Michael Swanwick's Periodic Table of Science Fiction

Helium

4.0026

Jane Carter of Mars

Imagine having Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, for your

great-grandmother! Her likeness, carved in marble, balloon breasts and

all, is everywhere in that fabled city. Small wonder Jane Carter became a

punk.

She awoke from a drunken sleep one morning to find a green, four-armed

ogre with tusks banging his forehead on the floor before her. His

tattered harness identified him as a member of the Imperial Guard.

"The Beast Men have invaded the capital!" he wailed. "You must free our

people, oh princess."

"Why me?" she asked blearily. "Why not somebody who gives a damn?"

But blood will tell. The next thing she knew, the faithful remnants of

the old regime had her decked out in her great-grandmother's thong and

breastplates, and she was fighting on the parapets, sword in one hand and

ray gun in the other.

Because she was so hung over, she had not a thought for personal safety.

"Wassamatter, you never saw facial piercings before?" she said to an

astonished warrior as she blew him away. "It's called a Mohawk!" she

screamed at another, and ran him through.

The citizens, not close enough to smell her breath, were inspired, and

took up arms.

The Beast Men didn't have a chance.

So it was that Jane Carter ended up, against her will, on the Imperial

throne, with a scantily clad male crouching to either side of her,

pouting and caressing her calves. A thousand servants rushed to do her

every bidding. She was respected, revered, adored. Statues were erected

in her honor.

The irony of this did not escape her.

The End