The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds (2 page)

Those closest to me have picked up on that: my guilt,
my helplessness. Is that what’s driving my shift to soft diplomacy
and attempting to adapt and assimilate to this world? (Or is it my
inability to see other viable options?) Matthew particularly: The
impossible corner we’ve been backed into aside, I get the distinct
feeling that he’s starting to think that age hasn’t agreed with me,
that I’ve lost something very important. Or I’ve become something
that isn’t… “practical”.

In the realm of “impractical,” Rios continues his
training sessions with Sakina, and has formed a “study group” of
junior officers, NCOs and line troops to develop “alternative”
weapons and fighting techniques that do not rely on firearms. I’ve
actively supported this project (notwithstanding that I myself used
a
sword
instead of a gun in my last two hostile encounters
with the locals), perhaps more clearly seeing a potential future
that brings us closer to what the other survivor factions have
evolved into: Not just living off the land, but having to rely on
something other than limited supplies of ammunition and ordnance to
defend ourselves. My soldiers may well need to learn how to fight
without guns, without missiles and grenades, very soon. And if not
them, then whatever generation comes next, assuming the growing
possibility that we’ll never be relieved, that we’ll have to make
do where we are with what we have (or—like the other factions—what
we can make or take).

But there is still a lot of resistance to this
“fantasy”—Matthew, Lisa and Rick especially in that company—because
it’s an acceptance of the unthinkable: That Earth will not come
back for us. That we will be here for the rest of our lives.

Sixty days of silence…

Keeping a quantum of hope myself (or for my role as
appointed leader of our little corner of Mars), I find myself
practicing what it is I will say—what report I will make—when Earth
does respond to our call. I also imagine endless permutations of
what Earth might say, might ask.

I realize this is critically important: How I go
about explaining the situation here will strongly influence Earth’s
response. If I describe a chaos of warring xenophobic factions now
sporadically pacified by frighteningly powerful nano-hybrids who
insist on maintaining their own control of the planet, I easily can
imagine the worst response. But if I try to explain things more
objectively, the tale only gets more convoluted and unbelievable,
and I’m sure I’ll sound like I’m not being honest about the
situation.

I remember our first interview with Paul, when he
showed up out of what we then believed to be an uninhabited
wilderness: He didn’t even know where to start. And despite his
objectivity—even serenity—what he told us about what Mars had
become while we slept scared us.

We get our first glimmer of hope—or doom—just an hour
after the sun has set. Anton has stayed out in the cold and
near-vacuum of Candor to confirm his suspicions before coming back
into the tight shelter of the converted ASV bay that serves as our
(very) remote command post to report.

“We just picked up faint signals,” he begins uneasily
on our screens. He should be ecstatic, celebrating, but he looks
sick. And pressured: he hasn’t even stripped off his surface suit.
I can see the fine layer of frost that formed on it as soon as he
came inside, still crystalline, only starting to sublime into a
wispy fog that rises off of his shoulders in the warmth and
pressure of the ASV bay. “Not directed at us, but definitely
directed out into space, and on one of the common flight-paths that
used to get unmanned probes here. And what we could hear reminded
Dr. Mann of the control signals sent back and forth from the
pre-colonial remote probes. It’s almost like someone dusted off the
old calculations and blueprints, or pulled something out of
mothballs—exactly what you’d do if you needed to send something in
a hurry and didn’t have a working space program. We did what we
could to get a zero on whatever’s coming our way. And something
is
coming our way—I just confirmed that by radio telescope.
And it’s something
s
. I can separate at least four blips,
very small—not manned—coming in very fast. They’re already about
halfway to us, and if MAI calculated speed and trajectory right,
they would have been launched from Earth in late October.”

“Right after our problems with the Shinkyo,” I agree
heavily.

“ETA within three months,” Rick gives MAI’s best
guess.

“I don’t like that they launched these things but
won’t answer our calls,” Anton says what I think we’re all feeling.
He sounds like he’s going to come out of his skin.

“Probes or bombs?” Matthew has to ask.

“I wouldn’t think missiles would need the regular
transmissions we’re picking up,” Rick considers.

“And if they were bombs, I’d expect more,” I
offer.

“Unless they’re bigger and better bombs,” Matthew has
to point out.

“I don’t think so, Colonel,” Anton agrees with Rick.
“Regular signals are
updates
. I think someone’s trying to
get a look at us.”

“Could be a set of probes backed up by
cluster-nukes,” Matthew calculates the worst, chewing his lip.
“Something to get a look, then be ready to burn us if they don’t
like what they see.”

Our silence confirms we all share his fears.

“Still no luck cracking them?” Lisa finally asks,
Linked in from Melas Three.

“MAI can’t make sense of the code,” Anton repeats his
previous assessments. “Their tech is generations ahead of ours—and
I mean
human
generations, making it a good few hundred
machine generations, assuming the tech was evolving like it was
before the Bang.”

“Are you still thinking maybe they haven’t answered
because they can’t understand our signals?” Matthew tries.

“No, Colonel,” Rick tells him, shooting down Anton’s
earlier speculations, “just because I can’t believe they’d be that
stupid. If the Shinkyo’s nukes or the ETE digging up their hidden
colony is what got Earth’s attention, you’d think Step One would be
to keep an ear out for friendly signals.”

“You
always
keep an ear out for old signals if
there’s even a remote possibility somebody might try to call in,”
Lisa agrees after a deep breath. “Even Morse Code is still on the
books.”

“Gets us back to why they haven’t answered,” Matthew
grouses.

This should have been good news.

I’m thinking again about my doubts, my fears, my
reluctance to call out in the first place given how Earth might
react to the story we have to tell. But I realize: They sent
whatever they sent
before
we started calling, probably
because they picked up nuclear detonations on the surface, and then
saw a supposedly obliterated colony suddenly re-appear. Our calling
out may be the only thing that stays their bombing us again.

“Then we wait and keep hope,” I tell them. “Let’s
hope those probes see something they like.”

31 January, 2116:

I doubt any of us slept last night.

Anton’s news moved through our ranks like a
shockwave, carrying the same uneasy ambivalence it did for those of
us that first heard it: Earth has sent something but won’t answer
our calls. Is this rescue or execution? Or something in
between?

The tension was sufficient to prompt Tru to dare
Sakina’s passion at dealing with all potential “threats” to her
“master”, showing up at my door at 05:00.

“Let’s do without the official filters,” she begins
seriously, sitting herself at the foot of my bed. She smells of the
greenhouse, like she’s just come from there despite the cold dark
hour—the smells of a living planet, not a sterile facility. “Tell
me what you’re expecting.”

Sakina has made a space for her by sitting back in
the corner by the bathroom niche. Her posture is hard as steel, and
she makes it a point to keep her black eyes steady on Tru. I’m
still not sure—or not willing to be sure—that she’s so particularly
hostile to Tru because of what Tru represents or because she is
indeed territorially jealous. I don’t see Sakina react this way
toward Lisa, despite our long difficult romantic history being the
stuff of popular culture. Perhaps it’s because Lisa is both a
warrior and a life-long cadre, and not my former “enemy” like
Truganini Greenlove and her former Eco insurgents (now all peaceful
and productive co-residents of our little concrete world). That
would be the easier condition to deal with. I’d rather not think
about the other possibility because of what it implies: Sakina
doesn’t like Tru around me because of the way Tru blatantly flirts
with me. In any case, I find being in such a closed space with the
two of them so tense that I hold myself ready to physically
intervene in an instant. That makes it particularly hard to focus
on the subject at hand.

“I’m still hoping for the best,” I tell her as
sincerely as I can.

“The ‘best’ despite the fact that Earth hasn’t
directly responded to our calls in two months?” she counters with
what I didn’t say. I take a deep breath.

“I can only hope that they still retain enough
remorse and grief over what they think happened here fifty years
ago that they won’t simply shoot first,” I offer. “If it were me,
I’d want to be absolutely sure before I pulled that trigger
again.”

“Assuming there
is
grief and remorse,” she
counters—I’ve never seen her mood this dark, even with what we’ve
been through together so far. “Maybe they’ve been
celebrating
it all these years: The relief that comes with
believing that what they really did was dodge the bullet that could
have killed their whole planet. Terror is funny that way.” I notice
she refers to Earth as if it isn’t her planet anymore.

“And now the monster is stirring again?” I follow her
fears.

“Nightmares have a long lifespan in the cultural
consciousness.”

I realize: She’s just been in the greenhouse.
Probably looking up through the layers of transparent panels at the
star-filled sky, which is now threatening what she’s so lovingly
grown here. Threatening her people, her family, her home.

“You’re the one that’s supposed to have the faith in
human nature,” I try.

“Does that mean you’re the one preparing for the
worst?” she turns it.

I feel suddenly flushed. Matthew’s right: age isn’t
agreeing with me. I hadn’t even thought about contingencies. We
managed to survive one nuclear “sterilization”, though we had
better resources and countermeasures then. And if Earth tries
harder this time…

But what options do I have? Try to shelter us again?
(And what happens to the other survivors living in Marineris who
don’t have the benefit of our bunkers?) Get help? (From who? The
ETE? The last thing I want is a war between Earth and the ETE,
however inevitable that might be.)

“Maybe you should talk to our friends in the colorful
suits,” she prods me in the obvious direction, reading my
hesitation. I manage to give her a nod of agreement, and realize
the ETE have probably been monitoring the incoming objects at least
as long as we have. They might even have better eyes on whatever’s
coming, or be able to hack (or at least read) their transmissions.
(But how will Earth respond if whatever they sent gets taken
offline or hijacked as soon as it gets here?)

When I don’t have a response for her, Tru gets up off
the bed to leave, and I see her dart a look at Sakina that I’m
surprised doesn’t get her killed. Sakina, for her part, seems to be
in a forgiving mood, given the circumstances, and doesn’t
react.

“I hope they’re just being cautious,” Tru tries to
believe, staring at the bulkhead. “I don’t want this to be another
war. Or worse. It’s just that you’re not very lucky that way, are
you?” She bends down and kisses me on the head, then lets herself
out.

After she’s gone, Sakina starts her morning hygiene
ritual, stripping off her armor and running herself under my shower
with the spiritual intensity and focus of a tea ceremony. I’ve
watched her do this most mornings, idly appreciating the artistic
grace and discipline of everything she does, but I can’t stop
thinking about the way she reacts to Tru, and what Tru once said to
me about how blissfully ignorant I am (or pretend to be) about what
the women in my life want from me.

Watching Sakina bathe, I realize she makes it a point
never to look at me while she does so, though she certainly knows
I’m looking at her. I also realize I’ve
assumed
she thinks
of me like some kind of father figure, reinforced by that one night
she curled against me for solace like a vulnerable little girl—the
only time she’s touched me (outside of a sparring session) in the
four months she’s shared my room since showing up out of the desert
and electing herself my personal guard. But I flush again when I
remember what her own father—who was also her grandfather—likely
meant to her.

I’m about to open my mouth to ask her what she does
want, when I realize I’d rather remain ignorant for at least a
little while longer. I am getting old.

I haven’t even managed to get to breakfast when I
find out the ETE aren’t the only ones who know something is inbound
from Earth.

“Two miles out, Colonel,” Kastl shows me the optical
enhancement of what we can barely see through our pillbox
viewports. “They haven’t moved since the sunrise lit ‘em up.”

“And of course they know we can see them,” Matthew
adds as I try to make sense of it: On a smooth low hilltop there’s
a semi-circle of fabric curtains, like large banners on frames,
each square and taller than a man, each white with the Shinkyo
crest printed in the center. In the middle of the circle sit a
formation of Shinobi, all kneeling and perfectly still around one
figure who sits on a slightly raised platform, wearing a black
hooded robe and a red sash.