Martian Rainbow

by Robert L. Forward

  Boris turned around on tiptoe to look with concern at the rapidly disappearing Shalom as it headed for the limb of Mars. The swarm of landers in front of the Shalom suddenly developed a clump as four of the landers converged at a point.

  There was an eighth flash.

  The Shalom was saved.

  RELIEVED, Boris allowed himself the luxury of going over to inspect the hole the antisatellite rod projectile had made in the surface of Deimos. The rod had probably been a few millimeters in diameter and thirty centimeters long and massed less than half a kilogram. But its kinetic energy content was greater than an equivalent amount of high explosive. The hole it had made in the ground was over three meters deep and two meters in diameter—with little slumping of the walls due to the low gravity on Deimos. He turned away from the hole and went inside the control center to see what had happened to the Shalom and the sixteen.

  "The remaining landers were able to rescue three of the pilots," Gus reported over the video link from the Shalom to the various stations on Mars. "Their landers were only disabled by the shrapnel from the explosion. But Michael Wolfe must have hit that missile head on. There was nothing left of his lander." He paused, then continued on a positive note. "I want to thank Boris and his team. It could have been a lot worse."

  "I only wish we could have gotten them all," Boris said from Deimos.

  "Well, now you will have time to crack the security locks on the software and reprogram the rest of the missiles in case Alex sends another attack at us," Gus said.

  "I'm afraid that can't be done," Boris said.

  "Why?"

  "Because we have no more defense missiles," Chris interjected from Olympus base. "We didn't know how well the missiles would perform, so I had Boris shoot all four dozen of them. It's a good thing I did. As it was, one got through the barrage."

  "So Mars is defenseless," Colonel Begin said from the Shalom.

  "I'm afraid so," Chris confirmed.

  TANYA waited for two days in the plain, tiny room in the basement of the Potomac Palace. She had plenty of time to think, since the only reading material was the Bible of the Church of the Unifier. After skipping through the book and reading a few random paragraphs, her scientist brain rebelled at reading such illogical, emotional, guilt-laying garbage. The afternoon of the second day the door lock clicked and her Amazon room guard came in. Instead of food, this time the guard brought a half dozen other Amazons with her.

  "Take off your clothes," the guard said.

  "Why?" Tanya asked angrily.

  There was no reply. The seven women advanced on her, roughly stripped off her clothing, threw her on the bed, and held her down. One of them, who obviously had some medical training, then searched every body cavity thoroughly, even tapping each tooth in her mouth. Large plates were placed under various parts of her body and flash X rays taken. The examiner looked at the glowing images on the self-developing plates, then nodded to the guard.

  "Clean yourself up and put on this robe," the Amazon said, throwing a towel and robe at her. The rest of the women left, taking her clothing with them.

  "You have five minutes," the Amazon warned as she closed and locked the door.

  Tanya was ready and waiting when the door opened again. This time there were four Amazons behind the guard. If anything, they were even larger and more fanatical-looking than the others.

  "Come with us."

  Tanya didn't argue, but stepped rapidly to the door in her bare feet. She was taken up elevators, down long corridors, and through doors guarded by both computer and sentries. The longer they walked, the more ornate the decorations became. Finally they came to a hallway richly decorated in white wool carpeting embroidered with ornate designs in gold thread. Silvered mirrors in solid gold frames alternated along the corridor walls with gold candelabra holding burning white candles that gave a spicy tang of incense to the air.

  They came to an ornate door that filled the end of the hallway. As they approached, the sentries there started opening the doors. One of the guards stepped behind Tanya and bent her arm behind her back.

  "Bow," the guard hissed.

  The guards and Tanya bowed as the door opened, and a familiar voice called from far away.

  "Tanya, it is such a pleasure to see you again. Come here, my dear."

  Tanya raised her head. Alexander was standing in the middle of a huge room. There was a gigantic bed along one wall. He was wearing his gold buttonless tunic with the broad space-wing shoulders, gold tights, and golden boots—with lifts, Tanya noticed. Alexander had gained a lot of weight and his face was almost as round and ruddy as that of the fat man standing next to him.

  The fat man had a pompadour of white hair and was dressed in a white suit, white shoes, a wide white silk tie, gold brocade vest, and enough gold jewelry to sink a horse. Try as she might, Tanya couldn't recall ever seeing the man before. She walked forward and Alexander waved the guards away.

  "That's all right," he said to them. "I handled her once before and I can do it again." The guards left and shut the door.

  "Tanya, my dear," Alexander said, "I would like you to meet my good friend, Rob. You might say he is my right-hand man."

  Rob looked at her suspiciously, nodded perfunctorily, and murmured, "Evening."

  "My guards tell me that you were captured at Tsiolkovsky Observatory trying to help some of my disobedient subjects escape the will of the Infinite Lord. That was a naughty thing to do," he said, shaking his finger at her. "Now ... you are here, and Gus is back on Mars. I'm sure my poor brother must be pining his heart out for you."

  His eyes looked back and forth at her two nipples poking up under the thin white robe, rigid from the cold air in the room. His face turned into a leer and his voice harshened. "But to the victor belong the spoils." He grabbed her left wrist and started off toward the large bed.

  He paused and turned his head to look back at Rob. "I'll see you later."

  Rob nodded and started to walk off to a side door.

  Alexander felt a pressure against his chest and looked back around. Tanya was now snuggled up to his chest, smiling at him. She raised her free hand, ran it through his hair, down behind his ear, and down along the side of his neck, snuggling her head closer to his chest.

  Suddenly she stiffened.

  "Hold still!" she cried, and put her hand on the side of his neck, feeling the pulse in his throat.

  "What?" Alexander said, starting to back away.

  "Hush! Hold still," she repeated, giving him a quieting kiss to the lips.

  "Let me check," she said after a few seconds. She fumbled around on his chest and pulled open the front of his tunic, baring his chest. Soon her ear was pressed tightly against his chest, listening to his heart, while her cool hands were around behind his back, pulling him toward her. Alexander raised his arms in bewilderment at her actions. She suddenly raised her head and called toward the disappearing figure of Rob.

  "This man is sick!" she yelled. "Get me a stethoscope and a blood pressure cuff!"

  "What is this rot?" Rob said, coming back in the room. "He has a personal physician that checks him weekly. He always reports that Alex is in perfect health."

  Tanya turned around and looked disapprovingly at Alexander. "Admit it, Alex," she said, tickling his chest hairs with one hand and waggling a finger at him. "Don't you have the slightest bit of high blood pressure?"

  Alexander hesitated, then admitted, "Yes. A little."

  Tanya turned to Rob and said firmly, "Get that quack in here—stat!"

  Rob hesitated, then punched a short code on his wrist communicator. There was the slap of a distant door opening, then the sound of running feet. An elderly man with thinning hair half hidden by his purple and white Cap of Contact came bursting into the bedroom through the side door.

  "Let me have that bag," Tanya said, yanking the doctor's supplies from his grasp as he stood there bewildered, trying to figure out why he had been so urgently summoned. She rapidly found the blood p
ressure cuff and advanced on Alexander.

  "Off with your tunic," she ordered.

  "I'm perfectly all right," Alexander objected.

  "Off! Off! Off!" Tanya repeated, as she ran her arms under his tunic and extracted an arm. The blood pressure cuff was around his biceps and going though its preprogrammed routine before Alexander could protest any further.

  "Two hundred! Over one hundred twenty!" Tanya screamed when she read the indicators. "You could have died in my arms!" She turned to the doctor in fury. "What's been going on here!"

  "I kept telling him he ought to take some medication," the doctor whined. "But he refused to consider it. He—he made me promise not to tell Rob or anyone else."

  Tanya had been rummaging through the black bag and came up with a bottle.

  "You have a beta blocker right here," she said, opening the bottle and taking out a pill. She walked over to Alexander.

  "Here," she said. "Take this."

  Alexander turned his head to one side. "No!"

  "Why?" Tanya asked.

  "The side effects," Alexandersakl petulantly. "You know ..."

  "I warned him it might make him impotent," the doctor said.

  "It only happens in a small percentage of the cases," Tanya said angrily to the doctor. She turned and, holding the tiny pill between her fingers, walked up to Alexander.

  "Besides," she said to him softly and seductively, "if I am your doctor, I will personally guarantee an erection every time." She moved closer, until the nipples under her robe were rubbing against the hair on his chest. She swayed back and forth and brought the pill closer to his mouth.

  "You two can go now," Alexander said over her shoulder—then took the pill.

  THE FOLLOWING week there was a succession of storms along the east coast of the North American portion of the Unified States. Slush and rain and sleet and hail followed one on the other.

  "I'm tired of this," Alexander said. "I much prefer my tennis outside."

  "I'm not one for tennis inside or outside," Rob said. "But I'm working on a permanent solution to these bad weather days. I've ordered the island of Cyprus evacuated. It's right in the middle of the Mediterranean Ocean where the weather is always balmy. Security will be easier, too, since only high-level followers will be allowed on the island. We'll get rid of all those peasant hovels, and of course raze all the old Greek Orthodox churches—wouldn't do to have them on the Island of the Infinite Lord."

  "I don't know," Alexander said. "When I was giving my speech in Turkey on that world tour you arranged, it was pretty hot."

  "That's the nice thing about Cyprus," Rob said. "You can either stay down at the seashore and enjoy the ocean, or go up to the top of Mount Olympus and enjoy the cool mountain breezes."

  "Mount Olympus! A fit place for a god. Build me a palace on the top of Mount Olympus."

  "I'm already having the top three floors of the Olympus Hotel near the top of the mountain rearranged for our use," Rob said.

  "I don't want a 'rearranged hotel'," Alexander said, very annoyed. "I want a palace—at the top."

  "I'm sure that Rob meant that the Olympus Hotel was just to be a temporary residence for us while the palace is being built. Didn't you, Rob?" Tanya suggested.

  Rob glanced at the usually silent woman that had latched on to Alex. He didn't trust her, but so far he had nothing to complain about. At least she had Alex taking his medicine. Now she was helping him out of a minor difficulty. What was her game? Whatever it was, she wasn't going to hurt Alex. Her medical kit had been stripped of dangerous tools and drugs, and Rob had Watchers following her every move outside Alex's quarters.

  "Tanya is right," Rob said. "We'll get started on the palace as soon as you tell us what you would like—besides being right on the top of Mount Olympus."

  "Well," Alexander said, thinking. "It should have a tall tower, with a parapet on top, so I can go up and look out over my world ..."

  "GOOD MORNING, Alex," Tanya said brightly as she came into the master bedroom of the penthouse suite of the Olympus Hotel, carrying a pill and a pressure cuff in one hand and a crystal goblet of water in the other. She was wearing a sky-blue satin short nightgown and a white lace robe, for she had just come directly from her small bedroom down the hall—Alex preferred to sleep alone in his huge circular bed.

  Alex groaned and sat up. She sat on the bed next to him and expertly slapped on the pressure cuff, which started in on its preprogrammed routine.

  "Time for your pill," she said firmly, handing him a pill and the goblet of water.

  She watched him take the pill with a twinge of guilt. It was not the beta blocker he needed, but a placebo that she had laboriously fabricated in secret from an aspirin tablet. She took off the blood pressure cuff and smiled approvingly. Alex never looked at the readings on the indicators, but they now read 150 over 100—high, but not dangerous ... unless you knew that the indicators had been biased to read low. Steeling herself to make the next move that might be the means to bring this tyrant down, she tilted her head to one side, forcing herself to sound enticing. "Do you think you'll need an anti-impotency treatment this morning?"

  "Not today," Alex said with another groan. "I've got a terrible headache."

  "I shouldn't wonder," Tanya said, relieved. "You and Rob were really pouring down the whisky last night. You should do like Rob, stick with scotch instead of bourbon."

  "I'll drink what I damn please," Alex growled.

  "Of course, my Infinite Lord," Tanya said agreeably. "If you will excuse me, I'll go get you some aspirin."

  "I still can't see why I can't blast Mars out of the solar system," Alexander said petulantly, going back over the previous night's discussion. "Surely my owlies could do that for me."

  Tanya stopped and came over close to him."I believe General Sam and General Jerry made it clear that they were certainly willing to try. But unlike the first time you conquered Mars, you won't have the advantage of surprise."

  "Yeah," Alexander admitted. "As you pointed out, any incoming spacecraft would be sitting ducks for those Russian missiles on Deimos."

  "And you remember what Rob said," Tanya reminded.

  "Yeah," Alexander admitted again. "It would look bad in the history books for Alexander the Infinite Lord to lose a battle. That would make him second-rate compared to the Alexander the Great of Macedonia, who never lost any."

  "Besides," Tanya said, running her fingers through his curly hair. "If you killed off your brother, then he would no longer know or care that you are bedding me down every day instead of him."

  "Yeah!" Alexander said, brightening at the thought. "You're right. I'll leave Mars alone and just let my brother rust to death out there." He pulled her down to sit on the bed. "What did you ever see in that crip, anyway?"

  "He was the closest thing I could get to you," Tanya lied, not avoiding yet another chance to kill this brute with kindness. She slipped off her robe and nightgown and, smiling enticingly, lay back on the bed. She steeled herself as Alex's flushed face moved closer and she began thinking once again of the lovely pink skies of far distant Mars as the clumsy hands started pawing her naked body.

  CHAPTER 16

  The Right Hand Of God

  "WELL, HOW do you like it so far?" Rob asked.

  "Nice, very nice. You've done an excellent job, Rob," Alexander said. "You're to be commended."

  They were on top of a square stone tower that rose high out of the palace building still under construction below them. It was growing dark and the evening Silver Scythe was rising up over the horizon. Alexander walked to the parapet and looked out over his world from the top of Mount Olympus, enjoying the cool evening breezes.

  "I'm truly amazed that you could arrange for such rapid construction," Alexander said.

  "It was easy," Rob said offhandedly. "The first thing we did was put in six- and eight-lane superhighways around the island and up and down the mountains. With the natives off the land and their villages torn down, we had plenty
of room to straighten out the right-of-way. The tourist hotels make good dormitories for the workers; and, being faithful members of the Church of the Unifier, they work long hours for practically nothing except room and board and don't give us any union trouble."

  "But all this stonework ..." Alexander said, his hands brushing appreciatively over the sharp square edges of the massive blocks of stone that made up the parapet.

  "That's the beauty of this island," Rob said, smiling. "It's full of blocks like that, all cut and ready to use. For instance, this stone tower you are standing on is made of stones from the Kolossi Castle, and the walls of the palace below are going to use the stones from the Curium Amphitheater and the various other old stone temples, forts, and buildings. And don't forget the hundreds of old Greek Orthodox churches. The rubble from each one we knocked down produced a few hundred good-sized building stones.

  "Of course, we trimmed all the blocks square to get down to new stone without markings on them, and we used modern cements and connecting rods to fit them together." Rob gave the parapet wall a kick. "Even a major earthquake can't knock it down."

  Tanya came up from below and stepped out of the central elevator house. Her long blond hair, now shoulder-length to please Alexander, blew in the light evening breeze. She was followed by four of Alexander's Amazon guards. Tanya came over to Rob and Alexander, while the Amazons went to the four corners of the tower to relieve the four guards posted there.

  "Our quarters in the tower are snug, but very livable," Tanya said.

  "Good," Alexander said. "I will stay here tonight. I'm tired of that hotel. I want to be here where I can look out on my world."

  "Look!" Tanya said, pointing to the east. They turned and saw a number of the points of light in the evening Silver Scythe of God rising rapidly upward away from the rest of the points of light.

  "Yes," Rob said, his normal ingratiating smile turning grim. "I was expecting that to happen at about this time tonight, Tanya. Some of your scientist friends at Novosibirsk thought they could fool me by pretending to be devout members of the Church of the Unifier, while all the time secretly constructing a long-range hypersonic nuclear missile designed to penetrate the air defenses around Cyprus and kill Alexander."