The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN (10 page)

And I see the change in Ryder, that she’s starting to
think about living beyond all the death. Rick gives me just enough
of a quick smile to let me know he’s seen it, too. I think the two
of them have been getting close over these hard months, though I
have to smile at the idea of the reclusive, antisocial Dr. Mann
taking up with a widow twenty years younger. But after five months
with no contact, some of us are starting to think about how to get
on with living.

“Once we get more mobile, we can make it a priority
to keep an eye out for other species,” I encourage. “If this one
survived blowing in the wind from somebody’s breached lab or
greenhouse, there may be more.”

“I’m hoping we find some of the facilities
intact
,” Rick considers after Ryder gets focused on making
some plans on her pad.

“Or at least not contaminated,” I agree.

“I was thinking in terms of finding
people
,”
he corrects me, testily. “
Alive
.”

“There could be significant renewable food sources
out there somewhere,” Ryder backs him, though taking less offense.
“More hope that there could be other survivors.”

“We’re still a ways from having the means to make any
kind of trek to even the nearer colonies.”

Oxygen bottles and rebreathers only last hours to a
day. The nearest colonies—Avalon and Arcadia—are over seventy-five
miles away, northwest and southwest respectively. The nearest other
UNMAC base—Melas Three, a small bunkered airbase—is a hundred and
twelve miles south-southeast. Melas One, which was still being
rebuilt after it was smashed in the slides of ’57—is a hundred and
thirty miles west-northwest. The nearest ETE generator is
marginally closer—a hundred miles northwest—but it’s also up twelve
thousand feet of treacherous Marineris slope (not to mention the
air is likely much thinner up that high).

“Assuming we don’t get help from home,” he redirects.
“The transmitter is up?”

I nod. “But even if we get a call today, it could be
a year or more before Earthside gets here.”

“I think I can keep busy,” he considers, watching
Ryder work. Then he gives me a look that lets me know he’s not sure
if he wants to pass this news: “Speaking of eager idle hands, Tru
Greenlove has been making noise again.”

“She hasn’t called up to Ops,” I let him know.

“Not her style, Colonel,” Rick remembers sourly.
“First she’ll stir it up, then she’ll come looking for you.” I
catch Ryder giving him an equally sour look, like Rick is just
being a judgmental old fart.

“Maybe I should go see her.”

MAI tells me she’s in the obvious place:

A-Deck, Main Bunker, Northeast Quadrant.

We’d given the section to the civilian refugees after
Mariner Colony got crushed by slides in ’57, the year before I
offloaded on this planet. The concrete casting was barely dry on
the bunker shield-walls when we had to quickly take in over two
thousand colonists, as well as the bulk of the Melas One UNMAC
battalion when they were forced to evacuate as well. And this
brand-new dug-in bunker complex—the first designed specifically to
stand against Disc attack—became a kind of “castle town” surrounded
by a shanty camp of temporary shelters. The majority of the
refugees camped on the surface, inside the perimeter wall. But when
the Discs came to hit us, everybody had to pack into the bunkers
(and that was three times what they were designed to hold).

The section hadn’t been developed when the first wave
of refugees came. It was just being used for stores: Six decks of
big open spaces—each about twice the size of one of our large
barracks—wedged behind the Atmosphere and Water Recycling
facilities in the “back corner” of the base. The first arrivals got
to work with the same spirit that established twenty colonies on
this planet in only ten years. And they used every square inch we
could give them. (They even improved the efficiency of our
recyclers to support the extra population.)

By the time of the bombardment seven years later,
most of the refugees had either given up on the Martian dream or
found a place in the other growing colonies. Those that stuck it
out remained camped here while they rotated shifts trying to
rebuild Mariner. About five hundred people had managed to move back
into that colony when the bombs fell. The two-hundred and
thirty-nine that were still living here waiting for a Mariner
habitat slot went into Hiber-Sleep with the rest of us. We had more
than enough couches for them, especially since we’d just sent
ninety of our own personnel—pilots, gunners and rescue teams on the
fifteen flyable ships we had—into orbit to try to do some good
against the unthinkable.

But even after seven years of living and working
together in such intimate conditions, I expect that there were
still tensions felt in giving some of those refugees couches that
should have been filled by UNMAC Spacers. More than a few of those
refugees were former (or some would say still active) Ecos.

Truganini Greenlove certainly made few friendships
with the military. Beyond the unfortunate name—a product of her
rabidly activist co-parents—Tru was no idealistic hippie. While
there was no evidence she participated in any of the front-line
violence of the Eco War, she was one of their most vocal
spokespeople, holding court with a tight circle of equally
passionate activists while their “soldiers” held onto Mariner,
Liberty and Industry during their little “revolution”.

Since the slides drove them all out of the colony
before I made landfall, I never had to face Tru or her followers
behind a gun. But I remember how hard she took it when UNMAC
command—under General Ryder—launched their ’59 surge, taking back
Industry and Liberty colonies by force, resulting in almost seven
hundred fatalities. But to her credit (or some would attribute it
to cunning), she stayed with the refugees here at Melas Two when
many of her fellows staged a new uprising at the Mariner
construction site. It was her reputation with even the most
militant Ecos that helped me leverage a cease-fire agreement, while
UNMAC—under intense public criticism for the casualties
incurred—made good on promises to scale back their military ground
presence (at least until the Discs re-escalated things).

“To what do we owe, Colonel?” she purrs, making a
point not to look up from the ration packs she’s been sorting for
the night’s meal. I do catch looks from a few of the civvies
helping her figure out how to make sure everybody gets enough to
eat. Most of them look either nervous or uncomfortable, like I’m
bringing bad news (or that anyone in a uniform just simply is bad).
They’re mostly twenty-somethings, wearing assorted work gear and
casuals that match their ragged but functional grooming: chopped
hair, short beards on the males, lean bodies used to eating rations
or basic recycle and doing without simulated Earth gravity.

The bay itself looks much like it did in the days
before we slept: a hive of bunks stacked three high, each with a
little more than a thin pad for a mattress, and paired with a small
a storage locker. They had been scavenged from construction ships
landed as temporary barracks for colony workers. The tight spaces
between the stacks form “common” areas for sitting, eating, and
socializing. Curtains made from survival blankets separate blocks
of bunks into somewhat more private barracks, and some are arranged
for families (Halley’s census tells me there are forty sets of
co-parents caring for sixty-two children, and at least two
expectant mothers). They’d even installed their own communal
kitchens, toilets and showers for each section.

Each of the four sections—stacked on top of each
other from A to D Deck—now houses sixty to seventy refugees, a
ghost town compared to when it was four times that many, but it
still makes our enlisted trooper barracks look luxurious.

Maybe two-thirds of the adults aren’t here during the
day shifts. Several dozen of them have volunteered to help
Thomasen’s engineer group dig us out. Others have been helping
restore the base, pulling shifts as medics and nurses, using their
expertise to assist wherever they can, and working to keep
everybody as fed and healthy as possible. Those that are “home” are
sleeping for night shift work, cleaning up, cooking, or running a
makeshift school/daycare for the children (who at least don’t
recoil as much as their parents do at the sight of a uniform).

“A rumor you’ve been looking for me,” I greet her
back. I see her grin. Her long, straight hair—black frosted with
gray—falls over her pale, partially oriental features. She has
faint scarring on her cheekbones from the rigors of colony
life.

“You’re not hard to find, boss,” she denies, still
not looking up from her inventory. “But then, neither am I.”

“Sorry I haven’t gotten over here sooner,” I try.

“Restarting civilization from scratch and all,” she
jokes, finally showing me her green eyes, but staying aloof. “I get
it. Besides: Not really your neighborhood.”

“No excuses,” I try again, then get to the point.
“We’ve shut you out. I’d say it’s because of the seriousness of the
situation, but that’s exactly why you should be involved.”

“Being proactive, Colonel… Very nice. I think you’ll
work out better than your predecessors.”

I glance up at the eyes still uncomfortably on us,
then suggest: “Can we go somewhere else?”

“Well, since you hobbled your old frame all they way
down here, I suppose I could suffer equally,” she agrees after a
moment of letting me stew. She uses her hands to push herself up
out of her chair, then rebalances herself to get her prosthetic
right leg—a casualty of early colony building—properly under her.
She takes me arm-and-arm (not as any need for support, just to show
off with a wink to her cadres) and takes the lead on a walk toward
a back corner of the bay. She moves with a pronounced limp, but her
step is still lively.

The section’s north wall on this deck is one of few
places with windows, and it’s been arranged for recreation,
relaxation. There isn’t much actual view because there’s a
ridgeline that runs just to the north of the bunkers, but you can
see the distant canyon rims above it. The winds are starting to
kick up again as the sun gets lower in the west.

She turns, leads me through a curtain and into a
narrow space which I realize is around the back of Water
Recycling—I can hear the uneven thrum of the plumbing. Bunks are
stacked to either side of us. She takes me back through one more
curtain, to a space just big enough for a single bunk and a locker,
and a small dome light. There are posters of Earth—trees and grass
and water—on the walls.

“Make yourself comfy.” She gestures for me to sit. “I
don’t entertain much anymore.”

“I’m thinking we need a refugee representative
sitting in on our command briefings,” I tell her, getting right to
business.

“And I thought you were just taking me somewhere to
make out,” she jibes, dropping down next to me, then running her
index finger down my shoulder.

“Are you going to hold an election, or just take the
job by default?” I ignore.

“Ouch,” she concedes with a pout.

“Not the answer I was looking for,” I press her.

“Do we get full disclosure?” she wants to know,
sitting up, finally turning serious. “Rumors are flying, Colonel.
It’s all scary science fiction: Dead Earth. No survivors. Nanobug
monsters. Engineered plagues. Discs controlling the planet. And we
had friends and family out there in the colonies.”

“Full disclosure is we still haven’t heard anything
from anyone,” I give her. “The transmitter just went up, but
planetary alignment isn’t promising—won’t be for several months.
And I won’t keep it a secret if we get a reply.”

“Unless you’re ordered to,” she counters.

“I’m not sure how that works if the books say I’ve
been dead fifty years,” I allow myself to get lighter with her. “If
I’m still working for them, I think they owe me enough back-pay to
buy a small country.”

She smiles at that, but then presses:

“You thinking of resigning your commission?”

“If we don’t hear otherwise, I’m an officer in a
non-existent army. Then you’ll need to hold a whole other sort of
election.”

“You telling me you wouldn’t pull any martial-law
bullshit on us?” All the (probably defensive) playfulness is gone
now. She’s playing the leader of her people.

“I’ve heard of this thing called ‘democracy’.
Apparently it’s worked okay in the past.”

She smiles again, her face showing a few lines around
her eyes. “I
was
serious before. You’re actually pretty
tasty for an old jarhead. Screw what the kids think—let me know if
you get lonely.”

I give her a noncommittal nod, get up to let myself
out.

“I’ll be in touch.”

I realize that probably just encouraged her.

Day 153. 4 June, 2115:

Staley’s Tower lasted nine hours and twenty-one
minutes.

“Some kind of electrostatic overload as we ramped up
the signal,” Anton mourns, frustrated, and he displays the ruined
components his team has pulled out of his pet project, spread out
on the big Command Briefing Room table. They look intact—the damage
is all in the microprocessors, which are hopelessly burned.

“We might be able to replace these,” Rick helps.
“Cannibalize other systems. But it would be a waste if we don’t
deal with what caused this, whatever’s blocking our signal.”

We started noticing the phenomena almost immediately:
our outgoing was being reflected back at us as distorted static, as
if hitting some kind of barrier. Anton tried to punch through it,
figuring nothing was getting out into space but noise. He was
careful about it, but either he burned out equipment that wasn’t
made for the job, or the increase made the interfering
field—something powerful and electrostatic—kick back.