“This is the most disturbing thing, what we really didn’t want to show everyone back on Earth. Sakura’s ‘Tetsu’. He has been spliced with nanotech—probably something urgently reverse-engineered from what they may have stolen from us in previous encounters. The nanites were apparently programmed to replace his dermis and skeleton with metal alloy. His ‘skin’ was almost completely replaced by multiple layers of nano-scale ‘tiles’—that’s the only reason he could still flex his limbs. His muscles and tendons had been reinforced by aggressive rebuilders to produce the strength and tolerate the strain required to move his increased mass.”
“How did he survive?” Halley doesn’t believe.
“He wouldn’t have,” Paul lets us know, his voice edged with contempt. “The process was killing him, and it was irreversible once a critical percentage of his skin had been converted. And it was probably unimaginably painful.”
“Another sacrifice for the good of the Shinkyo,” I grumble.
“You think they’re infecting more of their people?” Anton wants to know.
“This may have been something they rushed before they were ready,” Paul almost hopes.
“Chang’s attacks may have driven them to take a risk with a test subject,” Sutter agrees.
“Maybe they didn’t intend for it to go this bad,” Halley tries.
“We know they’ll sacrifice their own readily enough,” Rick condemns. “Turning someone’s skin and bones into metal… They had to know the outcome would be lethal.”
“Still, this could just have been an early ‘prototype’,” Anton considers. “I’d certainly want to do better than making a single-use super-soldier.”
Sutter nods thoughtfully. Halley looks ill.
“They’ll certainly be trying to refine the technology,” I sum. “I expect we’ll see other ‘test subjects’ soon enough.”
“I’m feeding you our analysis,” Paul gives. “We’ll provide you the body if you need it. Send the data to your Earthside resources.”
“We appreciate the intel, but are you sure you want to give them something else to be scared of?” I offer him the out. “You could have kept this to yourselves, tried to deal with it discreetly.”
“We could have. But I think it’s more important that they know what they’re facing,” he insists.
And who. It may shift Earthside’s fear—however partially—from the ETE to the Shinkyo.
We catch up with Tru and Paul’s father out in the greenhouse. It’s become a verdant place, with over a dozen thriving species, some aggressively climbing the internal structures to compete for sunlight. I am unfortunately reminded of the Tranquility dome: my imagination flashes wild people—ragged children with homemade knives and spears—bounding through the green.
It’s warm and humid in here, and the light is like perpetual sunset (or sunrise?) on Earth, somewhere tropical.
Mark Stilson still has his helmet off but has put his gloves back on. He accepts a plump hybrid strawberry from one of Tru’s almost star-struck young gardeners, and tentatively tastes it. He reminds me of a visiting dignitary, graciously but warily accepting the local hospitality, not wanting to be seen as rude, hoping what he’s been given will not be unbearable to his foreign tastes (despite having these very plants in his own gardens). He chews, swallows, smiles, tells her it’s very good, thank you, and sounds like he means it.
“This should be a hopeful moment,” I tell Paul quietly, “one more step to a better future. But all I can think about is how fragile that plexi ceiling is, and how many more monsters we keep finding out there on the other side of it.”
He looks sad, and I regret saying it. I feel like I’ve told him his people have failed, that their simple ideal—that everyone should have air and water and fuel and be allowed to develop as they please—has created those monsters. But then he takes a hard breath and admits:
“I was thinking the same thing… We could still move your people into the protection of our Stations. Or establish a presence here, protect you until you can get relief or evacuation.”
“I doubt Earthside would accept either offer.”
“I think my father hoped coming here would make a start at changing that.”
I don’t say anything further to discourage his faith, but the look in his eyes is less than hopeful.
They stay for lunch—all fresh and carefully prepared from our gardens—and demonstrate that they are not averse to eating with us, to eating our food, however sparsely and selectively they nibble at it. (I still have so many questions about their dietary habits, even after staying with them: Are they vulnerable to what they might accidentally ingest? Do they simply process food differently? Or do they sustain themselves in some other way? Perhaps food and drink are simply aesthetic enjoyments, no longer necessary for survival. Or maybe their longevity has made them slow down and enjoy the subtlety of the experience.)
We say our goodbyes, express our mutual respect and gratitude, and the Stilsons head back to their waiting ship.
Which is when we get a message from UNCORT.
“Colonel Ram, please pass along our gratitude to Dr. Stilson for the valuable data he has provided,” Chandry oozes—as usual sounding very much the creepy serial villain. “However, in light of these increased threats, we must repeat our insistence that the ETE immediately turn over to us all of their research and technology. I am afraid this is not negotiable. The danger to the people on the surface, to the incoming relief efforts, potentially even to this planet in turn, is just too great for them to continue to withhold vital information and resources. Their cooperation in this will be the truest test of their faith and intent. We eagerly await their response. May God protect you all.”
The Stilsons’ ship is hovering up off the pad, but has not otherwise moved. I have no doubt that the ETE intercepted and decrypted the message as it came in, but I send it to the ETE’s channel myself, unedited and without comment.
I get no reply. Their ship turns slowly and flies away.
I hope my next piece of pressing business will yield more promising results.
I mask up and head outside, cross the compound to our “POW camp”, and cycle through one of the shelter airlocks. Rios is waiting for me, a team of his H-A suits serving as “crowd control” just in case the little piece of educational television I had flashed live to each of the holding areas resulted in violence.
So Rios doesn’t have to give me a recap in front of our audience, I took the time to review the video feed from the shelters as our prisoners watched what the Stilsons had shown us. I looked again for pain, grief, shock, rage, horror, regret. Maybe recognition, especially when the video zooms in close enough to identify some of the bodies.
But they sat quiet. Mostly quiet. There were some rumblings, a gasp or two, and some heads turned away from the screens, one or two harsh looks to maintain discipline from the apparent leaders (or at least enforcers) of each faction. So I replayed and zoomed and searched their eyes, sampling their faces, looking for humanity. Empathy. Anything.
Straker. I think I saw her shudder once or twice at the mass graves at Frontier. I think I felt her get angry, stuff it down. She chewed her lip, made herself go stony. Stared at nothing for the rest of the play.
On purpose, it’s her shelter I visit first. She’s trying to sit nondescript with her fellows—we’ve intentionally separated the PK from the Zodangans since the last of them have been discharged from Doc Halley’s care. They look healthier, rested, better fed and hydrated, but they still keep to seething silence except when they’re sleeping.
I’ve stopped in to try to talk to Straker a few times in the last two months, but it’s been all me talking at her, offering non-critical news, bits of small talk. She barely gives more than a formal greeting. Good soldier.
She doesn’t look at me now.
“We’ll be sending you home tomorrow. You’ll be provided basic survival gear, then we’ll drop you in groups within a short hike of your nearest kn
own bases. What you’ve just seen… You can confirm it yourselves soon enough. Or maybe you knew it was coming, because it was part of the plan. I don’t know if you knew any of those people. Maybe they were family, friends, people you grew up with, people you knew—I can’t imagine there are too many strangers in communities as small and intimate as yours. Maybe they were just your slaves and cast-offs and undesirables, better off done with, less mouths to feed, less lungs to draw air. No room on whatever Chang is building for you, no room in his plan.
“For your parts, you have served well and bravely, kept your honor, demonstrated remarkable discipline and strength. I expect you will return home heroes. Or at least worth more than a mass grave or left to die by freezing or suffocation.”
Straker still won’t look at me. The others give me icy glares, stare through me.
I turn and leave like I don’t care, head across to the pirates’ shelter to repeat my quick speech. But I watch Straker on my flashcard. She chews her lip, ever-so-slightly shakes her head, keeps her eyes on the deck. I watch her fingernails turn white as she digs them into her thighs.
Promising. I hope.
26 December, 2116:
No one speaks inside the shelter of Abbas’ “tent” until I’ve finished playing them the videos of Zodanga and Frontier, and then for several difficult moments of silence afterwards. The only sound is the ghostly scream of wind on the shelter walls.
Abbas and Hassim sit stoic. Drake—less jaded by age and experience—at least shakes his head, his lips going tight and thin.
“We are not surprised by this, friend Ram,” Abbas finally says heavily. “We have told you our tales of the Pirates and the Keepers. They are not men of God. They do not value his Creation, including their own people. This mercy of yours—sending your prisoners free to come back and fight you again—I do understand it but still I do not recommend it. They will not change what they are because of your displays of honor and charity. The bodies you have found prove what they are.”
I don’t respond to this, don’t argue my decisions. (Nor do I prove his opinion by letting him know that Halley and Ryder confirmed that at least three of the dead recovered after Chang’s attack had been among our previous Zodangan prisoners.) I glance over at Sutter, who says nothing, but I can see agreement flicker in his eyes. His people likely hold similar opinions of the Zodangans and the PK from their own experiences.
“The bodies at Frontier are probably their laborers, some killed for insubordination, the rest weak, sick, aged; mercilessly culled from the stronger workers,” Hassim guesses. “We do not know if the Pirates have similar social castes, but we have heard stories of slaving, and we have found bodies that appeared to be sick or injured pirates that look like they had been thrown from their airships like so much unwanted garbage.”
“But on this scale?” I try to find something resembling reason.
“I saw something like this as a boy,” Hassim offers darkly, “when my father drove the Pirates from one of their holds. They took what they valued when they fled, but left the fresh bodies of maybe a dozen of their own. Not killed by violence, just left to the elements. I remember they seemed to be old and frail, or crippled. My father thought it was because they had limited space on their ships, or were limited in the weight they could carry, so priority was given to the strong. I remember thinking the dead looked like they had accepted their fates willingly. The Pirates are fearless, even if they are Godless animals.”
“They live hard and violently, and high up where it is thinner and colder than men should suffer to bear,” Abbas excuses. “Even we made difficult choices in the years when the air was so much thinner.”
“But they shouldn’t have to,” I think out loud. “Not anymore.”
“The Pirates have always kept to the heights by their own choosing,” Sutter speaks up, his tone moderate, nonjudgmental. “It gives them strategic advantage in attack and defense.”
“’Zodanga is the sky’, that’s their bloodied chant,” Abbas reminds me (and reminds me he’s speaking of generational blood-enemies). “They believe that they would lower themselves to live on the ground. Too bad that there is such limited room in their sky that they must kill their own.”
One of Abbas’ wives brings fresh hot tea, which is very welcome right now.
“What about the PK? Have they ever been known to massacre their workers like this?”
“We have heard tale of uprisings put down,” Sutter tells me, sipping from his old metal cup. “But this seems more like a lesson learned from the Pirates: kill the least valuable when it’s time to move in a hurry and space is precious on your airships.”
“They wouldn’t have had to move at all if they hadn’t built whatever Chang designed for them,” I point out. “There would be no reason to. They’ve been entrenched in their colony ruins since the Apocalypse…”
“They hurried to move it because they needed to keep it hidden from you,” Abbas considers. Hassim nods his agreement. Drake looks uncomfortable, like he’s afraid this meeting will become adversarial.
“But what is it? And where did they take it?” I voice the pressing questions, knowing none of us have answers.
“Something else troubles me,” Abbas mulls. “The Pirates and the Keepers both have better ways to hide, to move. Building something so big… It makes no sense…”
“It would be visible, impossible to hide,” Hassim concurs.
“Chang brings science, technology, power,” I tell them. “He lacks tactical skill and experience.”
“But the Pirates and the Keepers are excellent fighters,” Abbas argues, allowing his enemies some fair praise.
“But they’re not used to this level of technology and firepower,” I calculate. “If someone gave you weapons like this, made you believe you would be unstoppable, would you keep to your usual defensive strategies?”
“I would never accept such a gift from the Devil,” Abbas denies, “but yes, I understand your point.”
“Any of us would be at least tempted by such power,” Hassim admits. “We have always lived in deadly competition. I could see how such advantage could make a man forget what he holds dear.”
“You have your faith against temptation,” I praise them.
“The Pirates and the Keepers have only their lusts for power,” Abbas condemns.
“The storms…” Drake suddenly speaks up like he’s been struck by something cold. I think I see a realization take shape in Abbas’s eyes.
“Tell him what you are thinking, my son,” Abbas gives.
“New stories from the food traders, Colonel. Strange dust storms moving through Coprates, sometimes when there is no wind. Great thick clouds with lightning. Coming back from their last trip, they said one of their carts had lagged and was swallowed by such a cloud. Two runners went to help them. When the cloud passed—and it passed without breaking up or fading—the men and the cart were nowhere to be found. They said they had heard similar tales from Aziz’ tribe.”
“When did this happen?” I need to know.
“The last food run arrived here only days ago.”
“The ETE have been looking north, in Candor and Ophir,” I realize. And then I think about how easy it was for us to hop over the top of the valleys to get to the Zodangan base, given a good enough ship, pressurized to hold atmosphere in the near-vacuum above the valleys.
“You’ve been looking in the wrong place,” Abbas comes to the same heavy conclusion.
Smith flies in to pick me up within twenty minutes of my call. I don’t wait to get back before I start making more.
First I call Mark Stilson, pass along the Nomads’ tales of mystery dust and lightning storms, tell them to try looking in Coprates. Then I send a message out to General Richards.
“If we can get eyes in orbit, maybe you can read this thing from above,” I tell him after I repeat the story. “We need to look for a weather anomaly, probably with a serious EM signature.” And now I’m suddenly hoping they
decided to send satellite weapons as well as satellite eyes and ears.
One more call I need to make. But then I decide to do it in person—I ask Smith if he’s got fuel to make it to Melas Three.
Buried (like it was actually designed to be), the base looks like a cross-shape of square stepping stones in the regolith: six landing pads, with the much smaller rectangular bunker of the Ops Tower poking just above ground on the long stem of the cross. Lisa gives us Pad 2, one of the two closest to Ops, and the elevator starts lowering us underground as soon as we’ve touched down on the pad deck. Down inside the bay, things look very much like they did pre-Apocalypse. Everything mostly works. The shutters close above us, the spots light up the square cavern of the bay, compressors cycle in some thicker atmosphere, deck grunts pull us fuel lines to get the ship ready to launch again as soon as needed, and one of Morales’ crew chiefs starts the routine checks.
What I can’t see from here is our most pressing problem: the other five launch bays are all empty, except for two gutted wrecks that Morales still hasn’t managed to get flying (she had to leave that project to the team she left onsite when she went back to Melas Two to try to work any kind of miracle with the scrap Chang left us with).
I’ve considered re-enacting the “Croatoan” protocol: abandoning the base, sealing it back up, because we’re just spread too thin. One flying ship between two sites, and this base still doesn’t have any ground-based defenses except a platoon of troopers. I’m honestly afraid Aziz could overrun us if he knew how badly we got hurt. Chang easily could. And that means I’m leaving the nearly one hundred people stationed here to a likely massacre (including Lisa), for the sake of what’s become a mostly useless facility: an unarmed airbase without aircraft.
But now I may need some kind of eyes out here.
We climb up three decks from the bay level to ground level. Lisa meets us on the other side of the A-Deck airlock hatch. She doesn’t quite mask her annoyance when she sees I’ve got Sakina with me, though it shouldn’t be any surprise by now (especially since she knows I’ve just had an informal summit with the leaders of two Nomad factions). So Sakina gets ignored as Lisa leads us down the corridor to Ops.
The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds Page 33