The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN

by Michael Rizzo

3 September, 2115:

  “You should never have let them into your facility,” Council Blue is quick to repeat my own self-criticism.

  “The Colonel had no reason to believe these men would prove so dangerous,” Paul is equally quick to defend me, as we’re escorted through the Station by a handful of identical, anonymous blue sealsuits, masks in place.

  Despite studying ETE Station blueprints since our last visit, I’m hard-pressed to keep my bearings. As far as I can tell, we’ve taken the lift down into the deep-core, then walked around the massive Generator’s main heat-sinks (where the temperatures in the access corridors swelter) before traveling—if I’ve kept any sense of direction—deep into the Rim.

  The vehicle-sized access suddenly opens up into a well-lit cavernous space, and the closed corridor is now a skyway across it. I count several terraced levels, reaching at least half-a-dozen stories up and down. It’s well lit because each terrace is lined with bright rooms of chrome-framed plexi and pure white walls, and I can see more blue suits going about whatever business they’re up to. This was definitely not on MAI’s filed blueprints. The ETE have been busy.

  “Impressive.”

  “Working Hive,” Paul lets me know. “Sciences, offices, archives. Mostly second and third generation apprentices.”

  “R&D?” I wonder out loud.

  “Our working labs and manufacturing facilities are well secured, Colonel,” Council Blue cuts in with his usual haughtiness. “As is the Crèche.”

  “Third and fourth generation dormitories and educational facilities,” Paul translates.

  “Sheltered childhood?” I wonder, trying not to sound too critical.

  “A point of controversy,” Paul blurts out. I catch Council Blue’s body language stiffening. “Is it better to afford one’s youth the best you can provide, to raise them in an ideal world? Or is it better to expose them to whatever unpleasantness lies outside, to not shelter them so? As it is now, they serve outside the Crèches for four years as unenhanced Normals before they are implanted, but still they remain here in the Hives.” He seems to brood on that for a moment, like he’s feeling ashamed of something.

  “I’m afraid I may have tipped the scales to the conservative,” Paul admits sheepishly, “Striking out into the open world when I was barely twenty-one, defying my Elders.”

  “Visiting our base,” I specify his offense.

  “Reinforcing the argument that impulsive and inexperienced youth should be kept safe, sheltered, for as long as possible. Especially given what’s come of my so-called misadventures.”

  “The Buddha’s father went to great lengths to shelter the young prince, to raise him in an artificial world of privilege and comfort without a trace of suffering or ugliness,” I muse idly. “The eventual shock—as a young adult—of finally seeing the world outside his insular utopia was devastating. It drove him to flee his palaces, and in doing so he fulfilled his father’s greatest fears.”

  “He turned out pretty well for it, as I remember from my history and philosophy boards,” Paul gives me back with a grin.

  I move closer to him and whisper, “So did you.”

  “We have created a containment facility for our ‘guests’ beyond the Global Engineering Sciences Hive because there is no critical nanotechnology work there,” Council Blue explains as we take another tunnel deeper into the substrata. “Additionally, we have armed all first and second generation personnel, and restricted younger generations not yet implanted to the Crèche.”

  “’Armed’?” I ask him to clarify.

  “You have seen what our tools can do, no doubt.” The Council keeps his eyes on where we’re going, but his tone cuts at Paul. “They will suffice as non-lethal defensive tools to keep our ‘visitors’ from further mayhem. And yes: We are still unwilling to direct our research toward the creation of military weaponry.”

  “Do you intend to maintain this level of alert indefinitely?” I ask him. This also appears to be a painful question.

  “As my sons have no doubt tried to explain, time for us is not the same as it is for you.”

  I’m suddenly distracted by the Council’s idle admission that Paul and Simon are indeed his own children. I look at Paul, who rolls his eyes and gives a subtle nod of uncomfortable confirmation.

  “If need be, we could wait out their natural lifespan. But we do not desire the keeping of prisoners, Colonel. I suspect you are similarly disinclined, given your limited resources. We have gone to great lengths to keep ourselves out of the affairs of the surface societies.”

  “But they attacked you,” I remind him.

  “We had never shown ourselves to them so openly,” the Council says, barely masking his frustration with Paul. “And they learn more about us with every encounter—I fully expect those two that escaped your base will have relayed what they know.”

  “That your nanites cannot be extracted?”

  He nods with gravity. “Which means they will now focus their efforts on attempting to take one of our people to study.”

  “The Council has been discussing recalling me and my brother, Colonel,” Paul admits heavily.

  “None of my people are safe beyond their Stations,” the Council confirms. “And now I cannot guarantee that the Stations themselves will remain secure.”

  “You believe they would risk damaging a Station in order to breach your defenses?” I ask him outright.

  “Don’t you?”

  The “containment facility” is behind a large, thick vault-like door. It has no visible locks or mechanisms—it only slides heavily aside in response to the Council’s own will. Beyond the door is a spherical chamber with another sphere suspended inside it. The gap between the outer wall and the inner sphere is at least twenty meters—too far for even the best athlete to jump, even in Martian gravity. All surfaces are glass-smooth.

  The Council puts his hand on one of the Spheres in his belt, and he promptly levitates off the small entry platform and begins floating across the gap. Paul tells me to put my arm over his shoulder, he puts his arm around my waist, and it feels partly like he’s lifting me and partly like the floor simply dropped away. Then Paul fairly unceremoniously carries me with him across the gap, where the Council has made a round hatchway appear in the featureless surface of the inner chamber.

  “Forgive the lack of modesty, Colonel,” the Council says. “Their clothing proved to hold an arsenal of hidden weapons and tools.”

  The inside of the chamber is an open space perhaps ten meters in diameter. Suspended in the center of it are three slight pale figures, held rigid, arms pinned to their sides, all by some unseen force. All three are completely naked, and their hair has been shaved off.

  “They even had implements woven into their hair,” the Council continues, his voice edged with frustration. “And hidden inside their bodies. The female’s fingernails were prostheses—nano-material razor claws and poison-injecting syringes—they had to be removed. And some of their teeth were implants as well.”

  I look at the woman’s hands and see that the tips of her fingers are raw and missing the nails. Their bodies are lean and wiry—all muscle and tendon. They do not seem to be fighting their bonds, but also seem to remain tautly alert. Their black eyes glare back at me coldly.

  “They are weapons, Colonel,” the Council assesses. “Apparently disposable, even to themselves—they will begin to fight again if they are not completely immobilized, no matter how hopeless or what the risk to themselves. What do you suggest I do with them?”

  “And they haven’t said anything?”

  The Council shakes his head. “We have no skill at interrogation, and certainly no taste for torture.”

  “I do,” I admit grimly. “But I’ve been abstaining for quite some time now.”

  I lock eyes with them and they return my gaze, unblinking, jaws clenched tight.

  “Shinobi,” I identify them. “Ninja. Or some new variation of that basic concept.”

  “What?” P
aul starts, incredulous. But there’s a glimmer in the prisoners’ eyes.

  “Shinobi,” I repeat. “Assassins and spies. Not soldiers. Not Samurai. Not even people, as far as the elite are concerned. Just disposable pawns with no honor. They attack with stealth, deception, cheap tricks. They don’t engage a man face-to-face; they prefer an unsuspecting, distracted or defenseless target. That’s what the Kanji—the symbol for the word—resembles: Stabbing a prone man in the heart. Murdering.”

  I give that ancient insult time to process, watch for little ticks in their features.

  “The aristocratic Samurai considered the Ninja honorless dogs for what they were and what they did,” I continue, “but they served the ends of the Machiavellian warlord well enough, so they had their tactical value, no matter how distasteful that was with the code of Bushido. And that’s what makes them so easily disposable.”

  I look them over, narrowing my eyes like I find them repulsive, pathetic, even pitiable.

  “Who are your lords, little assassins?” I ask them finally. “The Shinkyo Techno-za? You come wearing their product like an advertisement.”

  They keep still, but I can smell them starting to sweat.

  “Does Shinkyo even have Samurai? Do they bother? Or is theft all your corporate masters value now?”

  Paul is looking at me with confusion in his eyes, and more than a little discomfort.

  “I expect they raised you to be this,” I continue, softening just a bit. “Programmed you from birth so that this is all you know and all you’re good for: to kill and die without question for your masters’ petty profit. Disposable tools to do a distasteful job. And what is that job? Do your masters even grasp what they are trying to take? Do they care that they may doom everyone? Or do they hold all life in equal contempt? Are they warriors, or are they just greedy merchants?”

  I give them a lopsided, predatory grin.

  “My people are soldiers. Warriors. If all Shinkyo has is thieves and murderers, what will they do when my army is at their walls, when my aircraft swarm overhead? And you, in your unforgivable carelessness, have let us know that Shinkyo Colony is indeed still standing, I expect right where it was fifty years ago, buried under that poorly-crafted bomb crater. And more: you have let us know that you are a threat to us all—I will be sure to spread that intelligence to the other tribes. I know you can at least think ahead, anticipate your enemies. What do you expect we will do now?”

  I give them a few more moments, but don’t expect them to break their silence no matter what I say.

  “Too bad your Daimyo sent thieves instead of diplomats. We could have all profited from an alliance.” Then I turn to Council Blue. “My advice is to keep them restrained, fly them out into the valley in the morning, then dump them with minimal daytime survival gear fifty kilometers from their colony. I expect they can make it home by nightfall. I even expect they will avoid the Nomads who will certainly be taking offense that they are interfering with God’s will by threatening your Stations, but it will make their walk more interesting. Of course, even if they survive, I expect their own masters will kill them—or order them to kill themselves—for their disgrace. But they will deliver my message first.”

  I look the prisoners in the eyes again—the female seems to be particularly appraising me like prey, but there’s something else in her eyes. (Recognition? Respect?)

  “You don’t actually expect us to send them home?” the Council confronts me later, after we have sealed the prisoners back away in their concentric spheres and he and his entourage escort me back through the bright, clean “Global Engineering Sciences Hive”.

  “You really think they’ll be executed?” Paul asks me, sounding honestly distressed.

  “I’m sure they know it, given how suicidal their fellows were—I’m surprised these three haven’t found a way to kill themselves despite your precautions,” I tell him. “And they’ve had every chance to rethink it, but they’ll still go back. It’ll be their duty to report, even if it’s their last duty. And no matter the larger consequences. I don’t think they can imagine any other option.”

  “We could keep them,” Paul considers almost desperately. “Try to re-educate them…”

  “And in time—rather soon, I expect—you’ll be collecting more ‘students.’ Assuming they don’t successfully take or destroy your Station.” I turn to the Council. “They will keep coming, and eventually they’ll break through your best precautions. That’s their advantage. If I’m right, where they’re weak is that they’ve relied on stealth for their own security all this time, and getting caught just ruined that.”

  “And you just told them so,” the Council assesses. “They may start to fear for their own safety, shift to a defensive posture.”

  “Or consider negotiating,” I offer. “Not that I’d trust them, at least not until we could put them at a severe disadvantage.”

  “’We,’ Colonel?” the Council returns to his haughty tone.

  “You can’t win a defensive war against this kind of enemy. I know how much you’ve valued your isolationism, your neutrality, your invisibility. But like it or not, a line has been crossed. You won’t be able to keep your low profile anymore, and now we’ve had at least one competently-armed group stand up and declare that your scary-magic reputation is no longer going to protect you. Who’ll be next? The PK? The Air Pirates? The Nomads?”

  “You, Colonel?” the Council throws back at me.

  “You know what I want, Council,” I give back. “Earthside won’t be impressed by your toys when they come back, but they will be afraid. I’d very much rather they weren’t afraid of you, because we both know what they do to things they’re afraid of.”

  He seems to brood on that. Paul is looking like a nervous child.

  “Do what you want,” I tell him. “But I suggest you have a talk with your sons before you decide.”

  We got back to base before nightfall. Paul immediately went to meet with his brother.

  “I’m not sure what bends me more,” Matthew wryly processes as I call up maps in Ops that should show me where Shinkyo Colony is, “that the Blues Brothers are the Councilman’s dysfunctional kids, or that we just got attacked by ninjas.”

  “Mark John Stilson,” Lisa calls up a file biography. “Top xeno-geologist. Helped pick the Station sites, got here years before they planted the first ones to do the initial surveys. His wife and two boys came up to join him a year before the big bang.”

  Matthew wrinkles his nose as he sips the “tea” we’d acquired from Abbas in trade for some extra boots and goggles.

  “I’m thinking I probably met him sometime between when we landed and when we went to bed,” I try. “Can’t put a face on him, though.”

  Lisa puts up an old ID photo. Mark Stilson looks like an older, harder, sharper version of his sons.

  “And he never takes off his mask?” Matthew asks incredulously.

  “Not around us,” I tell him. “Either some kind of decorum or Abbas was telling us the truth about their being contact-phobic. In any case, I think I got more intel about the ETE than I did about our Shinkyo intruders, which is still almost nothing.”

  “Except that they’re definitely out there and still running production facilities, developing nanotech,” Lisa allows.

  “And Rick found something disturbing,” Matthew adds. “Their guns were old, but the ammo they used was new. So either they’re manufacturing or they’re getting resupplied from home.”

  “And that could give them the advantage over us in the long run,” I grumble. “It makes me wonder what else they’ve been making.”

  “You willing to risk stirring the nest to get a better look?” Matthew presses me, sounding like he’s got a plan.

  “I’d rather avoid more funerals,” I tell him, “but I know better than to sit back and play defense. It’ll only be a matter of time before they hit us again, and probably smarter each time.”

  “Good. Because Rick worked up somethin
g while you were off being social.”