Rainbow Mars (27 page)

They looked at each other gravely. When nobody else spoke, Svetz said, “I can't see a way to save them.”

Miya nodded. Willy Gorky stood up, a little wobbly, and said. “The small X-cage is set and ready to go. Are we? All right,
go.
”

*   *   *

Somebody had brought in a big lifter platform. Good idea—Martians wouldn't be able to walk—but it was unattended. Ra Chen and three techs were all in the Guide Pit. One of the techs was on her back with her knees and head propped up.

Willy told the Armory door, “Willy Gorky, come to the arms of Victor Four.”

A massive door opened. Svetz looked at what was inside the Armory. It was evidently a kinder, gentler age—

Willy said, “I don't know what you thought you'd find, Miya. We're ready for riots, and of course we're ready for big animals, but not a major deconstruction project.”

—It was also an age in which rioters might invade the Secretary-General's Garden and Bestiary in search of water. The weapons locker held mostly sonic stunners: thirty or more handguns and six two-handed sonic crowd sprayers of a design Svetz had never seen. They looked to be heavily shielded against backstun.

The net sprayer was a bulky two-handed thing. It would tangle an ostrich or an elephant, or hundreds of rioters.

There was Space Bureau pressure suit armor for half a dozen. It too might double as riot gear.

There was nothing like the blasters they'd had aboard the
Minim.

Svetz was used to a needle rifle. He took one. Miya and Gorky looked at him oddly, so he put it back.

And now he was right out of ideas.

“Incoming,” Ra Chen called.

Routine announcement, but he wanted help. Svetz saw why. Another tech had passed out, leaving only Hillary Weng-Fa and Ra Chen himself.

Svetz slid into the Pit.

Nothing in the displays looked urgent. The large X-cage was being reeled in, passing minus two hundred AE, minus eighty, plus ten … Out on the floor, the extension arm faded a meter from the wall. At first glance you might mistake the end for a hologram washed out by sunlight. Keep looking and your eyes would try to … try to follow … Through long practice Svetz wrenched his eyes away.

Plus two ten. Three hundred.

Willy and Miya were at the Pit. Miya was holding a hand stunner. She said, “Hanny, we don't have anything to cut a Hangtree with.”

“I know.”

“Now what?”

Six hundred. Seven sixty.

“Man the lifter, Miya. We don't have anyone else. One thing at a time. That's a little fast, Hillary.”

Eight thirty. Eight ninety.

“Too fast, Hillary!”

“Yes, but what do I
do?
”

Svetz showed her. The numbers slowed. Telltales showed that the excess heat was being dealt with. Going … where? Not the pond; that was gone. A radiator fin somewhere?

Ten ninety. Eleven hundred.

“Incoming.”

Eleven five—

The extension arm was blocked by a ghost, then a solid transparent shell.

A variety of Martians had been plated around the shell. They wore pressure suits as various as their shapes. In the instant the X-cage came home, they all fell toward the Earth's center. Now they were thrashing and trying to pick themselves up where gravity had dropped them. Svetz looked for Wilt and Zeera.

A froglike entity with a pointed face occupied the control chair. Svetz found Zeera and Wilt in a cluster of red Martians. Their hands—futz, they were prisoners! And what was
that
pointing down the axis of the X-cage?

Its size and placement made it hard to see—too big and too foreshortened—but only for that first instant. Under the big equipment bin in the ceiling, a tube of crystal and copper and silver ran nearly the length of the large X-cage. The back end was welded in place. It was a heat ray cannon longer than Whale, and the lens looked straight into the Guide Pit.

Svetz jumped over the wall and ran. They'd left the Armory open. Svetz snatched up a two-handed sonic and ran at the X-cage. He was out of the line of fire, but next to the great glass door, as the doors began to open like flower petals.

All the four- and six-limbed martian shapes were thrashing around trying to get to their feet, or trying to wave blades or long-barreled guns at the door. Bulge-eyed octopoids attended what must be the firing mechanism, which was a sort of cockpit. Svetz had no idea whether a heat ray would fire through the X-cage's door or wall, or reflect. He guessed that they didn't either. They waited.

Miya was on the other side of the opening door, her sonic handgun ready.

A green giant lurched into the bug-eyed cannoneers and sent them sprawling in a tangle of rubber limbs.

Miya forced her hand inside the doors and began spraying sound. Svetz had to wait. One full second, and then he could poke in both arms and the crowd sprayer. He sprayed everything in the way, aiming for the back of the cannon, where the controls seemed to be, and where another green giant was wrestling with the first.

The first must be Thaxir, but it didn't matter. The crowd sprayer was not selective. He sprayed them both, and the two Softfinger octopoids who wriggled free of the wrestlers and were trying to reach the trigger cockpit. He was inside now, and he waded toward that, holding his aim on the cockpit. Alien hands and blades kept popping up in his face, but nothing around the cannon controls was moving anymore, and now he was there.

Zeera and Wilt had wriggled away from their captors. He fired bursts around them, and around Miya, and nothing else seemed to be moving in the cageful of Martians.

His arms were numb.

These Martians were still conscious, Svetz remembered. They just couldn't move, or answer, so he was talking to himself as he inspected the great weapon.

“All right, now we have a heat ray. How the futz does it work? Cockpit and big attitude jets. Built for free fall. More plasma weapon than laser. Maybe it'll cut the tree.
Maybe.
Futz, I think we can save the Martians!
Willy
—”

Ra Chen and Willy Gorky were in the X-cage. Willy was pulling a red Martian woman out. He'd set the edge of the floater against the doorway. Svetz cried, “Willy, stop!”

“What?”

“Put her back. We can save them. Just leave the Martians where they are.”

“But we've
got
them—”

“And we want to
keep
them. We didn't send the large X-cage back far enough in time. Look, Willy, we're going to chop down the tree
before
they were rescued. The only way to
keep
them rescued is to take them back with us, because this time line is going to disappear.”

Willy looked a bit sick, but he said, “Got it.”

“Leave them in the large X-cage. We have to take that back anyway, because there's no easy way to dismount the cannon—”

Ra Chen said, “It's set for the wrong time. Sixteen AE.”

“We'll have to reset it.”

“That'll take hours. Svetz, I really don't think we have that long.”

“I don't either. And
they
don't.” Waving into the X-cage. Earth gravity killed Softfingers quick.

Ra Chen said, “Advise me then, drown you!
Think!
”

The silence was a rustling of Martians. Sonic weapons set muscles twitching at random.

“The small cage is set for the right time,” Miya said, “isn't it?”

“Yes?”

“And you can set the large X-cage to meet the small one, can't you, Hanny? It's how you got Whale. Then—”

“Stet, got it, thanks.” Ra Chen was on it. “Hillary, you and I can run the X-cages. Zeera, you take the small extension cage back. It's set to drop out where the
Minim
's FFD disappeared around minus three fifty AE. That's where your team went into Fast Forward and came here. Then—”

Hillary Weng-Fa said, “Wait now, Boss. You're going to
kill everyone in the universe?
”

“You're dying now,” Svetz told her. “When we've done our job you'll be restored to health.”

“But it won't be me!”

“In a few hours it won't be anyone, Hillary.”

“I'll take my chances!
You
think you'll save yourself—”

“Hillary.”

“Boss?”

“Most people will be in better shape after we've done this. Millions of people won't be dead anymore. We're all near dead, even if you've got too much courage to admit it.”

Nice phrasing, but Hillary Weng-Fa wasn't showing courage. “It won't be
me!
I, I can't help you do this.”

“No, of course not. Go home, Hillary. Zeera, you and me. We'll be running two X-cages. We can send the large X-cage back to meet the small X-cage on manual, soon as it's in place. Are you up to it?”

“Certainly.”

Hillary cried, “Zeera, you'll disappear along with the rest of this!”

“Willy, you'll take the small X-cage back,” Ra Chen continued. “It's set for the right timespace. There are only two things you need to do.” He stepped into the small X-cage and pulled Willy after him. “The chair swivels. This whole display on the left is remote controls for the large extension cage. On arrival, you punch
this.
It summons the large X-cage. If we didn't need someone to do that we'd send it empty. Then pull
this
in the middle. That's the go-home. I can't see any way you can get in trouble, and it's a futz of a ride.”

“I'm in,” Willy said.

“
Now,
Willy.”

Willy climbed into the small X-cage. Zeera and Ra Chen took their places in the Pit. Svetz joined them, but he only watched. They were both better at this than he was. Willy watched them all with a look of wary anticipation.

The small X-cage disappeared. The extension arm led off in a direction the eye could not follow.

Ra Chen said, “Hillary, are you still here? Go home. Svetz, Miya, you take the large X-cage. What have I forgotten?”

Svetz said, “Thaxir. Get her apart from the rest before they ball up.”

Martians had fallen all around the control chair. Miya found a green giant and swore that she was Thaxir. It took three of them to pull her up the slope of the wall, away from the others.

“What else?”

Miya said, “Pressure suits! Ra Chen, I think that's a plasma weapon. We'll examine it on the way, but we'll have to open the cage to use it. And question some Martians.”

Zeera said, “Translators. The net gun and something to cut nets. More sonics. Net the trigger on the cannon and net the Martians and keep them apart, and spray a net over Thaxir. You want to keep them stunned, and you don't want them wriggling loose, and you don't want them to open the door or fire the cannon.”

Ra Chen rubbed his temples. “Sounds like a lot. Anything else?”

Miya lifted her sonic handgun and fired. Hillary, reaching into the Armory door, dropped like loose bones.

“That's all I can think of,” Miya said.

“Get that stuff and get aboard.”

39

Svetz took the control chair. Miya tethered herself with the lines and fixpoints Zeera had abandoned. They watched Ra Chen and Zeera in the Guide Pit until all the colors went to chaos, and gravity shifted to the center of the shell.

A rustling of stunned Martians followed them into the past. Svetz and Miya hung head down. Svetz had done this before, and it didn't seem to bother Miya.

The Martians had all settled into a ball. Miya sprayed a net over them and tethered it to the curve that had been the ceiling. Thaxir hung in a net near her. Miya had already sprayed a fine net over the cannon's firing cockpit.

Every Martian was wearing some kind of pressure envelope. Softfinger, green giant and red Martian pressure suits were no surprise: Svetz had seen them before. The big crabs with their ogre-human faces, and their mock human mounts, wore separate pressure envelopes with sockets to join them. Inflated bubbles with attached bottles held red Martian children, spindly six-limbed dark green children as tall as a man, grinning pointy-faced frogs festooned with tools, tiny ogre crabs and infant crab-mounts. Other such bubbles held animals and plants in what looked like terrariums. Thaxir hadn't mentioned
that.

The child-bubbles remained closed; but all the adults had opened their helmets or zippers. Earth's post-Industrial air couldn't be good for them, despite the high carbon dioxide content. Svetz asked, “Shall we switch to martian air?”

“I don't want to close my helmet. Did you bring—?”

Svetz held up a pair of clear bags: filter helmets labeled for Mars.

“They act like they're running out of air,” he said. “They took enough to board the X-cage and enough more for the children. They must think we still have pre-Industrial air. Or—”

“What?”

“Or they're running out. What if the tree stopped giving them oxygen?”

Miya asked, “Why would it do that?”

“Parasite control? We can ask.”

They donned filter helmets. Svetz adjusted the air monitors.

Miya spoke to the elderly green giant. “Is that why you called us, Thaxir?”

Thaxir couldn't answer, assuming this
was
Thaxir. The green of her shell was yellowed. The plates of her face bore a wonderful array of fine, delicate carvings, and an old crack that Svetz's blaster handle might have put there ages ago. She hung, twitching a bit.

Svetz said, “I wish I
really
knew how sonics affect a Martian.”

“I'm tired,” Miya said. “You?”

“Wiped.”

“From the moment we hit the target date, we have to keep going for twenty minutes,” Miya said. “That's right, isn't it? Then we can quit. We won or we didn't.”