Miranda's Demons

by Ian Miller

  Natasha was beginning to have second thoughts about the wisdom of this exercise. Gaius had wanted her to wait until the barrier was down and Jennifer was healed, but Natasha had maintained that Harvey was a problem of their own time. Gaius had only intended to come to neutralize the M'starn technology, and by bringing down the barrier, that would be his role.

  "There's one more thing," Jennifer had whispered. "There's some type of acoustic device in his office. It neutralizes laser weapons."

  "But how?"

  "When energy is stored in a crystal," Jennifer had said. "The ultrasonic waves detect the strain, and the feedback to the M'starn crystal immediately causes it to pour out more energy. The ultrasonic waves apparently cause the crystals in lasers to vibrate in such a way that the strain increases, causing an even greater outpouring of energy, until the energy can't be contained, and the crystals in laser rifles disintegrate."

  It all made sense, but it also hinted at a solution. It even explained why Jennifer had selected an old-fashioned automatic rifle. If true, it also meant that there was only one weapon available to fight with, which meant that one person only need go. If the M'starn weapon worked on feedback, then the question then was, which system was the stronger? She would bet on Ulsian. Even then, the odds would be one against four, which were not good odds, except that only Munro himself controlled weapons. Munro trusted nobody, and that would be his biggest weakness. The ultrasonic weapon had also given Natasha an idea. She had taken a pair of M'starn earmuffs, and with the aid of the remaining power in Gaius' Krezell wand she had fashioned a pair for herself. Gaius was puzzled, and Natasha had been pleased. She had a solution that Gaius could not see. It had made her feel so good at the time, but she realized now that that had been vanity, which could be her weakness.

  Gaius had seen her determination, and had accepted what she had said, almost without further comment. "I'll have the barrier down," he had said, "then I'll come and give you a hand."

  The entrance to the command centre was before her. A quick check showed the corridor was empty. Natasha slipped the safety catch off and dashed to the door. She flung the door open and swung the weapon around. There was nothing. It was a small room, almost like an air lock. She sensed the danger, and flung herself back as the outer door began to close. She reached for her knife, and dug it deeply into the hydraulic hose. Oil began to spurt everywhere, and the pressure from the door was gone. She flung open the next door, and leaped into the room.

  The scene before her would remain almost as a still frame for the rest of her life. The communications officer's face was sheer bewilderment, Munro was standing, dressed in total black, his face almost sneering at her, the second adjutant's face was covered in fearful realization, but the first adjutant, although totally surprised, carried the expression of a racing mind.

  "Don't anyone move!" Natasha ordered, then suddenly the significance of the black struck her. M'starn body armour. She leaned against the doorway, and aimed at Munro. "It goes for you, Harvey. I can still shoot your face away."

  Munro's face froze. Then the sneer returned. Out of the corner of her eye, Natasha saw the first adjutant reach for a laser rifle. As she saw the weapon come up, even though she was almost certain of the outcome, she had to take cover. As she dived, she saw Munro dive below his desk. There was a blinding flash from the first adjutant, a scream as the weapon disintegrated, and the man fell forward, clutching what was left of his chest.

  "I guess your boss forgot to tell you about that," Natasha said to the other two men. "There's no weapon here you can use against me that won't destroy the user, so you'd better think about surrendering."

  "Kill her," Munro's voice said harshly, "or I'll kill you." As Natasha expected, the black masked head looked up from behind the desk.

  "If you want to defend yourself," Natasha offered the two men, "stab him with something."

  "You've got nothing to do it with yourself, though, have you," Munro sneered. "Killing you now, slowly, is going to give me a lot of pleasure. And for you, there's no escape. You forgot to disable the second door."

  "I wanted that second door shut," Natasha laughed. It was partly a hollow laugh, hopefully to put doubt in Munro's mind, but also partly a laugh of relief; if Munro could answer, he could hear, and that meant he had not adjusted the M'starn earmuffs for his own head. Natasha took a deep breath. It was time to put her plan into action. If this did not work, all she had was her knife. But first, she was going to give Munro something to think about. She pointed the rifle at the communications equipment and fired. Sparks flew, then the screens splattered, sending showers of glass around the terrified operator. Then she poured a hail of bullets into the desk control unit, two more bullets into the giant wall screen, then she flicked the switches beside the door. The room was plunged into darkness, the only light being the ghostly light from the windows. With that facemask, without the eyepieces fully adjusted, Munro would be blind.

  She took her Krezell wand and sent it towards the centre of the room. Even though she could not see it, she knew it would be correctly placed. She thought top C, and a pleasing tone filled the room. She raised the amplitude, and she could sense there was no strain on the wand. She thought overtones, and tried up to ten. Nothing. Munro was feeling about his desk for something. Natasha tried an F sharp, and again ran up the overtones, going even higher. Nothing. An A flat. Nothing. An E flat. Luck! On the ninth overtone, a dull throbbing filled the room. She adjusted the frequency slightly, and the beats raised their frequency. She placed the headphones on, and raised the amplitude.

  She lowered the frequency slightly, and the whole room began to vibrate. More and more power poured through the wand to resonate with the M'starn crystals, until she could feel it straining. More power was induced from the M'starn device, and the vibrations became almost unbearable. Items crashed from the walls. Then the frequency was slowly raised. Windows cracked and exploded outwards. Suddenly Munro's body began to twitch. A slight raising of the frequency, and had anyone been able to hear it over the deafening high pitched beats, a relatively low pitched scream would have shown the start of his pain. The silhouette against the window rose to its feet, its hands pressing against its head, as the body waved and twitched. It began tearing at the suit. First the headpiece, then the body armour was peeled away as Munro desperately tried to avoid the resonances.

  Natasha stopped the sound, returned the wand, and flicked on the light switches. Only two of the lights were still functional, but they gave enough light to see Harvey Munro's frame drooped across a water heater, his hands still clutching his ears. She strode across the room, and realizing that he was probably deaf, she pulled his head back. His eyes saw the barrel of defeat, his frame crumpled, and he fell to the floor whimpering.

  There was a movement behind her, and she turned. The door had been flung inwards, and Gaius was standing there, his mouth opening and shutting. It was then she realized she still had the earmuffs on. She pulled them off and said, with a slight grin, "What was that?"

  "I was just saying," Gaius smiled as he looked around the room, "that I believed it was still an acceptable custom to open a door for a lady. Seeing it's the only thing that isn't completely demolished in this room, I guess it's all I could do. As an aside, have you got who you came for?"

  "Behold, Harvey Munro," Natasha said, prodding the whimpering frame on the floor.

  "He doesn't look much," Gaius said, with a wink to Natasha.

  "He isn't now," Natasha said, "but I don't think he can hear you."

  "I gather you used those muffs," Gaius nodded in bewilderment as he looked around the room. "Now, let's get out of here. I've got the barrier down, and you might smell smoke."

  "There is smoke," Natasha nodded. "Did I start that?"

  "No," Gaius laughed. "Mind you, it might be the only thing you didn't do. The bottom quarter of the building's on fire, and it's only a matter of time before the whole lot goes. We'll get the M'starn vessel out, while everybody else eva
cuates. It looks like it's been a successful night."

  Chapter 23

  Tiny bright red surfaces stood out from the inky black, to grow and brighten, to show themselves as dune-tops and rocks. The black began to take shades, and fade around the higher ground, but remain deep into the depressions. As the sun began to rise over the southern part of Chryse Planitia, the ancient watercourse before the four land cruisers began to take shape. The side of one of the land cruisers opened, and a number of suited figures were thrown out, to fall down the side of the watercourse. As the door of the cruiser closed, the first of the figures made its way back to the top. It charged towards the door, and began beating furiously on it, but the door did not open. Then the figure doubled up, the hands clutched its head, and it fell to the ground to writhe, to roll, twitch violently, shudder, then roll into a dreadful contortion. It lay still for a few minutes, then a figure emerged from another cruiser to recover the suit and the body. The body was to be taken away for processing, to recover all carbon compounds. Further figures emerged to recover those bodies from the watercourse. Those who had sold their planet were punished by their planet.

  "I have no sympathy for any of them," Misako said bleakly, "but I wish I wasn't the one who had to do that."

  "You didn't do that, President Shibatu," Lawrence Baxter shrugged.

  "Misako, please, at least in private. And if I didn't have responsibility, who did?"

  "You weren't responsible. They were, with their actions, and the justice system did the rest."

  "I declined their appeals."

  "Because there were no grounds. I also thought the message you sent Tony Munro reflected what most Martians thought of the likes of him too."

  "'Mercy: as ye have dispensed, thus shall ye receive.'"

  "Exactly. I think that struck just the right chord. Everybody on Mars supported these executions."

  "So I can only go downhill now," Misako nodded.

  "There's an awful lot of good things you'll do yet."

  "I'm not so sure about that," Misako said sadly. "The fact is, I haven't a clue where to start."

  "Of course you do," Lawrence said supportively. "If you weren't President, what would you want to do most of all?"

  "Go back to Hellas," Misako said sadly. "What else do you expect?"

  "Exactly," Lawrence said, "so your first announcement from Chryse should be that the return home of the trekkers will start as soon as feasible."

  "I suppose that's obvious," Misako nodded, "but what then?"

  "Ask yourself what you'd want when you get back," Baxter said. "You're lucky. There's so much that's obvious to do, just to get back to normal, and you've got the entire community behind you. Just do the obvious, and see it's done fairly, and you'll be the great President that began the new era."

  "The new era! Don't worry," Misako laughed. "It won't be long before things are boringly the same again."

  "I don't think so," Baxter said. "I think we've got more hope now. Come and have a look down the valley."

  "I don't want to look at those men," Misako shuddered. "While that may have had to be done, that doesn't mean I liked doing it."

  "That's not what I want to show you. Come and look."

  Misako walked to the window. Below was the watercourse, red and black, with a sheet of white frost across the bottom. "What is it?" she asked, in puzzlement.

  "I've never seen a frost anything like that before on Mars," Baxter said in triumph.

  "You're not telling me the place is getting colder?" Misako groaned.

  "On the contrary, it's getting warmer, thanks to our Roman friend."

  "How?"

  "He said this might happen. Remember how he disintegrated the M'starn hulks and some of the black rocks? Apparently there's several hundred thousand tonnes of black stuff that's dropped onto Mars, and that's supposed to absorb more heat. Then all the fighting has broken up a lot of permafrost, and thrown the water into the atmosphere. We've got a long way to go yet, but according to Gaius, things could move quite quickly."

  "But the frost?"

  "The bigger frost means there's more water in the air, and that means it's warmer. Not only that, but the water is a bit like a blanket. As it freezes, it gives out heat, which means the temperatures don't drop nearly as much at night."

  "But it needs a corresponding amount of heat to melt the frost the next day," Misako shrugged. "Minus forty all day isn't much better than minus eighty some of the night."

  "Yes it is. Once you hold it no worse than minus a hundred, the carbon dioxide stops freezing out, so everything that goes into the air stays there. Then when the frost melts, you get liquid water, for just a little time, but this will liberate more oxygen from the soil and darken it, and that'll absorb more heat, and that'll let out more water and carbon dioxide, which will absorb more heat through the greenhouse effect, which will allow more cacti to grow and absorb more heat, and so on. Don't you see what this means?"

  "It'll take a long time to get an atmosphere," Misako laughed. "Don't get too carried away."

  "That's not the point," Baxter laughed. "What is the point is that the changes will be visible, and for the better. Everyone will notice the frosts. As the years go by, the atmospheric pressure will be seen to be rising. Soon we might get some more plants outside. People will see slow but steady signs of improvement. You will have the easiest term of any President. The fact that Mars will never be Earth-like is beside the point, because that won't be obvious in your presidency, except for those who can do the maths. What will be obvious is that Mars is developing into a better Mars. Sure, there's a lot of things to be done, but everybody will be willing and the spirits will be high. Misako! It's wonderful. We've got a future!"

  "Yes," Misako said tiredly. "If only Haruhiko could be here with me to enjoy it.

  Chapter 24

  "You mewling fools," Harvey Munro scowled. "You've paraded me, you've had your fun, but it only lasts so long. Now you'll see why it won't do you any good. Kill me now, and your little parade will be seen as a cheap publicity trick. Don't kill me, and there's nowhere you can keep me where I won't be back."

  It was easy to dismiss this as bravado, Natasha thought, but there was an awful lot of truth in what he had said. Somehow, everything was going wrong. The taking of Munro had captured the headlines, just as had been planned. It was almost as if a breath of hope had been injected into the entire world as the man who had been feared perhaps above any other was forced to march through the streets of New York. People who had been too afraid to look sideways at his image had emerged from their boltholes to hurl abuse, derision, and rotten fruit. The story of the Martian treachery had sent all the corporate leaders into retreat. The stories of heroism were told everywhere; how Marisa had overpowered the treacherous Streckov to lead the fight and smoke the dreaded Munros from their lair, how Harry's gallant band had taken the rooftop defences, then led the daring rescue down the side of the scraper to bring Garrett, Reiner, their band, and Munro's men from the inferno.

  The victor from all this appeared to be Elizabeth Garrett. She, Natasha Kotchetkova, was certainly in the headlines. Her official funeral was next week! The situation was definitely not proceeding according to plan, or at least not to her plan. Now, Gaius had taken it upon himself to propose the solution to the problem of Munro. Why he had chosen this meeting was unclear. To invite Gelemt was understandable, perhaps. To invite the M'starn leader was obscure. To invite the Kuyrills was irregular, and to have Ranhynn guards outside was almost incomprehensible. To invite Harry and Marisa was confused, because although they had been very useful, they had no formal importance. Then to omit any Terran official, or at least a recognizably live one, did not seem to be very politically astute, and to have Winters keeping all other Terrans from the building was little better than insulting.

  "Harvey Munro," Gaius spoke, as he rose to his feet. "The meeting has considered your plea."

  "What plea?" came the arrogant scowl.

  "We ha
ve concluded there is much truth in your assertion as to the trouble you intend to inflict on Terran society, and we have decided that we cannot permit this to occur. You will spend the rest of your life fed and clothed, but you will be kept in a place where you can no longer be a problem."

  "There's no such place."

  "I think there is," Gaius shrugged. "Where I have in mind is about six hundred light years from here. You," and now Gaius turned towards the M'starn leader, "can drop him off as you pass by?"

  "That is a small price for a passage home," the black figure bowed.

  "Good," Gaius nodded, and turned towards Harvey, "You will be safe, if you arrive. There's a sort of penal zoo –"

  "No!" Harvey shrieked. His face went white. "You can't –"

  "You're entitled to your opinion," Gaius said with a shrug of indifference, "but I think you'll find –"

  "Please! Please! Look, we can do a deal, right?" Harvey was virtually on his knees.

  "Wrong," came the cold reply.

  "I know all sorts of things," Harvey continued. The desperation was showing, and beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. "There's all sorts of things you need to know. You want to rule, right?"

  "Wrong."

  "Natasha! Please, make him change his mind. I know you want to be President, and I can make it happen. Just –"

  "Gaius, please get rid of him –" Natasha began.

  "Of course. Harry, please escort Munro to the door. There're guards there who know what to do."

  "No! You can't! Natasha! I –"

  "All of that nonsense has been totally disregarded," Gelempt nodded towards Natasha.

  "You all know I have ambitions," Natasha said, almost with embarrassment, "but that doesn't mean –"

  "Of course it doesn't," Gelempt nodded.

  "There's nothing wrong with ambition," Gaius agreed. "It's just how you go about achieving it. There's no similarity between you and him. Just ignore him, because we all have."