In the Hall of the Martian King by John Barnes Read Free Book Online Page B

memo—
    “From: me.
    “To: every officer I talked to, and to his CO.
    “Subject: commendation for efficiency and cooperation.
    “Content: summarize what I just said to the commander.
    “Style: formal.”
    He airswam toward the door. “Back to regular security level,” he told his purse, and all the windows instantly became transparent
     again. The door dilated in front of him, and he airswam to Pikia’s desk.
    “Ahem,” Jak said.
    All four of the human staff looked up, and at least one camera on each of the dozens of robots swiveled toward him.
    “I have an emergency mission to the Martian surface; I may be gone for a period of weeks, and I am leaving immediately. Process
     all routine cases, defer anything that requires my approval. If it’s urgent or an emergency, call me on my purse. I’m taking
     the only other line officer with me—that’s you, Pikia—so all of you should pretend that you miss us.”
    The ragged cheer was slightly disconcerting, but not as much as Pikia’s impulsive hug, which nearly tumbled him backward.
     “Get packed,” Jak said, disentangling himself. “Departure in two hours and forty minutes. Make sure you have enough formal
     wear, we’re going to have to be polite to diplomats. Cancel all your social calendar for the next two weeks.”
    She was still grinning like a moron. “Jak, boss, chief, whatever,” she said, “I didn’t
have
a social calendar until you said we’re leaving. I’ll be back with a bag in ten minutes.”
    “That should be Mister Jinnaka or sir—” he said, to her rapidly flipping feet, as she airswam out the door.

C HAPTER 4
Not the Most Useless Person on the Team
    A s Pikia and Jak floated in the cageway, waiting to go aboard
John Carter,
she said, “Can I ask a very immature question?”
    “As long as I don’t have to give a toktru mature answer.”
    “Where will we be sitting? I like to get a good view of the cameras and viewports.”
    Jak glanced sideways at her; he could tell she was excited and trying to hide it. “Don’t worry,” he said, “so do I. We’re
     on spare acceleration couches in the cockpit. It’s my first flight down to Mars; I wouldn’t miss being able to see it.”
    She smiled and her eyes twinkled. “That’s what I wanted to know.” Then, as if the thought would burst her if she didn’t voice
     it, she explained, “I’ve been down and up a hundred times at least, probably more, and I still love it. But so many adults
     pull down the shade.”
    “Toktru. They don’t do it because they’re adults. They do it because they’re boring. I still love the window, too.”
    Well, she might be the boss’s bratty relative, but she had a nice smile. And the job was simple—watch Duj and Teacher Copermisr
     talk, say some polite things himself, collect the package, put it on the next warship bound for the Hive.
    A crewie came out, gave the Spatial salute, and asked them to follow her inside. They entered through the main doors over
     the boarding-side wing, where the beanies would storm out in an opposed landing.
    Aside from its war room within the worryball,
John Carter
was exactly like every other warshuttle in the Hive’s fleet at Deimos, purpose-built to land on Mars, with wings designed
     to reconfigure to cope with the drastically varying reentry stress profile, the widest range of forces for any world with
     an atmosphere. The accidental terraformation of Mars by the Rubahy Bombardment had produced as strange a set of conditions
     as could be found anywhere in the solar system: breathable atmosphere farthest up, but lowest pressure at surface; very viscous
     low-density air that exerted high shearing but low heat on a reentering spacecraft; a thermosphere with easy aerobraking,
     and a troposphere with a steep glide ratio. An orbit-to-ground shuttle for Earth could be fixed geometry (though it would
     heat up like a furnace while high and fly like a brick while low), but the Martian atmosphere required