The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are (42 page)

He tries to get away—he’s fast, nimble—but I’m
faster. And Bly closes things up, jumping down in his path (getting
shot again for his trouble).

Once the ICW runs empty of bullets, he switches
quickly to spend the last five grenades in the cylinder, which I
have to duck or swat away. Unfortunately, the scattered detonations
shake loose the old slide-slope, making it slick.

Our attacker rides it, dropping onto his back as he
tosses the ICW at me, using the distraction to draw twin pistols
and empty them very skillfully at both Bly and I simultaneously.
Then he throws himself tumbling down the slope, hoping to get some
distance. But Lux is out of the tunnel, and in his way—we have him
in a triangle. He reloads his weapons, then holsters one to pull a
hand grenade. But then he hesitates, stares at Lux—something about
the sight of her gives him pause. But then he slips, tumbles, loses
his grip on the grenade. Lux reaches down in a blur of light, grabs
a rock and flings it, striking the grenade in motion as it tumbles
on the rubble, knocking it away. Our attacker ducks and covers as
it blows (I just expand my forearm armor to shield me any further
abuse). Lux shrugs, flashes a little self-satisfied grin.

“We don’t mean you any harm!” I try. A mask and
goggles look up at me. I think I see big blue eyes, pale skin.

“Speak for yourself,” Bly grumbles, advancing. “Your
sick friends killed mine.”

Our attacker manages to stand, freezes, nowhere to
run. A defiant pistol points at Bly.

Lux has slipped up quickly and silently from behind,
and a slight touch drops our assailant with a convulsive jerk. (Lux
carries a mod that generates powerful electrostatic discharges. He
insists it was because she had a lover that enjoyed an electrostim
fetish. Azazel’s version is that Lux is also an accomplished
live-gamer, and the shock mod is a popular “legal cheat” for use
against robot opponents, just like those Fohat is famous for.) Then
he jerks away the hood to reveal a bob-cut of thick white-blonde
hair.

“I smell girl,” she purrs approvingly.

The girl—and it is a girl—jerks away, stumbles, tries
to crawl. Lux just grins at her like he does when she’s planning a
seduction.

“She’s a
child
!” Star suddenly materializes.
It looks like Lux is finally hearing her too.

“Just wondering what it takes to get your attention,”
Lux sings back.

I think I hear Bly hiss an exasperated sigh through
his nightmare mask.

Star uses my hacking to access the HUD in the girl’s
Link goggles, lets herself be seen.

“It’s okay, child. They’re here to help you.”

“And how do we know her?” Lux asks before I can.

“Her name is Lyra. Lyra Jameson. Her mother
discovered she was pregnant on the flight here, but kept it
secret—they didn’t want the mission to be scrubbed, lose what they
thought was a dream opportunity. She was born on-planet, raised by
the crew as her family. The… The body you found on the ship’s
control bridge was her father. She was away from the ship—they had
been keeping her away from the ship—when Chang came. He told her to
hide, no matter what happened. Then he erased the personnel
files—the medical records and the logs—so no one would know she
existed to go looking for her.”

“But you found her?” I’m not sure I believe.

“I caught him doing it. I let him finish. Then I had
to watch…” She trails off, closes her eyes. “Chang only knew about
the original crew census from the smaller ship…” She looks at the
girl, who stares back frozen at the sight. I think I see
recognition in those big eyes.

“She’s seen you before,” Lux deduces.

“I found her hiding, convinced her to trust me by
helping her avoid the patrols, blocking the scans. Chang left,
satisfied he was done here, preserved the ships as evidence for
leverage in whatever larger plans he was simmering. He set a beacon
to detect the next to stumble upon it, figuring it might be you or
UNMAC. I think he was hoping it would be you, that what you found
here would make you join him. If it was Earth, he’d make sure they
didn’t just bury the evidence. I just made sure the beacon would
call me, too.”

If the mission had been sending updates, someone has
to have noticed the silence, assuming Chang took steps to keep a
distress call from going out. They may already have satellite eyes
on the site.

I also realize we’ve cut the girl—Lyra—out of the
conversation, as if she isn’t here, isn’t completely terrified.

“Lyra…” I try. “We really aren’t going to hurt you.
We can help you. Please.” I put my sword away, reach out my
hand.

“Trust him, girl,” Star reassures. “I always
have.”

A small, trembling hand takes mine. Her grip is
surprisingly strong.

I convince Bly to keep watch while Lux goes back
inside to get the systems restored (pouting as he accepts the
chore). Then I convince Lyra to lead me “home”.

“My parents, they helped me make this, called it my
Fortress of Solitude. They… wanted me to have a place of my own, to
study and draw… have my own life…”

There’s a smallish cave hiding a set of linked
shelters, a hundred meters up above the Circe. Letting me in, I
find the “foyer” piled with weapons.

“Some of these were from the ship, to protect the
mission. Others were collected from archeological finds, left by
whatever survivors there were here, before they moved on. Or died
off.”

I expect that was a convenient lie told by her
“family” to cover their activities. These weapons are far too
precious to have been left lying around. More likely, they were
taken from “test subjects”. Apparently, they didn’t want her to
know. Did they hide everything they were doing from her?

Taking off her goggles and mask, Lyra has a round
face with a small upturned nose, a small mouth and anime-large
eyes. She strikes me as eloquent and innocent, despite the evident
emotional trauma that makes her sound like she’s cowering somewhere
inside herself, drained of joy, her voice trailing away any time
she mentions those she’s lost. I’m quickly getting the impression
that her “family” did keep her in the dark about their real work,
especially their latest work, likely why they encouraged her
“independence” and distance.

“You didn’t spend much time on the ships?” I
confirm.

“The Siren’s reactor was damaged, so we all had to
stay away. Radiation,” she relays another convenient lie she was
told. “The Circe… Less and less… Usually just for meals or to hang
out with my uncles on the bridge. My parents said their work was
getting riskier, they’d upped safety protocols because they were
near a breakthrough, wanted me away from the ship when they were
running experiments, just in case… And I liked exploring, studying.
Geology. Meteorology. The new fauna.”

She shows me covered plant samples in another
shelter, a carefully tended personal garden.

“These are all safe,” she assures me like she’s been
given reason to believe there’s danger.

Another shelter has a cot, a desk, a non-networked
notepad, and artwork: Drawings of the local landscapes, the ETE
Station as seen from down slope, faces that must be her family.
There’s another ICW and spare ammo by the bed, along with knives
and one of the triangular-blade rocket-spears, and a spring steel
bow with metal-shafted arrows.

“How did you learn how to use these?” I ask about her
arsenal.

“My uncles. Arnim and Hollandbeck. They were our
pilots, and our security. They…”

Another wave of loss hits her. She goes blank, sits
down on her cot, chews her lip as she stares at the floor.

“
Did
you go back to the ship?” I ask gently.
She hesitates, shakes her head. Tears start flowing.

“The woman… the one in white… she said it was toxic,
that I needed to…”

She jumps up, backs away from me, goes scrambling in
a panic for what looks like scanning gear.

“I’m fine,” I insist. “There’s no radiation. And all
the nano-cultures are neutralized.”

She checks anyway, and I play along.

“What are you?” she asks with nervous wonder,
probably taking her first detailed look at me. “I mean… Can I
ask?”

I sit on her floor, make myself smaller, then tell
her a simpler and cleaner version of my life story. She has indeed
heard of Mike Ram, is fascinated with the idea some of us had slept
since the bombing, excited to hear there are many more people out
there, and glad that Earth has begun to make relief flights.

But then I have to explain Chang. And me. And my odd
scary friends.

“Is that why Chang killed my family?” is her first
most-important question. “Because of the work they were doing?” I
only nod. Then get an unexpected response: “Then I can help. They
taught me nano-science, nano-biology. Maybe I can salvage their
work, make something to fight back with…”

I have to put my fingers to her lips to slow her
down. She’s energized, focused. I almost expect her to bolt back to
the Circe. I almost feel like I need to give her a chance at
revenge, no matter what atrocities her parents got themselves
involved in. But I also feel I owe her a modicum of truth, given
what I’m planning.

“Lyra, you need to know… Earth is terrified of us, of
the nanotechnology. Your parents were doing something very secret,
something desperate, something a lot of people aren’t going to
approve of, no matter their reasons…”

“But the UN sent us,” she protests, denying.

“I know. And those that did will be the ones to face
whatever consequences.”

“But don’t we
need
weapons? Against
Chang?”

“You do. But those weapons were being developed
before Chang, for use against the ETE, the Terraformers.”

“Why are the Terraformers a threat?” she tries to
understand.

“They aren’t. Just the opposite. But Earth is afraid
of them just for what they are, and because they won’t share their
science. They have reason to be afraid of what others will do with
it.”

She digests that, her big eyes rewriting her
reality.

“And you?” she extrapolates.

“They’re as scared of us as they are of Chang, even
though we’re here to fight him, to protect them.”

She looks up at me, narrows her eyes.

“You aren’t willing to share your technology either,”
she condemns me.

“Our technology led our world to ruin,” I remind her,
“led Chang to come here and destroy yours so it would never
happen.”

“So what happens to you if you beat him, destroy him?
Then what?” She looks like she’s about to come apart on me. “Do you
just go away? Destroy yourselves? To keep us safe from what
you
are?” But she doesn’t back away from me again—she really
just wants to know.

“We might leave. We’d like to keep helping if we can.
Repair the damage done between the worlds. Help make a better
future.”

“But you’re not
fair
,” she confronts me after
a pause. “Why should only a few have that kind of power? How is
that going to work out? I mean… You’re like gods, in a way—the gods
in the old myths—really just humans with a lot more power, too much
power. At least in your world, you were all gods. How long until
you—even one of you—starts to do what gods did to plain people in
those stories?”

Out of the mouths of children…

“How is anyone ever supposed to trust you? I mean,
that one in the helmet… he sounded like he didn’t like your
decision not to kill me. He was going to kill me… And he looks like
a monster. Why does he look like that? At least you and the woman
in white and the… um… was that a boy or a girl?”

“It’s complicated. Depends on when you catch him.
Her.”

That seems to throw her chain of thought for a
moment, but she gets it back. It’s important.

“At least you
look
kind. Sound kind—except for
the…”

“Lux,” I name, fully understanding the pronoun
issue.

“Lux… sounded cruel too. Maybe any of you can be
cruel. How can we tell you’re not just pretending? What good is
trusting you if we don’t get another choice?”

“You’re right,” I give her. “You just have to see
what we do—and that’s a poor answer. You want guarantees,
protection. I can’t give them.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?” she puts it all on me.

She’s been taught by soldiers as well as scientists.
She’s learned how to fight, to fend for herself, to rely on
herself. I remember Sakina, who made herself into the perfect
fighter, and how fearful she became, faced by more and more things
she had no way of fighting, until she had to run away, at least for
awhile.

“I can’t make guarantees that you’ll be safe from
humans in general. There are many kinds of power to misuse.” I’m
almost tempted to tell her what her parent’s orders entailed, but
she feels like she’s barely dealing as it is. Still, I can’t help
but be impressed: a young girl, all alone in the wilderness,
standing up to the next best thing to a god.

I feel something… stir. It’s not sexual arousal, not
really (I remind myself she’s only nineteen), but there’s an
impulse… I want to touch her. I want to…

“I need to go see about the ship,” I excuse quickly,
getting myself out of there as gracefully as possible, hoping I
don’t look as flushed as I feel.

This is impossible. This girl probably wasn’t even
born in the other timeline. My last seed can’t be keyed to her DNA.
Is there some other selection criteria? Is that how it chose
Fera—it wasn’t just incidental intimacy? And is that why I let
myself be intimate with Fera? Did the Kali seed drive that,
overriding my impulse control? I’d blamed what I’d done with
Fera—and Lisa—on increased libido. Am I just programmed to plant
what I’m carrying in suitable hosts?

I feel sick. If I’m right, some programming on a
sub-atomic level just tried prompting me to overwrite an
unsuspecting innocent, make her into something she’s terrified of.
(And Bel and Bly and Star have all described what converting a
living, conscious body entails.)