The God Mars Book Five: Onryo

by Michael Rizzo

  “I’ve been working on something,” Bel tries to reassure, but he sounds like he’s eager to try out whatever he’s put together.

  “Is it really him?” I doubt. “Or just another double?”

  Bel considers that. He puts his hand on Fohat’s chest plate. I see the body jerk, just once, just a little. When he withdraws his hand, he’s got a slight smile of satisfaction on his face.

  “It’s definitely him.”

  I remember overhearing Bel saying that he’d worked with Chang and Fohat in the erased future, as kind of a spy for Yod, just like Astarte supposedly did. (But why would Yod need two spies? Why would Yod need spies at all?) Of course, all those memories are suspect, just like everything the Seed-Immortals think they know.

  “Any idea where the real Asmodeus went?” I have to ask.

  “He must have another base somewhere,” Ram gives the obvious answer, but I can tell he doesn’t think it’s that simple.

  “He didn’t care,” Straker tells us. “About losing his ship. Or Fohat. All he seemed to want to do was kill, use his Harvesters to make more and sweep over the whole region, kill everyone.”

  “That makes no sense,” Erickson grasps at reason. “What does he gain? What good is territory without a people to occupy it?”

  “And if he kills most of the people here, UNMAC will drop nukes on him,” Straker takes it further. “Their only reason not to will be gone. And what does he gain from that?”

  “He gets Earth to destroy everything good here,” I hear Dee’s voice coming from behind us. I see him walking briskly from the direction of the tunnel, kicking up ash and dust as he goes. “He gives them their wish, and then leaves them to live with it.”

  Ram looks like he agrees with the AI’s assessment, however dark.

  “The evacuees are back home,” Dee reports more positively. “They’re assessing their casualties now, checking to see if anyone was hit with a Harvester injector. Funny, though: The orbital railgun blew through the second Stormcloud’s reactors, which were already leaking hot coolant. But Orbit is picking up only minimal radiation bleed from the wreckage, like the fuel cores were all depleted. Environmental contamination is restricted to the crash site.”

  Yod. We all think it, but nobody says it, like we don’t want to acknowledge it out loud.

  We carry the semi-headless body of Fohat to the Siren’s Song. Bel and Azazel take it to the rear compartment, where I catch a glimpse of them loading the still-twitching armor suit into what looks like a modified Hiber-Sleep tube and seal it.

  Terina we carry with much greater reverence. Bel covers her wounds with wrapping and places her in one of the original crew flight beds in the midsection, her Companion still lying on top of her. He hooks her up to a nutrient feed system he’s designed, so that at least her body can heal.

  Then we lift off from the blast zone, and on the cockpit’s screens I get to see the devastation from above. A rough circle has been scoured from the northern slope of the spine out into the green valley as if something had taken a bite out of it the same way the caterpillars cut pieces out of leaves. The shockwave has flattened and broken the forest even further beyond, like a giant round foot had stepped on the world.

  But the higher we get, the less significant it looks. Just one scar pitting a still-green corner of this planet. And maybe that was Yod’s point: Something to remind us what we have to lose, if any side in this struggle for Mars should go too far.

  The only problem: Asmodeus will go too far just for the sake of going, for his own amusement. And maybe that’s Yod’s point as well: Asmodeus is a shadow of the worst of that world that Yod undid. So let everyone imagine Earth’s entire population made up of monsters just like that, and never go that way again. He’s a warning that can’t be ignored.

  We take the straightest route, flying up over the northern crest and into the Katar Canyon. The blast has left the Trident masked in haze again, but as the morning winds send it westward, I can see a column of smoke rising from beyond the peak of the lone mountain to the east where we found Terina battling Harris. Maybe they thought the mountain would provide some shielding for Katar against the radiation from the ship’s reactors, though Yod, in his occasional mercy, seems to have resolved that worry.

  When we finally can see over the City itself, it has one significant scar of its own: Where the Oculus and the Great Plaza once dominated the colony, there is now a crater perhaps fifty meters in diameter and perhaps ten deep. If the Kings and their entourages had remained in their War Room, they would have been wiped out all at once.

  Otherwise, the rest of the City looks relatively intact, though its camouflage has been defeated by a masking of dust, revealing its true lines to the sky, likely for the first time. As we get closer, I can see scarring on the Wall and up on the slopes over the City from turret and Disc fire, but otherwise there’s no major damage. What I can’t see is the human toll, not yet. What I initially think are fallen warriors on the Wall turn out to be their stick-decoys. If there were any flesh-and-blood casualties, they’ve already been moved.

  We come in to land within the City, on the plain inside the Wall. Now I can see bodies laid out. They’ve been set neatly side-by-side, and covered by blankets. I count twenty-three. Tents have been set up in another area, it looks like to triage the wounded.

  But the most shocking sight, at least a first look, are the dozens of bots arrayed like guardians protecting those dead and wounded, their guns pointed outward beyond the Wall as if expecting further attack. I can even see the familiar saucers of Disc drones parked on the field. I’d never seen one sitting still, landed like that. I’ve only seen them in flight and firing, or ready in their launch-racks to do so. They seem almost serene like this, lift fans whirring alternately at low-power, not unlike a bored man fidgeting on sentry duty. I look to Dee, but can’t read his expression. He seems… elsewhere.

  From within the City itself, I see people moving, coming out to see the dead and wounded, and some running to embrace the warriors who came through this unscathed. Among their number, I recognize several of my own people, especially the Ghaddar, looking up at us as we descend. Paul Stilson and Elias stand with her. I don’t see Bly.

  Our jets blow a section of the plain clean as we land, almost like a ceremonial first act of making repairs. I remember Ram promised that, that we would help them rebuild whatever was destroyed, at least in terms of stone and clay. I hope we have the luxury of the time to do so, before Asmodeus makes whatever next move he surely has already planned.

  Our debarking is met by a roar of cheering from the Katar, filling the canyon. Not one of us, not even Lux, stops to bask in it. I doubt any of us feel like we’ve actually won anything, only forestalled more tragic losses.

  Ram leads our group to meet the Ghaddar and the others. Elias embraces his brother, but Erickson seems in no mood for comfort or celebration. Ram clasps forearms with the Ghaddar like formal allies do, even though they were certainly much more than that once. But then I see grief in the Ghaddar’s dark eyes above her demon-mask. She looks at me, locks my eyes. I’ve never seen her cry bef…

  Over by the neat rows of covered dead, I see Rashid, standing sentinel, along with Hosni and Abdel.

  I go there directly, quickly. I realize my mask is still hanging down around my neck, and, according to those that have seen me since whatever Yod did to me (to Peter), my face is recognizably mine again. I consider covering it, but instead I pull my helmet off entirely, even though I’m sure it’s too late to matter.

  Rashid is the first to see me, to recognize me. He gapes like he’s indeed seeing a ghost. I lock eyes and nod to him, and he rushes forward to embrace me. I’m sure he has obvious questions, but he can’t speak—all he can do is sob. All I can do is embrace him with my cold armored suit.

  The others—my former brothers—involuntarily back away from the sight of me, back from the dead as I am and no longer what I was. I open my arms to them, tell them softly that I am me,
and they find the courage to embrace me as well.

  Rashid looks at me with his tear-flooded eyes and then looks down at one of the covered bodies. I fall to my knees. I know who it will be without looking. I sit there for a long time, just staring at the shape under the blanket, thinking of all the things I want to say, wanted to say, didn’t say when I should have because I was a coward.

  My gloved and armored hands are shaking when I finally pull back the blanket. Gently. Carefully.

  At least they closed his eyes.

  His cowl is gone and there’s a bullet wound in his forehead. It was quick. Sudden. At least they cleaned up the blood. Closed his eyes. He looks like he’s sleeping, but he’s far too still. And something vitally important is missing. He is missing. I’m looking at an empty shell.

  I barely realize that Ram and the others are standing behind me. Ram kneels by my side. He reverently touches my father’s face. I see his hand tremble like mine. My father called him brother. Even when he became what he is now. What I am now.

  He puts his gloved hand on my armored shoulder. We are two beings of steel, unable to comfort each other, no matter how profound our loss.

  My tears fall on stones.

  I hear screaming, wailing. I turn to see my mother Sarai running to us from across the field. I shift to make room for her, for her grief. She falls on her husband, embraces his body, sobs into his robes. I reach out to comfort, but can’t bring myself to touch her, not like this.

  When she finally sits up, to look into her husband’s face, she’s lost in it. She can’t see anything else.

  “Sarai…” Rashid whispers to her, and manages to catch her eye. He gestures to me. I’m not sure if I should feel angry or grateful. She turns slowly, hesitantly, and I watch her eyes widen as she tries to make sense of what she sees. I make myself smile at her through my own pain. I let her see me.

  She throws herself on me, throws her arms around my armored collar, and holds me for dear life. She kisses my cheek, kisses my tears, puts her hands around my head—the only part of me that feels human—and presses her face against mine. I can feel her tears pouring through the space between us.

  I hold her like that for a long time.

  The rest of our people gather, and sit with us in mourning. For our Sharif and Imam. For our father.

  Epilogue: The Importance of Ritual

  The funerals lasted for three days.

  The Katar bury their dead much like we do, with care and reverence and community ritual. But instead of a hole in the ground, they entomb their dead in small caves dug high up in the slopes above the City.

  The climb takes them up where they begin to suffer some hypoxia, so the ritual becomes an ordeal for the mourners, possibly having a quality of personal sacrifice. It wasn’t unusual to see a participant collapse and require the aid of their fellows, which seemed no offense. Maybe putting oneself in the care of one’s community, relying on each other physically, is a part of the ritual.

  The ritual itself was done in a variety of languages that, thanks to my full access to my Mods, I can now recognize as Japanese, Russian, French and Swedish, as well as Standard English. Much like our own Salat Al-Janazah, the participants pray for the passage of their dead to a better existence under the protection of a singular supreme entity, which also seems to be much like the God I understand. (I expect the faiths of the Founders have simply been combined over the years, impressively without obvious conflict.) They also take turns telling stories of the good deeds of those lost, listing their best qualities in life for the posterity of the community’s memory.

  Because of our service protecting their home, the Katar award my father, as well as Zayed and Nawaf, our only other fallen, tombs in a place of honor among their own. And in respect of our customs, they allow us opportunity to perform our burials on the first day after the battle, so our loved ones can be laid to rest as soon as possible, as our own traditions demand.

  So we wash and wrap our own, fill our canisters for the climb, and carry the bodies up through the rocks. We position them facing the appropriate direction, which I realize is also the direction of our former homelands in Melas, now so far away. I am given the honor of leading the Salat, though Rashid will now become our Imam and Sharif.

  Colonel Ram has come with us. He speaks the mourner’s part of the Salat as if he is one of the Faithful, and no one challenges his presence. He was, after all, my father’s brother.

  We seal the bodies up securely, and then head back down into the City to join the Katar in their own rituals.

  I take a moment to enjoy the view from the heights, take a moment to myself by my father’s grave.

  Funerals are for the living far more than the dead. My father taught me that. As did a man who cared for me like a father. And I lost both of them on the same day.

  Funerals are for the living. It is up to us to come together, to mourn and remember, and then to keep living.

  But for me, that means something entirely different now. I will live. Perhaps whether I choose to or not. I would say “forever,” but my father was also apt to say: “Whatever lives, dies.” It’s just that my own death may now be a long way off, and far from natural.

  Right now, I don’t feel very immortal, certainly not invincible. There’s a hole in me somewhere, a profound emptiness. I want to stay here forever, like one of these stones, but I know I can’t. I know I’ll have to come down off this mountainside soon enough. But for now, it’s very beautiful up here. Peaceful.

  The sky has cleared. The thin wind is cold on my face, but not freezing. From here, I can see the progress already made in cleaning up the damage to the City. And beyond the Gate Wall, the green of the greater world, still verdant, still alive despite the abuses of men and the things men have made themselves into.

  I imagine I may see much change to this place in my time to come. What will this world become in the next decades, generations, centuries…?

  Colonel Ram once warned against imagining the future, as we are so prone to try to do as human beings, because it will never be just as we imagine it, and such is the root of disappointment.

  But Yod said it was the randomness and unpredictability that made the world beautiful, that even a functionally omniscient machine treasured chaos in its system.

  I miss my father.

  I miss Murphy.

  I miss Peter.

  “Who are you?”

  “Jonathan Drake.”

  “Then be that.”

  Then be that.

  I find the Ghaddar and Rashid waiting for me just above the City when I finally come down. We walk the rest of the way down together in silence.

  The Katar are generous with their food, but the feast is sedate. This is an act of healing, of community taking care of its own, of the basic rituals of gathering together and attending to the basic needs of the living.

  The Modded Immortals and Companion-Bound have been invited to one of the greater meals in a large stone hall not far from where the Oculus once stood. They are given seats in conspicuous proximity to the Kings. I was also offered such a seat, but chose to stay with my people.

  The Knights have also been invited, in appreciation for their defense of Katar. I expect they look very similar to Nomads to anyone who doesn’t know how to read faction camo-patterns, except they have much more elaborate armor on under their cloaks. If the Katar have any residual prejudices to having even more “stubby” people in their community, they don’t show it. As I learned in Melas: war makes interesting and unexpected allies.

  If the Knights lost any of their own in the fight, they have not said. But they heartily enjoy the Katar hospitality, and formally offer the Kings their continued assistance if they’re available to give it. Khan in turn offers them shelter within the City, for whenever and as long as they’d like to stay, but their Grand Master politely declines him for now, telling him they are still seeking lost brethren farther east. Khan tells them of encounters many years past with a gun-arm
ed people some twenty kilometers east, but describes them as a ragtag group, without armor or uniforms. As the strangers never attempted incursion into Katar territory, the Katar chose to return the courtesy, and they haven’t collided since. Grand Master Kendricks thanks him for the valuable intel, and the Knights return to feasting and sharing stories.

  As we eat, I catch Khan’s eyes on me from across the hall. I expect his usual loathing glare, but instead see a deep sadness, an emptiness in his very soul. His daughter, we have assured him, is not completely lost. She may one day return to him, hopefully with what really matters still intact. But that seems to be no comfort. Nor is the news of how bravely and skillfully she fought, how she almost single-handedly beat the demon in a contest of weapons. His daughter remains in stasis in the Siren’s Song, waiting for the permission of the ETE Council to be taken to White Station, where she will become an object of study, of experimentation. He has given his consent for this, for the greater good, for the hope of a better future, and perhaps mostly that he may see his daughter again, in some form or other.

  Looking at me now… It’s like he’s comparing the boy he barely knew but loathed on principle to the thing that sits in his halls and eats with him today; like he’s trying to determine if I am the same person I was, or something else that simply resembles him. Will he get his daughter back, or will it just be a kind of machine programmed to say it’s her?

  I give him a nod like I can remotely understand what he’s going through. He simply turns away, staring out across the room full of his people in mourning.

  The Katar lost sixty-nine men, women and children, including three of their warriors that they later “gave mercy” to because they’d been infected.

  I lost a father. And a surrogate father. And a good friend.

  But I have been returned to my family, at least for now.