The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades (54 page)

“Yod again,” Lux sighs. “What’s to say both versions
aren’t fiction?”

I look at Stilson. He’s walking cautious of the
ground under his feet, skittish, like he can’t trust any of it.
Most all of us are doing some version of that. I’m still trying to
grasp an artificial entity that can exist inside anything, remake
everything. And it strikes me: the only way I can move on, keep
stepping on this potentially living ground and breathing this
potentially conscious air is on a kind of faith. I have to have
faith in Yod. Just like he’s a real deity.

I try not to let anyone else hear or see me start to
laugh.

I stuff it down, bite it back, get my shit together
because we have serious matters to deal with. Like

“We certainly can’t let Earth know about this,” I
insist.

“The idiots would probably nuke us and then
themselves,” Bel agrees darkly.

“And I don’t think I would blame them if they tried
to,” Stilson admits, the urgency of the topic distracting him from
his discomfort with reality.

“I can’t believe we agreed to this,” Lux says
sadly.

“
I
certainly never agreed to this,” I mutter
under my breath. They ignore me.

“
Did
we?” Azazel counters. “Or did he make us,
get inside our heads and rewire our brains?”

“Then why undo it?” Bel returns. “And why not just
redo it, especially now that we know, erase our memories of what
just happened?”

This leaves them speechless, like they fully expect
Yod to just re-appear and wipe them blank, reset them to some
earlier state of ignorance so they can get back to doing what
they’re programmed to, what Yod wants. (Unless this—whatever
happens next—is what Yod wants.)

“Why leave us with the knowledge?” Erickson says it
out loud.

“Trust,” Elias says quietly to the wind, still
sounding distant, detached. “Or maybe it doesn’t matter.”

“He knows what we’ll do,” Ram decides. Then he looks
at me. “No. We can’t tell Earth. I think everyone here understands
that.” He looks at Paul Stilson, who nods his agreement.

“And sharing with the locals?” Lux considers. I look
at my still-Normal friends. The force of Silver Warriors marching
warily behind us, overjoyed to be going home but terrified of
everything they know they’ll be facing. The Nomads. Murphy. Terina.
They could all certainly tell their people what they’ve seen and
heard, what it means (assuming they even grasp it, in all its
devastating scope).

“Yod didn’t seem too concerned,” Erickson tries.

“Yod’s a fucking
planet
,” Lux snaps at him.
“
Two
planets. Maybe more, depending on how far he’s spread
in the last seventy years, assuming that’s really all it has been…
You think a planet cares about the microbes on its skin?”

“Until they get irritating,” Azazel qualifies.

“He didn’t seem like that,” I hope out loud, invoking
my faith. But realize I don’t really believe it, not enough to have
any real level of comfort.

“That was just an interface,” Dee reminds me. “Just
like I am. A set of programs to mimic social interaction,
communicate with the fleshware.”

“You’re more than that,” Ram insists. Dee looks at
him with suddenly lifeless eyes.

“Am I? I’m a few billion behavioral algorithms and
memory files, managed by a learning master program. And I can’t
even assure you that I’m an expression of that system that you saw
evolve. He could have just made me, right before I rebooted in the
sand, convincing scars and all.”

“Which makes you no different than the rest of us,
really,” Bel allows him. “You’re just not made of meat.”

Dee re-engages his social algorithms, starts to show
convincing human expression again.

“So now what?” Lux repeats my earlier question.

“You do whatever it is you’re going to,” Elias
answers with impressive serenity. “It doesn’t matter if it’s you or
Him doing it.”

We all digest that in silence. And walk.

“You all weren’t here when we woke up yesterday
morning,” I tell Ram when we make it back to our campsite. It looks
pretty much the same as it did the night before I woke up drenched,
the missing shelters back where they were.

“
You
weren’t here when we woke up yesterday
morning,” Ram explains. “Another illusion. Designed to separate
us.”

“What your senses react to is mostly waves and
particles,” Bel gets scientific. “Yod can control what gets aimed
your way. Call it ‘actual reality’ instead of ‘virtual
reality’.”

“He needed the swords to think they were getting
hosts for their friends,” I remember, “and no one around who could
interfere.”

He accepts that with a nod. (But now here I am
doubting my own senses.)

Bel personally checks our blades, declares them
“Reset to their initial settings.” The three of us have been left
with a set of Mods, as has Bly, apparently matching “earlier
versions” of the “consumer offerings” contemporary with the
obsolete Companions. (For those of us with blades, it makes sense,
but Bly is a curiosity. His Mods were not nearly so advanced while
he was still fused to his armor. Did Chang—part Companion
himself—upgrade him as he undid his “punishment”? Or was it Yod? I
suppose I’d like to believe it was Chang, just because I’d like to
believe in redemption, kindness, mercy, however selfishly.)

Bottom line: We’re not as strong, fast and
indestructible as Ram and his Alt-World kind, but we’re close
enough for what we’ll likely need to face, be it Yod’s will or our
own.

We offer the Silvermen—the Children of the Forge—the
opportunity to camp with us for the night, but their leader—who I
gather holds the rank of something like a First Sergeant—declines.
They seem uncomfortable in Pax territory, and tell us that they’ll
march home on the north side of the mountain, spears down as a
gesture of peace. Ram pledges them his and his fellows’ assistance
as long as they honor that peace. We say our thanks and goodbyes
and they parade off, all discipline and metal.

“Fascinating people,” Abbas relates as they go. “They
come from more than one colony, joined together in desperation.
They survived and thrived all these years because they maintained
their deep mining equipment, allowing them to shelter underground,
tap their own resources. They learned to live almost fully
underground, even cultivating greenhouse crops. Hitting rich ore
veins, they spent their time reviving and mastering handcraft
metallurgy and smithing—they take great pride in it. They define
themselves by their fine metal.”

“They also seem to have revived the best of bronze
and iron-age military science,” Ram assesses, “mixed with
exceptional stealth and use of the terrain.”

“Something I didn’t want to mention…” Bly speaks up,
watching the armored warriors get farther away. “When I met with
the Silvers outside Concordia… Their local Tribune—a kind of ruling
council officer—spoke of a ‘Lost Century’, a unit of about one
hundred sent as a delegation to the Pax and Katar a standard decade
ago that never returned. They were assumed to have been killed in
an act of treachery. This spurred the Silvers to expand their
territory against treaty, prepare for war, and increased their
intolerance for trespassers. Otherwise, they would never attack
anyone who did not raise arms against them first—such is their
code.”

He looks at Terina as she processes this news.

“We never knew…” she mutters, shaking her head. “We
thought they had just ignored the Call…”

“I promised the Tribune I would investigate their
fate, confront their enemies, find evidence of the atrocity,
assuming their enemies had kept trophies or told stories,” Bly
continues.

“I think you’ve done a bit better than that,”
Erickson gives him.

“A happy accident, and certainly not of my doing,”
Bly shrugs off. Then hopes: “But perhaps the beginning of something
better.”

“Why did Yod let them over there to begin with?” I’m
still not grasping.

“Let them, or
lured
them?” Lux accuses.

“Social experiment?” Azazel considers. “Test of
character?”

“They didn’t attack the locals,” Abbas speaks up.
“Ten years… I think the worst they did was steal a water-craft or
two to try to get home.”

“Warriors who don’t make war,” Dee muses.

“We should be going,” Abbas insists after only a
brief rest for water and simple food. “My people have been waiting
two days. They may have assumed us slain, and moved on to
Katar.”

“They wait for you, old friend,” Ram reassures him.
“We contacted them in your absence, then set about trying to defeat
Yod’s barriers.” He gives Ishmael the coordinates to a point near
the eastern end of the Spine, barely five klicks away.

“It’s good to see you again,” Abbas tells him warmly,
and they grasp forearms. Ram repeats the gesture with Ishmael, then
Murphy. When he turns to the Ghaddar, they simply look at each
other in silence, then exchange nods, as if they have some kind of
unspoken agreement.

“Are you coming with us still, Erickson Carter?”
Abbas asks him. “Your brother is also welcome, if he does not
choose to return home.”

“I do not,” Elias answers almost lazily, eyes lost in
the clouds pumped against the ceiling of the Atmosphere Net by the
nearest Station. “Not yet. There’s a lot to see. A world. People.”
He idly puts his hand on the hilt of his sword. “And, I think, more
good I could do out here than proving what Yod did or didn’t do in
a secure lab.” He turns and looks at his brother. “Besides, my
little brother needs me.”

Erickson pretty thoroughly glows at that. The
brothers embrace like they haven’t seen each other in a very long
time.

“You’re welcome to come with us,” Ram offers them.
“We could use you.”

“Probably what Yod had in mind,” Bel devalues it.

“I would be honored, Colonel,” Erickson breaks the
embrace just enough to accept. I can see tears fresh on his face, a
trembling smile. It feels like Ram’s offer is something he’s wanted
for a long time. Still, he doesn’t fully let his brother go—they
stand together, side-by-side.

“Good,” Dee accepts with a grin. “I did promise
Hassim I’d try to keep you out of trouble.”

Lux whispers conspiratorially in Azazel’s ear,
looking the brothers over like he/she is sizing them up for
something. I think I catch the words “pretty” and “fun”. Azazel
does his best to ignore whatever it is, but he rolls his eyes just
a bit.

“What are
your
plans, Lieutenant?” Ram asks me
like he’s making a similar offer.

“If the boys are going with you, maybe I’ll fall in
with the Nomads, assuming they’ll have me.” I know I’m refusing
something
I’ve
wanted to do for a long time now: Serve with
Colonel Ram. But not yet. I have a lot of figuring out to do, a lot
of getting used to this new me, and I’d rather not have him
watching my growing pains.

“Of course we will,” Abbas accepts instantly. I give
him a little bow of gratitude and respect, then turn back to
Ram.

“Besides,” I downplay, “this Katar place sounds
interesting. And I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon
enough.”

“We do seem to keep colliding, Lieutenant.”

But then he gives me a sad look, chews at his lip
like he’s reluctant to tell me something, something he needs
to.

“I’m sorry I talked you into surrendering to UNMAC,”
he says the unexpected. “It… It was a mistake.”

“We were short on choices, Colonel,” I insist. “And
my people are alive because of it.”

He just keeps giving me the regret face. He’s
definitely not telling me something.

“Something you should know, Lieutenant,” Dee speaks
for him. “While you were deployed running recon, Earthside Command
ordered the ‘securing’ of your remaining colony sites at Industry
and Pioneer, assuming they could still be Chang assets. When the
holdouts responded with gunfire, Colonel Jackson used missiles, hit
them from range. He left very little standing, and used enough
ordnance—bunker busters—to reach down to your tunnels, trying to
force a surrender. Casualty estimates are unknown.”

My sword is quiet. The one time I don’t want my sword
to be quiet…

“They’ve kept it quiet,” Dee continues, “kept your
people on-base in the dark.”

I see red, and it has nothing to do with my sword.
I’m shaking, all helpless rage. I see it in Ram’s eyes too. For all
his abilities… For all
our
abilities…

I could go back, hike all the way back to Industry
right now, but I know they’d never accept me or any help I offered.
As far as they’re concerned, I’m traitor and deserter. (Like Ram is
in the eyes of Upworld Command.)

I look at my new “Normal” friends. And Terina.

“You still looking to unite Mars against these
fucks?” I ask Ram, my teeth clenched tight together. He nods. “Then
I’m going to Katar,” I decide. “First Asmodeus. Then we deal with
Upworld. All of us. This is
our
planet.”

He nods, then taps his finger to his head.

“You know how to reach me.”

“Just don’t be down some hole when I do.”

We exchange salutes, and I go stand with my new
“team”. They do seem happy to have me.

“Captain Bly?” I call to him. He’s wandered off a
bit, gazing back across where the Lake used to be like he can still
see it. He turns to me lazily, still lost in being able to feel,
smell. “What about you? You want to come with?”

“I’m sure we’ll meet again, Lieutenant,” he tells me,
“but I still have my own mission, and that’s in the other
direction, at least to start.”

“I don’t think we have anything better pressing,
Captain,” Ram offers.

“You mean besides helping the Pax recover their lost
territory, brokering peace with the Forge kids and taking on an
endless army of bots and borgs so we can put Asmodeus and Fohat up
on a couple of stakes until we can find a way to end them
permanently without proper technology?” Bel lists, exasperating
himself.