Martian Knightlife

by James P. Hogan

  "I'm not actually a member of Professor Hashikar's expedition," Kieran began. "Archeology, geology, and so forth are not my kind of specialty. I'm more, what you might call an external consultant, brought in because of my expertise in the more . . ." he paused, as if weighing how to phrase a delicate but significant matter, "esoteric aspects of the discoveries here." He looked at Banks expectantly.

  "Go on," Banks said in a neutral voice. His two companions remained stone-faced. Kieran treated them to the smile of one accustomed to gently leading others into new conceptual territory.

  "I'm sure you've all heard of the ancient Technolithic culture of Earth," Kieran said. His voice took on a mildly quavering, reverberating tone, as if revering hidden secrets of the universe. "Long before any civilization of ours existed, they built the pyramids of Egypt, the lost cities of the Hindu Kush, the engineering miracles of Mexico and Peru. They wrought feats that defy gravity itself, wonders that Zorken Consolidated with all the resources and knowledge at its command would be unable to match, even today." He rose to his feet, as if unable to contain the excitement surging through him, turned a full circle, extending both hands, and pointed downward with a trembling finger. "And now, beneath this very spot where we are—"

  "Yes, yes," Banks interrupted impatiently. "We've been through all that with your—what's his name?—Trevany. If you're about to tell us again about structures here that you think were made by the same aliens, ancestors—whatever your theory is—then you can save your breath. We have the prior claim on this area, which, as I have already advised you, we are prepared to enforce. I'm sorry if that frustrates your immediate hopes, but we're a business enterprise, not a philanthropic society with academic sympathies. If these Technolithic people were here, no doubt there will be other signs of them all over Mars—and probably other places too, from what you seem to be saying. I can only suggest that you show patience and tenacity in the best tradition of your profession. But you can't expect serious development and commerce to halt every time you find a few rocks that nobody else is interested in. If that were allowed, the race would never have gotten off Earth at all."

  Kieran shook his head emphatically. "No, you misunderstand. I told you, my field is outside the academic disciplines of Dr. Trevany and his colleagues." He made a flourish—and in the process swept his helmet and gloves off the shelf he had put them on and onto the floor. Banks and the others watched disdainfully while he fussed around gathering them together again and stood up, regaining his composure. "I didn't come here to plead, or to belabor you with scientific details. I came here to warn you."

  Banks blinked. His face showed reaction for the first time. "Warn us?"

  Kieran's eyes gleamed, fixing on each of the three in turn. He moved a pace toward the cabin center, causing Xedeidang to pull back in his seat, and gestured with an extended arm. "Study the histories down through the centuries of those who violated the places made sacred by the Technolithics. How these things happened, we don't know, but the records and testimonies of those who were there, and who saw, are clear. Strange accidents and misfortunes befell them. Lives that were successful and prosperous fell into ruin. Inexplicable diseases ravaged their bodies. . . ." That one was thrown in for Gilder's benefit. "Others went insane, committed suicide, turned violently upon each other. . . ."

  Xedeidang looked perplexedly at Banks, silently saying they had a madman aboard and asking what to do. He started to pull his leg back as Kieran turned to retrace his course; Kieran tried to evade by altering his step, went off balance, and steadied himself against the bulkhead.

  "This is preposterous," Gertrude Heissen muttered at Banks.

  Kieran straightened up and resumed. "You don't understand. Your experience is confined to the materialistic processes that your scientists tell you are all there is to the universe. But they have barely glimpsed a fraction of it. The Technolithic peoples, whoever they were, wherever they came from, had knowledge of powers that we can only guess at. The structures they built were not tombs and monuments as has been told. Materials are found in them that we use only in our most advanced scientific creations. They were precision machines—instruments involving forces unknown to us today, serving purposes that we are unable to imagine." Kieran stabbed a finger in the direction of the ground outside again. "And down there, beneath where we are standing, is an example of—"

  "This has gone far enough," Banks cut it. "We've heard as much as we're prepared to. Whether you're officially a member of Professor Hashikar's staff or not, go back and tell him that if—"

  But Kieran seemed to have worked himself up into too much of a frenzy to hear. He whirled, throwing out a hand and causing Heissen to duck in alarm, gazed rapturously upward as if for inspiration, in the process backing into an empty seat by the folding table serving the area and sitting down heavily in it. But his verve and vigor were undiminished. "Communicate back with those who sent you here, and have them end your mission. Strange powers operate in these places, manifesting themselves as radiation fields and magnetic disturbances. They exist here!" As if Banks and the others didn't already know. "They know those who come with malevolent intent. They can distinguish. Leave while you are still safe! Things happen that scientists cannot explain. Their instruments stop functioning. Even as you sit here—" Kieran turned his head toward the door leading forward, as if a thought had just struck him. "The instruments in this aircraft, maybe. Wouldn't that make you think? Can I ask your crew?" Before anyone realized what he was doing or could stop him, Kieran got up suddenly, pulled open the door, and stepped through into the nose section. Two surprised faces jerked around to greet him from the crew positions. "Excuse me, gentlemen, but can I ask you—"

  "What the hell?" one of them demanded.

  "Get him out of there!" Banks's voice shouted from behind. "He has no authorization. He's not wanted in here at all."

  But Kieran tripped on the step up to the flight deck and went down on a knee. He braced a hand against one of the consoles to raise himself, but it slipped off and shot between it and an adjacent unit, causing him to sprawl sideways. Rough hands hauled him back onto his feet and ejected him back into the main cabin. "I just wanted to ask them about—"

  "Get him helmeted up and off the plane!" Banks yelled. "If I hear one more word out of him, just throw him out as he is. I've had enough!"

  * * *

  It was a rueful-looking Kieran who stumped back down the Mule's access stairs several minutes later and returned to the inflatable-frame cabin. But the smile that broke out across his face as soon as he got inside was unnecessary. Harry Quong was already tuning in to the two bugs—from the items sent by Leppo—that Kieran had planted, one in the main cabin of the Mule, the other underneath the c-com operator's table in the nose compartment. The first was bringing tirades from Banks, still incensed over the "lunatic"; the latter, a resumption of ratings of girls in various bars in Lowell and Osaka that Kieran's intrusion into the crew compartment had evidently interrupted.

  In his contrived fall, Kieran had also found the cable shown in the installation drawings obtained by Harry Quong, which connected the c-com panel to the amplifier-driver unit feeding the antenna system, which was where message encryption and decryption were performed. Hence, messages traveling through the cable itself were not encrypted. Kieran had attached to the cable a small clip-on collar that would pick up the external magnetic fields generated by incoming and outgoing signals and transmit encodings of them to the Juggernaut via one of the devices that Chas and his crew had buried outside—it hadn't been by accident that they had picked the area between the two camps to sort their equipment. So now the team had a tap into the Mule's external communications link as well as bugs inside it.

  Banks would no doubt forward a report of Kieran's antics to his boss, Thornton Velte, at Asgard, which was the whole idea, and hopefully the essence of it would find its way to Gilder. If so, Gilder would probably order a check on the net to see what information on Keziah Turle could be dred
ged up. But that was okay—they would find him to be mildly eccentric and excitable, but highly regarded within his own circle. For most of the night Trevany, Juanita, and Dennis had been writing biographical and background notes, extracts from supposedly published papers, and other inspirations, and posting them on a net site that June had created for the purpose on behalf of the fictitious personality.

  The tap on the Mule's communications link quickly revealed that the use of supporting military had been approved from Asgard, and a force would be arriving later that day. In anticipation of this, the devices placed by Chas and his men included several remote-controllable miniature radio signal and interference transmitters near the area where the military's aircraft would probably be positioned after it arrived. Meanwhile, Hamil, Juanita, and Dennis, after informing Banks that they needed a final visit to the Hole to tidy up their notes and recordings, had placed several more among the excavations. Also, while there, they had gone around touching up selected spots with fluorescent dyes from the Juggernaut's lab that would activate at varying periods after being excited with ultraviolet light—which Kieran said would be emitted by the security devices that he predicted the military would deploy. Not especially surprisingly, the response from Banks had been aloof indifference. Finally, Rudi had sent Gottfried up among the crags overlooking the shelf to dispense a number of canisters that Kieran and Harry Quong had contrived for emitting smoke and releasing pressurized volatile liquids.

  There was nothing more they could do for the time being but wait. Or maybe, Kieran suggested, they could always try praying to the protective spirits of the Ancients.

  14

  Rudi bit off a piece of a chocolate-peanut snack bar, chewed moodily for a while, then downed a swig of reconstituted fruit juice and looked at the others around the table in the Juggernaut's central compartment. He was disgruntled over what he saw as too ready a surrender to bluster. "I mean, seriously, what could they do at the end of it all?" he asked, singling out Kieran with his gaze. "Drag us all outside and shoot us? Surely overt violence against an undefended minority wouldn't be tolerated. Things can't work that way."

  "Is that how it works anywhere, Rudi?" Kieran asked from where he was lounging by the forward doorway into the driver's cabin. He shook his head. "People looking to start trouble don't immediately resort to armed force. They provoke and escalate until it becomes appropriate. Situations like that get ugly and distressing for everyone involved. We all want to avoid that."

  "I thought that people here were supposed to have a way of acting together when something threatens their common interest," Rudi said.

  "The common interest could be best served by respecting first claims," Trevany reminded him. "Don't assume that everyone would be sympathetic to our position. Creating a fuss might not be the way to go."

  Rudi looked indignant. "But . . . but we're talking crass commercialism versus knowledge that could be invaluable. I mean, what's there to argue with? You've only—"

  Trevany cut him off with a shake of his head. "Most people wouldn't see it that way. They're interested in what relates to them. Rights of use do. Academic claims to privilege don't."

  "I'm not asking for privileges," Rudi insisted. "Just some recognition of fundamental values."

  "But that's how they'd see it."

  Juanita, who had been following, commented, "The system here is based on tenacious defense of—how would you put it?—things you know are yours."

  "Property ownership rights," Trevany supplied.

  "Yes. That doesn't mean just being allowed to hold a technical title to something, that someone else can grant or take away. It means you possess a monopoly on deciding how the property gets used, sold, exchanged, or whatever." She shrugged. "That's what Zorken is doing. And if pushed to decide, Mars would probably side with their right to do it."

  Rudi made a face and waved a hand. "Yes, but can't this kind of thing be worked out by reasonable compromise? It's the using of coercion that I'm objecting to." The others stared at him, then looked at Kieran to take it.

  "When you talk about monopoly, you're implying an ability at the bottom of it all to enforce it," he said. "When a dispute arises that agreeable compromise can't settle, and arbitration fails, then people will resort to fighting it out until some view or other is able to prevail." He nodded at Juanita to endorse the point she had made. "In other words, until monopoly privileges are reasserted. And territory is the most fundamental property right of all, from the space occupied by your body, through the wider domains of personal living space, homes, towns, nations. . . . Exercising a monopoly on territory means securing it from rival claims. That means being able to bring sufficient force to bear to defend it."

  "All right, I take your point," Rudi said. "But at the same time, I think you're making mine. You own your house and the belongings in it because nobody else has an equal right to walk in and camp down with impunity, yes? But what gives you that right is the recognition of your monopoly under one system of law which exercises the force. Shared ownership of territory—or jurisdiction by competing defensive agencies, which amounts to the same thing—isn't a workable arrangement. Stable households exist when there's one head that the others are prepared to acknowledge. Otherwise the community fights or fragments. And the same happens with larger territories too. When national group marriages break down, the solutions are division of living space, divorce, or murder in the form of migration, revolution, or war until territorial monopolies of some kind stabilize. But that isn't what you've got here."

  "You're right," Kieran agreed. "It hasn't happened yet on Mars. Too much room; too few people. But when the boundaries start running up against each other, then it'll all start to shake itself out."

  "Yes, and in the meantime we've got this situation where the only alternatives seem to be either to find our own private army, or be run off like poachers."

  Kieran pursed his lips and responded with one of his enigmatic smiles. "Oh, I wouldn't jump to conclusions too hastily, Rudi," he said. "There are always other ways. Why else do you think we've all been so busy?"

  Harry, who had been watching the communications panel in the driver's compartment, appeared in the doorway. "It looks like they're here," he announced. "Two blips on radar coming in from the northeast. An outgoing message from the Mule to Asgard confirms their backup is on approach now."

  * * *

  The force consisted of a "Venning" troop carrier with rated capacity of twenty men plus equipment, mounting support artillery in the form of a multiple munitions delivery turret behind the cockpit and underslung automatic cannon, accompanied by a command/scout flyer carrying missiles and laser pods. They landed where Kieran had predicted, between the two camps but closer to the Mule. Deployment was brisk and businesslike. A detachment in armored combat gear emerged from the troop carrier to cordon off the archeologists' cabin and vehicles and secure the perimeter around the Mule, while another went down to clear and post guards in the Hole workings. While this was going on, officers from the command flyer entered the Mule to report to Banks and confer, as Kieran and the others were able to follow via the bugs planted there. There were no great surprises. Shortly afterward, Banks came through on local band inside the Juggernaut to issue his ultimatum: the team had four hours to complete its wrapping up and depart. If they were not gone from the shelf by that time, they would be forcibly removed.

  Hamil and Walter went across to the Mule to plead their case again and demand that they be permitted to talk directly with the top management at Asgard who were responsible for the Tharsis project. It was a token protest, probably expected, urged by Kieran for appearance's sake. And, as expected, it was refused. Banks was delegated full authority, and his decision stood. They now had three and a half hours.

  Chas and his crew deflated the three-room cabin and packed it into its trailer, stowed the remaining items, and a little before the deadline, a procession consisting of the Juggernaut and two trailers with their hauling vehicles alter
nated forward and back on the sloping road sections to descend the mesa side below the shelf. They drove away across the valley floor and halted at a spot between two and three miles away, outside the boundary that Zorken had demarcated.

  Back at the Troy site, Gottfried had been left to provide mobile eyes and sensors from a vantage point high on the slopes above, not far below the Citadel rock. The tap on the Mule's communications line brought Banks's report back to Asgard that the operation had been carried out successfully, on time, and without trouble. The ensuing message traffic expressed satisfaction and revived plans for a more comprehensive survey of the minerals potential under the plateau—which had been the original objective of Banks's mission. It also brought Banks's boss, Thornton Velte, responding to the Keziah Turle stunt, since Gilder himself was preoccupied with preparations for his daughter Marissa's wedding, guests for which were assembling at the Oasis hotel before being transported up from Lowell as Asgard approached. While Velte dismissed it all as nonsense, Turle's apparently authentic background had impressed Gilder. But there had been no thought of reconsidering—not that Kieran had expected any at this point. Gilder was still focused fully on business. He hadn't made any connection with the Higher Powers which in another compartment of his mind he believed governed the workings of the universe.

  "So we'll just have to help him make the connection," Kieran said when Harry replayed the latest snippets relayed from the Mule. He told Dennis to go ahead and transmit a set of the codes supplied by Pierre, which would activate groups of the protein synthesizers now present in the bodies of the Mule's occupants. Some of the selected cell types were dermal, while others lay in the digestive tract.

  "So what if it does cause Gilder to do some thinking," Rudi said. "I can't see the military people being very impressed. They're our main problem now."