The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are (21 page)

I decide to let it go for now. I go out myself to
gather them something fresh to eat, needing to be back outside,
even in the cold and dark (or especially in the cold and dark).
When I bring myself to going back, Bel is working on Murphy’s
wounds with a found old med kit.

“Something else I haven’t done in awhile,” Bel admits
as he cleans and stitches what looks like the result of a
cluster-flechette round (and one easily capable of penetrating L-A
grade armor). “Did you come up with a plan while you were out
there?”

“Too many fronts,” I complain. “We need to make sure
this place doesn’t destroy itself. And I need to convince Earth not
to do anything stupid. And we need to stop Chang.”

“The Cast know about Gardener’s plan,” Murphy updates
me. “They’ll be expecting the H-K to come out to plant charges.
Gardener will anticipate this. So the H-K will come out in force,
from all sides. Up to now, we’ve only had to thin the Cast
population. I don’t know what would happen if we actually tried to
exterminate them. I don’t think even you could stop it.”

Bel looks at me with honest concern. He’s no fan of
needless bloodshed.

“We need help,” I conclude. Then complain: “But I
don’t have time to go walking to find it.”

“Could you fix any of those small flyers?” Murphy
asks.

“What small flyers?”

“When Chang’s ship hit the slopes, it knocked loose
several of his small craft,” he tells me what I failed to notice
because I was too focused on Fera and my rage. “They’re pretty
mangled.”

It’s worth a hike in the dark. (I make Murphy stay
inside since it’s already well below freezing.) Bel and I find the
remains of nine light fighters, two of them almost promising,
especially given parts from the others. But on closer inspection,
the wing surfaces, control struts and canopies are damaged beyond
air-worthiness.

“So: How pretty do you want it?” Bel surprises me by
offering.

2 April, 2117:

The finished product isn’t pretty, but it’s a
beautiful thing.

“I think it’s slicker like this,” Bel praises his own
work. “That excuse for a cockpit was too cramped anyway.”

Working through the night, dragging tools from the
Lower Dome, we manage to have one operational something by morning.
In the early light, we get a proper look at our labors: It still
retains the basic design of Chang’s “kites”: Four short broad
wings—two main, two tail—each connected to the main hull with an
ingenious strut system that allows them to pivot at their center
points for an insane level of maneuverability. (I’d even seen one
lose a main wing, only to flop sideways and let the remaining one
act like a parasail to keep flying.) Thrust is provided by a
powerful electric fan supplemented by hydrox and solid fuel jets.
What we couldn’t salvage was the cockpit canopy. Bel cut most of it
away, leaving a barely-functioning windscreen—I’ll be riding more
on
the thing than in it. He also managed to double the lift
surface of the main wings, making the thing more efficient.

“You’ll probably need to wear that hideous helmet,”
he reminds me as I’m already unfolding the ram’s skull. “Try not to
completely terrify everyone you meet.”

“You sure you’ll be okay staying here?” I ask
again.

“I’ll be fine. And these are your friends you’re
going to see. I’m sure you’ll scare them enough all by
yourself.”

I see Murphy coming out to check on us, bundled in a
parka. He looks impressed by what we made in the cold and dark.

“Besides,” Bel adds, “someone needs to watch over
these people until you get back.”

“You’re going to make yourself one of these, aren’t
you?” I tease him, getting settled in what passes for a pilot
seat.

“Mine will be prettier.”

I put on my helmet, get a grimace from Bel.

“What
were
you thinking?” he criticizes.

“Yeah,” I agree. “And the hair.”

“I
like
the hair. It’s like the cover art for
one of those cheap old romance novels. All I need to do is get you
to take your shirt off and stand in a breeze.” He demonstrates by
striking a romance-fantasy pose: chest out, head back, hands on
hips.

I shake my head inside the big metal skull. The
controls—Chang’s design or the Zodangans’—are pretty intuitive. I
kick in the lift jets, just enough to get air to engage the main
thrust. I get slammed back in my seat as the thing tries to fly out
from beneath me, then struggle to get the feel of the extremely
sensitive wings. Almost crash twice. Don’t. Take a semi-graceful
circle of the Lower Dome, nothing fancy. Return Murphy’s wave.

Go.

The ETE Station Turquoise is northeast across the
valley, but Station Green is closer: over the Catena Divide
southwest, about a hundred and fifteen klicks. It’s also the way
Chang seemed to be limping after Bel broke his precious
mothership.

Melas Three is that way as well—I’ll have to pass
right by it. I doubt this cobbled machine is radar-invisible.

I stay low, keep fast. But that also means I don’t
get a good sentimental look at one of my old bases as I do my best
to avoid it. I pick up some Link chatter: Jackson has a flight out
checking the crater Bel made, confirming wreckage, but it’s clear
it’s not enough. Chang is hurt, not down. I hear speculation the
Shinkyo may have pulled something. Or the ETE. Or maybe Chang had
some kind of accident with his terrifying technology.

At least the mystery should keep Burns and Earthside
Command occupied for awhile and away from Tranquility.

I have to stop at a tapsite in the valley floor,
refill my tanks. I land about twenty klicks northwest of the base,
out of sight thanks to the rolling terrain. The Station is almost
visible up on the valley rim—at the junction point of Melas and
Coprates—at about 5600 meters elevation. It’s intimidating even
from here, the billowing exhaust that rises from the massive
quad-tower cluster rising up the cliffs to Datum, then flattening
and spreading against the electrostatic atmosphere net. A volcano
feeding a thunderhead.

I pick up motion two klicks to the west as I take the
time to get drinking water and replenish my onboard oxygen. I’m
being watched. Probably by Mohamed Aziz’s Nomads. I stand up, let
them see me, wonder what they’ll make of me. (I did just come from
the general direction of a nuclear blast.)

They stay put, try to stay invisible (and they would
be, if my vision wasn’t so heavily modded). Let’s see what they
think when they see where I go.

I’ve gotten accustomed to the touchy flyer. I kick
up, burn, get air. I could buzz my watchers, but decide to play
aloof for now, ignore them. Conserve fuel.

The engines have to increase output as I climb, the
air getting thinner fast. And colder. Ice is glazing my wings. And
my helmet. I have to burn some of my own reserves to keep warm.

I figure I probably look too much like a Chang
fighter to get anything like a warm reception, so I slow as I
approach the Station’s pads, stand up in my harness, offer an open
hand that I hope gets taken as a truce gesture. That my fragile
flyer doesn’t get disintegrated out from under me I take as
promising. But no one comes out to greet me as I come to a scraping
short landing.

I take off my helmet and fold it away despite the icy
cold. They won’t recognize me as the “normal” they knew, but a
human-looking face should be more reassuring than the metal ram’s
skull. I climb off of my rigged ride and wait. Patiently.

After a few minutes of staring at an unresponsive
hatch, I feel the air around me charge, get warm. Then I hear the
familiar hum of ETE lifters, turn in time to see one of their
modified Guardian aircraft rising from somewhere down slope, rising
over the pad, hovering with its nose pointed at me.
Intimidating.

We face off like that for awhile, then the upper
hatch opens and a trio of sealsuits levitate out: One blue, one
green, one red. They glide and set down warily semi-surrounding me,
Rods and Spheres in hand. Ready for a fight. They remain anonymous
behind their chrome masks, but the blue one has one of his Rods
modified with pistol and vertical fore grips. I know the mod—I
assume I know the man.

“Paul?”

The blue suit hesitates, but doesn’t lower his
weaponized tool.

“It’s me,” I try to convince. “Colonel Ram. I know
this doesn’t…”

He raises the “barrel” of his Rod gun to point
straight at my face, steps up to me, reaches out his left hand and
presses his gloved fingers to my cheek. I can feel what he’s doing
on a cellular level. He withdraws his hand after a few seconds,
takes a step back.

“DNA confirms,” he tells the others. I feel the air
around us get warmer and denser as they generate a shelter field.
Then he raises his visor—it
is
Paul, but looking even more
weathered and weary than the last time I saw him. I can only
imagine what the last few months have been like for him and his
people.

“What are you?” he asks the obvious question.

“Can we talk inside? I really need an audience with
your Council. Please. I’m not a threat.”

He digests it for a moment, but not alone: I can hear
the signal chatter in his head, their internal link-ware.

“Leave your weapons here,” he insists, still on alert
for treachery.

I’ve never been inside Green Station, but the
structural layout is identical to Blue, where I spent quite a lot
of time. It only varies when we get into the caverns cut into the
Rim cliffs, since this has to conform to the geology, but still the
architecture and technology is consistent. As is their concept of a
“Council Chamber”: a big dark space, giving the illusion of being
without walls or ceiling. Except now I can see in the dark, see the
walls and rafters of what was probably a hangar for heavy
construction equipment, see the holographic arrays that project
their virtual gatherings.

Paul and his still-helmeted fellows marched me here
directly and without a word. We didn’t encounter another soul on
the way—everyone was probably warned to stay clear. The fact that
they’ve let me so deep into their facility is the only sign of any
trust, unless they think I’m even more under control in their
midst. (I remember the ingenious prison they engineered to contain
their Shinkyo invaders, Hatsumi Sakura herself among them. I expect
they’ve been considering how they could contain something like
Chang or one of his hybrid monstrosities.)

Then they do something uncharacteristic: They don’t
keep me waiting. The room blazes as I’m semi-circle-surrounded by
ten different colored sealsuits, all faceless. I expected Council
Green to come in person as the local representative usually does,
but they seem to want distance from me. Only Paul and his two
Guardian partners are actually
in
the chamber with me.

“Council Blue,” I greet the most familiar of them,
then dare use his name to prove that familiarity: “Doctor
Stilson.”

“My son’s question remains unanswered,” he plays the
cold authority, yet acknowledges the family relationship. “What are
you?”

“Potential proof of your theory of
reverse-causality,” I play. “You seem to have been expecting
me.”

“We’ve been monitoring the UNMAC channels, even the
new commanding officer’s dedicated uplink.”

“I’d very much like to know what Burns and his
superiors have been chatting about,” I try for some constructive
conspiracy.

“You already know some of it,” he denies me.

“Their plans to quarantine everyone by force,” I
confirm. “The demands they’ve made of you.”

“And now their speculations regarding whatever you
are.”

“Including that you’re behind all of this,” I name
the most damning fear.

He doesn’t respond, waiting for me to answer his
question. So I take a breath, show them good faith by briefly
recounting my rescue and awakening, as well as my competing
theories of my origin and purpose: future god sent to save the
world, or pawn of a contemporary evil genius. Then I quickly
describe the situation at Tranquility. Make my plea:

“I’d initially planned to ask you for materials and
assistance to repair their Lower Dome, restore their support
systems, maybe help me defend them from Chang and UNMAC. But I also
need your help resolving an internal crisis: The inside-dwellers
plan to exterminate the Cast, burn the gardens to make the place
look uninhabited and without resource-value. I’ve tried to tell
them they’ll only accelerate their own extinction.”

Now I get the characteristic silence. I try to hack
in and eavesdrop, but find they aren’t doing their chatting on a
local network, just projecting their avatars here.

Unlike previous visits, I don’t start to ache
standing here waiting, no longer a man in his seventies, arguably
no longer human at all. I stand like a statue, patient, finally
able to match their immortal “we have all the time in the world”
attitude. Hiding my concerns for what might have happened at
Tranquility in my absence.

They keep me on hold for a full twenty minutes. Then
I feel the air around me charge again, feel my body bombarded my
forms of radiation my mortal self would have been oblivious to. I’m
being scanned. I let it proceed. It stops within thirty seconds,
but I expect they’ve been thorough.

Five more minutes of silent debate. Then Council Blue
finally speaks for them:

“You present us with disturbing possibilities,
Colonel. What has been done to you is not only extremely advanced,
but it is remarkably complex. Your DNA has been reset to a prime
adult age, and made mechanically resistant to damage and
degradation—the modification is impressive even by our standards.
But in addition, we have detected at least forty two nanotech
systems active in your body, more in your armor. Many of them
appear designed to do more than repair and reinforcement, or even
interface, but the majority appear dormant at this moment.”