The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN (31 page)

When Paul steps back out into the corridor again,
he’s got what looks like a bomb strapped to his chest. The two
masked invaders take up positions close to him on either side,
pulling his arms up tight behind him. They start walking him when
it looks like they’ve got a clear path.

“This is working out well,” Matthew grouses.

No longer bothering to disable cameras, I watch them
walk smoothly and confidently all the way out to the airlock. They
step in, set their masks (and I see Paul’s helmet fold itself back
down over his face), seal the hatch behind them and cycle pressure
to let themselves out into the frozen night.

“Colonel,” Thomas has come up to Ops, probably at a
run. “You need to see this…” She hands me Paul’s belt. The three
Rods and three Spheres are in their holders, but then she points to
one of the Spheres: the metal is oddly dull, lacking the
quicksilver quality of the others.

I watch on the surface cameras as Paul is rushed out
beyond the perimeter and out over the rocky terrain. But then Paul
suddenly doubles over, staggering. His two captors turn on him
swiftly, drawing their swords, one brandishing a small detonator
switch to threaten him. But his hands grip his abdomen. I can hear
him scream over the Link. The two invaders realize their danger too
late. I watch the bomb around his neck crumble like so much dry
sand, then their blades turn to dust before they can strike.

Paul straightens with difficulty. In his hands is a
Sphere, its liquid-metal surface visibly stained with blood—he must
have manufactured a fake to fill the gap on his belt, then somehow
inserted the real one into his own body where it would not be
detected. Before the two invaders can get to their pistols, I see a
familiar wind strike them, disintegrating their guns and stripping
both of them to their boots. Their masks, too, are gone. Still,
they have enough wind left to run off naked into the Martian night.
If they don’t have shelter or transport close, they will freeze or
suffocate within minutes.

Paul looks after them as they go, but it doesn’t look
like he’s got the strength just now to try to pursue them. He falls
to his knees.

“Go get him!” I order Thomas. “Get some lights out on
the surface.”

But Simon is already out there, the tools in his
hands generating lift to skim him quickly over the surface.

“You want us to pursue?” Rios asks.

“No,” I tell him. “Wait ‘til daylight. If they don’t
come crawling back before then, send out an H-A squad. I don’t want
any more surprises tonight.”

When the sunrise comes, we can find no sign of their
bodies. Not even tracks. Or signs of a ship. The ASVs circled out
twenty miles.

“They either dug in, or had a vehicle somewhere,
something masked from our radar,” Lisa considers as we watch the
last sweeps from Ops, the Martian sky turning from violet to dusty
pink above the ridge-lines.

“If they
were
from Shinkyo, that colony had
cutting-edge vehicles,” Rick remembers. “And a close look at those
uniforms of theirs showed multiply-redundant backups: the base
sealsuit was pressure, temperature and radiation protective, and it
was lined with small spare O2 canisters.”

“Anybody who thinks that far ahead in terms of
options would have left backup gear outside,” Matthew assesses.

“
And
hidden a vehicle somewhere,” Lisa
repeats. “If they have stealth aircraft, they’ve got an edge on
us.”

“I’m still impressed with the whole
instant-amputation feature,” Matthew muses. “That was just
over-the-top.”

“Michael?” Lisa catches me staring blankly out at the
horizon.

“I shouldn’t have let them in.”

“You couldn’t have anticipated…” she tries.

“The plan was to take them alive,” Matthew reminds me
needlessly. “The intel was worth the risk. We just got a different
kind of intel.”

“We got samples of their gear and weapons,” Rick
allows. “It’s all been carefully stripped of anything that would ID
them, but the tech that made it looks similar enough to the
nano-materials that Shinkyo was producing.”

“None of us expected them to be as hardcore as they
were,” Matthew keeps trying to console.

“We’ve had a taste of what people on this world have
become,” I shoot him down.

“So do we drop the outreach?” he challenges. “Treat
them all as enemy combatants?”

“We need to be careful,” I temper it. “We need to be
ready.”

“Which means we need all the intel we can get.”

“I doubt we got what we paid for,” I mutter to the
plexi.

Schrader bled out fast from a sword cut that split
his left collarbone; another funeral I have to preside over.

Six of my troopers have penetration wounds from the
nano-shrapnel that found ways through their armor, and three more
suffered blade cuts
through
their armor—Rick took a close
look at the swords and throwing knife they used and determined that
they’re nano-manufactured ceramic composite; extremely sharp, hard
and resilient, capable of cleaving even nano-carbon laminate plate
given enough force in the swing. The Shinkyo Corporation wasn’t
working on anything like that above-board before the bombardment,
but the design of the blades is distinctly Japanese.

The one Simon slammed with his Rod survived his
wounds, but only just: He remains in a coma with a severe skull
fracture, and Halley doubts if he’ll recover. She also reports he
received several fractures, including broken ribs that punctured to
both lungs and his liver—she spent more time trying to patch him
than she did with all of our other combined wounded.

At least Paul and Simon seem no worse for what they
took. Both looked recovered by late morning, though Simon has been
keeping to himself, avoiding us under the excuse of helping search
for the two that ran. Getting a sword run through his chest
probably made him hit back harder than he’d intended.

Paul reluctantly admitted that the blade found
Simon’s heart (and then explained with unusual candor how their
nanites will create a backup circulatory system independent of the
heart until it can be repaired and restarted, just like when he got
shot). Then Paul upstaged Simon’s trauma by relating his own
brilliant plan (impulsively decided upon between taking out the
intruders in Medical and realizing the last two would probably use
hostages to get out) to use a Rod as a makeshift surgical tool to
cut open his own abdomen (when Simon refused to do it) and hide a
Sphere in his bowels.

Their ordeals, however, seem to have brought the
brothers somewhat closer together (and prompted Matthew to start
displaying greater respect for the “Blues Brothers”).

“Next move?” Matthew asks me.

“Harden base security, especially given what we’ve
just seen. Get more sensors out on the surrounding terrain, and
make sure MAI can detect any potential hacks—I’m betting they got
more intel out of us than we did out of them. We need to rebalance
that.” Then I turn to Matthew and Lisa. “Since our prisoner is in
no condition to talk, we need to go have a talk with the ones that
are.”

Chapter 4:
Lessons in Human Nature

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.”