The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades (36 page)

But now I open my eyes to daylight—muted daylight. I
can’t see the sun. The sky is lit but strangely gray. It looks
almost like a ceiling of pale smoke over the whole world.

And water is spraying on me, on my face. Not quite
like a shower, or maybe like a high-efficiency shower. No. More
like the fine mist of a leak in a high-pressure line. Except it’s
everywhere
. I look around, expect to see the geyser of a
ruptured feed line, but… The water is coming straight out of the
sky.

A lot of it. It’s not like those odd condensation
mists we’ve seen. I’m thoroughly sprayed.
Drenched.
My face.
My hair. My uniform is beaded with water but has kept the rest of
me dry. The ground is wet all around me, as far as I can see in any
direction, looking like it’s soaked at least several centimeters
deep. The rocks shine, their colors darker and richer. The
plants…

The plants are
different
. Lusher. Broader
leaved. It’s not just the added water. The pattern of growth has
changed—it wasn’t like this when I went to sleep. I see species I
don’t recognize, plants I’m certain weren’t there last night, and
there’s a lot more of it. And what I’m sure was bare rock and sand
is now laced with and sprouting fine new growth.

What the fuck?

I sit up. The ground under me is mostly dry, but the
rest of the soil has turned to a kind of gritty paste that sticks
to me. It is wet, at least as deep as I can sink my fingers in it.
And cold. (But not frozen. There’s no ice. There should be ice.)
And it all smells like a freshly watered garden.

The sky reminds me of the anvil clouds that form over
the ETE Stations, only darker, and somehow covering the whole sky,
as far as I can see in any direction. I flash that this must be
Chang, some new cloaking system, but why would he fill the sky with
water vapor, thick enough to apparently condense and piss on me, on
everything? How would his latest evil plot be watering the entire
valley at once? The very idea makes me giggle—the whole situation
is absurd.

I have to taste the water that runs off my face and
hair (and tastes like my face and hair) to prove it’s real, I’m
awake. But I know I’m awake because I knew I was dreaming and this
isn’t dreaming. I’m awake.

What the fuck?

The swords: they were trying to hack the ETE network.
Did they do something to Station output? Ramp it up? But why would
they want to do that? Unless this is the prelude to a multiple
meltdown. I look west south-west, in the direction of the nearest
Station. The Divide Rim is lost in the clouds, but it doesn’t look
like there’s an unusual outpouring from where the Station towers
should be. Everything looks… peaceful. Calm. And warm.

The water spray from the sky is cold, but far from
freezing. And I still see no sign of residual ice from overnight.
And it’s not morning cold. The air is almost indoor warm.

I can’t see the sun through the clouds, but this
is
morning. The sky is lighter to the east, and the wind is
also coming at me from that way, chilling where it hits my wet
skin. Except the wind isn’t as strong as it should be. And there’s
no dust at all, just more garden smells.

And there’s an odd rushing sound I can’t figure out.
I can hear it under the sounds of the wind, and the rattle and
rustle of the water spray on the plants. I think I’ve heard it
somewhere, I just can’t place it.

I look around again. Think. The plants are different.
What else is different?

The camp. Oh, shit: Two of the shelters are missing.
Not even a dry spot on the ground to say they were still here
whenever the sky started spraying.

I’m on my feet, my hand on the hilt of my sword (yes,
that’s still there—but it’s oddly silent). I look. I see Bly, still
asleep sitting up, a statue, only wet like I am, his armor
glistening and beaded with the stuff. The green has encroached all
around him, as if very passively trying to bury him.

But Paul Stilson is gone, no sign.

I find Erickson and Elias: The former is huddled
under his layered Nomad cloaks, the latter curled fetal on a
survival blanket, his long white hair looking weirdly melted to his
head. (But then my own hair is soaked through like I’m taking a
shower—I have to push it back out of my eyes, ring it out.)

What the hell is going on?

I don’t wake the others. I still half-believe I’m
dreaming, or that this is some virtual world, probably conjured by
the sword, getting into my head. But it feels real. Smells real.
Tastes real. Sounds…

I go look for the source of the rushing sound. It’s
coming from just over the low ridge of the eastern tail of the Pax
mountain that we camped right next to—that part looks the same, the
geology. (Only wet, making all the rock and sand a richer, darker
blend of rusts and ochres.)

The ground squishes under my boots, pasty and slick.
And I’m thinking: What a waste of free water, just pissing it into
the sand. (Sure it feeds the plants, but they can’t use all of
this.) Then I make it up over the rise (slipping a few times on wet
rocks, water running down from my hair into the collar of my
jacket) and see…

What the
fuck
…?

“
Colonel Ram!!
” I yell.

The valley is
full of water
. Stretching north
and east, as far as the eye can see, which isn’t far. There’s a
whitish haze clinging low over the water, limiting visibility north
to less than a klick.

“
Colonel Ram! Bel! Erickson! Elias!
”

It’s one massive rippling surface. Water. It’s got to
be
millions
of liters…

“Wake up!
WAKE UP!
”

Something like but not like Graingrass grows thick
out into the water in places, while other places are sparse to
near-bare wet packed regoloith. The edge of the water laps at the
sand and rock in these barer spots in small surges, as if moved by
the rising winds. It ripples toward me like a gentle but urgent
wave-form that’s somehow very soothing. (This is the source of the
rushing sound: wind over the top of the water, water lapping at the
sand and rock.)

“
EVERYBODY!! UP NOW!!
”

I’m screaming. Panicking. Breathless. What the hell
is this?

I’ve
seen
this. In pictures. Video. Earth.
Earth has water like this. (It’s also how I know the
sound—something I never imagined I’d hear for real. It echoes
across the valley, so
big
…)

Did the Unmakers dump their world on us, some new
strategy to take the planet? Or have I been asleep for a hundred
years while they came back and made Mars like home? Or did the ETE
manage it? Or the swords? (But in one night? This can’t have
happened in one night. How long have I—we—been asleep?)

My brain is racing, grabbing onto wild explanations
for the unexplainable. I barely notice that the sky spray has
stopped, not until I suddenly feel my hair and skin go dry—whatever
water that was on me has vanished. Did I imagine it? No: everything
else is still wet: rocks, plants, sand. Only
I’m
dry,
uniform and all. Some new trick of my sword? Do I suck up water
like I suck up whatever else my new tech needs?

I’m turning to run back to the camp when the first of
them stagger over the ridge and freeze at the sight: Erickson,
Elias, Bly… Then Murphy and the Ghaddar. Terina and Ishmael. Abbas
and Rashid…

And that’s it.

“Where’s Ram? Where’s Bel? Lux? Azazel? Stilson?
Dee?”

I’m sputtering names at the dumbstruck. They’re all
staring at the valley full of water.

“What
is
that?” Bly demands numbly.

“It looks like a
lake
,” Elias names it. “Large
standing body of water. Like on Earth.”

“Where did it
come
from?” Erickson asks a
useless question, stepping up toward the undulating edge of the
water, his boots sinking deeper in the wet sand as he gets closer
too it.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Abbas
manages to ask Terina, our local authority. She shakes her head,
speechless. She’s as freaked as we are.

“What was out there before?” Ishmael asks her,
managing to stay amazingly coherent.

“Hotlands. Radioactive. Skyfall. Crash site…”

“Debris,” Elias tries to clarify. “From orbit. I saw
it marked on the White Station maps. The Apocalypse… The ships, the
dock… Reactors… It had to land somewhere.” He’s speaking in
fragments, struggling to make any kind of sense of this. “We have
that marked as a toxic crash zone. Deadly to Normals.”

“Don’t touch the water!” Abbas warns Erickson.

“It’s cold,” Ishmael reassures, having taken out his
antique radiation counter. “I mean it’s not hot. Not
radioactive
. Barely background…” He has the wonder of a
child, even faced with this. “There should be more background
radiation, just from the sun.”

Erickson pulls off a glove, bends down, immerses his
hand. Raises it to his face. Smells. Tastes.

“Water. And some minerals. From the soil.”

“And you’ve never seen this before?” I have to ask
Terina again. Again, she shakes her head, wide-eyed in shock.

Bly steps up to the water through the thigh-high
‘Grass, steps out
into
it, stands in it up to his shins—it’s
at least that deep, but seems to get deeper the farther he goes. He
stops when it gets up to his knees, just stands there, staring
across the surface. The rippling surface gently batters at his
armored legs. The tails of his robe are soaked, floating.

“Where are Ram and the others?” I demand. I get no
immediate answer. Everyone is too stunned by what they’re
seeing.

“Gone when we woke up,” Murphy finally tells me. “No
sign.”

That has to be the swords’ doing. Our guardians are
conveniently gone. As is Dee, who had a way to connect with
them.

“There was water coming out of the sky! Not just a
mist, a
shower
!” I feel the need to point out, even as I’m
realizing several of my remaining companions are as soaked as I am.
So I confront Terina again: “You’ve never seen anything like
this?”

“Thin mists,” she admits, sounding dazed. “When the
clouds build thick during the middle seasons. Not like this.”

Then it looks like something has struck her, and she
turns and runs away from the “lake”, but not far, just up on the
rise. She looks south.

“It’s wrong…” I hear her say over the rushing of the
water. “My mountain…”

We run up and look. Her mountain—the Spine Range—is
still there, but it does look different. Greener. The tips of the
mountains—where we can see them through the clouds—are frosted
white. And I’m not sure, but I think the terrain itself is a little
different, the shape of the mountain.

I stop and listen for chatter, let my sword listen… I
hear no bots. And nothing in orbit.

What the fuck is going on?

“Incoming!” I hear Murphy bark. We all turn west,
down the water’s edge. Someone’s coming. Just walking, casually,
with a long stick. He sees us, but doesn’t appear to be concerned,
despite the fact that we’re all clearly agitated and armed. I
consider reaching for my sword, but for some reason I don’t want
to. And that’s very strange…

“Erickson… Elias… swords…” I prompt them. They make a
feeble, half-hearted effort to reach for their own hilts, only to
drop their hands. It’s like I’ve asked them to do something that’s
a deeply programmed taboo, like urinate in their clothing.
(Speaking of: It’s morning, and I still don’t need to pee.)

“Me, too,” I admit, as we look at each other
dumbly.

I realize no one else is drawing or leveling a
weapon.

As the figure gets closer, I see that it’s an old
man: thin white mop of hair and beard, weathered skin. Under it,
his face is still boyish despite all the lines. And familiar—I just
can’t place him. Maybe he just has that kind of face, but it
bothers me, like I should know him.

He wears a beaten faded work jacket and overalls,
worn old boots. His stick looks like part of a plant stalk, dried
out. He’s smiling at us like he’s happy to see us, maybe expected
us.

“Good morning,” he says. His voice is deep and rich,
welcoming, but also innocent. (I don’t know the voice.)

“What is this?” Bly blurts out, marching through the
water at him. But then Bly stops, like he’s lost momentum, changed
his mind.

“It’s a lake, Thompson,” the old man tells him like
he’s talking to a small child. “It’s called a lake.”

He knows our names? (And so this
is
a
“lake”…)

“It’s perfectly harmless, unless you get too deep in
it,” he doesn’t really reassure. “None of you have had reason to
learn how to swim, after all. Not that you’d be able to anyway,
with all the metal you’re wearing. Just stay near the shore. This
part. The edge.”

“Who are you?” I demand.

“You can call me Jed,” he says easily.

“What have you done with our friends?” I push. I want
my sword. It’s still bizarrely quiet.

“Your friends are well, Jacqueline. They were simply
not invited.”

“What do you mean?” Erickson takes a turn.

“Three of you carry your invitations…” He looks at
Erickson. “The grieving son, who wants so badly to make sense of
the world that he tries to make it into one of his fantasies.” Then
to Elias: “The bitter elder brother, retreated into his science,
away from anyone who might love him, because he has been hurt so
deeply.” And me: “And the good soldier who’s fought for too many
poor causes. Now without an army, without cause or home. The
exile.”

“What are you talking about?” Elias challenges,
defensive.

“Invitations to
what
?” Erickson is more
specific.

“Here,” Jed says like it should be obvious, gesturing
all around. “Now.”