Lesbian pulp adventures in a retro Solar System.
Stories of Old Sol
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The Memory-Pool of Ala-Shesh (Part 1)
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
My good friend @Penelope, writer of the excellent worldbuilding project Marslore recently issued me a challenge; read two anthologies edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, Old Mars and Old Venus. These anthologies of retro science fiction are mean to evoke the planetary romance genre and science fiction stories set in a Solar System of habitable planets. It's a genre explored by writers from H.G. Wells to Robert Heinlein, Edgar Rice Burroughs to C.S. Lewis.
The second part of the challenge, of course, was to write my own stories set on Old Mars and Old Venus.
I thus present for your enjoyment a duology of stories, imagined as excerpts from a pulp adventure serial. Of course, you'll be dropped right into the middle of the story...
Oh, and Penelope - I'm sending your challenge right back at you.
The second part of the challenge, of course, was to write my own stories set on Old Mars and Old Venus.
I thus present for your enjoyment a duology of stories, imagined as excerpts from a pulp adventure serial. Of course, you'll be dropped right into the middle of the story...
Oh, and Penelope - I'm sending your challenge right back at you.
Preface
This work is the product of my correspondence with Margaret Graves, the Hero of Two Worlds. An American citizen, a Martian colonist turned deserter during the height of what is now known as the Lavender Scare, Ms. Graves gained notoriety as champion of the Martian city of Tish-Murabar and was a subject of fascination by many on Tellus. However, many of the works purportedly detailing her life are filled with inaccuracies, omissions, and guesswork. Part of this must be laid at the feet of government censorship, as for decades the circulation of this work would have been illegal under American laws prohibiting "the promotion of deviant and subversive sexualities".
Nevertheless, my direct correspondence with Ms. Graves has encouraged me to report, in as great fidelity as I can, the true story of her adventures. Some omissions and alterations have been made for the sake of a coherent narrative, including various irrelevant personal asides such as arise in the course of a written correspondence. I have also inserted some expository notes to fill in details Ms. Graves did not see fit to explain at the time. Despite that, I still consider this to be the most accurate and complete story of the life of the woman who became a hero on two worlds…
Margaret Graves, Hero of Mars
Issue #8: The Memory-Pool of Ala-Shesh
Issue #8: The Memory-Pool of Ala-Shesh
I never would have believed on the morning of that day that I would soon begin the series of events that would lead to my departure from Tish-Murabar, the city where I had lived, loved, and fought for those last four Martian years. I was as loyal a citizen of Tish-Murabar as could be asked for, to say nothing of its champion, defending it gladly against all rivals. You already know of those escapades – my duels against the champions of Tish-Gilbal and Tish-Mahmur, my battles against the bandit clans of the Outer Desert, and of my encounters with the Soviet deserter Yelena Belovna. There are those who call me a traitor for this, for fleeing instead of allowing myself to be brought before a Congressional hearing to answer for my own sexuality. But how could I not love the city that took me in when my country turned on me, how could I not be as firm a patriot of Tish-Murabar as I ever was toward America?
Nevertheless, all my bonds of love and loyalty could not survive the loss of my Princess Nezu.
On that day I was spear-fishing on the Great North Canal with my friend, Hamtu. The canal was at its greatest breadth at that point, miles across, so that one could stand on the water's edge and not see the far bank. Our longboat was just off the east bank, in sight of the flat plain of spindly-tall trees, five hundred feet tall yet slender as lodgepole pines on Tellus, with their red canopies shading an open meadowland. Beyond that, one could see the hazy line of cliffs that framed the canal bottomland.
We were keeping a wary eye on a flotilla of siraxes, the tubby but buoyant creatures named canal-dredgers by Tellurian settlers. They seem very similar to hippos or manatees on Tellus, and indeed may be distantly related (if one believes the latest scientific literature). They are voracious waterborne grazers whose migrations up and down the Martian canals keep them from being choked with water plants, but they are a hazard in the mating season when their bulls clash over mating rights.
My attention was drawn away from all this by my quarry. A neru-fish almost as long as I was tall swam lazily in and out of our longboat's shadow, its silver and pink body shimmering in the scattered sunlight. I had been following its movements, waiting for it to move into just the right position. With one swift plunge of my harpoon, I speared the fish, and was immediately obliged to brace myself against the gunwale with both legs in order to prevent it from pulling me into the water. Its narrow mouth full of needle-sharp teeth flashed as it tried to maim its assailant, and my muscles strained as I used all my strength to pull it into the boat.
Hamtu saw my struggles and came to assist me, the thrashing of the neru-fish half-in and half-out of the water throwing cool spray into our faces. Hamtu took up a cudgel and stunned the fish with a sharp blow to the head, and we finished pulling it in so that I could dispatch it with my knife.
Hamtu laughed, an expression as familiar on Til-Enkam as on Tellus, and pumped his fist in the air.
"Mag'gi, you are like the neru-fish itself, quick and strong!" he told me in the typically poetic mode of the language of Tish-Murabar. As a species that shares all of their more basic emotions through psychic connections, the Gil'gal are at once more taciturn and more honest with their feelings than Tellurians.
I knew Hamtu could sense the flood of triumph coursing through me – along with my gratitude for his assistance. My mind was ever an open book to the Gil'gal.
"We shall celebrate when we can share our success," I replied.
Hamtu and I took up our paddles and started upstream for home. Distracted by my own thoughts of the day's catch, I did not notice the ripple in the water growing as it moved towards us. The wave crested, and the gaping pink jaws of a maddened bull sirax opened up before us, presenting a set of tusks each longer than my leg and wickedly curved.
Hamtu yelled wordlessly in alarm, backing water. I understood his fear; a bull sirax in mating season is one of the most dangerous animals on Til-Enkam. I rose to a crouch, balancing on the balls of my feet as the longboat veered suddenly away from the beast. I snatched up my harpoon and turned to face it.
"Row!" Hamtu yelled at me, but I could see the bull surging through the water with great sweeps of its massive, single-fluked tail, throwing up spray as it cut a wake towards us.
"It gains on us!" I called back. I drew back my throwing arm, knowing that I could not hope to kill the beast, and that injuring it would only madden it further.
I threw, not at its open jaws now feet from our stern, but at its flank. I struck true, the head piercing its thick hide and the layer of fat below. The sirax has poor eyesight out of the water, and the bull could not tell where the thing that had just bitten it had come from; it turned suddenly with a broad sweep of its tail, gnashing its jaws together to try and maim its unseen attacker. While it raged, lashing the surface of the canal into a foam, I took up my paddle and put all my strength into reaching the shore.
I felt a stirring of pity for the beast, but many bull siraxes bear the scars of past battles, left by the tusks of rival bulls and the harpoons of Gil'gal hunters. Some I had seen in my time on Til-Enkam even bore the heads of harpoons still embedded in their thick hides.
Thinking it had driven off its rival, the bull's aggression subsided, although we waited the better part of an hour to be sure before taking to the water again. We paddled downstream for Tish-Murabar in silence. It was a trip I had taken many times before. The cliffs on either side of the canal fell away behind, and all at once we saw the Valley of Buraktatar spread out before us, a checkerboard of parkland, forest pastures, and farms in red, yellow, purple, and pale green. The sunlight glittered on the waves of the Murabar Sea, and the spires of Tish-Murabar could be seen well in the distance. We passed under the arch of the stone bridge that spanned the Great North Canal, and then passed into the Murabar Sea.
The spires of Tish-Murabar grew before us as we paddled along the coast. The highest was Tower of the King, 1500 feet tall, bigger even than the Empire State Building on Tellus. Hardly less in prominence were the spires of the university, four towers representing the Four Pillars of Science – physic, chemistry, biology, and art ("the divine science" as the Gil'gal know it).
We landed at the docks, a bustle of fishermen and boatmen, shrieking birds and the ekehana that many Gil'gal train for hunting on the water. Packs of Gil'gal children ran underfoot, playing. Some called to me: "Mag'gi, Mag'gi!"
It was a familiar scene, and one I enjoyed. I was looking forward to sharing our catch with Hamtu's family, my friends, but it was not to be. As Hamtu tied up our longboat and I leapt onto the stone quay, I noticed a deputation of city guardsmen coming towards us, led by Commander Tshir. He seemed in ill-spirits, but that was not unusual for him when I was involved.
"You are called before the King of Tish-Murabar," he said coldly. I looked to Hamtu, judging him despondent at the interruption but in no place to gainsay the King's wishes.
"I wish you celebration with your family. Think of me as present in spirit," I told him. He bowed his head, and I allowed myself to be led to the Tower of the King. I tried asking Tshir what the King desired of me, but he claimed to know as little as I.
We walked the streets of Tish-Murabar, the plazas and amphitheaters, passing gardens and housing blocks, every surface decorated with colorful and intricate mosaics. People called to me, though fewer than would otherwise had I not been in the company of the city guard. It was a beautiful city, a place of song and joy, maintained by a hard-working and generous people. There are many times when I miss it, when my memory calls me back unbidden to the streets of Tish-Murabar, to the monumental spaces of the assembly square or the Way of Victorious Return – or to humbler places, like Hamtu's snug and active home, or the garden where I would sit among fragrant Martian flowers and piping birdsong.
We passed through the great gates which by tradition are always left open and unguarded, and once again I found myself in the Tower of the King. I trod the familiar halls and galleries with their ancient mosaics and colorful paving-stones, climbed stairs with elegantly carved balustrades, passed doors to sealed, climate-controlled chambers; dormitories, libraries, shrines. I looked down from balconies on cavernous spaces, windows designed to let in light in precise ways that emphasized scale and depth.
The halls were trod by servants of the King, silent messengers scurrying on padded slippers, never speaking. The Tower of the King is a place of whispers and hushed tones, save for the orders that originate from the King's voice.
The Kings and Queens of Til-Enkam are not like the tyrants of Tellus. I have encountered many fear-filled stories of psychic Martian rulers, those who read the minds of their subjects and know their inner thoughts and feelings by day and night. But do not mistake this ability for mind control. If anything, it is the Martian ruler who is controlled by their subjects, for no mind can receive all the hopes, dreams, and desires of a people without being shaped by them. If Tellurian tyrants could feel the suffering of their people as intimately as if it was being inflicted on them as well, tyranny would be impossible.
Once, in the lush, wet Martian past, a King was a rare occurrence, chosen to lead the people in times of crisis. Since the drying of Til-Enkam, all is in crisis. When water must be carefully stewarded, when millions must labor on vast irrigation projects, then some way of coordination and central planning is seen as necessary. In the Martian state, the republicans have found a total democracy, in which all citizens participate and the ruler is absolutely responsive to their needs; there the communists also have found their system in its perfected form, in which truly all is organized to the collective good, when each gives according to their ability and receives according to their need.
I reached the staircase that would take me up to the speaking gallery. Princess Nezu was waiting for me, sitting on the lowest step.
She was not the daughter of King Muza by birth, but by adoption, for such is the habit of the Kings of Til-Enkam. She was svelte, athletic; her body was shaped for dance and gymnastics. As a result, even sitting so casually, she did so with grace and poise. Her dark red skin and gold eyes were typical of a Gil'gal, but even among that gracile and elegant people she was an elevated beauty. On that day she wore a long, black gown, sewn with sequins and fringed with tassels of gold braid. Her jet-black hair was cut short, falling to her shoulders in heavy braids with cloth-of-gold thread woven into it.
She stared at me intensely, her golden eyes betraying a hint of amusement. Perhaps she could sense how captivated I was by her beauty; she knew well, thanks to her psychic abilities, that I loved her, even if we had never spoken of it openly.
She finally looked away from me, wearing a faint smile that seemed to me to express wistful amusement.
"Princess Nezu," I greeted her politely. She let out a light chuckle.
"Why do you greet Gil'gal by speaking their names? You see me here, do you not?"
"It is a sign of respect for my people to address a superior by their title."
"Perhaps you are only trying to get my attention," she said. I knew she was teasing me, and despite myself I relished it.
"I have been summoned by the King."
Any enjoyment she might have had from that conversation now passed. She rose to her feet.
"Yes, he has a mission for you. You will hear him speak of it."
King Muza was in the speaking gallery. At times it could hold thousands when they assembled to hear the King speak, but today there were only nine: King Muza, Princess Nezu, Commander Tshir, and six of his guards. I made ten, seeming as usual a child before them in stature, and that in a hall built for vast crowds. There were times when everything about Mars seemed designed to make me feel small.
I waited for the King to speak. He was shrouded in black robes fastened with gold braid, only his wrinkled face showing. His eyes were dim, the color of tarnished bronze, his head bowed with the weight of his tall headdress. His gnarled fingers gripped a cane. He seemed as I had always known him – aged of body, but still possessed of a sharp mind.
When he finally spoke, it was to Princess Nezu.
"I grow near my end. Soon I will join the other Kings of Tish-Murabar."
That shocked me in its finality, and I found my mouth hanging open. Commander Tshir bowed his head reverently and muttered a benediction to the goddess of Mars. Princess Nezu gave no reaction, save a slight tremble in her hands that showed her mastering her own emotions. King Muza was like a second father to her.
"It will fall to you to be Queen after me. However, I have perceived a task for you to perform before you take my place in the assembly hall."
"Name it and I will obey," the princess murmured. I wanted to go to her, and even found myself taking an unconscious step towards her.
"My memories have shown me the city of Ala-Shesh. In its heyday it was as great a city as Tish-Murabar, before the sources of the River Shesh faltered. Its inhabitants moved downriver to our city, to give it strength. This was ten times nine generations ago, but I remember.
Yet when the city was abandoned, its memory-pool was not destroyed. It remains sealed – at least, I remember it being so. It may be that in the time since it has ceased to exist. You will discover if it does."
"You mean for me to go personally," Princess Nezu said. It was half a question and half a confirmation.
"Yes. If it still exists, then it holds the memories of every King and Queen of Ala-Shesh since its founding. Princess Nezu, if the pool still brims with the water of memory, you will drink from it. You will bring those memories back to us. This is the task I lay on you as future Queen of Tish-Murabar."
Princess Nezu said nothing; it was not an order she could refuse.
As for me, I suppressed a shudder; what magic or exotic forms of science allowed the memories of past kings to be preserved in those mystical pools was beyond my ken, but I knew that every King of Til-Enkam who ascended to the throne drank from the memory-pool of their city to receive the wisdom of their predecessors. I had never heard of a King drinking from the pool of another city, even a ruined one – save perhaps in legends.
Memory was important to the Gil'gal. To remember was to know; to be remembered was to live. It was said that in death all Gil'gal, great and small, lived forever in the memory of Lu'mab, the goddess of Mars. Some Tellurians believe that Lu'mab is nothing more than a myth, while those with more knowledge of the Gil'gal and their abilities believe her to be a hivemind encompassing all deceased Gil'gal. I myself, through my experiences, have come to believe something quite different.
"The Champion of Tish-Murabar will go with you, as will Captain Tshir of the City Guard," King Muza continued.
I waited in silence while King Muza told us the path to Alu-Shesh and what his memories held regarding the memory-pool. I tried to listen, suppressing my emotions, but I found myself glancing repeatedly at Princess Nezu, who stood frozen, a look of serene beauty on her face. Once we were dismissed and Commander Tshir took his men to make their preparations, I rushed after my princess.
"Princess Nezu!" I called, almost running to keep up with her long-legged strides. She stopped in place and turned to me.
"Why do you feel for me, Mag'grath Gra'z?"
At first, I didn't understand her question, before I realized that she was being literal – she could feel my concern and protectiveness towards her boiling off of me. It also shocked me to hear my name spoken in full – at least as her tongue could pronounce it.
"I may not have the senses of a Gil'gal, but I know you well. You fear this task."
"Fear does not enter into it. I have a duty as Princess of Tish-Murabar, and now, its future Queen."
"And I am your Champion. I will protect you from whatever we face, and I will protect you when you rule."
I made no attempt to suppress my feeling – I wanted nothing more in that moment but to serve her, to protect and defend her with all my strength, giving my own body if I must. I loved her in a way that words could not tell.
She towered over me, and when she reached down to cup my cheek, I felt a flush of heat.
"You cannot protect me from duty itself, Mag'grath Gra'z."
"I don't understand."
"It may be that you never will," she murmured. Her thumb tenderly caressed my cheek, and she turned, robes swirling. "I must make my preparations, now." She paused again, and I could sense her struggling for the words. "I do trust you to protect me on the path to Alu-Shesh."
To be continued...
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The Memory-Pool of Ala-Shesh (Part 2)
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It was a party of nine that set forth from Tish-Murabar in the early dawn of the next morning. I did not even have time to say goodbye to Hamtu, or my other friends in the city. I stood at the docks shivering in the chill of a Martian dawn as Commander Tshir and his picked guards loaded a longboat. Princess Nezu stood by, wearing the outfit of a traveling dignitary, a mix of a highly decorated guard's uniform and desert survival gear. A fringed sash around her chest bore embroidered calligraphy that displayed her name, title, city of origin, and her purpose. Mungare – "discovery".
I wore my own ceremonial armor, specially crafted for my small build. My head was bare, but I wore a gilded breastplate and harness and a set of flowing desert robes over the whole assembly. My harness supported my sword – really a long, curved knife, but it served as a sword in my hands – as well as my 1895 Nagant revolver, a memento of my encounters with Yelena. I also carried a breathing mask to filter dust, left hanging around my neck at need.
I was not the only one with a firearm. While warfare between Martian cities takes the form of ceremonial combat or duels, and is thus fought with the sword, spear, and knife, the outlaws of the deep desert play, as they say, for keeps. Each of Commander Tshir's guards was armed with a Springfield rifle, the firearms the United States had supplied to the Gil'gal in their war against the Nazi colonists, and Commander Tshir himself had a modified STG 44, a war-prize from the Battle of Thule Base.
We traveled up the Great East Canal, in typical silence. Familiar farmland, parkland, and forest passed by on either side.
I stewed in my feelings, and it was midday before I could no longer hold my silence.
"Princess Nezu," I said, climbing forward to sit on the bench beside her. She turned to face me with an indescribable expression sketched on her fine features. She seemed to me to be experiencing a mix of fearful resignation and desperate longing – but for what, I couldn't say. Gil'gal may not voice their emotions, but they do not bother to hide them, either. In many ways, it is the fact that humans are unable to perceive each other's inner thoughts that trains us to control them, and that make us better at expressing them.
"Mag'grath Gra'z," she replied desultorily, looking back at the passing bank of the canal.
"My friends call me Maggie."
Some of my enemies also call me Maggie, but that's neither here nor there.
"You consider us friends?" She seemed surprised.
In truth, I didn't know what to call us. We were supposed to have a professional relationship, a Princess and her Champion, but my love for her was far stronger than that. Could I consider her a friend?
Perhaps I could have told her how I felt. It wasn't as if the Gil'gal ever hid their feelings. Alas, I am only human. Instead, I asked her a question.
"Do you remember when you danced for me? It was after my duel against the Champion of Tish-Gilbal."
"It's a tradition to honor the victorious Champion." She paused. "Yes, I remember."
"Do you remember the way I felt about you then?"
"I do. I have often thought back on that moment."
"As have I."
She smiled sadly.
"So faulty at times, our memories. They cannot truly capture the moment, as an image does. They are impressions of a moment, remade over and over. That dance has become a memory of a memory."
I did not know what to make of her sudden philosophical turn. I let her continue.
"It is said that only Lu'mab remembers us perfectly, every moment unchanging. That is what it means to be immortal, to be part of her ocean of thought, so vast that it can encompass all of us."
The Gil'gal often spoke of their afterlife like an ocean, an unfathomable depth into which they all must sink. It is at once a drowning and a becoming.
"Then are our memories of the dead just shadows?"
"Far from it, Mag'gi. They are lights cast on the surface of the ocean of thought. They are how we keep them as a presence in this world." She met my eyes. "So long as you remember me, I will never leave you."
"Then I promise I shall never forget that day you danced before me on the Way of Victorious Return."
She blinked away sudden tears and turned from me, looking out over the canal. Wanting to comfort her, I reached out and took her hand, and she did nothing to stop me. We sat in silence, Princess Nezu humming what I recognized as a hymn to Lu'mab.
I looked behind me, and caught Captain Tshir's glare. If my love for Princess Nezu was known to her, then Tshir almost certainly knew as well; of course, he would disapprove.
In time our path led us away from the canal. King Muza had told us of the canyon carved by the River Shesh as it fell from the highland to feed the canal, but the Shesh had dried generations ago and now only the canyon remained. We saw the cut made through the cliffs to the south of the canal and turned aside, beaching our longboat and taking our supplies on our backs.
We trekked upwards, climbing over cold rocks, red or brown slashed with black. These weren't the true Martian highlands, where humans cannot breathe without aid of an oxygen tank, but they were still harsh, a high, cold desert of scattered hardy vegetation and hardier animal life. The dry river was not completely dead, it seemed – we passed dense tangles of red weed, which grow wherever there is freestanding water on Mars. We took cuttings from the red weed and sucked the moisture out to save our water supplies.
During the frigid nights we slept in sealed tents, wrapped in sleeping bags. I still remember the feeling of being pressed up against Princess Nezu to preserve our body heat, layers of fabric between us.
In time we reached the cataract at Zaiel. Cliffs of dark reddish-brown stone rose before us in steps, a gap in the cliff face showing the channel where flowing water had cut through the rock over many thousands of years. The channel and the cataracts below had been shaped by Martian hands, dams and basins hewn from living rock and dressed with enormous stone blocks to control the flow of water. But the water had long ceased to flow, and the works had long fallen into disrepair, and then to ruin. Tumbled stone blocks were strewn down the scree-slope beneath the cataracts, and down over this sorrowful tableau stared the serene faces of long-dead Gil'gal, a hundred feet tall and carved into the living rock.
I imagined, or perhaps I truly remembered, the cataracts as they appeared a thousand years ago, the falls like a white ribbon hung with diamonds, mists filling the air with rainbows, the banks on either side crowded with plants in all colors. The roaring sound of water and the songs of birds and people.
Now all was dry, all was barren dust.
It took us several hours of maneuvering, climbing over tumbled stones and fallen bricks until we found the stair that would take us over the cataracts. We emerged overlooking a great basin, sheltered on two sides by the cliffs hewn by erosion and on the third by a crumbling dam. The basin still served its purpose, in a way; it was a swamp of red weed. Water must have collected here, in trickles and drabs, moisture from the daily frosts and dews gathering and pooling.
The ground was even muddy in places, and I saw the tracks of many animals that had come to drink, to graze on the red weed, or to hunt other animals doing the same. I was not afraid of Martian predators – the land-squid, the sand-trappers, the Martian dire weasel. Animal predators tend to fear and avoid Gil'gal, unless they are sick or injured. They would take a lone and unarmed human, as I had discovered, but our large and armed party was safe.
No, my concern was otherwise.
There were signs of people, the outlaws of the deep desert, I surmised, but among them was another sign. Captain Tshir and I stopped over a boot print in the mud. It was too small to be a Gil'gal, and the track was familiar. It was the kind of print left by a combat boot.
"American?" Captain Tshir asked. I did not know for sure; it could have been American, or Soviet…but I am not the only human who has slipped the bonds of loyalty to Tellurian powers.
It was getting late, the shadows lengthening around us and a purple gloom settling over all. Captain Tshir wanted to camp beneath the shelter of an overhang, but I didn't like the idea of putting our backs to the wall. In the end, Princess Nezu sided with me, and we retired up the slope to a hollow overlooking the basin.
In the end this was the better choice, as you shall see.
It was the last hour before the sun set, and we were silently eating our field rations, when the Gil'gal around me froze stiff. Captain Tshir's sentry slid down from his watch-post beside us; the Gil'gal must have sensed his alarm just as he reacted to a strange sight. I dropped my ration bar and drew my long knife, crawling towards the rim of our little hollow.
"Friend!" a human called. It was an American voice! "Friend, we mean you no harm!"
He was calling in stilted Martian. I called back.
"Identify yourself!"
There was a long pause.
"Captain Charles Gorsey, US Army Martian Rangers," he replied in English.
I let out a hiss of breath. An American patrol or expedition had crossed paths with us, it seemed.
"These are your people?" Captain Tshir asked, not bothering to hide his accusatory tone.
"My people are the citizens of Tish-Murabar," I spat back, then raised my head above the rim. I called in English: "We are on official business for the City of Tish-Murabar! Do not hinder us!"
"Uh, sure thing! Can we approach?" Captain Gorsey called.
I glanced at Princess Nezu, who nodded; she understood English well enough to get the gist of our exchange.
"You and your men can come over, but keep your weapons up!"
I rose to my feet, knife ready. Captain Tshir was at my side with his STG, and his guards fanned out, their rifles pointed at the ground but loaded.
Captain Charles Gorsey was dressed in military-issue desert survival gear, modeled off Martian gear but made of modern materials and done in a red desert camouflage. He had a pair of goggles pushed back on his forehead and a breathing mask. He had a blond moustache and a head of thinning blond-grey hair – I guessed he was in his forties, perhaps aged by the stress of combat or the Martian environment, or both. He had eight men with him, all equipped much the same. They were armed with M2 Carbines and a variety of sidearms, combat knives, and grenades. I saw one man, Gorsey's NCO, with the hilt of a Martian knife sticking up over his shoulder. As promised, their weapons were stowed, though as they stopped within a dozen feet of us I saw them standing warily, ready to leap into action.
Gorsey inspected me, first with curiosity, then with surprise, and finally recognition.
"Hold on! You're that girl – the computer technician who went native."
I was rather shocked to be recognized, I admit. I was apparently infamous among the Americans for having run off to play adventurer among the Gil'gal – well, that, and my sexual proclivities. I wondered how different I must look compared to when I had been living at Valley Forge: more muscle, hair cut short like a man's, skin weathered by sun and weather.
"Margaret Graves, Champion of Tish-Murabar," I said, offering my hand.
"Captain Charles Gorsey, US Army Martian Rangers. Though, I've already said that, haven't I?"
His voice was clipped with the accent of the American South.
"What brings you and your men up here, Captain?"
"Fact-finding mission to some ruins, ma'am."
"You don't mean Ala-Shesh, do you?"
"Well as a matter of fact, yes. The new Director of the Mars Mission wants more cultural and archaeological study, so we're charting out the area for a larger scientific expedition."
I turned to Princess Nezu, who had been watching the man with cold appraisal.
"We are heading there on an errand of our own," the Princess admitted, "It seems our goals were destined to conflict."
"I see no reason why that should be the case. We just want to look around, if there's anything we do that might get in your way please let us know and-"
Before we could continue the sharp report of a Springfield rifle cut through the air, and the whirr of a bullet came from just above our heads.
Everyone, human and Gil'gal, went to ground, scrambling for their weapons. I slid back into the hollow, Gorsey on one side, Princess Nezu on the other. Gorsey was bringing his rifle around with practiced efficiency, and I had drawn my revolver. More shots rang out.
"That ain't one of yours, was it?" Gorsey asked.
I shook my head, then added: "Outlaws."
Gorsey barked a few orders to his men, and I turned to Captain Tshir.
"Captain!" I yelled in Martian, "The humans need cover fire!"
My heart was pounding after my near-miss, and I was falling into the distortion of time that comes with combat awareness.
Tshir nodded and raised his hand, shouting a few orders. Reports came in from all directions, as Rangers or our Martian guards sighted the enemy. Night had truly fallen, and I guessed that we were partially surrounded, with the outlaws taking shots at us and then moving to avoid being pinned down in turn.
Tshir's guardsmen laid down fire where they guessed the outlaws were while the American soldiers executed Gorsey's maneuver – men crawling or running low to the ground, two at a time while the others covered them. In time all his men had joined us in the hollow.
I was struck by how, thus far, nobody had been killed, not even by a stray shot. I wondered if the outlaws were even trying to kill us, or if this was part of some other plan.
I'm unsure how long we were pinned down there, bullets cutting angrily through the air overhead, the world noisy with the yell of orders and crack of rifles, intermingled with the chatter of the Americans' carbines and the louder bark of Captain Tshir's STG. Eventually it became clear we had enough cover to protect us from enemy fire, and they were not coming to root us out. By the time I realized the bullets had stopped flying, the adrenaline was wearing off.
We still waited a half hour before relaxing our guard. Princess Nezu, who I had been standing over protectively to shield from stray bullets, waved me aside and turned to the American officer.
"Captain Gorsey, it seems fate has indeed woven our paths together. We shall travel in strength to Ala-Shesh."
"Uh. Much obliged, ma'am."
I wasn't sure how much of that he understood, but he seemed to get the general idea.
"Who were those Martians shooting at us?" Gorsey asked me.
"Outlaws. They may have been trying to kill us for our supplies."
"Well, they did a half-assed job of it."
"Yeah. Maybe…" I glanced at Princess Nezu, "Maybe they figured we were from Tish-Murabar, and were trying to take us hostage."
Just because the Martian Kings can read minds didn't mean all factionalism and politics has ceased to exist. Intrigue and conspiracies do emerge, and exile is the typical punishment. Those who survived carried long grudges against their mother city, and lived a ragged life on the edge of the desert. They were joined by others who, for one reason or another, felt they did not belong in the cities, who enjoyed the freedom and adventure of the open range. They lived in camaraderie and independence, and many took on a flamboyant and dashing affect, which to some in the cities gave them an air of romance.
Then there were the mad and cruel, the truly sadistic who enjoyed feeling the pain of their victims. It was a kind of sickness of the mind.
I wondered which type had accosted us.
Gorsey and Captain Tshir organized watches as the humans and Gil'gal settled down to camp. There was little conversation, though I saw some swapping of field rations. Princess Nezu retired to our shared tent, while I stood guard outside. Captain Gorsey joined me, lighting a little portable gas lamp. We sat in awkward silence; he clearly did not know what to make of me. Eventually I spoke, to break the tension.
"So, Gorsey, what brings you to Mars?"
"I'm just a soldier, I suppose. Pacific theater and Korea. Wanted to keep going, and well, I made all the physical and mental requirements. Couple years in a crash course, couple years survival training in the American West, and hey, I'm trekking through Martian desert getting shot at by bandits."
I asked him where he was from.
"Kentucky, ma'am. You?"
"New York. Buffalo, not the City."
He shifted uncomfortably, as if edging around the question he truly wanted to ask. I decided to save him the embarrassment.
"After I got my degree in computer science, I came to Mars in '41. I was there for the Battle of Thule Base."
"I've only seen the combat footage. So, it's true why you left?"
"For the Martian girls? I'm afraid so." I could feel myself growing defensive, but I realized Captain Gorsey wasn't looking at me with the discomfort or distaste I expected. "Sorry. I've just never liked explaining myself."
"I understand why you ran, ma'am. What's going on back home is…ruining people's lives. They're good people, patriots, it's just..."
I watched him struggle with his feelings for a moment. He shook his head helplessly.
"It's personal for you," I guessed.
"I have a wife and three kids back on Tellus," he said, a bit too quickly, too automatically. He sighed. "And a…a good friend back at Valley Forge." Silence stretched between us. I had noticed the glance at his men as he made sure they were out of earshot. "The Martians really don't care about that sort of thing?"
"Most Martian women have sapphic tendencies. Can't say I'm very familiar with their men."
He didn't seem to know what to make of that.
By the time I retired to my tent, Princess Nezu was already asleep. She was lying on her side, curled slightly in around herself, and I laid down in her arms. She unconsciously wrapped herself around me, and in her embrace I quickly fell asleep.
To be concluded!
I wore my own ceremonial armor, specially crafted for my small build. My head was bare, but I wore a gilded breastplate and harness and a set of flowing desert robes over the whole assembly. My harness supported my sword – really a long, curved knife, but it served as a sword in my hands – as well as my 1895 Nagant revolver, a memento of my encounters with Yelena. I also carried a breathing mask to filter dust, left hanging around my neck at need.
I was not the only one with a firearm. While warfare between Martian cities takes the form of ceremonial combat or duels, and is thus fought with the sword, spear, and knife, the outlaws of the deep desert play, as they say, for keeps. Each of Commander Tshir's guards was armed with a Springfield rifle, the firearms the United States had supplied to the Gil'gal in their war against the Nazi colonists, and Commander Tshir himself had a modified STG 44, a war-prize from the Battle of Thule Base.
We traveled up the Great East Canal, in typical silence. Familiar farmland, parkland, and forest passed by on either side.
I stewed in my feelings, and it was midday before I could no longer hold my silence.
"Princess Nezu," I said, climbing forward to sit on the bench beside her. She turned to face me with an indescribable expression sketched on her fine features. She seemed to me to be experiencing a mix of fearful resignation and desperate longing – but for what, I couldn't say. Gil'gal may not voice their emotions, but they do not bother to hide them, either. In many ways, it is the fact that humans are unable to perceive each other's inner thoughts that trains us to control them, and that make us better at expressing them.
"Mag'grath Gra'z," she replied desultorily, looking back at the passing bank of the canal.
"My friends call me Maggie."
Some of my enemies also call me Maggie, but that's neither here nor there.
"You consider us friends?" She seemed surprised.
In truth, I didn't know what to call us. We were supposed to have a professional relationship, a Princess and her Champion, but my love for her was far stronger than that. Could I consider her a friend?
Perhaps I could have told her how I felt. It wasn't as if the Gil'gal ever hid their feelings. Alas, I am only human. Instead, I asked her a question.
"Do you remember when you danced for me? It was after my duel against the Champion of Tish-Gilbal."
"It's a tradition to honor the victorious Champion." She paused. "Yes, I remember."
"Do you remember the way I felt about you then?"
"I do. I have often thought back on that moment."
"As have I."
She smiled sadly.
"So faulty at times, our memories. They cannot truly capture the moment, as an image does. They are impressions of a moment, remade over and over. That dance has become a memory of a memory."
I did not know what to make of her sudden philosophical turn. I let her continue.
"It is said that only Lu'mab remembers us perfectly, every moment unchanging. That is what it means to be immortal, to be part of her ocean of thought, so vast that it can encompass all of us."
The Gil'gal often spoke of their afterlife like an ocean, an unfathomable depth into which they all must sink. It is at once a drowning and a becoming.
"Then are our memories of the dead just shadows?"
"Far from it, Mag'gi. They are lights cast on the surface of the ocean of thought. They are how we keep them as a presence in this world." She met my eyes. "So long as you remember me, I will never leave you."
"Then I promise I shall never forget that day you danced before me on the Way of Victorious Return."
She blinked away sudden tears and turned from me, looking out over the canal. Wanting to comfort her, I reached out and took her hand, and she did nothing to stop me. We sat in silence, Princess Nezu humming what I recognized as a hymn to Lu'mab.
I looked behind me, and caught Captain Tshir's glare. If my love for Princess Nezu was known to her, then Tshir almost certainly knew as well; of course, he would disapprove.
In time our path led us away from the canal. King Muza had told us of the canyon carved by the River Shesh as it fell from the highland to feed the canal, but the Shesh had dried generations ago and now only the canyon remained. We saw the cut made through the cliffs to the south of the canal and turned aside, beaching our longboat and taking our supplies on our backs.
We trekked upwards, climbing over cold rocks, red or brown slashed with black. These weren't the true Martian highlands, where humans cannot breathe without aid of an oxygen tank, but they were still harsh, a high, cold desert of scattered hardy vegetation and hardier animal life. The dry river was not completely dead, it seemed – we passed dense tangles of red weed, which grow wherever there is freestanding water on Mars. We took cuttings from the red weed and sucked the moisture out to save our water supplies.
During the frigid nights we slept in sealed tents, wrapped in sleeping bags. I still remember the feeling of being pressed up against Princess Nezu to preserve our body heat, layers of fabric between us.
In time we reached the cataract at Zaiel. Cliffs of dark reddish-brown stone rose before us in steps, a gap in the cliff face showing the channel where flowing water had cut through the rock over many thousands of years. The channel and the cataracts below had been shaped by Martian hands, dams and basins hewn from living rock and dressed with enormous stone blocks to control the flow of water. But the water had long ceased to flow, and the works had long fallen into disrepair, and then to ruin. Tumbled stone blocks were strewn down the scree-slope beneath the cataracts, and down over this sorrowful tableau stared the serene faces of long-dead Gil'gal, a hundred feet tall and carved into the living rock.
I imagined, or perhaps I truly remembered, the cataracts as they appeared a thousand years ago, the falls like a white ribbon hung with diamonds, mists filling the air with rainbows, the banks on either side crowded with plants in all colors. The roaring sound of water and the songs of birds and people.
Now all was dry, all was barren dust.
It took us several hours of maneuvering, climbing over tumbled stones and fallen bricks until we found the stair that would take us over the cataracts. We emerged overlooking a great basin, sheltered on two sides by the cliffs hewn by erosion and on the third by a crumbling dam. The basin still served its purpose, in a way; it was a swamp of red weed. Water must have collected here, in trickles and drabs, moisture from the daily frosts and dews gathering and pooling.
The ground was even muddy in places, and I saw the tracks of many animals that had come to drink, to graze on the red weed, or to hunt other animals doing the same. I was not afraid of Martian predators – the land-squid, the sand-trappers, the Martian dire weasel. Animal predators tend to fear and avoid Gil'gal, unless they are sick or injured. They would take a lone and unarmed human, as I had discovered, but our large and armed party was safe.
No, my concern was otherwise.
There were signs of people, the outlaws of the deep desert, I surmised, but among them was another sign. Captain Tshir and I stopped over a boot print in the mud. It was too small to be a Gil'gal, and the track was familiar. It was the kind of print left by a combat boot.
"American?" Captain Tshir asked. I did not know for sure; it could have been American, or Soviet…but I am not the only human who has slipped the bonds of loyalty to Tellurian powers.
It was getting late, the shadows lengthening around us and a purple gloom settling over all. Captain Tshir wanted to camp beneath the shelter of an overhang, but I didn't like the idea of putting our backs to the wall. In the end, Princess Nezu sided with me, and we retired up the slope to a hollow overlooking the basin.
In the end this was the better choice, as you shall see.
It was the last hour before the sun set, and we were silently eating our field rations, when the Gil'gal around me froze stiff. Captain Tshir's sentry slid down from his watch-post beside us; the Gil'gal must have sensed his alarm just as he reacted to a strange sight. I dropped my ration bar and drew my long knife, crawling towards the rim of our little hollow.
"Friend!" a human called. It was an American voice! "Friend, we mean you no harm!"
He was calling in stilted Martian. I called back.
"Identify yourself!"
There was a long pause.
"Captain Charles Gorsey, US Army Martian Rangers," he replied in English.
I let out a hiss of breath. An American patrol or expedition had crossed paths with us, it seemed.
"These are your people?" Captain Tshir asked, not bothering to hide his accusatory tone.
"My people are the citizens of Tish-Murabar," I spat back, then raised my head above the rim. I called in English: "We are on official business for the City of Tish-Murabar! Do not hinder us!"
"Uh, sure thing! Can we approach?" Captain Gorsey called.
I glanced at Princess Nezu, who nodded; she understood English well enough to get the gist of our exchange.
"You and your men can come over, but keep your weapons up!"
I rose to my feet, knife ready. Captain Tshir was at my side with his STG, and his guards fanned out, their rifles pointed at the ground but loaded.
Captain Charles Gorsey was dressed in military-issue desert survival gear, modeled off Martian gear but made of modern materials and done in a red desert camouflage. He had a pair of goggles pushed back on his forehead and a breathing mask. He had a blond moustache and a head of thinning blond-grey hair – I guessed he was in his forties, perhaps aged by the stress of combat or the Martian environment, or both. He had eight men with him, all equipped much the same. They were armed with M2 Carbines and a variety of sidearms, combat knives, and grenades. I saw one man, Gorsey's NCO, with the hilt of a Martian knife sticking up over his shoulder. As promised, their weapons were stowed, though as they stopped within a dozen feet of us I saw them standing warily, ready to leap into action.
Gorsey inspected me, first with curiosity, then with surprise, and finally recognition.
"Hold on! You're that girl – the computer technician who went native."
I was rather shocked to be recognized, I admit. I was apparently infamous among the Americans for having run off to play adventurer among the Gil'gal – well, that, and my sexual proclivities. I wondered how different I must look compared to when I had been living at Valley Forge: more muscle, hair cut short like a man's, skin weathered by sun and weather.
"Margaret Graves, Champion of Tish-Murabar," I said, offering my hand.
"Captain Charles Gorsey, US Army Martian Rangers. Though, I've already said that, haven't I?"
His voice was clipped with the accent of the American South.
"What brings you and your men up here, Captain?"
"Fact-finding mission to some ruins, ma'am."
"You don't mean Ala-Shesh, do you?"
"Well as a matter of fact, yes. The new Director of the Mars Mission wants more cultural and archaeological study, so we're charting out the area for a larger scientific expedition."
I turned to Princess Nezu, who had been watching the man with cold appraisal.
"We are heading there on an errand of our own," the Princess admitted, "It seems our goals were destined to conflict."
"I see no reason why that should be the case. We just want to look around, if there's anything we do that might get in your way please let us know and-"
Before we could continue the sharp report of a Springfield rifle cut through the air, and the whirr of a bullet came from just above our heads.
Everyone, human and Gil'gal, went to ground, scrambling for their weapons. I slid back into the hollow, Gorsey on one side, Princess Nezu on the other. Gorsey was bringing his rifle around with practiced efficiency, and I had drawn my revolver. More shots rang out.
"That ain't one of yours, was it?" Gorsey asked.
I shook my head, then added: "Outlaws."
Gorsey barked a few orders to his men, and I turned to Captain Tshir.
"Captain!" I yelled in Martian, "The humans need cover fire!"
My heart was pounding after my near-miss, and I was falling into the distortion of time that comes with combat awareness.
Tshir nodded and raised his hand, shouting a few orders. Reports came in from all directions, as Rangers or our Martian guards sighted the enemy. Night had truly fallen, and I guessed that we were partially surrounded, with the outlaws taking shots at us and then moving to avoid being pinned down in turn.
Tshir's guardsmen laid down fire where they guessed the outlaws were while the American soldiers executed Gorsey's maneuver – men crawling or running low to the ground, two at a time while the others covered them. In time all his men had joined us in the hollow.
I was struck by how, thus far, nobody had been killed, not even by a stray shot. I wondered if the outlaws were even trying to kill us, or if this was part of some other plan.
I'm unsure how long we were pinned down there, bullets cutting angrily through the air overhead, the world noisy with the yell of orders and crack of rifles, intermingled with the chatter of the Americans' carbines and the louder bark of Captain Tshir's STG. Eventually it became clear we had enough cover to protect us from enemy fire, and they were not coming to root us out. By the time I realized the bullets had stopped flying, the adrenaline was wearing off.
We still waited a half hour before relaxing our guard. Princess Nezu, who I had been standing over protectively to shield from stray bullets, waved me aside and turned to the American officer.
"Captain Gorsey, it seems fate has indeed woven our paths together. We shall travel in strength to Ala-Shesh."
"Uh. Much obliged, ma'am."
I wasn't sure how much of that he understood, but he seemed to get the general idea.
"Who were those Martians shooting at us?" Gorsey asked me.
"Outlaws. They may have been trying to kill us for our supplies."
"Well, they did a half-assed job of it."
"Yeah. Maybe…" I glanced at Princess Nezu, "Maybe they figured we were from Tish-Murabar, and were trying to take us hostage."
Just because the Martian Kings can read minds didn't mean all factionalism and politics has ceased to exist. Intrigue and conspiracies do emerge, and exile is the typical punishment. Those who survived carried long grudges against their mother city, and lived a ragged life on the edge of the desert. They were joined by others who, for one reason or another, felt they did not belong in the cities, who enjoyed the freedom and adventure of the open range. They lived in camaraderie and independence, and many took on a flamboyant and dashing affect, which to some in the cities gave them an air of romance.
Then there were the mad and cruel, the truly sadistic who enjoyed feeling the pain of their victims. It was a kind of sickness of the mind.
I wondered which type had accosted us.
Gorsey and Captain Tshir organized watches as the humans and Gil'gal settled down to camp. There was little conversation, though I saw some swapping of field rations. Princess Nezu retired to our shared tent, while I stood guard outside. Captain Gorsey joined me, lighting a little portable gas lamp. We sat in awkward silence; he clearly did not know what to make of me. Eventually I spoke, to break the tension.
"So, Gorsey, what brings you to Mars?"
"I'm just a soldier, I suppose. Pacific theater and Korea. Wanted to keep going, and well, I made all the physical and mental requirements. Couple years in a crash course, couple years survival training in the American West, and hey, I'm trekking through Martian desert getting shot at by bandits."
I asked him where he was from.
"Kentucky, ma'am. You?"
"New York. Buffalo, not the City."
He shifted uncomfortably, as if edging around the question he truly wanted to ask. I decided to save him the embarrassment.
"After I got my degree in computer science, I came to Mars in '41. I was there for the Battle of Thule Base."
"I've only seen the combat footage. So, it's true why you left?"
"For the Martian girls? I'm afraid so." I could feel myself growing defensive, but I realized Captain Gorsey wasn't looking at me with the discomfort or distaste I expected. "Sorry. I've just never liked explaining myself."
"I understand why you ran, ma'am. What's going on back home is…ruining people's lives. They're good people, patriots, it's just..."
I watched him struggle with his feelings for a moment. He shook his head helplessly.
"It's personal for you," I guessed.
"I have a wife and three kids back on Tellus," he said, a bit too quickly, too automatically. He sighed. "And a…a good friend back at Valley Forge." Silence stretched between us. I had noticed the glance at his men as he made sure they were out of earshot. "The Martians really don't care about that sort of thing?"
"Most Martian women have sapphic tendencies. Can't say I'm very familiar with their men."
He didn't seem to know what to make of that.
By the time I retired to my tent, Princess Nezu was already asleep. She was lying on her side, curled slightly in around herself, and I laid down in her arms. She unconsciously wrapped herself around me, and in her embrace I quickly fell asleep.
To be concluded!
The Memory-Pool of Ala-Shesh (Part 3)
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I slept lightly, jolting awake several times during the night at, it seemed, the slightest of sounds, but there was no call of alarm, no harsh report of a firearm. Once as I lay awake, heart pounding and ready to spring for my weapons, Princess Nezu's hand settled over mine, and she whispered, "Fear not, my Champion." After that I slept soundly.
There were no sightings of the outlaws that night, and the next morning I inspected the ground surrounding our camp. There were Gil'gal-sized prints there in the damp soil, but among them I found human-sized ones, in the same military boots as before.
I knew of more than one human who would align themselves with a band of Gil'gal outlaws, and I didn't welcome a meeting with any of them.
We followed the dry riverbed further up. Gil'gal may have longer legs and a longer stride than humans, but humans on the balance have more strength and endurance, so the Americans were able to keep pace. I would have spoken to Captain Gorsey more, but I could feel the air thinning and decided to save my breath. During breaks, the American soldiers joked and chatted with each other; I could see the looks they cast towards me. Some must have thought me a traitor, others a freak. Perhaps some, like Captain Gorsey, only found me to be a curiosity.
There were no further signs of the outlaws, although I suspected that was only because they were trailing behind us. Indeed, life of any sort grew scarce, and even the red weed vanished. In the mornings we awoke to find frost settled on our camp and the rocks around us, only to evaporate by noon; only in a few deeply shadowed crevasses was there permanent ice water.
One morning, the ruins of Ala-Shesh appeared like a pink ghost out of the haze. It had been built on either side of the canyon, great stone bridges spanning the abyss below. Centuries of erosion had scoured the mosaics from the towers, had worn stone carvings down to vague shapes. It was a city of smooth, naked stone, roofless buildings standing silent and undisturbed by life.
"This is the future of all Til-Enkam," Princess Nezu murmured as we walked the silent streets.
I kept on my guard, head on a swivel as I looked for threats. Every strange sound, every echo off the walls drew my attention, as we climbed the winding city streets and reached the tallest of its towers.
"The memory-pool is here," Princess Nezu announced.
The great entrance to the tower lay wide open. Sand had blown in over the years, through open doors and windows and archways, through holes in the masonry, and covered the floor. In places it had been piled up, rippling mounds of red dust. The mosaics on the walls had been scoured down by blowing sand, their colors faded, but I could make out the stories of the city's great Kings and Champions. I shuddered to imagine Tish-Murabar becoming like this, its beauty and power turned a faded memory.
We fanned out in the hallway, Gil'gal and Americans intermingled, weapons at the ready. The hall was a vast, cavernous expanse, the ceiling hundreds of feet above us, ringed by open galleries. Grand staircases spiraled upwards, and darkened archways led off in all directions. Columns and decorative alcoves broke up the shape of the room – and our lines of sight.
It was the perfect place for an ambush. A shadow moved in the gallery above us. I acted without thinking, pushing Princess Nezu into the shadow of an alcove and drawing my revolver.
"Outlaws!"
A firefight erupted across the great hall, Gil'gal and humans scrambling for cover, ducking and running in between shots at flickering shapes. I glanced out of cover for a brief second to get my bearings, then ducked back.
"I count eight," I told Captain Gorsey, who was crouched beside me.
"Nine," he corrected me. He jumped out of cover, his M2 chattering as he sprayed bullets, earning a cry of pain from a Gil'gal outlaw who tumbled over a balcony rail to splatter on the stones below. I raised my revolver and fired at another outlaw who took shelter behind a pillar, as Gorsey ducked back into our alcove to reload.
Captain Tshir was yelling a Martian war-cry, firing his STG wildly. Bullets ricocheted off the stonework, screams and shouts and gunshots echoed through the halls and galleries.
Gorsey finished reloading and nodded in grim satisfaction.
"Ma'am, you and I are going to have to break for those stairs. We get up and on their level, turn their attention."
"Yes, sir," I said. "Princess, you-"
"I need to get to the memory-pool, and that is the way," she said, pointing, "I will be behind you once the way is clear."
I wanted to protest, but in that split-second I decided not to gainsay her. I waited while Gorsey signaled two of his men to lay down cover fire, then we made a break for the stairs. I outpaced Gorsey, revolver in one hand and knife in the other. I was halfway up the stairs when an outlaw leapt down them to meet me, sword at the ready.
He wore the robes of the deep-desert, and a heavy mask covered his face, dark goggles over his eyes and a breathing mask over his mouth. The mask was painted in black, red, and white stripes, bits of stolen jewelry glittered on his harness, and he wore a swirling black cape. I recognized the type – one of the dashing desert raiders and highwaymen, the romantic outlaws of Mars.
We crossed blades; he had the advantage of superior reach and the high ground, but I had the raw superior strength of a Tellurian in Martian gravity. For a few moments we danced up and down the steps. His questing blade scored a shallow cut on my arm, but I ignored the trickle of blood. I lunged under his next swing, the blade clipping my shoulder, and sprang up, driving my knife into his gut. I felt the pop as it pierced some kind of body armor, then the soft yielding sensation of metal going through flesh. The outlaw fell back on the stairs with a wet gurgle; I yanked my knife out, twisting it as I did, then stabbed downwards into his throat – a mercy, I felt.
I looked up and found myself staring down the barrel of a rifle in the hands of the outlaw who knelt at the top of the stairs. He was unmasked, and his golden eyes narrowed as he aimed at me. In that half-second, I saw his finger twitch on the barrel, then a shot rang out.
The outlaw's head jerked back, a bullet hole appearing in his forehead as a spray of blood fanned out behind his head. I turned, and saw Captain Gorsey lowering his rifle. Princess Nezu was climbing the stairs behind us, robes swirling.
Captain Gorsey rushed past me, yelling something I couldn't catch. I dimly registered the rest of the battle; I heard a grenade go off, and Captain Tshir laughing over the steady, rhythmic thunder of his assault rifle.
I was about to join Gorsey as he moved along the gallery when Princess Nezu rushed past me, through an archway. I called after her, cursed, then followed her into the dark hallway. I sheathed my knife, holding my revolver leveled in front of me.
I emerged into a darkened chamber, a junction of several hallways. High windows let in a rush of cold air and just enough light to see the tracks Princess Nezu had left in the thin layer of pale pink dust.
I sensed, rather than heard, someone step out into the chamber behind me.
"Hello, Maggie," she said in Russian-accented English.
"Yelena," I replied, turning slowly. My hands were raised, revolver pointed at the ceiling.
There she was; Yelena Belovna, once a Soviet colonist, now a Martian outlaw, wanted by two great powers. My former rival…and lover.
She wore a patchwork of Martian desert gear and salvaged fatigues, both American and Soviet. Her coat was the red desert camouflage used by the Americans; her hat was an ushanka. She wore a scarf over the lower half of her face, but I recognized those blue eyes immediately, and her look of cold amusement and menace. Seeing her again hurt more than I could have imagined.
The rifle in her hands was a battered Springfield, and it was pointed at me. She motioned with it.
"Drop the revolver. It's mine, anyway."
Slowly, carefully, I crouched and set the revolver down, then kicked it towards her. She stopped it with her foot.
"I remember things differently," I said, unable to hide the bitterness. "You forgot it in my room when you left me."
"Left you?" she spat, a bit mockingly. "I'm sorry if you got the impression I was going to stay."
"I would have liked you to. Stay, I mean."
"Of course you would, Maggie. That's the way you are."
"I would have come with you, but you never bothered to ask."
"And that's the way I am. We're too different, don't you see? You always wanted a cause, and I wasn't going to be yours." She tilted her head. "Who's your cause now? That Princess?"
"I love her," I said, my throat dry. I couldn't read her expression under her scarf, but there was a tightening around her eyes that suggested a sneer.
"Of course you do."
Silence stretched between us. We heard a final volley of gunshots echo down the hallway, then nothing. After a long pause, Yelena sighed and lowered her rifle.
"It sounds like the fight's over. I told them to spare you and the Princess, if it helps. You'll make a fine ransom."
"Assuming you won."
She just shrugged. "You're not going to kill me, are you?" she asked, eyes twinkling. She spread her arms. "Go on, take your best stab at me, Maggie."
I walked forward, loosening my knife in its scabbard. For all that she had betrayed me, for all that she may have almost caused all our deaths, I couldn't bring myself to strike at her. I stood there, my face inches from hers, breathing heavily.
She raised a hand, and I flinched away.
"You have blood on your face, love," she murmured. She caressed my cheek, her hand coming away red. Martian blood, from the outlaw I had killed.
A shout echoed down the corridor behind her. She turned, and we heard the shout again.
"Princess!"
It was the voice of Captain Tshir. Yelena cursed in Russian and stepped away from me, back into the shadows.
"It looks like you won after all, my love. I can only assume my brave outlaw gang is all dead. I suppose it was time for a new line of work anyway."
I stepped towards her.
"Yelena, wait-"
"You can keep the revolver. Consider it a gift after all."
She turned and vanished. I could have followed her, called after her, anything, but I remembered the Princess. I sighed heavily, pushing aside my feelings, and picked up my revolver from where it still lay on the paving stones.
I didn't wait up for Captain Tshir, instead following Princess Nezu. I found her in an antechamber, looking at the sealed door that led to the memory-pool.
"The climate control seals are still in place," she murmured. Her voice was hollow with resignation.
"Princess? What's wrong, why do you sound so afraid of this place?"
"Oh, you truly do not understand-"
"Then tell me!"
Princess Nezu turned to me, tears welling in her eyes of gold.
"To remember is to be. Our memories shape us, make us who they are. To drink the memories of another – of a hundred thousand others...I will cease to be myself. I will remember them, their hopes and fears and loves and hates. Princess Nezu will just be one voice within the being that is called Queen Nezu.
I had hoped it would wait until I ascended to the throne, but-"
A sob choked off the rest of her words.
I went to her, wrapping my arms around her, burying my face in the robes around her middle.
"I can't," I sobbed, though I wasn't sure what I meant. Perhaps I can't lose you, or I can't survive this. I was stunned, unable to comprehend not only that Princess Nezu would lose herself in her ascent, but that she had known this all along and been unable to tell me. Or perhaps unwilling, hoping to spare my feelings. My fingers tightened, grabbing handfuls of the fabric of her robes.
"You don't have to do this," I gasped, looking up at her. "We can leave-"
"No, Mag'gi. I have a duty to the city. I was chosen for this task, using the wisdom of all former Kings of Tish-Murabar. My mind is a vessel of the right shape to hold what is beyond that door."
She struggled to continue, but when she did it was to ask: "Is there any way you could stay, Mag'gi?"
I thought about it. It would be a nightmare, standing beside the husk of the woman I loved, occupied no longer by the mind I longed to join with but the gestalt of every other Martian King and Queen. Unless…
"Would you still hold any affection for me?"
Tears returned to her golden eyes.
"If there were any feelings for you, they would subside into an ocean of other feelings, for a hundred thousand other loves."
It was as I feared.
"Then I cannot stay."
"You must leave before I drink from the pool. I want you to remember me as I am."
She caressed my cheek. I shuddered at the warmth of her touch. How I had longed for the touch of that long-finger, fine-boned hand – but I never like this!
"Wait for me," I said, "Please, Nezu, wait just one night."
Princess Nezu grabbed my shoulders and gently pushed me away. At first, I thought she meant to spurn me, but then I heard Captain Tshir's footsteps echoing up the hall behind us.
"You are bleeding," she murmured as she pulled away, looking at her hand, wet with my blood. I realized with horror that I had gotten my blood on her robes as well. With a twitch of her hand, she covered the stain with a fold of her cloak.
"Princess, what is it?" the guard captain asked as he entered the antechamber. Princess Nezu and I had dried our tears, but no doubt our grief radiated off us.
"I will enter the chamber of the memory-pool…on the morrow," the Princess said.
***
The Gil'gal outlaws were all dead, at the cost of some of our own – two guardsmen and one Ranger, with another American sorely wounded. Our group made camp in the empty chambers and dusty chambers, with Princess Nezu taking the antechamber for herself.
I found Captain Tshir standing guard over the two bodies of his men. The decision had been made to leave them exposed to the elements, as was the custom of some ancient Martian cultures. It would be an honorable rest, undisturbed by animals in this high, lonely place.
"I'm afraid I will not be accompanying you back to Tish-Murabar."
He glared at me.
"You abandon your duty as Champion?"
"I will be departing with Captain Gorsey. I find myself desiring the company of my own people."
He looked disgusted with me.
"I warned the King about you. You were fond of our city for a time, but it was never your home. I knew you would leave us eventually. You are from out of this world, with nothing to keep you here."
"You're right about that."
"Faithless!" he spat. That hurt; Captain Tshir had never trusted me, but we had fought and bled together for the city we both loved.
"I trust you to deliver the Princess safely home," I said, then left him.
I passed Captain Gorsey and his men, sitting around a portable gas lamp and eating their rations. The Ranger Captain rose, and I checked my pace. He joined me at a balcony rail overlooking the ruined city; a cold wind was coming off the high desert, and I pulled my cloak tight around me.
"I'm very sorry about your men, Captain."
He waved me off.
"We all knew the risks. We've completed our mission; we'll be back with a larger research expedition."
"I'd like to accompany you back to Valley Forge."
He considered that for a moment.
"Are you sure that's a good idea? You may not be welcome back there-"
"I'll take my chances. I want to leave Mars as soon as possible."
He seemed unsure what to say, and I wasn't sure how I could possibly explain. We stood there in silence, watching the eternal night sky over Mars, wrestling with our feelings. Eventually, he gave me a pat on the shoulder.
"I'll see if we can do something for you. We'll be leaving early tomorrow, I think."
"I'll be ready," I murmured as he left me. I watched the desert, feeling the grief well up in me again, gasping in the thin Martian air. Eventually, I released my tight grip on the balcony rail and found my Princess, waiting for me in the antechamber.
She was on her knees, a borrowed American gas lamp at her side. I joined her on the floor, kneeling on her sleeping roll.
"I'm leaving tomorrow," I said without fanfare, "I'm sorry to abandon the city, but-"
"There is no need to explain."
Her long arms folded around me, drawing me into her lap. I sobbed into her robes as she stroked my head, running her fingers through my hair.
"I love you," I whispered.
"I love you too," she replied, "I always have."
Somehow, I had always known. I think, looking back, that we had both thought that by denying our feelings it would hurt less when the time finally came to part. In truth, we had just robbed ourselves of the time we did have together.
I took her head in my hands and kissed her. It was the deepest impropriety for a Champion to treat her Princess like that, but I had ceased to be her Champion. We were nothing to each other, and everything.
She was taller than me, but I was always stronger and more powerful. I bore her to the ground, untying her sash and flinging open her robes. She mewled under me as firm, sure hands explored the body I had protected all those years.
Of the night we spent together, of the things we said to each other into the early morning, I shall not speak. Those are my memories to keep.
There were no sightings of the outlaws that night, and the next morning I inspected the ground surrounding our camp. There were Gil'gal-sized prints there in the damp soil, but among them I found human-sized ones, in the same military boots as before.
I knew of more than one human who would align themselves with a band of Gil'gal outlaws, and I didn't welcome a meeting with any of them.
We followed the dry riverbed further up. Gil'gal may have longer legs and a longer stride than humans, but humans on the balance have more strength and endurance, so the Americans were able to keep pace. I would have spoken to Captain Gorsey more, but I could feel the air thinning and decided to save my breath. During breaks, the American soldiers joked and chatted with each other; I could see the looks they cast towards me. Some must have thought me a traitor, others a freak. Perhaps some, like Captain Gorsey, only found me to be a curiosity.
There were no further signs of the outlaws, although I suspected that was only because they were trailing behind us. Indeed, life of any sort grew scarce, and even the red weed vanished. In the mornings we awoke to find frost settled on our camp and the rocks around us, only to evaporate by noon; only in a few deeply shadowed crevasses was there permanent ice water.
One morning, the ruins of Ala-Shesh appeared like a pink ghost out of the haze. It had been built on either side of the canyon, great stone bridges spanning the abyss below. Centuries of erosion had scoured the mosaics from the towers, had worn stone carvings down to vague shapes. It was a city of smooth, naked stone, roofless buildings standing silent and undisturbed by life.
"This is the future of all Til-Enkam," Princess Nezu murmured as we walked the silent streets.
I kept on my guard, head on a swivel as I looked for threats. Every strange sound, every echo off the walls drew my attention, as we climbed the winding city streets and reached the tallest of its towers.
"The memory-pool is here," Princess Nezu announced.
The great entrance to the tower lay wide open. Sand had blown in over the years, through open doors and windows and archways, through holes in the masonry, and covered the floor. In places it had been piled up, rippling mounds of red dust. The mosaics on the walls had been scoured down by blowing sand, their colors faded, but I could make out the stories of the city's great Kings and Champions. I shuddered to imagine Tish-Murabar becoming like this, its beauty and power turned a faded memory.
We fanned out in the hallway, Gil'gal and Americans intermingled, weapons at the ready. The hall was a vast, cavernous expanse, the ceiling hundreds of feet above us, ringed by open galleries. Grand staircases spiraled upwards, and darkened archways led off in all directions. Columns and decorative alcoves broke up the shape of the room – and our lines of sight.
It was the perfect place for an ambush. A shadow moved in the gallery above us. I acted without thinking, pushing Princess Nezu into the shadow of an alcove and drawing my revolver.
"Outlaws!"
A firefight erupted across the great hall, Gil'gal and humans scrambling for cover, ducking and running in between shots at flickering shapes. I glanced out of cover for a brief second to get my bearings, then ducked back.
"I count eight," I told Captain Gorsey, who was crouched beside me.
"Nine," he corrected me. He jumped out of cover, his M2 chattering as he sprayed bullets, earning a cry of pain from a Gil'gal outlaw who tumbled over a balcony rail to splatter on the stones below. I raised my revolver and fired at another outlaw who took shelter behind a pillar, as Gorsey ducked back into our alcove to reload.
Captain Tshir was yelling a Martian war-cry, firing his STG wildly. Bullets ricocheted off the stonework, screams and shouts and gunshots echoed through the halls and galleries.
Gorsey finished reloading and nodded in grim satisfaction.
"Ma'am, you and I are going to have to break for those stairs. We get up and on their level, turn their attention."
"Yes, sir," I said. "Princess, you-"
"I need to get to the memory-pool, and that is the way," she said, pointing, "I will be behind you once the way is clear."
I wanted to protest, but in that split-second I decided not to gainsay her. I waited while Gorsey signaled two of his men to lay down cover fire, then we made a break for the stairs. I outpaced Gorsey, revolver in one hand and knife in the other. I was halfway up the stairs when an outlaw leapt down them to meet me, sword at the ready.
He wore the robes of the deep-desert, and a heavy mask covered his face, dark goggles over his eyes and a breathing mask over his mouth. The mask was painted in black, red, and white stripes, bits of stolen jewelry glittered on his harness, and he wore a swirling black cape. I recognized the type – one of the dashing desert raiders and highwaymen, the romantic outlaws of Mars.
We crossed blades; he had the advantage of superior reach and the high ground, but I had the raw superior strength of a Tellurian in Martian gravity. For a few moments we danced up and down the steps. His questing blade scored a shallow cut on my arm, but I ignored the trickle of blood. I lunged under his next swing, the blade clipping my shoulder, and sprang up, driving my knife into his gut. I felt the pop as it pierced some kind of body armor, then the soft yielding sensation of metal going through flesh. The outlaw fell back on the stairs with a wet gurgle; I yanked my knife out, twisting it as I did, then stabbed downwards into his throat – a mercy, I felt.
I looked up and found myself staring down the barrel of a rifle in the hands of the outlaw who knelt at the top of the stairs. He was unmasked, and his golden eyes narrowed as he aimed at me. In that half-second, I saw his finger twitch on the barrel, then a shot rang out.
The outlaw's head jerked back, a bullet hole appearing in his forehead as a spray of blood fanned out behind his head. I turned, and saw Captain Gorsey lowering his rifle. Princess Nezu was climbing the stairs behind us, robes swirling.
Captain Gorsey rushed past me, yelling something I couldn't catch. I dimly registered the rest of the battle; I heard a grenade go off, and Captain Tshir laughing over the steady, rhythmic thunder of his assault rifle.
I was about to join Gorsey as he moved along the gallery when Princess Nezu rushed past me, through an archway. I called after her, cursed, then followed her into the dark hallway. I sheathed my knife, holding my revolver leveled in front of me.
I emerged into a darkened chamber, a junction of several hallways. High windows let in a rush of cold air and just enough light to see the tracks Princess Nezu had left in the thin layer of pale pink dust.
I sensed, rather than heard, someone step out into the chamber behind me.
"Hello, Maggie," she said in Russian-accented English.
"Yelena," I replied, turning slowly. My hands were raised, revolver pointed at the ceiling.
There she was; Yelena Belovna, once a Soviet colonist, now a Martian outlaw, wanted by two great powers. My former rival…and lover.
She wore a patchwork of Martian desert gear and salvaged fatigues, both American and Soviet. Her coat was the red desert camouflage used by the Americans; her hat was an ushanka. She wore a scarf over the lower half of her face, but I recognized those blue eyes immediately, and her look of cold amusement and menace. Seeing her again hurt more than I could have imagined.
The rifle in her hands was a battered Springfield, and it was pointed at me. She motioned with it.
"Drop the revolver. It's mine, anyway."
Slowly, carefully, I crouched and set the revolver down, then kicked it towards her. She stopped it with her foot.
"I remember things differently," I said, unable to hide the bitterness. "You forgot it in my room when you left me."
"Left you?" she spat, a bit mockingly. "I'm sorry if you got the impression I was going to stay."
"I would have liked you to. Stay, I mean."
"Of course you would, Maggie. That's the way you are."
"I would have come with you, but you never bothered to ask."
"And that's the way I am. We're too different, don't you see? You always wanted a cause, and I wasn't going to be yours." She tilted her head. "Who's your cause now? That Princess?"
"I love her," I said, my throat dry. I couldn't read her expression under her scarf, but there was a tightening around her eyes that suggested a sneer.
"Of course you do."
Silence stretched between us. We heard a final volley of gunshots echo down the hallway, then nothing. After a long pause, Yelena sighed and lowered her rifle.
"It sounds like the fight's over. I told them to spare you and the Princess, if it helps. You'll make a fine ransom."
"Assuming you won."
She just shrugged. "You're not going to kill me, are you?" she asked, eyes twinkling. She spread her arms. "Go on, take your best stab at me, Maggie."
I walked forward, loosening my knife in its scabbard. For all that she had betrayed me, for all that she may have almost caused all our deaths, I couldn't bring myself to strike at her. I stood there, my face inches from hers, breathing heavily.
She raised a hand, and I flinched away.
"You have blood on your face, love," she murmured. She caressed my cheek, her hand coming away red. Martian blood, from the outlaw I had killed.
A shout echoed down the corridor behind her. She turned, and we heard the shout again.
"Princess!"
It was the voice of Captain Tshir. Yelena cursed in Russian and stepped away from me, back into the shadows.
"It looks like you won after all, my love. I can only assume my brave outlaw gang is all dead. I suppose it was time for a new line of work anyway."
I stepped towards her.
"Yelena, wait-"
"You can keep the revolver. Consider it a gift after all."
She turned and vanished. I could have followed her, called after her, anything, but I remembered the Princess. I sighed heavily, pushing aside my feelings, and picked up my revolver from where it still lay on the paving stones.
I didn't wait up for Captain Tshir, instead following Princess Nezu. I found her in an antechamber, looking at the sealed door that led to the memory-pool.
"The climate control seals are still in place," she murmured. Her voice was hollow with resignation.
"Princess? What's wrong, why do you sound so afraid of this place?"
"Oh, you truly do not understand-"
"Then tell me!"
Princess Nezu turned to me, tears welling in her eyes of gold.
"To remember is to be. Our memories shape us, make us who they are. To drink the memories of another – of a hundred thousand others...I will cease to be myself. I will remember them, their hopes and fears and loves and hates. Princess Nezu will just be one voice within the being that is called Queen Nezu.
I had hoped it would wait until I ascended to the throne, but-"
A sob choked off the rest of her words.
I went to her, wrapping my arms around her, burying my face in the robes around her middle.
"I can't," I sobbed, though I wasn't sure what I meant. Perhaps I can't lose you, or I can't survive this. I was stunned, unable to comprehend not only that Princess Nezu would lose herself in her ascent, but that she had known this all along and been unable to tell me. Or perhaps unwilling, hoping to spare my feelings. My fingers tightened, grabbing handfuls of the fabric of her robes.
"You don't have to do this," I gasped, looking up at her. "We can leave-"
"No, Mag'gi. I have a duty to the city. I was chosen for this task, using the wisdom of all former Kings of Tish-Murabar. My mind is a vessel of the right shape to hold what is beyond that door."
She struggled to continue, but when she did it was to ask: "Is there any way you could stay, Mag'gi?"
I thought about it. It would be a nightmare, standing beside the husk of the woman I loved, occupied no longer by the mind I longed to join with but the gestalt of every other Martian King and Queen. Unless…
"Would you still hold any affection for me?"
Tears returned to her golden eyes.
"If there were any feelings for you, they would subside into an ocean of other feelings, for a hundred thousand other loves."
It was as I feared.
"Then I cannot stay."
"You must leave before I drink from the pool. I want you to remember me as I am."
She caressed my cheek. I shuddered at the warmth of her touch. How I had longed for the touch of that long-finger, fine-boned hand – but I never like this!
"Wait for me," I said, "Please, Nezu, wait just one night."
Princess Nezu grabbed my shoulders and gently pushed me away. At first, I thought she meant to spurn me, but then I heard Captain Tshir's footsteps echoing up the hall behind us.
"You are bleeding," she murmured as she pulled away, looking at her hand, wet with my blood. I realized with horror that I had gotten my blood on her robes as well. With a twitch of her hand, she covered the stain with a fold of her cloak.
"Princess, what is it?" the guard captain asked as he entered the antechamber. Princess Nezu and I had dried our tears, but no doubt our grief radiated off us.
"I will enter the chamber of the memory-pool…on the morrow," the Princess said.
***
The Gil'gal outlaws were all dead, at the cost of some of our own – two guardsmen and one Ranger, with another American sorely wounded. Our group made camp in the empty chambers and dusty chambers, with Princess Nezu taking the antechamber for herself.
I found Captain Tshir standing guard over the two bodies of his men. The decision had been made to leave them exposed to the elements, as was the custom of some ancient Martian cultures. It would be an honorable rest, undisturbed by animals in this high, lonely place.
"I'm afraid I will not be accompanying you back to Tish-Murabar."
He glared at me.
"You abandon your duty as Champion?"
"I will be departing with Captain Gorsey. I find myself desiring the company of my own people."
He looked disgusted with me.
"I warned the King about you. You were fond of our city for a time, but it was never your home. I knew you would leave us eventually. You are from out of this world, with nothing to keep you here."
"You're right about that."
"Faithless!" he spat. That hurt; Captain Tshir had never trusted me, but we had fought and bled together for the city we both loved.
"I trust you to deliver the Princess safely home," I said, then left him.
I passed Captain Gorsey and his men, sitting around a portable gas lamp and eating their rations. The Ranger Captain rose, and I checked my pace. He joined me at a balcony rail overlooking the ruined city; a cold wind was coming off the high desert, and I pulled my cloak tight around me.
"I'm very sorry about your men, Captain."
He waved me off.
"We all knew the risks. We've completed our mission; we'll be back with a larger research expedition."
"I'd like to accompany you back to Valley Forge."
He considered that for a moment.
"Are you sure that's a good idea? You may not be welcome back there-"
"I'll take my chances. I want to leave Mars as soon as possible."
He seemed unsure what to say, and I wasn't sure how I could possibly explain. We stood there in silence, watching the eternal night sky over Mars, wrestling with our feelings. Eventually, he gave me a pat on the shoulder.
"I'll see if we can do something for you. We'll be leaving early tomorrow, I think."
"I'll be ready," I murmured as he left me. I watched the desert, feeling the grief well up in me again, gasping in the thin Martian air. Eventually, I released my tight grip on the balcony rail and found my Princess, waiting for me in the antechamber.
She was on her knees, a borrowed American gas lamp at her side. I joined her on the floor, kneeling on her sleeping roll.
"I'm leaving tomorrow," I said without fanfare, "I'm sorry to abandon the city, but-"
"There is no need to explain."
Her long arms folded around me, drawing me into her lap. I sobbed into her robes as she stroked my head, running her fingers through my hair.
"I love you," I whispered.
"I love you too," she replied, "I always have."
Somehow, I had always known. I think, looking back, that we had both thought that by denying our feelings it would hurt less when the time finally came to part. In truth, we had just robbed ourselves of the time we did have together.
I took her head in my hands and kissed her. It was the deepest impropriety for a Champion to treat her Princess like that, but I had ceased to be her Champion. We were nothing to each other, and everything.
She was taller than me, but I was always stronger and more powerful. I bore her to the ground, untying her sash and flinging open her robes. She mewled under me as firm, sure hands explored the body I had protected all those years.
Of the night we spent together, of the things we said to each other into the early morning, I shall not speak. Those are my memories to keep.
An Encounter in Venusport (Part 1)
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Margaret Graves, Hero of Venus
Issue #12: An Encounter in Venusport
Issue #12: An Encounter in Venusport
I was laid up for my first two weeks on Venus with planet sickness, a combination of the usual problems with adjusting to a different gravity and day-night cycle. After years under Martian gravity I was weak, suffering from blurry vision, nausea, and heart palpitations. I'm also fairly sure I came down with spacer's flu; drinking the water in Venusport is risky that way.
I languished in that hotel room for two nightless weeks, slipping in and out of consciousness, feeling nauseous whenever I stumbled across the room to eat whatever came to hand, or to lunge for the toilet.
I was plagued by bad dreams, or hallucinations, images swimming through my fevered mind; Yelena, Princess Nezu, my family, Director Sullivan, people I had killed both Martian and Tellurian. They mocked me, pleaded with me, harangued me for my failures. None of them were memories of real events, just the misfirings of a confused and tormented mind. In the grip of my fever they blended together into a face I had never seen before; a woman with green skin, fierce and beautiful, with a hungry smile full of pointed teeth and eyes bright with a vivacious fire.
It felt at times like Venus was purging me of my sins.
Eventually my body adjusted. I could walk under Venusian gravity without wanting to throw up or collapse into a heap, and my body slipped naturally into a twenty-hour sleep cycle. It was only then that I phoned the front desk and asked them to send a doctor up to my room.
They sent a woman who introduced herself as Alice Strong, MD. She looked to be about my age, although my looks had been weathered by the Martian climate – when I looked at my drawn, haggard face in the mirror, I could see the grey in my hair coming in.
Dr. Strong wore thigh-high weather boots, loose khakis, and a button-up shirt with the first few buttons undone. A sheen of sweat glistened on her skin, and like most Tellurians on Venus her head was shaved. She wore black-rimmed glasses, and had a tired, pallid look, though paleness is a trait among second-generation Venusians. She sipped constantly from some kind of flask at her waist.
She asked me if this was my first time on Venus, and I had to say that it was.
"How long will you be staying?" she asked me next.
I had to think about that. I had come chasing a rumor, and had no sure prospects outside of that. But then, I had left Mars because it held nothing for me, and while there were Tellurian governments that might welcome me, I found the prospect unappealing. I supposed at the time I expected to die on Venus. Of course, I couldn't bring myself to tell her that, so I gave her a vague answer.
"I'll just put down 'indefinitely'," she said, making a note on her clipboard.
She gave me a checkup, prescribed me exercise to help strengthen my bones and muscles, and gave me a tonic to help with any lingering effects. Then the lecture began.
"Venus is a hostile world. You might think the most dangerous thing in the jungle is a carnosaur, but no, it's the things you can't see that will kill you first. And we can fend carnosaurs off with barbed wire and assault rifles – the Venusian microbiome is here, in the air we breathe and water we drink.
There are parasitic worms, and fungal infections – alien versions of crotch rot and athlete's foot. Even a minor cut can become infected in this climate. It seems like every year some new virus makes the jump to humans. This place is a germophobe's nightmare; some Tellurians swear they can feel the planet crawling on them.
If you ask me, it's the humidity. Moisture gets into everything, corroding and corrupting, and it rains nine hours out of ten. During the height of the Venusian day it's like walking through a steam bath."
She got a far-off look, and I saw her as a woman fighting a constant battle against a world gone wild with growth, a creeping sort of life.
She listed off preventative measures – wear sandals and loose-fitting clothes of breathable fabric, use a variety of anti-fungal soaps and ointments, get vaccinated against the list of Venusian diseases it was possible to vaccinate against.
As I submitted to a battery of shots, I asked: "How do the Venusians live here?" She had made Venus sound like a green Hell, but there were billions of indigenous Venusians living in tribal confederations and leagues of city-states.
"You've seen pictures of Venusians? It's their scaly skin, it's watertight and it wards off the majority of fungal growths. For most diseases they have immunity that we don't, for others they use medicines derived from the environment, just like the natural purgatives they use against parasites.
Their medicinal knowledge is amazing. It's this world, really. Most scientific research here interested in discovering new plants with medicinal value – or recreational value. There are some scientists who think there's no way the wealth of useful plants here is the product of natural evolution, that the Venusians have been cultivating them for millions of years, that this planet is one big garden laid out according to a logic we don't understand."
"What do you think?"
"I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. This planet is so fecund, the diversity of everything here from microbes to plants to insects is amazing. With those numbers, the odds of plants developing traits that can be utilized by Venusians should be pretty high."
She finished with the final shot.
"Which is not to say the Venusians don't know how to exploit naturally-occurring medicinal plants. They're just as smart as us, and much more experienced when it comes to living here."
She gave me a final set of instructions and started packing her bag. For a moment I wanted to invite her to stay; I found her interesting, not to mention attractive. She did linger, giving me a careful look as if expecting me to say something. Fear and doubt stopped me; I didn't know what the cultural norms on Venus were, I didn't want to out myself, I didn't want to make her uncomfortable, I didn't want to assume. I sat in silence on the bed, staring at the wall as she said a quick goodbye and left.
I grappled with a sudden surge of shame after she was gone. After so long living openly among the Gil'gal, my re-exposure to the homophobia in human society had been a shock. The prospect of going back into the closet (as we would say now) frightened me, and I must confess that I began to spiral.
I decided to escape the feelings by exploring the streets of Venusport.
I didn't have much left in the way of possessions. My revolver and my Martian knife were belted at my waist. I had collected a pack of survival gear suitable for Venus – water purification tablets, folded sheets of waterproof plastic, bottles of tonic and emergency medicine. Buried at the bottom of my pack was a bag containing the remaining gold from Ala-Shesh. I wore sandals, loose shorts, and a tank top that was soon translucent and plastered to my body with moisture.
I collected what I had and rushed down the stairs into the streets. It was early in the four-month long Venusian daytime, the constant overcast sky draped overhead like a shroud. A light drizzle fell on the city. The rain felt warm on my skin, and I turned my face upwards, feeling it dampen my hair.
Venusport is an independent city. Unlike Mars, Venus has gravity close enough to Tellus that mass settlement is comparatively easy. There were four million Tellurians on Venus at last count, including second or even third generation colonists. Out of all those people, some inevitably struck out on their own, beyond the colonies established and governed by Tellurian powers. The independent spaceport and trade hub had thrived under its liberal government, and it continued to attract dissidents from East and West, to say nothing of freewheeling commercial rocketmen and explorers and outcasts – such as myself.
It also, as the Cold War intensified, attracted hosts of spies and agents of Tellurian national security services. Venusport was a humid, rainy city of secrets and lies.
In construction it was heterogenous. Sealed habitats in the city center catered to the wealthy and housed government buildings, while cheaper high-rises and commercial districts, warehouses and factories, fanned out from the spaceport like fungal growths. Between them were crowded slums, some little better than shanty towns, other brimming with a sort of ragged vitality. Roads and elevated rail lines cut through the sprawl willy-nilly.
Rain fell on everything in Venusport. Some of it rang off corrugated metal roofs or plastic tarps, collecting in gutters and rain barrels, pouring into storm drains and reservoirs. More of it collected on the ground, ankle deep in some places, and where the streets hadn't even been paved the ground was a muddy mire, one that I knew bore teeming dangers of parasitic infection. The city fought a constant battle against the jungle – I could see creeping vines, sprouting fungi, and moss growing across all sorts of surfaces. Lizard-monkeys and tooth-birds were much in evidence, in a variety of species and forms and colors, digging through refuse or perching on ledges. The air was full of flying insects, only some of which were trying to bite me.
Over it all came the constant roar of rockets taking off and landing from the space port, on the hour like clockwork.
As for the inhabitants of Venusport, I saw both humans and Zavaam. It was my first time seeing the indigenous inhabitants of Venus in person – women, hairless and with scaled skin but otherwise humanoid. All Zavaam are female; they reproduce parthenogenically, every child an exact clone of her mother.
Their scales were green and gold primarily; purple, blue, and black more rarely. I didn't see any of the fabled white-scaled Zavaam, though I did see one with skin as bright and red as a cherry. It was believed by the first Tellurian settlers that these represented different ethnic groups; now we know that they are no more a distinction than hair or eye color among humans.
The human inhabitants of Venusport are diverse as well, drawn from all nations. The city is not segregated, and I saw Black Tellurians alongside their white counterparts, a Vietnamese pulling a rickshaw, signs written in Cyrillic and Latin script. I knew it was not perfect – there were gangs, and race riots, and the city was awash with mercenaries from the former Venusian Reich, which persisted for three years after Berlin fell before its final collapse, its cities devoured by the jungle – along with most of their inhabitants.
Other surfaces were plastered with posters and flyers, printed on waterproof plastic. One that I saw over and over was an election poster for a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman, matronly and staring off stoically into the middle distance. The posters proclaimed her as Gertrud Mitternich and bore her slogan – "a New Future for Venusport". That was my first time hearing of Mitternich, former Nazi and future Mayor of Venusport.
Some of the citizens of Venusport covered themselves with rain ponchos and hats, or wore waders or sea boots. Few carried umbrellas, the light drizzle being nothing compared to the hurricanes that sometimes fell on the city. Some wore little at all – shorts and sandals were in abundance, most of the men were topless and some of the women were as well. Others only wore athletic bras or bikini tops. Most of the Zavaam women were completely naked; few seemed to take notice of it.
The streets were choked with traffic; buses, bicycles and rickshaws, pedestrians, pack-lizards. A thirty-foot slurpasaurus took up most of the street, steered by a Zavaam merchant and laden with baggage. Its splay-legged posture and dragging tail betrayed it as no true relative of Tellurian dinosaurs, which we now know to have been active and upright creatures.
I left the busy main streets and wandered along cramped and winding side alleys. It was quieter here, save for the background roar of the spaceport and the near-constant susurration of rain, the water sluicing off buildings and into the streets. I understand greatly the psychological disorder known as "rain madness" that afflicts some who come to Venus, brought on by the incessant sound of rainfall.
I stopped outside a small shack, jammed between a warehouse and a pawn shop. Strange symbols were painted over the doorway, the awning hung with windchimes and odd talismans. The sign next to the door proclaimed, in English: "FORTUNES TOLD – CURSES REMOVED – REAL VENUSIAN MAGIC!", and then in Russian: "DIVINATION AND SPIRITUAL ADVICE FOR DISCERNING CUSTOMERS", and finally a string of Venusian writing, which I couldn't read.
Another sign, smaller and with neater English writing had been tacked onto the door itself: "Need some help?"
I have to admit, I did. I hadn't come to Venus looking for anything, only trying to get away from everything else. I was aimless, and troubled by my experiences. I'd heard stories of Venusian magic, and my experiences with the psychic Gil'gal had left me open-minded; I assumed at the time that Venusian "witches" were just the local manifestation of psychic abilities. I opened the door and entered the witch's shack.
An Encounter in Venusport (Part 2)(NSFW)
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
CW: Explicit sexual content
The Venusian witch provides Maggie with some much-needed relief.
The Venusian witch provides Maggie with some much-needed relief.
I found myself in a tight, cozy room – the natural resins the Zavaam use for waterproofing their homes are quite effective. A small, round table with a bowl and an assortment of strange implements dominated the room, surrounded by low chairs and cushions. A heady, aromatic smoke rose from an earthenware lamp suspended from the ceiling along with a taxidermied specimen of a reptilian, some kind of aquatic Venusian predator. The walls were plastered in resin and sprouted bioluminescent fungal growths. A sort of curtain concealed the back room, and a scaled hand pulled it back as the witch entered.
She had purple scales flecked with blue and gold, irises so dark that her pupils seemed to swallow her entire eye, and wore nothing save a woven net, draped about her shoulders and falling just to the top of her thighs. Little charms and sprigs of plant matter were hung in the netting, but in truth it concealed nothing at all.
"You come seeking guidance?" she asked in English, and with a fairly fluid accent at that. I nodded, and she motioned for me to sit, then crossed to the door of her shack and drew the bolt. "For privacy," she explained.
She sat, not across the table but directly next to me, facing me with her legs folded underneath her. We sat eye-to-eye, and I found my breathing growing deeper and steadier as I inhaled the aromatic smoke. It became difficult to look at anything other than her eyes.
"I'm…" I began to speak, to ask a question or state my purposes I did not know, but she cut me off.
"Do not speak. I will discover what troubles you."
She took my hand and inspected my palm, her thin-lipped mouth moving silently, revealing thin, sharp teeth. Her delicate nails traced my swordswoman's callous.
"You are a fighter. I sense great rents torn in your soul. The missing holes left by love, of people and of…groups of people."
"My country. My city," I offered. She nodded in understanding.
"You seek to give yourself in service to a worthy cause, but have been hurt. Loss afflicts you grievously."
She sat back in her chair, spreading her legs. I unconsciously followed her movements, then mentally chided myself and returned my gaze to her eyes. She smirked – her eyebrows were thin lines of gold scales that could have been painted on her skin, and she raised one inquisitively.
"I sense another presence in your life. A woman? Someone who you have a connection to...though it is raw and exposed."
"Yelena?"
She nodded.
"You will encounter her again soon. Arkaagur Zerond will guide you. She has a great destiny in store for you."
"Arkaagur Zerond?" I asked.
"The goddess of Stanaa, the planet that you call Venus."
"What destiny? Please, tell me."
"Some things we must discover for ourselves." She tilted her head to the side, inspecting me. "You desire me, don't you? I would give myself to you."
"Me? I- I couldn't…" I felt my shame returning; to have my gaze recognized only mortified me, so afraid I was of judgement.
"Why not? We are both women, we both feel desire, it would only be natural."
Her logic was sound, yet all the same I couldn't make myself believe she actually wanted me.
"Why would you…give yourself to me?"
"Because you need it. I provide many kinds of help, Tellurian."
The air was thick and cloyingly aromatic. My thoughts were soft and airy, but I knew that I wanted her. Her slender, delicate limbs, the lines of her body, they stamped themselves on my mind. I wanted to see her underneath me, spine arched like a bow. Her purple skin would look such a contrast with my hands on it, I thought. I looked deeper into her eyes, dark liquid pools that seemed to swallow me up.
I stood over her, caressing the side of her face, and she curled her fingers into my belt and pulled my shorts down.
"Allow me, please…"
She sat me down and climbed on top of me, gyrating her hips. I grabbed onto her waist, pulling her down into my lap.
"You're gorgeous," I murmured. She just hissed with appreciation as she ground her hips down against me, and I obliged her by dipping my fingers between her lower lips, exploring the pink and purple flower between her legs. Our breasts pressed together, my nipples rubbing against the smooth, bumpy texture of her scales.
The witch – I never got her name – was patient, endlessly responsive as I familiarized myself with her body, allowing me to become surer and more dominant. I held her tight with one hand and with the other I brought her to the heights of pleasure, moaning at the flex of her stomach as she rolled her hips against my fingers. In time though, she insisted on serving me. She moved down my body, dragging her tongue across my skin, tasting the sweat that had run into my cleavage. Then she dropped to her knees between my legs.
I truly needed it, and she took all the time in the world bringing me to climax. I squeezed her head between my thighs, locking my legs around her and riding out my orgasm on my face, but she didn't seem to mind.
When I was finished, I finally pushed her away and closed my eyes for a moment. I slipped into a darkness of thoughts and sensations that I could barely grasp. My sense of self was flung about in a whirlpool.
The world pivoted around me, visions unfolding like blossoms; Yelena's wicked smile, myself swinging a sword in desperate battle, organic rockets rising above the jungle on pillars of flame. A mind that is to our mind as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, an intellect vast and hot and passionate, regarded Tellus with hungry eyes, and slowly and surely drew its plans against it.
I saw her. Call her what you will; the goddess of Venus, the collective conscious of the Zavaam, Arkaagur Zerond. She appeared to me as a vast black pit brimming with thought. I felt her personality, if you can call it that – she was fecundity itself, the growth and diversification of life constantly seeking to take on new forms and fill new niches. Her world was a chaotic dance, in which infinitely complex interactions somehow added up into a patterned whole, moving at her direction. I perceived, for a second, the unfathomable rhythm of her dance, one that incorporated everything from the orbit and rotation of the planet itself down to my very heartbeat.
When I recovered, I was lying naked on a couch. The heady smoke had been cleared from the air, and in its place was some clean floral scent. The witch was sitting next to me, brewing a cup of tea.
"Drink this – it will clear your head." I stared at her, trying to comprehend what I had just experienced. "Drink," she said again, pushing the cup into my hands. I did; it cleared my head, and I found myself feeling better than I had in a long time, certainly since coming to Venus – to Stanaa.
"Thank you," I told her sincerely. "Your payment-"
"No payment," she said, "Arkaagur Zerond has plans for you. She has spoken."
With that, she pulled the curtain aside and vanished into the back room. It was as if none of it had even happened.
I found myself again on the streets of Venusport. I judged that I had been awake for over eight hours. It was a strange thought, since the sky was suffused with the same overcast light as any other point in the long Venusian day.
In search of somewhere to get my bearings and plan my next move, I wandered into a bar. Almost automatically, I pushed the door open, hearing the hiss of cool air escaping. I hadn't realized how humid it had been until I stood in a perfectly air-conditioned room. I wiped the sweat from my face and neck as I approached the bar. The décor was typical Venusian Frontier, tropical hardwood finish and stainless steel polished to a mirror shine. There were five or six other patrons, and an olive-skinned man with a bald head tending bar. We exchanged maybe five words as I ordered a gin and tonic and sat down in a booth.
I mulled over my options. I thought about looking for work, or finding passage to one of the Zavaam city-states, when the door hissed again and four men entered.
"I hate this city, what a disgusting shithole," their leader said, in English thickly accented with German. His compatriots laughed. I didn't need their German accents to identify them; their plethora of tattoos told me what they were. Nazis. Skinhead mercenaries. And their leader was a man I recognized even by reputation, from his eyepatch and cruel face twisted by a dueling scar; Hans Deiter Wessler, a war criminal wanted on three worlds.
I glanced at the bartender; you can tell a lot about a venue by the sort of clientele it allows, but he seemed intimidated by them.
They didn't pay any attention me, just crowded around the bar and started drinking. The other patrons edged away from them, and I saw a few slip out the door. I inspected the mercenaries closely, noting their weapons, a collection of pistols, machetes, knives, brass knuckles; Wessler even had a tomahawk slung at his belt. One of the mercenaries had a pseudodactyl on his shoulder – a furry, bat-winged mammal, with tiny ears and a long, narrow mouth full of needle-sharp teeth. It turned its huge, glossy black eyes on me and made a noise very like a quack.
"Is there nowhere in Venusport to get a proper beer? Damn!"
"Disgusting place, it should all be torn down," Wessler said, his one eye roving over the other patrons. I still had my revolver and knife; my hand was creeping towards my belt as I contemplated making a break for it; violence seemed imminent.
Before I could move, someone sat across from me. I looked up sharply, ready to spring into action, but my breath caught in my chest as I looked into the blue eyes of Yelena Belovna.
"Hello, love," she purred.
She wore a rain poncho that concealed most of her body, and her head was shaved. Her hands were laid flat on the table; they looked to be encased in skintight gloves made of some shiny black material, perhaps leather or latex.
"Yelena. You look well," I said dumbly. She smiled that private smile of hers and leaned forward.
"Why are you on Stanaa?"
"I came looking for you," I said, my breathing short. I reached halfway across the table for her hand before I checked myself.
"You found me, love," she said. "What did you plan on doing with me?"
Her eyes glinted. God help me, but she was beautiful. I wanted to do a dozen things at that moment; scream at her, cry, lunge across the table and kiss her.
"I need…" I began to say, but I couldn't say what I needed.
"Oh, Maggie, I see you're the same old you. Rudderless, are we?"
"Yes, tear the whole city down," Wessler said again, loudly, "Starting with the neighborhoods inhabited by those disgusting-"
I will not bother to recount every slur that dripped from that man's mouth. Suffice it to say that at this point, Yelena glanced up at the Nazis, still smiling – but the smile no longer reached her eyes.
"Do you still have my present, love?" she asked. Under the table, my hand went to my revolver. I nodded. "Good," she purred. Then she stood up and grabbed a chair.
One of the mercenaries looked towards her, not understanding the meaning of her action. I saw the twitch of his hand towards the pistol tucked in the back of his belt, the other Nazis standing upright with casual arrogance.
"Hey girlie-"
She swung the chair overhead in both hands and hit him over the head with it. He shouted in pain as the chair splintered over him.
The other Nazis drew their weapons, cursing at Yelena. I moved smoothly to my feet in a trained firing stance, drawing my revolver and firing two shots at a Nazi who had managed to get his own gun out. Blood blossomed from his leg and his chest, near the bottom of his ribcage, and he collapsed.
The pseudodactyl took flight, beating its wings and shrieking.
A third Nazi wrestled a machete from his belt and lunged at me. I drew my own blade – a knife made for a Martian warrior, but in my hands it was closer to a sword. We crossed blades, locking the hilts together; I realized with a shock that the man was bigger and stronger than me, and I was still weak from the transition to Venusian gravity. I was not used to fighting stronger opponents at that, and I think he very nearly had the better of me. Wessler circled us, tomahawk in one hand and a bush knife in the other. He stalked like a wolf looking for an opening, but Yelena was at my side, a strange blade in her hands.
It was about as long as her forearm, gleaming with an iridescence like mother-of-pearl, the basket hilt formed into a strange spiral like a conch shell. An organic blade; grown, not made, harvested from the sword-conch of the Venusian world-ocean, traditionally used by Zavaam seafarers and pirates.
She took on a fencing stance, flawless, elegant, and began a deadly dance with Wessler. Her poncho swirled around her; in the middle of combat, I could only register flashes of their duel, but I could have sworn that as the hem of her poncho flew up, I caught a glimpse of her legs, encased in the same black material as her hands.
I leapt back, trying to put some distance between myself and my opponent, and his machete slashed down, missing me by inches. He still was too close for me to use my revolver without leaving myself open. The mercenary Yelena had knocked over with a chair was struggling to his feet, blood streaming from a gash on his shaved head; I hopped to the side and kicked him, hard, in the jaw. Blood flew, along with a tooth.
Yelena shouted in triumph as she scored a hit on Wessler, a stab wound in his chest, though it didn't seem deep enough to hit anything vital. I caught her gaze, saw the wicked gleam in her eye, and we experienced a moment of understanding. I must admit, it was exhilarating to have that moment of synergy in combat, a rare and bloody intimacy. We switched opponents, her ducking under my outstretched arm to thrust her blade into the heart of my man, while I fired over her head, clipping Wessler's arm.
Wessler cursed in German – I'm fairly sure he called us bitches. Yelena and I now turned to face him, weapons at the ready. He looked between us, seething with rage – then made a break for the door.
"Fascist coward," Yelena said with obvious satisfaction.
The man I had kicked rolled to his feet, pistol in his hand, but I spun and lunged, my outstretched arm driving my knife into his chest. A lock of shock crossed his face, and the pistol fell from his nerveless fingers. He toppled to the floor a moment later, blood pooling under him.
Yelena and I stood alone in the bar; the other patrons had cleared out. The pseudodactyl was perched above the bar, hissing at us, while the proprietor emerged from cover loading a shotgun.
"You two had best leave before the police arrive," he said as he walked around the bar towards the remaining mercenary, who was trying to crawl away, leaving a trail of blood behind him. Yelena grabbed my wrist, and we ran.
Behind me I heard the Nazi plead, "W-wait-" before the sound of the shotgun going off silenced him.
That's Venusport for you.
We ran through the rainy streets, turning corners and cutting through alleyways to distance ourselves from the bar. We finally ducked into a side alley and came to a stop. Yelena was laughing breathlessly as she slumped against the wall – giggling, like we were schoolgirls that had gotten away with some naughty prank.
She looked at me, that manic gleam still in her eyes.
"Oh, Maggie, that was fun!" she burbled.
Now, I hate Nazis as much as the next woman, and have no problem giving them what they deserve, but I have always seen fighting as a serious and only occasionally necessary affair, to be used as a last resort. I have never taken pleasure in it, and Yelena's attitude discomfited me.
But I couldn't think of that for long, not when I was looking at her face, her bright eyes, her smile.
"Yelena…"
I stepped towards, arms outstretched – and she fell into them, kissing me, letting me push her back against the wall of the alley and pin her there as if I couldn't bear to let her escape me again. I moaned as I tasted her, vodka and something very like mint, and some strange bitter aftertaste. It was perfect for her.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, after I finally pulled away. She ran her gloved fingers through my hair, and I shuddered and buried my face in her neck.
"Looking for the same thing as you," she murmured. I felt her hook her leg around my waist, and I suddenly pushed back, my hand brushing against that strange black material. It was smooth, yielding, completely like latex to the touch.
She leaned back against the wall, legs planted in a wide stance as I leaned over her, braced against the concrete.
"You have a lot to explain," I murmured. She shook her head as if I didn't understand; of course, I didn't.
The rain was falling harder now. Yelena glanced up at it before meeting my gaze again. Rain streaked across her face. She grabbed my wrist.
"Come back to my hotel room."
An Encounter in Venusport (Part 3)(NSFW)
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
CW: Explicit sexual content
Yelena and Maggie make up.
Yelena and Maggie make up.
Yelena's hotel room was fairly squalid – unfinished Venusian hardwood, an air conditioner that leaked more than it cooled anything, a table and two chairs, a dirty refrigerator, a cracked mirror over a bed strewn with tangled, stained sheets. It smelled faintly of mildew and the oddly comforting scent of rotting wood. The windows were open, a faint mist coming in through the screen as raindrops pattered against it. I pulled a chair out and watched Yelena as she paced.
"The Zavaam – the Venusians, as you call them. They're angry at us. They hate what we're doing to their planet."
At the time we weren't aware of the scope of our impact. Dumping pesticides and defoliants on the jungle, washing it into the water system, the deforestation, drilling for oil and burning it; these things added up over time, on Venus as we later learned they did on Tellus.
That was to say nothing of what we had done to the Zavaam themselves – the German colonization project alone had displaced millions.
"The planet is angry with us, Maggie. Arkaagur Zerond. You know of her?" I nodded hesitantly; I still didn't fully comprehend my vision, but I knew that some intelligence greater than ours was present on Venus. Yelena continued. "She views us as a foreign invader. And she will fight back against us.
There's a war coming, Maggie. She could kill millions on Tellus, unless we can change the way we live on this planet."
I looked at her, finding her passion unfamiliar. I doubted at the time that Arkaagur Zerond could wreak such havoc on Tellus.
"I thought you didn't believe in causes," I said. Her hand drifted to her stomach, over where her uterus used to be.
"I didn't believe there were any worthy causes. This is one."
She looked out the window, silent for a moment.
"Planet of the Women. Hah!" she snorted derisively. "There are no women on Venus."
"No women? But the Zavaam-"
"Tellurian 'women' are a class imagined by the men who rule society. They define us as everything they are not, force us to become what they think we should be. The Zavaam have no men, and so they have no women."
At the time I didn't fully understand, and I said nothing.
She looked back at me, uncertainly. "I need to show you something."
I nodded my assent, and she stepped back, untying her rain poncho and letting it fall from her to pool around her feet.
Her whole body below the neck was encased in a suit of that strange black material, skintight and perfectly smooth. I could see every curve of her body, compressed by the material – and Yelena was a woman of abundant curves. Over that she wore a harness that held her shell-blade, a machete, and several pouches. She unbuckled the harness and hanged it from the back of the other chair.
"What is that?" I asked, rising to my feet. She smiled, turning elegantly on her toes to look down at herself, and showing off the tight curve of her rear.
"Lovely, isn't it? It's a living thing, a symbiotic, colonial organism. It protects me from the jungle, from the environment. A protective layer for my skin."
"You've been living in the jungle?" I asked, reaching out to caress her side, to feel the material and the gentle yield of her curves under it. That manic glint returned to her eyes.
"I've been deep in the jungle, Maggie, doing the bidding of Arkaagur Zerond."
It seemed my dear Yelena had found religion. Personally, I have never been religious – my parents were scientists, I was a woman of science. My experiences on Mars and then on Venus had convinced me there were greater powers than man at work in the universe, but I continued to doubt whether they should be worshiped.
"What does she want from us?" I asked. I loved Yelena, and I, too, was desperate for a cause, and I could feel myself being drawn in. Maybe this was the purpose the witch had spoken of, maybe this was the meaning of my vision.
"We cannot live on this world as foreign bodies. We have to integrate with it, as the Zavaam have, become part of Arkaagur Zerond's Great Dance. We have to stop this War Between the Worlds."
She leaned in, her lips close to mine.
"How?" I asked. I let her push me along, and when the back of my legs hit the bed, I sat down. She spread my thighs, planting her knee between them and pushing it forward. She took my head in her hands, and I grabbed onto her hips.
"Come into the jungle with me. You would be amazed what the Zavaam are building out there – what they're growing."
She kissed me again, and suddenly the conversation didn't seem so important.
We spent hours refamiliarizing ourselves with each other's bodies. I had acquired a number of new scars since our last time together, and she was eager to explore all of them, with lips and fingers. As for her, I was fascinated by the suit that encased her. My hands hardly ever left her body, as if I was afraid that the moment I let her go she would vanish again.
It quickly became evident that the material of her strange, organic suit was thin enough that she could feel my touch through it – my touch made her arch her back, pushing her breasts into my hands, and I admired the way my fingers sank into the material and the flesh below. I may have loved her, but I also had my frustrations with her, and she had no issue with me taking them out on her. Suffice it to say that she received the pain in the spirit with which it was intended.
The witch's attention had brought me some much-needed relief; that time with Yelena was healing. Once I had worked out my anger on her she was eager to please, willing to coax one orgasm after another out of me, almost like an apology for everything she had put me through. When her gloved hands touched me, it was almost with reverence. Her dexterous fingers encased in that material against my clit, inside me, awakened new pleasures for me. I longed for the memory of skin against skin, but her lips served, especially as she sought to press them against seemingly every inch of my body. She whispered things in my ear, promises of love and togetherness. If they were lies, then they were sweet and addictive.
In time passion gave way to affection, to lazy kisses and caresses. She relaxed, secure in my arms as I ran my hands over that smooth material, still fascinated by how the body I remembered had been changed. The Venusian day continued; it was like time had stood still, allowing us a whole world for ourselves. But the hours had grown long since I had last slept, and with the pleasurable post-coital haze came sleep, our limbs entwined at long last. The last thing I remember before sleep took me was her shallow breathing, her face pressed into the side of my neck.
***
When I awoke, Yelena was gone. I was almost angry with myself for being disappointed at all; I should have known better by now. But this time, something told me that it was different. Yelena had told me about her cause, about the jungle, she had invited me to follow her. This was her test, I decided; would I come looking for her?
I rose from the bed, looking around her room. I was uncertain of the hour, the world outside still being suffused in the overcast light of the Venusian day. My clothes and gear were strewn on the floor, and my revolver was still on the end table where I had left it.
There was a crate sitting on the table.
Naked, I approached it cautiously, inspecting it from every side. It was only about a foot across on each side and made of metal, the kind of container meant to keep something preserved at a certain temperature. Its outside was slick with condensation.
Breathing shakily, I removed the lid. Mist rose from it. Inside it was as I thought; piled folds of black material, very like latex. A suit like Yelena's, without a doubt intended for me.
My hand rose, moving towards the crate, then drew back. I must admit that now I was beginning to doubt Yelena. What if the organism living on her body was parasitic, and not symbiotic as she had told me? Her strange demeanor, her newfound fervor, were they in service of a worthy cause, or had she lost control of her mind? Was I truly so desperate for her, for anything to hold onto, that I would throw myself on the mercies of this alien planet? I wrestled with the decision for what could have been a few minutes or half an hour. I was sure, looking back, that I had made up my mind the moment I had opened the crate. The time I took was only to justify it, to give myself a reason to be drawn in by the inexorable gravity of my attraction to Yelena. Finally, I grabbed the suit and removed it from the crate.
It rippled in my hands, becoming more active. Already in too deep to release it, I draped it around me like a blanket, and on contact with my skin it reacted quickly.
I gasped as the suit wrapped itself around me, black folds circling my torso and limbs and growing across my skin. The folds merged together and tightened, compressing my curves. I fell back on the bed, arching my spine as it crept over my whole body, stopping only at my neck. I raised my hands, watching the suit close around them, forming gloves. I gasped as I felt it slide between my legs, covering me there as well. I laid still, feeling it settle, with only the faintest crawling sensation that soon subsided.
It was a strange feeling. I was totally caught in a snug embrace, evenly-distributed across my body. It was oddly comforting, and I instinctively relaxed.
I explored my body as if it were unfamiliar to me. The suit was incredibly flexible, adjusting with every movement to remain skin-tight. I found that it was thin enough for some sense of touch to be preserved, although the material was tough and durable. I could feel the texture of different surfaces, the sheets, the rough grain of the wooden headboard, even the gouges my nails had left during an especially passionate moment. When I ran my hands over the curves of my own body, when I groped my own breast, it was enough that I felt a thrill of pleasure.
My hand dipped between my thighs; it adhered to the contours of my mound, but if I pressed down enough, I could push the material ever so slightly between my lower lips. I bit back a moan as I explored the contours of my pussy, circling my clit. The feeling of the suit against my sensitive bud was by no means unpleasant. Rubbing my clit through the suit dulled the sensation just enough that only by pressing down hard could I find the stimulation I needed; I could have teased myself for hours and brought myself to a deeply satisfying orgasm.
But a sudden pounding at the door jolted me from my experiment.
"Yelena Belovna, we know you're in there!" shouted a man in angry Russian.
"Ministerstvo gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti!" announced a second voice rapid-fire, as something heavy landed against the door. They were agents of the Soviet Union's Ministry of State Security; the MGB.
The door splintered just as I lunged for my revolver, my fingers wrapping around it and finding the trigger just as the door gave way and two men burst in. Both were shaved and wearing loose shorts, button-up shirts stained with sweat, pointing pistols at me.
Truthfully, I think they were just as surprised by as I was by them; I imagined that a strange woman in a stranger bodysuit, Russian service pistol in her hand, registered to them as a threat, so they did not bother to further identify themselves or even order me to surrender.
I rose to my feet and fired at the second man, two shots at center of mass. He was slammed back against the wall by the force of the bullets and slid down, leaving a smear of blood on the wood paneling. At exactly the same time, the pistol wielded by the lead man flashed and jumped in his hands, and I felt a stab of pain in my side, just above my hip; miraculously, it passed through my body entirely, missing anything vital, and my mind shut out the pain.
Then he was on me almost immediately; it was not a large room.
My next shot went wild as he grabbed my wrist and twisted it, and with another wrench he forced me to drop my revolver. Panic shot through me along with the stabbing pain of bone grinding against bone, but I lashed out at his wrist, batting aside his own revolver; it skittered across the floor. He swept my foot out from under me, and we fell to the floor, him on top of me.
It was one of the most terrifying moments of my life, perhaps the closest I had come to certain death in many years. It was a battle of raw strength, and he was bigger, stronger, and on top of me. I panicked, seeing the emotionless look in his eyes, close enough to smell his bad breath. His hands found my throat and squeezed, putting all his weight on his hands. I saw darkness creep into the edges of my vision before it was over, strange spots floating in my vision. I swear that the memory of Princess Nezu dancing for me flashed before my eyes.
As I struggled for breath I fought, driving my knee into his rib cage, slamming the heel of my palm over and over into the side of his head. That dazed him, caused blood vessels to burst in his eye; he shook his head to clear it, relieving his grip on my throat ever so slightly.
My hand scrabbled wildly across the floor, and by some miracle touch the hilt of my knife where it had at some point been kicked under the bed. I grabbed it, tearing it from its scabbard and driving the point into his ribcage. His eyes went wide with shock, and he coughed blood as I pushed the blade deeper into his chest. It entered slowly, facing the resistance of muscle and fat.
He collapsed on top of me, fingers still locked around my throat – though now no longer squeezing, only frozen in death. I pried his fingers from my neck and crawled backwards, kicking him off me. I sucked in air in short, panicked breaths. I trembled, my back to the wall as I waited for either of the men to move, but they were both dead.
The first thought that came to my mind once my panic subsided was that I needed to leave the room, immediately. I stood up and started collecting my things. I hesitated at my clothes, wondering if it would draw more attention to me if I wore them over the suit.
I realized that walking through the streets, the suit hugging every line of my body – even the mound between my legs – would make me feel no different than walking around naked. The way the suit cupped and supported my breasts at least gave me a feeling of cover; I elected to pull on my shorts, belting on my weapons. I didn't need my sandals; the suit would protect my feet.
The pain from where I had been shot started to return then. I looked down and saw with a shock that the suit had already closed up over the wound. It hurt more every minute, but I judged that the wound was superficial; the suit may have even been helping me heal by preventing the flow of blood.
I wondered how the suit had come about, who had invented it, for I thought that such a useful and complicated thing could not have come about through natural evolution.
I inspected the two dead men. Neither bore any identification, and the contents of their pockets were inconclusive – pens, pocket knives, lighters, a compact mirror. Their guns were Makarovs, semiautomatic pistols and better than my own Nagant 1894. After a moment's consideration, I collected them and the spare clips of ammunition I found and added them to my pack.
I stopped to glance at myself in the mirror. The black suit covered everything below my neck, highlighting the lines of my muscles, supporting my breasts. The haggard look in my face was still there, but I felt more confident, surer of myself, and finally free of my burdens. I shouldered my pack, kicked the screen from the window, and climbed out onto the slanting roof.
Within the space of a few hours, I had left the bounds of Venusport and entered the jungle.