Most of Mars was empty. Terraformed but empty.
Hardly a danger to all sentient life-forms in the solar system, then, is it? asked Orphu of Io.
It was Ri Po who responded. Look at the planet through quantum mapping.
“My God,” Mahnmut said aloud to his empty enviro-crèche. Mars was a blinding red blaze of quantum-shift activity, with flow lines converging on the major volcano, Olympus Mons.
Could the few flying vehicles be causing this quantum havoc? asked Orphu. They don’t register on the electromagnetic spectrum and they certainly aren’t chemically propelled.
No, said Koros III. While the few flying machines move in and out of the quantum flux, they are not generating it. Or at least not the primary source.
Mahnmut looked at the bizarre quantum map overlay another minute before venturing a suggestion he’d been thinking about for days. Would it make sense to contact them via radio or another medium? Or just land openly on Olympus Mons. To come as friends rather than spies?
We have considered this course of action, said Koros. But the quantum activity is so intense that we find it imperative to gather more information before revealing ourselves.
Gather information and get these weapons of mass destruction as close to that volcano as possible, Mahnmut thought with some bitterness. He had never wanted to be a soldier. Moravecs were not designed to fight and the thought of killing sentient beings warred with programming as old as his species.
Nonetheless, Mahnmut prepared The Dark Lady for descent. He put the submersible on internal power and separated all life support umbilicals from the ship, remaining connected only through the comm cables that would be severed when they moved out of the hold. The submersible had been wrapped in ultrastealth and a reaction-pak of thrusters now girdled the bow and stern of the sub, but these would be controlled by Koros III during the entry phase, then jettisoned. The final add-on was the blister-circle of parachutes that would slow their fall after re-entry. These would also be controlled and jettisoned by Koros III. Only after they reached the ocean would Mahnmut guide his own submersible.
Preparing to come down to the submersible, called Koros III from the control deck.
Permission to board granted, replied Mahnmut, although their titular commander had not asked for permission. He was not Europan and did not know the protocols. Mahnmut saw the warning that the ship’s bay doors were opening, exposing The Dark Lady to space again so that Koros could make the transfer by guide cable.
Mahnmut flicked on the video feed from the hull where Orphu nestled. The Ionian noticed the attention. Good-bye for a while, my friend, said Orphu. We’ll meet again.
I hope so, said Mahnmut. He opened the submersible’s lower airlock and prepared to blow the last comm cables.
Wait, said Ri Po. Coming around the limb of the planet.
Control-room video showed Koros III dogging the airlock hatch he had just opened and returning to the instruments. Mahnmut removed his finger from the button arming the commline pyrotechnics.
Something was coming around the edge of Mars. Currently it was just a radar blip. The forward telescope gimbaled to acquire it.
It must have launched from Olympos when we were out of line of sight, said Orphu.
Hailing it now, said Ri Po.
Mahnmut monitored the frequencies as their ship began calling. The blip did not answer.
Do you see this? said Koros III.
Mahnmut did. The object was less than two meters long—an open chariot sans horses and surrounded by a gleaming forcefield. There were two humanoids in the open vehicle, a man and a woman, the female apparently steering it and the taller male just standing there, staring straight ahead as if he could see the stealth-wrapped ship some eight thousand kilometers away. The woman was tall and regal and blonde; the man had short gray hair and a white beard.
Orphu rumbled his laugh on the common line. It looks like pictures of God, he said. I don’t know who his girlfriend is.
As if hearing this insult, the gray-bearded man raised his arm.
The video input flared and died the same instant Mahnmut was thrown against the restraints of his high-g couch. He felt the ship shudder twice, terribly, and then begin tumbling wildly, centrifugal forces throwing Mahnmut hard to the right, then up, then to the left.
Is everyone all right? he screamed on the all-line. Can you hear me?
For several tumbling seconds the only response was silence and line-noise, then Orphu’s calm voice came through the snarl of static. I can hear you, my friend.
Are you all right? Is the ship all right? Did we fire on them?
I’m damaged and blinded, said Orphu as the static hissed and crackled. But I saw what happened before the blast blinded me. We didn’t fire on them. But the ship is—half gone, Mahnmut.
Half gone? Mahnmut repeated stupidly. What—
Some sort of energy lance. The control room—Koros and Ri Po—gone. Vaporized. All the bow gone. The upper hull is slagged. The ship is tumbling about twice per second and beginning to break up. My own carapace has been breached. My reaction jets are gone. Most of my manipulators are gone. I’m losing power and shell integrity. Get the submersible away from the ship—hurry!
I don’t know how! called Mahnmut. Koros had the control package. I don’t know . . .
Suddenly the ship lurched again and the comm and video lines were severed completely. Mahnmut could hear a violent hissing through the hull and realized that it was the ship boiling away around him. He switched on the submersible’s own cameras and saw only plasma glow everywhere.
The Dark Lady began tumbling and twisting more wildly, although whether with the dying ship or by itself, Mahnmut could not tell. He activated more cameras, the submersible’s underwater thrusters, and the damage control system. Half the systems were out or slow to respond.
Orphu? No response. Mahnmut activated the omni-directional masers, attempting a tightbeam lock. Orphu?
No response. The tumbling intensified. The Dark Lady’ s hold, pressurized for Koros’s arrival, suddenly lost all of its atmosphere, spinning the submersible more wildly.
I’m coming for you, Orphu, called Mahnmut. He blew the inner airlock door and slapped his restraint straps off. Behind him somewhere, either in the ship tearing itself apart or in The Dark Lady herself, something exploded and slammed Mahnmut violently against the control panel and then down into darkness.
13
The Dry Valley
In the morning, after a good breakfast prepared by Daeman’s mother’s servitors at her Paris Crater apartments, Ada and Harman and Hannah and Daeman faxed to the site of the last Burning Man.
The faxnode was lighted, of course, but outside the circular pavilion, it was deep night and the wind howl was audible even through the semipermeable forcefield. Harman turned to Daeman. “This was the code I had—twenty-one eighty-six—does it seem right to you?”
“It’s a faxnode pavilion,” whined the younger man. “They all look alike. Plus, it’s dark outside. And it’s empty here now. How am I supposed to tell if it’s the same as some place I visited eighteen months ago, in daylight, with a mob of other people?”