The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades (41 page)

She doesn’t reply to the offer. Instead, a cluster of
them confer, huddling, occasionally looking over at us with mixes
of anxiety and suspicion. I fully realize how we must appear: We
say we’ve come to help, but what it looks like is that we’ve
brought the very threat we’re pledging to stop. We say we’ve come
to help, but we’ve admitted our priority is to save our own
world.

Finally, they face us again. Their spokesperson’s
affect has changed, softened—but she’s still clearly fearful.

“Please forgive our lack of hospitality. My name is
Jane Greenlove-Burke. Will you eat with our Representatives?”

“We would like that very much,” I accept. “I expect
we have much to tell each other.”

The Haven settlement is by far the largest I think
any of us have ever seen, except for images of Earth. By Earth
standards, this would be a rustic town, something from Renaissance
Europe or the colonial Americas. The structures are mostly one and
two story, with a very few climbing to three. All seem to be made
out of the same rough-cast composite, perhaps made of local clay,
though spots of incidental wear reveal what look like plant fibers
in the matrix. Certain features—doors, window shutters, roofs,
railings—appear to be made of cut dried plant material, like wood
was used on Earth. They’re arranged around packed-ground paths in
uneven grids, spreading outwards from the main path. I can see
these structures seeded well up into the slopes of the curtain
walls, suggesting there could be thousands of people living here.
I’m wondering if they manage to subsist from gathering when we
start passing impressive gardens, and then adapted livestock
similar to what we saw at the Pax Keep. (I smell thin smoke from
plant fires, but I don’t smell the burning flesh of our previous
feast.)

The residents turn out to watch us pass, some in
front of their apparent domiciles, others from windows. Most have
the same stunned, apprehensive look, as if fantastic (and possibly
terrifying) creatures have appeared in their home. But then I catch
one pair of eyes on us from a third-story window a row off the main
path: An average-looking adult male with short-cropped dark hair,
wearing white garments. He looks like he’s been expecting us, as if
we’re a dreaded inevitability. I lock his eyes for an instant—I
realize his eyes are different colors, almost like they belong to
different people—and he backs away from the window, disappearing
from sight.

I get the impression that Bly isn’t as unscathed as
he initially appeared. He’s beginning to move slower, as if with
difficulty. I think he’s breathing harder in his mask, despite the
richer air. I wonder if he needs nutrition to heal from whatever’s
he’s suffered, that maybe his implanted technology has only been
managing to keep him operating, like when I was running with severe
wounds in Stage Two.

Thankfully, we seem to have arrived at our
destination, some three hundred meters into the settlement, which
seems to be about its center. Our guides usher us into a large
building in good repair. It looks to be two stories tall, but the
room we come into—in the apparent center of the building—has a
roof-high ceiling. There are plants inside, not as garden but as
decoration, and paintings on the walls: portraits of mature men and
women, posed with a dignity that suggests honor and respect.

The Ghaddar takes particular interest in a set of
portraits centered on the wall opposite the entrance. I think I’ve
seen the faces that are rendered in them. I’m on the edge of recall
when she speaks up in awe:

“I know these people. They were Unmakers. Sleepers.
Allies and friends of Colonel Ram. This one is Doctor Ryder…” She
points like a child as she names them. “This is Doctor Mann. This
is Truganini Greenlove—a great leader… And this… This is…”

“Colonel Burke,” Straker names the face I know from
the Guardian training lectures.

“My grandparents,” Jane—our primary guide—confirms.
“These are the founders of our community.”

“Colonel Burke was Colonel Ram’s greatest friend,”
the Ghaddar remembers solemnly. “A great warrior. A great man.
Colonel Ram grieved deeply when he fell in battle.”

“My grandfather died of
cancer
,” Jane
corrects, confused. “And I get the impression that Colonel Ram was
no longer his friend. Colonel Ram… He was Modded. One of the first…
I don’t think he understood why my grandfather wouldn’t become like
him, like them. You… say you knew him?”

The Ghaddar nods, but doesn’t elaborate. I try
to:

“In our version of history, Colonel Burke gave his
life in a fight against enemies from this world.” I realize as I
say it how little sense any of it must make.

“And my grandmother?” Jane wants to know.

“Is still alive in our world, as far as I know,”
Straker tells her. “So is Doctor Mann and Doctor Ryder. I’ve had
the honor of serving with them, however briefly.”

“In the
military
?” Jane says like it’s another
offensive concept. When Straker nods warily, she explains, “My
grandfather had left that service long before he even came to Mars.
He ran a corporate security detail for awhile, then retired after
he met my grandmother. Doctor Ryder and her husband retired when
they joined us. My grandmother was never in the military.”

“Nor was she in our world,” I recite from history.
“She was a leader in what was called the Eco Movement, an on-planet
group actively resisting the development of the technology that
apparently led to Modding.”

“As she was here.” She seems to find some comfort in
the one consistency. Then Straker takes that away:

“The Ecos in our world were militant. Forces from
this world apparently escalated violence that probably didn’t
happen in your history. Your grandmother was a warrior, a
leader.”

Jane is shaking her head—what we’re telling her must
be unthinkable. Thankfully, no one mentions that her grandparents
never married, never had children in our world.

“Sit… please…” Jane manages to invite.

The center of the big room is dominated by a long
table that looks like an antique, like some of the treasures my own
forefathers brought from Earth at excessive cost. Around it are ten
hand-crafted high-backed chairs, these made out of local materials
like the doors and shutters. Under our feet, the floor is made of
large rough-cast ceramic of some kind.

A dozen of the locals have come in with us. Those
that can’t sit with us at the table take simpler seats around the
perimeter of the room. Tumblers and trays are set before each of
us, and pitchers of water are brought, then wide bowls of breads
and produce, as well as the polymer-like substances we sampled at
the Pax feast, collectively called “cheese”.

We don’t dive in and gorge like ravenous raiders this
time, and even Bly is discrete about slipping morsels into his
mask.

Straker and I take the lead in telling the history of
our world, assuming the divergence began with the first appearance
of the Disc drones. We get regular comments from our hosts to
confirm the events we describe didn’t happen for them: The
escalating conflict, the UN militarization, the placement of the
nuclear failsafe platform, the sabotage-triggered devastation of
the Apocalypse, Earth’s half-century withdrawal and traumatic
evolution, the struggles of the survivors and their descendants
while my people worked to make the valleys livable, the coming of
Chang and the violence that followed.

What’s surprising is that the locals don’t recognize
Chang’s name, or his distinctive appearance. Or the name Asmodeus.
They have, however, heard of Fohat. And Bel. And Lux and Azazel.
And Ram, of course, in his mortal and immortal forms. Stories told
by their ancestors, cautionary tales. What their grandparents chose
not to become.

Our story ends with a brief summation of our journeys
to the Vajra, the battle with Fohat’s machines, the mysterious
appearance of our Companions, and the even more mysterious
appearance of the Lake and Jed.

They’ve listened to our tale in respectful silence,
but they are clearly disturbed—I can only begin to imagine how
deeply. They’ve lived in this small sealed world all their lives,
with only passed-down stories and historic records to fill in the
rest of the universe. And now we tell them of a completely
different world that exists out there. Somewhere.
(Some-
when
?) The only proof of its existence is us, and what
we carry.

I make a small demonstration of that proof: I pull
out my utility knife, pull off my glove, slice the palm of my hand.
They watch it heal with a mix of wonder and horror. I try to
reassure them that we mean them no harm, that we intend to help
them if we can.

Then it becomes their turn to spin a history that
we
can’t begin to imagine.

This one has less warfare, less slaughter, but still
manages to be less hopeful. With the advancement of the Modding
technology, humanity became spoiled, destructive, apathetic. First,
they ruined the biosphere on Earth, remaking and destroying with
the whim of children. The few that chose to remain Normal formed
colonies, managed to declare “Preserves” that were secured against
incursion and interference by the invincible monsters the rest of
their race had become, but even that protection was by the
agreement of those monsters. There was fear, there was no real hope
for the future of mankind, but life in these few dozen scattered
enclaves was still considered a far better condition than giving in
to the temptation of artificial immortality.

But then, one summer morning in Common Era Twenty-One
Twenty-Nine, their grandparents woke to find that all contact with
the outside world—Mars and Earth—had gone silent. And when they
attempted to cross the Lake to find out what had happened, they
were either driven back by intense storms or would inexplicably
wind up circling back to their own shore, the Peninsula. The world
beyond is still visible, but unreachable. Their remaining world
stretches only twenty five kilometers east and northeast from here,
to the impassible Rim wall. (In this world, like our own, the
terraforming of Mars did not progress past the Marineris stage. The
Planums are still near-vacuum beyond whatever this world’s version
of an Atmosphere Net is.)

I do my best to relate what I understand of the
temporal splice, the theories to explain the paradox of the altered
timeline (including what now appears to be strong evidence in
support of the Multiple Worlds Interpretation). Our hosts counter
with some of their own theories, about how such a splice may have
destabilized their world in a perimeter around the Event
(especially when we tell them that Jed confirmed that the Event
happened somewhere within this pocket world), or how the Preserve’s
perimeter field might have protected them from waveform
collapse.

Elias has his hand over his eyes during this
discussion, as if he’s having a particularly bad headache. At
certain points, I see him wince.

My brother’s opinions aside, these do not appear to
be uneducated primitives. They seem to pride themselves on
education, art, craftsmanship, even trying to preserve the history
and understanding of a world that none of them have experienced in
their lifetimes.

Conversely, it’s clear that they’ve come to accept,
even embrace, their lot. They’re safe here. They have what appear
to be more than adequate resources. They appear healthy. They’re a
close-knit, peaceful community. And they’ve thrived, nearly
quadrupling their population over four generations. I’m reminded of
literary fantasies involving impossibly remote lost paradises.

“So no one has come or gone since that day?” Murphy
asks.

This question seems to give them pause. Their eyes
shift, and not just to glance at each other. They try not to
visibly squirm. Then Jane speaks up with a sudden quickness that
sounds like she’s trying to distract:

“Some of us still try to cross the Lake, from time to
time…”

“It’s a rite of passage for our more rebellious
youth,” the male who gave the date—Cal Ryder—jumps in. “They build
a raft, a boat—some of them are pretty impressive. They’ve tried
all sorts of propulsion systems…”

“Most come back, get turned back,” Jane gets to the
point. “A few… We assume they drown, which is why we discourage
them trying.”

“Have any strangers like this ever appeared in your
territory?” I ask Terina. “Or the Pax Lands?”

She thinks about it, shakes her head, but doesn’t
seem sure. I realize she’s said almost nothing since we arrived.
She looks tense, coiled—even enjoying a friendly meal—as if the
very walls might suddenly attack. I expect this is what someone
stuck in a nightmare must look like.

“Some say they see Captain Jed’s ship, but only if
there’s a fog or a storm,” another male, Thomas Matheson-Wang,
admits as if it’s ridiculous. “Some of them wind up out there for
several days, even weeks, drifting or sailing in circles before
they get back to shore.”

“There
was
such a ship, on the far shore,
before the Event,” Jane allows. “Outside the Preserve. A Modded
made it as an art project, supposedly grew it. Our grandparents
said he was eccentric, but harmless. Seeing the ship… We thought it
might be like how we can see beyond, but can’t get there. Or it
might just be a hallucination fed by an old story, a shadow in the
fog.”

“It’s pretty solid for a hallucination,” Murphy says,
sounding—like the rest of us—that he’s still not buying what we’ve
experienced. “And it came within fifty meters of your shore, in
clear skies. No one saw it?”

Jane shakes her head. Her fellows look like we’re
telling them that one of their childhood folktales is real.

“They might not admit to it if they did,” I consider
out loud, “if the sightings are so fantastic.”