For some minutes nothing more happened. Then a clattering and a rattling sounded from the other side of the gate’s thick wood. “How the d—l did you get here?” came a muffled voice.
“We have a safe-conduct from … from a Martian general,” Arabella called back. There was a tiny peep-hole in the door, she noticed, and she directed her voice to it. “We are here to negotiate an end to this siege.”
Voices sounded from inside, at least two different ones, but between the thickness of the door and the clattering of the Martians she was unable to make out the words. “There seems to be some disagreement within,” the captain said, and Arabella could only nod in unhappy agreement.
“Please let us in,” Arabella called again. “I am Arabella Ashby, Michael’s sister. And this is Captain Prakash Singh of the Honorable Mars Company.”
“Miss Ashby?” came a voice from within, a different one. “I had thought you were on Earth!”
“I took passage on Diana, a fine and very rapid ship,” she said. “Oh, do let us in. I promise we mean you no harm.”
The argument within resumed, even more vehemently, until finally the first voice cursed and called out, “I shan’t open the door unless you can get those d____d savages to back away at least five yards. And if they charge when I open it, I shall shoot the lot of them, and you too if I must!”
Even with the storek, it was not easy for Arabella to convince the Martians to clear the area near the door as the unpleasant voice demanded. The task was finally accomplished through a combination of gentle persuasion on Arabella’s part, using every bit of Martian politeness she’d learned from Khema, and a display of self-assurance from the captain, who simply spread his arms and walked slowly forward, pressing the crowd back by sheer force of personality.
Rattles, thuds, and dragging sounds came from the door’s other side as whatever barricade had been erected within was laboriously disassembled. “Get in close!” the unpleasant voice called. “I’ll give you a count of three to get inside.”
Arabella and the captain moved in close to the gate. The crowd of Martians began to edge forward, diminishing the open space.
Suddenly, with a grinding scrape of wood on stone, the door was pulled open. It stopped when the opening was less than one foot wide. “Inside!” the voice demanded, accompanied by a pair of wild red-rimmed eyes, a rifle barrel, and a pale beckoning hand. “Hurry!”
Arabella squeezed herself through as quickly as she could, followed immediately by the captain. A moment later the door was pushed shut behind her, and she was roughly shoved aside as the door was barred and casks, crates, and heavy furniture were piled up against it. The grunts of men and the thump of wood on stone as the barricade was restored were matched by the cries and clatters of the Martians outside trying to get in.
“Come away from the door, child,” came the first voice. “It’s not safe here.”
She turned away from the door and the three burly young men still barricading it. A lean old man, with wild white hair and an old-fashioned hunting jacket, stood beckoning with his left hand, a rifle clutched in his right. The butts of two pistols protruded from his pockets.
It was, she realized belatedly, Lord Corey, the owner of the house … though a much aged and diminished version of the jolly neighbor she’d left behind when her mother had taken her to Earth.
*
“Thank you for your hospitality, Lord Corey,” Arabella said, and dropped a curtsey. They had retreated from the door, with its continued thuds and clatters, to the drawing-room, a high and echoing chamber nearly unchanged from Arabella’s memories except that it was now crowded with people and stacked high with crates and boxes. Apart from Lord and Lady Corey, their servants, and her family solicitor Mr. Trombley, she recognized none of the company. Where was her brother?
Lord Corey presented to the captain and Arabella the several dozen refugees who had retreated to his manor from the flames of Fort Augusta; Arabella presented the captain to Lord Corey. The refugees, as it turned out, were mostly people of Lord Corey’s elevated social stratum, which explained their unfamiliarity to Arabella, and the contrast between their fine clothes and refined accents and their current straitened circumstances was sharp. But though under other circumstances Arabella would have been honored to make their acquaintance, between introductions her eyes kept darting about, still seeking Michael.
Many of the refugees had not left the house in a week or more, and they bombarded Arabella with questions. What was the situation beyond the gates? Had she any news of their relatives, their homes, their servants? And how had she, a lone girl with nothing but a heathen foreigner for company, managed to make her way through that mob of savages unharmed?