The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades (31 page)

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 the 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.

Abbas tells of his people, of life in Melas, in the
desert, of his fortuitous meeting with Ram, and praises their deep
friendship. Then the subject turns to the disaster UNMAC caused
(the Pax are again disturbed by this news), and his dream of
finding a new home for his people. He heavily recounts his many
losses to the Silvermen and the bots. He specifically admits to the
loss of his first wife, Fatima, killed just this morning in the
first wave of attacks, while bravely protecting her sister-wife.
This is followed by a long silence, and a tearful embrace with his
son, who apparently hadn’t been given this news until now.

Leder Sower solemnly stands, lowers his head. His
people match his gesture, the warriors putting hands over their
slung masks as if hiding those metal faces. Sower then walks around
the table to embrace Abbas, followed by Archer. It’s clear that
many of those present understand such profound loss. Even I feel
tears well afresh for my father. I look at Elias—he stares
stoically at the table, chewing at his lower lip, but his grief is
finally clear.

I’m then left to tell my own tale in the wake of this
profound moment. I find I have nothing to say beyond basic details:
Where I’m from. Why I came all this way. I insist I’ve done nothing
of interest or worthy of praise, and that even my actions today
were not of my own ability. But I make my promise to serve, to
protect the Pax and the Katar to the best of my ability. (Somehow
this seems to please my sword, but I’m not sure its intentions have
anything to do with what’s right.)

“He’s my brother. That’s all I have to say.” And
that’s all Elias has to say.

After the meal, and by way of our hosts telling their
own story, Sower leads us deeper into the cavern complex. First he
leads us to a chain of hangar-sized chambers to show us his “live
stock”: numerous specimens kept in pens and cages made from parts
of plants. The stink here is palpable: musky, earthy, pungent and
almost choking. I recognize the species from my school studies of
Earth biology and zoology, but they’re different than what I’ve
seen: Longer, leaner legs; much larger rib cages; thicker fur (or
feathers); fat-hooded eyes; wider nostrils. Adapted, like the Pax
and Katar, to living in the thin air, the cold, and the lower
gravity of a different world. These creatures appear to eat mixes
of plant-based foods, or raw plant parts themselves, except the
pigs, which are also fed from our table scraps (and seem happy to
have it, even though they’re technically engaging in some
cannibalism). Their waste is carefully collected to use as
fertilizer in their gardens and open-air “farms”.

He shows us some of the in-cave greenhouses, lit and
heated by skylight shafts capped by lenses that intensify the
sunlight as well as its heat, watered by ingenious hand-crafted
pumping systems. Their “farms” are hidden out in the valley, masked
by the natural greenery, tended by individual “Steads” that are
spread throughout their lands.

Sower tells us that while they’ve been gardening and
farming in the open air for more than two decades now, they’ve only
adapted their livestock to the low pressure within the last decade,
after having proven that it was possible to tolerate the atmosphere
unaided themselves. They still keep their animals under shelter for
UV protection, but they’ve made a mandate—as have their neighbors
the Katar—to conform themselves to being able to live on this
planet without technological survival gear, to let go of the last
remnants of Earth and embrace life on this world as it is. Only the
old and the very young rely on oxygen supplements (which means my
Normal companions must either appear childlike or geriatric—at
least in poor health—due to their reliance on masks). They still
use hydrogen fuel heat because the primitive burning they used to
cook our feast might draw too much attention from orbit, so they
only burn deep in the caves. The heat and smoke that bleeds from
their “chimney” vents is made to appear to be the result of ETE
tapping.

Finally, they show us a “dragon farm”, where they
nurture the giant insect larvae in specially tended pools cut into
the stone. Once mature, the dragonflies are released through cave
openings into the outer world, to control the butterfly population.
The dragonflies are apparently instinctive enough to return to the
cave pools to lay their eggs (possibly because it’s the only
standing water that doesn’t freeze every night), thus continuing
the life cycle.