The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are (40 page)

“Earthside’s offer hasn’t been much more appealing,
as you’ve noticed.”

“Internment or death,” he agrees. “What is
your
offer?”

“The same as it was,” I appreciate his opening. “I
want to restore the alliances I’d made before I was removed from my
command, only outside of UNMAC. The Nomads and the two Tranquility
factions have made treaties. The former Zodangan commander is
trying to draw his people away from Chang, and there is a similar
resistance among the PK. And there is evidence of more peoples to
the east.”

“A unified Mars to better negotiate with Earth?” he
reflects on prior dreams. Then he acknowledges Paul. “What about
the Terraformers?”

“Earth has been putting us in increasingly defensive
postures, demanding that we surrender our technology, and soon
enough our Stations as well,” Paul tells him uneasily, “but
something about Chang’s science, his claims of successful
retrograde time travel, the presence of the new immortals… This has
profoundly disturbed the Council, causing them to withdraw
entirely. They will not communicate their specific reasons, but all
Guardian operations have been suspended indefinitely.”

“He is here in defiance of his own Council’s edicts,”
I credit him. “Perhaps others will join him.”

Kendricks gives Paul a slight bow of earned respect,
but he still reads like he’s very wary of us.

“I can arrange a meeting with the Tranquility
leadership,” I offer the Knights.

“That would be appreciated, sir.” He sounds impressed
with the offer—Tranquility has been a monster of legend for
generations. But then, so have Zodanga, Shinkyo, the PK colonies,
and the deeper green to the far east. “But we have pressing
concerns: Our advance teams have not returned from scouting beyond
Tyr. We have a dozen Knights unaccounted for, some for many
weeks.”

“Chang?” Paul guesses.

“Or one of the factions that left the more-permanent
cave markings,” I add in. Then offer: “My people can move faster
and incur less risk, detect beyond the usual spectrums. If you can
flash me their last reports…?”

Kendricks considers the offer thoughtfully, finally
nods.

“We would be grateful for your assistance, sir.” He
sounds like he’s offering me a test of our renewed relationship.
“This would allow us time to settle our camps, send emissaries to
Tranquility.”

“I’ll tell them to expect you, just make yourselves
visible on the approach to the north-side dome entrance. And leave
a Link channel open for me. I’ll be in touch as soon as I find out
anything about your missing people.”

I decide to end the tense reunion by making a little
bow and leaving the cave. Paul takes his cue and follows. Kendricks
fades back into the labyrinth.

Bel brings me disturbing news from the Stormcloud
when we meet back “home” that evening.

“There have been two more fatalities. One of the
newly arrived technicians was ‘accidentally’ electrocuted trying to
access the supposedly dead power systems. And then one of the
troopers on night watch was found suffocated inside his helmet—a
malfunction. But no alarms were received by the monitoring AI. At
least they were smart enough to double the guard posts. But they’re
bringing more personnel onsite…”

He hesitates, like he’s doubting he should tell me
something. He does anyway.

“I have to admit I did something I don’t think you
would approve of—asking forgiveness versus permission and all
that—but I cloaked myself—very carefully—and got myself on board
for a closer look. I was not detected. I don’t think I was
detected. Anyway… I don’t think the Earth team is just examining
the wreck. I think they’re actually trying to get it operational,
or at least useful bits of it. Power supplies. Lifters. Fighters.
The railgun.”

He lets me digest that, watches me sink down inside
myself.

“They’re keeping it very hush-hush,” he continues.
“No uplink reports. And only new arrivals working those targeted
systems—your people are stuck doing structure and materials
analysis, cleaning up the human remains, hauling junk, standing
guard…”

I’m not sure how much of this is desperation or greed
for the tech they can reap. I can understand a need to take any and
all measures expecting Chang to make some kind of return, but I
wonder how much of this is designed to give them something to come
after
us
(and in turn, the ETE, followed by everyone else
they want to deem “safe”).

“What are you going to do?” he asks me gently.

“I have a promise to keep. In the morning. You keep
watching the wreck. Take Azazel with you—we could use his eyes on
this. I’ll take Lux. I expect he’ll enjoy another ‘camping trip’,
especially if there’s trouble.”

I find Bly where Bly’s been spending his time when
he’s not trying to get his legs back, doing self-imposed PT. (At
first he would just walk the paths outside the Lower Dome—I think
he preferred being outside because there were less eyes on him. Now
he’s up to walking the slopes around the colony, up and down,
making himself climb, for hours at a time. Always alone. Otherwise
he’s in the bed Bel set up for him, though he uses it more as a
slab.)

He could be the sculpture ornamenting the tomb of a
knight: laid out straight on his back, arms crossed, sword at his
side, absolutely still. On the cut rock that serves as a
nightstand, there’s a large tumbler half-full of one of the local
fruit and protein supplement “smoothies” that Star has been making
for him, with part of a breathing line as a drinking straw.

“If ya gonna stand there like I’m dyin’, at least
sing me a song, or do a little dance, or tell me a tale of grand
adventure to entertain a broken can o’ shit.”

The armor doesn’t move at all—the surly voice could
be coming out of an empty shell.

“I can’t sing. And my tales are usually upsetting,
devoid of heroes and happy endings. Are you up for a trip?”

The helmet turns toward me.

“What’s yer offer?”

“Missing friends. New Knights. Scouting around Tyr
.”

The helmet turns back to the ceiling. Without a
visible face, I can’t tell if he’s considering or dismissing.

“We found signs of Zodangan camps in the area,” I
offer.

“Did you find the bodies, then?” he snaps after a
pause. When I look confused, he tells the ceiling: “After I left
you at Industry, I flew fast and got some of mine away from the
Shadow-Bastard, before he could make it back from Pioneer. Women
and kids. Took ‘em into the hills, found some caves. Told ‘em
they’d be safe with me. Stupid. Of course the fucker can track me
by this shell he stuck on me. When I went to find something to feed
‘em, he sent in his new toys, and they don’t know from women and
kids, just heat and meat.”

“How many?” I need to know after a few deep slow
breaths of rage.

“Doesn’t matter. Numbers and history, barely worth
mentioning, and nothing at all in this righteous war of his. I’m
not even sure if he was making an example or afraid they’d give
away his position. But then he moved out anyway, before I could
come back after him, and dropped a slide to bury the evidence. Then
he went for the Unmaker base. And here we are. My stories aren’t
much better.”

“Bel didn’t find any remains,” I try to give him a
little hope. “Maybe others got away.”

He doesn’t say anything—again, I can’t tell if he’s
shut down or processing.

“That’s dangerous ground,” he finally says. “We lost
a number of guards, killed quiet in the night, no sign of who did
it. Stab wounds, like spears and arrows, but nothing left behind.
Not like your Knight friends—they use blades when they want to
conserve bullets. These wounds were triangular, some
through-and-through despite Chang’s soft armor.”

I’m thinking the missing Knights may have met a
similar fate, but I can’t imagine they’d all fall without getting a
call out.

“Anybody ever go missing and not get found?” I ask
him.

“Some ground scouts, when we were settling in. Their
comms just went dead. Air search came back empty—Chang looked over
the scans himself, then just ordered no further incursions.”

“Can you show me?” I prod him.

“Waste of time.”

“Can you show me?” I insist.

“I’m tired.”

“In the morning. Please.”

I don’t wait for an answer, just back out.

Star is looking at me from her own doorway down the
hall. She’d been listening. She looks deeply sad. She turns her
eyes down and shuts her hatch.

29 June, 2117:

Lux has made an entertaining traveling companion: He
has a ravenous appetite for culture—music, cinema, theater,
literature, fine food—and fills the hours of our exploration with
idle conversation of better things in better days. Apparently, she
has an extensive onboard media library (though he laments this
version of her didn’t have his latest updates). Also apparently,
I’ve managed to impress by not being “the stereotypical jarhead who
can’t think pass bad beer and big breasts”, at least in terms of
keeping up with the varied topics of discussion. Her only drawback
is his armor: it reflects like mirrors, and combined with the
blazing-white surcoat, makes her look in daylight like a pillar of
water with the sun glaring off of it. I expect he can be seen for
fifty klicks, a shimmering bright star against the rusty
landscape.

Bly, on the other hand, has been just the opposite of
a good co-traveler: stone-silent and distant, as if he’s barely
able to tolerate us. (If he’s still in pain, he doesn’t let on.) He
seems completely uninterested by the caves we visit, the markings
we find, as if slipped deep into the anhedonia of depression. When
we make camp for the night, he spends it sitting at the cave-mouth,
his lenses scanning across the valley. (At least his sulking is
enough to keep Lux’s libido in check, though she does engage me in
an intimate if clinical reminiscence of erotic experiments, better
things in better days.)

We take our time, running back to the Turquoise feed
lines as we need to refuel and hydrate. There’s a lot of territory
to cover, and the terrain is difficult, with scrub clinging well up
the slopes, perhaps halfway to the upper cliffs. (We are only
assuming the scouting Knights were lost on or near the North Rim.
If we had to cover the entire Coprates’ floor, this could take
months.)

On the third day, we get past Tyr (well-stripped and
still slightly toxic from the Apocalypse) to within what Bly calls
“a decent days walk, for those that have to” from Chang’s former
base. It’s late in the morning when I get my first hint that we may
be close to something: I pick up a jamming signal. Bly insists it
can’t be Chang’s: he used the ETE Atmosphere Net and existing
background radiation hot spots (like Tyr) to hide his ship’s
signature. This signal is definitely intentional. And
traceable.

We find the source within the hour:

Mostly buried under a slope-fall I see the familiar
lines of a certain scout vessel, or at least its production-line
sibling. Sleek dart-like lines, almost vestigial triangular wings,
black stealth skin (covered over, almost too carefully, by Martian
sand). It’s the Lancer, or a Lancer-class ship. (And I remember
that the Lancer, when it came to us out of the wilderness, bore
signs of being buried. Hidden. Mysteriously abandoned.)

What’s exposed, conveniently, is the starboard side
forward airlock. Also conveniently, it’s not hidden flush with the
stealth skin—in fact, on examination, the seams have been stripped
just enough to make a clearly visible outline. And the approach to
it looks like it’s seen a lot of foot traffic, maybe for
decades.

“Didn’t you have a ship like this?” Bly asks what he
knows. (At least he’s making conversation.)

“It was sent from Earth sometime in the last few
decades,” I tell him what he didn’t learn from trying to steal
it—my first bloody encounter with his Air Pirates. “Equipped to
gather and contain biological nanotechnology. The UN insists they
had no knowledge, blamed it on a rogue corporate or national
operation.”

I step back, look the ship over. Another thing that I
notice is conveniently not buried: the ports for the gun
turrets.

“Anybody home?” Lux purrs, reaching up to touch the
hatch. It grinds and spins open. He jerks back. “I did not do
that.”

Bly volunteers to keep watch outside, still feigning
disinterest, while Lux and I step into the airlock (sending me
first, quoting an old action movie). Again, with the barest touch,
the hatchway pops into the mid-section, the crew section, and we
get greeted by what must pass for a treasure cave for the wandering
surface scavenger or refugee: There’s food, medical supplies,
survival gear. It looks disturbed, some of it dumped and strewn,
but certainly not significantly raided.

“Look at this…” Lux checks the inner hatch, finds
this side of it marked by violence: hacked, pried at, shot. It’s
been repaired numerous times. “What…?”

The hatch pulls away from her and slams shut,
locks.

“I did not do that,” he repeats. I hear the outer
hatch slam. Then compressors whir, and the air starts getting
sucked out of the section. I try to reach Bly, but there’s too much
interference. But then I hear the turrets come alive, start
spraying.

“Neat trick…” Lux assesses while she still has air to
speak with. “Lure in the unsuspecting with goodies. Seal them in.
Drain the air and let them sit until their reserves run out. Shoot
any friends they have outside.”

More gunfire. I expect Bly isn’t enjoying
himself.

Lux and I look at each other for a few seconds, look
around the makeshift cell, listen to some more gunfire.

“Bored yet?” he asks. I nod. She reaches out, hacks
the ships operating systems, shuts everything down, releases the
hatches. Bly kicks his way in a moment later. There are fresh holes
in his surcoat, and he’s covered in Mars.