Moving Mars

by Greg Bear

  I looked up to see a large meteor glowing low in the western sky. No, I told myself; no trail. It wasn't a meteor, not a large fireball. It was where Phobos should be about now, just past rising. I tapped Dandy's arm and pointed.

  He stared for a moment, brow pulled low in an intense frown, then glanced at me with eyes wide. "What is it?" he mouthed.

  "Phobos."

  "Yeah." He lifted his finger and drew it across his throat.

  Danny Pincher and his crew, their tweaker . . . The Mercury. Earth was using all of its new-found power.

  One thing at a time, take care of the immediate problems before considering apocalypse. Dandy pushed his slate back into a belt pouch and made as if to lick his finger and hold it up to the breeze. "That way." He pointed slightly east of north. "I think the trail curves west of the outermost buildings. Back across lava."

  "Let's go," I said.

  We picked our way over an even rougher field now. Gullies several meters deep crossed our path. We climbed down slowly, then back up again, removing our equipment belts and wrapping them around our skinsealed hands to protect against the broken-glass edges.

  "We'll cross the emergency exit for the bunkhouse wing. It'll look a lot like a rock, so stay alert."

  My eyes hurt from dryness under the mask and from staring so hard at the sharp rocks and ground beneath my feet. My ribs hurt despite the pain control of the nano; I would need better attention soon.

  The exertion was wearing me down, finally, and the air from our tanks smelled foul. Recirculation and scrubbing was beginning to fail. We were pushing the skinseal suits and masks to their limits.

  Dandy held out an arm and I bumped into it, nearly losing my balance. He grabbed my shoulder to steady me, then made a hush gesture with his finger near his mask. I squinted to see whatever he had seen. The landscape was still, orange flopsand crust and scattered black boulders, sunlight glinting from glassy surfaces. I followed his gaze and saw something that was not still, something moving slowly a few dozen meters away. A skeletal metallic arm rose above the rocks, flexed cautiously, then straightened. A round black and orange striped body broke loose from the ground and erected on stubby black legs. A translucent sac fell away, and the thing stood on Kaibab's rocky plain, as big as a human, surveying its surroundings through tiny glittering eyes on a bulbous head. Its two arms undulated with a spooky, deliberate rhythm, as if tasting the air.

  Dandy drew me down slowly as the locust turned away from us, and we tried to hide in the boulders. He raised his head high enough to keep track of the machine, then crawled slowly out of my sight.

  I lay in the crotch of two boulders, buttocks pressed uncomfortably against rugged pebbly flop, too tired and in pain to feel any fear or even to wonder what Dandy was up to. After ten or fifteen minutes, he returned and switched on power to my suit again. He pantomimed and mouthed that the locust was stalking away from the station, and away from us, but that he had seen evidence of many others — factory cases, trenches where material had been mined and converted. And he had found the entrance. I followed him on hands and knees, my stomach churning with the added pain.

  A large black boulder blocked our way through a narrow gully filled with powdery smear. I crawled past him, bringing up my slate. An optical port glittered within a dimple in the boulder. I programmed my slate for my key codes and ported it. The boulder quickly split in half, revealing a hatch. The hatch swung inward, and Dandy helped me through.

  A guard waited for us in the narrow tunnel beyond, down on one knee with electron gun poised. He raised his head from the sight, opened one slit-ted eye, and blinked in disbelief. "You crashed," he said. Our hearing was beginning to return, though harsh and uneven; loud noises hurt.

  "Yeah, and where was the goddamned rescue team?" Dandy demanded in a rasp.

  "Nobody's going anywhere," the guard said, hefting his gun and standing. "We posted defenses on all outer corridors. We've had two locust attacks — "

  "I have to get to the main lab," I said.

  The station had been breached in two areas, both near the southern tunnel through which we had entered. The head of station defense, a broad-faced woman named Eccles, passed us in a side corridor, followed by a train of maintenance and defense arbeiters. She raised her eyebrows at Dandy, who shook his head with a fierce scowl: no time to explain.

  The entire station was on first stage alert. Leander met us at the junction with the main corridor. Water a foot deep coursed along the floor from a pipe rupture. We slogged through the stream beside Leander.

  "We've put Charles and Tamara on alert," he explained. "They're in the main labs, testing the QLs and preparing for whatever you order."

  Having positioned troops and arbeiters, Eccles splashed into the corridor and joined us. "Madam Vice President, we haven't been able to reach Many Hills. We've seen locusts south of the station. There have been two skirmishes, and we anticipate full-scale attacks any time."

  We climbed three steps up into a dry corridor.

  "We'll need better med, and soon, and I want to see everything," I said. Two distant thumps brought everybody to a halt. We glanced around warily, waiting.

  "Our defense arbeiters have begun shelling," Eccles said.

  Dandy shook his head bitterly. "They'll come in here like cockroaches. We can't keep them away by shelling."

  "I'll do whatever I damn well can," Eccles said defiantly, eyes flashing.

  Leander pulled me aside while Dandy and Eccles argued strategy. "Locusts won't be our biggest worry. Phobos has been taken out."

  "We saw it," I said.

  "And Deimos as well. We don't have any big guns."

  "Phobos looked like it was torched," I said.

  Leander's face fell. "We're picking up high levels of gamma radiation."

  "What, then?"

  "Remote conversion," Leander said. "They seem to be using the Ice Pit to target us."

  "Did the teams get away?" I asked.

  Leander shook his head. "I've got a medical coming, and some transportation."

  The pain in my ribs had subsided to a brutal throb.

  In the annex outside the main lab, as an officious, humming arbeiter injected more nano and watched my vital signs, Eccles and Lieh worked with the original of Aelita to show me what little they knew. A map of the Kaibab Plateau displayed hundreds of blinking yellow crosses: suspected locust sign, spotted by emergency balloons and gliders circling the station. Red dots indicated positive locust identification. I counted thirty.

  Dandy described the locust that had invaded our shuttle and brought us down. Lieh listened attentively.

  "We only have the sketchiest ideas what shapes they can take, and what they can do," she said. "So far, all we've seen have been scouts and simple sappers."

  More deep thumps vibrated the walls and floor.

  "I hope that's our ordinance," Lieh said.

  "Sounds like charges," Eccles said.

  "Most links are down," Lieh said. "Comsats have been taken out — we don't know how — "

  Leander and I glanced at each other, lips pursed.

  " — And so we're pretty isolated. We can't guarantee making any connections with the President. In short," Lieh said, shadows deeply etched around her eyes and mouth, "they've done it to us again, even more dirty. Ma'am, my gut tells me we've suffered tremendous damage. Whoever's in charge of the Earth focus has gone over the edge. I'll support any effort you decide to take."

  "We assume they'll try to kill us all," Eccles said.

  "Then it's war," Lieh said. "How can we retaliate?"

  Leander looked away. We had other swords of Damocles; but if we used them, the loss of life on both worlds would be staggering. So far, only Phobos and Deimos had been hit by what might be remote conversion — an action that could be regarded as frightened, as defensive.

  "It's not an easy call," Charles said, standing in the door to the annex. He stared at me with a puzzled expression, as if emerging from an unpleasant drun
k.

  "Where's Tamara?" Leander asked.

  "She's on the QL, keeping it exercised."

  Eccles tapped my shoulder. The red dots on the display had tightened around the station. They knew where we were, and soon they would know what we were.

  "They've fully harnessed the Ice Pit," Charles said. He lifted a hand and flexed it as if it pained him. "They'll use it on us soon."

  More thumps, and a distant, high-pitched drilling whine that set my teeth on edge.

  "They're doing it," Lieh said, eyes intense, far more sanguine. "Genocide. We have to respond."

  I knew how she felt. We were cornered. It would only be natural to use all of our claws.

  But we still had that other option, and that was why Charles was here: to gently remind me that all along, we had planned to do something completely unexpected. Vengeance would not save us.

  But I had to explore all the possibilities. "Can we target the Ice Pit for conversion?"

  "I've tried. I can't even find the Ice Pit now."

  "Is anything else protected?"

  "We can pick any target on Earth and convert it," Charles said softly. "Billions of hectares. Entire continents . . . If you order it."

  Distinct popping sounds came from outside the lab chamber: projectile weapons. Eccles inquired about the action and was told that two locusts had been destroyed, one in a reservoir and the other in an arbeiter tunnel a hundred meters from the lab.

  "It's going to be hand-to-hand in an hour or less," she said.

  I could not order Charles to begin genocide on Earth. He might not even obey. My options had been reduced to just one, but even for that I did not have the authority.

  I had to wait, as long as possible, for Ti Sandra.

  "What do we do?" Eccles asked.

  Aelita interrupted and said, "We have received an important image from a pop-up satcom."

  The display changed abruptly. We looked down from five hundred kilometers above Schiaparelli Basin. A gray impenetrable curtain swept in eel-like folds across the basin, its upper reaches filled with sparkling stars. It seemed to be moving slowly from north to south. Where it had passed, dust filled the thin atmosphere. Through the dust we could barely make out lakes of molten rock, blackened tumult, complete destruction. "That's Many Hills," Dandy said. "They're converting Mars now," Leander said. "Madam Vice President — " Lieh began, but Charles interrupted her.

  "Aelita, can you magnify the western limb?"

  "I see something there as well," Aelita said, and did as she was told. The picture was at the extreme edge of the satellite's range; Manner Valley appeared like a, grainy gash in the landscape.

  "We're here," Leander said, standing beside Charles near the display and pointing with a finger just below, meaning beyond, the horizon. Charles traced another gray curtain barely visible in the magnified image. The curtain might have been a few hundred kilometers beyond northeast Kaibab; it was difficult to be sure.

  "Madam Vice President," Lieh said, "if this is confirmation that Many Hills has been destroyed, then you must take command now."

  Aelita reverted the picture to a wide view. She then magnified the region around Many Hills. The capital of the Republic was lost in dust.

  My ribs ground together and I closed my eyes, gasping to regain my breath.

  As the satellite continued its grim course from east to west, we saw more clearly the searching fingers of death moving in toward Kaibab. But that seemed expected, even trivial; what shocked was the extent of destruction elsewhere.

  Charles's hands twitched. "You're in charge, Casseia."

  "Madam President," Lieh said, staring the obvious.

  "Ti Sandra isn't coming back this time," Charles continued. "She was at Many Hills. The district governors and representatives were there as well, most of them."

  I stared at the sparkling effects of conversion, pits and slashes filled with molten rock: hundreds of thousands of hectares in Copernicus, Argyre, Hellas. Two of Mars's biggest stations had been hit.

  "Cailetet's main station is gone, and two outlying stations, as well," Aelita said.

  Achmed Crown Niger had had his final answer from Earth.

  "Insanity," Leander muttered.

  But I knew better. It all made horrible sense. It was a pattern as old as time: the display of baboon's asses. If the ritual was not perfectly observed, and one did not back down, the baboons squared off and bared their fangs. If that did not do the trick, they fought to kill.

  The satellite image blanked abruptly.

  "Loss of signal," Aelita said.

  Charles stood beside the white cylinder that held the planetary tweaker. Stooped, long-fingered hands hanging by his side, his eyes burned below brows drawn together in eternal concentration. Around him, the support equipment for the largest of all our tweakers sat ready.

  Tamara Kwang lay quietly on a couch nearby. She had been prepped for her backup role.

  Thirty of the station's senior staff gathered in the auditorium beside the tweaker chamber, awaiting my instructions. Charles watched us with inhuman patience through the broad plastic window.

  No one raised any objection when Leander referred to me as President.

  My statement to the assembly was brief. "We can't remain in the Solar System and survive. We have to do what we brought all of you here to do. The sooner the better. Charles tells me he's ready. Stephen confirms."

  The thirty sat in stunned silence for several moments. Dr. Wachsler stood and glanced around, hands held out. "We are making a decision for all of

  Mars," he said. "In effect, we represent all of Mars. Surely we ..." He choked and held his hands higher, voice rising. "Surely there must be some confirmation, some ..."

  "We will die if we do not act," I said. My hands shook with a perverse excitement. I wanted Wachsler to challenge me; I wanted any and all challenges now. My bones were knitting; I could feel them. Medical nano filled my bloodstream, rooting out problems, controlling my tendency to slip into shock. I felt strong as a lion, but knew I was still very weak.

  "Dr. Abdi hasn't finished his areological survey," Wachsler said.

  Abdi stood, hands in pockets, shrugged, and sat again. "I have not, indeed," he said.

  "We should vote," called out Jackson Hergesheimer, the astronomer. "We know what happened on the last trip. What happened to Galena. If we're going to choose suicide over murder, we should be allowed to vote."

  "No vote," I said wearily.

  "Why not?" Hergesheimer called out. "We're citizens of the Republic — the only citizens who can respond to you!"

  "There will be no vote," I said.

  "Then you are no longer President of this Republic, even if you . . . even if you might legally . . . " Words failed him.

  "I take this upon my own shoulders," I said.

  "You order our suicide!" Wachsler cried.

  Dandy Breaker, sitting at the back, had had enough. He rose, hand held high, and I gave him permission to speak with a nod. "I might point out the strict legality, under the laws of the Republic, of President Majumdar's position. This is an emergency. The only defensive course of action open to us is retreat. At her instruction, I have declared a state of martial law and broadcast it over Mars."

  "Nobody can hear or object?" Wachsler said, tears of rage rolling down his cheeks. His hands moved like two birds, up and down, fingers fluttering. "My God, this is the most horrifying kind of tyranny."

  "I take responsibility," I said. My voice sounded dull and hollow, even in my own ears.

  "Madam President," Leander said, "perhaps we should take an informal vote. Just to be certain."

  "We should discuss the option of declaring war," Hergesheimer said. "What they're doing is an outrage, and we should defend ourselves, if not with a moon, then by using conversion on their cities, their lands!"

  "No," I said. "That is not an option, if we have any other choice. We do." I had long ago taken my own personal stand against striking back at Earth. "If anyone w
ishes to depose me, or petition for my ouster at this time, or do whatever the law allows ... or doesn't allow ... let it be done now, and hurry, please."

  I wondered whether we were going to lose all control, whether I had pushed too hard and spoken too strongly. Leander was about to speak when the floor of the auditorium shook. Aelita called up a series of images from the cameras atop the station. The horrid gray curtain unfurled over northern Kaibab, whirling debris clearly visible in the electric blue corona, dust churning at its feet.

  "It's on the plateau, about fifty kilometers away," Aelita said.

  All in the auditorium watched, some weeping. Several jumped from their seats and fled.

  "The rest is simply fear," I said. "We know. For us, there are no comers to be backed into . . . unless we give in to our fear. Then we will die. Let us do what we built Preamble to do."

  Charles entered the auditorium from the main lab space, moving slowly and uncertainly. His presence seemed to spook the staff members in the first two rows of seats. They drew their knees up and away from him, staring like frightened children.

  "QL is ready," he said. "The interpreter is ready. So am I."

  The image of our coming doom hung over us at several points around the auditorium. The floor vibrated as if pounded by a herd of huge animals. Charles stared at the images, then said, barely audible, "It's a one-in-a-trillion conversion. If they ramp it by a factor of ten, and they can, they could take the entire plateau at once."

  "Let's do it," I said. I could barely make myself heard above the horrendous rockborne howl of matter coming to pieces.

  Dandy walked stiffly down the side aisle. "Madam President," he boomed, his formality absurd under the circumstances, "You must give a direct and unambiguous order."

  "By authority of the office of President, I order that we immediately move Mars to the chosen orbit around the New System."

  "It doesn't even have a name!" Wachsler cried.

  "Order so recorded," Dandy shouted, holding up his slate. He glared at the audience, daring anyone to voice another challenge.