Mars, The Bringer Of War

by George P. Saunders

  The glass rang out in a strange echo, but did not shatter. However, the impact had caused some kind of transition in the cryo-mechanism and suddenly, effortlessly, the glass front rolled open. Anna fell forward and Mars caught her.

  "My god, she's like ice," Mars said. Casey stared on helplessly, but then something else caught his attention that made him step away from the cryotubes.

  Mars rocked Anna back and forth. "Come on, sweetheart. Wake up. C'mon, breathe!" Anna's eyes fluttered briefly, but her chest did not move. Mars began to administer CPR.

  Casey stopped in front of a single glass enclosure standing alone, twenty feet from the ghoulish rows of human test-tubes. He stared at the thing within, shaking his head to and fro.

  "God almighty, what the hell are you?" he said softly.

  The creature was alive. Two powerful, vaguely reptilian legs supported a trunk that was more human than alien, and by the way its upper anatomy was shaped, the creature could be construed as half-human ... and female. It's face also boasted human and female characteristics, though the skull was disproportionately small in comparison to the powerful lower extremities. The thing blinked at Casey and opened its mouth. A perfect set of razor sharp fangs gleamed back at him through the strobed lighting afforded from the creature's glass prison. Something rose in back of the thing and thumped curiously at the glass Casey was peering through. It was only then, after his eyes had accustomed to the light somewhat, that he could see the creature had a tail, reminiscent of the robot scorpion.

  "Mars, you better have a look at this," Casey hissed.

  Mars was having no luck in reviving Anna, though he had made some progress; her lungs had started to take in oxygen, and there was a pulse. She was out of immediate danger, though Mars didn't want to lay bets on what long term effects the alien cryofreeze procedure would have on her systemic rehabilitation in general. He glanced up at Casey, who was some distance away, engrossed with something in the shadows that Mars could not see from his position on the floor with Anna.

  Gently laying Anna on the cool floor, watching her chest continue to rise and fall with the intake and outtake of oxygen, Mars rose to join Casey. He walked over to the lawyer and stared at the creature within the stasis tube. The alien stared back, clearly taken with Mars. He looked up at the container and saw a series of connecting feed-lines of sorts from the creature's prison, leading to the cryotubes which held the human remains of Flight 399.

  "Look at that," he said. Mars followed the tubing from the alien’s glass prison to Hilary's cryo-tube, then back again to the creature's enclosure. There were tubes being fed directly into (or out of? he wondered) the creature itself. The tubes seemed to be surgically implanted into the alien's skull.

  "You think it's an alien?" Casey asked.

  "Could just be me, but that would be my guess," Mars replied dryly. He pointed at the tubing. "Some kind of transfusion."

  And then he stopped talking. Something was approaching out of the darkness.

  "Let's get out of here," Mars said. Casey just nodded, clearly having no difficulty with the suggestion.

  Mars picked Anna up and turned to get his bearings. Immediately, the alien within its stasis enclosure became agitated. It began to pace within its small prison, but neither Mars nor Casey took notice. The creature became desperate. Then, impossibly, it spoke:

  "Free - Me"!

  And so it begins. The Controller ruminated on the disturbing fact that there was a dissenting thought already taking issue against him … and for the alien humans. The origin of the radical thought paradigm was with the Worker Drone in the Storage Level.

  The Controller had confined this particular Sel hours earlier, sensing the disparate nature of its thought patterns, unharmonious to the collective as a whole. It was to be used for experimentation (was in fact part of a kind of data-downloading exercise, utilizing dead alien brain tissue). But now it had made contact with the humans … something the Controller had not anticipated or foreseen.

  It would not destroy the little drone. The Sel collective would never understand the act of aggression against one of its own; the robot probes could destroy themselves, if needed … but never living entities. In this way, the Sels were vastly different than human beings. Murder was an alien concept among their own.

  No, the Controller would confront the little Sel at some immediate point in time, scan its thoughts, make direct communication, perhaps physically interact with it. Advise it accordingly that its present course of action was not in conformity with greater Sel directive. But that would be all.

  If necessary, and the deviant Sel proved troublesome, the Controller would simply remove it from the Great Experiment and keep it out of trouble. That was a decision that need not be made now. It would simply confront the Sel and discern its immediate needs and motives.

  The Controller, still in the form of a little boy, sensed the anxiety from the humans at his departure. The sensation vaguely thrilled the Controller. This charade was proving highly enjoyable

  Mars stopped mid-stride, and turned to regard the alien Sel staring at him.

  "Free Me," the creature gurgled through lips ill-equipped for human speech.

  Casey stepped closer to Mars, who now remained motionless.

  "Captain -- Mars. Free ... Me ... Please!"

  "Christ, it knows your name," Casey muttered.

  The sound of something approaching out of the dark continued to crescendo, but both Mars and Casey were momentarily transfixed, fascinated with the communication efforts exerted by the hideous thing locked up in front of them.

  "Why should we help you?" Mars asked neutrally. "Your kind have murdered my people."

  The alien looked almost apologetic, its head bowing for a second. It spoke, eyes averted: "True. My kind. But not ... Me!"

  Mars considered the answer. But not me. Mars thought the response was oddly … human. Options swirled in his haggard mind. If he released the alien, it might very easily kill them immediately, just on general alien principles he’d experienced thus far. On the other hand, if the creature was telling the truth, there was an opportunity here to acquire an ally and some information. There was risk, to be sure.

  My kind … but not me.

  So many people had died, and there was no explanation for why he and his kind had been brought aboard this ship. The alien might be able to shed some light on they mystery. Conversely, there had been no evidence that any member of this species, living or mechanical, showed a softness and respect for human life.

  Mars knew there was little time for further deliberation.

  He turned to Casey, and handed Anna off to him. Then, he reached for a fallen cross-beam, part of the demolished sarcophagus which had once held Anna, and swung it hard against the faceplate of the alien's enclosure. The alien instinctively backed away, as the beam tore through the metallic perimeter.

  Mars dropped the beam, and backed up.

  The alien considered its newfound freedom for a second or two, then stared at the humans. Suddenly, it leaped forward, stopping just inches short of Mars. Mars remained ice-cold frozen in place. Casey lost his bladder, and Mars could hear the trickle of urine run down his leg, onto the floor.

  The alien barred its fangs, sticking its snout into Mars' face, as if daring the man to strike it -- or pull back in terror. Mars made no move whatsoever. The alien hissed.

  "Follow -- me. Or die!"

  The alien then catapulted itself over Mars' head, and began to break into something like a jog, away from the two men. Mars looked at Casey, reaching for Anna.

  "You gonna trust that?" Casey asked, incredulous, oblivious to his soaked pants.

  Mars turned and stared into the blackness, gauging the distance of the ominous buzzing and low growl which bespoke of some invisible and nameless horror.

  "I'm not going to stick around and wait to see what's heading our way," Mars said, then turned and followed the alien heading back toward the ventilation tunnel. Casey, not one for slow d
ecision making, immediately kept pace with the bigger man.

  The vent grate lay haphazardly on its side, when Mars and Casey turned the final corner. Whatever was behind them was getting closer, growing louder and ... something else.

  Casey winced, almost doubling over, holding his mouth and nose.

  "God, that smell," he choked.

  Mars, still holding Anna, felt faint from the stench. Whatever was chasing them, wreaked of something foul and unidentifiable, though the closest thing (and most disturbing) Mars could compare it too was the week- old decomposition of human flesh. The alien Mars had freed suddenly appeared.

  "Go -- through the tunnel," it hissed at them, in its characteristic choppy attempt at human speech. It reached out a huge claw, and fairly shoved Mars through the aperture; Casey needed no such urging … he fairly lunged for the exitway, following Mars with Anna in his arms.

  Mars positioned himself in the tunnel in such a way where he could literally drag Anna behind him. He was helped by Casey, who was pushing wildly, more out of stark panic versus an actual desire to assist. The lawyer chanced a glance behind himself, but did not see the alien. He did hear some hissing and sounds which were the unmistakable earmarks of an altercation.

  Mars did not pause in his desperate crawl toward the opposite entrance. Though he, too, heard the muffled blows of some kind of alien quarrel, he was not curious in waiting to see which side prevailed. If the friendly alien that he freed was the victor, so much the better; if not, then other problems would be sure to follow, quite literally, only yards behind them.

  He fell out of the hole, two hands in front of him, rolled, then pulled at Anna, now moaning in semi-consciousness. Casey slid out next. Both men looked back into the crawlway. Nothing. Anna opened her eyes and squinted up at Mars.

  "John?"

  Mars squatted down, picked her up and smiled. "I'm here, Anna. Don't try to talk."

  "What -- happened?"

  "You'll have to tell me a little later. Right now, we're in trouble."

  Anna's disciplined mind, even in shock, was able to digest Mars' frankness. She nodded and closed her eyes. "Luck," she said.

  Right, Mars thought. And we'll need it.

  And then another sound began to resonate through the seemingly endless alien chamber. By now, it was becoming a recognizable sound. Hissing. Except in this instant, there was no definite sense of origin. The hissing seemed to come from every direction on the compass.

  "Let's get out of here," Mars said, and once again, Casey, famous for his capacity to object or demur on any legal point in another world, put up zero protest to this latest suggestion.

  The Sel Deviant was engaged in a struggle with two of the Controller’s security drones. The Controller watched the altercation … remotely annoyed. The drones were slow, slower than the Giants he employed to weed out the sick and dying among the humans. They were specialized maintenance entities, primitives among the Worker collective, a thousand times lower on the evolutionary schedule than even the Sel Deviant they were presently (and ineffectively) battling.

  The Controller was hoping to arrest the escape of John Mars and the other human for only one reason: one of the human specimens on the Storage Level had been taken by Mars. The specimen – a female - held special significance for John Mars … though the Controller had yet to fathom the profundity of that relationship.

  Again, the Controller made a restrained decision. It would continue to watch and learn. Perhaps things could get more interesting still with the participation of the Sel Deviant.

  Now that would be something else, the Controller thought in anticipation.

  Back at the temporary group location, Ravers, Drakes and Myoga were also heads-up to the hissing everywhere.

  "I don't like this," Ravers said.

  The women crowded around Simpson, an instinctive reaction, since he was the biggest man in the group, and thus radiated a sense of safety. A kind of unconscious, primeval hierarchy had been created, recognizing Simpson as a kind of “second in command” to the absent John Mars, though from a strictly military perspective, Chase Ravers would have held that position.

  Mars, carrying Anna, appeared seconds later. Casey, out of breath, arrived puffing behind him.

  Ravers glanced at his old friend, then to Anna. "How did she get here?"

  "Figure it out," Mars said curtly.

  "The alien ship must have zapped Freedom first, saved Anna, then headed into the atmosphere for us," Ravers said neutrally.

  "Not bad. I'll buy it," Mars replied, no sense of humor in his voice whatsoever.

  From out of nowhere, though Mars suspected it was from above (everything of peril, of late, he associated with things overhead and oppressive – the alien way) a blinding red light enveloped his small band of survivors. The screeching, mind-splitting whine that assaulted their senses just after the plane was attacked screamed through the darkness.

  But unconsciousness did not occur this time around, as Mars half suspected it would. Instead, he blinked once, twice, both times in momentary agony. When he opened his eyes for the third time, he was no longer on the alien deck of the Sel cruiser.

  The Controller was amused. He decided that he would follow, in human form, the aliens to the next preordained destination on the schedule of the Great Experiment. The Sel Deviant was more than welcome to join him.

  FIVE

  LANDFALL

  There was a sky overhead, green, murky, ominous. Two huge binary suns flared, one yellow, the other a deep, rich orange. A warm breeze, saturated with humidity blew low and muggy, reminding Mars of the damper months in Cabo San Lucas. Cabo – now light years away, perhaps never to be seen again. No perhaps about it, he amended. Better chance of seeing snowballs sing Danny Boy in hell than ever seeing that part of Earth again, or Earth itself, for that matter.

  Smells wafted through Mars’ nostrils; fresh, green, deciduous smells mixed with something akin to honeysuckle. It was the same odor that had assaulted his senses when he first stepped off his broken plane. The squawking sounds of some kind of bird came and went. Something buzzed around his ear for a moment. An errant, curious bug from another world that had momentarily sniffed out the dining potential in Mars’ flesh and decided against the snack option. It moved off, disinterested in landing, biting or inspecting the new inhabitant of the jungle.

  Mars found himself on all fours, hands and knees stooped a foot in clay, or mud, or some like viscous soil that was vaguely pleasant to the touch, soothing and nonthreatening. A change from most other sensory perceptions in the last hour or two.

  He glanced around himself, blinking, improving visual acuity. The sky became clearer; not only were there two suns against the green hue he surmised must be some kind of atmosphere, but there were three unsymmetrical looking satellites draped across the horizon. Moons, he thought; though from a purely aesthetic point of view, the ugliest chunks of rock he'd ever seen, more like the disproportionate moons, Phobos and Deimos, that orbited the planet Mars.

  Mars. A distant place in a distant solar system that held a planet in its gravitational swirl he once knew called Earth. Where was Earth now, he wondered? A hundred light years away? A thousand? Ten thousand? He may never know, he realized.

  He pulled his hands free from the cool muck, and struggled to stand. A moan whispered across the jungle floor, just beyond a tree line of what appeared to be simple palms, the kind of which could be found in any tropical location on Earth. He now surveyed the vastness of his new environment, though ever mindful of the moans just a few yards beyond, concealed by palm trees.

  A long, low-lying swatch of terrain, bordered with more palm trees, mounted with tall grass of so brilliant and verdant a hue that it seemed to vie with the light of the two suns for sheer radiance. And luminosity.

  His heard momentarily soared. The spaceship with the killing robots and his dead crew and passengers was Hell, and he had somehow, miraculously, left it behind, or been deliberately expelled from it by what
ever devils inhabited its infernal depths.

  The greener, richer country he now found himself within magnified in size, as he continued scanning the horizon. Everything was living – green and abiding. Perhaps there was hope yet…

  Mars stumbled toward the groans, and found Anna on her side, trying to shake her head free of post-cryogenic cobwebs.

  He helped her to her feet, and they both regarded one another in silence. He touched her face, gently matting a single tear running down his cheek.

  "I thought I had lost you," he said. Tears started well

  She was crying, too. "Never." Mud on her face and lips, she leaned in and kissed him hungrily. When she pulled back, she asked him a question which he felt was quite reasonable, under the circumstances.

  "Are we dead?"

  "Feels like it," he said matter of factly, then eyeballed the suns and moons above.

  "Where do you think we are?"

  Mars sighed, shook his head, his attention still on the sky above. "Who knows? They showed us some kind of course the ship was taking. Myoga assumed we were travelling faster than light --"

  "They?" Anna asked.

  "Whoever attacked my airplane, killed my crew -- and kidnapped you," Mars said, and realized in an instant that he wasn't being very clear at all with Anna. "You've been in some kind of cryostasis chamber, Anna. Do you remember anything at all?"

  Anna stared at him for a moment and closed her eyes. At last, she nodded. "Freedom. That's right. It attacked us, some kind of huge alien spacecraft. Killed all my flight personnel."

  "Sounds like what it did to us," Mars said, still stroking her hair.

  Mars then briefly brought her up to date, beginning with his return to the states, his employment with the airline, leading up to the night of take-off and the attack by the Sels.