The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN (37 page)

At least a hundred of Abbas’ people wait and watch
from a quarter-mile away, shapeless blobs under their cloaks—they
could just as easily be an abstract arrangement of large rocks.
Abbas makes his “peace” gesture as we come close, raising his gun
over his head. I’d like to tell him it’s unnecessary, but I mimic
him, because there are others coming to this meeting, and I expect
they’re watching. We both make a show of handing our personal side
arms to our nearest “second”—I to Rios and Abbas to Drake.

For his part, Rios plays his role with quiet
discipline—I know how much rage he still holds about this place.
I’ve never taken him aside to talk about Carver or how close they’d
gotten or what she meant to him—I let it be private, let him find
his own way to deal. But I know the last time he was here he
watched her bleeding to death, choking on a Nomad crossbow bolt,
coming far too late to do anything about it.

When I approach within a few paces of Abbas, he drops
formality and rushes forward to embrace me like a brother, an act
that causes Rios to tense for a moment behind his ICW until he
reassures himself that Abbas means me no harm other than an
overzealous squeezing.

“It is always good to see you, my friend,” Abbas
begins heartily. Drake gives me a nod and I can see a smile under
his mask.

“Even considering what’s being said about us now?” I
have to ask him.

“I can give no credit to such slander,” he assures me
again, but his mood goes somber.

“I know,” I give him back. “But you seem to be the
exception.”

“Hopefully I am not alone,” he tries. Then he turns
to the west and waves. Another line of cloaks materializes out of
the dust haze, and a brace of figures begins walking toward the
tapsite. Their apparent leader—though he’s dressed no differently
from his fellows, raises his pistol in greeting, then hands it off.
I wait patiently while he and Abbas embrace, though this time both
parties seem to be on mixed terms. Still, Abbas introduces us with
his usual gusto:

“Colonel Ram, this is my brother-in-law Hassim Al
Fadil, Sharif of Western Melas.”

Hassim exchanges a firm forearm grasp with me, his
eyes burning deep and black under his goggles, whatever feelings he
has about this meeting well-buried. Hassim is leaner than Abbas,
and several years younger, but his features are much harder. He has
at least one visible scar on the bridge of his nose. He gives a
quick look over Rios and his troopers, then locks eyes on Tru as if
sizing her up: She wears her Mariner Colony work suit under an LA
jacket, and leans on the forearm crutch she brought to stabilize
her gait on the uneven terrain.

“This is Truganini Greenlove,” I introduce her.
“Elected representative of our colonial residents. She is also a
director of our greenhouse project.”

“I hope to do quite a lot of trading with your
people,” she tries. Hassim gives her only a curt little nod before
returning his eyes to me. I see Abbas smile under his mask and
shake his head. I make a mental note to ask him later if it’s her
sex, her handicap, her title or her history (her name must be
almost as famous as mine) that’s triggered the chilly response. Tru
shifts her weight onto her crutch.

“Farouk?” Hassim asks before anything else can be
said.

Abbas points southeast, repeats his wave. I turn in
time to see another throng of bulky cloaks rise in a line on a
ridge maybe a thousand yards out. I can almost hear Rios’ gloves
constrict on the stock of his ICW. Again, a half-dozen of cloaks
start hiking toward us to join this little summit, with what looks
very much like an H-A suit wearing a cape in their center.

“Farouk,” Abbas confirms.

“Thank you in advance for brokering this meeting,” I
tell him.

“Even if it proves unproductive?” he considers.

“It will be productive if it prevents bloodshed.”

“Not promising in any interaction with this man,” he
warns me. I glance at Hassim, whose eyes remain locked on the
approaching group.

We wait together silently as Farouk’s delegation
makes the slow march in. When they’re close enough, I can see that
the figure walking on Farouk’s right hand is the same graceful
female form I saw watching us at Melas Three. Farouk’s “Zauba’a”
wears the same camouflaged cloaks and cowls as the rest of them,
but hers she keeps open like a cape, revealing glossy red-lacquered
metal. She is almost entirely sheathed in form-fitting plate and
mail armor, but with enough joint exposure to allow for free
movement. Her breather mask is covered with gloss-red plate as
well, crafted to give the impression of some sort of fanciful
monster. There are a number of stout plain knives and sharp-tipped
metal rods strapped to her body. Despite all this, she moves like
what she’s wearing weighs nothing. Through her goggles, I see her
black eyes are locked on mine. What little of her skin I see is
light-olive, smooth. She’s young, possibly part Asian.

They come to a stop in the packed-down “clearing”
around the tapsite. Abbas is slower to greet than he was with
Hassim and I, but I notice that Farouk doesn’t make the first move:
he waits for Abbas to step forward, then the two exchange the same
forearm clasp that Hassim offered me. But this one appears far more
cautious, cool.

Farouk doesn’t attempt to greet me or even Hassim, he
just glares at us through his goggles like we either annoy or amuse
him, and I think I can read a smirk under his mask. Hassim makes no
move to greet him either, and I take Hassim’s lead. Standing
silently just behind him, Farouk’s “Zauba’a” still has her black
eyes locked coolly on mine, as unblinking and still as a
doll’s.

Farouk is indeed wearing an old and battered H-A
shell, though he’s painted artistic illuminations of Arabic writing
over its original markings, so I can’t tell the suit’s origin.
Nomad scarves and a cowl sit in place of the missing helmet, and
the suit has been further adorned with assorted gear and bits of
ornamental handmade armor. His Zauba’a carries his sidearm for
him—a plain UNMAC-issue pistol—though he still wears a gaudy knife
wedged in his belt. His hair is dark, his skin smoother than Abbas’
or Hassim’s. I guess him to be in his early forties, given the
benefit of a comparatively easy life.

Abbas turns and nods to Drake, who steps forward
cautiously and sets his father’s pistol down on a large, flat rock
that has been placed in the center of the packed-dirt clearing.
Hassim’s “lieutenant” follows suit, placing Hassim’s own pistol—a
compact colony PDW—on the rock next to Abbas’. I nod for Rios to do
the same with my gun. Farouk is last, making a show of his
hesitation before signaling his Zauba’a to add his pistol to the
others. Now our four guns form a square, barrels pointing in at
each other, and we move around it, taking places indicated by our
weapons so that the rock forms the center of our circle.

“So this is the Peacemaker,” Farouk begins with
little in the way of respect in his voice. In answer, I take a
breath in and peel my mask and goggles off, letting him see my
face. What I notice most is the slight change in the eyes of his
stoic Zauba’a, her face losing some of its frozen doll-like
quality. But then she hardens again, catching herself. Farouk only
chuckles.

“We have much to discuss,” I offer, ignoring his
tone.

“We have very little to discuss,” Farouk counters,
but there’s more calculation in his voice than actual anger.
“Especially given your recent aggression against us.”

“The nuclear detonation was not an attack upon you,”
I repeat the assurance that I’m sure Abbas must have already passed
along. “Nor was it our device. You can thank Shinkyo for that, in
any way you see fit.”

“We do not need your consent to deal with the
Shinkyo, Colonel Ram,” Farouk throws back at me coolly, clearly
trying to provoke. “Nor is Daimyo Hatsumi our current concern. I
speak of your incursion into our lands.”

Farouk, Abbas told me, once held the northwest and
central areas of Melas Chasma. But his persistent defeats by the PK
holding the far north-northwest drove him by necessity or pride to
turn south, where he conquered and assimilated a weaker tribe,
re-establishing his strength if not his reputation. This retreat
allowed Hassim in turn to take back much of Western Melas, lands
lost in generational wars between his tribe and Farouk’s. The west
holds the ruins of Baraka and Uqba—“The Blessing” and “The Edge of
the World”—the two UME colonies, and therefore the “ancestral
homelands” of the Melas Nomads. (I asked Abbas why they faced west
when they prayed. Baraka had the first mosque on Mars.)

Farouk’s loss of the West was a severe blow, and he’s
since made quite a lot of noise insisting that his current holdings
are far superior to what he abandoned to Hassim, that his taking of
the South was in fact a blessing from God. But the truth was more
likely that Farouk was in no position to resist Hassim once he’d
expended too much of his strength against the PK, and that Farouk
ran before Hassim could prove it. In any case, now Farouk
ostensibly controls the southeast quarter of Melas, where Abbas
holds the northeast—both tribes in dispute over controlling the
receiving end of the food trade traffic from Coprates, and those
caravans supply the bulk of what keeps all the Melas Nomads eating.
(Abbas apparently trades food in turn to Hassim’s people, keeping
the two groups closely allied.) The ETE provide air and water and
fuel unconditionally—food is the currency of real power.

Abbas showed me the rough tribal divisions—the
undrawn borders—on one of our maps. Farouk’s territory is bordered
on the west by a “no-man’s land” separating him from Hassim’s
territory. This no-man’s land is supposedly inhabited and
controlled by “desert demons”—likely the Shinkyo ninja—making an
effective buffer between the two blood enemies (which is probably
convenient in preserving what’s left of Farouk’s dignity). But
right on the eastern edge of Farouk’s new territory lies…

“Our base, Melas Three,” I say it before he can,
letting him know that I not only understand his point, but that
I’ve come prepared to debate it. Then I let him know my position on
the subject. “The UNMAC installations are ours. They belong to no
colony or tribe. They were placed throughout the valley to keep the
peace, to provide aide in times of crisis, and to defend all of you
from outside attack.”

“That was in the old world, Colonel,” Farouk returns.
“The colonies are no longer. And we are not helpless, dependent on
the Unmakers to ‘defend’ us from an enemy that no longer exists.
History has told, Colonel:
You
are the enemy, and a far
greater foe to all of us than old tales of phantom flying dishware
that none of us has seen in our lifetimes.”

I can feel his men grinning beneath their masks and
cowls. Only his Zauba’a remains stoic, but I see her eyes are
trying to read mine.

“You want us to withdraw, to abandon the Melas Three
site,” I state the obvious. He simply grins at me. I only chuckle
at him in return, and show him what my own grin looks like. He
almost takes a step back.

“I know your kind very well, Farouk Aziz,” I tell him
like I’m talking to a child. “And you have mistaken me for my
predecessors. You would use diplomacy as a means to intimidate, to
veil your threats, assuming that you are preying on a people who
believe in peace—or fear war—so much that they ‘d be willing to
give concessions to appease you. You forget who I am. I watched the
warriors of my predecessors’ put themselves in the line of fire
trying to protect innocent lives that men like you would happily
sacrifice if it served you in any way. I watched them throw away
their lives trying to respect even their enemies by keeping their
most sacred sites intact, only to watch those enemies blow them up
themselves after using them as safe bases to attack from. I saw men
like you prey on the mercy and charity of better men, shouting all
the while that it was the will of God that you were doing.

“You forget who I am. I was one of the first of the
UNACT Tacticals—the grand experiment to unite a world sick of what
we called terrorists: quick to murder the helpless because the
helpless are easy prey. I was created because mercy and charity
failed. I was created to cleanse the planet of people like you. And
you know my name because I did my job without charity or
mercy.”

I feel Farouk’s men rustle and shift uncomfortably,
their weapons ready. But I also feel both Abbas’ and Hassim’s
guards slowly shift in behind me. I lock eyes with the Zauba’a just
long enough to see her smile under her mask. Then I turn my cold
glare back on Farouk, letting him know he needs to give me a good
reason not to kill him.

“You think…” he tries to compose himself, re-assert
his condescending sneer. “You think you are still on Earth? You
think these are still your glory days as faithful dog of the
infidel corporate nations?” His men chuckle with him on cue, the
toadies of a bully. “Your time is done, old ghost. This is not your
world. It is
ours
. You think you can stand against
us
? You are nothing.”

“I have no intention of standing against you,” I tell
him coolly. “But I have learned my lessons. You are right: this is
not Earth, nor is it the Mars made by the corporations. But humans
are still humans—that has not changed—I have seen that easily in
the time since I have awakened. You are no different than many who
have come before you: You come to this meeting, hiding behind
diplomacy and smiles, and claim
we
have wrongly aggressed
against
you
, and then you use that claim to leverage your
demands. But this isn’t about unjust trespass or aggression. What
you actually want is for us to retreat and give you a stronghold to
increase your own power, so that you can better prey upon those
weaker than you. We have uncovered a great treasure that we had
lost, and you want to take it from us, arguing that it’s somehow
yours. Men like you, I have no patience for. I will not stand
against you, Farouk Aziz. I have no taste for posturing. But if you
choose to stand against my people or my friends, I will not hold
fire. You know the land, you outnumber us. But our base batteries
are back online, and we have aircraft, and we have plenty of
ammunition. This information is the only mercy I will give
you.”