Old Mars

“Dear boy!” Uliri architecture did not accommodate human proportions. Proles had been at work—the prickly tang of scorched stone was strong—but I still had to duck to get through the door. Count Jack sat before a mirror of heat-ray-polished obsidian. He adjusted the sit of his white bow tie. He filled the tiny cubbyhole, but he still took the tea with an operatic flourish and took a long, County Kildare slurp.

“Ah! Grand! Grand. My resolve is stiffened to the sticking point. By God, I shall have need of it today. Did you slip a little extra in, you sly boy?”

“I did, Maestro.”

“Surprisingly good rum. And the tea is acceptable. I wonder where they got it from?”

“Ignorance is bliss, Maestro.”

“You’re right there.” He drained the cup. “And how is the piano?”

“Like the rum. Only I think they made it themselves.”

“They’re good at delicate work, the worker-drone thingies. Those tentacle tips are fine and dexterous. Natural master craftsmen. I wonder if they would make good pianists? Faisal? Dear God, listen to me listen to me! Here we are, like a windup musical box, set up to amuse and titivate. A song, a tune, dance or two. Us, the last vestige of beauty on this benighted planet, dead and buried in some vile subterranean cephalopod vice pit. Does anyone even know we’re alive? Help us for God’s sake help us! Ferid Bey, he’ll do something. He must. At the very least, he’ll start looking for us when the money doesn’t materialize.”

“I expect Ferid Bey has already collected the insurance.” I took the cup and saucer. Our predicament was so desperate, so monstrous that we dared not look it full in the face. The Queen of Noctis had left us in no doubt that we were to entertain her indefinitely, singing birds in a cage. Never meet the fans. That was one of Count Jack’s first homilies to me. Fans think they own you.

“Bastard!” Count Jack thundered. “Bastarding bastard! He shall die, he shall die. When I get back …” Then he realized that we would never get back, that we might never feel the wan warmth of the small, distant sun, that these low tunnels might be our home for the rest of our lives—and each other the only human face we would ever see. He wept, bellowing like a bullock. “Can this be the swan song of Count Jack Fitzgerald? Prostituting myself for some superovulating Martian squid queen? Oh the horror, the horror! Leave me, Faisal. Leave me. I must prepare.”