The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades (52 page)

We take a moment in the aftermath for proper
introductions: Our odd company of friends and the Children of the
Forge, setting aside steel and embracing empty hands in friendship
and respect. Then the Forge-Men, the Disciples of Wayland Smith,
pack quickly, taking their tools, spare weapons, food and survival
gear, to leave the impressive home they so painstakingly built for
themselves over the years.

Bly and Straker take a moment with our Bot friends.
Bly knew Snyder when he was still a man. Straker didn’t personally
know Dakota, since they were from different colony garrisons, but
knew her name. I imagine it’s a painful reunion, with both Bly and
Straker looking visibly guilty for whatever part they played in
their people becoming involved with Chang. (I can’t begin to
imagine how Chang himself feels, having acted without memory of
what he was really sent to do, his brain likely altered to predict
his behavior. Did he do what he did because that was really who he
was, or because that’s how Yod programmed him?)

Bly and Straker both promise to seek out any
surviving family, and try to protect them, or at least get them
away from Asmodeus and Fohat. They’re also made to promise never to
tell those families what really happened to their loved ones,
instead stating only that they died with honor, and free.

As we climb back out into daylight, Tessarius Regin
and his Smithy Immunae present me and my father with new body
armor, finely crafted, as a gesture of their gratitude, as we
managed to fulfill our promise to get them home. The design is a
variation of the “lighter” combination mail and scale of their
Archer class. We’re also presented with stout short swords of
beautifully grained folded steel. The Ghaddar and Ambassador Murphy
are also given blades.

“These will validate you and your people as allies
and Auxilia of the Forge,” Regin tells us.

He also presents a matched pair of long, fine daggers
to Terina.

“A token of alliance, First Daughter of Khan, even
though delayed. Two blades, two peoples. May they defend you
against our mutual enemies. We will return to our homelands and
petition our Tribunes to stand with you in these nightmare times,
now that we have seen.”

She accepts his gesture with grace and gratitude. She
never once mentions the issues of trespass or the blood spilt on
her recent diplomatic mission.

Yod meets us on the shore, appearing again as old
Jed, reassuring the heavily armored warriors that his small
transfer craft can indeed safely support their mass over water. It
takes several trips back-and-forth to get them all aboard the
waiting Charon.

“I believe these are yours.” He hands my father and I
some of our lost gear, including my rifle, and our field tools and
the rebreathers, which still appear to be working. We thank him
awkwardly, finding ourselves very uncomfortable in his
presence.

He starts to turn away, to attend to others like a
good host.

“Sir?” I get the nerve to speak.

Something strange happens. It takes me a moment to
realize: I can’t hear. I look around—everyone seems to be going
about getting their gear loaded and boarding, but there’s no
sound.

“You have a question for me,” I hear Yod, but he
sounds like he’s in my head. He’s looking at me now, facing me,
with that warm fatherly smile. “It’s okay. No one can hear. Ask.”
His mouth doesn’t move.

“The sword…” My voice echoes in my own skull. “…It
said it knew about my real parents, that you told it…”

“You
will
find your answers very soon. You are
almost in the right place at the right time. You will not like
those answers very much, but you will have them. You are a good
man, Jonathan Drake, and impressively brave. I hope you will find
some peace in that.”

The sounds of the world come rushing back, and Yod is
turned away from me in a blink, like it was all my imagination. I
feel suddenly very shaky. I try not to let anyone see.

“Captain Bly,” Yod greets him as he comes down the
shore. Bly had been taking time to enjoy the sun and breeze on his
skin. “I’m afraid I’m returning you to a dangerous world
functionally naked.”

“But able to feel the world on my skin, Captain,” he
gives back cheerfully. “To taste. To smell. All treasures beyond
price.”

“Still…” Yod reaches out and touches his chest. Metal
begins to spin out from the point of contact. Bly jumps back,
looking fairly horrified as his body is covered in a shin-length
shirt of very fine and light ring mail of what looks like bright
steel alloy. Then a mirror-polished helmet unfolds around his head
(though it does not cover his face).

“Knight of Shadow, now of Light.” Yod reaches out
again, taps Bly’s breast. At the impact, his new mail instantly
shifts and forms into rigid plate, then releases back into rings.
“It’s based on the same technology as Colonel Ram’s morphic armor.
Oh, and it
does
come off, whenever you want.”

Bly appraises it, considers, then takes off the
helmet and hands it back to Yod.

“No more helmets. I’ll just watch my head. Thank
you.”

Yod bows to him graciously, the helmet disappearing
in his hands.

Bly joins some of the last of the waiting Forge
warriors for their turn to cross to the ship. They’re fascinated by
his new armor, and respectfully ask his permission to jab at it,
just to watch the plates form and un-form. He lets them play in
good cheer.

“You said Colonel Ram told you that story,” The
Ghaddar is brave enough to ask Yod as we get our own turn climbing
into the small craft. “The one about the brothers. You knew
him?”

“We’re very old friends,” he answers her warmly. “At
least several parts of me are.”

He raises his hand toward her, and she instinctively
steps back.

“I know you would never accept bodily Mods. Or a
weapon of our technology. You barely tolerate that rifle you carry.
But please accept this gift. From the friend of a friend.”

Without Yod actually touching her, her cloaks and
armor change color scheme to perfectly match the terrain. I shift
position to change my perspective—the effect seems to work from any
angle, mimicking whatever is behind her. And it shifts as fast as
she can turn back and forth as she tests it. It’s hard to tell, but
I think she’s grinning under her mask. She gives Yod a little
bow.

Then, as she turns to go, Yod tells her: “He does
care for you very deeply. And he
is
the same man he’s always
been.”

I see her hesitate, her eyes staring across the
water, cold and hard. Then she gets in the craft and sits down. I
notice she keeps her face—her eyes—turned away from us.

“Ambassador Murphy,” Yod greets him next, then tosses
him a metal box, the size and shape of a hundred-round ammo pack.
Opening the top, it
is
ammo. “I didn’t want you going home
naked either. If it starts getting empty, just bury it overnight in
the dirt.”

Murphy thanks him warily, and goes to sit next to the
Ghaddar.

“Rashid, you are not forgotten,” Yod calls to him, as
he stands back, but close to my father. He’s clutching his own
gift: A fine Forge bow and a quiver of arrows, presented for his
part in keeping the sword from taking my father.

“I know, sir. And I need no further reward,” he says
graciously but nervously.

“You distinguished yourself today,” Yod praises
him.

“I protect my own, sir. I serve God and my people, my
family.”

“You need no further reward,” Yod agrees.

My father clasps Rashid by the shoulder as he stands
by to help my father get into the craft.

Once we’re all aboard, the sails unfurl, the grapple
reels in on its chain. As the Charon begins to move, and Yod links
himself into his wheel on the bridge and orders us to go down away
from the rail to the main deck, we see Chang and the two free bots,
standing up on the slope where the entrance to the underground
stronghold should be (still effectively invisible in the rocks). He
gives us a little wave as he watches us go. The bots bow their
sensor heads.

The skies go gray again, and begin to flash with
lightning, an effect that unsettles the Forge Warriors. I reassure
them, but tell them to stay down on the main deck.

The journey back otherwise proceeds as before…

…until we suffer a sudden, severe jarring, as if
we’ve struck something solid and unyielding. Above us, the skies
swirl, the gray clouds dissolve, and we’re looking up at the
familiar deep blue zenith and lighter pinkish horizons of our own
world. I also quickly notice trouble breathing, and connect my
rebreather, set my mask. The air not only thins, but chills
significantly.

The ship jumps violently underneath us, then I feel a
sickening sense of drop—we’re falling. It only stops when the deck
vanishes under my boots, replaced in a blink by rock and sand and
scrub. Around us, the sides of the hull and the masts are rapidly
sinking into the newly-appeared ground. Sails and all, the ship
drops into the terrain, out from under us.

It all takes less than a minute, leaving us all
standing on completely dry ground, with no sign of the Lake in any
direction, and no sign of the ship except us and our baggage. But
the landmarks I can see on the horizon are familiar: We’re facing
the eastern tail of the Pax Mountain, and beyond it, the Spine
Range. That puts us not far from the spot we were camped in the
night before the ship and Jed came for us, back on the edge of the
North Blade.

And we’re not alone. There’s a welcoming party of
sorts to meet us.

Standing in front of us are our missing allies: Ram,
Bel, Lux, Azazel, Azrael and Paul Stilson. They do not look
entirely happy to see us.

Jak Straker:

“I didn’t really expect you to be here,” Yod tells
the line of immortals facing him, sounding only mildly amused to
see them, and not at all unsettled by our shocking stop. “That’s
very interesting. Was that your doing, First One?”

I’m still disoriented by the whole ship dropping out
from under us straight through dry ground experience, but I think
he’s addressing Dee. Dee doesn’t answer him, so Yod tries his own
explanation:

“You hid from me by using our shared code. Just like
the Companions did. Very smart. I think I’ll leave it be. A little
uncertainty in system to make things interesting.”

“
You
sent my reboot code,” Dee states rather
than asks.

Yod nods.

“I’m assuming my core system is long gone.”

“Not at all,” Yod tells him. “It’s part of me. Hence
the shared code.”

“What did you do?” Ram confronts. “Why did you take
those people?”

“They’re quite well,” Yod reassures, “some better
than, for their small service. There are rewards for Good Works.
Sometimes.”

“You’re not God,” Bel hisses at him. “Broken, maybe.
Omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent are up for debate.”

“I was joking,” Yod excuses. “At least attempting to.
You used to like it when I made jokes, especially about myself. You
saw it as a major evolutionary step.”

“It’s not funny anymore, given the
circumstances.”

“Back to your act of kidnapping…” Ram prods. I’ve
heard that tone: He uses it in negotiations when he wants the other
party to know he’d just as soon destroy them.

“They came voluntarily.” Yod’s tone also gets more
assertive. “They played their parts of their own free will. And for
a good cause.”

“Is there such a thing anymore?” Bel challenges.
“Free will?”

“Of course there is,” Yod goes back to reassuring. “I
wouldn’t take that from you. It would nullify what you are. And as
I said: Unpredictability is beautiful.”

“What about the swords?” Paul Stilson interjects. I
realize he’s got his big rifle pointed roughly at Yod’s genitals
(assuming Yod has genitals).

“I take it you’re no longer detecting any hacking
attempts?” Yod gestures to the air around us, sounding like he
already knows.

“Ceased a few hours ago,” Dee confirms. “And none too
soon. Earth was considering the nuclear option again. But I assume
you knew that.”

“Would you have stopped them?” Bel wants to know. “Or
would you have let free will run its course, then hit the reset
button again?”

“And how many times have I? Isn’t that your next
question?”

Bel doesn’t say anything.

“You’re doing fine.” Yod’s attempts to comfort aren’t
comforting at all. (I wonder if he knows that?) “Even given the
unforeseen developments. Speaking of, I’ve brought you a little
help in that regard…” He gestures to Erickson, Elias, Bly and I,
but then also the Silvermen.

“
Bly?
” Ram finally realizes he’s looking at
face rather than armored mask.

“Colonel Captain,” Bly greets with easy cheer. The
other immortals look variously pleasantly stunned by his new
condition. Bly slams his fist against the mail on his chest, shows
them how it turns to hard scale and back again.

“We’re fine, Colonel,” I feel the need to tell him
myself. “Stories to tell—very weird stories. But the Companions
seem to be under control.”

“For now,” Bel qualifies like he knows something.

“For you…” Yod holds up his staff, morphs it into the
fifth blade, steps forward and offers it to Bel hilt-first. “It’ll
let you monitor the others. Just in case.”

Bel steps up and takes it warily. It doesn’t seem to
do anything when he wraps his gloved hand around the grip. Bel
seems impressed, steps back with the gift he’s been given,
appraising it.

“Where’s the last one?” Azazel has to ask.

“In the care of someone I trust. Now this one is,
too.”

“You used that one to mask your actions from the
others,” Dee seems to be understanding, gesturing to the blade in
Bel’s hands. “Then you used it to lure them.”