“I expect you’re going to do a lot of damage.” But he says it flatly. He’s not condemning or criticizing. I’m not sure if he’s just numbed by the rage of what he’s been shown or if he’s really detached himself beyond caring. Then: “What about the girl?”
“Her, too. She needs to go back to her own.”
Lyra turns and glares at me. I ignore her.
“They’ll never let her off the planet,” he states dully. He sounds drugged. Or deeply depressed, crushed.
“Not unless they lift the Quarantine.”
Lyra is fuming silently, not wanting to throw a tantrum in this solemn place, but I can feel it. And being this close to her, I’m already starting to lose impulse control.
“Thank you for bringing us this information,” he says almost as an afterthought.
“It’ll be everyone’s soon enough,” I promise.
His avatar fades. Audience over. The big hatch opens to let us out into the light, and we turn to leave. But then the avatar materializes in our path, just standing there, as if it forgot something.
“In the other timeline,” he asks like it isn’t important, “what was the date? When you left?”
I find myself having to guess, estimate, the calendar having become meaningless in that world.
“Twenty-One Twenty-Five? Thirty? Not much farther ahead than we are now.”
I hear him sigh inside his helmet. Then he vanishes again, no explanation.
“Any idea what that last part was?” I ask Paul when we get back on board.
“No.” He sounds unsettled. “And no one had anything to say about one of our own being taken and experimented on. No confirmation. No denial. Nothing.”
Lyra pushes herself in front of me, makes me look at her.
“Why are you sending me away?!” she demands, coiled with rage. “I wanted to see Tranquility! I wanted to meet the Nomads! I don’t know Earth! I’ve never been there! I was born here! Here!”
And what do I tell her? That her existence is in jeopardy just sharing air with me? That those people she so desperately wants to meet would probably kill her because of what her parents did? That staying with us puts her in the firing lines of two unreasoningly desperate powers?
“The people who sent your parents—your family—here are going to try to deny everything. You were there, you saw and heard. And they’re probably going to put you through a thousand tests and keep you contained until they’re sure you’re not carrying anything scary. But you need to speak for your family. There are things you don’t know. It’s going to be hard. I’m sorry.”
She stews on that as the ship lifts, begins cruising for Melas Two.
“I can do more than speak for them,” she says defiantly, shifting her rage. “They taught me. I know the science. I know the research, the findings. Maybe better than anyone… anyone left.”
I realize I may be simultaneously condemning her and handing UNCORT another weapon. But I think she’ll make the right choices.
“You may still see Tranquility, meet the Nomads. I hope you do.”
It only barely tempers her anger at me.
Jackson is scrambling AAVs to meet us, but we’re coming in too fast, catching him unprepared. Burns has the batteries all aimed our way. I send them the mission recognition codes, send them uplink—the ship’s transmitter is strong enough to send all the way to Earth, even through the Net, and that’s going to be a problem for them.
“General Richards,” I call out. “This is Colonel Ram. I bring you a gift, or more correctly, I’m returning your property. You may or may not want it.”
I have Lux set us down on Pad 5, the furthest out from Command.
“What are you doing?” I hear Lisa demand in my head.
“Testing their moral compass,” I tell her. Then I hack into MAI, into the uplink, and transmit all the Circe’s files, security blocks removed. Thirty seconds later, I use the ship’s own uplink to send it all to anyone who can hear it.
“Colonel Ram, what’s the meaning of this?” Richards comes on to demand. He’s still up in orbit.
“Scan it yourself. Someone inside UNCORT sent this ship here almost twenty years ago. They encountered survivors, found no sign of dangerous nanotechnology. I take it this is the first you’ve heard about it. I take it this is the first almost everyone on Earth has heard.”
I give him a few long seconds to digest that, then drive the knife in:
“They also managed to capture one of the ETE, experimented on his nanites. Then they got orders—from UNCORT—to conduct experiments on live subjects, locals they’d been luring to examine.”
I glance at Lyra, watch the shock wash over her, drain her face. She doesn’t look at me, but her eyes track as she scans her memories, everything she was told and saw, trying to decide if she believes…
“He’s lying, sir!” Burns comes on to interrupt. I catch a jamming signal, shut it down.
“The files are authentic. Review them at your leisure. The physical evidence is in this ship, though it isn’t pretty. Chang got to it first. He was apparently very upset by what he found, probably planned to throw it in your faces when you shot him down.”
“It’s a hoax!” Burns keeps trying. “He’s trying to discredit…”
“Stand down, Colonel,” Richards impresses me.
“I have a witness,” I tell him. “One survivor. She was born right after they made landfall.”
I cue Lyra, and she steels herself, steps up to join me. She still looks sick, shaking, but she’s keeping it together impressively. She glances at me briefly, and I try to give her a look that tells her I’m sorry. She gives me a nod, chokes down her shock. I debate telling her something soothing, that her family thought they were doing something necessary, vital, or maybe didn’t have a choice if they ever wanted to return home, but words aren’t going to help right now. I return her nod, and we walk together out of the main airlock, onto the pad.
A platoon of armor is already coming out to surround us. I hear chatter on the Link channels. Everyone in the base—both bases—is getting this. And in orbit. Including the resident refugees, if they’re paying any attention at all.
“Don’t let them approach!” Burns shouts. “Lethal force!”
“Belay that order!” Richards shouts louder. “Nano protocols. Take the girl to Medical. If one damn thing happens to her, I will investigate and prosecute in the extreme.”
“I appreciate that, General,” I give him. “But it sounds like you may need to initiate an investigation anyway.” I think he gets my meaning. I expect we both know who really assigned Burns to this mission.
“Why are you doing this?” he asks me.
“A test of trust, General. We need to start somewhere.”
I signal the others: Paul, Bly, Lux and Bel come out of the ship, join me on the pad, in front of the guns.
“So there are more of you,” Richards appraises, understanding the risk I’m taking.
“A few,” I downplay. “And we aren’t your enemies. We really would like to help you, assuming you’re willing to start treating the people that live here like they’re humans with rights, just like you, assuming that concept still exists on your Earth. But no: we won’t be sharing our technology. Our technology shouldn’t even be here. But that’s an issue for another day.”
The Siren’s Song suddenly comes in fast and brakes into a hover right above us, its still-intact stealth skin letting it slip in while everyone was distracted and freaking out. The armor platoon reflexively falls back at the sight, but quickly resolve to stand fast, hold their line.
“I’m keeping this one, General,” I announce before he can respond. “We’ll call it a finder’s fee. Or a gesture of our new understanding. Nothing interesting inside anyway.”
I give Lyra another nod and a smile. She actually makes herself smile and nod back. She has a job to do. Two of the armor suits come forward to escort her. One of them is Horst, so I feel better. He throws me a quick salute, and
damn the consequences.
“Call us if you need us, General,” I call out. “Or if you’re ready to talk like civilized people.”
We leap up into the open underside hatch. Azazel turns the ship for home, burns away fast just to show them what his new toy can do.
I trust that a railgun isn’t going to take a shot at me from space enough to return to Tranquility. It’s the first time we’ve all been back in nearly a week.
Kali barely has to encourage the Cast to prepare a feast, a celebration. Of course, Kali’s version of our dark adventure was that we stopped a great evil and put the Unmakers in their place.
I take Murphy and Two Gun aside to give them the full version—they deserve to know what’s been happening, and what may happen because of it. Murphy wants to discuss sending a delegation to meet with UNMAC, discuss terms, see if they would be willing to consider some kind of arrangement that would let the Cast and Domers keep their homes, while assuring Earth there’s nothing to fear here (unless they try to push relocation). Two Gun hears him out, agrees to be part of his effort.
“I’m not going to let my brother do something so stupid by himself,” he almost jokes.
I find Astarte in the gardens, sitting quietly. This is also the first time I’ve seen her in the flesh in nearly a week. She smiles when she sees me, but can’t hold my eyes. I sit with her, take her hand.
“How much of Cal do you have in you?” I ask gently. She looks like she’s trying to find the words to explain, then tells me:
“It’s like a movie. Or a video series I’ve seen. It’s worst when I dream. I dream I’m him. And some things are more than seeing and hearing. I can taste and smell his grandmother’s cooking, his favorite foods… He was from Louisiana, you know. He loved his goddamn crawfish…” She wrinkles her nose, sticks out her tongue. “And then there’s… well… knowing what it’s like to be a guy… I mean… It’s not just sex from the other side… Do you know we see differently? You see colors so sharply, primaries, and motion… It’s like being on acid. And Jesus, the hormones… I thought we had it bad, but for you it’s every day, being driven to do stupid stupid shit and damn the consequences all for one moment of intense pleasure that immediately turns on you and knocks you out like fucking opium, and then you’re back at it like a junky…”
She squeezes my hand, looks me in the eye.
“That’s why I was spending time with Lux. Did you know he was born male? Bisexual. Effeminate. But he never considered himself transgender. He tried it on a lark as soon as the TG morphing mods hit the market. He says it’s the best thing he’s ever done—it opened a new world to him… He was just trying to show me, share…”
I surprise her with a kiss.
“I told you: I can’t judge you, what you’ve been through… But I want to understand, if I can. I know I haven’t been…”
She shuts me up by kissing me back.
The delegation of the New Knights of Avalon arrives outside the gate just before sunset, just in time for the party. Two Gun and Murphy welcome them as honored guests.
31 August, 2117:
“I’m impressed you’ve come in person. I thought there was a Quarantine in effect?”
I greet General Jonathan Richards warily and informally—I’m not serving under him, after all, but I think he came to see me as much as to have his tour of Tranquility.
“There is. But some things are more important, especially now.”
In person, he reminds me a lot of his grandfather, including, unfortunately, the uncomfortable weight of the position he’s found himself in. But he also has the assertive carriage and confidence of an old-school officer who’s born to the game. Then he shows me he’s brave enough to shake my hand, even though he’s still wearing gloves (I wonder if they’ve somehow been treated to detect any attempt to “infect” him).
“I expect the drama I’ve stirred up has landed squarely on your shoulders,” I indirectly apologize. He manages an honest little chuckle, letting me know he’s human under that crisp new L-A uniform.
“It does dispel some of the doubt as to whether or not you’re still actually Mike Ram,” he barely jokes. “You’re certainly living up to your historic reputation.”
“I thought your grandfather spoke highly of me,” I remind him of a much earlier conversation.
“He said you were a skilled warfighter, an impressive tactician, and a charismatic leader who was able to engender trust even in an enemy. And he did respect your moral compass, even when it threatened to topple world powers down around your ears. And his.”
“High praise,” I accept. I wonder what Thomas Richards would think of this particular version of me. I remember the other-timeline version died of natural causes before the longevity mods were out of classified trials. But like Matthew, I doubt he would have accepted them, preferring to go out with the world he’d served.
Murphy and Two Gun have come to meet the UNACT delegation at the restored Lower Dome main lock. We cleared enough of an LZ fifty meters downslope for the two ASVs he came in, along with a squad of guards in new-model H-A cans and a team of scientists to look over the gardens. The main lock is just big enough to handle all of them and the three of us. There’s a tense few minutes between the outer hatch sealing behind them and the pressure cycling to release the inner hatch. Murphy and Two Gun take off their masks first, and Richards honors their hospitality enough to remove his, take his first breath of the oxygen-rich Tranquility air. More masks start coming off, but only one of the H-A troopers pops his helmet: It’s Rios. He gives me a warm if not entirely easy grin and a small nod of greeting.
Mixed in with the scientific team I see Rick, Tru and Doc Ryder. Their faces share Rios’ mix of joy and apprehension. Richards himself is accompanied by a stern rail-thin blonde (also in a sharp new-design L-A uniform with major’s clusters) as his apparent assistant.
The Cast have turned out en-masse, but keep their distance along the terraces. The general atmosphere is tense—Unmaker guns inside their world. A handful of Hammond-Keller Council representatives—mostly older generation—stand in a tight group at attention to receive. Paul Stilson stands uncomfortably to one side of them, and with him is Grandmaster Kendricks, flanked by two of his knights. Bel, Kali and Bly have decided to remain invisible for now. (Lux and Azazel decided it best to be somewhere else entirely.)
I make the formal introductions. Then Murphy takes over (with Two Gun’s enthusiastic approval as he admits he has no patience or talent for politesse), offering the delegation a guided tour of the domes. Richards accepts with measured grace, and the inspection proceeds onward, though my old friends take the opportunity to lag behind.
“You look good,” Tru tells me first with a nervous smile. “A little camp pulp fantasy, but it’s kinda hot on you.”
“You look ridiculous,” Rick disarms. “And I thought your old costume was bad.” He’s recalling my early days of skulking around under a big hat and coat, like I could actually hide who and what I was under such an anachronistic affectation.
“You do look good, sir,” Rios tries to affirm.
“No need to call me ‘sir’, Juan,” I correct warmly. “I doubt I’ve still got my commission, under the circumstances.”
I realize Richards is looking back our way, but he doesn’t seem to be objecting to our little reunion.
“You should have a look around,” I encourage them. “I think you’ll like what you see.”
This first inspection lasts six hours. They’ve brought new equipment to detect nanotechnology and biological contaminants down to prion scale. They test the air, the soil, sample the plants; examine the repaired atmosphere and water recyclers, the food processors. Ryder supervises some general physicals on a selection of Cast and Domer volunteers. Then we meet for an early supper on one of the upper balconies of the Lower Dome, overlooking the lush garden.
The tables were made by Paul out of spare panel, the chairs borrowed. A spread of fresh produce, savory beans and
handmade bread from the Cast are paired with a selection of home cooking from the Domer kitchens. The food, water and teas all get tested before we sit.
“It’s a truly impressive place,” Richards praises with apparent honesty. “It’s hard to believe these people have managed to thrive, to build a new civilization, despite the hardships of this planet, the disaster.”
“I appreciate you calling it a civilization,” I give back. “Humans are resilient, no matter the planet.”
He sips tentatively at his sweetroot tea blend, nods and smiles like he appreciates it.
“Ambassador Murphy and the Cast leader Two Gun give you a lot of credit for what they have here today,” he allows.
“I didn’t fix the roof,” I nod in Paul’s direction. “Or repair the recyclers.”
“But you’ve still got the Peacemaker reputation. It’s no secret this place was divided by violence. Now they seem to be getting along as neighbors. And I hear there are new treaties with the Melas Nomads and the Avalon Knights. I expect you had your hand in that.”
Kendricks shoots me wary a look, like he’s not sure if this is praise or masking some sinister intent. Rick, Tru and Rios are also watching me uncomfortably as they eat (and they eat without hesitation, unlike those new to the planet).
“And where do we stand, General?” I ask him levelly.
“You and I, or Mars and Earth? I’m just a soldier. Doing my job. So were you.”
“Should I be worrying about railguns pointed at me from orbit?” I specify lightly.
“It depends on what you are now,” he stays honest.
“And that remains to be determined,” I assume. Then I change the subject: “So how much damage did the Circe incident do back on Earth?”
He hesitates long enough to tell me he has to consider what he can and can’t say. I notice his assistant—Major Cormac—is eyeing both of us like a predator as she pokes at her meal.
The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are Page 33
