson mantle, Tom could see vast blue oceans, seemingly lighter in shade than those of his home world. There was a brief crackle of static through the cabin speaker, then a clipped announcement from the pilot.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are now cruising at 55,000 feet over the Victorian Sea, approximately 600 miles out from New London. We shall be commencing our descent directly and will have you on the ground in just over ten minutes.”

So it was that Tom Fowler stepped off from the airstair onto the surface of Mars some sixteen minutes later. His first footsteps on Martian surface were quite mundane in his view, even if his surroundings were anything but. The tarmacadamed runway stretched out for literal miles in either direction and, in the distance, he could see the grand dome of the main airport building, which surely ranked as one of Lutyen’s finest designs.
Beyond it lay a tall wall mounted with wire.

Beyond that lay British Mars.

As he walked inside the marbled gates, he was struck by the scale of the building. One thing was for sure – the New London spaceport put that on Luna to shame. The titanic concourse spread out as far as the eye could see, dotted with escalators to the other five levels, hundreds of shops and dozens of crystal screens showing all manner of informational films, commercials and newsreels, giant iron columns holding up the silvery gantries and the magnificent glass-steel roof and soaring windows that looked out onto the vast expanse of tarmac. It was crowded, too – packed with hundreds of travelers, ranging from immaculately suited businessmen and harried workers to robed pilgrims and Martians of every shade and hue. Tom could identify the hulking green Barsuns who loomed above the crowd with their four arms and ferocious faces, the scurrying emerald Volpuks who rushed about far below them and the delicate-featured golden skinned Nebitari in their swirling blue kaftans, but the blue furred creatures who hopped about with wildly flailing arms, the purple saurians and the hairless bright red dwarf-like humanoids made him wish he had spent a few more hours browsing through the data terminals of the Encyclopedia Astronautica before the attack of the Space Nazis.

Seeing the gaggles of orcs who wandered meekly through the throng still had a jarring affect on him, used as he was to them being out of sight of polite society. Something bumped into him from the side and he felt a momentary sharp pain in his arm, but when he looked about, there was only a black habited nun hobbling past him, so he shrugged it off and continued on his way. Past him went haughty elves, grim dwarves, excitable gnomes and a family of wide-eyed halflings. Mighty men in furred doublets and horned helmets sauntered along, proudly displaying the badges of honour that identified them as Space Vikings. There were Americans in the characteristic double blue uniform of the US Space Corps and the blue and white of NASA, Russians in the drab khaki of the SKS, strutting French spationaut in the white of ARES and yellow-clad Chinamen. Outnumbering them all were the men and women wearing the sky-blue and gold of the Royal Space Force and the crimson and gold of the British Martian Army.

The latter stood guard in alcoves every twenty yards, their shining pith helms and epaulettes sparkling in rays of sunlight fainter than what Tom was used to on Earth; Martian light seemed to have a wan, twilight quality to it. Their scarlet body armour succeeded in reminding him of a good old fashioned red coat with its white facings and belts, but there was no mistaking their brass-coloured ray guns for any terrestrial equivalent, any more than the cacophonical hum of alien languages about him could pass for any combination of Earthly tounges. Yet for all the correct impressions that this was very much another world, the spaceport went to great lengths to provide touches of home, whether in the form of the half-dozen peaceful tea gardens where prim ladies in prim white lace dresses sipped Earl Grey beneath delicate trees, a brass band blarting and flumphing their way through Elgar’s The Islands or the hologrammatic moustachioed rake with an extraordinary gap between his front teeth extolling the virtues of Merrick’s Britannic Emporium, now carrying a full range of canned and preserved foodstuffs imported directly from Old Blighty.

It was all very overwhelming and Tom found himself in something of a haze as he was pushed forward with the crowd towards the exit gates. Part of that was down to surface adjustment, which the stewardess had briefly described on the Icarus, but there was something else. Perhaps it had been the chicken…He barely seemed to notice the young man with eyes gleaming with utter zeal who leaned against the pillar ahead, but that all changed as he leapt forth and fired a Sten gun into the air.

“Free Barsoom! End the Empire! Mars for the Martians!” he screamed in a heavy accent before spraying the air wildly. Tom threw himself to the ground and rolled to the side behind a bleeding Barsun as the concourse erupted into a screaming stampede. The fanatic continued to shout his crazed slogans as he levelled his gun at the horrified bystanders and fired a wild burst

“Death to the imperiali-“ He was cut short as two broad green bolts of energy slammed into him, freezing him in mid-exclamation and paralyzing him in midair. Dozens of armoured BMA troopers came running as sirens began to wail. Tom warily raised himself up and beheld a scene of pure horror, with a score of bloodied wounded wounded groaning beneath the shattered telescreen. Adrenaline coursed through his veins and pulled him back to full awareness, even as the ringing in his ears slowly began to fade.

What a senseless waste of life. He saw the body of the nun right behind him, with a gory mess of bone and brain where her chest had been and was violently sick. Amid his retching, he did not notice the stiletto in her blood-sodden hand or the frozen look of disappointment on her face.
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Aldridge’s column was stunned at the sight of Qluzhan. It was a vast metropolis of thousands of shining stone buildings of half a hundred brilliant colours and bizarre shapes linked by silvery roads and soaring bridges and aerial causeways. A group of great ziggurats lay in the huge square at the centre of the city, surrounding a huge domed palace. No wall stood about the city, nor was one needed, as three broad lakes lay about it. A massed crowd of Martians stood expectantly, gazing up at the approaching British with fascinated trepidation, their ranks swelling not just with the tall four-armed types that had already been encountered, but also with excitable smaller figures with bright green skin. The immense hubbub could be heard even from their position some six miles away from the crowd. Some officers thought the little green creatures to be goblins after their initial observations with their binoculars and encouraged Aldridge to immediately open fire with his field guns, but he wisely declined to follow their counsel. Instead, they would move down and meet with the Martians.

The British force marched down the royal road to the sound of their drums and bugles and halted smartly, arraying themselves on parade with banners flying. Accompanied by a trio of interpreters from Vzong Teth, two standard bearers and his personal wizards and adjutants, Colonel Aldridge advanced forward to a point halfway between the two groups and awaited the Martian reaction. This was not long in coming, with the ranks parting to reveal a magnificent golden palanquin bearing King Nnoxas of Atran and his retainers. Initial communication was halting and formal, as the very concept of creatures flying across space from another planet was somewhat difficult to render into the harsh Martian tongue, but the peaceful bona fides of the Britons was soon established. The aged King Nnoxas, who would reveal himself in coming months and years to be adept at the art of scheming and manipulation, was extremely impressed by the weapons and equipment of the British, particularly by the firing of a cannon, and swiftly decided that the strangers must be received as honoured guests. Aldridge’s second-in-command, Captain Blackler, observed that their initial interaction was exceedingly similar to the experience of the Spanish conquistadors in Mexico and urged appropriate caution.

Colonel Aldridge had no intention of a protracted stay, but rather had explicit orders to secure a treaty with the Atran that would permit unrestricted British commercial access and provide for the establishment of sovereign territory around Britannia Bay and its hinterland. He had been issued with a preprepared document from the expedition’s library, based on the generic treaties of protection offered to native potentates back on Earth. The trade goods and curios that the expedition bore with them were the stuff of great fascination, with the King and elders soon developing voracious interests in coffee, tea, sugar and chocolate, although this paled in comparison with their rapturous opinion of fifty tins of finest curry powder. Negotiations between the British and Atranian delegations lasted two days, with the matter finally being resolved satisfactorily through an agreement on behalf of the Earthmen to bear arms against the enemies of King Nnoxas and that the sanctity and power of the council of the elders would be guaranteed. The signing ceremony was marked by a great feu de joie and chorus of huzzahs from the British escort company and the unveiling of the flying machine that circled Qluzhan from above. An embassy of forty was established in the Xinop Palace, which was graciously gifted to the British by its owner, Phludd Gorjjan, an Atran noteworthy equivalent in rank to a duke, whilst the remainder of the column returned to Fort Albert. Regular communications would be conducted via mechanical message birds until such time as a telegraph line could be constructed.

The column’s return to Fort Albert was followed by a flurry of activity as the Ark Royal was prepared for a return voyage to Luna to relay the initial findings of the Martian expedition, whereupon a second, larger fleet would be launched to reinforce the initial colony and expand British influence and control. To provide additional support for their position, a new shipyard was under construction using materials and machinery bought along from Earth, with the objective of launching the first seagoing ships of Martian manufacture within a year. During this time, the Eagle was launched for a series of high-altitude flights over the southern hemisphere of Mars to further map and explore the seas and land masses. Observations were made of definitive signs of advanced inhabitants, including roads, canals and large pyramids in the north of Barsoom, the name now applied to the large continent where they had made initial contact, and above all, villages, towns and cities. The landscape in many locations had been tamed, with forests and jungles cut back to allow for cultivated fields, although the type of crops were indistinct from their great height and the characteristics of those who tended them were unclear. Overall, the technological progress of the Martian states encountered thus far was seemingly several hundred years behind that of Earth, being apparently equivalent to the late Middle Ages.

Through extended diplomatic intercourse with the Atran, aerial reconnaissance by the Eagle and examination of the remarkable library in the Great Dome of Qluzhan, Admiral Bright and his staff formulated a well-developed picture of the political and strategic situation on Barsoom. They were approximately 4000 miles north of the southern polar ice cap, which had an estimated diameter of 4600 miles and produced a number of giant icebergs which drifted northwards on the oceanic tides up towards their current base of operations. Atran was one of fifteen states of varying sizes that lay on the continent, which was dominated by a rugged central mountain range and vast deserts which stretched out towards the temperate south and the verdant tropical north. Chief among them was Atran’s warlike neighbor, Skular, currently dominated by Barsuns of a much lighter shade of green than that of their new allies. The Skular were a cruel and aggressive nation, according to the Elders of Atran, and had been engaged in a series of bloody conflicts with their neighbours for the last two centuries; Martian concepts of time had caused some initial difficulties of conversion to Earthly equivalent, which the British ascribed to the sixteen fingers of the Barsuns. Theirs was the dominant species, with the smaller Volpuks being more numerous, but lacking in rights due to their position as a worker caste. Plans were formulated for a campaign against the Skular that would not only give Britain possession of territory of their own, but would also demonstrate their capabilities to the Martians.

As far as the historical records of the Martian states indicated, no empire had succeeded in uniting the continent in over 4000 years, although there were ancient legends of a mighty emperor from over the seas who had subjugated all of the disparate lands under his rule through the mystical aid of a holy stone. Virtually nothing was known of this ruler, as it seemed his dynasty had been deliberately expunged from history. There were fragmentary indications of a history stretching long before this time, but much had been lost in a legendary event lost to memory known as the Skyfall. Most intriguingly of all, there were children’s stories of strange creatures from the stars in the sky who had floated down to Barsoom to bring wonders and other, fouler beings that stole away females and children of both Martian races for their own nefarious ends; the stars in question were Venus and Earth.

On March 12th 1886, the Ark Royal launched from the waters of the Celentine Ocean up into orbit and fired up its cavorite engine for the long journey back home. It was loaded with samples of Martian minerals, flora and fauna, extensive records of observations, maps, native artifacts and a Atran delegation of both Barsuns and Volpuks.The voyage was swift, as the aetheric currents were at that stage extremely favourable, and they reached Lunar orbit on September 25th. Their reception at Victoria Station was tremendous, with news quickly relayed to Earth of the success of the Royal Space Force’s expedition by both the British and the other spacegoing powers. Five days later, the Ark Royal arrived back on Earth, landing in the North Sea and proceeding under conventional power to Portsmouth. Hundreds of thousands of fascinated Britons flocked to see the vessel, all trying to catch a glimpse of the exotic aliens it transported. The Atran embassy travelled by train to meet with Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace and were awed to the point of silence by the sight of the vast metropolis.

The news of the return from the Red Planet spread around the world like wildfire, stimulating an immense amount of interest in what quickly termed ‘Mars Mania’. All across Britain and the Empire, great celebrations took place and bonfires lit the night sky. The world that the Ark Royal had returned to had changed considerably in the nineteen months since their departure. The British and Russian Empires had come to the brink of war in 1885 as the Great Game reached its height. Along with the mobilisation of the Royal Navy’s fearsome coastal attack gunboat forces and the dispatch of battlefleets to the Baltic and Mediterranean, it had been the aerial threat of the machines of the Royal Space Force and Royal Flying Corps that had finally given St. Petersburg pause. Discoveries of cavorite deposits in Europe and Africa had given a much-needed boost to the capacity of Britain’s competitors and the Congress of Berlin had seen the principle of effectivity applied to the moons and planets as well as Africa. Nine other nations now possessed spacegoing vessels and had conducted successful expeditions to the moons. France, Germany, the United States and every other major power with ambitions for the control of space began plans for their own voyages and newspapers were filled with bold pronouncements on the imminent exploration and conquest of this new world. Just as the untapped riches of Africa were the subject of intense competition on Earth, Mars offered the potential for the wealth and power of an entire new world.

For now, Britain held a distinct advantage. The drydocks of Luna and Earth had not been idle in the intervening years and a second fleet of three new ships was ready for dispatch to Mars alongside the Ark Royal. They bore proud names from the Elizabethan imperial age – Revenge, Swiftsure and Triumph. The Royal Space Force would go to war with an awesome array of power In addition to their crews, trade goods and assorted experts, each carried a battalion of crack handpicked troops armed with the most deadly and sophisticated array of weaponary that the arsenals of the Empire could field. These included the three dozen flying machines, new Lee-Enfield magazine rifles, experimental field howitzers and specially heavy caliber versions of the Maxim gun.

And four dragons.
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The aftermath of the chaos at the spaceport had taken two hours to be resolved, but at last Tom was free. His documents and cover story had held through the painstaking examination and hard-eyed suspicion that the BMA and Imperial Police had showered on everyone in the vicinity. Now it was early evening and he took his first view of New London tinged with the brilliant red-gold of sunset. At first, it looked exactly like any of a hundred colonial cities across the Empire – broad, tree-lined avenues, large squares replete with bronze statues of monarchs, neat flowerbeds and Victorian buildings, cast iron gas lampposts now flickering into life, red postboxes and all the other familiar sights of home emphasized to allow one to forget that they were standing in Suva, Katanga, Borneo or Mars. There was even a blue police box incongruously placed on one street corner, which struck Tom as unnecessarily nostalgic. All the notes of similarity could not expunge the realization that this was a different world. The trees were different, almost-alien shapes, the flowers grew either too large or too small, the stone of the streets and buildings was of various strange hues and the sky carried a distinctly crimson tinge, even accounting for the time of day.

He had exchanged his meagre supply of money for Martian pounds at the spaceport and decided to indulge in the luxury of a taxi ride to his hotel, which had been reserved as part of his ostensible journalistic mission what seemed a lifetime ago. The streets were busy, but in a different manner from the frantic hustle of Victoria Station on Luna. The streets of New London were still full of motor vehicles, bicycles and a dizzying array of pedestrians of all species, size and colours, but their pace was somewhat more staid and languid, as if their distance from the Sun had an unconscious impact on their character. Tom had no difficult in hailing a black taxi, which to his great surprise as he settled into the back seat was driven by a bizarrely fashioned mechanoid. Its head was square and blocky, but covered in a rubbery flesh-coloured plastic that was distinctly unpleasant to behold.

“Good evening, sir. What location may I transport you to?”

“The Hotel Royale, my good…er, man…Sorry, what should I call you.”

“Oh, no need to apologise, sir. My name is Deighton. I’m a Rossum Series V mechanized driver.”

They took off slowly from the curb and merged into the steadily flowing traffic. “Have you been driving long?” Tom felt the urge to make conversation, having never been in such close proximity to a mechanoid before for any extended period of time.

“Almost eight months now, sir, since I was delivered from the factory.” The mechanoid spoke in a mellifluous voice with a slight American accent. “I enjoy it, sir. Gives me a chance to meet new people that I wouldn’t if I was merely an industrial bending robot or a crash test mannequin.”

“Jolly good, old bean. Always interesting to find some fulfilment in one’s life, or existence, as it may be.”

Having sated his curiousity, Tom settled back into his seat as the streets and their occupants began to whiz by in the gathering darkness. First, he would rest and gather his wits tonight. Then tomorrow, he would retrieve his necessary equipment and funds from the dead drops he had been made to memorise, particularly after he had lost his modest gear aboard the Arcadia. From there, it would get a bit more difficult, but he had a firm plan on how he would go about tracking down the elusive Wanderer and then, hopefully, finding the Heart of Mars.

The taxi stopped. He looked up and did not see the palatial collonades of the Hotel Royale, but rather the dingy surrounds of a dark alleyway. Tom was about to speak up in outraged confusion when Deighton’s head rotated all the way around to fix him with a broad rictus grin as he pointed a derringer at his passenger.

“Achtung, schweinhund! Hande hoch, old bean.”

   sdarkshade

Thanks for the answers, do companies like De Beers mine the Astriod Belt ore is that not done yet.