The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN (19 page)

Lunch is brought up, which Paul receives with the
same gracious reverence that he did our “real” coffee, though he
picks at it like he isn’t sure what parts—if any—are edible.

Fed, stretched, relieved and reassembled, the
questions flow again as a sudden dust blow kicks up outside.

“How many survivors are we talking about?” Halley
wants to know.

“Thousands, easily,” he throws it out like the number
should not be surprising, “though an accurate census is almost
impossible. While there are still a few groups that keep close to
our Stations, most have made a rule of avoiding us—if not out of
superstition, then because they fear we possess the means to call
Earth. The same reason they will come to fear you, only worse,
because you wear the uniforms of those that bombed them.”

“How many of you—your people—are there?” Ryder
asks.

Paul shrugs. “All ten of our Marineris Stations
remain operational. We lost several members of our teams in the
early years—illness, accidents, radiation, age—a few unfortunate
violent encounters with other groups—and children have been born,
grown, had children of their own. None of us have died in quite a
long time. We thrive, but do not exceed our resources.”

“You avoided the question,” Matthew criticizes.

“I realize that,” Paul admits. “Partly because I am
not updated on our current census. Partly because I’m not sure what
I
should
share.”

“Trust will hopefully come in time,” I allow.

“Are you all… like
you
?” Halley asks
gingerly.

“Not the children, those younger than twenty-five, as
I said before. They are no different from you. Natural. That is why
we are so protective of them. The adults and elders have been
implanted. Like me. We heal fast. We enjoy good health. We don’t
age perceptibly.”

“
Can
you contact Earth?” Anton presses. I
catch Matthew’s eyes narrowing.

“We have restored our technology since the
Apocalypse, and advanced it—as you have seen. Though we have been
primarily investing in our original mission to create and maintain
a viable atmosphere, we should also be able to produce a
transmitter capable of sending reasonably clear signals.”

“Even through the interference of the electrostatic
net?”

“The current atmosphere Ceiling is by no means
intended to block transmissions,” Paul defends. “It would be far
better, for example, to transmit from outside of the covered areas,
or directly from our Stations because of their altitude, than from
deep in the Chasma as you are. Otherwise, you lack the power and
the filtering technology to penetrate the interference.”

“Can you provide us the needed technology?” I ask
before Matthew can accuse again.

Paul falls silent for a moment, his eyes betraying
some internal conversation. His lips purse.

“Was that a hard question?” Matthew blurts out
sarcastically.

“No, Colonel Burke. It is just that I may not be able
to answer it independently.”

“Your ‘Council’?” I try. He nods.

“I understand this is a point of trust between us,”
Paul allows. “But we do have strict rules about sharing our
technology with other factions. We have had bad experiences in the
past.”

“Are you the only group with viable nanotechnology?”
Ryder asks.

“It is a matter of defining that viability, Doctor.
We are the only known group to have advanced and harnessed the
technology in a directed, controlled fashion. There are stories
that come from the Nomad tribes—the groups that keep mobile for
scavenging and raiding, as well as for avoiding attack from rivals.
They sometimes speak of encounters with individual entities with
abilities that could be nano-enhancements. The stories are likely
exaggerated, and have an almost fairy-tale quality—as I said, the
Muslim tribes have taken to calling
us
‘Jinni.’”

“What kind of ‘abilities’ are we talking about?”
Carver asks seriously. Paul shakes his head.

“Camp tales, Lieutenant,” he dismisses the question.
“Fantasies for entertaining or frightening children. We ourselves
have had no confirmed encounters with any other enhanced
humans.”

“And what kind of ‘abilities’ would
you
have
that would inspire ‘genie’ stories amongst the less-fortunate?”
Matthew presses. “I mean, besides the whole excellent health and
fast healing thing?” I see Rick nod and bring up images of Paul’s
mystery objects.

“Nothing malevolent, I assure you,” Paul insists
calmly but firmly. “We do not make weapons.”

“And these deceptively simple objects?” Rick probes.
“Your spheres and rods?”

Paul almost chuckles at that.

“Funny, Doctor Mann—that is exactly what we call
them: Spheres and Rods. They are tools that respond directly to my
bodily nanites. No one other than an adult ETE can make any use of
them.”

“’Tools’?” Rick insists on clarity, “not
‘weapons’?”

“Almost any tool can be used as a weapon, Doctor,”
Paul admits bitterly. “It gets us back to our question of
trust.”

He slips back inside himself again, as if considering
what options he might have. The dust blow outside is sand-blasting
the windows, obscuring our view as it hisses and howls across our
bunkers. Paul goes to sip his coffee, then stops, like the drink
has inspired something.

“There may be ways that I can help you without
violating my own people’s rules.” He looks at Anton. “I may be able
to use my tools to help repair what you have, to restore it, adjust
it. You could have a viable transmitter. Functional aircraft. I
could even assist you in making use of the Lancer…”

“YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING!!!” a voice fills the
room, as if coming right out of the walls.

“
Simon
…” I hear Paul grumble under his breath.
And then something else comes out of the walls:

Before any of us can react, a blue suit and silver
mask identical to Paul’s comes walking right through a section of
reinforced bunker concrete exterior wall as if it were only liquid.
Both armored guards lock their weapons immediately, but the figure
is holding one of the “Spheres” in one hand, and a “Rod” in the
other. With a gesture, the metal of the Sphere seems to swim like
quicksilver, and something that looks like a sandstorm hits the
guards and knocks them backwards. It takes my mind several seconds
to process what is happening: the blowing “sand” is actually the
substance of their armor and weapons, breaking down into dust,
disintegrating. Their suits and weapons are very much like sand
against a strong wind. In an instant, the entire front of their
armor is gone, leaving them naked. But their bare skin appears
unmarked.

Matthew is already moving. Impulsively, he draws his
sidearm and begins emptying it at the newcomer before I can shout
for him to stand down. I see the Sphere glow, and the bullets flare
and disappear as they hit some invisible field around the blue
suit. The newcomer—Simon, Paul called him—makes a gesture with the
Rod in his other hand, like a magician with a wand, and I see
Matthew’s gun snap back out of his grip and smack him hard in the
forehead, sending him sprawling. Carver and Lisa are drawing their
weapons as well.

“
Stand down!
” I shout. But Paul’s voice booms
over mine:

“STOP THIS THIS INSTANT, SIMON!!”

The figure becomes still. Then he lowers his hands
slowly, slips his “tools” back into their belt carriers. With a
slight shake of his head, his mask folds up, revealing a face
similar to Paul’s, only leaner, sharper.

I realize somewhat numbly that the wind has suddenly
died down outside, adding to the tense silence of our disturbingly
unbalanced stand-off. (I wonder if the newcomer—Simon—somehow
whipped it up to cover his approach. He may have been just outside
as long as the dust was blowing. I try to remember how long that
was.)

“You go too far, little brother,” Simon scolds. Paul
ignores him and turns to me.

“Colonel Ram, let me introduce my older brother:
Simon Peter Stilson.” He then turns and offers a hand to Matthew,
who is wiping the blood from his forehead and struggling to get up.
Matthew ignores his offer.

“No weapons, Mr. Stilson?” Rick is accusing,
examining the partially stripped armor. The soldiers inside appear
shaken, but intact.

“Tools are what you do with them, Doctor,” Paul
rephrases his earlier sentiment. “Simon could have killed all of
you in an instant, but it is not our way. We have no need to kill,
and life is a precious thing on this world.”

“This is supposed to make me feel better?” Matthew
grouses as Lisa gets him back into his chair. Halley is checking
his head wound.

Paul raises his right hand, palm open, then rolls it
into a kind of summoning gesture. In a moment, his belt of “tools”
comes up through the deck at his feet—probably in a fairly straight
line from the labs below us—just as his brother came through the
two-meter-thick exterior wall. The belt glides into his
outstretched hand, and he puts it back on. Then he looks directly
at Matthew.

“It should, Colonel,” he says icily. Then to me: “I
apologize for my brother.”

“Apologize for yourself,” Simon hisses at him, now
sounding very much like a rival sibling.

“
I
did not reveal our technology to them,
Simon,” Paul returns. “
You
did that.”

“The
Rules
, Paul…”

“Are not broken,” Paul corrects. “And I will be happy
to take that up with the Council myself.”

“You would help them contact Earth?” Simon
demands.

“Earth
will
be coming back, Simon,” Paul
softens, faces his brother. “One day. That is inevitable. Is it not
better that they come this way: summoned by their own, who can tell
them that their fears are unfounded?”

“Are their fears unfounded?” Simon returns before one
of us can say it.

“They can at least know that there are survivors. And
that there is no contamination.”

“And what will they say about
us
?”

Paul falls silent at that, turns his eyes to the
deck. Then his smile comes back. He puts his hand on his brother’s
shoulder.

“Then we would do better to have friends that would
vouch for us than enemies who would fear us,” he tells him gently.
Then he faces me: “I will help you, Colonel.”

11 July, 2115:

Sergeant Morales can’t help but jump—her victory
shout muffled by her mask but loud-and-clear on the Link—as ASV-5
makes a slow but relatively even turn a hundred feet above the
plain beyond the main gate. Its VTOL jets kick up a haze of rusty
dust, but they don’t sputter this time. They burn steady, shoving
out the steam exhaust that comes from burning hydrogen with oxygen.
The steam rises fast and thick in the cold morning air.

I can see Paul’s signature blue suit standing
silently behind Morales’ group of cheering techs on the pads.
Morales bounces over to him and gives him another solid celebratory
slap on the shoulder. Paul doesn’t seem to respond, or perhaps he
doesn’t really know how to. If he is smiling under his silver mask,
I can’t see it.

(“Damn thing makes him look like a chrome bug,”
Matthew has more than once complained about the opaque ETE
faceplate. “Like that old movie where the guy winds up with a fly
head.”)

“One up, four to go—if you include the Flash Gordon
Special,” Matthew barely (reluctantly?) celebrates, leaning on his
stick as he watches the ASV practice a field landing, touching its
legs gently to the rocky plain, before blasting off hard and
heading out for a longer spin in the valley.

“Should be two by next week,” I remind him. He turns
to look back toward the pads. He lets himself smile, watching
Morales’ team celebrate. But then his eyes lock on Paul, and he
goes stoic again. “You ever planning to cut the man some slack,
Matthew?”

“Is he ever planning to share his little Fountain of
Youth with us?” Matthew gives back half-hearted.

“Would you take it if he offered?”

He chuckles under his mask, shakes his head. “Hell,
no. Who wants to live forever?” He chips at the bunker concrete
with his stick—the topsides of the bunkers are steadily getting
riddled by his frustrated tic. “Still, a working interplanetary
radio would be nice.”

I let the comment go ignored—we’ve had this
conversation enough times. Paul can’t make the deal himself, so we
need to go to the source ourselves, try to force a meeting with his
mysterious Council of Elders, as soon as we have the wings to get
ourselves there.

The ASV is already out of sight, its only tell the
mixed cloud-trail of dust and rapidly condensing steam it has left
in its wake. Kastl is keeping running commentary over the Link,
letting us know that the cobbled systems are still running within
parameters.

I look back again at Paul, who has moved further away
from the celebrations of Morales’ crew. He’s looking out to the
north, and I follow his masked gaze as best I can estimate. What
he’s looking at becomes quickly obvious: On a rise about
half-a-klick out is the speck of incongruous color that betrays
another blue-suited figure—likely Simon—standing out there,
watching us. Watching Paul.

Paul turns and goes back inside.

I go looking for him again when he doesn’t appear for
lunch (but then, none of the seniors have been eating on schedule
since Paul started trying to help us). MAI—keeping close tabs on
him—lets me know he’s in one of the B-Deck labs.

“The Sphere is a kind of blunt instrument,” Paul is
telling Anton and Rick as they labor over the fine hardware of the
makeshift transmitter, its once neatly modular components broken
open and strewn across a luminous worktable. “It projects a field
that selectively affects the binding and repelling forces of
matter. We designed them for defense and shelter when in the field.
The Rods are more precise tools—their effect can be focused down to
a few nanometers. I can use them to cut, fuse, push and pull.”