Arabella of Mars(95)
Simon quailed at this. “Will you accompany me, Cousin?” he said, his voice tremulous.
“Of course,” she murmured reassuringly.
At the second turning of the stair they found, to Arabella’s disturbed surprise, bright sunlight streaming down from above, accompanied by fresh air and the chattering sound of the Martian army. One more turning confirmed her fears: The tower’s top had been shattered by the Martians’ catapults, and the stair ended in a ragged edge of broken stone and mortar.
Again Simon hesitated, but this time he managed to gather his own courage. “What have I to fear?” he said, half to himself, and set his trembling feet upon the step. Arabella followed.
They reached the top and stood blinking in the sunlight, a stiff breeze plucking at their hair and clothing. The Martians below toiled like ants, already beginning to flow up the house’s battered sides to the rough opening smashed into the former dining-room. Plainly they would be within the house very soon.
Suddenly Arabella noticed that Simon had stepped back from the edge. “Courage, Cousin,” Arabella said, turning to face him. But what she saw as she turned was not the hesitant expression of a man unwilling to face death, but the calm and confident leer she had last seen in Simon’s dining-room in Oxford.
Along with the pistol from that same occasion.
“I am frightfully sorry, Cousin,” he said, “but I find myself unable to perform the service you have requested, and must ask you to do so in my stead. You will confess to the Martians that it was you who stole the egg, and it is you who will surrender yourself to them.”
The last time she had seen that pistol, the muzzle had seemed as big as the world. But since that time she had stared down the barrel of a French cannon, and the pistol now seemed small and ineffectual. She straightened. “I was not even on Mars when the egg was stolen.”
“The Martians do not know that.” Simon drew back the pistol’s hammer. “You will confess, or you will die at this moment, and I will give them your body, saying that you were at fault all along. But they will more readily believe it, and more readily give up their campaign, if they hear your confession from your own lips. And you do desire to bring this conflict to an end, do you not?”
Arabella’s eyes sought an opening, but Simon had carefully positioned himself so that she had no means of escape. “What becomes of my brother?”
“He will have to go, of course, sooner or later. Though I assure you that once the estate is mine, I will treat your mother and sisters at least as well as your side of the family ever treated me.” He pressed forward then, and perforce she took a step backwards, finding herself upon the highest remaining step. Only a great void of air lay beyond that.
She steeled herself for what she knew must be done.
“Karaa, karaa!” she called, waving her arms, until the Martians took notice. “This is Simon Ashby!” she cried, pointing to him.
At the name a great howling roar sprung up from the nearer Martians, quickly spreading to the rest of the crowd. Arabella had never before heard such an expression of furious wrath.
Simon’s expression was equally furious. “Confess now,” he snarled, taking another step forward and thrusting the pistol toward Arabella.
This was exactly the reaction she had hoped for. As soon as Simon came within her reach, with one swift motion she seized his wrist and thrust it to the side. It went easily, for Simon was only an English dandy, whereas Arabella’s arms bore the strength given them by months of honest sailor’s work.
Simon shrieked and pulled the trigger, but though the shot rang in Arabella’s ear and the sudden sharp scent of gunpowder stained the air, neither was anywhere near as powerful as Diana’s cannon. The ball flew harmlessly into the air, while Arabella squeezed Simon’s wrist until the pistol dropped from his hand. It bounced once on the broken step’s edge, then fell spinning to the rocks below.
Simon twisted his wrist from Arabella’s grasp and took a step back, glaring at her. Arabella gestured to the ravening Martians below, chattering and waving their forked spears—an enormous mob of them, seeming to stretch all the way to the horizon. “It is you who brought them all here,” she said, “and only you can prevent them from killing every last Englishman on Mars. Here is your chance, Cousin. Do the honorable thing, for once in your miserable life.”
In answer Simon growled and charged at her, seeking to force her over the edge. But at the last moment she sidestepped and twisted away from his thrust, just as Khema had taught her, and he sailed past her.
Past her and over the edge, his eyes shining with hatred all the while.
A moment later he landed among the Martians.
Arabella turned away from the scene, but the horrible crunching sounds would stay with her until her dying day.
25
MICHAEL
The captain and Mr. Trombley met her at the base of the spiral stair. “The footman said that you and Mr. Ashby had gone up to the tower!” Trombley cried. “Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?” He blinked, looking past her to the darkness of the stair. “And … and where is Mr. Ashby?”
The captain’s eyes were firm and cool, expressing only an intellectual inquiry, as though he were merely curious as to the fate of some large and exotic insect that had happened to land upon her shoulder.
As for herself, though Arabella’s emotions were all in a roil—her heart pounding rapidly, her breath shallow, her hands chill—she found her voice firm and steady as she replied. “Mr. Ashby has given himself to the Martians.”