The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades (43 page)

“I’ll help you. We’ll help. We’re lost, too. No
reference.”

“NO REFERENCE… PLEASE FEED REFERENCE
COORDINATES…”

I check my maps, find no positioning data. I call up
old sat-images, try to guess where we are. There
is
a
flat-topped oval mountain across the valley from where we were,
fifteen kilometers northeast, basically dead center of the main
Chasma. There are no comparable elevations between here are where
we came from—it’s all open lowland—but there are some highlands and
small mountains several kilometers directly east. I send the maps
back along the channel they’re using.

“TERRAIN REFERENCE ERRORS. COMMAND SIGNALS LOST.
UNABLE TO PROCEED.”

“We’re in some kind of other dimension,” I give them
what’s probably nonsense. “Things are different. Landforms. Plants.
The water. The air. Climate. Your masters aren’t in this world.
This is where they came from, but they’re not here anymore.”

I’m just throwing out anything that might process. I
get several blasts of static and gibberish. The bots jerk, seem to
struggle within themselves, like they can panic. When the voice
comes back, it’s different, softer. And, I think, afraid.

“HELP US. HUMAN. WE WERE HUMAN. LIKE YOU. DEAD NOW.
KILLED. BUT NOT. STILL HERE. SO DARK HERE. COLD. CAN’T SEE. ONLY
BIT-SCAN, DATA, NUMBERS, GRAPHICS. LIKE GHOSTS. WHOLE WORLD
GHOSTS.”

Am I talking to the remnants of the human brains used
to run these things, Chang’s Godless butcher-experiments? I feel
chilled, sick. There are parts of
people
in there. Still
alive.

“Who were you?” my father asks as I fumble for words.
“Do you remember?”

There’s a long silence. The voice returns,
measured

“DAKOTA ELLIS. THIRD GENERATION FRONTIER PEACE
KEEPER. I THINK I DIED AT MELAS TWO. ON THE ‘CLOUD. FIRE BOMB. I
REMEMBER BURNING. CHOKING. THEN THIS. ALL GONE. BUT NOT DEAD. NOT
ALL THE WAY DEAD.”

“SNYDER SANCHEZ,” another voice cut in, like it’s
eager to be heard. “ZODANGA. I WAS ON THE ‘CLOUD WHEN THE SKY
PIERCED THROUGH THE HULL. FIRE. HIT ME IN A WAVE. THEY TOOK MY
BODY. ONE-EYE, FOHAT. HE CUT INTO ME. I WASN’T DEAD. I WASN’T DEAD.
I TRIED TO TELL HIM. HE LAUGHED.”

“COMMAND SIGNAL,” the first bot voice—Dakota—comes
back, “IT CONTROLS ALL. MOVEMENT. SENSATION. IT’S IN OUR HEADS. OUR
MINDS. CAN’T THINK. CAN’T RESIST. ONLY SERVE. EXIST. KEEP EXISTING.
DRIVE THE MACHINE. DRIVE THE MACHINE.”

I can’t imagine…

“It’s horrible…” I didn’t mean to say it out loud.
“I’m sorry. I… My name is Ishmael.” It seemed polite to give that.
“And this is my father. Abu Abbas.”

“You’ve lost your command signal?” my father presses
them gently. “Does that mean you have control? Of yourselves?”

“OPERATING SYSTEMS ARE IDLE,” Dakota says. “OPERATING
SYSTEMS HAVE NEVER BEEN IDLE EXCEPT DURING SHUTDOWN. SLEEP.
PEACEFUL SLEEP. AWAKE IS HELL. STUCK IN HELL.”

“WE HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO MOVE…” Snyder explains,
waving one of his six limbs with some apparent difficulty.
“OURSELVES. BY OURSELVES. ONLY BY COMMANDS. PRODDING. PUSHING.
HURTING IF WE RESIST.”

“But you’re free now?” I realize this could be good
or bad, but if Chang or Asmodeus or Fohat were still running them,
or even their base programming, we’d be dead.

“NOT FREE,” the Snyder voice denies. “TRAPPED. IN THE
DARK.” The bot I assume is him bucks and thrashes. “DEAD BUT NOT
DEAD. DEAD BUT NOT.”

“How long can you… can you live like that?”

“HE PUT SOMETHING IN US TO KEEP THE NERVE CELLS FROM
DYING,” Dakota admits. “AND TO FEED US. BASIC NEEDS. AS LONG AS THE
SHELL WORKS, AS LONG AS IT DOESN’T GET DESTROYED.”

“REMOVE US,” Snyder suddenly demands. His limbs flail
even more wildly—we have to back away. “OPEN US AND DESTROY US.
FREE US FROM THIS HELL. GIVE US DEATH.”

I…

“We… We have no tools. No weapons that can hurt you…
We lost them in the Lake. Spent them in the fight before.”

I’m having trouble seeing. My eyes are flooded with
tears.

“But we will help you,” my father cuts in, raising
his hands to try to calm the unnaturally living machines. “As soon
as we find a way.”

The bots settle down, sag on their limbs. They look
defeated.

“Dakota,” I have to ask. “You too? You want us to…
release you? Send you on?”

After a long pause:

“I HAD… I HAD A FAMILY. CHILDREN. A BOY AND A GIRL. I
DON’T EVEN KNOW IF THEY’RE STILL ALIVE.”

“If you tell me their names… We have friends. One of
them was a Keeper, from Industry. We could find out… Let them know
what happened to you…”

Another pause.

“NO. JUST LET THEM KNOW… LET THEM KNOW I DIED.”

I nod my agreement.

“Maybe they can help us find the others,” my father
suggests softly.

“I DON’T…” Dakota cries through my card. “I DON’T
REMEMBER WHAT THEY LOOKED LIKE. I CAN’T HEAR THEIR VOICES. I DON’T
REMEMBER THEM… PARTS OF MY BRAIN ARE GONE…”

The sound of the voices—their voices—through my card
are chilling. I’m shaking again, even though I warmed up a long
time ago. I’m looking at machines, but also human beings, wounded,
mutilated—unimaginably so. I reach out, touch the metal of a bladed
limb like it’s flesh. I wonder if they can feel at all.

“We’ll help you. We’ll…”

The bots’ sensor heads suddenly spin and they spring
upright, turn their guns, but not on us. They sweep the line of
growth in either direction, move like they expect attack. But even
more unexpected: they move on either side of us, as if to protect
us.

“MULTIPLE TARGETS,” Snyder announces, probably still
able to see through the green. I see targeting lasers lance from
their limb guns into the dense growth, dancing between specific
spots as if alternately locking targets, dozens of them.

“Whoever you are!” my father shouts. “These machines
can pick you out through your cover! We mean you no harm!”

Silence. Just the sound of wind and water and the
bots servos shifting between targets we can’t see.

“Please! We mean you no harm! We’re just trying to
find our friends! We’re not from around here!”

“We heard you,” a deep voice booms from the growth.
“Thinner air, no water-valley, different plants. Different.”

Shapes come shuffling out of the growth, squat and
bulky, surrounding us. Under nets of green vines that apparently
serve as effective camouflage, I see cloaks. And under the cloaks:
metal, armor, a lot of it. Polished bright silver. They also carry
large concave rectangular shields on their left arms, which they
plant in front of them and crouch behind, resting their spear
weapons on them as they aim them at us (there’s a notch in the top
edge of the shield just the right size for this). They form two
staggered ranks like this at angles on either side of us, trapping
us in a crossfire, our backs to the water. Then archers—in lighter
armor and mail—take positions behind them and draw on us, ready.
We’re faced with more than three dozen warriors. Up close like
this, they seem to be a full head shorter than us on average, and
between all their armor and their physical build, look almost as
wide as they are tall.

“Neither are we from around here,” the voice tells us
from their shield line.

“Silvermen,” my father identifies them easily.
“Steel.”

“You know what the Katar call us? And the
Tranquility, the Cast?” The speaker rises a bit over the top of his
shield to address us, but keeps his spear leveled. “How?”

“We were brought here,” my father answers. “By ship.
From the Pax Lands in the North Blade. We travel with a Katar, a
friend. And one from Tranquility. We came originally from Melas
Chasma.”

“You are solid-built,” he seems to praise. “Not like
the Katar or the Pax or those we have seen here that have given up
the bones of their ancestors.”

“Weight discipline. Taught by our ancestors. We wear
metal, armor like you, only we don’t have as much of it. We had to
discard it—we fell in the water and it was pulling us under.”

This piece of information seems to particularly
surprise them—I’m not sure why that detail above everything
else.

“Why are you here?” the spearman demands.

“I should be asking the same of you,” my father
decides to challenge. They shuffle just a little at that as they
hold their ground. Was the question uncomfortable? My father
decides to give: “We came looking for something. A ravenous
artificial intelligence, nanotechnology from this place, has
entered our world.
Your
world…” He pauses, considers, then
asks: “How long have you been here?”

“Six Years, Mars,” the speaker admits cautiously.
That’s more than eleven on the Earth Standard Calendar. If time
runs the same here as at home, they’ve been here since well before
Chang appeared, before Earth’s return. They have no idea what’s
been happening.

“Our world is at war,” my father tells them. “Your
people have been called to honor the old treaties. Earth has
returned—that’s why we had to leave our homes in Melas. And there
is a threat from
this
world: beings of unimaginable power,
immortals. Machines like these. Aircraft. Satellites in the sky.
Cannons as powerful as meteorite strikes. The peoples of Mars need
to join together against them. Many have died. We need to stop
fighting each other.”

They digest that silently. They’re certainly
disciplined. (And this is the first time I’ve gotten to really see
their armor without them trying to kill us. Despite dirt all over
them like they’ve recently been buried in it, it’s beautiful,
finely crafted and engraved, fit together in overlapping layers of
plate to allow mobility. Thick face masks hide their expressions,
except for their eyes, which are deep-set and thickly-hooded. What
little skin I can see is very pale.)

“Can you take us home?” their leader finally asks,
trying his best to maintain his tone of command, but I think I hear
desperation, hope.

“We came on a ship,” my father repeats. Admits, “It
isn’t our own, but we can ask. You don’t belong here, so maybe the
captain will take you… How
did
you get here?”

The leader withdraws his spear, stands it
upright.

“We marched. Under cover of the dust, digging in
during the calms. Our Century—eighty strong, and supports—was sent
from the Southern Wall to Pax and Katar, to renew the Old Treaties
of the Triumvirate. But there was a discrepancy when we reached
North Blade: the radiation levels of the Hot Zone had dropped. Our
Primus decided to investigate, because the Zone promised a wealth
of precious metals from Skyfall. Greed. When we camped for the
night—here, at the foot of the Oval Mountain—we awoke the next
morning under a different sky with the water all around us. We
could not cross back.”

I wonder how Jed would explain that. (And I wonder
how the Jinn Elias would ridicule that explanation.)

In any case, they’ve been here—stuck here—for more
than a decade (more than half my lifetime).

“We will help you if we can,” my father agrees. “We
have to find our friends.”

“The ship was carrying them that way,” I try to
clarify, pointing east.

“There is land across the water on clear days, but we
have no way to get there,” their leader gives back. “Sometimes
people come across—frail, and without weapons or armor—to launch
their floating vessels from the sand on this side, out into the
bigger water. They hold ceremonies, sometimes celebrations, then
go. The vessels they send far sometimes return after days, riders
near death, or sometimes never do.”

“You never tried to take one of the water craft?” my
father asks carefully, trying not to sound accusatory.

“They are not for us. When we try, they fill with
water and vanish under the surface. If the water is higher than we
are tall when this happens, those who try die and are lost in
it.”

They haven’t figured out it’s their metal that traps
them, or maybe they can’t conceptualize taking it off. It explains
their reaction when we admitted discarding our own armor to keep
from drowning.

“What is it you seek here?” the leader goes back to
interrogation. “A weapon?”

“We…” My father considers his words. “We’re not
really seeking anything. Powerful AI—living, thinking machines—have
attached themselves to a few of our friends. They demanded we come
here to find others like them. There are supposedly five. We hope
to stop them—the more there are together, the stronger they become.
They’ve already tried to take control of the Terraforming
Stations.”

I watch the leader’s eyes track elsewhere—this has
made him think of something, something specific. A number of his
soldiers are also showing this in their eyes, the way they shift
uncomfortably behind their shields and weapons. I see several of
them look back toward the mountain.

“What do these things look like?” we get asked with a
new urgency, nervous.

“They can be anything, change shape. They need to
attract a host, so they offer power to those in need that they
think can serve them. In our world, they’ve appeared as fine
swords.”

That information gets received with even more shock
than anything else we’ve told them. I see definite recognition in
their eyes, even—for the first time—fear. We stand frozen in the
wind for several long seconds—the only sign that they haven’t
re-decided to kill us is that their leader keeps his spear-weapon
at rest. Finally, he signals his decision by moving aside his
shield, symbolically exposing himself (though he’s not really,
given all the body armor he’s wearing). This gets his warriors to
raise their spears skyward, relax their bows.

“You should come with us,” he tells us urgently.

We weave through the green, following him on a
frustratingly maze-like route. His men don’t all follow the same
path, but move with purpose—I expect they divide to keep from
leaving too-obvious trails. Looking behind, I saw a few of them
using their shields like big shovels to scoop water from the Lake
and douse our prints in the sand, partially erasing them.