In the Courts of the Crimson Kings (30 page)

Errrkkk!

“No, the risk of degrading the hostage value of the Terran is too great. This analysis is in annoying contrast with my expectations.”

“It remains accurate, nonetheless.”

“At times I wonder why I tolerate you, Daiyar sa-Trowak,” the man said.

“My estimation is that the difficulty of finding another as talented and otherwise suitable as I restrains your annoyance below levels of malice lethal to me; also, that you appreciate that if I were easily intimidated, the reliability of my estimates would be compromised by a tendency to tell you what you wished to hear.”

“True; it is rarely wise to succumb to irritation. Keep the Terran restrained, but restore it to health as rapidly as possible. Also, be cautious; they are extremely strong and often irrationally aggressive.”

For the first time a little emotion came into Doctor Daiyar’s voice; a cool eagerness. “I have never had an opportunity to study a Terran’s physiology in detail before. The available written sources are frustratingly incomplete.”

“Be cautious; also, do not damage the specimen. My patience with the displeasing elements in our relationship does not extend to that degree, despite your generally high degree of utility from my perspective. You are categorically instructed to do no dissection or other destructive testing, as yet.”

I absolutely hate that word “yet”
, Jeremy thought. There was another prick on his arm, and consciousness contracted to a dot and went out.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 20th edition
University of Chicago Press, 1998

MARS
:
Political Forms

When studying Martian political history, we are confronted with a unique difficulty; there is only one living tradition, one political history, one political culture, that of the Crimson Dynasty and its derivatives. The reign of the Kings Beneath the Mountain continued for so long that it became effectively coterminous with the history of Martian civilization, and in practice no memory of previous eras remained. It is roughly as if the pharaohs of Egypt’s First Dynasty had ruled the entire Earth until a few centuries ago.

Hence it is almost impossible to deduce what features are due to the multimillennial reformatting of Mars by the Tollamune Emperors of Dvor Il-Adazar, wiping out any previous diversity of outlook, and which are due to the subtle but definite natural and genetically engineered physical-psychological differences between
homo sapiens sapiens
and
homo sapiens martensis
.

In theory, and to a large degree in practice, the Tollamune Emperors were absolute rulers whose pronouncements were law and who had no institutional check on their own authority besides their “recognition of proper procedure,” to translate literally the Demotic term also often rendered as “virtuous rule.” They ruled through a bureaucratic structure that also monopolized the higher grades of
tembst
, the biological technology that formed and still forms the basis of civilized Martian life. And they directed the huge public works that made that civilization possible, and whose loss has reduced the population of Mars to a fraction of its level during the Imperial era.

Their official ideology—
Sh’u Maz
, roughly translatable as “Sustained Harmony”—bears some resemblance to Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucian synthesis, but it lacks the transcendentalist elements and is rigorously centered on “this world,” expressing more modest aspirations. Despite this, it does contain lofty ethical elements; the most remarkable thing about it is that most of the Tollamunes seem to have followed it in practice as well as theory. It contains only one mystical element, the presumption that all past Emperors were “present” to advise the current holder of the Ruby Throne.

Hence the predominant tenor of Martian political life, even after the breakup of the planetary state, has been characterized as one of “low-pressure despotism.” While often ruthless, no known Martian rulers have been tyrant-monsters of the stamp of Wang Anshi, Timur-i-Leng, Francia, Mao, Hitler, or Stalin. Conversely, Martian history also shows few of the resistance heroes or “social bandits” of the stripe of Robin Hood or Hereward the Wake, or the many exemplars in Chinese history, and vanishingly few martyrs of any sort. The extreme cultural significance given to the continuation of the Lineage may also account for this. Alternatively, the alleged greater realism of Martian psychology may be a factor.

Mars, The Deep Beyond
On board the
Useful Burdens
above Tharsis
May 23, 2000 AD

“Who strives to frustrate the will of the Tollamune Emperor?” Teyud said, looking down at the
atanj
board.

As worded in the High Speech, it carried an inappropriate overtone. As Jeremy would have put it, she’d asked who the Bad Guys were. She moved a Brute to the central apex, a conventional opening.

The transport that Notaj had brought from Dvor Il-Adazar was of moderate size, but the captain’s cabin was comfortable in an austere fashion; she sat on a cushion between walls of laced fabric printed with leaf patterns in pale blue and green, and ate fresh strips of
rooz
meat with crisp piquant chopped
faqau
and an excellent
narwak
paste of musky pungency for dipping. The air was thin enough at this altitude to be slightly bothersome, but she countered it by taking deeper breaths. That was sufficient if no great physical effort was necessary.

Notaj touched his finger to the Despot on his side of the game; it was the dark set, and so that piece could also be called the
Usurper
. Though, of course, a successful Usurper became Despot in all truth . . . and not only in the Game of Life.

From the outside of the hull came occasional thumping and scraping sounds. The crew were working there in oxygen masks, replacing the
Useful Burdens
’ paint scheme with another that would suggest an origin in a mercantile firm of the
Wai Zang
towns. It was a necessary delay, but . . .

Her hand clenched a little as her mind reverted to Jeremy; she saw his impossible, grotesquely charming grin at some whimsical joke . . . and thought of his possible excruciation or death. Then she pushed the thought aside with an effort of trained will, forcing her breathing and heartbeat to calmness. So often, feedback from body to mind was as important as the reverse.

If he has been taken alive, he will be kept alive to use against me; possibilities for action will present themselves. If not, not
.

Instead she focused on the passing desolation below the flier, where the line of a dead canal glinted as it stretched through un-peopled wilderness. It was obviously imperative that she favorably impress Notaj; visible fretting over an erotic relationship, and with a Terran at that, would not do so. Thoughtful Grace prided themselves on their self-control and discipline.

Sustained Harmony
, she told herself.
Duty to
Sh’u Maz
and the Lineage, the Dynasty. Yet perhaps the
vaz-Terranan
have corrupted me in part. I become convinced there is also a duty to individuals for their own
sweet sake. Though I overcome all resistance and reign as many centuries as did the First Emperor, it would be . . . deeply unsatisfying . . . if you were not there, Jeremy
.

“Three parties seek to thwart your father,” Notaj said, making his first move. “It is a multiplayer game. First is a faction of the Imperial bureaucracy alarmed at the prospect of the Supremacy forcing them to engage once more in the lapsed functions attached to their offices. These, to a high degree of probability, are those who sought to kill you through their hired irregular Coercives.”

The term he used carried overtones of “pirate”. The two ships Faran hired had probably been pirates, or at least rather dubious freelancers.

Notaj continued, “They are prepared to wait until the Supremacy’s natural life span ends, but the prospect of a young and vigorous heir continuing these policies arouses their extreme distaste, the more so as it frustrates long-held expectations.”

Teyud nodded. “And since my acknowledgment is not yet official, they may seek to kill me and claim that they merely execute lawful punishment on the product of genomic treason. They will at all costs seek to prevent me coming into the public presence of the Supremacy.”

“Correct. Then there is Prince Heltaw sa-Veynau, an Imperial Kinsman of great resources and a one-sixteenth degree of relationship to the dynastic genome. And runner-up in the last Mountain Tournament.”

“He does
not
wish me to die?” Teyud said, raising a brow. “Strange, since he would be in a strong position to claim the Ruby Throne if my father were to fall without issue. But one would expect subtlety in a player of that level.”

“His calculations extend beyond the Throne to merging his lineage with the Tollamune genome. An offspring of yours and his would be in an unassailable position, and he has ample time to socialize it through to adulthood with a parental bonding.”

“And hence I must be preserved for the necessary reproduction.”

“Your ova or a reproductive sump would do, but that would introduce a higher degree of uncertainty; the
tembst
is not faultless.”

“Clarify his position,” Teyud said.

“In the last decade he has been required to reside at court,” Notaj said; that meant
not trusted out of sight
. “He occupies the Palace of Restful Contemplation in the northeastern quadrant, and possesses extensive estates in personality and as lineage head. Specifically, financial instruments, farmland, structural plantations, and water rights from the Grand Canal, and more near Long Aywandis, and manufacturing shops with the appropriate
De’ming
, skilled employees, and managers.”

Aywandis was the nearest of the other great volcanoes, never a city-state as wealthy as Dvor Il-Adazar, but rich enough by any other standard thanks to the water it reaped from the air. It was a typical asset profile for a prince.

“He retains the maximum permitted number of Coercives, and they are of high quality and well equipped; most are of lineages long associated with his, rather than independent contractors. And he owns
Paiteng-
breeding properties and training specialists. Hence I consider his involvement in the attack on your landship, particularly given the nonlethal emphasis, to be of a probability approaching unity.”

Teyud nodded thoughtfully. “You have maps of his properties here?”

He silently handed her a folder bound with vermillion tape; she undid it and began flipping up the pages, imprinting them on her memory.

“And the third party?” she asked, as she worked.

“The Terran.”

“Of the, ah, Eastbloc?” she said doubtfully; he’d used the singular-individual form of the definite article.

“No.
They
are less of an independent factor now than when you were conceived; subtle but energetic and successful measures have been taken to contain their autonomy. I speak of Franziskus Binkis. His relationship with your father is complex and ambiguous, with elements of both mutual aid and rivalry.”

He lowered his voice, and leaned forward in the position of clandestine-confidences: “He arrived in a most extraordinary manner, in the Shrine . . .”

Mars, City of Dvor Il-Adazar (Olympus Mons)
Pits beneath the Palace of Restful Contemplation
May 25, 2000 AD.

Captivity is boring beyond belief
, Jeremy Wainman thought.
I’m going crazy in here!

In the adventure fiction he’d read as a child—which nearly everyone of his generation on a Mars-and-Venus-besotted Earth had read—there had been plenty of heroes and heroines locked in various dungeons. The heroes escaped, and the various princesses, girlfriends, and sidekicks waited patiently offstage while the hero went through exciting adventures to rescue him, her, or it.

Yeah, except I’m beginning to suspect
I
am the fucking love-interest who patiently waits
, he thought.
I don’t even get a nice, dramatic revolving prison at the South Pole with the vicious daughter of the priest-kings waving a dagger at me just before the door cuts off the view that would keep you-know-who from going insane, at least, but I’ve got nobody to talk to at all!

Though to be fair—at the moment he wasn’t feeling inclined to be fair to the people who’d locked him in here, but long training made him look at things from other viewpoints—Martians were a lot less vulnerable to sensory deprivation than earthlings. Their minds didn’t become disorganized as easily, they didn’t experience that minutes-stretch-into-hours thing, and at seventh and last they could drop into hibernation or semihibernation and just doze long periods away. They wouldn’t enjoy being locked up alone indefinitely, but it wouldn’t be the sort of mind-destroying ordeal it would be for him, either.

They can put the thumb up the bum and mind in neutral, as the Brits say
, he thought; he’d worked a dig in England once, near Amesbury, and he’d heard the landlord at the Treadmill use the expression.
But I’m not a Martian. I can’t turn myself off, no matter how much I want to
.

Even Doctor Daiyar’s brief daily visits had become something to treasure, despite her lack of bedside manner. He’d mentioned that, and she’d given him the hairy eyeball and noted that she was not a pediatric specialist. Adults here considered the need for that sort of reassurance childish.

At least the cell they’d locked him in wasn’t altogether cramped; it was a piece of tunnel twelve feet long driven into dark
brown rock, three-quarters of a circle in profile, with the bottom fourth cut off by the floor. A bench in the stone at one end held a pallet and, after some complaint, they’d given him a sleeping fur that let him keep from shivering. A hole in one corner served for waste disposal, though not as well as it would for a local. Terran wastes were wetter and more abundant, and it smelled a little even with the heavy ceramic plug in place. Another hole halfway up the rear wall over the sleeping bench served for ventilation; it was about the size of his head and covered with a grill—no convenient ductwork sized for crawling here!