Miranda's Demons

by Ian Miller

  "I guess that was a little strong," Reiner said as he smiled to himself.

  "I'd say it was a bit weak, actually, although I appreciate that there's a limit to how much you can say publicly. But how can you betray a system you loathe? You'd be doing everyone a favour by cleaning the whole lot out. If you believe what you said, what's wrong with getting a bit of help?"

  "I'm not sure I like this," Reiner said hesitantly. "Suppose the M'starn don't like us either? Suppose they decide they don't need humans."

  "Then they'll execute a couple of agents on Mars, and nothing more will be heard of it. Tough luck! Look, Max, this is pretty close to a sure thing. If things go wrong, a couple of Martians die. So what? But if things go right, we may have Mars. And if the M'starn want Earth, which side do you want to be on?"

  "But suppose they don't like us specifically? Suppose they would dispense with us anyway?"

  "Then they'll do it. If what we do doesn't affect the outcome, then that possible outcome can't affect our decision on what we do."

  "What do you know about them?" Reiner asked. He was not interested in the answer, but he needed time to think.

  "About the same as you, I suspect. From what I've gathered, they've taken over Mars, but they're not spending much time there themselves. They have a few soldiers there, who emerge from time to time to back up the Brownshirts, but provided the tithe is paid, they largely leave the settlers to their own devices."

  "I've heard that too."

  "Exactly," said Harvey, as he leaned back, fully confident that the battle was won. "See the opportunity? Our guys organize what the M'starn want. The M'starn have an easy time, and our men have first call on Martian resources. Later on, they can say they've kept the settlers alive. After all, it wouldn't be hard to put out the story that the M'starn were going to kill everyone anyway, but for the deal we made. What do you say?"

  "It's not right," Max shook his head slowly, although his expression showed that his objections had nothing to do with patriotism.

  "Yes it is, Max. You don't owe loyalty to the Federation. Some of those would wipe you out without a moment's thought, if they could. You owe them nothing, but you owe your corporation everything. Your duty is to do the best by your corporation, and nothing else. This gives your corporation everything. Nothing can go wrong, and there's everything to gain."

  "Everything?"

  "There's a new order coming, Max. You can either jump on early and get the gravy, or you can be swamped by it. No choice, in my book, and no second chance."

  "I suppose you're right," Reiner said, without conviction.

  "Don't suppose. Back your judgment man. Is there a flaw in anything I've said?"

  "Suppose the M'starn are beaten?"

  "Come off it?" laughed Harvey. "How in God's name could that happen? Look, I'll tell you something. I heard that on Mars a small group of settlers ambushed some of these M'starn with the very latest Earth weapons. And you know what happened?"

  "No?"

  "The beams were reflected off their body armour, and the ambushers got blasted with their own weapons! What do you think of that?"

  "Sounds incredible."

  "It happened. Look, these guys leave us for dead in terms of weapons. And just imagine where we might be if we can goad them into handing us some of that technology? Forget 'em losing, Max, and put your money where your brain tells you."

  "I guess so," Reiner said at last.

  "Does that mean you're in?"

  "I'm in," replied Max Reiner, "if for no other reason than that I've got to cover you."

  "Great. Let's build an empire out of this chaos. Now, this is what we have to do first . . . "

  Chapter 3

  Natasha Kotchetkova dreaded coming to New York for the Federation Council meetings. They were so debilitating, and generally so pointless. The truth of the matter was, she was the only Council member for whom power was not an aphrodisiac. Had she been able to tolerate the alternative, she would not have wished to be a Commissioner. Special meetings invariably meant special manoeuvres for special positions, which required hours of tiresome debate. Nevertheless, as she stepped into the shower and began to soap what was left of her tortured body, she had to accept that an invasion of Mars was a reasonable excuse to call a special meeting. Defence would be the topic, but the real agenda would be the quid pro quo deals, the suspicion of them, and the jealousies that would arise, and this would be coupled with the fear of virtually all present that their own privileges would soon terminate.

  It would be a difficult meeting, because, not unreasonably, Defence would be called upon to do something, and she had no idea what to do. Her first problem was that Earth appeared to be hopelessly outclassed technologically. Clearly, any civilization that could accelerate at several hundred g without being crushed, and who could destroy cubic kilometers of asteroid with what was presumably one shot made any possible contest a no-contest. So far, their weapons research had been far too academic; the strange matter could be effective, but it was so dangerous and might do so much more damage to the user than the enemy. The enemy had craft faster than anything on Earth. Even if the new drive was fitted to spacecraft, and even if it could be made to work in time, and even if each new drive did not turn itself into a mini nova, the acceleration would crush the crew. They could launch some robot-controlled ships with their new drive, but simple mathematics showed the command line would be too slow, and robots were too predictable to be left to their own devices.

  But there was much worse, for no wars had been fought for over two hundred years. The truth of the matter was that the warrior race was extinct. Defence maintained regular infantry forces, and highly efficient squads were available to put down any resurgence of terrorism, but they had now become little better than an enforcing police force. Those regular soldiers in the space forces were men or women who were too lacking in initiative to get a good job, anywhere. It was an unfortunate reality that her best space troops were untrained cadets. They, at least were not total losers, and they had not developed the bad habits of the others. Superficially there was no strategy available to her, but how could she present that statement to the Council?

  There were two choices: abject surrender, or fight, and only the second choice involved the question, how? If there was any lesson from history, it was that there was little point in concentrating force against technologically superior forces, for it simply made it easier for them to destroy your forces.

  Suppose she wanted to fight, what were her options? She could send out an 'invasion force' disguised in space junk. Since this had to be unpowered, and seen to be unpowered as opposed to having power switched off, the force would take a long time to get there, the troops would be in terrible condition, assuming they were even alive, and if one lot were captured, the strategy would become a trap for the remainder.

  The alternative was to do nothing, disperse the forces within the civilian population, and fight a guerrilla war. The enemy, however, had the option of totally destroying your population. They could turn the planet into glass, they could . . .

  Which raised the question, what exactly was their objective? All that they knew at the moment was that the enemy appeared to be rebuilding their fleet. What would happen then? They could turn the Earth into glass, but what good would that do them? Alternatively, they might just go away. The fact that they had conquered Mars meant what? They had handed the planet over to collaborators immediately, and seemed to have avoided all killing since then.

  If they merely wished to rebuild their fleet, then go away, her strategy was obvious. Earth would defend itself if and when it was attacked. There was, after all, no alternative. An aggressive strike against the enemy was totally out of the question.

  There was another advantage in waiting. Suppose they were rebuilding a fleet. Why? The implication was that they had run into someone even stronger, and maybe that someone would follow them, and . . . and become an even worse problem? Maybe she should try to negotiate,
but how, when they won't return calls, and with whom?

  She was slowly soaping under her left arm, when she paused in horror. No! Not again! She felt several times, and there was no mistake. The lumps were returning. Her life was now limited to no more than eighteen months, and perhaps much less. She leaned forward and began sobbing. Nothing could be done for her now; the previous battle had nearly killed her, and it had been a miracle she had survived. Unfortunately it had not been a complete recovery, because she had to pay the price for all the pieces that had been removed. The battle could not be fought again.

  Ten minutes later, she grimly returned to the business of showering. She had made some basic decisions. She would die; of that there was no question. But perhaps her death could have meaning. When she died, M'starn would die as well. In some ways, she realized, there is no more dangerous an opponent than one who has already acknowledged themself as dead.

  * * *

  Natasha took her seat at the Council table. As usual, there was the almost inevitable chatter as small groups discussed mutual interests. Natasha always avoided these discussions; she realized that if she kept aloof, the power of Defence was regarded as a neutral entity. As usual, she opened her briefcase, and had the papers for the meeting in front of her, but this time her eyes refused to focus. The lump under her armpit was so obvious. How could she not have noticed it until today? How long had it been like this? How fast was it growing? There was an itch on her arm, and she brushed at it. She struck a hand.

  "Natasha, I was wondering . . ." Natasha looked up emptily, to see Elizabeth Garrett. She must have been touching her arm, trying to get attention.

  "Yes?" Natasha said, flatly, as she desperately tried to conceal her feeling of despair.

  "This war. I was wondering if I could be of any assistance. Perhaps . . ."

  "I'll explain the situation soon," Natasha said, with a touch of irritation. She had been wondering how long it would take someone to try to advance his or her own cause by offering help.

  "I see," came the flat reply. "Well, if there's anything I can do . . ."

  "Thank you. I'll keep it in mind." Was another lump getting itchier?

  "I'm having a soiree this evening," Elizabeth offered. "I would really be pleased if you could come."

  "Thank you, but no."

  Elizabeth stared at the figure before her. Kotchetkova was not even looking at her. Her face was expressionless, and she was deliberately ignoring her advance. So be it!

  * * *

  "The situation on Mars is naturally unclear on detail," Commissioner Kotchetkova began her address. Her voice was flat, and she felt almost disinterested in the events, yet she noted that, for the first time at such a meeting, she had their undivided attention. "Some transmissions have been sent to Earth, and in essence, this is what we believe has happened. At about noon at the Tarsis colony, a transmission was received from one of three large space vehicles that had appeared in the Mars sector. It stated that Mars was now under the military control of the M'starn High Command. Each colony was to acknowledge their surrender, within one hour. To demonstrate their power and their intent, they would, forthwith, destroy the Tarsis colony.

  "Within ten seconds of the end of the message, the transmission showed a beam weapon of unknown technology being deployed onto the Tarsis dome, which was immediately destroyed. As you know, this dome was of some substance, and was designed to resist small meteors, or at least self-seal under such attack. However, the entire dome was destroyed almost instantly, and the entire dome atmosphere was lost. As you are aware, at that pressure, water immediately boils, and all settlers not in pressure suits, or in buildings that self-seal, would be immediately killed. We understand that about seventy per cent of the settlers died then.

  "The M'starn transmitted a video record of this onto all the televisions and Comscreens on Mars, so everyone knew what was happening. The M'starn then showed a landing party go into the Tarsis settlement with hand weapons and methodically destroy all the pressurized buildings. Some settlers had got into pressurized suits and tried to organise a defence, but it turned out their weapons were totally ineffectual and they were all slaughtered.

  "A few settler families got into vehicles and attempted to escape. Most of these were destroyed from space, although it is possible that a few families escaped.

  "At the end of this butchery, the M'starn Command informed the remaining settlers that unless they totally complied with M'starn orders within one hour, the same would happen to them. Needless to say, the remaining settlements surrendered." She turned towards the Commissioner for Mars, and nodded to him, "Let me say at once that they had absolutely no choice. There should be no recriminations over the actions of those settlers. They have no known way of defending themselves at this moment.

  "Having said that," the Commissioner continued, "there is one puzzle. After the initial subjugation, it appears that the aliens had overlooked the settlement at Theppot. This, as you all know, is at the lowest point of the Hellas impact crater, and is the one settlement on Mars that comprises only a minor fraction under domes, and could in principle survive without them. It appears that a week passed before the M'starn became fully aware of their presence. A force went down there and returned, apparently leaving Theppot unoccupied provided that Theppot remain neutral. We have had one communication from them that indicated that all Theppotians were alive and requested to be left in isolation without communication from Earth, and, in order to preserve their neutrality, without any requests from us for aid to fight the M'starn. I have acceded to their request."

  "Why?" a corporate asked. "Surely they are ideally place to help fight these . . ."

  "Because we can't protect them," Commissioner Kotchetkova scowled. "I don't know why they've been left alone, but it seems that in part the M'starn don't need them, and it is reasonably obvious that the Theppotians offer no threat to the M'starn. On the other hand, from what we know of the technology of their space fleet, they could turn Theppot into a pool of molten glass, exterminating all life. If we turn them into a threat, we have to defend them, and we can't.

  "That is basically the position. I might add that we know almost nothing of the M'starn, other than that, as is obvious to all of you, they come from somewhere else. No human has, as far as I know, seen one other than in a pressure suit. I suppose we can say they are about the same size as humans, and they have two legs, two arms, hands, and a head, with two eyes looking forward. However, as you know, on biophysical grounds this is the most obvious pattern for the evolution of a technological race.

  "They have technology far ahead of ours, and as is fairly obvious, they have made some study of our abilities. They have learned a reasonable amount of our language, and by now we can assume they have studied our physiological needs fairly thoroughly. We know they want a tithe of labour, and the first shipment of young people have gone. They also want a tithe of minerals, and it is not clear what is happening on this score. As you know, Mars is not particularly well explored geologically, and I'm not sure the settlers are capable of delivering with what they've got. I'm sorry, but that's about all we know." She felt relieved; the speech had gone reasonably well, and she was now certain her strength would allow her to last the meeting.

  "What do they eat?"

  "Fair question," Natasha replied. "We have no idea. We know they need water, but they've made no attempt to take it from Mars."

  "Where're they based?"

  "No idea," Natasha lied smoothly. "Not that there's much we could do about it if we did know," she added truthfully. "We are reasonably certain they will have a base in the solar system, though."

  "How come?"

  "They come and go, and communicate. If we assume they are limited to light speed, there is no other star system physically close enough to permit communications."

  "Is that assumption valid?"

  "According to our physics, yes. If they're not valid, then we're in an even worse situation than we feared."

&nb
sp; "Where're you getting your information from?" She turned to see Harvey Munro staring at her. He seemed strangely tense, he seemed to be gripping his pen very firmly, and it seemed as if this question was of great importance to him.

  "A small minerals exploration team has sent reports back." As Natasha said that she noticed a sign of acute embarrassment on the face of Reiner from MinCorp. More curious, she thought.

  "Our people have sent reports to you?" Reiner asked in a perplexed tone.

  "No," Natasha replied with a smile. "They were Commission people, who had some Defence training." She paused, then turned towards an uncomfortable Reiner, "I didn't know MinCorp was allowed to work on Mars."

  "They don't," Reiner replied unconvincingly. Natasha noted that Munro was glaring furiously at him. Why? Surely not just because there were corporate people on Mars. While they weren't supposed to be there, everyone knew they were.

  "These people," came another questioner, "will they keep informing us?"

  "I don't know," Natasha replied. "They've been instructed to move around and stay in hiding. Every transmission is dangerous, because it gives away the location, so we've suggested they find some spots to arrange transmissions well away from their living quarters, and only transmit really important information."

  "Where are they based?" Munro asked.

  "Why do you want to know that?" Natasha replied, quizzically.

  "Just curious," the GenCorp Man replied smoothly. "This council has policy to set, and we have to know our situation."