Moving Mars (57 page)

No sign of it. Perhaps it had been thrown free, or smashed into the dirt with the pilot thinker and the cockpit.

I pushed my hand harder against the canopy. With a worrisome sucking sound, the membrane switched functions and formed gloves around my hands. The panel hatch popped open at my touch. I felt inside, half-blind, and brought out two cylinders and two masks with attached cyclers.

Flesh creeping, expecting to step on the locust or have it rise in front of me at any moment, I pushed out of the shuttle and slowly rolled my canopy to a higher spot on the rough terrain. I peered through the translucent membrane at the rocky, nasty surface, all knife-edge shards and tumbles of flopsand. We were two or three kilometers from the southern boundary of the station. We had enough air for five hours of exertion.

I returned through the jagged hole, nearly having a heart attack when the membrane snagged on a sharp pipe. I carefully lifted the membrane free and proceeded up the canted aisle.

Next I would expand my canopy and merge it with Dandys. I carried the cylinders and masks to the rear and dropped them at my feet. Then I bellied up against Dandys membrane. The two surfaces grew together with another sucking sound. I cut through the common membrane with a finger as it purposefully rotted, spread the opening, and crawled through. The medical arbeiters had stacked themselves neatly on the next seat, their work finished. Dandy raised his head and looked at me with some puzzlement. His eyes focused. His expression of pained gratitude didnt need words.

I pulled my slate from a pocket to communicate with him. The emergency suits are gone. We still have some skinseal and masks. We re about three kilometers from Preamble. Were going to walk.

We sprayed each other with the bright-green skinseal and put on the masks and cyclers before climbing out of the shuttles wreckage. It had plowed in head-first, rolled for half a kilometer, and come to rest on a smashed tail. The upthrust broken nose leaned by chance toward Kaibab station, toward Preamble. I tried to find our position on a map through a navsat link but couldnt get a signal.

I showed Dandy my slate again. Links are down. No navsat.

He nodded grimly. I climbed on top of a rock and used a pair of binoculars to survey the landscape. Dandy climbed up beside me with difficulty. The crack in his tibia made walking rough for him.

We huddled in a smooth patch of sand. Dandy held up three fingers and bent one halfway. Two and a half kilometers. He mouthed, Trail clear about half a klick north-northwest.

He pointed to the glistening fragments of vitreous lava. The rocks were always eroding, rounded segments falling away to reveal sharp fresh surfaces. Very nasty terrain. The soles of our boots could handle the edges, but if we fell

We agreed on the direction and began walking.

Time stretched, nothing but staring at glittering scalpel-sharp edges and fan-shaped flakes dusted with flopsand; lifting feet, staring for a place to put them down without tripping, pausing to regain our bearings.

Two hours, and we stood on the twisted trail, free of the lava field.

Dandy took my shoulder and guided me due north. He followed the stars with a sparrows eye. Another hour on the trail, however, and he shook his head, paused, examined our oxygen supply, and pulled out his slate to consult a map.

I looked up to see a large meteor glowing low in the western sky. No, I told myself; no trail. It wasnt a meteor, not a large fireball. It was where Phobos should be about now, just past rising. I tapped Dandys arm and pointed.

He stared for a moment, brow pulled low in an intense frown, then glanced at me with eyes wide. What is it? he mouthed.

Phobos.

Yeah. He lifted his finger and drew it across his throat.

Danny Pincher and his crew, their tweaker The Mercury. Earth was using all of its new-found power.

One thing at a time, take care of the immediate problems before considering apocalypse. Dandy pushed his slate back into a belt pouch and made as if to lick his finger and hold it up to the breeze. That way. He pointed slightly east of north. I think the trail curves west of the outermost buildings. Back across lava.

Lets go, I said.

We picked our way over an even rougher field now. Gullies several meters deep crossed our path. We climbed down slowly, then back up again, removing our equipment belts and wrapping them around our skinsealed hands to protect against the broken-glass edges.

Well cross the emergency exit for the bunkhouse wing. Itll look a lot like a rock, so stay alert.

My eyes hurt from dryness under the mask and from staring so hard at the sharp rocks and ground beneath my feet. My ribs hurt despite the pain control of the nano; I would need better attention soon.

The exertion was wearing me down, finally, and the air from our tanks smelled foul. Recirculation and scrubbing was beginning to fail. We were pushing the skinseal suits and masks to their limits.

Dandy held out an arm and I bumped into it, nearly losing my balance. He grabbed my shoulder to steady me, then made a hush gesture with his finger near his mask. I squinted to see whatever he had seen. The landscape was still, orange flopsand crust and scattered black boulders, sunlight glinting from glassy surfaces. I followed his gaze and saw something that was not still, something moving slowly a few dozen meters away. A skeletal metallic arm rose above the rocks, flexed cautiously, then straightened. A round black and orange striped body broke loose from the ground and erected on stubby black legs. A translucent sac fell away, and the thing stood on Kaibabs rocky plain, as big as a human, surveying its surroundings through tiny glittering eyes on a bulbous head. Its two arms undulated with a spooky, deliberate rhythm, as if tasting the air.

Dandy drew me down slowly as the locust turned away from us, and we tried to hide in the boulders. He raised his head high enough to keep track of the machine, then crawled slowly out of my sight.

I lay in the crotch of two boulders, buttocks pressed uncomfortably against rugged pebbly flop, too tired and in pain to feel any fear or even to wonder what Dandy was up to. After ten or fifteen minutes, he returned and switched on power to my suit again. He pantomimed and mouthed that the locust was stalking away from the station, and away from us, but that he had seen evidence of many othersfactory cases, trenches where material had been mined and converted. And he had found the entrance. I followed him on hands and knees, my stomach churning with the added pain.

A large black boulder blocked our way through a narrow gully filled with powdery smear. I crawled past him, bringing up my slate. An optical port glittered within a dimple in the boulder. I programmed my slate for my key codes and ported it. The boulder quickly split in half, revealing a hatch. The hatch swung inward, and Dandy helped me through.

A guard waited for us in the narrow tunnel beyond, down on one knee with electron gun poised. He raised his head from the sight, opened one slitted eye, and blinked in disbelief. You crashed, he said. Our hearing was beginning to return, though harsh and uneven; loud noises hurt.

Yeah, and where was the goddamned rescue team? Dandy demanded in a rasp.

Nobodys going anywhere, the guard said, hefting his gun and standing. We posted defenses on all outer corridors. Weve had two locust attacks

I have to get to the main lab, I said.

The station had been breached in two areas, both near the southern tunnel through which we had entered. The head of station defense, a broad-faced woman named Eccles, passed us in a side corridor, followed by a train of maintenance and defense arbeiters. She raised her eyebrows at Dandy, who shook his head with a fierce scowl: no time to explain.

The entire station was on first stage alert. Leander met us at the junction with the main corridor. Water a foot deep coursed along the floor from a pipe rupture. We slogged through the stream beside Leander.

Weve put Charles and Tamara on alert, he explained. Theyre in the main labs, testing the QLs and preparing for whatever you order.

Having positioned troops and arbeiters, Eccles splashed into the corridor and joined us. Madam Vice President, we havent been able to reach Many Hills. Weve seen locusts south of the station. There have been two skirmishes, and we anticipate full-scale attacks any time.

We climbed three steps up into a dry corridor.

Well need better med, and soon, and I want to see everything, I said. Two distant thumps brought everybody to a halt. We glanced around warily, waiting.

Our defense arbeiters have begun shelling, Eccles said.

Dandy shook his head bitterly. Theyll come in here like cockroaches. We cant keep them away by shelling.

Ill do whatever I damn well can, Eccles said defiantly, eyes flashing.

Leander pulled me aside while Dandy and Eccles argued strategy. Locusts wont be our biggest worry. Phobos has been taken out.

We saw it, I said.

And Deimos as well. We dont have any big guns.

Phobos looked like it was torched, I said.

Leanders face fell. Were picking up high levels of gamma radiation.

What, then?

Remote conversion, Leander said. They seem to be using the Ice Pit to target us.

Did the teams get away? I asked.

Leander shook his head. Ive got a medical coming, and some transportation.

The pain in my ribs had subsided to a brutal throb.

In the annex outside the main lab,, as an officious, humming arbeiter injected more nano and watched my vital signs, Eccles and Lieh worked with the original of Aelita to show me what little they knew. A map of the Kaibab Plateau displayed hundreds of blinking yellow crosses: suspected locust sign, spotted by emergency balloons and gliders circling the station. Red dots indicated positive locust identification. I counted thirty.

Dandy described the locust that had invaded our shuttle and brought us down. Lieh listened attentively.

We only have the sketchiest ideas what shapes they can take, and what they can do, she said. So far, all weve seen have been scouts and simple sappers.

More deep thumps vibrated the walls and floor.

I hope thats our ordinance, Lieh said.

Sounds like charges, Eccles said.

Most links are down, Lieh said. Comsats have been taken outwe dont know how

Leander and I glanced at each other, lips pursed.

And so were pretty isolated. We cant guarantee making any connections with the President. In short, Lieh said, shadows deeply etched around her eyes and mouth, theyve done it to us again, even more dirty. Maam, my gut tells me weve suffered tremendous damage. Whoevers in charge of the Earth focus has gone over the edge. Ill support any effort you decide to take.

We assume theyll try to kill us all, Eccles said.

Then its war, Lieh said. How can we retaliate?

Leander looked away. We had other swords of Damocles; but if we used them, the loss of life on both worlds would be staggering. So far, only Phobos and Deimos had been hit by what might be remote conversionan action that could be regarded as frightened, as defensive.

Its not an easy call, Charles said, standing in the door to the annex. He stared at me with a puzzled expression, as if emerging from an unpleasant drunk.

Wheres Tamara? Leander asked.

Shes on the QL, keeping it exercised.

Eccles tapped my shoulder. The red dots on the display had tightened around the station. They knew where we were, and soon they would know what we were.

Theyve fully harnessed the Ice Pit, Charles said. He lifted a hand and flexed it as if it pained him. Theyll use it on us soon.

More thumps, and a distant, high-pitched drilling whine that set my teeth on edge.

Theyre doing it, Lieh said, eyes intense, far more sanguine. Genocide. We have to respond.

I knew how she felt. We were cornered. It would only be natural to use all of our claws.

But we still had that other option, and that was why Charles was here: to gently remind me that all along, we had planned to do something completely unexpected. Vengeance would not save us.

But I had to explore all the possibilities. Can we target the Ice Pit for conversion?

Ive tried. I cant even find the Ice Pit now.

Is anything else protected?

We can pick any target on Earth and convert it, Charles said softly. Billions of hectares. Entire continents If you order it.

Distinct popping sounds came from outside the lab chamber: projectile weapons. Eccles inquired about the action and was told that two locusts had been destroyed, one in a reservoir and the other in an arbeiter tunnel a hundred meters from the lab.

Its going to be hand-to-hand in an hour or less, she said.

I could not order Charles to begin genocide on Earth. He might not even obey. My options had been reduced to just one, but even for that I did not have the authority.

I had to wait, as long as possible, for Ti Sandra.

What do we do? Eccles asked.

Aelita interrupted and said, We have received an important image from a pop-up satcom.

The display changed abruptly. We looked down from five hundred kilometers above Schiaparelli Basin. A gray impenetrable curtain swept in eel-like folds across the basin, its upper reaches filled with sparkling stars. It seemed to be moving slowly from north to south. Where it had passed, dust filled the thin atmosphere. Through the dust we could barely make out lakes of molten rock, blackened tumult, complete destruction.

Thats Many Hills, Dandy said.

Theyre converting Mars now, Leander said.

Madam Vice President Lieh began, but Charles interrupted her.

Aelita, can you magnify the western limb?

I see something there as well, Aelita said, and did as she was told. The picture was at the extreme edge of the satellites range; Mariner Valley appeared like a grainy gash in the landscape.

Were here, Leander said, standing beside Charles near the display and pointing with a finger just below, meaning beyond, the horizon. Charles traced another gray curtain barely visible in the magnified image. The curtain might have been a few hundred kilometers beyond northeast Kaibab; it was difficult to be sure.