Venix stabbed into the airbag that trapped her, and it burst. With trembling hands, she unlocked the safety belt and crawled out through the destroyed front window.
She still carried the shoulder-turret, but it felt much heavier now; she let it slip off her shoulder and held it with both hands. Her injured left leg, dangling limply, slowed her down. She slid down the truck's side and tumbled onto the dusty, upturned tarmac.
It seemed to her an eternity since she had last felt this old, familiar sensation: fatigue. Not so different from being tired in a flesh-and-blood body, only it hurt much less. Venix raised her head and looked...
There it stood, just across the street: a two-story front, not particularly large, flanked on both ends by the typical Martian wind-shelters. Only, the insides of the shelter walls were covered with high bas-reliefs of astronauts - the old-fashioned sort, in bulky white suits, lined up like ancient temple guardians before the entrance.
The large engraved letters above the entrance read: COME, EAGER SOUL, AND THESE RED DESERTS SHALL QUENCH YOUR THIRST. In the high doorway, a signpost announced in scrolling letters: COUNCIL HALL CLOSED DURING THE SKYSURFING GRAND PRIX. POST MESSAGES TO THE COUNCIL WEBSITE.
"No," Venix whispered weakly.
Then she heard the MSF soldiers land around her on their jetpacks, fully armed and shielded against any attacks. A couple of orange shuttles whined above the street, slowed down and took aim. A dozen or more red laser-sight dots appeared across her dusty body, but none on her head; the troops were following orders.
She wondered why no shouts or threats were issued - but realized instantly that they wanted as little attention as possible to her escape. It had to leak out somehow, she thought. Gus would learn. The ring of soldiers - she could count at least a hundred on the street - moved closer, closer...
Her hearing still worked; she perceived the faint sound of hundreds of shuffling feet, and the clicks of many more mechanisms all over the city block. From the doorway of the council hall, two large figures strode out of the shadow, into the dust-hazy sunlight.
Two native Martians, wearing rough work clothes and shawls wrapped over their mouths. Unlike the troopers, they could breathe the air through their broad, hairy nostrils, and their thick bushy eyelashes, though almost transparent, glittered like glass sprouts in the sun.
Thick beards covered much of their faces. With each breath, their enormous ribcages swelled and shrank, but they walked with ease. One of them carried some sort of heavy tin box in one hand, with a round glass lid or lamp pointed forward, and the box had a handle or crank on one side. A whirring, unfamiliar sound came from the box.
The troopers standing nearest the entrance took aim at the two men, and shouted at them to stop.
"Drop that weapon!" ordered a captain's voice, from the shuttle hovering above the council hall entrance.
"It's not a weapon, it's a camera ," the native called out, his deep voice somewhat high-pitched in the thin air. The captain's voice laughed; he had been informed about the blackout caused by the scrambler probe. The native added: "A mechanical camera, driven by a spring coil! It records images onto a chemical emulsion. I built it myself."
The MSF men looked at him in disbelief, as if the local village idiot had just told them he had built a fly-pod made of rocks. It took Venix half a second to understand.
Lightning-quick, one soldier aimed his shoulder turret at the tin box and shot the lens with perfect, laser-guided precision. The Martian's tin box buckled and spouted smoke; he flinched, but did not back down.
The other Martian blew a metal whistle, sending a sharp signal echoing across the place. The MSF troopers looked about themselves, and saw hundreds - then thousands - of natives appearing in windows, alleys and doorways - all the way down the long and wide Alpha Ralpha Boulevard.
Many of the natives pointed mechanical cameras at Venix and the masses of troops. The others took aim with antiquated rifles and rocket-launchers. But they said nothing, just waited and recorded the scene.
The man with the whistle called out, knowing that he would be heard: " General Zodong-Petain! Order your men to retreat from the city, or we massacre them where they stand! And we shall record the whole event for the Solar System to see! Your blackout devices have no effect on our arsenal. You have one minute! "
The MSF commander's nervous voice sounded through the hovering shuttle's PA system: "I know who you are! You were already on our suspect list! This will only ensure your arrest for seditious activism! Surrender while you still can!"
"Go ahead, Try and arrest that woman, try to arrest me now, with all these cameras taping it, and we'll give you a war you'll never believe!"
A choked sound came from the shuttle speakers, and ten seconds passed. Venix tried to crawl closer to the entrance; the soldiers were still aiming at her, but held their fire.
She understood that if the MSF commander was to make a quick decision, he had no chance of asking the Kansler or any other superior officer first - communications could not possibly reach back and forth between planets in time.
"All forces, hold your fire. Retreat to Voce Di Agua and gather the injured. Pickup ships will land there in thirty minutes and take them back to Phobos. If my men are fired upon when they ret... when they regroup, I respond with another proton charge."
"Deal!" said the Martian with the whistle, and stepped back. The other two thousand Martians huddled down, keeping their camera lenses and guns trained at the hastily retreating invaders.
A minute later, the last shuttle packed with soldiers had taken off toward the smoldering concert hall in the distance.
Venix struggled to get on her feet. The two large Martians hurried to her and lifted her on their shoulders.
"What's your name?" the man with the whistle asked. "Not 'Kolya Keaton' - is it?"
"Venice... Venix. Cyborg. Need energy... batteries low..."
"Are you sure about this?" the other Martian said to the one with the whistle, indicating their course toward the council hall entrance.
"No cyborg ever called me a gorilla. Let's take her to Berg."
She stayed conscious; her limbs were gradually being shut down; her head and senses would go out last of all. Would she die then, Venix wondered, or merely sleep until her batteries were recharged?
34: A Small Killing
Humanity's best and brightest minds had spent the entire 21st century (and the better part of the 22nd) trying to create practical faster-than-light communication.
They failed: the universe persisted in allowing only meaningless signals to travel faster than 300,000 KMPS in a vacuum.
Thus, the Kansler received his personal encrypted report from the MSF commander - telling him of the retreat - after the fact. He did not shout at or threaten the ashen-faced commander.
The Kansler had no reason to criticize the decision to retreat: the Martians lacked the armaments to attack Phobos, and it was the wrong time to attempt an all-out war with them.
Yet, the fact remained: one cyborg alone had caused Mother Earth a significant defeat, and the bad news would leak to the home opinion eventually.
Zodong-Petain explained that damage control was of the essence: the Martians' compromising combat footage had to be neutralized, but this was out of his league and he needed expert help.
The Kansler heard the report quietly, with outward calm. When the transmission ended, he sent orders to the MSF commander to await the arrival of Islington, who would then act as the Kansler's stand-in, and whose task it was to command Zodong-Petain plus the reinforcements being shipped over from Earth in the coming weeks.
And the Kansler felt fairly confident that Islington would stay loyal - the man had a wife and family back on Earth. A second set of orders, sent to the Fleet's Marketing department, requested a division of experts to tackle the Martian rebellion against Terran supremacy.
Having completed the transmission of orders, the Kansler ordered the immediate arrest of Boulder Pi.
***
An hour later, the flag ship's chief surgeon called the Kansler into the operating room. Boulder lay strapped to a table in a protective transparent tent; several thin, remote-controlled surgical probes were penetrating his skin.
The chief surgeon showed the Kansler a small bloodied object, about the shape and size of a pen.
"This," he explained, "is a proto-organic blocker , designed to help a person pass any known lie-detector or truth-serum tests. The bone growth around the implant indicates he got it five, seven years ago - long before Intelligence cleared him for employment in the Fleet's lunar lab. Back then, of course, Intelligence had little knowledge of these gadgets and how to detect them. Perhaps the Jovians planted other agents using the same technique. With your permission, Kansler, I'd like to examine other suspects..."
"Go ahead," the Kansler said. "All short people are suspects." He pressed his gray uniform cap, the one he always wore, down over his eyes. His fists opened and closed restlessly as he walked around the transparent tent, looking at the midget who lay there.
Boulder was under sedation, and felt very little actual pain. The truth-drugs were beginning to work, and a sheepish smile spread across his small-jawed, bearded face. His large eyes tried to follow the stalking, large figure that circled the table, but he grew tired and just rolled up his eyes.
The Kansler made a slight movement with his hand, indicating that the surgeon should leave. When only three Intelligence officers were left in the operating room with the prisoner, the Kansler's face changed; it turned pale, with red flecks appearing on his potato-nose.
He suddenly ripped apart the protective tent with his hands, and pulled the surgical probes out of Boulder's skin.
The little man winced, more out of surprise than pain. Then he saw the Kansler's eyes, with its shrunken pupils, staring down at him with greater hatred than ever before, and he noticed that the Kansler's restless hands were trembling.
Boulder thought: I'm dead. He won't let me leave this room alive. Still, Boulder felt calmer than usual, and he couldn't quite tell whether it was the sedation that did it...
"Screw the drugs," the Kansler croaked, "screw the investigations, screw Intelligence, screw it all. I just knew , from the day I hired you to work for the Fleet, that you were an enemy agent. Our people in the Jovian mining-districts reported recently of a man resembling you, who infiltrated Kun'Lun while Argus-A was on a visit there. I don't know his real name... he did manage to escape. I think he was simply a relative. You have a brother on Ganymede... don't you?"
"Yes."
"Do you know why I let you work for the Fleet, though I knew what you are?"
"It was a fair deal. You provided the resources, I provided the know-how."
"Venix. Your creation. When I saw her do those amazing dance stunts, I thought: Now it can be done. A man can be transformed into a faster, stronger shape that thinks and reacts with superhuman speed and never dies. The next step in human evolution, that'll render all other forms obsolete."
"No, that wasn't it. My process would create a complement to the existing forms, an intermediary stage to enable interstellar travel."
"You lack vision. You don't see the big picture. You don't understand the necessity of making sacrifices for the greater good."
"Such as capturing Venix to blackmail your perfect soldier? It's too late. I heard on the news about the info-blackout on Mars. Just like that night in Copenhagen. A telling silence, don't you think?"
"You're losing blood, Boulder. Talk faster."
"Did your agents trace all the places I went, back when I left Ganymede to find work on the Inner Planets? Did they tell you about when I waited in transit orbit around Mars, and talked to some natives? They wouldn't believe all I told them, not at first. That I had patients waiting on Earth, waiting to be transformed, who would one day help them gain independence for the Outer Planets. And I told them that once the Kansler had gained control of my homeworld, Mars was the next target on his list. And..."
"Who told you that?"
"Nobody. I was the number one Risk champion in my class."
"It was you who helped her escape, all the time! Your scheme!" The Kansler stabbed in front of the midget's face with his index finger - convulsively, as if his arm was suffering from Parkinson's. " You spread that rumor of a reward for her escape, the escape you had predicted and abetted! Who paid you? Who's... coordinator? Is... your... brother?"
Now the Kansler's face went a deep red, his eyes bloodshot; he seemed about to burst. Boulder laughed, and forgot about his own dying body. He grinned up at the purple-faced, spluttering figure.
"You don't know my brother! I did it all myself. Only way it could ever work. I knew I'd get you in the end... Terran. Want to know why? I'm so short, always Terran crotches at eye level... from first I met you, I notice... small and bent ... and I've got real ones where you've got a pair of raisins."
Boulder began to cough as he laughed - but stopped, when the Kansler strangled him with both hands. The men from Intelligence stood and watched. Half a minute passed. Their leader finally let go of the dead Boulder Pi, and turned to face them. His hands were stained with blood and saliva.
Grunting like an ape crossing the evolutionary threshold from animal to man, the Kansler ordered the men to return to their stations. His personal guard of robots came in to clean up the mess and take away Boulder's remains.
"Better put some ice on that," the red-eyed commander told the robots, pointing at the dead engineer. "We could scan the brain and find out more."
The most important thing now, he thought, was to postpone as long as possible the moment when Argus found out about Venix' escape. And the best way to distract Argus was to send him on his next, last mission, as planned.
He would make a great hero - the first but not the last...
35: Energy Low
Supported by the two barrel-chested Martians, Venix entered the Martian Council Hall.
The inside of the building mostly resembled a warehouse; it had once been a reception hall for newly arrived settlers, and only later replaced by a larger building two blocks away.
The smell of old dust hung in the air, as if the council hall had not seen much activity for years. Cargo crates stood piled up in the corners; the small robots that cleaned the floors were worn down from bumping into things.
A group of hastily assembled men and women of differing age gathered around Venix, studying her with great interest - and some caution. In this warmer indoor atmosphere, the natives shed their heavy survival equipment and moved with powerful ease in their thin, baggy clothing.
It surprised Venix that the thick fur of fine hairs on the Martians' skin and faces was so translucent, in fact nearly invisible. Only on the older natives, the fur was beginning to show streaks of white, turning their faces a ghastly pallid hue.
The images of Martians that Venix recalled from films and news programs had been routinely color-edited to make Martian fur seem darker, more ape-like. In no way did these people deserve to be called "gorillas".
On both men and women glittered extremely thick, large eyelashes, colorless as glass. One of the younger women had dyed her eyelashes green - it looked like grass grew out of her eyes.
A bulky, middle-aged woman wearing a deep-blue suit and pistol holster approached Venix, and the two men released her. The female cyborg staggered to stay upright. The woman had a rather sharp, fearless look in her brown eyes, and her gray-streaked hair was tied to the back of her head.
She extended a hand to greet the visitor, but her tightly pinched lips were unsmiling, and she had a way of talking out of the corner of her mouth.
"You must be the one I heard so much about this whole morning. Welcome. I'm Arjja Texeira-Berg . I was told you wanted to seek asylum."
The electronic badge on her chest scrolled a list of facts: ARJJA TEXEIRA-BERG... 4TH IRREGULAR TERM OF DUTY IN MARTIAN CITIZENS' COUNCIL... OTHER OCCUPATIONS: HOUSEWIFE, MEATSNAKE FARMER, MOTHER OF 3...
Venix took a rapid forward stride and grabbed Arjja's shoulders, so tightly the seams of her blue suit came apart. Arjja winced - even through her fur and thick skin, she could feel the cyborg's hard fingers.
Venix whispered, sounding sensuous though she did not intend to; her synthetic speech was harder to control. "Get me in touch with 'them!' The ones who put out the bounty on my escape."
She coughed up a thimbleful of sand.
Arjja wavered only an inch, but stood firm - she was quite strong. "We don't know of any such organization, or any bounty. The rumors that the Martians are cooperating with the Jovians are just that - rumors."
"You don't know anything?" Venix asked, her red lips grimacing. "But - but - doesn't the name 'Boulder Pi' tell you anything?"
"Ah yes... isn't he that collaborator with the Kansler? Saw him on the news. No, I never met the man. We don't mix with that kind of people."
Then Venix bared her dust-stained teeth, gritting them against sand in an audible manner, and moved up close. "Your infrared colors say differently. You're lying. You do know him."
The councilwoman spread her thick arms in surrender, and her lips widened in a thin smile, though her eyes showed little warmth.
"You can let go of me now," she said. "Boulder told me about the infrared vision - he was going to make it the standard in all his future creations, and asked me to test it on his cyborgs, if I ever met one. He had a passion for practical jokes, I think. A little smartass, that Jovian was. But absolutely brilliant."
"If I wasn't so desperately in need of your help, I'd punch you out," Venix whispered, and pulled back from councilwoman Berg. She felt as if she had not relaxed in years. "There's no time to waste. Tell me everything."
"First, let us take care of and examine you. Boulder Pi told me we could expect to find some very important information in your head." She smiled quickly when Venix glowered back at her. "Just questions, girl. Not a dissection. And my family will pour you a nice, hot bath. Then please come and join us at the dinner table. You are our guest now."
Yngve, AR - The Argus Project Page 23