The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN (26 page)

“Other Unmakers?” I need to know.

“Once, perhaps,” he considers. “But they have been
like the rest of us since the Apocalypse.”

“Where are these ‘Keeps’?”

“They were the American manufacturing and
construction colonies: Industry and Pioneer and Frontier. No one
approaches these places now and lives. The Keepers are ruthless,
killing even the children of those that stray into their guns. Even
the Air Pirates know to stay away.”

Just as Paul said. But he didn’t have a name for
them. Nor did he know—or bother to mention—that they wore our
uniforms and armor.

“We had garrisons in those colonies,” I remember.
“UNMAC
Peace
keepers. I knew them, served with them. I can’t
easily believe they would become so predatory.”

“Those men you knew, they are long dead. These
men—these monsters—would be their children’s children. Life is
indeed precious in this place, Colonel, but God has been lean in
His bounty, especially to those who stray from His path. When
survival is in question every day, it can bring out the basest evil
in man—I have seen abominations in my life, horrible things,
offenses to God. I expect that your Jinn has not told you of such
things.”

My not answering is answer enough. I can’t ignore
that Abbas has told me more about this planet in five minutes than
Paul had in a month, whatever his motive may be. Abbas shakes his
head.

“He may not be intentionally misleading you,” Abbas
allows. “The Jinni, they foolishly think they have become gods.
They live up high in their air-plants. Your Jinn: he always wears
his suit, even his gloves, doesn’t he? It is said that they think
we are unclean, that they cannot bear to be touched by such animals
as we mortals are.”

“Paul defied his own people in helping us,” I
defend.

“This only supports what I say about them, friend
Ram. But even this friend of yours, he is still a product of the
world he grew up in, just as my heart will never leave this desert,
even if my journeys take me to places only God can imagine.”

I sip my tea, let the topic go idle as I try to read
this man who is so generous with hospitality and intelligence. And
I try to get to the root of his reasons:

“You spoke of a treaty,” I offer. “What would you ask
of us?”

“I am not foolish enough to ask you for your
weapons,” he says with an easy grin. “Nor would I ask you to fight
our battles for us. But some of our equipment is aging—we keep it
up as best we can. If you have gear to spare, or the means to help
us repair what we have, that would be quite valuable to us. Masks.
Canister valves. Filters. Goggles. Boots—boots are always a
precious commodity. You see how we must wrap ours to make them last
against the abrasive grit.”

“Practical needs,” I accept.

“I am only concerned for my people,” Abbas sounds
sincere. “But what do
we
have that is worth trading?” He
says this like he knows the answer.

“Mutual non-aggression is a good start,” I tell him,
and he nods readily, our tragic battle still the driver of this
meeting. “To avoid any further incidents like today. Beyond that,
we need intelligence—you know the territory, the other tribes. We
were asleep while this world formed. And perhaps you could mediate
introducing us to other tribes.”

“I fear friends are another rare commodity in this
world, Colonel Ram,” Abbas deflects. “But I do value your
friendship.”

And the soldier in me wonders if this is sincere or
simply tactical.

“And this tea…” I add to the bargaining table. “You
say the plant comes from Tranquility?”

“Another Keep I would suggest you avoid if you truly
do not want bloodshed,” Abbas warns. (As did Paul—so far Paul’s
information, however vague, at least backs up what Abbas is telling
me.)

“Are there other plants with food value?” I stay on
subject.

“There is Graingrass, Honeyflower, Sweetroot,
Hardshell Fruit, Bitter Apple, Rustbean, Bloodberry, Lifetree…” he
begins to list. “Some grow wild in small quantities near the
Feed-Lines, some we maintain in our own small mobile gardens. The
rest we obtain from Coprates, either by trade or by daring—Coprates
is a far more dangerous place than Melas, friend Ram, and that is
saying something. And the journey is hundreds of miles over
difficult terrain, with tap-sites few and far apart. But we all
need to eat. The ruins in Melas—at least those not defended by many
guns—were picked clean long ago, and the Sky-Drops come less often
as the years pass.”

“Could you provide us with live specimens, or at
least viable seeds?” I ask him. “My scientists have constructed a
facility to grow gardens, crops. It could be expanded to grow in
quantity, and we would share the harvest with your people.”

“You will become a farmer, Colonel Ram?” Abbas laughs
out loud.

“There are worse things to be.”

“Then you will come back to God yet!”

We talk for an hour, mostly about the history of his
tribe (he also tells me there are two other sizeable Nomad tribes
that compete for territory in Melas). Then I excuse myself, telling
him I must check in with my people, but that he need not fear
approaching our base or our ships in future—his raised-pistol
gesture will serve as a signal of peaceful intent. We make our deep
apologies to each other again for the day’s bloodletting. Then
Abbas refills my tanks (all valves are still universal), embraces
me like a brother, and tells his “son” to show me my way out of his
camp.

“It was good to meet you,” I tell the boy when I’m
back in sight of the Lancer. “Thank you again for the tea.”

“Did you really sleep all those years?” he asks me
innocently. I nod, looking at the Lancer, then back at the Nomad
camp.

“Days like this, I realize how long it’s really
been.”

I give him a polite little bow and walk away.

“You okay?” I hear Lisa come over my Link.

“Fine,” I tell her. “Better than. I think we may have
made ourselves another friend.”

“Colonel,” her voice sounds shaky. “It’s Lieutenant
Carver… She didn’t make it.”

16 July, 2115:

The funerals have always been my most difficult
duty.

I can’t count how many I’ve attended. I realize I’ve
been burying friends, fellows, and innocents targeted by our
enemies—or just unfortunately caught in our violence—for fully
twice
as long as the young people I’m burying today were
alive.

I can’t really say if it’s gotten harder over the
years as I’ve moved up the chain of command and further from the
fight. It certainly hasn’t gotten easier. Different, maybe. It’s a
different kind of pain I feel today, a different flavor of
rage.

At first I was burying those I had served with, those
I had fought with side-by-side, but we had all jumped equally into
the storm. And since
I
was still in the fight, I took some
cold comfort in the hope of avenging them, of applying some excuse
for “justice”. Those funerals were all about rage.

(Not that vengeance ever healed anything—I learned
that early enough, that it didn’t matter how many people I
killed—but rage wants what it wants.)

As I was moved away from the fight, that’s when I
started burying those I was responsible for, those I had ordered
into their deaths. Those I barely knew. Maybe names, sometimes
faces. But too many times it was only numbers on my screens, neat
little bloodless graphics. And then anonymous boxes that hid the
bodies. I even had other people do the most painful work, to inform
the families and loved ones, to make those deaths sound meaningful.
All I had to do was put on clean dress armor and show up, stand
there. But I was burying other people’s children. And my only
poultice was to send more of those children into the lethal
game.

But today I realize I am in an entirely different
circle of hell.

Today I must play the diplomat. I cannot rage. I
cannot redirect my pain into vengeance. This was just a stupid,
tragic misunderstanding, and I must
forgive
. There’s no one
to pay for this but me, and a man who says he wants to be my friend
even though he’s lost many more than I have because of
my
guns.

And just to twist the knife in my heart further, I
realize numbly that I have no way to notify families or loved ones,
even if any are still alive.

First Lieutenant Jan Carver rated a small closet of
her own as Commander of First Platoon: cold gray walls, a narrow
bunk, a shelf-sized desk, a standing cabinet and her foot locker.
But she’d adorned the walls with her artwork: sketches and
watercolors, Martian landscapes she’d done on her tour (probably
sitting by one of our few precious windows). Lovingly done, with a
patient but passionate hand. Keepsakes to bring home.

Otherwise, she’d kept her space neat and
squared-away, so there isn’t much packing up to do. It looks like
someone already started carefully placing her few possessions in
her locker for storage (in hope that one day there will be someone
to send them to).

I think I find why the packing job stopped. Some of
her personal files are still live on her desk screen: Video mail
home, dated since we woke, stored until they could be sent. It
looks like she recorded one a week. The last one—stamped from three
days ago—has been paused part-way through.

I sit on her neat bunk, click it back to zero and
restart it.

“Mom, Dad, Jill… I’m still here, still fine. Big news
this week: We got our hands on a decent map of what may be more
survivors, and ships up enough to get us out looking. Colonel Ram’s
given me point on our first real recon. I guess he’s counting on my
luck for tripping over the hot finds. Meanwhile, we’re still
working hard to find a way to call out. The Colonel has a plan of
his own. I can’t give details yet, but if anyone can pull it off, I
know the Colonel can. I still can’t believe I’m serving under him—I
couldn’t wish for a better CO. He really is a legend. Maybe you’ll
get to meet him one day soon.

“And speaking of someone I wish you could meet:
Things are still great with Juan. He’s so sweet and gentle and
smart and funny. And I think he’s in it for the long haul, even
though we haven’t tossed around the ‘L’ word yet. I think I’d have
gone crazy months ago without him. He’s really good to me. I just
wish I was better at telling him how I feel.”

This is where the recording was paused.

I realize someone’s standing just outside the
hatch.

“Lieutenant?”

“Sorry, sir,” Rios apologizes, stepping into the
hatchway. “I should have had Lieutenant Carver’s belongings stored
by now. I was just…”

“Jan,” I cut him off as he stumbles to find excuses.
“You can call her Jan.”

He looks at the deck.

“I’m sorry,” I stand up and tell him.

“It wasn’t your fault, sir.” He still doesn’t make
eye contact. “She knew what to expect.”

“We had a vague idea what to expect,” I correct.
“This didn’t need to happen on either side.”

He doesn’t have anything to say in reply.

I key MAI to copy Carver’s messages to my personal
file. Then I step out of the hatch past Rios, turning to give him a
gentle

“Carry on, Lieutenant.”

We set aside a piece of ground up the ridgeline to
the north, and cut into solid rock (not wanting anyone disturbed by
a future slide). We seal the bodies of First Lieutenant Jan Carver
and PFC Tobias Summers in neat stone vaults. Thomasen’s
construction team has built a small pyramid to mark them—it’s our
first cemetery, as any recovered bodies used to be shipped back to
Earth before we were so thoroughly cut off. (The fact that this
very crest was rendered in one of Carver’s paintings isn’t lost on
me.)

As many as we can get outside in masks make the climb
and stand in the gritty wind as a team of “bearers” from First
Platoon—wearing Heavy Armor—gently places the body bags into the
vaults and slides the cover slabs into place. Spec-3 Mathias
Linns—despite the crossbow bolt he took in the right
hamstring—stands with his Platoon in full armor, supported between
two of his fellows.

And then I have to put together a few inadequate
words to say over them before we all go back inside.

(As I head for the locks, I turn back to see a figure
that MAI tags as Rios on his knees, burying something in the dirt
at the foot of Carver’s vault.)

Paul stood well back away from the main formation
during the brief ceremony. Then he went back inside just before we
broke up and buried himself again in his work. Morales says he
hasn’t stopped to eat or sleep in two days—since the tragic
skirmish at the tap-site—and despite whatever his nanotech can do
for him, he’s looking drawn.

I wonder if he’s ever seen death this close, raised
in the bizarrely monastic world of the ETE Stations where no one
gets sick or gets old, and the “Elders” just sit back and watch
from a sterile distance (apparently so much distance that they
don’t see age or illness) as the “Natural” humans scrape and fight
in the valleys below.

Probably thinking I need a modicum of hope right now,
Tru brings it to me: She’s waiting in the corridor just outside
Staging, cradling one of the two newborns like a proud aunt.
Persephone Hope Maxwell, three days old, joining the now
two-week-old Cal Ochoa—named for our missing CO.

“Meet the Big Boss, Hope,” Tru coos. “I know. He
looks scary. But he’s really a good guy. He’s just not very happy
right now.” She gives you a sad smile, holding the infant close—it
looks up into my eyes with wonder (and maybe a little fear)—and I
offer my still-gloved finger for tiny hands to grab.

“We just got done with the doctor,” Tru announces.
“Halley says she’s healthy, just like little Cal. Just a little
late-term—it shows in some of the physical development. And Doc
Shenkar’s hormone supplements have kick-started our
puberty-avoiding teens…”