With the Katar as our guides, we cross in hours what had taken days on our way to their colony. Of course, we’re moving with more urgent purpose, and not with wounded and heavy gear.
After about a dozen klicks and a climb over a north-south running rise, we turn west, following another low ridgeline. On my map it looks like it was formed by whatever seismic or freeze-thaw erosion that cut the South Blade, like this is where a lot of what came down out of the Blade settled.
After another five klicks, the valley opens up again. The hike here has been a steady incline that’s taken us—according to old satellite relief mapping—up about a thousand meters from the deepest parts of the Central Blade. The atmosphere density has dropped a few percent on my gauges, but the Katar don’t seem to be bothered by it.
We’re now at the westernmost joining point of the bellies of the Central and South Blades. Three more klicks southwest is the range that forms the tail end of the South Blade’s northern rim. Around that point, and we’re inside the South Blade proper.
But here we stop. Because here is where Cousteau’s party crossed paths with the infected Keeper.
The Katar fan out, fading into the green, which is a little thinner here than it was in the deeper valley closer to Katar. They look like they’re forming a perimeter, hunkering out of sight. The Ghaddar joins them.
I still haven’t seen a “Cat” or anything else Negev so blithely mentioned, but I can’t help but get distracted trying to find one in the growth. The most I have seen are odd patterns in the exposed soil, like someone had drawn random curling lines by dragging a metal pipe. And some of the broader leaves have oddly neat circular cuts in them. Negev only smiles at my curiosity, and leaves me to stew in my ignorance.
Straker draws her Blade and does her meditative gesture, this time looking like she’s listening. After a few minutes, she lowers her sword, looks confused.
“I’m not picking up anything. Not even Bot signals. There’s nothing.”
“That is unusual,” Negev tells us, sounding uncomfortable at what any sane person would consider good news. “We’ve been encountering the machines across this gap every day since just after the Black Clothes came to the Grave. They protect it.”
“Maybe Colonel Ram and his fellows have been depleting their numbers, drawing them north,” Rashid guesses.
“Or Asmodeus has decided that his Harvesters are a more economic weapon,” Murphy counters. Then he asks Straker: “Didn’t you say their signals were weaker than the bots?”
Straker nods, worried. “I didn’t hear the two at Katar until I was almost on top of them. They may be out of range. Or maybe they don’t need to transmit constantly. That would help them avoid detection. The code I read contained simple seek-and-attack programming as well as the motor control algorithms. They could lie in wait, or wander until they detected targets.”
“The free bots we met across the Lake,” I remember, “they said they required constant command signals or their own minds would be able to take over.”
“The Harvester victims no longer have their own minds,” my father grumbles.
“A more economic weapon,” Negev reflects on Murphy’s earlier assessment.
For whatever good it will do, I keep my rifle ready.
We hold position for two hours, waiting and listening, keeping still. My father leads Rashid and I through afternoon Salat, and Negev offers us some of their rations, which include dense grainy cakes and something salty and chewy in pale dried strips. There is also a strong smoky taste and smell to the latter, like the Pax’s Bar-Bee-Cue.
“So… What is this?” Murphy asks diplomatically.
“Your first Dragon,” Negev celebrates with a grin. “Too bad it has to be as Jerky. The meat is much more succulent fresh, of course. Perhaps when we return.”
I feel vaguely ill. I remember Colonel Ram warning us that since we’d lived our lives without eating meat, we might not have the necessary enzymes to digest it, and I’m beginning to imagine what that would cause. The Dragon Jerky isn’t unpalatable, but it seems to sit heavy in my gut, despite being only a few small bites. I see my companions reflect my discomfort, except for my father, who eats with his usual reverent gusto.
“Meat isn’t something we ever get where we come from, not since our Earth rations ran out, and that was before my day,” Murphy tells Negev.
This seems to give Negev an unexpected look of relief, followed by an uncharacteristically broad smile.
“Hah! And we’d thought you might be thinking us stingy and inhospitable, since we didn’t provide you meat when you arrived.”
“We have been grateful for everything your people have given,” my father speaks for all of us. Negev gives him a small bow.
We eat in silence, then Negev signals his warriors to prepare to move.
“We have a choice before us,” he tells my father. “We could move northwest to the Grave, dare the machine guards, and try to see where the dead man came from. Or we continue southwest, into the Dark Blade, and see where he was going.”
“Dark Blade?” Murphy plays into his descriptor.
“The South Blade from here is very narrow, with steep walls on either side, rising all the way up to the Sky Roof,” he confirms what I see on my maps. “Once the sun passes noon, it begins to fall into shadow. It’s a colder place, and the terrain is perfect for ambush.”
“Have you encountered violence there before?” my father asks.
“We have not gone beyond the mouth in my lifetime. My father tells tales of many deadly guns in the Shadow Canyon, wielded by invisible men.”
That sounds like Keeper tactics. Snipe from cover.
“And you’re willing to enter the South Blade now?” my father wants to confirm.
“We have not gone beyond the mouth in my lifetime,” Negev repeats, this time with a lopsided grin and a shrug of his armored shoulders.
“Terina—Kah-Terina Sher-Khan—told us that you’ve seen the airships of the Black Clothes going east and south from the Grave, and coming back with loads of structural scrap,” I remember. Negev nods. “Could they have gotten their southern loads from Eureka Colony?”
“Unless there was some sky-fall, a colony would be the only other source of such a bounty.”
There were a lot of ships in orbit when the Discs triggered the Apocalypse, not to mention the space dock and the nuclear platform itself. Remarkably little of it crashed in the parts of the Great Valley that I’ve seen or heard of, but Marineris is only a small part of a big planet, and I certainly haven’t seen all of Marineris yet.
“I need to see Eureka,” Straker repeats her personal mission. “I’m in a lot less danger from bullets than the rest of you, even from unseen snipers. I should go in alone.”
“You should take point,” Negev counters, sounding insistent. For whatever reason, he doesn’t seem willing to back away from a potentially bad fight. It strikes me that perhaps we shouldn’t have bragged so much about our abilities against better-armed forces. The Katar may be using us in hopes of winning battles they’d probably been losing at great cost. I do hear a desire for revenge in his voice, or at least for restored honor and the Value such feats might bring. I see it now in the eyes of his fighters. They’re all eager for this, no matter the risk. I’m suddenly starting to regret their “help” on this mission. They may wind up getting us in more trouble than we would have as a small raiding party, even with their home terrain advantages. (Come to think of it, they might not even have that—Negev said none of them have been into the South Blade in their entire lives. That means all they have is the same maps we do.)
Worse, I expect if we withdrew from any fight before they did, we’d be seen as cowards, Valueless or worse than, and that would cost all of us dearly.
I’m hoping Negev isn’t just a stubborn idiot, eager to die.
“I guess we’re going to Eureka,” Murphy states the apparent decision.
In a few more klicks, we start moving into the sha
dow of the South Blade’s divide rim. It does get cooler, and moister. The ground underfoot is rocky and laced with Graingrass vines, and other clinging species I haven’t seen before. The tall-standing growth is lush and denser than what we’ve passed through, slowing our pace, and the Katar proceed through it with much less surety.
And we’re still climbing. On my maps, the belly of the South Blade rises slowly but steadily all the way up to Planum level, eight thousand meters above the Central Blade lowlands. We’ve already climbed fifteen-hundred meters above the Katar homeland. We’ll be at least another fifteen-hundred higher before we get where we’re going, assuming Eureka is still where the old maps say it should be.
The pressure has dropped a few more points. I’m finally starting to see the Katar feel it: They’re obviously breathing harder, their already unnaturally large rib cages stretching and expanding so much further on inhaling that the scales of their armor have to flex. They look like the steady climb is taking effort, and taking a toll, but they refuse to let it slow them much. I assume it’s a matter of pride: they’ve devalued us because we rely on oxygen supplements, and now we have an advantage over them because of it. And then there’s Straker, who’s had to stop and wait for them to catch up three times already, her Mods easily compensating for the low pressure.
I catch a few of the formerly sure-footed Katar stumbling a bit, like they’re beginning to lose fine motor coordination or peripheral sensation. The Keepers may not be the only reason they stopped coming here. Once they totally gave up breathing gear, the South Blade may have just been too inhospitable, too debilitating. Time may let them adjust, but I wonder how impaired they’ll be went we get to Eureka. (And I’m sure the Keepers will be using their breathing gear and their pressurized armor suits.)
I also expect the Katar are much less confident of their navigation, as we’ve crossed out of their familiar home territory. They do advance with much more caution now, as they know someone else controls this canyon. They do their best to make no sound, but the green makes that a slow exercise, even for them, and the rocks are loose underfoot. This isn’t a path that’s been well-traveled by anyone.
But then, the Keepers I’ve known in Melas didn’t leave their Keeps, so if their fellows here follow that strategy, we’re not likely to encounter them for awhile yet.
(I expect it was a shock for those at Industry, Pioneer and Frontier when they joined Chang and were mustered onto his airships, his flying fortress, and taken to remote bases. I remember Straker saying that many of her people had never been outside, except to serve as sentries and snipers. Their civilians only went out to make repairs on the false surface structures. And then she took three hundred with her to Melas Two when their rebellion failed, likely never to return home again.)
So what was a lone Keeper doing wandering the Central Blade? Do the shipments of scrap indicate that they’ve joined Chang’s—now Asmodeus’—army? And what has that bargain cost them?
I wish I could ask Straker more about her people, beyond her briefings about their usual tactics. But right now, stealth is priority, precluding conversation.
I remember her commanding officer, Colonel Janeway. He was a charismatic leader, a strong personality, and his only priority was to protect his way of life, his home. Unfortunately, his choices cost him both, cost his people both. Then, when he tried to take command of Chang’s forces after his first defeat at Melas Two, Chang infected his body with Fohat’s Seed, let the Toymaker slowly overwrite his brain, his mind. Not unlike a Harvester…
I wonder what the leader of Eureka must be like, and what Asmodeus may have offered to buy the Keepers’ service, their sacrifice. Or did Asmodeus simply take the colony by force?
I check my map again, and zooming out to take in the entire Trident, I’m struck with an amusing realization: We’ve been so impressed with how the Pax and Katar move in this strangling, blinding green world. But beyond their familiar lands, they seem not much more competent than we are, the strangers from a faraway desert. And their territories, as I can see them on my maps, are measured in tens of kilometers. In Melas, ours was measured in hundreds.
Granted, they have more than they need in that small area, but suddenly their world seems so small to me, and not only because I can only see a few meters in any given direction. In fact, it’s small to them as…
As one, the Katar all stop dead, crouch down, and then carefully spread out through the green. I can see Straker up on point, signaling us to hold. The Ghaddar scans the growth, and seems confused. I look at Murphy, and he shrugs. Straker comes back our way.
“I’ve got a signal. Faint. Repeating.”
“Automated?” Murphy guesses.
“Probably. Code’s all corrupted. Can’t make sense of it.”
“Damaged bot?” I offer. “Or one of those dead body drones, broken down?”
Now she shrugs. “Whatever it is, it’s a single source. Somewhere ahead, along the rim.” She nods her head in the indicated direction.
She goes to inform Negev, and we start moving forward again, this time even more cautiously. The Katar keep fanned out like a skirmish line.
We go another two-and-a-half klicks up the still steadily climbing and narrowing belly of the canyon, advancing as a broad wedge through the green. The Katar are definitely starting to look fatigued.
We get one start, in the form of a flock of Butterflies taking flight in a storm of fluttering wings. We don’t make the mistake of assuming they were disturbed by our approach, but there’s still no sign of any other human-sized heat or motion, not even to Straker’s enhanced senses. The signal stays steady.
We’re all in shadow now, the whole canyon except a bit of what I can see of the crest of its south rim. The sun is setting. I begin to hear the howl of the evening wind, but very far away, over in the Central Blade. The air here stays pretty still.
“I haven’t seen a single set of tracks,” Murphy informs us. “Or paths through the growth. If anything’s moved through here recently, it’s been exceptionally careful.”
“I doubt one of those stolen bodies could manage that kind of skilled movement,” the Ghaddar adds her own assessment. “Or any of the bots we’ve seen.”
“What about a Keeper?” I ask. Murphy gives me a shrug, but the Ghaddar looks like she knows it’s possible. I’d ask Straker, but she’s well up ahead of us.
I haven’t slung my rifle since the gap. Now I click the safety off.
Straker holds us up again, then gestures one-o’clock, up the northern slope. We take every step like surgery, and start climbing steeper. We’re going up into the rock fall at the base slope of the rim.
The rocks get tiring fast. A lot of them require climbing over rather than stepping over. The Katar have an advantage with their longer limbs, making us look like the stunted things they think we are, but we keep up if only because their muscles are probably getting numb with hypoxia (though I doubt they’d admit it to the likes of us).
The sky starts to get dark. It’s gotten cold enough to easily see my breath, but the effort has kept me warm.
Just above us, Straker’s stopped again. But this time, she’s not signaling us to hold. She’s just looking at something, something down on the ground. When we get to her, she’s found a patch of nearly level ground. Among the rocks is a marker made of stacked stones, a meter tall. In the middle of the stack is the largest stone, which looks hand-cut. On its flat front face are carved three vertical lines of characters that I recognize as Japanese, as some are Kana, not Kanji (and most of the Kana are the more angular Katakana used to transcribe non-Japanese words). One of the strings of characters has been painted red, though the paint is well-faded. The marker is also overgrown by the local flora.
“It looks like a grave,” I consider quietly.
“It is,” Negev confirms. “’Peter Nagasawa.’ ‘Maria Mendoza Nagasawa.’ ‘Alice Mendoza Nagasawa.’” He points to the names as he translates. “The name in red traditionally means a spouse
who is still alive, the grave reserved.” He points back to the painted character string. “’Peter Nagasawa’.”
“Here’s another one,” the Ghaddar finds. It’s several meters away, and smaller, simpler. But the name carved on this one is in Standard English:
“Declan Chance. 2103.”
“Fifteen years ago, assuming that’s a date,” Straker calculates.
“Do these look fifteen years old?” Murphy wonders.
“The stones, maybe. But someone’s cleared away some of the growth more recently than that. And there’s this…”
Parting the growth, there’s a set of small handmade bowls at the base of the stone tower. They are partially filled with seeds, nuts, and dried fruits.
“Offerings to the dead,” Negev confirms.
“Someone’s tending the graves?” Murphy puts together. “This ‘Peter’, assuming he’s alive?”
“No recent tracks,” the Ghaddar studies the ground all around.
“The offerings are old,” Negev adds, picking up the fruit and crumbling it in his fingers. Then he checks the nuts and seeds, and decides “Years.”
I help look for any sign of activity, but I find myself distracted. Something about those names… Just on the edge of my memory. Familiar, maybe. Or maybe something I read. Or dreamed.
“Signal?” my father asks Straker.
She listens for a moment, then gestures further up slope, up through the rocks.
We have to catch up to Straker again. She climbs better than the long-limbed Katar, even better than the Ghaddar. A benefit of her Companion modifications, I’m sure.
We find her leaning with her palms on what looks like rock fall, her head turned like she’s listening.
“This isn’t a natural slide,” Negev assesses, gesturing over the slope of overgrown boulders we’re facing, a talus pile nearly two dozen meters wide and half-a-dozen high. “Someone moved these rocks.”
The God Mars Book Five: Onryo Page 6
