Several hundred people could live here, secure. The maze-approach provides an effective delay to potential invaders (at least human ones—I doubt they considered the need to face Fohat’s nightmare creations). And the defenders can fire or drop stones down on anyone approaching at their leisure. I even expect the maze walls themselves can be toppled to block the approaches if need be.
The winding corridor takes us up-slope and out of daylight, into one of the wide, low-ceiling caves. They do look like they’d been cut from the mountain, but they don’t show the usual telltale scars of mining equipment. This all may have been excavated by hand. The surfaces show weathering and oxidation that tells me they’re old, maybe decades.
The only light is what spills in the cave mouths, supplemented by a few small hand-cut vents—skylights—that ingeniously radiate beams of sunshine onto polished metal mirrors to diffuse it. The interior of the cave we’re in looks like a mass campsite rather than a permanent residence: there are stacks of supplies, survival equipment, bedrolls. I see what look like families cowering back into the shadows as we pass.
I notice there’s no kind of airlock or atmosphere seal, and I haven’t seen any sign of the Pax warriors wearing breather gear. They may be acclimated like the Katar.
The rock smells moist, water-rich, but I also smell the musk of people living in close quarters despite best hygiene efforts, something I recognize from the hospitality of Nomad shelters. And then a new scent suddenly hits us: something smoky that I don’t recognize. It’s like burning plant matter and burning flesh—smells I now know too well from battle—but not quite. I wonder if the machines managed to attack here in this cave sanctuary, but I see no obvious signs of a fight.
A handful of the green-suited fighters line up in front of us, then peel off their painted metal masks. This confirms that, like Terina and her father, they don’t wear breathers, don’t seem to need them. There are three males and two females in the party. Their features remind me somewhat of the Katar I’ve met: sharp cheekbones, thin lips, broad nostrils, thick-lidded eyes. Their skin is weathered and shows the etching of years of capillary rupture and too much UV, tone varying from pale to deeply tanned. The males have short-trimmed beards. Also like the Katar, they have oversized torsos and are otherwise very slim, though they are not as tall as Terina or her father.
The Green-Man-Mask steps through them to greet us. When he removes his mask, he looks some years older than the others, his skin more leathery, his beard frosted gray, his eyes dark and intense.
“Gaius Archer.” I assume that’s his name. His voice is deep and rough and confident. He offers his hand to Ram, who steps forward and reciprocates, the two grasping forearms.
“Michael. Ram.” He says it as if he’s uncomfortable with his own name.
“Also known as the Ragnarok,” Bel qualifies. Ram seems to flinch.
“The great Peacemaker of the Eco War,” Stilson adds better credentials. “From before the Apocalypse.”
This news is received with a stunned silence, glances back-and-forth between our hosts. They look to Ram for confirmation of this wild tale, and he nods.
“We were in chemical hibernation for fifty Earth years, buried by the bombing,” he explains his existence.
“And then stuff happened,” Bel downplays. “But it’s him.”
They seem to accept the revelation, half-bow in respect. Apparently the name and reputation of Mike Ram has been kept alive in their history for the generations he was asleep. I expect it’s known by many of the survivor descendants. (And I expect many new legends will be spun, especially now that he’s become so much more than he was then, including immortal.)
“Belial,” Ram introduces his friend back. “Shaitan.” Bel grins wryly, despite what his surname translates as. “And this is Doctor Paul Stilson, Blue Team ETE.”
“Former,” Paul corrects with an edge. He glances back at Elias and I, as if he’s expecting some kind of challenge or argument, but only briefly. I notice he’s been otherwise ignoring the two of us—I’m not sure if we somehow offend him or he’s reluctant to engage with those he’s separated himself from.
Then Ram proceeds to introduce “Cain Dee” (Azrael), Abbas, Ishmael, Rashid, Ambassador Murphy, and the Zauba’a Ghaddar, finishing with Bly and Jak (who he introduces as “Lieutenant Jak Straker,” as he seems to know her personally). They already know Terina, who appears to need no introduction. Then we’re left in an awkward silence—Elias and I are strangers.
“Erickson Carter, Red Team ETE,” I offer with a little bow. “From Melas Chasma to the west. This is my brother Elias.”
Elias is at least being civil. He copies my greeting bow.
“We owe you life-debt,” Archer tells us all. “Blood-debt. For today and past days.”
“We may be the reason the machines have been attacking you,” Ram discounts, honestly regretful. “Our enemy is targeting you to keep us from attacking him directly.”
“He knows we’ll rush to protect the innocent,” Paul adds grimly. “He counts on it.”
“No,” Archer counters. “Katar war parties were attacked scouting the Hellmouth when the Black Clothes came in their airships. Their killing machines began attacking us when we joined treaty against them and crossed the Boundary. They are our enemies, invaders, taking and driving us from our lands, further and further. Before you. They took the Central Blade from the Katar—they cannot safely leave their mountain keep. This…” He gestures around the cave, to the camping families. “This is Last Line. Hold Keep. Shelter. They have destroyed many of our Steads in North Blade, entire families. Most of what’s left of us have come here. Those that tried to hold their homes were slaughtered. By machines—the Black Clothes are cowards, they will not face us like men. Only you have stopped them. Without, even this Last would be lost. Pax would be lost.”
Ram takes that in. I look at the apparent refugees. There is unimaginable trauma here. They’ve lost their world in a matter of weeks, along with friends, family. I wonder how many…
“The Black Clothes are not your only enemy,” Stilson blurts out bitterly.
“Paul…” Ram sounds like he’s trying to stop him from saying something. He does anyway:
“The Unmakers have returned. They are in a war with the Black Clothes. The Black Clothes are enemies to us all, but the Unmakers are not your friends. They have said they will take you all from your lands. They fear everyone here may carry a techno-plague. You must continue to hide yourselves, as you have always done. Only now, they have eyes in orbit, aircraft patrols, soldiers.”
The mood goes freshly tense. I get the sense that the Pax suspected this, possibly have seen and recognized UNMAC recon flights, but the confirmation jars them like the sound of fresh battle.
Ram feels irritated with Stilson’s impulsiveness, but holds his tongue, perhaps understanding it. This is not at all the Paul Stilson I expected to meet: He’s hard, angry, weary. He carries a gun and he’s quick to use it. I can only imagine what he’s gone through: Fighting this war, losing his brother, facing the irrational fear and threats of Earth—of those he defied Council orders to reach out to, to aid—then leaving his people because of the decisions of their leaders (our leaders). Yes, my reasons for being here are similar, but they’re but a shadow of his. Will this be what I become?
Archer takes Stilson’s advice with a solemn nod. I see him eyeing Jak—she still wears the uniform of the ancient enemy. But then he lets it go, probably because she fought to protect his people, and appears to be a friend of Ram’s.
“Eat with us.”
The meal becomes an unexpected kind of hell.
We’re led to a column of daylight, a large vertical vent that opens the cavern to sky, where we’re all introduced to their apparent leader, a white-haired skeleton of a man named Leder Sower.
He greets us each individually, with honest warmth and gratitude. Then he invites us to sit at a long cut stone table in the light of the vent. Several dozen Pax of
varying ages turn out to join us, bowing as they’re introduced. I notice that their names seem to indicate possible current or generational occupation: Hunter, Harvester, Carver, Smith, Cook (and words I don’t know how to apply, like Butcher and Tanner and Shepherd). The apparent warriors—the ones who wear the metal masks and light armor—have appropriate names like Lancer, Edge, Dart, Fencer, Longbow, Swift. They’re an almost even mix of males and females, all lean and weathered like Archer, ranging (I estimate) from late teens to Normal middle-age. They wear their masks on their chests, hung from their necks—I don’t know if this is practicality or symbolic.
We guests sit together along one side of the table. There’s definite discomfort all around regarding the three of us sword-armed, as not even my recent companions seem at all trusting of what we’re now carrying. I sense the whisper and flash-images of what I assume are subtle attempts to hack into my implants, or into whatever connection I have with my sword. Elias and Jak squirm and flinch very slightly as if they’re having a similar experience. The likely culprits (Ram, Bel, Paul and Azrael) seem to be intentionally avoiding eye-contact. (And my sword keeps whispering in my head about agents of the Tetragrammaton.)
Worse, though: Thin pale smoke is pouring skyward through the vent, from what I realize is the source of the unknown smell, which is apparently our lunch. Burning cut plant matter has been nurtured to bright embers in a kind of large, wide stone forge. Just over this intense primitive heat source is a well-charred metal grating, upon which is what I’m loathe to realize is some kind of flesh.
“Is that what I think it is?” Bel asks almost gleefully.
“Bovine,” Sower tells him with a smile. “And Pig. And chicken. We raise them. Breed them. Rabbits and horses too. As it was on Earth. From eggs brought by our ancestors. They feed us, clothe us, provide materials, recycle, enrich the soil.”
I stare afresh at their clothing—handmade. I’d assumed it was common synthetic, manufactured or recycled, scavenged.
“And the insects?” Azrael—Dee—asks with an easy curiosity.
“Engineered for the forest. We hatch the dragons in water nurseries to manage the others. The Butters and Worms breed free.”
Worms?
“And help feed the Katar.” I think I hear a hint of old disdain in Archer’s voice, but he stays polite, smiling, briefly locking eyes with Terina. “As they have no gut for rendering any of the horses or sheep we give.”
“Your warm-blood gifts are too precious to slaughter for just a meal,” Terina insists diplomatically, as if she’s stifling insult. “And we value what they provide us alive. We only eat them when they are old, or have bred too generously.”
“We, too, value all they give us as they live,” Sower returns with an equally diplomatic thin smile. “Including milk and eggs. But we also value the rich protein they provide in death, good food for many families. And the skin, the bones, sinews—what we cannot use ourselves goes to the gardens, farms. All these things are why our forefathers brought them here. For us.”
The way he talks, he sounds like we should know what he’s talking about, like he’s trying to impress us with his people’s practices. Ram, Bel and Azrael nod as if they understand. The rest of us look variously unsettled.
“Most of my companions have never eaten meat or dairy,” Ram gives a gentle warning, as much to us as to our Pax hosts. “They may lack the ability to digest it.”
“I do love me some bar-bee-cue,” Bel purrs enthusiastic gibberish, but the Pax seem to appreciate whatever it means.
“It’s been a long time,” Ram also appears to miss eating animal flesh. I remember he’s from Old Earth, where I understand they did such things routinely, and not just out of necessity. And Bel is from a timeline—a version of reality—that I can’t imagine.
“We have grown and gathered,” Sower offers, a gracious host. “Not all eat from our live stock. It is no insult to abstain.”
The table is set with breads, cakes, legume stews, vegetables and fruits (and a selection of odd polymer-looking substances that Bel happily calls “cheese”), but also with trays of variously rendered charred carnage, mostly (I assume from biology and anatomy lessons) muscle tissue. The flesh—some parts including bone and skin—looks horrible, abominable… burned gore and bits of non-human corpses… but it smells so good.
Thankfully, the Pax are happy to see us eat, because (after a tentative start) Elias, Jak and I are soon gorging ourselves, especially on the charred flesh, which is more wonderful than I could ever imagine. In fact, it seems to be the only thing that really satisfies. Any disgust I initially had is quickly forgotten. (I apparently also love me some bar-bee-cue.)
Ram and Bel also eat a significant amount of the flesh, but pace themselves, savoring it. The others variously pick at it, taste it carefully out of respect for our enthusiastic hosts, but focus on the more familiar vegetable-based fare. (Of these, the bean stew—the highest in protein—and the high-carbohydrate breads and cakes are the most appealing to my cravings.)
We’re also treated to an unusual deep-amber-colored beverage, tingling with infused gas. It’s bitter at first, with sweet undertones, but becomes somehow more enjoyable as it’s consumed. (Though Ram also warns Abbas, Ishmael and Rashid to avoid it, as he has warned them to specifically avoid the pig-flesh, explaining to the Pax that there’s an issue of their traditional religious faith, while he cautions the rest of us to moderation, encouraging consumption of water and tea.)
I begin to feel an odd euphoria, as well as a peripheral numbness, but it doesn’t last. I’m not sure if this is the effect of the food, the drink, or some interaction with whatever my sword has done to me.
Near the beginning of the feast, Abbas pointed out that those that need it are getting low on oxygen. The Pax eagerly took their empties and returned within thirty minutes, a Feed Line branch conveniently reaching their mountain. Archer tells us that they mainly access it for water and fuel. They also bring old rebreather gear, unused in at least a generation and no longer working, though Bel insists he can repair them for use, “better than new”. The acceptance of their gifts seems to please the Pax as much as our enjoyment of their feast.
We also spend the meal relating stories of ourselves.
Colonel Ram’s prove the most engaging, as well as the most intriguing to the Pax (though he’s consistently careful to downplay the fear—the danger—presented by his former people, still apparently holding some hope for a mutually beneficial future).
Azrael is cryptically vague about himself, describing himself simply as an old friend of Ram’s from Earth, a comrade-in-arms in the terror war, come to Mars to continue to serve. I know from history that Ram fought that war alongside what were at that time cutting-edge AI, but I don’t remember any use of human-appearing androids during that era beyond research and novelty. I wonder if he’s somehow also from the claimed alternate timeline that brought Chang and his cohorts down on us (but also brought us the superhuman heroes to help fight them).
Bel is even vaguer as to his origins and history, but is also the most self-deprecating, describing himself in vulgar terms. The Pax chuckle politely if uncomfortably.
Murphy tells of his home, his people, and how Ram and his friends helped bring them a peace accord as well as a new prosperity. He states his purpose to make treaties with more peoples—an extension of Ram’s dream of a strong, united Mars—but I begin to hear a loss of hope: not regarding relations between the factions, but perhaps a sense that he’ll never see home again.
Jak gives a similar testimonial to Ram and his selfless fighters, speaking briefly of her life as an Industry Peace Keeper, of their recent disastrous alliance with Chang (admitting that the Black Clothes include some of her former brethren), and high praise for Ram, Bel, Stilson and Bly who came to the rescue of their rebellion, followed by her subsequent service to UNMAC which brought her here. (She insists that UNMAC’s priority is making peaceful contact with the descendants of the survivors of t
he Apocalypse, while finding and eliminating the threat posed by Chang and his allies, but the speech seems scripted, not heartfelt.)
Stilson just gives an anecdote about finding Ram asleep in his base, and how Ram accepted his people despite Earth’s fears, and helped them to form their Guardian force against Chang (a force that no longer exists).
“My name is Captain Thompson Gun Bly of Zodanga,” Bly grumbles through his mask when it becomes his turn. “Or at least I was. A human man, like you. I, too, was foolish enough to ally with the Shadow Chang, my people becoming his Black Clothes puppets. What I am now… This is how I have paid for my sin.” He “demonstrates” by eating—I realize he’d only been drinking to this point—raising a large chunk of pig to his mask teeth, which snap open and seize it, drawing it into his face, where it quickly shrivels and dissolves with an audible sucking sound—a shocking, violent act. He follows it with more of the amber beverage, guzzling sloppily, having to pour it through those metal fangs like he’s pouring it down a drain. Then: “If the Shadow or his kind offer you power, protection, do not accept. Do not accept. It will cost you everything.”
Stilson—sitting next to him—reaches out and puts a hand on his armored shoulder. Bly tolerates it for only a moment, then shakes it off, drinks more. Sower and then the warriors give him a bow, wordlessly grateful for his warning and honesty, honoring his unimaginable sacrifices. The Pax seem to accept the metal monster just as they seem to have accepted the rest of us, freaks and strangers.
The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades Page 23
