The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades (9 page)

We move our people and set up camp out of sight of
the colony canyon, and take the time to top our tanks and perform
noontime
Salat
. My father sits with Sarai, makes sure she’s
as comfortable as she can be as she sweats and shivers through her
high fever. My first stepmother Fatima reassures him that she’ll be
well cared for.

Then a small group of us—myself, my father, the
Ghaddar, Ambassador Murphy, Yusuf and Jibril—move carefully back to
where we saw the heat. It all spends precious daylight hours. And
worse, we seem to have lost track of our twin followers. They
should have rounded the end of the Lesser Divide range long ago,
but cannot be seen. The Ghaddar suggests they may have seen us, and
have moved into a position to observe us discreetly. She assures us
she’ll find them later.

The heat bleed remains as it was when we return.
There’s still no sign of human activity.

We creep up on the site, climbing slowly, keeping low
to the ground, using the rocks and the clinging brush, sure we may
be observed from multiple sides. When we get within closer view,
less than two hundred meters, we realize there
is
a narrow
cave opening. The jagged slopes also show signs of smaller vents,
but the ground at the cave mouth looks compressed by foot traffic
despite attempts to conceal prints, the rocks bearing the telltale
polish of humans climbing over them as they come and go.

Then I discover why my father agreed to my request to
join this adventure.

“Ishmael, I need you and Jibril to hold position
here, to cover our retreat. I don’t want to be hemmed in from
behind.”

The look in his eyes tells me there’s no point
arguing. I nod my agreement, hold my tongue, and find a position in
the rocks and scrub to settle into. Jibril finds his own perch a
handful of meters downslope, and hunkers under his cloak. Then we
watch my father and the others cautiously but smoothly move up to
the cave, and—one-by-one—vanish from sight.

We hear nothing for several minutes. Then Jibril
signals me, pointing urgently up into the rocks above and slightly
ahead of us.

I see a single figure: He wears a Nomad cloak, but
underneath he has what looks like Knight armor, only the camo paint
is worn to bare metal in places, leaving him visible against the
terrain. Under that, he looks like he’s wearing the sealsuit and
mask of a Jinn. But he carries a sword and a pistol instead of
their magical objects. And he fumbles clumsily as he climbs over
the rocks.

Is this one of the two who were following us? He
doesn’t appear to have seen us down here among the boulders. We
stay still, watch him awkwardly climb down into what must be a
narrow heat vent, down into the slope above the main cave. I
consider signaling my father, but our short-range Links won’t work
with them underground. I would have to make noise, and that would
reveal us all.

“He really is an idiot.”

A voice comes from behind me: smooth, calm, almost
melodious. Jibril and I spin and find another figure standing a few
meters behind us, looking up at where the other disappeared. This
one
is
dressed like a Nomad—his color pattern says he’s
Northwest Melas, Hassim’s people. He carries a bow and arrows,
knives, and a short sword. He doesn’t seem concerned about us,
doesn’t even look at us, even though we point firearms at him.

“You are Ishmael Abbas, formerly Jonathan Drake,
adopted son of Abu Abbas,” he lets me know that he knows me. Then
he introduces himself, still watching the rocks above us, and still
standing out in open view like there’s no danger whatsoever. “I
serve your uncle Hassim. He calls me Azrael. He’s very worried
about you. All of you.”

“You came looking for us?” I ask the obvious.

“Actually,
he
came looking for you…” He points
to where the other disappeared. “…as a kind of favor to Hassim, for
saving his life. I came because I knew he wouldn’t get fifty
kilometers without getting himself chopped to pieces and then sent
in said pieces to Hatsumi Sakura’s nano-labs. Or worse.” After a
pause, he answers my next question before I can ask. “He’s Jinn.
Terraformer. A child, by their standards. Fancies himself a hero.
Useless, really. No talent for personal combat. And he carries none
of their Tools to defend himself with. I had to make him take that
pistol…”

We hear a gunshot, echoing like it’s somewhere in the
caves. Then shouting. Screaming. Followed by several more
shots.

“Oh dear,” the stranger sighs, sounding mildly
exasperated. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have given him that pistol.”

He looks at the slope like he’s looking through it,
like he can see into the rock. Then, as if mesmerized, he begins
moving for the cave mouth, drawing his bow casually.

I tell Jibril to stay put, and run uphill for the
vent. Jibril, of course, is scrambling right behind me.

Erickson Carter:

After four more mostly (and frustratingly) uneventful
weeks of walking (except for that unfortunate business at
Tranquility, which is barely worth remembering), I finally come
within sight of completing my errand of honor, only to be drawn
into what may prove to be an even greater adventure.

I have put nearly seven hundred kilometers behind me
since I left Hassim’s unexpected hospitality. I have had to wrap my
boots in strips cut from my cloaks, Nomad-style, to keep them from
wearing away as I trudge through the abrasive regolith. (I don’t
have ready access to the necessary building blocks to regenerate
the soles.) My armor has suffered as well: What I thought was a
durable polycoat finish has been steadily sandblasted by the
silicate grit in the wind, exposing bare metal in too many places.
The silver stands out glaringly against the ruddy terrain, though
no one seems to have noticed.

Still, I expect it has helped my “shadow” to keep
sight of me all this way.

Persistent, enigmatic Azrael. He makes no real
attempt to conceal his pursuit from me, just chooses rudely to
avoid my company through distance. In four weeks, he’s only chosen
to sneak up on me in my sleep, and that to leave me “presents” to
further express his opinion of my competence.

The first time, it was the pistol again, the same one
he took from the Shinkyo Shinobi, left within my easy reach and so
I would see it as soon as I woke. I left it where it was, only to
have it reappear a few nights later. And again. Each time, I did
not accept the “gift”.

It was the second night past Tyr that he apparently
decided I needed more convincing encouragement, so he left another
dead body at my feet, his signature arrow sticking out of the eye
socket of a most unusual suit of armor covering a most unusual
corpse: The physiognomy was shockingly squat and thick-built, as if
compressed by heavy gravity, or perhaps great weight, which I could
attribute to the copious (even excessive) thick plating covering it
in layers. That Azrael managed to hit such a small gap in this
protection is another testament to his unnatural skill, though why
he needed to kill the man—other than to show off for his audience
of one—was unexplained. The holstered pistol and its full
ammunition magazines were set neatly on the creature’s steel
chest.

I did take the time to examine the victim, and not
just to appreciate the sturdiness and craftsmanship of his armor.
The figure carried water canteens and several stout tools that
could be suited for digging and scavenging, and weapons: a heavy
short sword, an ax, knives, and a kind of lance that gave me a
start when I accidentally launched the long thin head high into the
air while examining the grip, leaving me in a small cloud of dust
and chemical smoke. (I fully expected Azrael was off hiding in the
rocks, and having a good laugh at my expense.) There was a very
large rectangular shield that also served as a quiver of sorts for
six arrow-like replacement spearheads, each loaded with a solid
fuel charge. There were also packets of what I assumed were
prepared and preserved foods, though they smelled foul and seemed
comprised primarily of what I suspect were varieties of mushroom.
What there
wasn’t
was any kind of oxygen feed system.

I risked prying the faceplate up. The face underneath
was ruddy and swollen with severe capillary rupture, the “rose”
that Normals acquire in low atmospheric pressure, but this was the
worst case I’d ever seen, thickening the features. The skin was
otherwise sickly pale, and there were several scars. The nostrils
were wide, and the eyes partially masked by thick, fatty lids.
Under the chest plate, the ribcage seemed almost double the girth
of my own, possibly attesting to enlarged lungs and heart, but I
didn’t feel like performing a complete post-mortem in the sand. Nor
did I spend time and effort on a funeral, simply arranging the body
and its weapons with dignity in the hope that his fellows would
recover him. This is when I noticed that all the crevices and gaps
in his otherwise finely polished armor were deeply encrusted with
soil, as if he’d recently been buried and dug up. It made me think
that Azrael had done some grave robbing in his latest attempt to
either intimidate me or dissuade me from my errand, but the fatal
eye wound was still fresh.

Other than the needless killing, what unsettled me
most about the whole affair was that my people had never documented
such a being (at least that I’d been told of), even though I was
within a day’s walk of Turquoise Station.

Hoping to discourage more bodies, I took the pistol,
strapping it uncomfortably over my sword-belt, and realizing it was
sitting where much more constructive tools should be.

I wandered generally east, keeping to open terrain in
hopes of best seeing or being seen by Abbas and his exploratory
band, trying to make good time in catching up to them and their
six-month head start. I expected they’d spent their time in more
detailed explorations, camping in encouraging terrain, thoroughly
exploring the ruins of the Coprates colonies, resting at the
accessible Tapsites. And enjoying—like I have been—the thickening
air (that reduces the burden on my own systems) and the increasing
bounty of wild plants, most all of them edible by design.

I fancied myself one of them in my solitude: A Nomad
of the open desert, living off the land, eating what I could find,
unprocessed, still tasting of the soil it grew from. Making my
nightly mattress out of sand, and then layering it over the snug
shelter of my cloaks for added insulation and camouflage.
Replenishing the necessities of life from Tap to Tap. And dancing
like a fool after I awoke one morning in a mist of condensation
from our Station output, almost like a fine Earth rain—I even
stripped off my mask to feel it on my face, wet and chilly and
making me feel more alive than I think I ever have.

Over the weeks, I find I’ve actually become
accustomed to sleeping semi-upright, limbs curled in to conserve
heat, wrapped in my womb-like “shelter”. What I’m having greater
(and unexpected) challenge with is the diet: despite trying to
condition myself before my journey to eating more from our gardens
and less of our prepared fare, my spoiled digestive tract still
complains daily about the lack of familiar processed foodstuffs,
causing my nanites to assist in the breakdown of the fresh organic
matter, and causing me no small abdominal discomfort along with new
bowel sounds that I worry can be heard over great distances. Still,
my telemetric systems insist that I’m keeping well-nourished and
remarkably healthy in my hardship. (If I accomplish nothing else,
at least I’m a living argument for making a radical change in my
people’s diets.)

In my eagerness to cover ground, I regret I didn’t
take time at Tyr or Nike or Gagarin, just taking cursory looks for
sign that someone had recently passed. I saw a few traces of foot
traffic that hadn’t been completely erased by the winds, stumbled
by luck on what may have been campsites, and spent urgent days
following strange deep tracks, made by something very large and
heavy that appeared to be propelled on multiple caterpillar-style
treads (but never catching the monster).

Now, just before noon as I come within sight of
Concordia, rounding a point in the Divide where it widens out to
the south, I
do
see a camp. (And I only see it because I
approach from higher ground—I could well have walked right past it
otherwise. It’s hidden by both terrain and the pervasive waist-high
scrub of this region.) And by benefit of the enhancements to my
vision, I see people, wearing the patterns of the Northeast Melas
Nomads.

This would be Abbas—I have found him! But their camp
seems smaller than I would have expected, given the numbers I was
told they set out with. The implication gives me pause, one more
thing to twist in my gut. How many have I been too late to aid?

But before I can decide how best to approach without
startling them, I see a small band split off from the camp and
begin to make their way south, toward the colony ruin. Just six
figures, creeping low, as if they expect someone may be
watching.

I trace what I assume is their course to the ruin,
into the small side canyon that it sits protected just inside of,
and see nothing of interest besides more stripped and blasted and
buried foundations: signs that people had been here long ago, took
whatever they could that was useful, and moved on, hopefully to
better ground. (From where I am, I can also make out the old blast
crater that took the colony, partially erased by winds and growth
as the planet heals the injury done to it by stupid, fearful men.
The Nomads’ camp is at the edge of it.)

I frustrate myself for several minutes attempting to
understand why they so cautiously approach an abandoned nothing,
when I decide to look back after my shadow, for Azrael. When I
don’t see him, I scan up the slopes, then consider he may have
gotten ahead of me, and look wider.