Life on Mars

by Jonathan Strahan (Ed)

  “The settlers here are good people,” said Sahar.

  “Except Jirair,” grumbled Tiro.

  Sahar looked chagrined. “Some people are damaged by their pasts. There’s a lot they can do with psychological programming these days, but . . . Jirair was your age when he came here as a runaway. He’d been kidnapped by a gang who murdered his parents and forced him to scout for new victims. He’s convinced the same thing will happen here. The settlement has always weathered strikes by poachers, but three years ago, a gang convoy mounted a full attack. Naghmeh dealt with them. But ever since then, Jirair has seen any traveler, even merchants, as a threat. His housemates say he wakes screaming from dreams where we’ve all been slaughtered.”

  Tiro rubbed his wrists, remembering the manacles. “He still shouldn’t treat people like that.”

  Sahar looked away. “Some people think anything is justified if they’re certain they’re right.”

  That night, Sahar warned him that she’d be coming early the next morning. “Why?” asked Tiro. “Is it my arbitration?”

  Sahar shook her head. “It’s time you met Naghmeh.”

  Sahar woke Tiro before dawn. They navigated the maze of her house, finally emerging on a rooftop observatory beneath the translucent curve of the dome.

  “Naghmeh is everywhere the computer is, of course,” Sahar said, “but the settlers prefer their privacy, so we ask her to speak only in certain places. This is my favorite, close to the sky.”

  “How do I talk to her?” Tiro asked.

  “Just talk.”

  Tiro edged forward. “Hi.”

  A breathy voice whispered from the nearby audio outputs. “Hi.”

  “Why does she sound like that?” Tiro asked Sahar.

  Sahar shrugged. “Caprice.”

  Tiro wandered between shining pieces of observatory equipment. “Sahar says you’re with my brother.”

  “I am.” With a laugh, she added, “He’s sparkly!”

  “Sparkly?”

  “All over spark-raining! Showers and showers. Luminosity spikes like radiant flow.”

  Tiro balked. He looked at Sahar for an explanation.

  “They see things differently than we do,” said Sahar.

  “I guess so.” Tiro wondered if Eo saw things differently, too. He never said so, but was he trying to make himself seem normal for his family? Tiro looked up at one of the speakers. “Can I talk to my brother?”

  A whir. “Later, maybe,” said Naghmeh.

  “What are you two doing together?”

  “I’m showing him around. We go here. We go there.” The outputs blared a bash song overlaid by high-pitched chatter. Noisemakers sounded in the background. “It’s a party!”

  “Are you showing him how to make plants?”

  The party noises disappeared. The voice became whiny. “We just want to play. I work hard enough, don’t I?”

  “Doesn’t the computer do the work?”

  An elephant brayed, which seemed to be the equivalent of Eo’s icon of a kid blowing a raspberry. “Isn’t your body doing your breathing?”

  “You work very hard,” interjected Sahar with a peacemaker’s tone.

  “Eo’s more interested in learning about machines anyway,” said Naghmeh.

  “Naghmeh,” Sahar went on, “what would you think if someone said you could have a body?”

  “A me-extension to make me mobile?”

  “No, a human kind of body, not part of the network.”

  “A me-extension would be vroom! Mobile-network-me could prank and chat and fun.” She paused. “Work more, too, if I had body and network.”

  “But humans can’t do that. This body would do only what humans can. Would you want that?”

  “For keeps or for play?”

  “Keeps. You couldn’t leave. You’d be in the body all the time.”

  “Why?”

  “So you could think and act like we do.”

  “There’s no scarcity of you, but there’s scarcity of me. You should give up your bodies and live with me.”

  “There’s nothing you’d want about being in a body?”

  A pause. “Might be fun a while.”

  “But not forever?”

  “Forever?” Naghmeh’s voice rose with distress. “Why be small in oneplace onemind onethought?”

  A cacophony of bird and animal noises poured from the outputs.

  “Why trapbe?” asked Naghmeh. “Why cagebe? Why prisonbe?”

  The screeches grew deafening. Eo had never acted like this. Was this what Sahar meant by seeing things differently? Would Eo be like this if they let him stay on the networks? Tiro slapped his hands over his ears, but the noise kept mounting.

  “Naghmeh!” shouted Sahar. “Please! Quiet down!”

  The noise waned, replaced by quiet keening. Sahar paced to one of the outputs, running her fingers over the mesh as if caressing an infant’s cheek. “Shh, Naghmeh. I’m sorry we upset you.”

  When Sahar came to Tiro’s room later, her eyes were red.

  “Is Naghmeh okay?” Tiro asked.

  Sahar nodded. Her fingers fretted at her cuffs, nails bitten and raw. “Do you understand now why you can’t force Eo into a body?”

  Tiro didn’t want to meet her gaze. “He has to become what he was supposed to be.”

  Sahar’s expression looked almost as sad as his father’s. Wordlessly, she turned and left him alone.

  The next day, the elders scheduled Tiro’s arbitration.

  Sahar pestered him so much that Tiro didn’t even feel relieved when she returned his space suit.

  “You need to reconsider,” she pleaded. “You’re acting like Jirair. You know that? You’re so certain it’s right for Eo to have a body that you’ll do anything to get him one, even hurt him.”

  “You just want Eo to grow your plants,” Tiro snapped, switching off his receiver.

  The second dome was smaller than Sahar’s. Rows of flowers created a maze of red, blue, and yellow. The hexagonal meetinghouse rose above the other buildings like a megalith.

  They stopped by the entrance to remove their suits. Sahar shot Tiro a worried look that would have annoyed him if his heart hadn’t been pounding.

  Inside, a smoky scent drifted toward the exposed rafters. The three elders sat on wooden stools, their gray robes sweeping the floor.

  Sahar bowed from the waist. “This is Tiro. His brother is the lifted child—”

  “Thank you, Sahar,” said the female elder on the right. “You may go now.”

  Sahar opened her mouth to object, but reconsidered. “I bid you good judgment.” She bowed again before departing.

  The door closed, leaving silence in its wake. Tiro shifted, waiting for the elders to speak.

  “I’m sorry I stole the food,” he ventured. “After I finish in Kaseishi, I’ll come work it off.”

  The elders exchanged glances. The man on the left said, “Sahar and Naghmeh spoke on your behalf. Accept it as our gift.”

  A prickle crept up Tiro’s spine. “Why?”

  The middle elder leaned forward, the beaded ends of his braids clattering across his back. “We hope you’ll feel grateful and return with your brother,” he said. “We would also welcome your parents.”

  “They’re dead,” said Tiro.

  “They aren’t.”

  “They—”

  The left-hand elder lifted his palm to halt Tiro’s protest. “We understand why you lied. We don’t begin adulthood at fourteen here. But you are not one of us, and we accept that our rules don’t apply.”

  “Though Sahar does not,” interjected the woman. “She wanted us to permit her to contact your parents.”

  The middle elder pinned Tiro with a firm gaze. “It would violate our ethics to do as she asked. Nevertheless, we urge you to consider our offer.”

  Tiro swallowed. “Thank you, but my brother and I must go to Kaseishi.”

  With a sigh, the middle elder reached into his voluminous sleeve. He withdrew
a data globe. “You may use this at any interface to speak with your brother.”

  Uneasily, Tiro reached for the globe. “Is that all?”

  The middle elder nodded. “That is all.”

  Tiro’s fingers closed around the globe. He fled before the elders could change their minds.

  Once outside, he rushed to put on his suit. He ran for the nearest interface, forcing the globe into its input recess.

  The globe lit up. Text scrolled across his visor. Tiro!

  Eo! Are you okay?

  Did you know we can race more than a thousand times per second? I beat Naghmeh more than half the time! She showed me this engine trick that works out-world, too, and—

  Race what? said Tiro. Never mind. Tell me later. We have to go now.

  Blankness followed.

  Come on, Eo, get in the globe. We have to go to Kaseishi.

  Maybe later, wrote Eo. I’m having fun.

  We won’t be able to go later.

  But I like Naghmeh.

  We don’t have time! Tiro stopped, breathing deeply to calm himself. Now wasn’t the time to upset Eo. Can we talk alone? I don’t want anyone listening. This is private, you know?

  A brothers thing? asked Eo.

  A brothers thing, Tiro agreed. Please move into the globe?

  The lights on the data globe blinked rapidly as Eo moved inside. Tiro waited until they held a steady color before yanking the globe from its recess. He switched it into energy-saving mode. The lights dimmed as it entered hibernation.

  “Sorry, Eo,” Tiro whispered.

  Hastily, he sealed his helmet and headed for the nearest exit. He had to reach the skipper before Sahar or Naghmeh realized what he’d done.

  When the settlement was out of sight, Tiro placed the data globe in the skipper’s pit. Its lights brightened, but no words appeared on Tiro’s visor.

  Eo? wrote Tiro. Come on, talk to me.

  Nothing crossed Tiro’s vision but endless dust.

  I’m doing this for you, Eo. You were born into a body. You should have the chance to grow up in one. It’s what our parents want.

  Nothing appeared. Hours passed under the skipper’s wheels.

  They stopped at dusk. Tiro warmed some frozen rations from Sahar’s settlement. After supper, he strapped himself into the driver’s seat, lowering the skipper’s energy output to the minimum required for heat and oxygen.

  He woke to see the sun’s rays mounting the horizon. The stale air smelled of food and plastic. He considered breakfast, but didn’t want to stay in one place any longer. He initialized the skipper and started driving.

  At first, Tiro had been enraptured by the landscape’s shifting, ruddy hues. Now, travel just made him tired. As morning seeped into afternoon, he began to drowse.

  Sometime later, he woke with a start. Text scrolled across his vision. Tiro. He blinked, wondering if he was dreaming—but no, it was real. Tiro, stop the skipper. Go to low energy. Now!

  Tiro didn’t pause to think. His hands moved rapidly across the machinery, cutting the skipper into silent mode. He shivered as the nonessential heating dissipated, leaving bitter cold.

  What is it, Eo? Tiro asked.

  Gang convoy, wrote Eo. They’ll be visible in...20...17...15...

  Gang convoy? Where?

  Northeast. 5...3...

  Tiro shrank in his seat as the convoy rumbled past. Skippers zoomed alongside thunders and ground-eaters. Some vehicles were huge, armored like enormous beetles. All were painted red as Mars dust, the color of the landscape, the color of blood.

  They’re headed toward Sahar’s settlement, Tiro wrote when they were past.

  I know, wrote Eo.

  We’re lucky they didn’t see us.

  I know that, too.

  There’s no point in going back. There’s nothing we can do.

  Eo fell silent.

  Tiro swallowed. The gang will be there long before we can. Everyone would be dead by the time we arrived.

  That would be true, wrote Eo, except Naghmeh taught me how to make the skipper go a lot faster.

  A lot faster?

  Eo sent an enormous, toothy grin. Ohhhhhhhhh yeah.

  They parked the skipper behind the warehouses. Jirair lay panting in the dirt nearby, a comfort palm frond wrapped around his leg.

  “You,” said Jirair as Tiro approached. “The elders said they invited you to stay. You came back?”

  Tiro nodded. Now didn’t seem like the time to get into why he’d run away.

  “I guess you’re as good as one of us now. For as long as there is an us.” He jerked his head toward Tiro’s skipper. “Get out before you get killed.”

  “You’re injured,” Tiro said.

  “My suit is ripped. Not that it’ll matter when I run out of oxygen . . .”

  Tiro hated being forced to help Jirair, but he knelt beside him anyway and plugged their suits together. “If you need more air, find my skipper. It has a two week supply. Will the palm keep your suit sealed?”

  Jirair nodded, savoring a deep breath.

  “Where are the others?”

  “Hostage in the garden dome. I kept running while they shot at me, grabbed a frond, and got out. I’d rather die out here than . . .” He trailed off.

  Tiro looked up at the domes. The gang vehicles were parked around them in an enormous red mass, like fire ants swarming a kill.

  “Can you walk?” Tiro asked Jirair. “I’ll need help.”

  Tiro offered his hand to help Jirair stand. After a moment’s hesitation, Jirair accepted, but as he pushed onto his bad leg, something made a snapping sound.

  Jirair choked off a scream. Panting with pain he said, “I warned them! I told them the gang would come back. I told them Naghmeh can’t be our only protection. They wouldn’t listen.” Jirair punched the igloo wall, dislodging a cascade of ice.

  “Then tell me what to do.”

  “There’s nothing. They’re trained fighters.”

  “There must be something. Tell me what you know.”

  “There’s nothing! Naghmeh runs all our security. They’ve trapped her.”

  “How?”

  Tiro coaxed the story from him. Three years ago, a gang convoy had attacked the settlement. Naghmeh took control of their network. She fired their weapons randomly, killing some, disabling others, and forcing the rest to hurl their defenses away. She used the vehicles to herd the infantry, the drivers helpless to control their rebeling machines.

  Jirair had warned the settlers that the gang would nurse a grudge. “A well-trained force they could have understood,” Jirair said. “But this was an insult, a challenge to their prowess.”

  Sahar and other respected settlers had argued that it didn’t matter. Naghmeh’s relationship with the settlement computer was unique. As long as they didn’t know what Naghmeh was, they couldn’t fight her.

  They remained confident when the convoy began offering a reward for information about settlement security. But someone—no one knew who—had betrayed them all.

  The gang arrived with a program that was designed to invade the network and seek Nagmeh out, enfolding her in a coded prison that protected itself by creating the illusion that it was the portion of the system where Naghmeh lived. Naghmeh didn’t even know she was trapped.

  “I’ve seen these work on simple AIs,” Jirair said, “but never something sophisticated enough to fool Naghmeh. They must have bought the technology from Earth. The settlement’s not that wealthy. . . . They must really want us dead. . . .” He shook his head, his expression hard-worn beneath his visor. “If you could get her back in control—but you can’t.”

  Jirair must have been in considerable pain from his wound, but the plight of the colony seemed to be causing him even more pain than that. Tiro almost understood why Jirair had threatened to torture him. Sometimes you’d do anything to protect what you loved.

  He glanced at his brother’s data globe, strengthening his resolve. “Maybe I can.”

  Can th
ey trap you like they did Naghmeh? Tiro asked as he trudged toward the domes.

  They don’t even know I’m here. Get me to an interface.

  They’ll know you’re there if you get into the network. They got Naghmeh and she’s been doing this a lot longer than you!

  She didn’t know they were coming. The gang could trap me now because I don’t have any defenses, but if I get into the network, I can trounce them. Just get me to an interface!

  Luck was with them for now. The attackers had been warned to expect one computer enhanced by a lifted child. They would never expect a second.

  Sneaking through the vehicle perimeter was easier than Tiro thought it would be. The drivers were relying on their vehicles’ security. Eo confused the scans, telling Tiro when to duck to avoid visual confirmation sweeps.

  Isn’t it dangerous for you to interfere with their systems? asked Tiro. Won’t they find you?

  Not if we move fast.

  They emerged near Sahar’s dome. Tiro searched for her private entrance. She had told him it was guarded by security that even his brother couldn’t break. If that meant Naghmeh, then it would be undefended now. But what if it wasn’t?

  Detect anything? Tiro asked.

  No, said Eo, but Tiro couldn’t help thinking of the last time he’d been wrong.

  The air lock opened with a smooth hiss. Tiro’s heart pounded as he went through both doors and entered the dome, the ground cover springy beneath his boots. He opened his helmet’s circulation to admit dome air, inhaling the scent of flowers.

  Now that they’d made it inside, Tiro could feel his perceptions growing sharper as his body flooded with adrenaline. He looked up uneasily at Sahar’s enormous house.

  His visor flashed with Eo’s alarm. You’re not going in there!

  When I was staying in this dome with Sahar, I only saw one interface. He craned his neck upward. It’s on the roof.

  There are gangsters in there!!

  Can you tell me where they are?

  If they’re carrying things connected to the network.

  Are they?

  Eo seemed loath to admit it. They have wrist chatters.

  Eo continued to convey his misgivings by sending a stream of anxious faces, but he assembled a floor plan for Tiro with the gangsters’ locations marked by moving red dots. One stood in the entryway, blocking the stairs. Tiro began searching the deadfall for something to use as a club.