Haydn of Mars (19 page)

“What was
that
?” I asked.

“They don't like to be disturbed, girly.
 
Riles ‘em up and they sends up a tentacle or two.
 
Prob'ly bothered his sleep, we did.
 
But we're okay like fish now.
 
Back on course and all.
 
Almost there!”

And then there.
 
I couldn't believe the city of tents camped on this far shore.
 
They were brightly colored like a circus, red and blue and yellow.
 
Some even sported pennants at their tops, flapping in the breeze.
 
I counted at least twenty.

We pulled into a smart jetty, made of solid wood.
 
I counted three other boats of varying sizes, from dingy to small freighter.
 
Someone in short breeches was there to meet and help tie us down.
 
There were others milling about in similar uniform.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“Pelltier City, of course!” he answered, throwing the hatch up and clambering out.
 
He reached a paw down to help me up.

“I'm fine,” I said.

“Suit yourself,” he shrugged, and jumped away.

I help the still-swooning Jeffrey up the recessed ladder and over the top to the deck and then the dock.
 
It was indeed like a small city, with activity everywhere.
 
A small harbor crane was being moved into position to load a pallet of goods into the belly of the freighter.
 
Its smoke stack gave it away as a steamer, the first I had ever seen outside of pictures in books.

Pelltier was talking to a small group of men just off the dock, but when we approached he told them to “Get to it” and turned his smiled again on us.
 
“Follow, Jeff!” he ordered, and then took us through the maze of tents, each of which was open for business, each stocked to the tent poles with goods in open crates and boxes.
 
One green tent held fresh produce, another housewares, another tobacco (how my mouth watered!) and liquor and other vice goods.
 
Pelltier had a sudden thought and stopped here, spoke to the woman in charge and then took something from an open crate.
 
He then turned, grinning, and tossed to me.

“Catch, girly!”

It was a rack of cigarette packs.

“Finest Hellas tobacco!”

“Thank–” I began.

He laughed, waving off my thanks, and led us on.

Jeffrey had recovered at this point, and I could feel his anticipation grow.

“Pelltier, are you sure–”

“Oh, this one'll cost you, Jeff, and a pretty bit of change, too.”

We walked beyond the last tent, and kept walking, Jeffrey running ahead to catch up to Pelltier now.

The two of them went over a small rise and then down the slope, and when I caught up with them they were already in a wide pit.
 
Jeffrey stood with his eyes wide.

“The trick,” Pelltier was explaining, “was to move off the shoreline.
 
I thinks to myself, if they was here, wouldn't they move back a bit from the edge of the water?
 
More comfortable like.
 
So I ‘ad my boys dig around, and soon they comes up with Mr. Ugly ‘ere.
 
Actually, we calls ‘im Rex, just as a joke, you see.”

I climbed down into the pit and stood next to them.

“It's marvelous!” Jeffrey exclaimed.

Pelltier laughed.
 
“Not a good bargaining tactic, friend.
 
Your price jus' went up twen'y percen'!”

It was the skeleton of...something.
 
It was long and partially twisted along its length, as if it had died in agony.
 
It was similar to a feline skeleton but definitely not feline.
 
For one thing it was a bit taller, and the skull was more elongated, the teeth blunter.
 
The paws were not paw-like, the finger bones longer and ending not in claw retractors but just ending.
 
I had a hard time imagining what that paw looked like in life.
 
The feet were similar, the ankle bone more angular.
 
It was a very strange specimen.

“I must have it!” Jeffrey enthused.

Pelltier slapped him on the back.
 
“That's what I was counting on, ol' Jeff!
 
We can start da price wi' girly, here!”

“
What?
”

“The missy!
 
Ransom!
 
We can start by t'rowing ‘er into the bargain!”

“That's out of the question!”

Pelltier's face darkened.
 
“Why?”

I said, “Because I don't belong to anyone.”

Pelltier looked at me closely.
 
“I bet you don't at dat.”
 
He stared at me for a few more seconds and then sighed.
 
“All ri' then.
 
Worth a try, it was.”

From then on he totally ignored me, and he and Jeffrey got down to serious negotiations.

By the time Merlin arrived with the truck two hours later, the fossilized remains of Rex were ready to be loaded into the bed.
 
Pelltier begged us to stay for a meal, but Jeffrey, excited by his acquisition, wanted to get it home.

As we were getting ready to leave Pelltier came up to me and bowed.

“Beggin' your pardon, ma'am, but you would ‘ave made a fine girly.”

“I'm sure,” I said coolly.
 
“Is there anything you wouldn't buy and sell?”

“Not that I can think of.”
 
He laughed.
 

“How do you keep the F'rar from bothering you?”

He laughed even harder.
 
“Oh, dey tried,” he said.
 
“Dey tried, and good.
 
But they found in the end that it was easier to deal with us den bother us.”

“So you give them what they need and want.”

His laughter died as if a switch had been thrown.
 
“I wouldn't exactly say that, ma'am.”
 
He bowed, and went to make final arrangements with Jeffrey.

On the ride back I asked Jeffrey what he had given Pelltier in exchange for Rex.

He considered a moment, and then said, “Some scientific equipment and other goods.
 
The usual.”

“Aren't you afraid the technology you give him will end up in the hands of the F'rar?”

Jeffrey blinked.
 
“I hardly think so.
 
Pelltier is one of the fiercest rebel fighters in these parts.”

I considered this, and felt better about the rack of cigarettes I held in my hands.
 
I reached into my tunic and brought out the single cigarette Pelltier had given me, and lit it.

“By the way,” I asked Merlin, after I had lit the cigarette and felt the first hot, acrid bite of tobacco I had tasted in months, “do you know what Pelltier meant by calling me a girly?”

Merlin frowned in thought, and then said, “I don't know much about the customs of these pirates.
 
I did pass a tent filled with women of questionable employ, though.”

“Yes,” I said.
 
“I passed that tent.”

Jeffrey looked confused, so Merlin explained.

“What!”
 
Jeffrey cried in astonishment, stopping the truck (though I noted gently, so as not to disturb his treasure in the back).
 
“You mean he wanted to buy Ransom here for...?”

“Could be!” Merlin answered evenly, and winked at me.

As Jeffrey, blubbering outrage, started the truck up again and drove on, I looked out the window, and smoked, and said nothing.

More weeks went by.
 
The high heat of the summer came, and, just as quickly, passed.
 
I fell into a routine of sorts: up at dawn, breakfast with Newton, a few hours of apprenticeship with Merlin or Jeffrey and then the afternoons to sit in Newton's garden reading one of his books, or, if the spirit took me, a few minutes of bad music-making on the upright
tambon
in Newton's living room.
 
I made what I thought were discreet inquiries as to what went on in the chambers below which Merlin and I had stumbled onto that day, but found that most of the others were not even aware of it, or at least cared not to acknowledge its existence.
 
The door never appeared again while I watched.

One day while waiting for Newton to appear for dinner I drew down from the shelf in his study the picture book he had shown me that first night.
 
It was a warm afternoon, the last of the hot days, and too uncomfortable to sit in the garden.
 
The pink sandstone of the house provided a cooler reprieve, and I decided to stay in the study and read.

I opened the book at random, trying to match the skeletal outline of Rex in my mind to that of the pictures I saw.
 
Unfortunately, most of them were not standing figures but busts or head and shoulders only – and then I flipped the pages and the book opened to a particular page and I caught my breath.

The caption under the figure said: FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN.

And under that:
Composer
.

It was a full figure of an Old One with a mane of white hair and a chiseled, somehow noble look on his ugly, near naked face.
 
His eyes looked kindly, though, and in his long frame I could almost superimpose the bones that Jeffrey had purchased from Pelltier.

This, then, was the true origin of my name!

My mother, who had been so in love with music, must have known.
 
I flipped through the book looking for other composers and found two: a funny-haired fellow named Johann Sebastian Bach and a female Old One named Amy Beach.
 
There were pages missing from the book, though, and I supposed there were other music makers among the missing.

I turned back to the picture of Haydn and sat staring at it for many minutes.
 
I was so engrossed in it that at first I didn't hear the moaning issuing from somewhere in the house.

And then I did.

These were the same sounds I had heard nearly every night since staying in Newton's home.
 
If I had not come to take them for granted, I had long ago assumed they were produced by strange Newton himself – perhaps bemoaning the loss of the daughter in whose room I slept.
 
He had admitted her loss once during dinner, after an extra glass of wine, but then offered no explanation.
  
The next time I had broached the subject with him; he had turned cold and distant, and made it all too apparent that I was not to bring it up again.

But it was not Newton who cried.
 
For he was not home – was, in fact, hours away on an expedition with Merlin south of the city.
 
The two apprentices were not home, either.
 
They had left hours earlier on their weekly shopping chores.

I was alone in the house.

The moan came again, a mournful, distant sound.

I was not alone in the house.

I put the book back in its slot on the shelf and began my search at the far reaches of where I had been allowed in the past.
 
I found nothing, and the sounds came from a different part of the building.
 
Newton's own bedroom was off a second hallway near the front of the house.
 
It was usually locked, but today it had been left open.
 
By now the bereaved sounds had stopped, but I searched the room anyway, looking for hidden panels and doors.
 
There were none I could find.
 
The room was sparsely furnished compared to the rest of the house – a large bed platform, without head or footboard, a simple red coverlet.
 
There was a plain bed stand and dressing table, and a large mirror.
 
There were no pictures on the wooden-paneled walls.

I heard a moan again, and it seemed tantalizingly nearby, though not in the bedroom.

I retreated into the short hallway and waited.

The moan came again, to my right, where the bedroom was, but now muffled.

I went back into Newton's bedroom.

When the moan repeated, I went as if drawn by a magnet and stood before the full length mirror.

I felt along its edge, and, sure enough, it drew back on hidden hinges as a door, revealing a long, cool tunnel.

“Hello?” I ventured.

I was met by silence.

I stepped into the tunnel, feeling its immediate chill.
 
There was air circulating here.
 
I found a vent above my head, and another a few feet farther on.
 
It was dark, and I ended up feeling my way along the cool sandstone walls.