by Ian Douglas
“Okay. See what you can do, anyway. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
“Yeah, and maybe we can fly this thing back to Earth,” Jacob replied, but he immediately began tapping away at the touchscreen.
Kaminski had finished checking the bodies. “I’ve got their IDs and stuff, sir,” he said, holding out a handful of tags.
Garroway accepted them without comment, slipping them into a thigh pocket in his suit. They would be returned to Bergerac or some other senior UN representative when this was all over.
He was troubled on several counts, not the least of which was the blunt and bloody fact that if a war started now, he couldn’t be entirely certain whether the UN had started it by imprisoning the Marine section…or whether he had by killing four UN soldiers. His orders—to “protect American scientific and research interests on the planet Mars”—were unsatisfyingly vague when it came to reactions against hostile or potentially hostile UN moves.
He’d also just committed his tiny command to combat, and while he knew his next move would have to be to reach Candor Chasma, he wasn’t quite certain yet just how he was going to accomplish that.
His first duty, though, would be to inform his superiors at the Pentagon about what was going on. He was alone and cut off as no military officer had ever been cut off before, tens of millions of miles away from reinforcements or relief. He knew well that he could expect no help from Earth, that his decisions on Mars would be dictated by what he had on hand and could hope to achieve with just twenty-five Marines.
But he was also painfully aware that his decisions here would affect American policy back home…and UN policy as well. If there was any way to keep US policymakers informed, he had to find it.
“Major?” Jacob said. “I’m not getting anywhere with this. We’re locked out, and unless we find that code…”
“Understood.” He thought for a moment. “Okay. You and Kaminski start going through the cabin. See if they left anything written down that might help us.”
“They’d be pretty damned stupid if they did, sir.”
“Agreed, it’s unlikely, but we have to cover all the bases. Let me sit there.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
He slid into the seat as Jacob vacated it and stared for a moment at the screen. Mars possessed no ionosphere—not in the sense that Earth did—and that meant that all radio communications were restricted to line of sight. There were microwave relays like the ones at Cydonia scattered about those regions where travel and exploration were common, but most parts of the planet relied on the handful of communications satellites in Martian orbit—the Ares Constellation of five low-orbit comsats, plus one in areosynchronous orbit, permanently stationed seventeen thousand kilometers above Candor Chasma.
Access to any of those satellites, however, required certain comm prefixes, codes, in other words, all of which would have been changed by now precisely to stop unauthorized personnel—like Garroway—-from doing what he was about to attempt.
There might be, however, an alternative. When the first Mars Expedition had arrived in Mars orbit in 2019, a communications relay had been positioned on Phobos, the planet’s inner moon. When Colonel Johnston and Polkovnik Reztsov had set foot on the sandy regolith of Candor Chasma and unfurled their respective nations’ flags, the televised images and historic first words had been transmitted to a waiting Earth via that relay. It could only be employed when Phobos was above the horizon, but the minor worldlet made an easy visual target for a satcom dish.
That relay was still there. He knew it was and, better yet, he knew the activation codes. His original assignment on Mars, after all, had been to service and run computers and commo gear used by both the Marines and the civilians. Usually, messages to Earth were routed through one or another of the regular comsats, but during periods of heavy traffic to and from Earth it was always good to have a backup, just in case the available bandwidth was cut to unacceptable levels. The Phobos relay station provided an alternate means for reaching Spacenet.
His first step was to link his wrist-top into the Mars cat’s display and call up his Beale code routine. It worked, and that was one less worry. Swiftly, then, he began typing at the keyboard, calling up a com request routine and checking to see that the crawler’s satellite dish was still on-line after the rough handling it had received. So far, so good. He had the com routine up and running, and the tracking system indicated a lock on Phobos, now just fifteen degrees above the eastern horizon—which meant it was on the way down. With its seven-hour-plus period, Phobos was one of the handful of satellites in the solar system that rose in the west and set in the east. It also moved so quickly across the sky—a half a degree in about a minute—that you could actually see its drift with the naked eye. He had about thirty minutes before the moon set.
He touched a colored rectangle on his plastic console and pinged the relay. He had it! And now to compose the message….
A message from Heinlein Station directly to Earth was out of the question. The UN would have people on Earth listening for any unauthorized transmissions inbound from Mars…and if they picked one up, they could almost certainly block it simply by jamming that frequency. They would have people at both Cydonia and Candor, too, who would come down hard on the Marines if they picked up his broadcast.
What Garroway was trying to do was a little more underhanded than phoning home without permission. He needed to tap into Spacenet, the electronic web linking all operations in space with one another and, through the primary node at the International Space Station, with Earthnet. He couldn’t do it overtly, but he could squeeze a short message into a tiny packet of data that could be layered with routine, outgoing transmissions—the “housekeeping” talk between the computers on Mars and Earth that basically kept tabs on one another and ensured from moment to moment that all communications channels were open and functional. He couldn’t send an open message; there might be watchdog routines running at Mars Prime or Cydonia specifically watching for anything tagged for Pentagon HQCOM, Washington or any other government or military installation on or near Earth. Hell, Bergerac probably had routines running right now listening for words like “Marine,” “Lloyd,” or “UN.”
But he had one hidden ace…the Beale code link with Kaitlin. If he could slip the code—a long string of numbers—into the housekeeping traffic going back to Earth, he could address it in such a way that it would automatically be routed to Spacenet’s e-mail service. The next time Kaitlin downloaded her mail, his message would be waiting.
He hated dragging her into this, but it was the only chance he saw. She should be safe enough, after all, in Pittsburgh.
FOURTEEN
MONDAY, 28 MAY: 0030 HOURS GMT
Kinkakuji Temple garden
0930 hours Tokyo time
It had been eight days since Kaitlin had seen Yukio, since he’d left for his base way to the south on Tanega Island, and now her v-mail was being flagged as undeliverable. She’d placed a long-distance call to the base, but all she got was a recorded vidloop, saying that no calls were being accepted at this time. She wished she knew whether the Japanese military routinely closed their bases to outsiders during a drill…or if this was an indication that something serious was brewing. There’d been nothing in the papers or on netnews to help her make sense of the situation. It was very puzzling…and a little disturbing.
She’d come to the temple this morning looking for a quiet restful place in which to think. To think about herself and Yukio, about their future…if they had one. They’d had a few days to travel around Japan before Yukio had to report to his base, and as she had feared, he’d become only slightly less formal away from Kyoto than he had been in his father’s house. It wasn’t just the absence of sex—she’d experienced dry spells before, and she could live with that. It wasn’t even the lack of those public displays of intimacy that she’d become accustomed to back home, holding hands, walking arm in arm, calling each other pet names. Being in Japan and speaking Japan
ese constantly made her almost feel Japanese. The day after they arrived, in fact, they’d seen a young couple holding hands on the maglev to Tokyo, and she’d been shocked…as well as amused at her own reaction. No, the problem went deeper than that.
She feared that Yukio was seeing her now as hen na gaijin, as someone who would never fit in, no matter how well she spoke the language or understood the customs. She remembered times before, back in the States, when they had discussed the difficulties that a mixed couple would face. He’d been the practical one, pointing out the problems foreigners still had in Japan, and the provincialism of large parts of the United States. She’d always countered with her belief that anything was possible…if they’d loved each other enough. And that was probably it. Yukio must have realized that his love for her wasn’t strong enough.
A high bamboo fence bordered the path to the temple. She ran her fingers gently along the bamboo as she walked along, head down. Abruptly the fence came to an end as the path ran along the edge of the lake. She saw it first in its reflection and caught her breath, as she suddenly knew why it was called the Golden Pavilion. Three stories high and covered with gold leaf, the temple gleamed with a dazzling brilliance both above and below the water. She found a spot next to the water and sat down, thinking how strange everything was. Her love for Yukio was stronger than ever…just when it seemed that his love for her was fading.
She unclipped her PAD to check the netnews again. Nothing. More rumblings with Mexico. Anti-American and aldetech riots in Quebec and Paris. A new messiah in Rome who promised the aliens would soon return for the faithful. Nothing, though, to indicate why Japanese military bases might be going on alert. Well, time to check her v-mail. Something from CMU, her grades. Hey, all right! She grinned. Too bad Yukio wasn’t here. They’d always had a friendly rivalry going with their grades, even though he was taking graduate-level courses. Of course he always tried to claim that a B for a grad course was equivalent to an A for an undergrad, but she never bought that line. Not that he often got anything less than an A anyway.
What else? Hmm, something from her dad. Funny. She’d just gotten a long vid from him yesterday, and he usually didn’t comm her more than once or twice a week. Strange, too, it was text only…and the whole thing was in code. What the…? As she opened her Beale routine to decode the message, she found herself hoping it wasn’t something stupid-like that silly mix-up with the two archeologists.
It wasn’t.
Kaitlin:
This is urgent, Chicako. Pass the following message on to Uncle Walt. You’ll know how. The cat’s probably watching the mousehole right now, so you’d better come to Japan for the return trip. Thanks!
Love!—Dad
Walt, you sorry-assed son of a bitch, listen up and listen good. The blue boys pulled a Pearl Harbor 1207 GMT 27 May. The boss is down, but okay. Forcibly relocated to Red Planet. Have capped guards and secured cat. Am marching on Derna, with complete openness.
Semper fi.—Mark
She had to read the message through three times before she grasped it. Her mouth was hanging open as she worked her way through her father’s circumlocutions. “Blue boys” would be the UN. Pearl Harbor…a sneak attack? Forcibly relocated…as in imprisoned?
But the Marines obviously didn’t believe in staying where they had been put. A strange and unfamiliar feeling welled up inside her as she read about their escape. It took her a moment to recognize it as pride, both in the Marines…and in her father.
Something had happened to her father. The man who’d written this was not the same man who’d been planning to arrange an out after the Mars mission, the man who’d been just marking time doing his job…but not really caring. The man who’d written this was a man who was taking charge. She wondered what had happened to Colonel Lloyd; the message sounded as though Major Mark Garroway was the one in command.
She grinned as she figured out his cryptic reference to Heinlein Station. So, Dad, she thought, I guess all that science fiction I gave you did some good after all.
So now, what to do about this message? Obviously she needed to pass it on as soon as possible. But how?
Uncle Walt, of course, was Colonel Walter Fox. He and her dad had been buddies since before she was born, and she’d grown up thinking of him and his wife as uncle and aunt. In fact, it was Walter and Melanie Fox who’d taken care of her after her mother died, whenever her father was stationed overseas. The question was, could she risk sending this message in the clear? She had several other encryption programs, including one of her own design, but she didn’t know what Uncle Walt had.
She took another look at the second part of the message, translating to Tokyo time. The UN forces had taken over at 2107 Sunday…yesterday. Her last message from Yukio was dated Saturday, and yesterday her messages started getting bounced. That was too much to believe of coincidence. The Japanese government must have closed the base in response to word from the UN. No, she didn’t dare put this message on the net from inside Japan. She would have to go back to the States…and fast.
She thought about splurging on a taxi to get back to the youth hostel but then decided that the subway would be quicker. It didn’t take her long to pack her bag and check out, and then another subway ride got her to the maglev station, where she got on the first direct car to Kansai. She immediately shut herself in one of two enclosed comm stations to check out flight times. Damn! By the time the maglev got to Kansai, she’d have less than ten minutes to make the next Star Raker for the States, and the first one after that wasn’t for another four hours…all of that assuming she could get a seat. The Star Raker coming over had been pretty full; she hadn’t seen any empty places.
So. What other options did she have? It probably wasn’t all that urgent to get this message through quickly. After all, what could they do…send a message back saying, “Reinforcements on the way, ETA six months”? Still it would be important for them—she wasn’t exactly sure who she meant by “them”—to know what the UN had done.
Besides, ever since she’d put the timing of the attack together with the closing of Yukio’s base, she’d had an increasing feeling that it wouldn’t be healthy for her to stick around here much longer. The words “enemy alien” came to mind, and she shivered.
So was there anything sooner than that second Star Raker? Ah, that would do it. It was only going as far as Los Angeles, but maybe she would stay with Aunt Melanie and Uncle Walt down at Camp Pendleton for a few days before heading back East. She checked the price and whistled. Well, what’s the point in having an American Express account if you can’t use the thing when you really need it? She connected to Reservations and pressed a button on her wrist-top to send her AmEx code through. Now she was all set…except for one more little chore.
She’d decided to wait and do this on the maglev rather than in the train station because she’d wanted an enclosed comm station where she could take her time recording the message…messages, actually. The first one was no problem; expressing thanks for hospitality received and sorrow for an unexpected but necessary departure was easy to do in Japanese. The second one, though, that was another matter. There was no established custom for what she had to say to Yukio. She wanted to tell him how much she loved him, but she also wanted to set him free. Between his feelings of obligation and loyalty to his family and his country and whatever of love he still felt for her, he was being pulled to pieces. She wanted…she needed to release him.
Several times she broke down in tears and had to erase the message and start over, but finally it was done. She played it back one last time, nodding in satisfaction. Yes, she had walked the tightrope successfully. Making sure her smile was in place before she pressed RECORD, she added, “Look me up when you get back to the States. We can have a cup of cha and talk about old times. Sayonara, Toshiyuki-san.” STOP
The messages complete, she took a deep breath, opened her address book, and selected the Ishiwara household. The minister would certainly not be in at this t
ime of day; probably his private secretary—what had Yukio said his name was? Nabuko?—would answer. Just as well. She wasn’t sure she could face Yukio’s father right now.
The screen in front of her dissolved into an image of a young man sitting cross-legged on a tatami behind a low table with a PAD. She thought she’d seen him the night she had dinner there, and he obviously recognized her. Of course, it would be a large part of his business to remember names and faces. After the initial pleasantries, she made her request.
“I find I must leave this beautiful country and return to my home. I have recorded a message of farewell for the Honored Minister. May I transmit it now?”
Nabuko bowed in assent, and she selected SEND. She had embedded the message to Yukio inside the one to his father, asking the senior Ishiwara to pass the message along when it became possible to do so. As a government minister, he might even be able to get around the difficulty of the base being closed.
“I hope your journey will be a pleasant one, Garroway Kaitlin-san.”
She bowed and ended the connection, then slumped back in the seat. Done. It was done.
0143 HOURS GMT
Heinlein Station, Mars
Sol 5636: 1320 hours MMT
He didn’t want to see the Corps die.
Garroway had been a Marine for twenty-three years, now. He’d seen the Corps during the frenzied build-up during America’s involvement in the Colombian Civil War, in ’27, and again during the disastrous intervention in Andhra Pradesh six years later. He’d seen the BCs—the slang pejorative variously meant budget cutters, bean counters, or things less savory—come that close to strangling the Corps, particularly in the years since the fighting in southeastern India. The argument ran to the effect that amphibious operations were a thing of the past; indeed, the last large-scale combat amphib deployment had been at Tavrichanka in 2012, when the First Marine Division had waded ashore to save Vladivostok from the invading Chinese. The other major Marine interventions in recent years had been by helicopter or Valkyrie. The Army Special Forces routinely deployed the same way, and they had better and more modern equipment.
