Old Mars

“No. We’ve bickered enough.” Sexton crossed his arms on his chest and glared down his nose to where Kidd floated some feet closer to the hull. “We must gain better control of the ship, and quickly, or come the next storm we’ll wind up lost and tumbling, or broken to bits.”

Kidd strove to relax his clenched jaw. “Is that an order?”

“If I must.”

The two men held each other’s gaze for a long, tense moment. Edmonds and the carpenter looked on, their eyes darting from the captain to the philosopher and back.

Once, Kidd had been captain of his own fate. Now he found himself subordinate to a scraggy, wispy-bearded schoolboy, and he rankled at the diminution.

But still … Sexton’s ideas had gotten them this far. And if they could but complete their mission, the legend of Kidd-the-voyager-to-Mars might eclipse the slanderous lie of Kidd-the-pirate.

He bent down and looped the line from his ankle over his shoulders, cinching up the slack and leaning back to press his bare feet against the rough, barnacled hull. “Give me the axe,” he said to the carpenter. Then he hauled off and began chopping through the X.

If anyone was going to murder Kidd’s ship, it would be Kidd himself.

Mars shimmered in Kidd’s telescope, a great, dull, copper-colored sphere. Where the Earth had gleamed like glass, the sun shining off her clouds and oceans and lakes, Mars seemed lusterless as dry, unpolished wood. A dead world.

Snapping the telescope shut, Kidd gazed at the approaching planet with his unaided eye. Mars’s disc was already too big to cover with a thumb, and growing visibly day by day.

It should have been an exciting time.

The disaster had arrived imperceptibly, by stages. Mars Adventure had left London with food and water for three months, a month more than the longest possible round-trip voyage predicted by Sexton’s theories. The outbound voyage had taken nearly eight weeks, longer than expected, but once they had refitted the masts and sorted out the working of the ship in air, Sexton’s bizarre new sail plan worked beautifully. At the six-week mark, all hands had agreed to accept short rations and press on to Mars, expecting a quicker return trip.

When they’d broached the first empty water cask, they’d thought it just a fluke. But the second and the third dry cask began to raise alarms in Kidd’s mind. He and the quartermaster had gone into the hold and thumped every remaining barrel.

Nearly one-third were dry. Even on half rations, they’d surely die of thirst long before they reached London.

“Damn that Yale!” Kidd muttered, clenching the telescope in his hands as though it were the accursed chandler’s neck. But even more than Yale, Kidd cursed himself. Years hunting pirates, only to be betrayed and abandoned by his own backers, should have taught him better than to extend any trust beyond his own two hands.

Suddenly, Sexton’s hand clapped down upon Kidd’s shoulder, startling him out of his reverie. “Do not curse the chandler,” he said, entirely too brightly. “ ’Tis not his fault.”

“How so?” Kidd replied, struggling to regain his composure. “Either he cheated me—that is, the king—or else he is incompetent.”

Sexton shook his head. “I realized last night what the reason must be. Those casks were full when we loaded them, but they were built for Earthly climes. Have you not noticed how parched of moisture the atmosphere has become?”

“Aye …” Kidd licked chapped lips with a tongue dry as old leather. The air had been growing steadily colder and drier as Mars drew near.

“The air’s thirst first dries out the casks’ wood, then draws the water out through the seams between the staves. On our next voyage, we can line the casks with wax or lead to prevent this evaporation.”

“Next voyage?” Kidd laughed without amusement. “There’ll be no next voyage for us.” He cast his eyes out over the empty, cloudless air and the dead, dry planet below. “The sea may be an inhospitable mistress, but at least she offers the occasional island, with a spring or pond of freshwater. There are no islands in the air.”

“No islands, perhaps. But there are … canals.”

Kidd blinked. “Canals?”

“Give me your glass.” Sexton peered through Kidd’s telescope at Mars, then handed it back, pointing. “There. Near the planet’s limb.”

For a long time, Kidd saw nothing. Then, wavery and blurry, a few thin straight silvery threads appeared, glinting in the reduced sunlight.

Kidd lowered the instrument from his eye. “Mere mirages.”

“Canals,” Sexton insisted. “And what could be in them but water? If the ship can but make landfall and rise from it, we might yet survive.”

Again Kidd licked his dry lips, considering. Then he turned to the bosun. “Send word for the carpenter,” he said. “The ship’ll need some sort of legs if we’re to land on sand.”