The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN (44 page)

Driving the point further home, we review the video
footage of the Shinkyo attacks on the Stations, showing them again
how conventional explosives (in missiles that they’d assumed were
off-target) managed to knock several of them well off their
feet.

“Your tools are operated through concentration,” I
remind them. “If you can’t concentrate, you can’t fight.” Then I
blow off a stun grenade in the middle of them. By the time their
helmets and their senses adjust, Zauba’a has hit a dozen of them
with her “sword.” To their credit, both Simon and Paul get their
wits back fast enough to draw on her before she can tag them as
well—the only reason that they manage to do so is that they
responded to the blast by moving evasively while they drew their
tools. I can see that Zauba’a is smiling under her devil mask as
the brothers hold her back with a restraint field. I give the
brothers a nod of approval.

By the time we wrap up the exercise, one thing is
painfully clear: if the Shinkyo are half as good as Zauba’a, the
ETE will quickly be facing their own mortality.

1 October, 2115:

The morning after Zauba’a’s “demonstration”, we
discover that the fledgling “Guardians” have been recalled from
training, with no explanation from Mark Stilson other than his
coolly polite invitation to stay. Not wanting to injure our budding
relations, we diplomatically accept.

To keep us busy (or further influence what we’ll tell
Earth) we’re offered a tour of the sciences section I passed
through when I came to interrogate the Shinkyo prisoners. One of
the “apprentice” technicians—a thin, pale twenty-something youth
with awkward body language—gives us a graphic presentation on what
the ETE hope to achieve in their efforts to continue terraforming
Mars. It comes off as a bad sales presentation: simulations of
Marineris turning green, of ETE Feed Lines spider-webbing across
the surface of the planet, of energy fields eventually holding in a
planet-wide atmosphere while nuclear furnaces maintain a temperate
climate.

I’m torn between an almost childlike sense of wonder
and an overshadowing discomfort. It’s not that I doubt the ETE’s
intent or ability in pursuing this dream, but Mark Stilson admitted
it himself: Earth will doubt any intentions the ETE might profess
because they conspired to maintain the isolation of Mars. Their
reasons for doing so will be of no consequence. By the end of the
presentation I’m sure of its intent: The ETE do want to win over
the one who’ll be shaping their future relationship with Earth,
because they know Earth will stop them by any means necessary
unless someone Earth trusts can sell this dream of a thriving
Mars.

They want me to see. They want me to believe.

My automatic reaction is to do the opposite, to
resist this propaganda absolutely. But then I look at Zauba’a and I
see the child’s wonder in her eyes as she sees the great dream of
the ETE, the greening of the desert she grew up in.

I cannot fault them for using me to further it.

After dinner, I take Zauba’a back to the empty
“training chamber.” Using only my empty hands, I mimic the
movements I’ve seen the ETE use in handling their Rods and Spheres,
and I ask Zauba’a to help me consider how they can develop a system
of close-quarters defense to fend off a variety of threats while
using (and keeping control over) their tools.

By 02:00, we’ve come up with a number of tactics that
seem teachable as well as effective, though Zauba’a criticizes that
the ETE should at least consider reshaping their tools into actual
weapons, even if only batons or staves. I assure her I’ll push the
idea. She hands me a length of pipe and we go at it again. This
time I surprise her (and myself) with what I’ve retained from my
youth: I know she’s holding back, but I can hold my own, hold her
off, even get in a few good hits. We both agree that if my baton
also had the force-capabilities of a Rod, it could be
devastating.

I’m well-winded (and fairly well bruised) by four in
the morning. Zauba’a has worked up a sweat and I can hear her
breathing heavily under her faceplate, but her eyes are bright like
a young girl’s—she could go all night. She smiles at me, and I have
to remind myself: I’m old enough to be her father, if not her
grandfather.

We eat breakfast alone again, served by anonymous
apprentice-aged technicians. But this time Council Blue joins us
just as we’re finishing.

“I’m sorry to have kept you shut out of things,
Colonel,” he begins. “But we all have been deeply affected by what
you have shown us—we owe you a great deal. Zauba’a as well.”

I think this is the first time she’s been
acknowledged by name, much less thanked. Her eyes catch on the
compliment, but she doesn’t respond verbally.

“And what have you done with your ‘Guardians?’” I ask
when he stalls, fully anticipating that he’ll tell me they’ve
scrapped the whole idea in favor of maintaining their isolation.
His lips purse like he’s not sure how to continue (though I’m sure
he’s been rehearsing what to say for hours).

“We’ve… made some
modifications
, Colonel…
based on your threat assessments. First, we engineered upgrades to
our sealsuits—they should now offer greater resistance to
nano-edged weapons.”

“Excellent,” I allow him, then press: “But a new
wardrobe doesn’t explain the absence of all of my ‘trainees.’”

“You have to understand the sacrifice involved,
Colonel…” He sounds like he’s hoping I’ll take bad news as good if
he words it just right. “We have never even considered advancing
our research in this direction. We had no intention… We abhor
violence…”

“Council,” I pause him, then with a blend of
reassurance and assertion: “You
can
just tell me what you’ve
done.”

He sighs. It looks like this is more than a show—he’s
deeply bothered about something he doesn’t trust telling me (and I
immediately remember that I’m also being groomed as their
intermediary with Earth).

“They all volunteered, Colonel. Even my own sons.
None of them hesitated.”

Before I can start feeling real apprehension, he
pulls what looks like a standard flashcard out of a pocket and sets
it on the table. A holoscreen forms in the air above it, and shows
us a pan of bodies suspended in tubes of clear acrylic and chrome.
I see Paul and Simon among them. They are still, unconscious, but I
can see their chests move with the slow rhythm of
sleep-breathing.

“We are modifying their nanites, Colonel,” the
Council explains. “Strengthening their bones and connective
tissues. Making them more resilient to injury. Upgrading the
trauma-response of their self-repair systems.”

I see Zauba’a shake her head as if disappointed,
though I was expecting far more extreme news given the trouble he
had telling it. I understand the Council’s discomfort: Not only do
they feel they’ve broken a profound taboo, but they fully expect
that using their technology to make their people more capable as
combat weapons will garner even more distrust when Earth hears
about it. And he knows it will be my duty to tell them.

I take a few moments to digests the implications,
watching the fifty Guardians sleep through having their bodies
“hardened” quite literally down to the bone.

“While we’re talking about modifications,” I take my
opportunity to simultaneously reassure and lever, “we have some
ideas.”

3 October, 2115:

The recovery from the nanite reprogramming is slow,
but Paul stubbornly talks his way out of the Crèche early by
promising to continue resting in his quarters. As outsiders are not
allowed inside the Crèche sections, it’s the only way Paul can meet
with us face-to-face.

He has a small suite of rooms. The ETE skill at
simulating sunlight hundreds of feet underground gives him a small
garden alcove that looks very much like an urban apartment garden
on Earth. The illusion goes a long way to forgetting that we’re
buried so far in solid rock.

I’m also surprised by how “homey” his rooms are—most
of what I’ve seen of life within the Stations is even more Spartan
and sterile than the Melas Two bunkers (only much bigger and
brighter). Paul even sleeps in what looks like a real bed with
plush blankets and a frame that looks like hardwood. There are
reproductions of famous masterworks on the walls, mostly
impressionist landscapes. I consider that he must have been very
young when his parents took him on the shuttle, but he’s still
hanging onto his home world. I wonder if he’d ever consider
visiting (no matter how he’d likely be received).

He sits at his executive-sized desk (which also looks
like it’s made of wood) in a padded but utilitarian chair. The
desktop is busy with graphics of Martian strata and composition
analyses, but there are also photos of breathtaking landscapes,
perhaps captures of places he’s seen in his adventures on the
surface.

He asks us to join him, using one of his Rods to drag
two other chairs in from his small tidy kitchen. The effort it
takes him lets me know that he’s using the Rod because getting up
to move the chairs himself might be asking too much of his
still-stabilizing body. He looks pale, clammy, short of breath. I
wonder if his recovery from the blast and the crash was as
difficult.

“Thank you, Zauba’a,” he begins, his voice dry. “You
did a fine job of scaring my brethren into useful action. We owe
you a great deal.”

Zauba’a gives him a look of detached curiosity.

“You seemed to need the wake-up call,” I let him know
I understand.

“Lives would have been lost needlessly,” he accepts,
“if not by the Shinkyo taking ours, then by us going too far to
keep them from doing so. Without you, we would have walked into
disaster. We still may, but we will be slightly better prepared for
it.”

He flexes his fingers. It looks like he’s fighting
arthritis.

“But is this what you want?” I ask him.

He gives me a tired grin—it looks like even that
effort hurts.

“I expect I feel somewhat like you,” he grates out.
Then chuckles, though it’s more of a cough. “Sorry, Colonel—that
didn’t come out right. Not mortal. Not older. But I expect there
was a time in your life when you realized that you were no longer
just a man, that you had in some way become a weapon.
That’s
what I’m feeling. And no, I’m not sure it’s what I want.”

“The difference between a tool and a weapon is what
you do with them,” I try. He shakes his head.

“Guns make bad hammers,” he counters. “Design betrays
intended function.”

Zauba’a gives a thoughtful nod.

“You have your doubts, Colonel,” Paul continues after
a moment. “More than what you shared with my father.”

“I think I could say the same of you,” I give him
back. He nods, his eyes going far away.

“You are right,” he tells me. “What we have done,
what we will do… We walk a fine line. And
anything
we do may
damn us further in the eyes of Earth.”

“Is it better to do nothing?” I challenge his
doubts.

“Doing nothing is still making a choice.”

I nod to let him know I agree. Then I ask him more
difficult questions.

“Will your Council interfere with the attempt to
contact Earth?”

He smiles weakly, shakes his head. “This
must
come to pass. And my father does believe the best way is that you
do it. He trusts you.”

“
I
wouldn’t trust me,” I warn him. He
grins.

“You’re not the monster you think you are.”

“I’m just slowing down with age.”

“I think I know how that feels,” he jokes, then pulls
up the sleeve of his simple blue tunic, looking at his bare left
arm like he’s never seen it before. He flexes the hand again. I can
see him shaking. “Care to humor me with a test?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I’m not such a great fan of the theoretical when
lives are at stake.” Then he looks at Zauba’a. “Do you have your
Shinkyo sword?”

She rises after only a moment’s hesitation, and
smoothly draws the two-foot-long blade out from under her cloak. He
holds out his bare forearm in mid-air.

“I’ll regret this if I’m wrong,” he says, his face
wincing in anticipation, “but I need to know before someone loses
something more precious.”

Zauba’a looks to me for approval, and I reluctantly
give her a nod. She takes a breath, and the cut is quick. I hear
the blade thunk loudly. It stops as if stuck in Paul’s radius—it
should
have cleaved right through.

Paul’s mouth and eyes gape, but he doesn’t make a
sound, not even to breathe. He looks at the blade stuck in
him—there is very little blood—and then he grits his teeth as she
pries the weapon out of the wound. He drops his arm down onto the
desktop, and we all watch the wound close itself. It’s done in a
handful of seconds. Then Paul cries out. Collapses half over his
desk. Starts to giggle.

“Not sure what was worse…” he mutters shakily. “The
cut or the shock of how hard you hit me… I think I felt that in my
toes
… That wasn’t pleasant… Not at all pleasant…” Tears leak
out of his eyes.

“But you have your arm,” Zauba’a points out, wiping
the blade on her cloak and putting it away. “And your answer.”

She did not hold back, did not “pull” her strike. She
wanted him to be sure.

6 October, 2115:

The ETE follow their self-modification with even more
liberal evolutions.

Their engineers re-program a number of Rods so that
their physical structure will quickly elongate into two-foot
batons. The nano-materials they’re composed of proves resistant to
cuts from Shinkyo blades, and by the time the “Guardians” are back
on their feet, they’re ready to practice blocking our attempts to
hack them. A few cuts get through, but their new skeletons save
them from amputation.