Semper Mars: Book One of the Heritage Trilogy

by Ian Douglas

  But as she was walking through the Kansai Terminal, she’d noticed a shop selling models, beautifully detailed miniatures of various ships, aircraft, and spaceships. While Yukio was getting their bags, she slipped back, under the pretext of visiting the O’tearai, the honorable hand-washing place, to take a closer look. As she’d hoped, the shop sold completed models as well as model kits, and one of the models on display was a beautifully painted Inaduma fighter, complete with booster—the very spacecraft that Yukio flew in. She’d bought it on the spot, and that was the gift she’d had specially wrapped that afternoon, while the framed vidclip languished in her room at the youth hostel.

  What was causing her misgivings now was the fact that the twelve-inch model was very expensive.

  It wasn’t that she couldn’t afford it. For all she’d teased Yukio about his being a rich kid, she was not poor herself, and she had enough money in her savings to handle a few special purchases. No, the difficulty was that giving an expensive gift created an obligation to reciprocate equally. She felt that the gift was well matched by the honor of being invited to the Ishiwara home. The question was, would the Ishiwaras feel that way? She might never know.

  The four of them walked down the hall to a room with a tatami-covered floor, so everyone removed their slippers before stepping onto the reed mats. Three times she was offered the seat of honor near the beauty alcove, the toko-no-ma, and three times she declined. The fourth time she knelt on the tatami. After a similar process of offers, polite refusals, and renewed offers, she shifted to a floor cushion, a za-buton.

  As they’d walked down the hall, Kaitlin had noticed a room with a carpet and Western-style furniture, indicating that the Ishiwaras were used to entertaining foreign visitors. The fact that they were treating her as a Japanese guest instead—taking her to the Japanese living room rather than the Western-style one, continuing to speak Nihongo rather than switching to English—was an honor…and a test. So far she’d been doing all right. The evening was young, though. She rarely got examination jitters, but she’d never had an exam on which so much depended.

  Glancing at Yukio, she wondered what he thought of her performance. He had certainly come to life since arriving at his home. He was smiling, laughing, teasing Shigeru. This, she realized, was his world; this was where he belonged. As he glanced around, his eyes met hers and his smile faded. So. He too was wondering if she could ever belong here. Being an honored guest was one thing.

  Being accepted as a member of the family was something completely different.

  Slowly the evening wore on. After about an hour, they all moved to another room, which seemed identical to the first, with the addition of a low table in the middle of the tatami-covered floor. Here several hours of dinner were served by servants who were constantly refilling her bowls. The food was magnificently prepared, a feast for the eye as well as for the palate. Gradually she relaxed, telling herself to simply enjoy the experience.

  “O-kyaku-sama,” Shigeru said during a pause in the eating. “Toshi has told us that your honored father was going to Mars.”

  Kaitlin looked at the youngster and smiled at the eagerness in his voice. Yukio—Toshi, as his family seemed to call him—had told her that Shigeru was sixteen and just as space-happy as his brother.

  “Hai, Shigeru-san,” she said. “The cycler arrived in Mars orbit last week, and the shuttle lander ferried them down to Cydonia. I’m afraid my father is not as thrilled at being on the surface of the red planet as you or I would be. He prefers his sand with an ocean nearby. One that’s not half a million years old.”

  “Both my sons feel strongly,” Ishiwara said, “that our future is in space.”

  “And you feel differently, Daijin-sama?” she asked.

  Ishiwara put his chopsticks down carefully on the hashi-oki and took a sip of o-cha before replying. “I would be more interested, Honored Guest, in your opinion. Both because you are an American and because of your connection with Mars.”

  “I do not know that my opinion would be worth anything, Respected Minister, but I must agree with your sons. And for two reasons. However long it takes to uncover what is buried under the sands of Cydonia, it could change…everything. Whether it is new technology that we are able to make use of, or simply the knowledge that we are not alone in the universe, it will transform life on this planet.”

  “You are…most persuasive. And what is the second reason?”

  “A corollary of the first. The fact that the Ancients were there means that we are not alone. It means that there are others out there. If we stay put, nice and safe here within our solar system, well, then they might find us. The encounter might be…quite a shock. But if we are the explorers, if we go out and seek them, then…Well, I can’t say we’ll necessarily be ready for whatever we’ll find, but surely it is better to be the seeker than the sought. In history it is the exploring nations that have grown, have developed, whether that exploration has been physical or intellectual. There are no more physical frontiers on this planet. For that…we have to reach out into space.”

  “Japan has tried isolation before, Father,” Yukio said. “After the battle of Sekigahara we tried to wall ourselves off from the rest of the world, believing that if we continued to ignore them, they would politely continue to ignore us.”

  “It didn’t work, did it, Father?” Shigeru asked.

  “You are correct, Shi-chan, it did not. The world will not leave us alone, much as we may wish it. Many of my countrymen proclaim that everything that Japan needs can be found within Japan. That has not been true for a very long time, and it is becoming less true every day.”

  “We need to expand into space,” Shigeru said. “And I plan to be a part of it. Wait and see. Ten years from now I’ll be on Mars.”

  Yukio laughed. “And I’ll be there to welcome you!”

  At the end of the meal, Ishiwara called for the limousine to take Kaitlin back to the youth hostel. Yukio accompanied her, but even with the glass up between them and the driver, his speech was polite and formal. He made a point of not sitting right next to her, which frustrated her even more. She was well aware that custom frowned on public displays of affection, but she hadn’t quite realized that Yukio would be unwilling even to hold hands with her.

  He did bring up the subject of where they might go during the next few days. Perhaps things would be better once they got away from Kyoto and the shadow of his father. At least she hoped so.

  Because otherwise, it was going to be a very long and less-than-relaxing vacation.

  FRIDAY, 18 MAY: 1810 HOURS GMT

  Arlington National Cemetery

  Arlington, Virginia

  1410 hours EDT

  Tombstones stood in rank upon gleaming rank on the eastern face of the hill, a seemingly endless forest of grave markers spreading in precisely ordered formation across the tree-shaded slopes of Arlington National Cemetery. At the top of the hill, half-hidden behind ancient, spreading oaks, the white-pillared expanse of the Custis-Lee Mansion brooded over the tableau on the hill below as it had since the American Civil War. It was said that the US government had originally buried Union dead practically on the doorstep of the mansion in order to discourage the Lees from ever returning to this place. Whatever the original reason, the nearly two centuries of fallen American heroes interred here had hallowed this ground.

  Opposite, across the gray waters of the Potomac, the city of Washington, DC, shimmered beneath the early-afternoon sun. In the distance, lonely thunder rolled…a SCRAMjet liner on final approach to Washington National, a few miles to the south.

  General Montgomery Warhurst stood at attention at the front of a small crowd of mourners, which included as many Marines as it did civilians. Janet, Ted’s widow, stood on his left, with twelve-year-old Jeff at her side. Stephanie, the general’s wife, was on his right. Neither woman was crying, though their eyes were red. Jeff looked solemn; Warhurst wondered if he’d connected yet with what had happened.

  Hell, h
e thought bitterly. Have you? Before him, a few feet away, the casket of his son rested above the open grave.

  Chaplain Connell had completed his remarks and invocation.

  “Comp’ny…ten-hut!” Warhurst and the other military personnel not in formation raised their hands in salute. A short distance up the hill, seven Marines in Class-As snapped to present arms, then in a single, smoothly oiled motion, brought rifles to shoulders, aiming out over the city.

  “Ready…fire!” Volleyed gunfire barked, the noise sharp in the still spring air.

  In ancient times, Warhurst thought, volleys were fired to scare off evil spirits emerging from the hearts of the dead. But there was no evil here, not in Ted’s heart, not in the dead he was resting with. There was only sorrow, and a kind of bittersweet clutching for meaning amid words that threatened to lose all meaning.

  Honor. Glory. Duty….

  “Ready…fire!”

  A second volley exploded. Birds, startled, rose from nearby trees.

  “Ready…fire!”

  Warhurst’s eyes were burning.

  As the echoes of the third volley died away, a lone Marine raised a bugle to his lips and began playing the mournful dirge of taps. Two more Marines—Sergeant Gary Bledsoe and Lieutenant Carmen Fuentes, both part of the honor detachment—lifted the American flag from the casket and began folding it between them, corner over corner, fly to hoist, reducing it to a thick, white-starred, blue triangle with no red showing.

  Taps wavered to its lump-throated conclusion.

  Warhurst dropped his salute, the sound joining the sharp crack of other arms snapping to sides. Holding the folded flag before her, Fuentes pivoted ninety degrees, took two steps, pivoted again, the double right angle bringing her squarely in front of Colonel Brad Mackley, Ted’s commanding officer. Crisp and correct, Mackley accepted the flag, did a sharp about-face, then paced off the four steps that brought him up to the crowd, directly in front of Janet.

  “On behalf of a grateful nation and a proud Marine Corps,” Mackley said quietly, “I present this flag to you in recognition of your husband’s years of honorable and faithful service, and his sacrifice for this nation.”

  Mackley handed Janet the flag, then saluted her. “Port…harms!” a voice rasped out. “Order…harms! Detail…dis-missed!”

  The crowd began breaking up, some of them wandering back toward the shady curve of Halsey Drive, others standing in small groups, talking. Several came up, saluted him, and said…something. He never heard the words. He wanted to say something himself to Janet and Jeff…but when he turned, he saw that Stephanie had led them away, her arm around Janet’s shoulders. He felt…alone. And empty.

  Warhurst closed his stinging eyes. You bring a son into the world, raise him, educate him, love him, grieve with him, rejoice with him. You watch him choose your own branch of the service, graduate from Annapolis, go on to his first command, be chosen for the honor of embassy duty. You see him get married, see him begin a family of his own.

  And at the end, there was nothing to show for it all but a folded flag.

  And the memories.

  Warhurst drew a ragged breath. For a moment, he could have hated the tradition, the parade-ground finery, the solemn grandeur and the emotion-wringing symbolism. Ted had died in a fucking incident in a country that Warhurst didn’t give a damn for, an incident, not even a real war. According to the latest netnews downloads, Mexico was charging that American Marines had fired on civilians, precipitating the regrettable attack by Army forces on the American embassy. Pundits, politicians, and bureaucrats would be arguing over the blame for months to come, but nothing had been settled.

  What was it all for? What was the use? Damn it, his son was dead….

  The Marine Corps. The term “marine,” of course, had its roots in seafaring tradition…a soldier who fought at sea. Since the founding of the Corps in November of 1775, though, the term had become synonymous with a very special elite, a force-in-readiness, a unit ready and able to fight anywhere at short notice.

  Everywhere. On distant coral atolls. In disease-festering swamps. Now, possibly, thanks to him, even the surface of another world.

  Or the roof of an embattled embassy in Mexico City, in an incident….

  He drew another breath…and another, willing the tears to recede. He would not give in to self-pity. There was too much at stake.

  Ritual. Tradition. His son had died in the best traditions of the service.

  The Marine Corps would continue.

  He would continue.

  Somehow….

  EIGHT

  Mars Prime/Cydonia Prime : The two principal human settlements on Mars during the first, exploratory phase of the colonization effort. Mars Prime was established July 20, 2024, at Candor Chasma (5° S, 75° W), near the Martian equator, its location dictated by the interesting local geology and ease of access from orbit. Cydonia Prime was established November 1, 2028, at Cydonia (40.9° N, 9.5° W), in order to study in place the alien artifacts and monuments discovered there.

  By 2038, each base complex could support eighty to one hundred personnel. Dedicated structures included subsurface living, recreation, and storage buildings, labs, C3 facilities, wells for tapping permafrost for water, and automated cracking and storage plants for the manufacture of methane fuel from water and atmospheric CO2.

  —Download from Networld Encyclopedia

  vrtp://earthnet.public.dataccess

  SATURDAY, 26 MAY: 0357 HOURS GMT

  Pad One

  Cydonia Base, Mars

  Sol 5634: 1610 hours MMT

  “I never thought I’d see the day,” Garroway said, “when a couple of enlisted men would actually volunteer. Especially Slidell.”

  Gunnery Sergeant Knox shook his head, the motion just visible inside his helmet. “Man, if I’ve learned anything in twenty years in the Corps, it’s never trust a Marine who volunteers for shit details.”

  “Slider isn’t exactly the kind of Marine who volunteers for anything,” Colonel Lloyd said. “I’ve been wondering about that guy. He’s been looking for ways to get to Candor ever since we switched landing sites.”

  “So why’ve he and Fulbert been so damned anxious to get down there?” Knox wanted to know. “I heard scuttlebutt that they managed to smuggle some drugs out from Earth.”

  “That doesn’t seem likely, does it?” Garroway said. “Not with the weekly medcheck.” Once a week every person on Mars donated a drop of blood and a specimen of urine to the med-lab analyzers. The general medical monitoring of the expedition members’ health was not aimed specifically at spotting drug use, but it would certainly detect it if it happened.

  “Ah, who knows what goes through their minds?” Lloyd growled. “I’ve already e-mailed Barnes at Candor to let him know to keep an eye on those two.”

  They were standing outside the main hab at Cydonia, watching the preparations for a lobber launch. The two enlisted Marines in question, Corporals Jack Slidell and Ben Fulbert, had just climbed the ladder and boarded the ship, and in a few more minutes they would be on their way to Mars Prime, the big base at Candor Chasma on the Martian equator five thousand kilometers southwest of Cydonia.

  It had been two weeks since they’d landed at Cydonia, two busy weeks as the MMEF Marines had worked to get settled in and check out the gear they’d brought with them. Most of their stuff had gone on to Mars Prime at Candor Chasma, and they’d had to manage with a lot of make-do.

  The political situation was tense and growing worse. Colonel Bergerac, the new UN force commander, had vigorously protested the unannounced and unscheduled redeployment of the Marines to Cydonia. Only this morning had the last of the 2nd Demibrigade Foreign Legion troops assigned to the UN observers’ force finally shuttled north again to Cydonia Prime, after their redeployment to Candor. It had made things uncomfortably crowded at Cydonia. With nearly thirty Marines, over fifty Foreign Legion troops, and over fifty civilians, the base’s life-support systems were being severely s
trained.

  For that reason, lobber shuttle flights between the main supply dump at Mars Prime down at Candor Chasma and Cydonia Prime had been increased.

  Garroway looked up at the lobber resting on the charred strip of regocrete that served as launchpad and landing pad and wreathed in slow-curling clouds of steam. It was Harper’s Bizarre, the dinged and battered-looking shuttle that had aerobraked them in from cycler orbit, but the crews at Candor had replaced her fuel stack and taken her down to her lobber configuration.

  For trips to orbit and back, the shuttle rode atop a twenty-meter, double-ring stack of fuel tanks holding the methane reaction mass needed for high delta-v maneuvers, plus the broad, lopsided blister of the heat shield used in aerobraking. Now, however, the blunt-nosed biconic nose section housing cockpit, passenger compartment, and main cargo bay had been remounted on a suborbital boost platform. This was a single ring of smaller methane tanks nestled inside a wirework basket, swaddled in thermal blankets, and resting on four widely splayed legs. In this configuration, the shuttle was called a lobber and was used for point-to-point transport of personnel and cargo on the Martian surface.

  “All personnel,” a voice sounded over their helmet headsets. “Lobber Three is now ready for launch. Please clear the launch area.”

  “That’s us, gents,” Lloyd said. “Let’s get inside.”

  “Roger that,” Garroway said. There was little radiation hazard from the NIMF—the NTR engine was well shielded—but the plasma that seared out of the aft venturi was hot, nearly five thousand degrees, and deadly at close quarters.