By day, the climate of Mars’s surface was not dissimilar from that of the air in the planet’s vicinity: cold and dry, with a thin wind that whistled across the vastness and whipped up dancing whirls of dust. But when the sun had set an hour after the wreck—the first darkness they’d seen after two months of sailing the shadowless air between planets—the cold had grown far deeper, biting hard even through Kidd’s heaviest coat. Most of the men had not even that much clothing to protect them. None of them had slept much, and the rising of the weak, wan sun had done little more than make the dismal situation more visible.
A chuffing sound of boots on sand made Kidd look up. It was Edmonds, the quartermaster, looking haggard and worn. “We’ve finished the inventory, sir.”
Kidd merely waited.
“There’s beef and pease for two months at half rations. But them water casks …” Edmonds shook his head. “Half of ’em sprung in the crash, sir. We’ve maybe two weeks.”
Kidd took a breath, not knowing what to say. Before he could form a reply, there came a shout from above. One of the men stood atop the ship’s prow, one foot braced on the fractured bowsprit, waving his arms and crying out words whose meaning was swept away by winds and lost in the vast thin desert air.
Awkwardly, Kidd levered himself to his feet and cupped his good hand behind his ear. “Say again?” he called.
The man made a speaking trumpet of his hands. “Martians!”
The natives somewhat resembled crabs—man-sized crabs with only four limbs, drawn out lengthwise and walking about on their hind legs. But though they had two arms and two legs, those limbs bent in all the wrong places, and both limbs and body were covered with a hard shell that shaded from white on the belly to the same red-ochre as the sand on the back. There was no distinct head, only a bulge at the top of the torso from which sprouted two black eyes on flexible stalks, like a lobster’s, and a vertical mouth like the working end of a blacksmith’s pincers. Each hand resembled a crab in itself, the fingers tipped with vicious-looking claws.
They waited in a group on the sand. There were over a hundred of them.
Kidd lowered his telescope and turned to Sexton. “D’ye suppose the savages speak English?”
Sexton looked terrible: his finery a shambles, wig long vanished, and cheeks gone black with stubble. “Unlikely. But they’re no savages.”
“How so?”
Sexton peered again through his telescope, and Kidd did the same. “Their clothing. Note the colors and patterns—very sophisticated. Somewhat reminiscent of Persian carpet. And especially that one in the center, the one with the hat. He appears to have jewelry at his shoulders and wrists.”
Kidd squinted, but still could not make out as much detail as the younger Sexton. “All I see is the swords.” Each native carried a long, thin sword, curved like a Persian shamshir, thrust scabbardless through his belt; smaller blades, likewise slim and curved, were also in evidence. They gleamed in the pale sunlight.
Sexton scoffed. “We are armed as well, are we not? And we are no savages.”
To that, Kidd had no reply.
Kidd did his best to hold his head high as he slogged awkwardly down the slope of soft sand, but between his injured arm and the satchelful of materials for negotiation—gold coins, glass beads, dried beef, a flask of water, a Bible—he had a hard time keeping his balance. The Martians, he noticed, had wide flexible feet well suited for walking on sand; their lower garments were loose pantaloons like the Hindoos’, cuffed at the knee, leaving the red-carapaced lower legs bare.
Focusing on these details helped keep Kidd from curling up on the sand in a terrified ball.
Sexton preceded him, holding out his open, empty hands. “We greet you in the name of King William III of England and Ireland, and II of Scotland.”
The Martian with the hat stepped forward from the rest. He had a distinct but not unpleasant odor, something between horses and cinnamon, and the bright metal fixed to his carapace at several points had the appearance of real gold. Chittering and clattering in his own language, he pointed one chitinous hand up to the sky, then swept it downward in a gesture that encompassed the Mars Adventure, the Englishmen, and the Martians as well. Then he stood silent, with folded hands.
Sexton and Kidd exchanged a glance. Even the natural philosopher was plainly baffled by this display. “Perhaps we should show him the Bible?” Kidd suggested. “He waved up at Heaven …”
“I’ve no better notion,” Sexton confessed. Kidd handed him the heavy book, and he opened it to Genesis. “This is our most sacred book,” Sexton said to the native, presenting it reverently, “and this is the story of the creation of the universe.”
The Martian took up the book, examining it on all sides with chittered commentary to his fellows. He ran crab-leg claws down the columns of text, as though reading, and tapped delicately at the leather cover and spine. He held the book close to his face, the eyes bending in together in a most disturbing manner.
Then, to Kidd’s horror, he slowly and deliberately tore out a page, folded it, and crammed it between his hideous jaws.
Rigid with mortification, Kidd and Sexton could do nothing more than stand and stare round-eyed as the Martian chewed and swallowed the page with an apparent attitude of careful contemplation. No London gourmand in his favorite club had ever sampled a glass of wine with such keen attention. Even the black and lidless eyes appeared to lose focus, the native seemingly concentrating on the flavor of the vellum and ink.
Sexton was nearly vibrating with rage. “That is the word of the Lord!” he spat.
Kidd, too, was offended, but not so much as Sexton, and he was keenly aware of the dozens of armed Martians who had moved in to surround them on all sides. “Easy, Doctor,” he muttered low, putting a hand on Sexton’s shoulder.
With a visible effort, Sexton calmed himself. But Kidd had to physically restrain him when the Martian tore out a second and a third page, tearing each one into smaller bits and sharing them out among the other Martians nearby.
“It seems they find the word of our Lord quite … palatable,” Kidd said as he held Sexton back with his one good arm across Sexton’s narrow chest. He himself was so stunned by the Martians’ blasphemous feast that he felt near to breaking out into a fit of hysterical giggles.
Sexton took a deep breath, then patted Kidd’s hand. Kidd released him. “Forgive them, Lord,” Sexton said, casting his eyes heavenward, “for they know not what they do.”
While the two men had been talking, the lead Martian had handed the Bible to one of the others. A third native now came forward bearing a squat glass bottle, which the leader took and presented to Sexton. Spiraling marks, possibly writing, were etched into the bottle’s surface; the contents were a deep amber in color.
Sexton and Kidd exchanged a quizzical look. It was Kidd who removed the stopper, which was made of some kind of flexible resin, and delicately sniffed the liquid within. He quirked an eyebrow, not trusting himself to speak, before tasting.
The flavor was unusual, with hints of ginger and pine, but the rich mellow burn as the liquid slid down Kidd’s throat was so familiar that a tear stung his eye.
“It’s not quite Ferintosh,” he said to Sexton, “but damn me, that is fine whisky!”
Sexton blinked, then turned and bowed to the Martian. “It seems we have a basis for commerce,” he said.
Kidd warmed his hands over a Martian prince’s fire, marveling at how very far he’d come from Newgate Prison.
Despite the difficulties of communication, the Martians had been eager to trade their goods for books, belts, and anything else made of leather. The Martian meats were palatable, though spicy and a bit gamey in flavor, and Kidd and his men had been allowed the use of a small rounded building that appeared to have been carved seamlessly from a single piece of sandstone. Sexton theorized that the “stone” was in fact merely sand fused together with the Martians’ own saliva, but Kidd tried not to think about that.