March 5, 1779
Father,
We are upon the seas of Venus, where ships of His Majesty’s Navy are rare, as England’s holdings here are few indeed. The massive Spanish presence upon the Green Planet is the legacy of De Soto, Cortez and Pizarro, among many others. So we must tread carefully. Whilst we are not at war with the Spanish, our relations with them are not entirely cordial, either.
We make for Puerto Verde, the largest port on the planet. Here, the Spanish export sugar cane, the strange Venusian tobacco plants and the bounty of both harvest and mines. They also engage in a hearty slave trade as well, as the small Venusian lizard-people, while strong and hale enough, cannot match mankind’s advances in weaponry.
As we prepare to row one of our boats onto shore, I find myself envious of the duties of our men. They have but a handful of serious tasks aboard ship, whether they be topsmen or gunners. They learn through repetition and rote, through methods passed down by generations of seamen before them. They are the wheels of our great machine, and I am proud to lead such fine men.
As an officer, however, there are times when one is called upon to do far more than sail a ship, and our time upon Venus will be one such occasion…
Weatherby walked uncertainly over the cobblestoned streets of Puerto Verde, his shoes sending pangs of ache into his feet with each step. It did not help matters one whit that the clothes he now wore were thickly woven and embroidered, for the close, humid Venusian air was unforgiving.
It had been Finch’s idea, naturally, that they pose as gentlemen adventurers during their investigations on Venus. Morrow had initially suggested they be disguised as common seamen in order to inquire about the Groene Draeck, but it was fairly evident that Finch was wholly unsuited to the task. Weatherby had considered leaving him aboard the Daedalus, but there were already precious few aboard who spoke Spanish, and among Finch’s talents was a facility for languages.
They alit upon the seas of Venus two days prior, swooping in from the southern pole and riding the aurorae—that mystical gathering of sun-current and alchemical essence—down onto the waters with a surprisingly gentle crest. From there, it was a relatively simple matter of sailing toward the port whilst staying undetected for as long as possible. Venus’ clouds, fog and humid gloom served as an effective camouflage in that regard.
Daedalus weighed anchor well north of the town, discharging the search parties ashore for a more subtle entrance into the Spanish holding. Lts. Plumb and Foster did indeed adopt the guise of sailors, while it fell to Weatherby to become an aristocratic gentleman alongside Finch. The clothes he now wore were borrowed from the doctor, and Weatherby had to order Finch to stop demanding promises they be returned intact.
Plumb and Foster, each accompanied by a Spanish speaker from among the crew, kept to the docks and warehouses in their search. Weatherby and Finch, meanwhile, climbed up the cobbled streets toward the better section of town. “Better” was a relative term, of course, for Weatherby was sure he had never seen such a hive of wretched excess and sinful villainy in his life. And having just come from Elizabeth Mercuris, this was a bold statement indeed.
Yet this was not the simple excess of the British mining outpost. No, the Spanish, laden with gold and slaves from the Venusian mountains, took their debauchery to a more sublime height. Even the lowliest sailors put on their finest garb, such as it was, to go into port. There were no bordellos that Weatherby could see. Instead, it seemed every so-called lady upon the streets was more than welcoming to any proposition, whether she wore a scullery maid’s dress or the finery of a noblewoman.
And yes, public drunkenness was common; it seemed almost fashionable to be drunk at midday, and those so indisposed had an air of sodden satisfaction about them. Of course, despite the clouds and humidity, Puerto Verde was indeed quite green and verdant, and there was a certain lush warmth to the place that appeared to lull its inhabitants into a state of happy stupor.
Then there were the slave markets, one of which they had to pass through en route to the town’s better inns. There, the diminutive Venusian lizard-people were chained to the wall by the dozens, and kept in large metal cages by scores. The Spanish, who first colonized Venus in the 1500s, had quickly developed a burgeoning trade in Venusian slave labor, for these primitives were easily subdued by the superior stature and technology of Men. In mere decades, the various tribes among the Venusians—and there were many such clans stretching across the green planet’s three continents—had taken to warring amongst each other simply to provide the losing side to the slavers. The Spanish, understandably, were quite content with this arrangement.
The Venusians that Weatherby and Finch spied were barely a yard tall, all long gangly limbs covered in tiny green and blue scales, with cats’ eyes and beak-like snouts and a plethora of frills and horns upon their heads that looked quite similar to ladies’ fans. As the two Daedalus officers walked past, the creatures’ odd croaking voices begged for release in various Venusian dialects as well as a few human tongues besides. Weatherby wondered where they would end up—on Earth? The horrible Spanish gold mines on the moons of Mars? Perhaps the Ganymedean plantation farms or the blistering iron mines of Io?
Thankfully, Weatherby’s aching feet and heat-stoked exhaustion took his mind off such distasteful thoughts. By the time the duo reached the first of what would be many taverns and inns, Weatherby was drenched in sweat, and Finch looked at his loaned clothing with barely veiled dismay. They both hoped they would find their quarry quickly. Morrow had consulted the ship’s orrery and determined they could stay but three days. Weatherby was sure he would melt completely away before then; no doubt Finch would consider his outfit lost entirely at that point.
While it was moderately cooler in the taverns, their investigations took time. Finch was quite adept with his Spanish, and Weatherby could see that, despite his vices, the doctor had a natural affinity for personal interactions that, at times, escaped the young lieutenant. He surmised this was a byproduct of his aristocratic upbringing, and said as much to the doctor in between establishments.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Finch said as they walked to the fourth tavern of the afternoon. “I have known many so-called noblemen who regularly make themselves fools with but the slightest utterance. It is intelligence and confidence, Mr. Weatherby, which make a man personable, though this must be well balanced, as too much of either makes him most tedious indeed.”
Weatherby had a good laugh at this quip, though he wondered whether the humid air, combined with an afternoon of frequenting taverns, contributed to his finding humor in it. Weatherby had policed both their intakes assiduously, but they still had a part to play, and the roles included buying, and consuming, drinks. He had forgotten to ask whether Finch could produce a bit of alchemy that would lessen the effects of alcohol, and in hindsight was not surprised that the doctor hadn’t volunteered one himself.
This fourth establishment, called Casa Moncada, was much like the others, built of clay brick and tiled roofing in the Spanish style. The courtyard was all but abandoned in the afternoon heat—even hidden by the constant cloud cover, the Sun still warmed Venus considerably—and Weatherby wondered if they would soon run up against the traditional siesta. It seemed the Spanish needed the nap after a long morning of debauchery.
Inside, the tavern remained crowded, the bricks providing cool shelter against the large disk of the sun. Long tables held a broad array of Puerto Verde’s inhabitants, from prosperous merchants and shippers to lowly sailors and scalawags, all joined together in proper drunken camaraderie. There were women of all stripes as well, from seemingly proper ladies (who ought not to be in such a place to begin with) to obvious prostitutes with their petticoats and décolletage exposed to an alarming degree. The din of loud conversation and raucous laughter permeated the room, overcoming the valiant efforts of a guitarist in the corner, busy plucking out a sprightly tune.
By now, their approach had become routine. Weatherby and Finch settled in at the most crowded table, exchanging pleasantries with those around them. Finch had concocted a story about the two of them seeking passage to the Jovian moons as part of a lucrative business arrangement involving Ionian sulfur-iron. Eventually, the name Groene Draeck would come up and, ultimately, the sketches Rooney drew would be produced. Thus far, their efforts had resulted in nothing but spent coin and a hint of tipsy dizziness.
Here too, at Casa Moncada, there was little in the way of progress. Nobody had heard of the Groene Draeck, and the sketches were passed about the table to no avail. Thankfully, the drink here was of a higher quality than in the other establishments, and there was something approaching edible food as well, for which Weatherby found himself immensely grateful
It was near sunset when Weatherby was about to give up on Casa Moncada. However, a man sat down next to Finch and asked, in Liverpool-accented English, to see the sketches. He was dressed as something of an explorer, with sturdy leather boots and the kind of loose linen clothing that withstood the heat well. His beard was shaggy and his demeanor was rough, but there was intelligence in his eyes as he scanned the drawings.
“I’ve not seen the gentleman in the fancy clothes, I’ll tell you that. I’d have known it if I had,” he told them. “But this one,” he added, holding up the image of one of the two ruffians, “was in just this morning, looking for a guide.”
Weatherby leaned in close. “A guide? To where?”
The man smiled. “Well, sir, I’m not sure I should say. I’ve no reason to cause trouble. You’re not working for some constabulary, are ye?”
Finch smiled winningly and deftly produced a few coins, sliding them across the table toward the newcomer. “I assure you, my friend, we are nothing of the sort. We simply heard that these men had an excellent ship for hire.”
“Well, he said nothing of a ship, though I wager he’d need one. This fellow here, he says he’s hoping to trade with the Va’hakri tribe. They’ve a trading post that’s a good ways down the coast, about a half day by ship, and a hike through dangerous jungle after that.”
Weatherby looked questioningly at Finch, who said, “The Va’hakri are considered the lore-keepers of the Venusian people. They stand apart from the usual inter-tribal bickering of the rest of their kind, and are typically the ones who handle any dealings with Men.”
“Aye, any guide worth his salt knows this,” the other man said. “Not a month goes by that one of us isn’t off down that way. Not surprising at all to have someone come in asking.”
Weatherby pondered a moment. “I do not recall seeing any kind of native settlement on our charts. But then, this is primarily a Spanish holding to begin with.”
The other man smiled broadly and stroked his dirty beard. “Aye, it is, lad. And you’re not a couple of gentlemen traders either, I’ll wager.”
Finch glared at Weatherby briefly for his ill-advised comment before sliding a full crown toward the stranger. “Forgive my companion, sir. He is young and most loquacious when he shouldn’t be.”
“Oh, I don’t care,” the man grinned as he pocketed the coin. “But seeing as I missed a chance this morning with the other fellow, I’d be willing to show you down to the Va’hakri village if ye wish.”
Weatherby nodded. “I think that would be most welcome, sir. May I have your name, and your word as a loyal subject of King George that our dealings be kept private?”
“The name is Bacon, and I’ve been no subject of king nor nation for many a year. But ye have my word. It’s not the first time my silence been bought. And they’ve got the tide and a head start, so best we go back to your ship before long.”
The three rose from their drinks. “You’re distressingly transparent, Mr. Weatherby,” Finch muttered.
“At least the job is done. We’re well upon the trail,” Weatherby said, somewhat embarrassed. “Come, Mr. Bacon. You’re quite right—we must be on our way quickly.”
July 25, 2132
The rover hadn’t simply crashed into a ditch—it had fallen into a rocky ravine two meters wide. About a half kilometer away, the access road snaked back to McAuliffe, and the lava tube was on the other side. It was as if a giant trench had been dug into the Martian crust between the two.
“This is at least 200 meters long,” Stephane reported over the comm, looking at his sensor pack. “And just like the cave, there are no pressure cracks in the matrix. Aside from the fact there is no erosion, this looks as though it has always been here.”
Shaila listened to her breathing inside the pressure suit—inhale, exhale, slowly and carefully—and looked on as the emergency crash team carried the miners away from the rover’s wreckage on stretchers. The whole situation was getting stranger by the minute. The injuries were relatively minor—a few broken bones and concussions—and their suits remained blessedly intact. “And this trench wasn’t here before,” she said to Stephane. It wasn’t a question.
The planetologist clumsily holstered his sensor and pulled out a datapad, nearly dropping it in his gauntleted hands before managing to call up satellite maps of the area. “No, this is new. We have good resolution here, and this is not on our images.”
Shaila nodded, though inside her thoughts were roiling. Mars was breaking every law of geophysics and they had no idea why. “This related to the quakes in the cave?”
“I have no evidence yet, one way or another, but yes, that would make sense,” Stephane said. “If any of this were going to make sense.”
“What about our permanent sensors? Any trace on there?”
Stephane tapped again on his datapad. “About the same as the earthquake in the cave. A few minute readings on a handful of sensors, but nothing that would trigger the alarms.”
“Fuck,” she said suddenly, feeling the desire to stop standing there and move about. “Have the base get us some new satellite imagery of this entire area and run a comparison. This is getting too weird.”
Before Stephane could respond, Shaila was already shuffling off toward the trench. Harry Yu was standing at the precipice, overseeing the rescue efforts of his people. She keyed into his suit frequency. “Get anything out of them?” she asked.
“The miners? Not really. They were driving back from the site when they just fell into this.” He sounded unusually sedate and cautious to Shaila. Perhaps this stuff was getting to him, too.
“Any sense of when it showed up?” She pointed to a set of rover tracks about 10 meters away. “I think those were our tracks when we went back to base earlier. If they weren’t, there’d be another rover down there.”
Harry shrugged within his suit. “No idea. Probably some kind of side effect from the quake.”
“We’re going to have to expand the quarantine area around this thing,” Shaila said, half to herself. “At least five clicks, maybe ten.”
That got Harry’s attention. “For how long?” he asked.
“For the duration, I imagine.”
Harry turned to look her square in the visor. “Jain, there’s a shit-ton of gold and uranium in there. The sensor data backs it up, and it’s our job to go and get it.”
“No matter how many bodies pile up?” Shaila asked, focusing her nervous energy on him. “What happens when this whole area collapses and your guys are busy digging holes?”
“Listen, Jain,” he said, his voice returning to an approximation of calm. “I’ll send you the data. It’s huge down there. Really huge. This could secure funding for McAuliffe for the next twenty years, all by itself.”
Shaila just shook her head as she watched the crash team pull the stretchers out of the ravine—a new ravine. On Mars. “Honestly, I couldn’t care less, Harry. You bring people in here, and you’ll endanger their lives—and ours too if we have to go and save their sorry asses. So don’t you go telling your bosses and Houston that we’re being unreasonable about this.”
“Doesn’t have to be that way, Jain.”
Shaila turned to back to Harry to find him wearing a slight smile and an inscrutable look on his face. “And how is that, exactly?” she asked.
Harry grabbed her wrist and punched a few keys on her gauntlet. They were now talking on a private channel. “Look. Our ops here are profitable, but barely. It’s a huge amount of resource for a handful of basis points. This cave could change that in a matter of weeks. We need to get down there, no matter what. And I’d appreciate it if you could make that happen as soon as you can.”
Shaila glanced at him sidelong. “I bet you would.”
The mining exec shrugged. “The company pays a pretty nice discovery bonus. You were part of the discovery team. You and Kaczynski. Even Durand, if you want.”
“I’m JSC, Harry,” Shaila warned. “So’s Steve. You know that’s against the rules.”
“If we can get down there in the next day or two, I’d make sure you were in on it regardless. Something to think about. It’d be a pretty good chunk of change. Plus, I’ll leave you out of the report if we’re able to get down there and get that ore out.” He pressed a button on his own gauntlet, severing the private link. “Durand told me you need one of our robotic probes,” he continued. “Tell him he can pick it up out of storage whenever.”
“Fine,” Shaila said, still not quite believing what she just heard. “Meantime, you and yours are ten clicks away from that cave—anywhere along the length of it—until we sort it out. Got it?”
With a nod, Harry walked off, leaving Shaila staring at the ravine. The past 24 hours was quickly filling up with firsts, which now included her first official bribe offer.
The ride back to base was, thankfully, far more uneventful. Stephane and Yuna immediately made for the labs in order to huddle over the latest data, leaving Shaila to give the colonel a woefully incomplete report. Diaz took it in stride, thankfully, and seemed content to wait for the science geeks to come up with answers. Shaila omitted the part about Harry’s bribe, however—her thoughts were jumbled enough as it stood, and she wanted to get her head straight. Plus, she was hungry. So she decided to head up to the mess hall, hoping to grab some food, sit quietly in a corner, make a to-do list—and then think about whether she really wanted to even be in JSC anymore.
She never got the chance.
“Stop with the excuses!” boomed a gruff, angry voice from the mess hall, prompting Shaila to vault down the stairwell from the command center in a single leap.
When she rounded the corner and entered the mess hall, she was greeted with the sight of Lt. Enrico Finelli, an Italian air force officer seconded to JSC, flying across one of the dining tables on his back. On the other end were three miners, all muscles, stubble and indignation.
“Stand down!” Shaila barked, striding toward the miners.
“Bullshit!” growled one of the miners, a hard case named Mike Alvarez who was one of McAuliffe’s most notorious boozers. “We need answers, and you guys aren’t telling us shit!”
“So you gonna beat it out of us?” she retorted. “You’re this close to getting busted back to Earth, Alvarez.”
The miner strode toward her with the look of a very unsatisfied man, and one who’d been spending part of the evening hitting the bottle besides. Shaila stopped and adjusted her stance minutely. She hadn’t come to blows with anyone on base during her tenure there, but this was a first she could easily handle.
“Mikey, let it go,” one of the other miners said. Shaila couldn’t place his name, couldn’t care less. Her focus was oddly soothing after everything that had happened.
“Shut it,” Alvarez growled. “I lost a day’s wage today, probably more tomorrow, and someone’s gotta pay for that.”
He took his swing, and Shaila couldn’t help but smile.
It was a big, meaty right cross, full of drunken frustration. For Shaila, it was child’s play to simply step back out of the way. “And now you’re going home,” she quipped.
As she expected, Alvarez’ left came back the other way as he moved forward in pursuit. This she stepped into, jabbing her left knuckles into his trachea while grabbing his forearm with her right. Another spin for leverage, and Alvarez was flipped end over end, his back slamming into the table where Finelli had slid past a few moments before.
Low Martian gravity combined well with combat training.
“Anyone else?” Shaila shouted, perhaps a touch too forcefully, as Alvarez coughed and clutched as his throat.
The other two miners stared at her mutely. The response came from behind her.
“Get him out of here,” Kaczynski grumbled at his colleagues. Shaila whirled around, only to find the old digger with his hands up, palms open. “Easy, tiger.”
She allowed herself to relax and glance over at Finelli, who was picking himself up off the floor and sporting a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. “You OK, ’Rico?”
“Yes, Lieutenant,” he said, face turning red as he approached. “They thought I wasn’t telling them what’s going on.”
She clapped him on the shoulder. “Go see Levin about your face. It’s OK. Ed and I are gonna have a little chat.”
Finelli filed out of the mess hall behind Alvarez, who had a miner on either side supporting him. To his credit, the Italian didn’t hesitate following them; of course, the other two knew that Alvarez was on the next ship home, and probably out of a job with Billiton altogether, and they didn’t want to be next.
“Not good, Ed,” Shaila remarked as she took a seat at the table. “Your people are losing their shit.”
Kaczynski, still hobbled by his injuries the day before, eased himself down across from her. “You blame them? First I get laid up, now we got two more down because of some ditch that came out of nowhere. These guys spent the day shoring up tunnels, laying more sensors and not making any money. Tomorrow, this keeps up, more of the same, right?”
Shaila shrugged. “Don’t know yet. I know Harry’s going to press to keep digging no matter what, though.”
“Like he gives a shit about us,” he snorted. “We’re bottom of the barrel here, and we’re gonna be the ones grabbing our ankles in the end.”
“Really, Ed? I didn’t know you swung that way,” Shaila said with a smirk, trying to defuse the situation.
It didn’t work. “Don’t start with me, Lieutenant. This shit’s gotta get fixed. We need to be out there digging, but if it can’t be fixed, then you gotta get us off this rock. We’ve got families. And nobody’s telling us a goddamn thing.”
Shaila had to admit the point. The miners were contractors—Billiton charged them for the round-trip from Earth, as well as room and board. They had to earn it back from mining. Yes, most of them walked away with a nice fat paycheck at the end, but a bad dig or a delay in ops could really hurt them.
“I read you, Ed. I really do,” she said finally. “We really are working on this, both Houston and Billiton. It’s barely been 24 hours, and I need you guys to understand this’ll take time. Yeah, you have to stay ten clicks from that cave, but that still leaves a lot of Mars left to dig. We just needed you to take a day and make sure your shit’s in one sock, that’s all. So long as you stay away from that cave, I figure you’ll be back digging tomorrow.
“Yeah, sure, but what’s this shit about rocks rolling up hill?” Kaczynski asked, leaning in toward her with a hushed voice. “That’s the most fucked up thing I’ve ever heard of, and I tell ya, that can’t be good for business.”
“I know,” she said. “Really, we’re working on it. You can go and dig tomorrow. Should be fine.”
“Better be,” Kaczynski said, standing up and making for the door. “We need to be digging, but we need to be alive to count the money. Fix this shit.”
“Roger that,” Shaila said, trying to sound authoritative and reassuring at the same time. She figured she probably failed on both counts, but she stood and gave the table a little nod as she went to get her dinner. She loaded up her tray with something resembling pasta, then headed up to the command center, careful not to spill red sauce—calling it marinara would’ve been generous—all over herself.
“Evening, ma’am.” The watch officer on duty, Ensign Pete Washington, U.S. Navy, was manning the second shift—worse than the overnight, really, because he had to miss out on what little socializing McAuliffe Base had to offer. Shaila was thus duly surprised at his chipper grin.
“Heya, Washington. Just a sensor add-on before I rack out,” she said, taking a seat next to him and putting her tray on the console. She started typing, pausing only to inhale dinner, and within twenty minutes, the base sensors were updated with the mysterious rad signature.
“Heard you got caught in an earthquake?” Washington said as Shaila packed up to go. “I thought Mars wasn’t supposed to have earthquakes.”
Shaila was getting pretty tired of answering questions. Then again, it stood to reason that the JSC kids would be just as nervous as the miners. “Yeah, well, tell it to Mars,” Shaila replied.
“What about the mining ops?” the young man asked.
“Don’t know,” she said, piling the detritus of her dinner on her tray. “It’s isolated, and pretty far out from the sites. We’ll see.”
She grabbed the tray and said her goodnights to Washington, but barely managed to get out the door before she heard the ops monitors ping.
“Ummm…ma’am?” Washington said.
“Yeah?”
“We’re getting a hit on that signature you downloaded.”
Shaila covered the distance back to the ops station in a single jump. “Show me.”
The young American pointed at his screen, where a map of the base showed a distinct blotch.
Right in the middle of the base’s fusion reactor room.
“That signature is coming from the reactor?” Shaila asked in disbelief.
“Yes, ma’am. Looks like it.” Washington’s fingers flew over his keyboard. “I can’t pin it down exactly, though. Could be outside the reactor, too.”
“Shit.” Shaila jabbed a button to open the base-wide comm system. “Alert Level Two. Repeat, Alert Level Two. All JSC personnel report for duty immediately. All civilian personnel to their staging areas for possible evac. This is not a drill.”
She switched channels as the base alarm system started blaring. “Ops to engineering. Start emergency diagnostics and prepare for immediate reactor shutdown. We may have a leak.”
It took less than a minute before the command center started to fill up. Washington was joined by two other ops officers to help start the alert checklists, while an engineer immediately went to work on the sensors. Shaila watched with a certain amount of pride; they were taking this one in stride, doing their jobs, handling it well.
Diaz walked in, managing to look crisp and in-control despite the chaos around her. That didn’t make her any happier, though. “Report,” she said curtly.
“The radiation signature we detected in the lava tube is present inside the reactor room,” Shaila said.
Diaz’ demeanor changed immediately. “Where’s engineering?”
“Checking on leaks and prepping emergency shutdown, just in case.”
“Did you track down what the hell this radiation is?”
“It looks non-ionized, but it’s more than just visible light. Nothing more yet.” Shaila grew uncomfortable suddenly, wondering if her reaction had been overboard.
“Let’s see the signature again,” Diaz said. Shaila gave her a datapad with the information on it. “This looks familiar somehow. Can’t place it. Anybody grab a look besides you?”
“Yuna did. She didn’t know, either.”
“All right. You did the right thing for now. If it’s outside, then we probably don’t want it inside,” Diaz said. “Tell engineering to go for immediate shutdown. Put us on battery power.”
Shaila turned to issue the order, only to see Evan Greene standing at the entrance to the command center, his producer behind him with a holocam—one that was up and running. “What the hell are you doing here?” Shaila demanded.
Greene walked right past her. “Colonel, let me see the radiation signature you were talking about.”
Diaz regarded the pop scientist harshly for a second, before thrusting the datapad at him. He looked for a moment, then started laughing.
“Care to tell me what’s so funny, Dr. Greene?” Diaz said, ice in her voice.
“I’m sorry, Colonel, but in about 30 seconds, your engineering staff will be calling to ask whether this is some kind of joke.” Greene handed the datapad back. “You don’t need to shut down the reactor.”