The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds (24 page)

“Do you expect them to?” he challenges evenly. I
don’t answer him. He quickly gives me his argument: “If the Discs
follow the same patterns of attack as they did during colonial
times, they will only attack nanotech producers, or the military
that defends them. They usually avoid other targets, just like they
didn’t shoot at your greenhouse and the Nomad camp next to your
base in their recent attack. Making the Nomads into a threat might
make them a target when they otherwise would not be.”

“They weren’t so selective during the Apocalypse,” I
point out, keeping my tone civil.

“But after they destroyed the research, production
and military facilities and effectively isolated the planet, they
left the survivors unmolested,” he counters. “And they never
threatened the terraforming that continues to support those
survivors.”

“They may have spared the survivors simply because
they expended themselves in the attack,” I argue.

“Leaving seven Discs intact but buried?” he
criticizes, now bitterly. “Slowly self-repairing—or at least
maintaining themselves—until the day we dug one up and set them off
again?”

“That’s one of the UN Council’s theories,” I give lip
service.

“Which doesn’t make any sense. More likely they were
specifically waiting all this time for sign that Earth—or another
suitable target—had come.”

I don’t argue with him, since that’s still my own
standing theory.

“The skin samples from the Disc in the crater showed
age—it wasn’t new,” Anton cuts in. “Unfortunately there wasn’t
anything recoverable from the others to determine if they were just
as old, or grown sometime in the decades after the
bombardment.”

“I’m asking for your own tactical assessment,
Colonel,” Paul presses, almost glaring at me. “Do you believe the
Discs could still be capable of reproducing? That they may have
specifically remained prepared to address some future failure in
their mission?”

“You think militarizing the survivors will make them
targets where they otherwise would have been ignored?” I return him
to his original concern instead of giving him the answer he already
knows.

“I expected that it would have surprised you that
Earthside
didn’t
express this concern for the safety of the
survivors when they approved your recruiting them,” he now
accuses.

I don’t answer. I think he’s had enough time with me
that I shouldn’t have to, enough time to know my thoughts on the
subject. He also knows how delicate an issue it is for me to openly
discuss my distrust in my new commanders. But he seems to want to
hear it—wants me to say it—again. To voice my simmering defiance.
Instead, I busy myself tearing apart a piece of warm bread,
smearing it with the Martian equivalent of hummus.

Rios and Anton have stopped eating and look at me
like something very scary is happening with the world. Sakina, for
her part, does her best “bodyguard” and pretends to be deaf,
quietly enjoying her meal.

Abbas’ wives bring the tea in well-worn metal cups,
nicely timed to break the tension.

“What
aren’t
you saying, Paul?” I take another
track after a few moments of uncomfortable silence. He takes a
breath, seems to return to his old self at least a little.

“My Council sent their Disc research files—including
my scans of the recovered Disc—to Earthside. They did that one week
after the attack.” He pauses a moment to let that sink in, watches
me hesitate and exchange looks with Anton and Rios. Anton is
shaking his head in denial, eyes wide. Rios just looks stunned, a
piece of apple forgotten in his fingers. “We expected that our
gesture would be at least acknowledged, politely if suspiciously,
if not with overt shock and posturing. But Earthside hasn’t
mentioned our act in a single communication with you in the three
months since.”

I feel gravity shift in the pit of my stomach. My
skin flushes. He’s right: We had no idea.

“Nor have they given you any real explanation of
their urgency in ordering your people to recover the buried Disc
against your own warning,” Paul continues to cut.

Anton looks almost as pale as he did when he was
shot. Rios gives me a look that says he doesn’t think he should be
hearing this conversation at his current pay grade. Drake has a
surprisingly similar look. Abbas sits firm, taking it all in—his
eyes lock mine for a moment, as if to say I shouldn’t be surprised
by any of this.

“So I shouldn’t trust Earthside,” I cut to it. “I
think it’s clear enough to everyone that I don’t trust simply
because my duty obligates me to, but I have to perform my duty. And
we’ve discussed why I have to continue to do so, and what would
likely happen if I don’t.”

“Earthside knew you’d find a Disc in that crater,”
Abbas says it out loud, as if it very badly needed saying.

“Likely they’d studied what intel they had over the
years and recognized the EM signature,” Anton offers as objectively
as he can. “After what the Discs did, I can’t imagine they just let
it go as done. I’d certainly want a look if I was them.”

I watch his hands absently massage his dead legs
under the low table, like he’s trying to get feeling back into
them, like they’ve simply fallen asleep. He’s complained of phantom
sensation, but he seems to do this particular thing when he’s
really thinking about what he’s lost but doesn’t want to. He
doesn’t look at his legs when he does it, he just looks
uncomfortable. When it’s especially bad, I can see his hands shake,
and he looks like he’s going to bruise himself he rubs and kneads
so hard.

“An intact Disc would answer a lot of questions,”
Rios mutters, as if he’s not fully sure he should be speaking.

“No one’s debating that,” I try to soothe.

“It’s the cost they were willing to risk in getting
those answers,” Paul grumbles what’s weighing on us all, his body
settling heavy into his seat cushion, staring blankly at the table
that’s still piled with Abbas’ hospitality. I expect him to be
looking at Anton, but his eyes are avoiding the one obvious cost of
Earthside’s curiosity in this room. He picks up a wedge of
apple—the first food he’s touched—and nibbles it thoughtfully. Then
condemns icily: “How much will they risk next time?”

I shake my head a little, sip at my tea. I can hear
Anton’s breathing speeding up, see his knuckles go white as he
tightens his grip on his atrophying thigh muscles.

“I’ve rerun my calculations based on the attack
patterns at the height of the Disc War,” Paul shifts to offer
something constructive, now casually sampling a piece of bread.
“I’m sure you’ve done your own. Any time you were able to shoot
down what appeared to be all of the active Discs, there would be a
two-to-four-month period before any new Discs would appear. This
may indicate the limitations of their growth rates. No Discs have
been seen since all seven that attacked your base were destroyed.
And despite the great personal price of our losses, they did not
manage strategically significant damage to either of us. At best,
they tested our defenses. Or sent us a message. Or both.”

He’s telling me he’s learned from my lessons, my
weeks playing “advisor” to the fledgling Guardians, and at the same
time he lets me know he can think like a soldier even in the face
of an unimaginable loss. And the Discs did learn something critical
in testing those defenses: Simon died because his tools had been
depleted resisting the Disc guns and grenades, trying to swat them
from the sky. He had nothing left to disintegrate the drone before
it hit him, or ward it off, or shield himself from the explosion.
And now the Discs—assuming they were able to pass along that
intel—know exactly how to kill an ETE.

And the ETE know that, too. The fact that Paul is out
here—that any of the ETE continue their patrols beyond their
Stations—is an act of bravery unimaginable for someone who once
thought themselves invincible and has only recently been confronted
with mortal vulnerability.

But it isn’t brave altruism that brought Paul here
today. It’s rage. He’s spoiling for a fight. The peace-loving
life-protecting idealistic scientist I met is now post-traumatic
and starving for revenge.

“Which means we may be due for a second attack any
day now,” I objectively give him his own conclusion, tempering my
own overwhelming need for vengeance. (And what vengeance? Is
someone still running the Discs, or are they now masterless, just
blindly following fifty-year-old programming?) “What’s the status
of your Guardian teams?”

“Things have gone quiet since the attack on your
base,” he answers slowly, heavily. “The PK and the Zodanga have
retreated into their enclaves. There hasn’t been a single encounter
with them. And there has been no sign of the Shinkyo.”

“Fear of the Discs?” I consider.

“The factions without the technology to tap your
communications haven’t changed their activity patterns,” he
reports. “But the ones capable of listening, and therefore likely
know what’s happened, are also the three best armed factions, and
at least the Shinkyo and Zodanga maintain some kind of nanotech
manufacturing. Both are already adept at keeping their bases
hidden—maybe they just intend not to present themselves as targets,
though for the Zodanga that means curtailing their aerial raiding,
which is no small sacrifice. We expect they are either too fearful
of the Discs to show themselves or are trying to develop
countermeasures. But the PK can’t fully hide: their sites are known
and visible and probably just as vulnerable as they were during the
last Disc War, and they could certainly be mistaken for a UNMAC
military target. Still, there hasn’t been any sign of evacuation or
defensive preparations. It’s like they’re pretending there’s no
threat.”

“Relative invisibility, combined with an intimidating
but purely defensive stance, has been their best defense against
outside threats,” I remind. “Perhaps they just hope to show that
they won’t rise to defend the nano-producers in the same way their
UNMAC ancestors did. If you’re right, if they don’t fight or make
nanotech, then the Discs will ignore them”

“Unless the Discs are programmed to target anyone
capable of hurting them,” Paul returns. I nod to let him know I
agree with the possibility. But there also isn’t anything I can do
about the PK. Or the Shinkyo or the Zodanga. I’m down to four
usable aircraft and half of my base guns. Rick is trying to
supplement our defenses by scavenging the cannon and launchers off
our totaled ships to make new land batteries. And Thomasen has set
his digging crews to partially re-burying the base structures he
only recently dug out, hoping to increase our ability to weather
future poundings. Meanwhile, Metzger has been drilling her flight
crews to launch fast and land faster in anticipation of another
minimal warning attack, while Rios and Thomas drill their troopers
in surface response, using the same techniques we’re now teaching
Abbas’ Nomads.

We have been driven to ground by
one
assault,
and it’s not a position I want to remain in at all. But I don’t
have anything to hit back at.

The conversation dies down as the subject seems to
spin itself into useless speculation. I enjoy Abbas’ hospitality,
focus on the simple pleasures of simple food. I glance to Sakina
who sits at my side, and she lowers her eyes. She still will not
carry a gun, though she has let me teach her how to shoot. She
shows promise, and approaches the task with her usual discipline.
But she is not the best with a firearm, and I think that may bother
her more than her pride in her ability to do without.

I look up to catch Drake eyeing her the way I’d
expect any shy teenage boy to, pretending not to be. Abbas also
catches him and smiles, though I expect there will be a fatherly
warning later against pursuing a woman whose calling card is the
sexual mutilation of her male prey.

Anton has forgotten about his legs, at least for
now.

Paul takes a piece of dried fruit.

Rios takes Abbas and Drake back out for more
practice, and Anton goes to reset the training drones. The day is
clear and relatively warm.

Paul hangs back, and I take my opportunity to talk
with him alone.

“What’s going on with your brother?” I ask him
directly but gently.

“He’s been regrown, repaired,” Paul tells me,
sounding distant. “His body is in a tank at our Station. We haven’t
let him wake. He won’t be Simon. He might be
like
Simon one
day. But we will have to raise him like an infant, teach him
everything all over again. But putting him in the crèche with the
other children… He’ll always remind us of what was lost. My father
hasn’t had the heart to begin.”

He stops, stares off over the horizon. I give him a
moment before I ask:

“And what about you?”

He shakes his head. I see his eyes tear up. “I… I’m
torn, divided. Part of me wants him back, even just a part of him,
hoping I will see Simon in there. But then I know it will be
Simon’s face and not Simon inside. And I’m afraid I will hate him
for it, even though he won’t understand why.”

He stands for awhile, just staring across the
desert.

“If we could rebuild the body of your friend, of
Colonel Burke—make his body live again—would you allow it?” he
offers hypothetically. I shake my head (despite my pointless
impulsive act with the vial of nanites). I hear his breath shudder.
“Of course you wouldn’t. You would let him go, rather than have a
stranger that looks like him. But we aren’t like you. Two
generations of us now have not known what it is to die, or to lose
someone to death. So we hang on. We hang on. Even I… I can’t…”

I can’t think of anything to say to him. I consider
telling him what I did, what I tried to do. It was pointless, and
part of me knew that even as I did it, but it was a choice. I
didn’t choose to let go. I chose to hang on, no matter what lines I
was crossing.