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The Dragons of Mars, Chapter One, Part One

Jhalasi, crown prince of Mars, was publicly auditioning a mistress. It was, of course, a highly ceremonial occasion, excruciatingly ritualized, and he was bored. Nonetheless it provided a welcome spectacle for his people. They filled the streets of Arsia Mons, drummers and masked dancers entertaining those who were too far away from the central stage to view the royal ritual. Here and there bonfires flared. On the red planet, burning oxygen was a signal luxury, allowed only during times of special license.

Twelve miles above them, a translucent dome sealed the caldera of Arsia Mons -- the ancient volcano that had spewed forth its last fire when Archaeopteryx fluttered among Terran dinosaurs. The first colonists of Mars carved out their settlements in the flanks of Arsia Mons, building out from a natural cavern system that provided some degree of protection from deadly cosmic radiation. Over time, those settlements had been linked, first via a network of tunnels, and finally, triumphantly, when the great Worldhouse dome was erected. Martian citizens could now walk in the open expanse of the vast caldera, free of pressure-suits or breathing tanks. In the wavering red lights of their fires, they drummed, and they danced.

Jhalasi waited to be introduced to his mistress. The Sleepers had not yet revealed to him a wife, though he was nearly sixteen years of age: twenty-nine, in Terran standard years. Such was not uncommon for one of his descent. There had been, of course, liaisons -- each one carefully vetted by the royal genealogists before it began, and monitored by the Oracles until the affair had run its course. But Martian politics being what they were, the time had come for a more formal arrangement.

The girl was of House Rao. Jhalasi had never met her, but had been assured at great length of her beauty and virtue. Her name was Siannamar. She modeled advances in filtration systems, and rescued orphan mice.

Siannamar Rao was already seated across the stage from him, though of course he could make out very little of her beneath her layers of veils and sateens. She -- and he -- would be expected to dance, later, for the crowd.

First, though, came the endless patriotic affirmations. The singing: first a hymn of loss, for Earth; then a hymn of triumph, for the Void; and last, the hymn of thanks, for Mars, the mother planet. Then the three-fold salute to the Sleepers, honoring their blessings of air, soil, and ice; and finally the affirmation of fire and aether, for the transformative intelligence that humanity carried within itself. This last was the only one that Jhalasi found personally moving. Something about the high, wailing notes of the chant -- the way one's hands were lifted, twining, to the heavens, only to fall back again -- it reminded him of DNA, and the way that information was carried forward in human bodies, through human love. In its blind, brute way, evolution had created a more durable data storage system than anything scientists had yet devised. That part did, truly, give him chills.

After the singing and the salutes came the re-enactment of the story of the Martian Founding. Jhalasi rigorously stifled a yawn as the actors came on stage. To amuse himself as they stepped through a recital he'd seen several dozen times before, he tried guessing at the identity of the mummers beneath the masks. Each actor representing a Founder would be drawn from that Founder's noble House. Maculin and Sen, he hadn't a clue. Rao -- that would probably be Siannamar's brother, he'd met the man at the signing ceremony for the love-contract. Sharp eyes and few words: Jhalasi had liked him. Could probably remember his name, if he really had to.

Sinclair: Jhalasi actually smiled, fractionally. Nothing that the cams would pick up. Still, he'd been hoping for this, and he recognized that sway of hips beneath the awkward, concealing pressure-suit. No, that wasn't it. He just knew her, knew her nearness. He hadn't seen his sister Vihanyasa since she'd been moved out of the line of succession and married off to House Sinclair. But once -- as children, romping together, pranking the Oracles and giving their minders heart-attacks -- he and Vihanyasa had shared one mind.

The last actor to come on stage represented Rajendra, Founder of the royal House. Jhalasi spared him not even a glance. He knew exactly who the actor would be: his own elder brother, Khamsarajan, rendered ineligible for the throne via an accident of birth. Khamsarajan had never joined in the easy hive-mind of the other noble children. Outside, outcast, his bitterness had smouldered, and sought to burn any who came too close.

Jhalasi leaned back on his carved, three-legged stool. It was an artifact of old Earth -- "teak," they called it. It came from a "tree." He'd seen pictures. It was a priceless artifact. But not very comfortable.

The actors were now going through the discovery of the Sleepers. Four of them mimed terror, shrinking back as the drums beat fast. One -- Khamsarajan/Rajendra -- stepped forward. The chorus ran onstage from the wings, a dozen dancers each bearing up a piece of the great puppet that represented a Sleeper. Its sinuous, serpentine form glittered with fractal light; its face bore round eyes, a wide smile, and the suggestion of mouse-like fur. It was a beautiful, friendly sight, and one echoed a thousand times in the crowd that surrounded them. The "dragons of Mars" were painted on masks, woven in banners, worked into the very architecture of Arsia Mons. They were part of the royal seal and the central emblem of the Martian flag. Many in the crowd probably even believed that's what the Sleepers actually looked like.

The dancers swirled around Khamsarajan and the others, weaving the sinuous form of the dragon around and among them. In choreographed unison, the Founders all slumped down, miming unconsciousness. Jhalasi let his eyes focus slightly over them, and over the dancers of the chorus, as they quickly and precisely changed out the stage scenery. It would be better if he could close his eyes, but that, the cams would pick up.

Vihanyasa, he thought, with all his specialized intent. How are you? How are you?

The thought would take some time to pass to her. And if she caught it at all, it wouldn't be received as words. The message had to be transmitted by the microorganisms in his own body, coordinating with the microorganisms in hers. They would pass a complex chemical signal that, when taken up by her cerebral cortex, would trigger relevant emotions and memories in her brain. He couldn't predict which ones, exactly, but she'd probably get a memory of herself and him, playing together as children. She'd know he was thinking of her.

That is, if he'd succeeded in activating the transmission mechanism, and if the meaning could pass at all. Touch, between royal siblings, was a fairly reliable method of communication. A gap of meters, as existed between them at the moment, could kill any message. Especially with the crowd pressed so close, and other noble Houses on the stage.

Jhalasi waited. It would take time, in any case, for the communication to work. He watched the show, as the terraforming of Mars continued. "Rajendra" was the first to wake. Khamsarajan pulled off his helmet, and Jhalasi schooled his own features to impassivity at his brother's absurd mimicry of surprise and joy.

It wasn't true, of course, that House Rajendra could survive on the Martian surface without pressure-suits or breathing tanks. It was only propaganda. Or as the tutors had carefully put it, after Jhalasi and Vihanyasa had been caught trying to execute a very dangerous experiment -- it was myth, a kind of truth that uneducated people took literally, but princes and princesses should understand in a more sophisticated way. They should not try to escape the Worldhouse dome without adult supervision: not that it was possible, but they should not try. The story taught that House Rajendra was uniquely bound to Mars, steeped in its biosphere. They heard the will of the Sleepers more clearly than any other lineage. That's what the "Rajendra breathed the air of Mars" part of the story meant -- it didn't mean that they, his descendants, should try it.

(They hadn't been planning to, of course. They weren't that stupid. They had suits and tanks. They had both spat into a pressurized container, and they were going to unseal the container on the surface, to see if the liquid in their spit boiled away at once, even in the vastly cold temperatures. That would've told them all they needed to know. Still, they were both whipped for the disobedience, and Khamsarajan laughed at them when they couldn't sit down after.)