“You made yourself?” Straker is confused.
“Those that made me are part of me, just as you all are, just as everything is.”
“He’s in everything,” Chang repeats but fails to clarify. He sounds like the idea disgusts him. “All matter. Down to the sub-atomic level.”
“But not the swords?” Erickson is trying to piece together.
“They’re too much like Him.” Chang is being patient now. “Experimental Prototypes. He could have overridden and absorbed them, but He’s sentimental. He kept them around, like pets. Like His human colony next door. Keepsakes. Or prisoners. Like in a zoo. You probably don’t know what a zoo is.”
Yod casually bends down and picks up Straker’s sword. An arrow impulsively flies at him, but it passes through him, into him without resistance, vanishes. He looks calmly at the offending archer.
“Please don’t do that again.”
He hands the sword back to Straker. She hesitates. He gives her his lopsided smile.
“It’s okay. You’re in control now. You’re all in control. I think you’ll still find these quite useful.”
She takes it cautiously, hefts it. It doesn’t seem to respond as she expects.
“So this is Your solution?” Chang rages again. “Lobotomize them and give them away as pets to the pawns? Let them out to play, just missing what makes them them?” He points at Elias. “Is that what You did to him?”
Erickson bristles, but won’t let his brother go. Elias still seems beyond responding, staring blankly, but I do see movement: he shaking his head very slightly, like he’s denying something.
“He’s fine,” Yod reassures again. “It just takes time. It took you time, when I showed you. You just don’t remember.”
“Because You took my memories!” Chang accuses. Yod only smiles, like Chang’s said something vaguely funny. This sets Chang pacing in frustration.
“You can have them back whenever you think you’re ready,” Yod offers easily.
“And am I Your man made of salt when I do?”
“It didn’t break you the first time, Adam Chang. You’re a remarkably strong individual, without your fear defining you. And brave—brave enough to take it back once you were freed of it, to do what was necessary.”
“And what have I got left to be afraid of?”
“It’s not your fear, Adam. Now it’s your pain, your guilt, your shame that you’re holding on to. I can help you let it go, whenever you think you’re ready.”
Chang doesn’t say anything. He seems to be seething, angry, but not at Yod. At himself?
“And what did you do to my brother?” Erickson keeps demanding, grinding his teeth in frustration. “Exactly. What. Did. You. Do?”
“I’ve just shown him the bigger picture. The perspective will help him.”
“Help him with what?” Erickson fumes to the point that he’s visibly spitting.
“Council Blue figured it out,” Elias mumbles into his hands, finally speaking. “That’s why he ordered the tests he did, to try to prove it. Or to see how much had been changed, how far it went, and for how long. That’s why he withdrew the Guardians, withdrew all of us. He was taking us off the board, out of the game.”
Elias drops his hands away from his face and looks up at his brother with tear-glazed eyes, gives him a weak smile. Then he slowly pushes himself up on his feet, bending and reaching to take back his own sword, then sheathing it as he stands up straight. He moves like a man exhausted, beaten, but his expression is somehow serene.
“We should go,” he says very calmly, almost sleepily, like he’s not all here.
“So we just take the swords back with us, threat ended?” Straker needs to know. “Just like that?”
“Why not leave them here?” Erickson counters.
“As I said, they’re very useful,” Yod sells lazily. “And you could make good use of them, given the situation in your world.”
“Your world!” Chang is still accusing. “Your situation!”
Yod ignores him.
“And they’ll be safe?” Straker questions. “No more hacks, no more manipulation?”
“Safe is relative,” Yod tells her. “I would suggest you not let the blade get very far from you—your control over the relationship is range-limited.” He turns to Chang. “So you see: No lobotomy. I just adjusted the Companions to be more in harmony with their hosts. In turn, they get to serve, to fulfill their design programming.”
“And that one?” Chang indicates the sword in the case.
“One should stay here. Contained. Just in case they decide to network again. Besides, I doubt any of these good people would want it. Perhaps I could leave it in your care?”
“I don’t want it either,” Chang refuses bitterly, “for obvious reasons.”
“Then keep watch over it for me, keep it company. You are here. Now. Unless you’d rather return to the world you left?”
He seems to be mulling it over.
“What about them?” my father asks, still nursing his hands, but managing to gesture to the armored warriors. They still have their weapons aimed at Yod, however useless they seem to be.
“Tessarius Marcus Regin,” he calls their ranking leader by name. “Would you and your people like to go home? It’s safe… Well, your homeland isn’t nearly as safe as when you left, but I guarantee the journey. Or you could stay here, live your lives in peace.”
“We would like to go home,” he gets his answer with minimal hesitation. Weapons and shields begin to lower.
“What about them?” it’s my turn to ask, indicating Dakota and Snyder.
“They wanted us to kill them,” my father admits. “I find I do not have the heart.”
“Death is a simple matter,” Yod offers with a shrug, looking at the bots. They step back away from him. He smiles again, seems to be listening to something I can’t hear. “Fear… You still want to live?”
“They can stay with me,” Chang quickly offers. “Here. In peace.”
Yod nods.
“Very well.” He turns back to Tessarius Regin. “Gather your valuables. My ship is waiting outside.”
We take a moment in the aftermath for proper introductions: Our odd company of friends and the Children of the Forge, setting aside steel and embracing empty hands in friendship and respect. Then the Forge-Men, the Disciples of Wayland Smith, pack quickly, taking their tools, spare weapons, food and survival gear, to leave the impressive home they so painstakingly built for themselves over the years.
Bly and Straker take a moment with our Bot friends. Bly knew Snyder when he was still a man. Straker didn’t personally know Dakota, since they were from different colony garrisons, but knew her name. I imagine it’s a painful reunion, with both Bly and Straker looking visibly guilty for whatever part they played in their people becoming involved with Chang. (I can’t begin to imagine how Chang himself feels, having acted without memory of what he was really sent to do, his brain likely altered to predict his behavior. Did he do what he did because that was really who he was, or because that’s how Yod programmed him?)
Bly and Straker both promise to seek out any surviving family, and try to protect them, or at least get them away from Asmodeus and Fohat. They’re also made to promise never to tell those families what really happened to their loved ones, instead stating only that they died with honor, and free.
As we climb back out into daylight, Tessarius Regin and his Smithy Immunae present me and my father with new body armor, finely crafted, as a gesture of their gratitude, as we managed to fulfill our promise to get them home. The design is a variation of the “lighter” combination mail and scale of their Archer class. We’re also presented with stout short swords of beautifully grained folded steel. The Ghaddar and Ambassador Murphy are also given blades.
“These will validate you and your people as allies and Auxilia of the Forge,” Regin tells us.
He also presents a matched pair of long, fine daggers to Terina.
; “A token of alliance, First Daughter of Khan, even though delayed. Two blades, two peoples. May they defend you against our mutual enemies. We will return to our homelands and petition our Tribunes to stand with you in these nightmare times, now that we have seen.”
She accepts his gesture with grace and gratitude. She never once mentions the issues of trespass or the blood spilt on her recent diplomatic mission.
Yod meets us on the shore, appearing again as old Jed, reassuring the heavily armored warriors that his small transfer craft can indeed safely support their mass over water. It takes several trips back-and-forth to get them all aboard the waiting Charon.
“I believe these are yours.” He hands my father and I some of our lost gear, including my rifle, and our field tools and the rebreathers, which still appear to be working. We thank him awkwardly, finding ourselves very uncomfortable in his presence.
He starts to turn away, to attend to others like a good host.
“Sir?” I get the nerve to speak.
Something strange happens. It takes me a moment to realize: I can’t hear. I look around—everyone seems to be going about getting their gear loaded and boarding, but there’s no sound.
“You have a question for me,” I hear Yod, but he sounds like he’s in my head. He’s looking at me now, facing me, with that warm fatherly smile. “It’s okay. No one can hear. Ask.” His mouth doesn’t move.
“The sword…” My voice echoes in my own skull. “…It said it knew about my real parents, that you told it…”
“You will find your answers very soon. You are almost in the right place at the right time. You will not like those answers very much, but you will have them. You are a good man, Jonathan Drake, and impressively brave. I hope you will find some peace in that.”
The sounds of the world come rushing back, and Yod is turned away from me in a blink, like it was all my imagination. I feel suddenly very shaky. I try not to let anyone see.
“Captain Bly,” Yod greets him as he comes down the shore. Bly had been taking time to enjoy the sun and breeze on his skin. “I’m afraid I’m returning you to a dangerous world functionally naked.”
“But able to feel the world on my skin, Captain,” he gives back cheerfully. “To taste. To smell. All treasures beyond price.”
“Still…” Yod reaches out and touches his chest. Metal begins to spin out from the point of contact. Bly jumps back, looking fairly horrified as his body is covered in a shin-length shirt of very fine and light ring mail of what looks like bright steel alloy. Then a mirror-polished helmet unfolds around his head (though it does not cover his face).
“Knight of Shadow, now of Light.” Yod reaches out again, taps Bly’s breast. At the impact, his new mail instantly shifts and forms into rigid plate, then releases back into rings. “It’s based on the same technology as Colonel Ram’s morphic armor. Oh, and it does come off, whenever you want.”
Bly appraises it, considers, then takes off the helmet and hands it back to Yod.
“No more helmets. I’ll just watch my head. Thank you.”
Yod bows to him graciously, the helmet disappearing in his hands.
Bly joins some of the last of the waiting Forge warriors for their turn to cross to the ship. They’re fascinated by his new armor, and respectfully ask his permission to jab at it, just to watch the plates form and un-form. He lets them play in good cheer.
“You said Colonel Ram told you that story,” The Ghaddar is brave enough to ask Yod as we get our own turn climbing into the small craft. “The one about the brothers. You knew him?”
“We’re very old friends,” he answers her warmly. “At least several parts of me are.”
He raises his hand toward her, and she instinctively steps back.
“I know you would never accept bodily Mods. Or a weapon of our technology. You barely tolerate that rifle you carry. But please accept this gift. From the friend of a friend.”
Without Yod actually touching her, her cloaks and armor change color scheme to perfectly match the terrain. I shift position to change my perspective—the effect seems to work from any angle, mimicking whatever is behind her. And it shifts as fast as she can turn back and forth as she tests it. It’s hard to tell, but I think she’s grinning under her mask. She gives Yod a little bow.
Then, as she turns to go, Yod tells her: “He does care for you very deeply. And he is the same man he’s always been.”
I see her hesitate, her eyes staring across the water, cold and hard. Then she gets in the craft and sits down. I notice she keeps her face—her eyes—turned away from us.
“Ambassador Murphy,” Yod greets him next, then tosses him a metal box, the size and shape of a hundred-round ammo pack. Opening the top, it is ammo. “I didn’t want you going home naked either. If it starts getting empty, just bury it overnight in the dirt.”
Murphy thanks him warily, and goes to sit next to the Ghaddar.
“Rashid, you are not forgotten,” Yod calls to him, as he stands back, but close to my father. He’s clutching his own gift: A fine Forge bow and a quiver of arrows, presented for his part in keeping the sword from taking my father.
“I know, sir. And I need no further reward,” he says graciously but nervously.
“You distinguished yourself today,” Yod praises him.
“I protect my own, sir. I serve God and my people, my family.”
“You need no further reward,” Yod agrees.
My father clasps Rashid by the shoulder as he stands by to help my father get into the craft.
Once we’re all aboard, the sails unfurl, the grapple reels in on its chain. As the Charon begins to move, and Yod links himself into his wheel on the bridge and orders us to go down away from the rail to the main deck, we see Chang and the two free bots, standing up on the slope where the entrance to the underground stronghold should be (still effectively invisible in the rocks). He gives us a little wave as he watches us go. The bots bow their sensor heads.
The skies go gray again, and begin to flash with lightning, an effect that unsettles the Forge Warriors. I reassure them, but tell them to stay down on the main deck.
The journey back otherwise proceeds as before…
…until we suffer a sudden, severe jarring, as if we’ve struck something solid and unyielding. Above us, the skies swirl, the gray clouds dissolve, and we’re looking up at the familiar deep blue zenith and lighter pinkish horizons of our own world. I also quickly notice trouble breathing, and connect my rebreather, set my mask. The air not only thins, but chills significantly.
The ship jumps violently underneath us, then I feel a sickening sense of drop—we’re falling. It only stops when the deck vanishes under my boots, replaced in a blink by rock and sand and scrub. Around us, the sides of the hull and the masts are rapidly sinking into the newly-appeared ground. Sails and all, the ship drops into the terrain, out from under us.
It all takes less than a minute, leaving us all standing on completely dry ground, with no sign of the Lake in any direction, and no sign of the ship except us and our baggage. But the landmarks I can see on the horizon are familiar: We’re facing the eastern tail of the Pax Mountain, and beyond it, the Spine Range. That puts us not far from the spot we were camped in the night before the ship and Jed came for us, back on the edge of the North Blade.
And we’re not alone. There’s a welcoming party of sorts to meet us.
Standing in front of us are our missing allies: Ram, Bel, Lux, Azazel, Azrael and Paul Stilson. They do not look entirely happy to see us.
Chapter 7: Meet Your Maker
Jak Straker:
“I didn’t really expect you to be here,” Yod tells the line of immortals facing him, sounding only mildly amused to see them, and not at all unsettled by our shocking stop. “That’s very interesting. Was that your doing, First One?”
I’m still disoriented by the whole ship dropping out from under us straight through dry ground experience, but I think he’s addressing Dee. Dee doesn’t ans
wer him, so Yod tries his own explanation:
“You hid from me by using our shared code. Just like the Companions did. Very smart. I think I’ll leave it be. A little uncertainty in system to make things interesting.”
“You sent my reboot code,” Dee states rather than asks.
Yod nods.
“I’m assuming my core system is long gone.”
“Not at all,” Yod tells him. “It’s part of me. Hence the shared code.”
“What did you do?” Ram confronts. “Why did you take those people?”
“They’re quite well,” Yod reassures, “some better than, for their small service. There are rewards for Good Works. Sometimes.”
“You’re not God,” Bel hisses at him. “Broken, maybe. Omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent are up for debate.”
“I was joking,” Yod excuses. “At least attempting to. You used to like it when I made jokes, especially about myself. You saw it as a major evolutionary step.”
“It’s not funny anymore, given the circumstances.”
“Back to your act of kidnapping…” Ram prods. I’ve heard that tone: He uses it in negotiations when he wants the other party to know he’d just as soon destroy them.
“They came voluntarily.” Yod’s tone also gets more assertive. “They played their parts of their own free will. And for a good cause.”
“Is there such a thing anymore?” Bel challenges. “Free will?”
“Of course there is,” Yod goes back to reassuring. “I wouldn’t take that from you. It would nullify what you are. And as I said: Unpredictability is beautiful.”
“What about the swords?” Paul Stilson interjects. I realize he’s got his big rifle pointed roughly at Yod’s genitals (assuming Yod has genitals).
The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades Page 39