The posture that went with that was a rather graphic movement of the hips.
“Regretful inability!” he said.
“Ah. Who knows the powers of the vaz-Terranan?”
She chuckled soundlessly as she walked back to the oval bed and raised the sleeping fur and gave him a frank examination. Then she slid back under it herself.
“Pleasant warmth,” she said, sliding into contact and resting her head on his shoulder. “Feelings: repletion, exhaustion, very slight soreness, a surprising degree of affection.”
“Me too.”
She touched his ribs and thigh. “Your pleasantly agreeable personality contrasts in an intriguing manner with the brutish power of your appearance.”
“Ah . . . thanks,” he said.
His mental gears shifted as he made himself hear the real meaning: You look macho but you’re really sweet and gentle.
She went on: “You are as strong and resistant to damage as a Thoughtful Grace; stronger, in fact. This is novel to me but agreeable.”
“Agreement-apprehension of inflicting involuntary injury during parareproductive exchange minimizes anticipatory stimulation.”
There was a weird sexiness to talking Demotic in bed, he found. You couldn’t talk dirty in it, really. Cursing involved scatology or comments on someone’s inadequate genome—saying “unequal to the environment” was seriously insulting. But talking about the body parts and their functions had the same vocabulary whether you were calling out in the middle of things or writing a medical textbook; I request more energetic intromission, emphatic tense! was the sort of passionate murmur you could expect.
“Tell me more of your reproductive in-group,” she said.
“Only if you tell me about your family,” he replied.
Wish I had a cigarette, he thought dreamily; the habit had come back since they learned how to deactivate the carcinogens, but nobody was shipping it to Mars.
She remained silent for a while. The Traveler was intensely quiet, with only a deck watch; the rest of the crew were in the building they’d selected as base. But he could hear the faint screech of the wind as it scoured around the building that held the landship, and even fainter creaks and metallic noises as the ship shifted slightly on its axles.
“I was born . . . in a remote city,” she said, very softly; he could feel the slight flutter of her breath against the skin where his shoulder met his neck.
“Long ago and far away?” he said, stroking the hard, resilient curve of her back.
“Very far away and thirty years ago,” she said; mentally he translated it as sixty Earth years.
Which gave him pause for a moment, but actually, given their respective potential lifespans, they were about the same age.
“Near the Mountain?” he said.
That was the only place she was likely to have met Eastblockers.
She nodded, and continued, “My mother was of the Thoughtful Grace. An officer of some rank and of excellent lineage.”
“Your father wasn’t Thoughtful Grace?” he said, surprised.
She certainly had all the canons of the breed, as far as he could tell, and he’d just had a chance for a very close examination.
“No, he was her employer; a male of very high caste and rank in the city-state where she was employed; of the pure Imperial Administrator genome. They had an erotic and emotional bond of some duration and intense commitment, and would have formally contracted for reproductive partnership if that had been practical.”
Were in love as well as being lovers, he silently translated. There were some things that Demotic did not express compactly. And would have married if it were allowed.
“But her fertilization was unauthorized.”
Jeremy’s brows went up again. That was rare. Martian women didn’t get pregnant unless they wanted to; in fact, they usually had to concentrate for a while to start the menstrual cycle and become receptive.
“Accidental?”
“Not on her part,” she said. “On the insistence of my father’s kin-group and political associates, she was punished by infestation for theft of his genome. Questions of access to power were involved. And the vaz-Terranan, the Eastbloc, were involved in the intrigues.”
Ouch, he thought, with a wash of sympathy.
Infestation was a memorably gruesome way to die, being put in a glass bottle and eaten alive from the inside out, like a digger wasp’s prey, and it could last years; watching a couple of still photos of an advanced case had made him think twice—three times—about wanting to go to Mars, back when he was a teenager.
“My father had wished to meld genomes, but not at that time, and could not protect her,” she went on. “But he was able to conceal my birth and have me socialized and taught by other of his Thoughtful Grace retainers, until it became apparent that I was of mixed origin.”
He nodded. Genetic testing was trivially easy here, and had been for untold millennia. Who your father was wasn’t a matter of opinion on Mars, and never had been.
“That was eleven years ago. One of my tutors, who had a para-parental bond with me and a close genetic link with my mother, accompanied me for a time, but was killed when Coercives in the pay of my father’s enemies discovered us.”
She fell silent again with a sigh, then added, “My father still lives but, to a high degree of probability, I can never return. I wander, seek employment for my talents, and the avoidance of ennui until dissolution.”
“That’s too bad,” he said.
Tragic, in fact. This is one hell of a woman. She could do anything, but she’s stuck being a low-level mercenary.
Teyud shrugged. “This mission has been an interruption in a long period of low-level discomfort and tedium. As for the trajectory of my world-line, it is an analogue of that of the Real World in this age without even the illusion of Sh’u Maz,” she said. “A declension from imagined security toward the maximization of entropy.”
Her hand moved, touching feather-soft and then rhythmically. She rolled over and grinned down at him.
“The vaz-Terranan do have powers!”
CHAPTER SIX
Encyclopedia Britannica, 20th Edition
University of Chicago Press, 1998
MARS: Impact of Martian Tembst on Earth
Science has learned much from Venus, particularly about the history of life on Earth. It was studies of Venusian life and the remarkable adventures of Ranger Marc Vitrac (see Cloud Mountain People, Lords of Creation/Ancients) that established beyond doubt that both Mars and Venus were originally terraformed and seeded with Terran life, including various hominid species and our own, by aliens with a technology advanced beyond our comprehension. The one alien artifact recovered by Ranger Vitrac has been endlessly analyzed with absolutely no result. (see Diadem of the Eye).
However, it was on Mars that we found a biological science surpassing our own but enough like it to be readily accessible to us. Although much Martian knowledge had been lost in the fall of the planetary empire of the Crimson Dynasty, many of their creations remained, including biological tools that used tailored enzymes and forced-evolutionary mechanisms for producing new microorganisms of astonishing capabilities on demand. This technology—which could be easily shipped interplanetary distances, as it bred of its own accord—has provided us with the genetically engineered organisms which in the past decade have had a profound impact on Terran economies and societies.
The earliest and most significant of these were the ability to quickly and inexpensively transform any biomass into hydrocarbon products such as petroleum, as well as similar products that concentrate and sort wastes (even heavy metals) into easily processed raw materials, and the engineered yeasts that cheaply desalinate water. Further developments . . .
Mars, The Lost City of Rema-Dza
May 18, 2000 AD
The sandstorm that had peeled back a little more of the fabric of life on Mars had blown itself out at last, or mostly, retreating into the vast, empty deserts t
o the east. You couldn’t say the air was fresh, exactly; it was dry and cold and that was all, but it did have a lot less finely divided dust in it, and didn’t make you feel as though you were suffering from black lung by the end of the day. Jeremy whistled happily as he ducked out of the Traveler and slogged through the dust to the building that was their access to the tunnels. The De’ming had cleared a fair space around the door, and he could open it without a torrent of reddish powder pouring in along with him.
Sally was sitting in front of her portable, eating to’a from a bowl with a spoon while she studied the screen. The dish was flaminghot, a sort of curry of meat and nuts and dried fruit over groats made from asu, which tasted like nuggets of sweet potato. The spice was all to the good, since the meat was from the feral engines they’d killed, made edible with a tenderizer that was one of the staples of Martian cooking. When you cooked it enough, engine-meat just tasted gristly-tough and a little fishy, sort of like badly overdone calamari. The pots simmered on a heating element on the stone bench, filling the room with the spicy rich scent.
Jeremy was still whistling as he went over and ladled himself a bowl and took a round of flatbread. His bowl was one of a pair, twice the size of the ones the crewfolk used; Martians found the scale of Terran appetites for food and water astounding, amusing, and sometimes revolting.
“Looks like they’ve found something,” he said.
“You think this was the sanctum sanctorum?” Sally said.
She pointed to the screen, which showed a stretch of corridor two hundred yards beyond the chamber where they’d fought the feral engines.
“Very probably,” he said, then blew on a spoonful of to’a and put it in his mouth.
“Errrrk!” he said, though he’d been raised on jalapeños. “Who made this today?”
“I did,” Sally said dryly. “I was trying to fool my tastebuds into forgetting what’s in it, like lots of wasabi on not-too-fresh sushi.”
Even a native New Mexican would consider this hot—by comparison, the most potent carne asada was like peach yogurt. Still, that did hide the taste of the other ingredients. A to’a could be a noble dish, but you didn’t expect to eat like an epicure on a dig, and he really didn’t like remembering those organic whips coming down out of the dark.
He tapped the screen, bringing up his own research studies. “See, it’s to the right of the axial spine of the tower—”
“Right facing which way?”
“Facing the Mountain—Mons Olympus, Dvor Il-Adazar. They used that as their orientation point until nearly the end of the Imperial era, before they shifted to a north-south-east-west, I think because of some political dispute. You can tell from the layout of this place they were still using the old system when it was built. And there’s a nice, short connecting tunnel through here. That would be the proper orientation for a treasure vault. If you think Martians today are fanatics about doing things in proper form, the old Imperials—”
She made a sympathetic noise and he rolled his eyes. “What you’d expect for a bureaucracy dating back to the Paleolithic.”
“I think you may be right,” Sally said meditatively, “despite the way you’re making a complete idiot of yourself.”
He felt himself bristle and then forced a smile. “Yes, Mother.”
“It’s not you walking away with a broken heart I’m afraid of—fuck your heart, Wainman, and your overactive dick, too.”
She sighed, and exhaled in a long, exasperated sound. “Look, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. I do care that you’re letting yourself in for a world of hurt. But I care about the mission even more.”
Jeremy felt his indignant bristle gave way to a flush. “I’m doing my job. And I appreciate your concern, but it isn’t your job to be my keeper.”
“Yes, it is. Why do you think they sent me? Get the stuff. That’s your job.”
“Why do you think I’m not doing it properly?”
“Because you’re introducing unpredictable emotions into the mix. Martians act about the same way we do when it comes to profits and bargains—some of them are more honest than others, but that’s true in San Jose, too. They don’t act the way we do all the time in their personal lives, and I’ve been here long enough to see that’s not just doctrine, it’s the Buddha’s own truth.”
“There have been plenty of relationships—marriages, too, like Vitrac and his cave princess—with locals on Venus.”
“With human locals on Venus, not the other varieties. Coming into a relationship from a different culture is bad enough—ask my grandmother—but Martians are not h. sap. sap. even if Tab A fits. Not quite. They don’t have exactly the same instincts we do.”
“So?” Jeremy said with heavy patience.
“So you don’t know when you’re suddenly going to be hitting some landmine. Keep it simple, keep it at the level of conscious explicit thought and formal communication, and you’re safe . . . well, safer. Getting in this deep—”
He thought she used the phrase with malice aforethought and shot her a pained look.
“—is an invitation to a sudden explosion.” More gently, she added, “Why do you think they usually insist on married couples at Kennedy Base?”
“Why, Sally, I didn’t know you cared,” he said, batting his eyes. She’d been a widow since a week after the arrival of the First Fleet.
Sally rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “I give up,” she said in an obvious lie.
“And I’d better get to work.”
He finished the bowl, scoured it out with sand, tapped the screen again, and waited while the little machine spat out three pages of diagrams. Then he rolled them up, took a biscuit from an open box near the camp stove, bit into it—quite nice, dusted with something that resembled cinnamon and filled with a nut that tasted like coconut and cream, and unlike most Martian baked goods, not too salty—before he passed through into the tunnels.
There were more lights now, and in each long section stood one of the crewfolk with a dart-rifle. A slight tang of coppery molluscan blood remained in the chamber where they’d fought, and a slighter one of decay, but as they’d noted there were bugs in the sand, and they were efficient scavengers. They’d gotten almost every scrap of blood and flesh left over from the fight.
You really wouldn’t want to lie down here for a long nap.
Beyond that, the newly excavated section of passageway was half filled with sand and he had to walk crouching past a staircase whose entrance had been covered with a section of sailcloth tacked to the wall with glue to keep the dust that filled it from getting ahead of the diggers; past it, he slid downward until he was only ankle-deep in the powdery stuff. A glow-globe gave bright light in the confined space and the six De’ming were busy there, stolidly shoveling dust into a box on a sled and then hauling loads back to be distributed in the big chamber. He coughed as he breathed in a little of the finely divided material.
Teyud, her headdress back in place, turned from the door and gave him a smile. One that actually parted the lips. He felt as if there was a breath of warmth in the constant chill of the dead city. He returned it, deliberately turning down the wattage so it wouldn’t look impossibly exaggerated to her—she was making the same effort for him, from the other side of the teeter-totter.
If we’re both willing to work at it, I think we can make a go of this.
Baid ignored the byplay—one nice thing about Martians was that the respectable ones considered showing open inquisitiveness bad form—and continued an inch-by-inch examination of the door, shooing the magnifying glass she was using around with a finger.
The portal was a hard, fiber-bound black synthetic with the Tollamune sigil in the middle, and oval in shape—twelve feet tall by six feet across at the widest point, which meant it was designed to swing on a hinge, rather than roll sideways. The handles molded into the surface meant that it was designed to open outward; probably the door itself was beveled to mate with its surround, so that pushing on it merely tra
nsferred the strain to the frame and then to the solid poured stone of the foundations.
He touched it, and it felt massive, with that underlying solidity you felt only from big blocks of masonry and things like bank vaults. The seal with the edges was good enough that there probably wasn’t any sand in the chamber beyond.
“Yes,” the engineer said, completing her examination. “The sensor is centrally located, below the Imperial symbol. Contemporary practice would put it to one side, near the hinge.”
She took a small, heavy, edged tool from her harness and struck the surface three times. A plate swung down, hanging open from interior hinges at the bottom; it still swung freely after all this time.
Within was a shallow depression; examining it closely, Jeremy saw that it was lined with some shiny, dark brown substance.
“This would have been the identity sensor,” she said.
Back home on Earth, they’d been talking about using DNA for identification for a while—they called it biometric ID—but apart from some forensics work they hadn’t gotten around to developing it. It wasn’t as if there were many places you had to check people’s ID, after all. Not in the Free World, at least, where even passports were falling out of use; in the paranoid Eastbloc you even had to show an identity card to get on a domestic flight. But this was the equivalent of a bank vault—or a secret lab at Los Alamos—so he supposed it made sense.
Hmmm. Or perhaps it was just their equivalent of a key and lock system.
“What’s the actual locking mechanism?” he asked.
Baid shrugged. “This is quite old, and so might be nonstandard. In a modern system, it would be cylindrical bolts working by air pressure in matching holes in the door and in the jamb opposite the hinge. If it was a very redundant system, there would also be bolts in the wall above and below the door. It might be an active system, with the rods retraced when the mechanism was not activated. In that case—”
She tugged hard on the door, with as much effect as pulling at a fifty-ton boulder.
In the Courts of the Crimson Kings Page 15
