The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds (19 page)

“But we haven’t shot any down in fifty years,” I
remind him. “What could their numbers be like now?”

“There haven’t been any
seen
in fifty years,”
Council Red tries. “Preliminary scans indicate each machine
possesses a rudimentary artificial intelligence: enough to operate
and adapt to a changing combat environment in order to accomplish
whatever mission it’s been loaded with, very much like the cancer
and virus hunters developed for medical applications.”

“If the Discs believed their mission accomplished,
they would likely self-destruct, lacking further purpose.
Or
they might go dormant if they calculated the possibility that they
would be needed again,” Yellow tries to get to the point.

“Your theory that the Disc you found today was left
as a kind of alarm, a sentry,” White lets me know, “this could be a
sound assessment.”

“You must not disturb it further, Colonel,”
Blue—Stilson—insists directly.

“We won’t,” I assure, though I’m not at all sure I
can keep that promise. “But Earthside has too many questions.
Including why you seem to have known a whole lot about the Discs
before Paul brought you his material sample. Including that we
would find one in that crater.”

Council Blue waves his hand in the air, and suddenly
I’m surrounded by holoscreens. They seem to be playing every video
record of a Disc attack ever made.

“We are scientists and engineers, Colonel,” Stilson
begins heavily. “Did you think we would not at least be curious
about the machine that brought about the Apocalypse, that
effectively destroyed corporate research and all connection with
Earth? We have been passively studying the Discs over the years,
analyzing every piece of data on record, if for no other reason
than to be prepared should they return. We kept this study—and what
we have learned from it—secret from our population all these years.
And yes, secret from you as well.”

“Why?” I have to ask, knowing I’m playing into his
monologue.

“Because of what we’ve learned,” he says his line.
The screens give me 3D schematics, figures, wave-graphs of signals.
They are very detailed, but tell me nothing other than they’ve
spent a lot of time on this. “We
were
able to identify the
EM signature in the crater as Disc. We expect Earthside
Intelligence has been doing similar studies over the years, given
that they have the same if not greater data, and therefore likely
recognized this as well, which is why they sent you with such
urgency to recover a viable machine to confirm what the data
suggests, what we ourselves have confirmed based on the material my
son sampled.”

“Which is what?” I keep playing.

“The technology that created the Discs… We could
possibly manage it now ourselves given how far we have come in
developing nano-manufacturing, but that technology did
not
exist fifty years ago. It certainly didn’t exist when the first
Disc attack on Mark Harker’s team was visually verified in
2049.”

“And if the materials are consistent,” Green cuts in,
“then that first Disc was also conceived and grown here on Mars,
possibly from a single mother factory. That factory, however small
and hidden, would have to have been placed on-planet well before
that first attack. Before corporate colonization began.”

“So someone sent this ‘mother factory’ unmanned
before human missions landed, anticipating what would come?” I
confront. “Or are you trying to tell me the Discs aren’t
terrestrial in origin?”

“The Discs
are
of human design, Colonel,”
Stilson takes it back. “There are certain unmistakable design
aspects throughout. The propulsion systems. The weaponry.”

“The theory of an unmanned probe being sent to start
manufacture before humans started coming to Mars is likely correct,
Colonel,” Paul steps in. “It’s just that the probe did not just
travel space. It may have traveled
time
as well.”

“
Time travel
?” The suggestion hits me like a
slap. It’s as unexpected as it is ridiculous. But Paul looks and
sounds earnest (even if the Council is totally unreadable with
their masks on—I wish I had my own mask right now to hide my
reaction). “From the future?”

“Actual retrograde time ‘travel’ was theorized to be
workable on an atomic or sub-atomic level, using certain particles
that can bridge relativistic shifts,” Paul gets very geeky on me.
“In simplest terms: You can’t send matter into the past, but you
can use these ‘bridges’ to manipulate matter on their opposite
endpoint. The effect would be on a molecular scale, but that could
be enough to create complex nano-machines. It would only take a
small cluster of pre-programmed nano-machines to construct the
‘Disc factory,’ which would then start manufacturing the Disc
drones.”

“So no big theatrical rips in time, Colonel,” White
defends. “The event would likely go unnoticed.”

“And what about the whole famous science fiction
paradox?” I push back. “If I send something back in time to change
my past, don’t I then change my present so that I don’t or maybe
can’t send those machines back?”

“That paradox is central to this theory as well,”
Paul allows me. “Most researchers don’t believe it’s possible to
change the causal timeline, even though they’d been observing
instances of apparent reverse-causality on a sub-atomic level for
many decades. They believe time is linear and immutable, even if
there are incidences of the cause coming after the effect. Anything
you effected in the past would already be part of the immutable
timeline—you wouldn’t be able to alter it.”

“But time may not be as linear as we perceive,
Colonel, just as space is not,” Green bends me. “We really don’t
know.”

“Which makes this conversation pretty far gone from
science, don’t you think?” I hit where they might feel it.

“But the physical sample confirms that Disc
technology was far beyond the technology of the time,” Paul keeps
insisting. “Occam’s Razor, Colonel: Do you believe
extra-terrestrials made the Discs, or humans?”

“Neither choice qualifies as the simplest explanation
if you want me to believe in
time-traveling
humans who
actually succeeded in significantly altering their own past. I
would
believe that someone had a very classified nanotech
breakthrough sixty-five years ago, a lot more than I’d believe that
someone could or did intentionally muck with history, especially
given the scale of the outcome. And none of your theories explains
why
.”

“Maybe what the Ecos—and now your UNCORT—have been
afraid of may have happened in some unknown future,” Yellow tries
fantasy. “That would explain why the Discs focused on the research
facilities, and then on your defense of them. Maybe changing the
past was the only way to save some future gone horribly wrong.
Perhaps there was—or would have been—a nano-plague, however
unlikely. ”

I shake my head. This has now gone from science to
fantasy. And it’s all pointless.

“We can all speculate later,” I derail them. “If you
agree this particular Disc is some kind of trap, then we need to
discourage Earthside from stepping into it. Give Earthside your
research. If you know all anyone can know by studying these things,
and it still doesn’t answer the big questions about who did this
and why, then leaving that Disc buried won’t make any…”

Mark Stilson raises his hand to shut me up, his other
hand going to his mask like he’s trying to focus on something.

“It’s too late,” he tells me with an edge of
urgency.

“What?”

“It’s too late,” he repeats. “Our team onsite
confirms: your people have just hauled the Disc up out of the
crater and are loading it onto your aircraft. Right now.”

I feel sick. I turn and head for the Lancer as fast
as I can.

I barely notice that Paul is right behind me until I
get back up to the landing pad.

“Matthew, what’s going on?” I call into my Link as
soon as I’m clear to send a signal.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss it, Colonel Ram,” he
comes back formally, but I feel the frustration in his tone, barely
contained. “We both have orders to stand down.”

“Explain,” I come back tersely, but I think I already
know the answer. Then Lisa cuts in.

“Colonel Ram, Colonel Burke, you are ordered stand
down. You have both been temporarily relieved of command. Stay off
this channel.” Her voice is firm, but I can also feel her rage
under it.

“Who’s in command?” I demand.

“I am, Colonel,” she comes back hard. “By order of
General Richards. Now stay off this channel.” There is something in
the way she repeated her last command. I click off and go straight
to the Lancer, to Smith.

“What’s been happening?” I ask him directly.

“I almost came down to drag you out of there, sir,”
he begins urgently. “Only Colonel Ava ordered me to sit put.
Apparently Earthside didn’t accept your stand on things, ordered
Colonel Burke to relieve you and secure the Disc immediately. I
think they were extra nervous because the ETE were there.”

He looks past me at Paul, who is shaking his head in
simmering frustration.

“Colonel Burke sent back a pretty colorful reply—I’ve
got it recorded if you want to hear it,” Smith continues. “That’s
when they started working their way down the chain of command. I
think Colonel Ava just agreed so they would keep one of the base
commanders still in charge.”

It makes sense. Lisa made the hard call, did her job
while I was being stubborn. And maybe kept me in the loop.

“What about the Disc?”

“Horst’s team loaded it onto one of the ASVs,” he
catches me up, running snips of video footage on the cockpit
screens. “They’re flying it back now with minimal crew, just
Lieutenant Jane flying and Doctor Staley on to monitor the thing
during flight. One peep out of the Disc, and Jane has orders to
drop the cargo module and blow it to hell. Lieutenant Acaveda is
flying pursuit. And they’ve got company…”

MAI’s mission graphic shows the ETE ship following at
a respectful distance. The ships are already halfway back to
base.

“Get me back there, Captain,” I tell him.

“The troopers have orders to detain you if you
interfere, Colonel,” he warns me.

“Let me worry about that,” I stand firm. “Pretend
you’re arresting me.”

“I’m coming with you,” Paul insists. “I’ll ride the
hull back if I have to.”

“I think we owe you a ride back to your ship,” I grin
at him. Right now I think I need all the help I can get.

Smith spins the engines up.

“You think your people would really arrest you?” Paul
wants to know as we fly across the valley.

“Tough decision,” I consider. “Some of them want to
go home, no matter how different home is. There’s also the threat
that resupply will be withheld, or that Earthside would send force
to take all of us into custody. Or worse.”

I realize that sounds like we’re adopting almost the
same kind of fear of Earth that the survivor factions have. I push
that thought away, watch the screens. MAI calculates that the ASV
carrying the Disc will land at base twenty minutes before we can
get there. And I can’t say a damn thing about it.

But I remind myself: sometimes an officer has to
accept a bad order just to still be in command when things go
wrong. I fucked that up. Lisa didn’t.

The helpless time keeps my mind spinning, mostly
about what the ETE had to say about the Discs: That they somehow
grow themselves, that they may have no on-planet controllers, that
they may be adaptive AI sent with a simple mission objective. That
means they
could
still be operating today, independent of
any human presence, waiting for any sign that they’re mission isn’t
finished.

And one other thing about the ETE’s assessment makes
sense (not the bullshit-science time travel fantasy): Maybe whoever
sent the Discs wasn’t some corporate or national competitor, but
some fringe Eco (or beyond Eco) paranoid enough and brilliant
enough (or with resources enough) to hatch a plan to stop the scary
research at all costs. Given how much time is past, said monster is
probably long-dead, on Earth or here, satisfied that he’d won, that
he’d saved us all from ourselves.

But someone that smart and that fanatical (fanatical
enough to murder tens of thousands of people) wouldn’t just leave
it at that. He’d take steps to ensure that corporate nano-research
wouldn’t ever be able to regain a foothold here. If his drones were
self-directing and self-manufacturing…

The Discs haven’t attacked the human survivors, not
since they thoroughly severed them from Earth fifty years ago. That
means extermination
isn’t
the primary program. But that just
supports the idea that the corporate nano-science
was
the
target.

But in fifty years, Earthside hasn’t been able to ID
the culprit?

Unless he did die here on Mars, leaving no evidence
back on Earth.

If he survived, he’d be in at least in his eighties
now.

He could be here. Still. (And what was that Sakina
told me about her father chasing after some rumored “old
evil”?)

“Do you really think these things somehow came from
the future?” I have to ask Paul. He shakes his head, unsure.

“I’ve seen the theory. But there’s still too much we
don’t understand about time and reverse causality. It’s all in
mathematical models, a few successful experiments on a sub-atomic
scale, but nothing really functional. And then there’s your
paradox: what happens to time when you intentionally change
something, assuming that’s even possible. I don’t know. It would be
huge. The amount of matter that would be altered by actually
changing the course of causality is unthinkable. But I can’t
adequately explain the Disc technology any other way. If Earth had
that level of seed-manufacturing during the colonization rush, I
think they would have used it to further colonization. Even if
there was some super-secret project, it would have come to light by
now, and there would be no urgency in recovering that Disc except
for historical curiosity. And why wouldn’t they just tell you
they’d solved the mystery? They’re behaving as if Disc technology
is still an unknown to them, and frightening one, an active threat,
possibly more advanced than the technology they have since they
limited themselves. What we had here fifty years ago is probably
more advanced than what Earth has now…”