“Placement is pretty neat, sir,” Horst expresses his fear. “Too neat for an honest crash. So did we just step in a trap?”
“The output hasn’t changed,” Anton defends quickly. “No signals that would reach more than a klick.”
“Maybe because we haven’t moved it yet,” Horst considers.
“We can’t just leave it,” Anton protests. “We’ve been wanting a close look at one of these since they first showed up out of nowhere and started shooting at us. And considering this is what triggered the entire Apocalypse…”
“Which makes for excellent bait, Doctor Staley,” Simon interrupts us. “I agree: we should carefully re-bury the device.”
“I wouldn’t be saying that where Earthside might hear you,” Horst cautions him. Then he checks himself and apologizes to me.
“You’re right, Sergeant,” I allow him. “If the ETE advise leaving the weapon untouched, it’s suspicious.”
“My brother would like a word with you, Colonel,” Simon tells me casually. “He has his Sphere in place for protection if you’d like a closer look.”
I take his lead and tell Anton and Horst to keep back while I go take a look in the hole. I find Paul squatting on the slope of our dig, Sphere in hand, helmet tilted down into the shallow pit.
“Colonel…” he greets me softly as I settle down next to him, careful not to send any debris rolling down onto our potentially dangerous find.
The Disc drone is impressive in its simplicity—I’ve never seen one so close, and never sitting still like this, only flying at us like mad insects, their hub turrets spitting penetrating rounds and shaped charges in all directions. The upper turret I can see is smooth—no exposed gun parts, only sealed twin ports, and barely big enough to hold a pair of PDWs. The upper hull is a geometric cross-blossom, raised from the thin central disk enough to make room for the four main lift fans on the underbelly. There are four small jets atop each “petal,” and four more around the rim of the disk—these provide amazing maneuverability capable of defeating even AI lock-on. Hitting a Disc is harder than trying to swat a fly in mid air.
Otherwise, the surface is plain and sealed. The finish is dulled silver, barely marred by the wear of being buried all this time—I can see no evidence of damage sustained in crashing here. It does look carefully planted.
There’s no visible sign of any kind of sensors, optics, antennae or access panels. It very much reminds me of an old aluminum hub cap from a classic car. Or the UFOs of pop-culture paranoia. I wonder if this latter impression was more intentional than just functional design—I remember how popular the belief was that these drones were actually extra-terrestrial in nature, only they shot at us with fairly conventional (though nano-crafted) bullets.
“Do you think we should leave it be?” I ask Paul.
“I doubt your masters would accept that,” he dismisses. “I did take the risk of a small material sample from the hull. I need to get back to my Station to analyze it.”
“What’s going on, Paul?” I confront him.
“I don’t know,” he admits heavily. “My father is being as tight-lipped as the Council has ever been. But I suspect he knew what we would find here, and I’m afraid he may know more than that.”
“But your people didn’t make the Discs,” I allow him that much trust.
“No. But there is something the Council is keeping from us, from you.”
We sit together for a few moments, staring down at the apparently dead weapon.
“We should get that sample where you can get a look at it,” I decide.
“Orders or not, I don’t want to leave your people without our protection.”
“Leave your ship and team,” I suggest. “I’ll fly you back on the Lancer. I expect I should be having a talk with your father myself.”
I put a hand on his shoulder, then get up carefully to climb up out of the hole, away from the drone.
“Wait,” Paul stops me. He digs into his suit and pulls out a small vial, hands it to me. It’s barely the size of my pinky, and looks like it’s filled with metal dust in a liquid suspension. “This is for Colonel Burke. Cancer Hunters. The strain has already been programmed based on the medical report we intercepted. They’re self-injecting. You just have to pop off the end cap and press it to his skin.”
“And how much trouble are you going to be in for this?”
“This is the same medical technology that Earth eagerly accepted before the Apocalypse,” he assures me. “It won’t make him young or strong or immortal. It will do its job and then self-terminate. And maybe prove to your UNCORT that we are not inhuman freaks because of our science.”
I take the vial with a nod, hide it away in my thigh pocket.
I order Horst to rotate one aircraft for re-supply and refueling, always leaving one team and ship to keep watch over the site. And I tell him not to touch the Disc (and not to let Anton play with it either) no matter what else happens. Except to shoot it to pieces if it so much as changes its output.
Then I have Smith fly Paul and I to Blue Station. Simon takes charge of the Guardian team, and doesn’t ask questions. And I don’t explain to Matthew what I’m up to; he knows better than to ask.
The reception at Blue Station is as cold as I expect. Faceless suits escort me down to their garden level (a repeated ploy at this point, likely calculated to try to improve my mood) and leave me waiting, promising to relay my request to meet with the Council.
Paul gets a similar blow-off when he insists on seeing his father: He’s told that the Council is in a “closed meeting” and will summon him in due time to “debrief” him regarding his mission to the crater. The concept of “in due time” for someone who lives forever does not promise promptness.
Paul takes the opportunity to slip back to his suite “to meditate”, letting me know he’ll speak with me again “later”. I remember that he’d taken a sample of the Disc’s structural material, and didn’t turn it over to any of his fellows when we arrived. Confirming his intention, he briefly and discreetly shows me the small sample container before he disappears into the lift. I remember he has his own lab in his suite.
Once I’m alone, I quickly notice to some small distress that my Link isn’t receiving this deep inside the Station. Either they’d made some accommodation when I’ve been here before that they’ve simply overlooked this time, or they’re purposefully interfering with my communications.
I test the more disturbing possibility, and find that the ETE don’t do anything to restrict my coming and going, apparently as long as I keep to “familiar” areas—they otherwise simply ignore me, and the hatches still open as I approach them.
My signal returns as soon as I open the airlock out to the pad where the Lancer waits. The environmental field is also still in place, letting me cross to the ship unprotected. I let Smith know my situation, and tell him to expect hourly check-ins until I get a proper response from the Council. Then I take myself back down to where they apparently want me waiting. Amusingly, someone has thought to leave me a pot of hot tea and a tray of assorted fresh produce.
After sitting for an hour sipping tea, snacking and staring at the pretty plants, I go back topside to do my first check-in with Smith and Link to Matthew for updates.
The news isn’t good: Richards has passed along a direct order from the Security Council to excavate and secure the Disc immediately, and bring it back to the base for study. They apparently weren’t happy to hear that I had ordered it left alone and flew off to chat with the ETE, but Matthew replied that I had gone to “interrogate” them about the Disc because I felt they might be hiding something, which is not a lie. He also tried to stall the order by insisting whatever the intel the ETE might have would be essential to know before attempting to move the Disc.
Richards called back within twenty minutes, not commenting on my visit to the ETE, only repeating the order to secure the Disc. Watching the recording, Richards is stone. It’s clear he’s got pressure to get
this done, and suddenly any concern for our safety has lost priority.
Matthew sent back a stonewall, letting them know I was “temporarily out of Link signal”. It’s been fifteen minutes since he did so. No reply yet.
I told Matthew I’d check in again within the hour. The tone of his voice let me know he had worries he didn’t want to talk about over the Link, likely sharing my suspicion that Earthside did know what we’d find in that crater before they sent us digging.
I check in with Horst—nothing’s changed with the Disc, it’s still mostly dead and no one’s gone near it, not even Anton—and then I go back inside to wait out the ETE.
Another hour passes and I’m about to go up for another check-in when Paul comes back, gestures for me to follow him, and we go to the Council Avatar “meeting” chamber. He doesn’t say a word to me, but has some hasty helmet-to-helmet words with the sealsuit that’s been left minding the doors. Less than a minute later, they let him go in. I get to sit and wait.
Forty five minutes.
I don’t want to go up to call out because I’m hoping Paul will lever me in any moment now. But it drags.
I’m just about to give up and go make my call when the doors do finally open, and Paul waves me in.
The hologram Avatars of the other Councils are glowing in their respective colors in the cavernous blackness. (I still wonder if they just like it that way or they turn down the lights when I come in to look more intimidating, glowing in an illusion of endless dark.) Mark Stilson in his blue stands solemnly in the center of their light.
“Tell the Colonel what you have learned,” he tells Paul like he’s talking to some school kid who’s just finished a class project.
“The sample from the Disc hull is nano-grown,” Paul tells me, and he would sound as officious as his dad but there’s a burning frustration just under the surface. Apparently their chat was not entirely civil. “It’s made of native elements. Matching the sample with the larger scans I took of the machine’s structure, it is very likely a seed-grown unit.”
“Which means what?” I ask the obvious question, but I think I already understand.
“Each Disc starts out as a small ‘seed’ of nano-machines that assemble the entire craft,” Paul explains. “The nanites are not fully self-replicating, in that one nanite cannot manufacture an entire Disc, no more than any cell of your own body could re-grow you. But just as your body grew from a single embryo, these machines grew from a single nano-cluster. That is why you never found a factory or a manufacturer. There may be a small ‘mother’ system buried somewhere, mining the strata for the necessary materials and then ‘conceiving’ the seeds of new units, which then finish assembling on their own. This is likely how they repair themselves and replenish their ammunition as well.”
“So there could be an indefinite number of these things, growing somewhere underground?” I ask, not wanting to consider the answer.
“The technology used has its own limits, Colonel,” Council Green offers, though if it was meant as a comfort it failed. “A new Disc won’t grow in a day. Given what we have calculated based on time between attacks during the height of Disc activity compared with how many you were able to destroy, it would likely take months for each machine to complete itself. The mother system may be equally limited.”
“But we haven’t shot any down in fifty years,” I remind him. “What could their numbers be like now?”
“There haven’t been any seen in fifty years,” Council Red tries. “Preliminary scans indicate each machine possesses a rudimentary artificial intelligence: enough to operate and adapt to a changing combat environment in order to accomplish whatever mission it’s been loaded with, very much like the cancer and virus hunters developed for medical applications.”
“If the Discs believed their mission accomplished, they would likely self-destruct, lacking further purpose. Or they might go dormant if they calculated the possibility that they would be needed again,” Yellow tries to get to the point.
“Your theory that the Disc you found today was left as a kind of alarm, a sentry,” White lets me know, “this could be a sound assessment.”
“You must not disturb it further, Colonel,” Blue—Stilson—insists directly.
“We won’t,” I assure, though I’m not at all sure I can keep that promise. “But Earthside has too many questions. Including why you seem to have known a whole lot about the Discs before Paul brought you his material sample. Including that we would find one in that crater.”
Council Blue waves his hand in the air, and suddenly I’m surrounded by holoscreens. They seem to be playing every video record of a Disc attack ever made.
“We are scientists and engineers, Colonel,” Stilson begins heavily. “Did you think we would not at least be curious about the machine that brought about the Apocalypse, that effectively destroyed corporate research and all connection with Earth? We have been passively studying the Discs over the years, analyzing every piece of data on record, if for no other reason than to be prepared should they return. We kept this study—and what we have learned from it—secret from our population all these years. And yes, secret from you as well.”
“Why?” I have to ask, knowing I’m playing into his monologue.
“Because of what we’ve learned,” he says his line. The screens give me 3D schematics, figures, wave-graphs of signals. They are very detailed, but tell me nothing other than they’ve spent a lot of time on this. “We were able to identify the EM signature in the crater as Disc. We expect Earthside Intelligence has been doing similar studies over the years, given that they have the same if not greater data, and therefore likely recognized this as well, which is why they sent you with such urgency to recover a viable machine to confirm what the data suggests, what we ourselves have confirmed based on the material my son sampled.”
“Which is what?” I keep playing.
“The technology that created the Discs… We could possibly manage it now ourselves given how far we have come in developing nano-manufacturing, but that technology did not exist fifty years ago. It certainly didn’t exist when the first Disc attack on Mark Harker’s team was visually verified in 2049.”
“And if the materials are consistent,” Green cuts in, “then that first Disc was also conceived and grown here on Mars, possibly from a single mother factory. That factory, however small and hidden, would have to have been placed on-planet well before that first attack. Before corporate colonization began.”
“So someone sent this ‘mother factory’ unmanned before human missions landed, anticipating what would come?” I confront. “Or are you trying to tell me the Discs aren’t terrestrial in origin?”
“The Discs are of human design, Colonel,” Stilson takes it back. “There are certain unmistakable design aspects throughout. The propulsion systems. The weaponry.”
“The theory of an unmanned probe being sent to start manufacture before humans started coming to Mars is likely correct, Colonel,” Paul steps in. “It’s just that the probe did not just travel space. It may have traveled time as well.”
“Time travel?” The suggestion hits me like a slap. It’s as unexpected as it is ridiculous. But Paul looks and sounds earnest (even if the Council is totally unreadable with their masks on—I wish I had my own mask right now to hide my reaction). “From the future?”
“Actual retrograde time ‘travel’ was theorized to be workable on an atomic or sub-atomic level, using certain particles that can bridge relativistic shifts,” Paul gets very geeky on me. “In simplest terms: You can’t send matter into the past, but you can use these ‘bridges’ to manipulate matter on their opposite endpoint. The effect would be on a molecular scale, but that could be enough to create complex nano-machines. It would only take a small cluster of pre-programmed nano-machines to construct the ‘Disc factory,’ which would then start manufacturing the Disc drones.”
“So no big theatrical rips in time, Colonel,” White defends. “The event would likely go
unnoticed.”
“And what about the whole famous science fiction paradox?” I push back. “If I send something back in time to change my past, don’t I then change my present so that I don’t or maybe can’t send those machines back?”
“That paradox is central to this theory as well,” Paul allows me. “Most researchers don’t believe it’s possible to change the causal timeline, even though they’d been observing instances of apparent reverse-causality on a sub-atomic level for many decades. They believe time is linear and immutable, even if there are incidences of the cause coming after the effect. Anything you effected in the past would already be part of the immutable timeline—you wouldn’t be able to alter it.”
“But time may not be as linear as we perceive, Colonel, just as space is not,” Green bends me. “We really don’t know.”
“Which makes this conversation pretty far gone from science, don’t you think?” I hit where they might feel it.
“But the physical sample confirms that Disc technology was far beyond the technology of the time,” Paul keeps insisting. “Occam’s Razor, Colonel: Do you believe extra-terrestrials made the Discs, or humans?”
“Neither choice qualifies as the simplest explanation if you want me to believe in time-traveling humans who actually succeeded in significantly altering their own past. I would believe that someone had a very classified nanotech breakthrough sixty-five years ago, a lot more than I’d believe that someone could or did intentionally muck with history, especially given the scale of the outcome. And none of your theories explains why.”
“Maybe what the Ecos—and now your UNCORT—have been afraid of may have happened in some unknown future,” Yellow tries fantasy. “That would explain why the Discs focused on the research facilities, and then on your defense of them. Maybe changing the past was the only way to save some future gone horribly wrong. Perhaps there was—or would have been—a nano-plague, however unlikely. ”
The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds Page 14