Old Mars

It was unlike Sexton to lose faith in his own ideas. Usually, he would cling to a notion, no matter how impractical it seemed to Kidd, until indisputable success or failure settled the question definitively. But now, with the whole crew’s lives riding on this one mad inspiration, the philosopher was shivering in near panic.

“It will work,” Kidd said, clapping Sexton on the back—though he himself was far from certain of it. “It must.”

Ahead and below, Mars now bulked so large that he could no longer be encompassed by the eye as a sphere. Instead he seemed a horizon, albeit a horizon unnaturally curved. Mars’s proximity and the pressure of his atmosphere upon the ship’s hull also gave Kidd a feeling of weight, a pressure of the deck against his boot soles he’d not felt in nearly two months. Sexton said that the pressure would never amount to more than a third what it did on Earth, which was good, because after so many weeks adrift, Kidd’s knees felt as weak and wobbly as a newborn fawn’s.

Or perhaps that was merely terror.

Kidd strode to the forward edge of the quarterdeck to address the crew, doing his best to put confident strength into his step. On an ordinary ship, he’d have climbed into the rigging of the mizzenmast, but Mars Adventure’s mizzenmast was now fastened to her starboard hull. “We’ll not be rowing, lads!” he called above the rush of air. “Not in the ordinary way. You all know the command ‘hold water,’ d’ye not?”

A chorus of confused assent. “Hold water” was never used on a ship this large; it meant to brace the oar with one’s body, to bring a small boat to a rapid halt.

“That’s what we’ll be doing. First, we’ll point oars astern, then, at the command, we’ll all bring ’em forward, smooth and handsome. Then hold those oars, hold ’em for dear life, for the whole ship’ll be hanging from them!” He glanced at Sexton for confirmation and received a nervous nod. “Then listen for commands to raise or lower your oars. But only shift them a wee bit! Just like trimming sail.”

He could only see a few of the men’s faces, appearing and disappearing behind waves of flapping, rotted silk. They seemed nervous and unsure of themselves.

Yet those faces also showed hope, and trust … hope and trust in him.

Kidd set his jaw. He would prove himself worthy of that trust, or die in the attempt. “Point oars astern!” he cried, and “Fasten oars to oarlocks!”

With the best discipline they could muster, the men struggled to comply with a command that no captain had likely ever uttered before, using equipment no ship had ever seen before. The forest of oars fell astern, the patched and rotten silk strung between them flapping with a series of sharp reports like small-arms fire as the men worked to tie each oar firmly into its reinforced oarlock.

“Ready, Captain,” the bosun reported after far too long a time.

Kidd took a breath. This was the moment that would prove Sexton’s mad idea or else doom them all. “Hold water!” he cried in a bellow as firm as any he’d ever possessed. “Handsomely, now!”

The men put their backs into it, grunting with effort as they worked to lever the oars forward. Though they pressed against only air, not water, the force of the ship’s great speed on the tattered silken membrane that stretched between each pair of oars was enormous.

They were good men, the best. They’d been fed well, on the finest rations the king’s money could buy. But would even their able seamen’s strength be enough?

The ship shuddered and yawed as the oars and their burden of fabric spread gradually wider, the rushing air snapping the silk taut. Men and timbers groaned under the strain, and Kidd felt himself pressed forward as the surge of air began to slow the hurtling ship. “Steady, lads!” he called, holding tight to his hat.

Juddering, trembling, fighting like a gaffed marlin, Mars Adventure began to transform herself from a ship of the air into something like a gigantic flying fish.

By now, the great ruddy curve of Mars’s horizon had begun to straighten. A few thin wisps of cloud scudded by to either side, and even above. Sexton, bracing himself against the binnacle with his telescope, called out directions and made broad hand gestures, which Kidd fought to interpret into commands to his men. “Larboard sweeps up a point!” he called, and “Starboard, hold steady!” The roar of the wind in the rigging was deafening.

Kidd didn’t always understand what Sexton was asking him to do. He suspected that Sexton himself didn’t know either. Often the men overcorrected, or misinterpreted Kidd’s commands—commands they’d never heard before. The ship rolled and pitched violently whenever a pair of men lost control of their oar for even a moment. Yet somehow no oar snapped and no man was lost overboard; nor did the ship tumble into an uncontrollable spin. And though the water-damaged silk continued to shred, it did not fall completely to bits … at least, not yet.