The Oldest War Read online

  “Jennifer,” Mrs. Elizabeth's voice oozed. “How pleasant a surprise. I do recognize you, unlike poor Bossman Harleson here. I am beyond delighted to see you again.”

  “Where did they take our friend?” Jennifer asked. “I command you to tell me!”

  “Where do you expect them to take him? He is a criminal. They will take him to the Concatenation.”

  “He's not a criminal!” Captain told Mrs. Elizabeth.

  “Is he not Plerrxxvizzinommm?” asked the major-domo.

  “Yeah, but -” Captain didn't know what to say.

  “Your friend Plerrxx is a notorious Moroder violator,” said Harleson. “Serves him right, he'll get what is coming to him.”

  “Stop!” Jennifer was exasperated. Felling suddenly powerless, she didn't know what to do. Then hope brightened.

  “Jon Jason. Jon Jason will know what to do.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Elizabeth. “So I understand. Now, please come with me, we have a car waiting for you.”

  “What's the Moroder Treaty?” Captain asked Jennifer, as they were ushered into the car.

  “Serious stuff,” she replied. “And I can understand why he wouldn't tell us; however, there has to be something we can do.”

  “He's innocent until proven guilty, right?”

  She grimaced. Outer space was not America. “I'm afraid not.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don't know, just let me think.”

  “But he's out there!”

  “I know, I know! It'll be ok, we'll do something. The Dunleavys and I, we have power… and the Concatenation - maybe they'll listen.”

  They got into the car, followed by Mrs. Elizabeth. Harleson. The volunteers escorted them by iron horse.

  “We've planned a parade of course,” said the major-domo.

  “Isn't that sort of ridiculous?” Jennifer wondered, especially now that Plerrxx had been arrested.

  “No, it's important to plan things ahead of time,” said Mrs. Elizabeth, dodging Jennifer's question.

  “Now, it's important you wave to people at the parade from inside the car. Do not open your windows. Try your best to smile. I do remember you having a lovely smile.”

  “I'm not going to smile in your goddamn parade. You just killed our friend!”

  “He's not dead yet,” Mrs. Elizabeth said. “Who knows what will happen? Perhaps you will be reunited and everything will be happy again. In the meantime, it's important to wave and smile for your subjects.”

  “They're not my subjects.”

  “Not yet, no. But they might be, one day. Jon Jason has waited for you – have you not waited for him?”

  “What does she mean?” Captain asked Jennifer. “Waited for what?”

  Jennifer sighed, covering her eyes with her hands. “An arranged marriage. Something my mother's family dreamed of, but my parents would never have allowed!”

  “It's inevitable for the Malhotra family and the Dunleavy family to unite to become one,” said Mrs. Elizabeth. It's good business, and it's a good strategy. Such an alliance would swing things away from the favor of the Shadows and the Concatenation."

  “What is the Concatenation?” Captain asked.

  “It's a guild, sort of,” Jennifer explained. “Of traders, inventors, craftsman. They interlink the planets of the Solar System with their commercial activities.”

  “My, are you a scab?” asked Mrs. Elizabeth.

  “Will you shut up?” Jennifer scolded the major-domo. “I think your power has gone to your head. Do not deign to insult us.”

  “Mmmm,” said Mrs. Elizabeth. “Here is the parade now, do smile and wave dear!”

  It was as though every person of Ganymede – from noble to peasant – were summoned for the event. The streets were crowded with people, waving Jupiter and Saturn flags, with faces grinning. The air was filled with confetti and patriarchal music. Volunteers on horseback patrolled among the civilians, sitting tall on their mechanical horses. Their rifles held pointing up into the air.

  “And when did you organize this?” Jennifer asked.

  “Please wave dear,” said Mrs. Elizabeth smiling out the car window. “Not long after we heard word of your arrival. The people of Ganymede do as they are told.”

  Jennifer caught her breath. Everything was rushing too fast. Too late, she realized her understanding of the planet had been a child's view; one she had retained from visits in her youth. Suddenly, the cold reality of the place was almost too much to bear.

  She saw a little girl glancing through the window at her. She waved.

  “Good,” said Mrs. Elizabeth. “Good. See how easy it is?”

  * * *

  Captain was also shocked. He had never imagined Jennifer as royalty, and it appeared to him, at that moment, she never imagined herself that way either.

  They were in strange territory, being whisked to god knows where. He didn't trust the volunteers, and he certainly didn't trust Mrs. Elizabeth. In fact, the only thing he did trust was the knowledge that he needed to rescue Plerrxx as soon as possible.

  The parade itself seemed perverse. Some of the parade goers seemed to smile, albeit painfully. There was a fright in the eyes of the crowd, and he could see it. The people waved flags and cheered because they were being commanded to.

  “This is something!” he said, to disguise his thoughts and apprehension.

  “Isn't it though?” said Mrs. Elizabeth. “The people are so glad you are back, Princess.”

  “Please do not call me that,” Jennifer told the major-domo.

  “But you are a princess, that is a fact, and you know it. I promise you, your Prince awaits.”

  “Jon Jason?”

  “Oh how he has missed you,” said Mrs. Elizabeth. “The news of your death made him so cold, but he always believed you would show up, he never lost hope. It is so sad about your parents though.”

  “Yes, it is.” said Jennifer.

  Captain wondered who this Jon Jason Dunleavy was. Jennifer's betrothed? An ex-boyfriend? What about his feelings for Jennifer? Did they mean anything in this crazed Solar System?

  He became maudlin as he watched the crowds outside the car standing cordoned off in front of the tall iron buildings that appeared as though they had been stamped into the dirt by some deranged machine. Everything about Ganymede was regimented and drab. Everyone outside was dressed in the same gray color that Mrs. Elizabeth and the volunteers wore. The gray adorned the nicer finery of the upper classes, as well as the torn rags falling off the super poor. The only color that pervaded was the burnt ochre of Jupiter, groaning in vibration above, governing all.

  He felt Jennifer's hand on his own and turned to her. She gave him a reassuring smile, but there was a frantic sadness in her eyes. She gestured out the window on her side of the car, where tall gallows stood. Half a dozen dead women hung from nooses and spun in the wind as birds pecked at them. The women were the only colorful things Captain had seen on Ganymede thus far; they were dressed in neon blue and green dresses and boots.

  “And what is that?” Jennifer asked Mrs. Elizabeth.

  “Delphiniums,” the major-domo replied.

  “What?” Captain asked.

  “They're a church –” Jennifer started.

  “A cult,” Mrs. Elizabeth interrupted. “Revolutionaries. Rebels out to destroy Jupiter.”

  “Why were they executed?” Jennifer pressed the major-domo.

  “I don't know,” the old woman hissed. “Treason, probably.”

  “There's no excuse for hanging them up there like that,” said Captain.

  “I assure you there is,” said Mrs. Elizabeth. “They want to destroy everything we have built here and enslave us all.”

  “They're just religious,” said Jennifer. “When I was a kid, they gave food and clothing to the poor. They operated shelters. Jon Jason's father, Douglas Daniel, never had any problems with them.”

  Mrs. Elizabeth was shrill in her reply. “They give far more than that now, in a
n effort to take everything.”

  * * *

  They reached the end of the parade route, which was only a city block. Jennifer knew that the people wouldn't go home excited, just hungry.

  Thoughts crowded in on her, similar to how the parade-goers had gathered around the car. She recounted her childhood memories about this place. She had known about its delights, and its inequalities and injustices. She had thought it normal. After having witnessed the freedoms of Earth, and reading about liberty in books, she found herself confused. Still, Jon Jason was here, and he supposedly ruled. He had promised to change things. He would answer all these questions.

  The streets emptied except for the occasional man, woman, or child walking along. The buildings looked nondescript and moribund. Splotches of pretty blue or green graffiti hung from naked walls, injecting a hint of hopeful color.

  Jennifer saw a flash of color to her left; she turned catching sight of a pretty teenager dressed in neon blue, riding her bicycle past the car. The girl was petite with a pixie haircut and green eyes. She looked into the car at Jennifer, quietly making eye contact. She smiled and waved as she passed. The girl looked to Captain and waved again, before seeing Mrs. Elizabeth and rolling her eyes as only a teenager can.

  “Delphinium rubbish,” said the driver, as he swerved over to hit the girl.

  She dodged without thought, whisking ahead of the car on her bike, waving once more. Somehow, inexplicably, she changed her skin color to an immaculate bright green before she sped ahead and disappeared off into a side street.

  Just a coincidence? Jennifer wondered. Or something more? Reconnaissance? Or an invitation…?

  She wondered further. Are we in danger? Should we jump out of the car? She thought of the motorcade and the volunteers. We are captives, same as Plerrxx. Now what?

  * * *

  Ahead, carved into the back of a purposeful mound of ice, was the obvious and gigantic mouth of a tunnel, sealed tight with a fat wrought iron gate. A number of hostile looking volunteers paced back and forth in front of it, showing off unpleasant weaponry. The volunteers glanced at the car and continued unconcerned.

  The driver reached above the windshield to push a button. The ancient-looking gate parted outwards. They entered the tunnel. “Hold on,” the driver cautioned too late as—WOOSH! —they were free-falling. Captain's innards flipped, he was reminded of the space-hopper take off—in reverse.

  They descended a long vertical tunnel so straight it could only have been man-made. The walls were shiny and wet, lined with fluorescent lights that scrolled by steadily. Captain and Jennifer stared at the hypnotic flashes in silence for several minutes. Captain was struck by a massive pang of anticipation.

  The luminescent blinks stretched lazily into bright lines as the car's descent slowed. They abruptly shot into the open, then plunged into the dense halting traffic of the other vehicles. Captain, with his nose glued to the cold window, noticed that the other cars were generally the same with a few differences; they were painted in different designs, with different sorts of fins, tails, and wings, but all made from the same square body.

  “Rush hour.” Mrs. Elizabeth yawned emphatically, echoing the sentiments of the commuters stuck in front of them.

  Captain craned his neck to see more. There was ice above and below them. They were in one of Ganymede's famed ice caverns. His eyes traced the contours of what was a sprawling suburb around them. There were living quarters, as well as markets and churches. The large blocky factories surrounding the markets seemed to be the center of the neighborhood. It was almost like what you would see on Earth—a hundred years ago.

  Gradually, they navigated roads where there were less and less cars. The overhead lights grew sparse. Soon they were plunging alone into near darkness, backlit only by the receding blue shimmer of the underground suburbs. The driver turned on the headlights, though they illuminated nothing. An eeriness settled over them. Captain had been uncomfortable before; now a slight fear gripped his legs. Jennifer remained silent.

  They appeared to be slowing. The driver tapped a code into a number-pad on the dashboard. They heard the car whirring and transforming on the outside. Preparing for water, Captain concluded. The headlights landed on something which was clearly liquid. Access to the ocean was apparently unguarded. Only the rich must be able to afford the necessary vehicles, Captain thought to himself. The muffled splash told them they were going underwater; the darkness was unaltered.

  To Captain's own surprise, his thoughts were overcome not by the weirdness and secrets of the unfathomably gigantic underground ocean now surrounding them, but by Jupiter, or more precisely, its absence. For undistracted by the sights of the city, he realized how relieved he was to have untold miles of ice between himself and that haunting, undead planet.

  The car's jets whooshed and bubbled behind them. The driver turned off the headlights and a sonar display filled the windshield. Beeps and bleeps filled the pods. “The highest underwater mountains are miles below,” Jennifer said, dreamily.

  Captain listened to her words but thought of no response other than an unrelated question, “Is there any life down here?”

  Jennifer almost laughed. “Look below us,” she whispered.

  He did. There was a pulsing amber light deep below them. “What is that?” he asked slowly. “An underwater city of some sort? There's so much light.”

  “No,” Jennifer struggled to maintain her presence in the moment. “Look.” She pointed out the window toward a light that was floating near the car.

  Captain squinted his eyes, but all he could see was brown light. “I don't see it,” he said.

  “Driver—turn on the side lights,” Jennifer commanded. The driver complied, flooding the sea outside Captain's window with electric radiance. The light that had been there before disappeared, and in its place swam the strangest fish he had ever seen. It looked more like a bat than a sea creature, with wide wings and a rodent-like face surrounded by flapping gills.

  “Weird,” Captain commented.

  “Driver?” Jennifer pointed out the window. The driver turned off the electric lights and darkness dropped back upon them. The amber light appeared where the bat/fish had been. She turned to Captain. “There are fish like that on Earth too, right? Deep in the ocean, that generate their own light?”

  “Yeah…” nodded Captain, suddenly getting it.

  Jennifer pointed at the vast light below them.

  “Those are all fish?” Captain asked.

  “Yes.” She smiled, inside and out. “When there is no light, we make our own.”

  3. On Strange Ground

  There was a sparkling magnificence, and Captain took this to be more fish. As they neared the Dunleavy mansion, it came into focus through the water. The great glassed atriums and ballrooms, the pentagonal cubes of private quarters, hallways like thick tubes wrapping around the undersea facility came into vision. Captain tried to gauge its size and structure, but only came up with a frustrating “big,” and as an afterthought, “very.”

  The driver sped toward the mansion in a plume of bubbles. They came to a hatch on the sides of one of the complex's long walls. The driver guided the car through the interior of the mansion until it rose out of the water into a large, immaculate and resplendent courtyard; similar to the entrance to an English manor.

  There, standing in a line stood a score of maids, butlers, and other servants. Less stiffly stood the Dunleavy family comprised of the patriarch Douglas Daniel, his wife Lindsay Laura, their daughter Sara Sloan with a young boy who must have been her son. At the end of the line, like an exclamation point, stood their son Jon Jason. What immediately stood out about the family is that they all had shorn heads, even the women. It is an ancient tradition of the Dunleavy clan. They were immensely rich, masters of a planet; however, the way they carried themselves betrayed it. Adorned in old Western dress including cowboy hats, corsets, long skirts, and leather, they were the scions of a family that could trace back their a
ncestry to the Bronze Age of the Earth.

  * * *

  Captain and Jennifer were let out of the car and led over to the family by Mrs. Elizabeth. “May I present,” said the major-domo, “Jennifer Malhotra and Captain Darby.”

  Jennifer who could not yet look Jon Jason in the eye, greeted Douglas Daniel. He was in his early seventies, dressed in a white shirt and a black cowboy hat. His face was webbed with lines and purposely dark eyes.

  They met and embraced. “My God,” Douglas Daniel said in his gruff voice. “You're so tall!”

  Jennifer laughed, wiping a tear from her eye. “I grew up, Mr. Dunleavy.”

  “So you did,” Douglas Daniel agreed. “And is this…?” He turned to Captain. “Is this the student of Marty's you were telling me about?”

  “Yes, my friend Lewis,” she said.

  Douglas Daniel rapidly shook Captain's hand. “Any friend of Marty's…”

  “Thanks,” Captain replied, a little uncomfortable at having to lie that he was Jennifer's father's associate. Otherwise they never would have let him into this part of Ganymede.

  Douglas Daniel turned back to Jennifer. “I'm so sorry about your parents. Why didn't you contact me?”

  “I don't know,” Jennifer said. “I was sad.”

  The elder Dunleavy's face turned melancholy. “So what brings you to Jupiter?”

  “Finishing my father's work,” Jennifer answered, truthfully. “Or trying to.”

  “My dear, you can never finish that type of work,” Douglas Daniel said thoughtfully.

  “I suppose you're right, Mr. Dunleavy.”

  A new voice interrupted: “But you can try!” Jon Jason spoke loudly as he approached, impatient.

  Jennifer looked him in the eyes and a weight lifted off her back. It is him, she thought. We're safe. He'll help us. He still loves me.

  Do I still love him?

  Jon Jason Dunleavy was tall. His head and face were shaven clean, his eyes were dark and his lips full. The sleek majesty of his face caged calm power, like a jaguar sleeping. He was dressed in jeans and a black button-down shirt. He wore silver jewelry around his neck, and stood in shiny boots. He was only two years older than Jennifer; he was young, and he lived young. His brilliant grin saluted them in a flattering way.