Seeds of Gaia

by Rick Partlow

  There was one mystery that was true and unsolved, however, and its evidence was right before Sam’s eyes. When Mother had left Earth three thousand years ago, Mars was a red planet, its few thousand colonists confined to domed craters. Today, Mars was a living world, blue with the oceans and green with forests, rich with brown soil and a breathable atmosphere.

  Terraforming was nothing new to the Resolution, of course…but to the Resolution, terraforming was a process governed by nanotechnology. Microscopic disassemblers reorganized atmospheres, freed oxygen from water ice and rock and prepared the way for the introduction of genetically engineered life forms. Here on Mars, however, there was not a trace of nanotechnology---and Mother knew, they had looked. Early Resolution diplomatic missions had taken surreptitious soil, water and atmosphere samples, searching for the discarded husks of ancient nanites, but not a single one had been found. As far as Resolution researchers could tell, Mars had been terraformed through a combination of brute force and biotechnology.

  And that was where the mystery came in, of course, because there was not a single indication in the current Martian culture of such capabilities. If anything, they seemed inferior to even the Consensus, technologically. Yet there they were somehow, sitting on what was likely the first terraformed world in human history.

  Sam felt the winds of the upper atmosphere buffet his ship as it descended along the guidance signal provided by the Collective computer and fought to keep his hands from clutching at the armrests of his acceleration couch. The Raven was perfectly capable of atmospheric insertion, particularly with the AI in control, but the thought of taking the big ship down to a planet always scared the living hell out of him. Not exactly something a starship captain should let on to the crew, he thought ruefully.

  The Raven described a long, gentle spiral through the Martian atmosphere, coming lower over weathered sandstone mountains, speckled here and there with brown and green. Sam let himself be distracted by the surreal beauty of the world, watching carefully to catch glimpses of the broad-winged Shrieks that were the dominant aerial predator introduced by the Terraformers. Ten meters from wingtip to wingtip, they could kill a man as easily as they could the spindly-legged herbivores roaming the Martian plains.

  As the mountains gave way to those plains, Sam could finally see their destination: the port city of Tarshish. Tarshish was unique on Mars. Though there were various small industrial centers and collections of homes around them, Tarshish was the only thing that could truly be called a modern city on the whole planet. On Resolution worlds, the humans were concentrated in the megaplexes in order to put less pressure on the planetary ecology, but the Martians seemed to rely on population control to accomplish that task. Or at least everyone assumed so; population control was another one of those things about which the Collective didn’t talk to outsiders.

  The spaceport at Tarshish was basic by Resolution standards---little more than a large, flat plain of fusion-formed concrete about a kilometer on a side---and it was nearly unoccupied at their arrival. From the air, Sam saw only a pair of orbital shuttles parked near the far end, surrounded by maintenance vehicles. The computer guided the Raven in a narrowing spiral to an area near the center of the field, slowing them in the process until it was safe to cut thrust to the main engines and shift power to the landing jets. Superheated air, drawn in through turbo intakes and run through ducts close to the ship’s reactor, blasted a scorched pattern on the gray surface below them, depositing them on hydraulic landing treads with a gentle bump.

  He let out a long-held breath and began unfastening his safety restraints.

  “Collective Control says they have a car headed out to pick us up,” D’jonni announced, speaking over the hiss of the pumps spraying coolant on the belly of the ship and the ground beneath her.

  “Lock her down, people,” Sam ordered, levering himself out of the command couch. “Arvid, you’re in charge till the maintenance crews are done, then call me to find out where to link up with us.”

  “Aye, sir,” Arvid sighed in resignation. No one looked forward to being stuck on the ship for refit duties.

  “Don’t worry.” Sam clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll make sure you don’t miss any of the fun. Everyone else,” Sam looked around, “you remember the briefings. Don’t ask too many questions, it’s considered impolite here. In fact, given the sensitivity of the situation, you’re better off not speaking to the locals unless spoken to, unless it involves something urgent. Let Priscilla, Sensitive Danabri or me do most of the talking.”

  Hell, we’ve been letting the little runt do all the talking this whole damn trip, Devon broadcast to him via his neurolink on a private channel. Thank God it’s the Martians’ turn.

  Let’s keep the neurolinks open for official matters, shall we? Sam responded silently, casting a baleful eye her way.

  At least, Sam thought, the little shit wasn’t paying attention to them or he would probably know they were talking about him. He was too busy enthusing over the return of gravity. Sam wasn’t sure which was more annoying: Danabri’s incessant whining over the lack of gravity or his inflated ebullience at its return. He pushed the thought aside as unworthy and led the impatient line of crewmembers to the ship’s utility bay, where the main egress ramp was already lowering to the steaming concrete of the landing pad.

  Raven, keep alert while we’re gone, Sam ordered the ship’s computer. I don’t distrust the Collective, but we’re awfully close to the Consensus here…

  I understand, Captain Avalon, Raven replied. I will keep in touch with you.

  Sam could already see the Collective vehicles approaching as he stepped out onto the concrete: three service trucks loaded with technicians and equipment and a single, boxy passenger van to take them to their meeting.

  “The least they could have done was provide a decent luxury coach,” Danabri grumbled when he saw it.

  “Damned egalitarian of them, wasn’t it?” Sam commented dryly.

  “Is there any meaning behind it?” Priscilla asked. She had been strangely silent during the landing, but it was as if she suddenly switched on as she hit the landing pad, her eyes narrowing in thought.

  “Most likely nothing significant.” Danabri sniffed. “Other than possibly a desire to placate the Consensus by treating us as nothing special. The Collective isn’t very ostentatious, as I am sure you’re aware.”

  Before she could reply, the vehicles were upon them. As the service trucks pulled around to the rear of the ship, the van came to a halt directly in front of them and two Martians exited it. Characteristically tall and slender, the taller of the two men towered over Sam by a good half meter yet was only three quarters of his mass, looking down his long, aquiline nose at the heavy-worlder.

  “We greet you in the name of the Collective Will of the Martian People,” the taller man bowed cordially. Sam noticed the diplomat didn’t offer a name: they’d been advised that this was a common Martian practice.

  “And we thank you for agreeing to meet with us,” Priscilla nodded. “I am Priscilla of the Resolution Diplomatic Corps.”

  “Please allow us to convey you to your temporary quarters, where you can prepare yourselves while we wait for the Consensus representatives to arrive.”

  Accustomed as Sam was to the uniformity of the Resolution Diplomatic Corps, the spare garb of the Martian diplomat still gave him pause. The tall man wore a simple, long-sleeved khaki tunic fastened in front, with pants of the same color and open-toed sandals. There was no mark of rank or station, nor were the clothes adorned with any personal touch. They were as simple as a military uniform, yet lacking even a military degree of individuality. The van’s driver wore an identical set of clothes, which made Sam wonder how the Martians managed to identify functionaries without asking. It seemed somehow inefficient to his military sensibilities.

  The van carried them across the concrete pad and onto a wide, paved access road into Tarshish. Sam settled into his comfortable if utilitarian seat a
nd listened to Priscilla and the Martian diplomat trade careful inanities, awed by Priscilla’s ability to keep the man talking without asking so much as his name. As he listened, he watched the city unfold around them, fascinated at how it managed to be simultaneously cosmopolitan and anachronistic. Tarshish was immense by Martian standards, and breathtakingly beautiful, its surreal spires and pyramids climbing into the purple-tinted sky with fragile elegance.

  But the fantasy towers were girded with old-fashioned surface streets, built for individual groundcars, a system unheard of in the Resolution and not even seen on Earth for the last several centuries. Again, it was a system unworkable for the sorts of populations common on Resolution worlds, but perfectly suited for Mars.

  The whole planet was a giant question that they were bound by form to avoid asking. Sam reminded himself that he was trying to not think about it, but his reverie was broken by their abrupt arrival at their destination. As buildings went in the lavish city, this one was nothing special, just a vaguely phallic obelisk a mere twelve stories tall and a hundred meters in diameter at its base.

  “We trust your accommodations will be to your satisfaction,” the Martian diplomat bowed to them as they disembarked the van. “Please make yourselves at home. We have a complete housekeeping system in place, but if there is anything it does not provide you, feel free to contact us. You may consider the city yours to discover, though we recommend that if you wish to explore outside of it, you should call for a guide, as there are dangerous animals in the wilds.”

  “When can we expect the Consensus ambassadors?” Priscilla asked him.

  “Their ship is expected in fourteen hours, twenty-four minutes,” the diplomat informed her. “Naturally, it is at their discretion at what point after that they wish to meet with you.”

  “We thank you for your gracious welcome.” Priscilla nodded to him formally. He bowed in return, and then boarded the van.

  “That’s about the weirdest damn thing I ever saw,” Carlos blurted as the vehicle drove away. “How can you have any kind of human society without telling people your name or asking them any questions?”

  “How often do we get honest answers to our questions anyway?” Danabri muttered, staring after the departing vehicle.

  “We were briefed what to expect,” Sam answered with a shrug. “Let’s leave the diplomacy to the diplomats and concentrate on settling in and doing our jobs. Devon.” He turned to the navigator. “Make sure everyone finds a room, then get on the horn to Arvid and see that he’s relieved at the ship.”

  “Aye, sir,” she nodded, then led the rest of the crew into the building. Danabri trailed them inside, frowning thoughtfully. Sam wondered what was bothering the man: he was too quiet.

  Priscilla turned to him as they stood alone outside the doorway to the building. She seemed agitated and uncomfortable, uncharacteristically searching for something to do with her hands.

  “Captain Avalon,” she began, “I just wanted you to know that I do appreciate the manner in which you’ve carried out your duties. I know I’ve been a bit…brusque with you and your crew, but it is nothing personal, I assure you.”

  “Rest assured, Citizen Priscilla,” he replied with more than a little irony, “I never once thought there was anything personal.”

  “It’s simply that I am unused to working under these conditions,” she went on, either oblivious to his tone or ignoring it. “I usually deal with matters in a more…controlled environment.”

  “One thing you learn quickly in the Patrol, Citizen Priscilla, is that life is frequently an uncontrolled environment. It’s one of the things I like about the job.”

  She pierced him with a curious glance. “You say that, yet I know you also love the stability and organization of the service.”

  “The service, the Resolution, they are all my home,” Sam shrugged. “They gave me life, gave me a purpose…but home is a place you start, not a place you stay forever.”

  “That’s an interesting outlook, Captain,” Priscilla admitted. “You’ve given me something to think about.”

  “Then I apologize.” He grinned, heading for the door to the guesthouse. “Because Mother knows, you have quite enough to think about as it is.”

  Chapter Four

  “This is the best goddamned meal I ever had,” Mawae Danabri muttered around a mouthful of beef and gravy.

  “It’s always nice to eat under gravity after a long journey.” Devon nodded diplomatically, studiously avoiding looking at the man as she ate so as not to ruin her appetite.

  Everyone had gathered in the guesthouse’s spacious, well-stocked dining room after settling into their quarters: it had become something of a tradition for Sam’s crew through the years to share their first meal after landing, and Danabri and Priscilla had tagged along.

  Sam wasn’t sure how he felt about that. The post-mission meal was a time to blow off steam after adhering to strict professionalism for many weeks on ship. With the two outsiders present, they had to rein in their comments; Sam could see the resentment in his people’s faces.

  But…for some reason, he was glad that Priscilla had come down to eat with them. He wasn’t sure why he was glad, but somehow the action made her seem more human. She wasn’t near as talkative as Danabri, however; the man hadn’t ceased to effuse about how happy he was to have gravity back.

  “So what do we do now, boss?” Arvid wanted to know. Carlos had taken his place at the ship after grabbing a quick bite.

  “I guess it’s safe to assume no one feels like sleeping,” Sam mused. “And it seems the Earthers won’t be here till tomorrow at the earliest. How about we take a tour of the city?”

  “I’m up for that,” Devon smiled. “Not every day you get to go to Mars and do some sightseeing.”

  Arvid and D’jonni nodded eagerly, pushing away from the table; to Sam’s surprise, so did Mawae Danabri.

  “I think I’ll tag along,” the Sensitive decided. “These Martians are pleasantly unreadable…it will be nice to be able to walk through a crowd without knowing what everyone is thinking.”

  “What about you, Citizen Priscilla?” Sam asked hopefully. “Care to join us?”

  “I should stay.” Priscilla shook her head. “I should prepare for the meetings…”

  “I would think after nearly two weeks shipboard, you’re as prepared as you can be,” Sam retorted, smiling to take the edge off the comment.

  She looked at him sharply, as if she were about to disagree, but again he saw a flicker of indecision in her eyes, and a look of discomfort as if she were not used to the event. Finally, she shrugged.

  “You may be right, Captain Avalon,” she said. “Perhaps what I really need is to get my mind off all this for a while.”

  “After all, how often do you get to visit Mars?”

  Sam offered her his arm. He felt an electric tingle through his whole body when she took it.

  ***

  Tarshish was even more impressive on foot, Sam thought. Once they got past the neighborhood of government buildings, the inner city became a hodgepodge of bazaars and shops, selling almost anything imaginable. There was artwork, clothing and food from a dozen different worlds and a hundred different asteroid settlements and space colonies, peddled from outdoor stalls and decorative shops and everything in-between.

  Everywhere there were milling crowds of offworlders, both shopping and hocking their wares; even the custodial workers were recognizably non-Martians. Sam’s head spun trying to catalog them all: here a Belter freighter crew, sporting the close-cut Mohawks and facial tattoos characteristic of spacers in the loosely aligned collection of settlements in the Solar asteroid belt. There, a diplomatic team from the Jovian mining colonies, their skin dark and rubbery, their bodies engineered centuries ago to withstand the electromagnetic belts surrounding Jupiter and bathing the colonies on its moons with lethal radiation. Resolution technology had allowed the construction of permanent energy shields that made the colonies livable for unmodified
humans, but the Jovians carried their heritage in their genes and there was no going back.

  There were Earthers of various stripe scattered through the crowd as well, though Sam understood from his intelligence briefings that they were usually transplants born on one of the handful of star colonies that the Consensus had managed to establish in the brief years since stealing the Transition drive from the Resolution.

  What there was a decided lack of was Resolutionists. Sam knew that most Resolution traders felt uncomfortable operating so close to the Consensus, but he felt as if he stood out like an advertising hologram.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many different people from so many different worlds in one place,” Sam confessed to Priscilla as they walked together behind the rest of the group. “Not even in the Patrol Academy.”

  “This place is a regular Casablanca.” She nodded, taking it all in with wide eyes.

  “A which?” Sam frowned.

  “Sorry,” she said with a chuckle. “Old Earth reference. Casablanca was a city in Africa, used as a meeting place by diplomats, traders, spies and criminals for several decades before the Collapse.”

  “Are you a student of old Earth history?” Sam asked.

  “I am a student of just about everything, Captain Avalon,” she replied distractedly, still absorbed by the bustle of the city. “I wonder what the significance is of the lack of native Martians in this district.”

  “Maybe they find that offworlders ask too many questions,” Sam suggested.

  “Perhaps,” she allowed, “but not even a subclass of traders to do business down here?” She shook her head. “There have been plenty of separatist communities in human history, but no matter how apart they considered themselves, some few individuals always managed to hide their distaste and trade with outsiders. And the Martians don’t even seem to have that sort of distaste. It’s strange.”

  “I wish we knew more about Old Earth,” Sam said wistfully. “So much was lost in the Collapse, and even much of what’s left is tightly controlled by the Consensus government. Sometimes I feel like we’ve all lost a part of ourselves.”