To Earth. On rebound from Mars, the living things within the ice moon also seeded Earth. In part at least, we’re their descendants… Open to the history carried in the green dust, heirs to all that ancient knowledge, if we know how to decode and restore what the kobolds have been trying to preserve for so many millions of years. The secrets of another kind of history. Knowledge, perception, judgment—primordial wisdom.
And the Gurus know it. They must have ordered command to send in Coyle and her sappers. That means they’ll do everything they can to stop us. But why? Aren’t they here to help? Maybe not; they’re not from around here, this is all separate from them, counter to whatever they’ve planned.
What is it they don’t want us to learn?
And I’m thinking, if the Antags came here strapped to an old chunk of Oort ice—what the hell does that mean in our big picture?
The massive Antag buildup, decimating the Koreans and the Euros and the Russians, then fidging our drop, tracking and chasing Joe’s platoon—and meanwhile, slinging comets—maybe hoping to take out anyone who’s been subjected to ice moon tea?
Settlers and warriors.
Is it possible everybody wanted to erase the Drifter and all it contained?
IN STIR
Got most of it down, including the stuff I told Alice. Packing it all away, sending it out. Along with the platinum coin. Madigan was reluctant to do a cavity search on a contaminated man, and when they got around to it… too late. Won’t tell you how or where. But suffice it to say, somebody here at Madigan knows someone who knows Joe, and Joe is still out there.
Joe is legendary here.
A trio of doctors came to visit last Monday—Moon Day—and talked to me through my room’s big, thick window. They told me I’m going to spend a few more weeks in quarantine, and when that’s finished, they’ll hand me over to the capable hands of the Wait Staff.
That could mean I’ll be dead soon. Or I’ll get to meet Gurus. If I live, I hope they don’t mess with my memories of either world. But if they do, or I’m gone, and this is all I leave behind, think on this:
Titan. Out around Saturn, more than one and a half billion kilometers from Earth. Some of us have already become heroes out there. What kind of suits do we wear? Nitrogen and methane atmosphere, mostly, with traces of acetylene and propane helping shape a billowing, yellow-orange haze over a plasticky, oily geology rich with long-chain hydrocarbons—sitting on deep ice and an ocean way beneath that, flowing over a weirdly uneven, stony core.
Undisturbed… until now.
Old and cold.
KILLING TITAN
DEDICATION
To Patrick M. Garrett, Captain, USN, (Ret.)—our favorite Commodore.
And to his uncles:
George C. Garrett, Motor Machinist Mate Second Class. Submarine USS Wahoo, bombed and sunk in the La Perouse Strait north of Japan, OCT 1943.
John S. Garrett, Seaman First Class. Destroyer USS Caldwell, damaged by a bomb off the island of Samar, Philippines, DEC 1944.
And a tip of the hat to Nigel Kneale.
PART ONE
ICE MOON TEA
The hardest part of war is waiting. The boredom can drive you nuts. You start doing things like playing football with ordnance—I’ve seen it, lived it. Lots of casualties happen right in camp when there’s no real fighting. Days and weeks and even months filled with nothing, then more nothing—the mad ol’ ape inside starts to leer and gibber and prance—some of the best of us show signs of going trigger—
Then, WHAM! We’re called up. We cross the vac. We drop. It gets real. All the shit happens at once, in a bloody, grinding flash—and if you live through it, if you survive with enough soul left to even care, you spend the rest of your fucked-up life wondering whether you should have done it different, done it better, or not at all.
All for glory and the Corps.
The Battle of Mars is over. I hear we won. Maybe so. But when I left, seventeen months ago, we had just had our asses handed to us by the Antags.
Some new and unexpected elements had been added to the usual drop, scrap, and stain: a tall young dust widow named Teal, a fanatical clutch of settlers who called themselves Voors, and a crack Special Ops team whose orders included zeroing fellow Skyrines. And as backdrop to our finest mad scenes: a chunk of ancient moon called the Drifter, maybe the most important rock on the Red. Not our usual encounter.
When a lucky few of us made it back, we weren’t celebrated. We were hunted down and locked away.
MADIGAN MADRIGAL
Since returning to Earth, I’ve spent most of my time in an isolation ward at Madigan Hospital, north of Skybase Lewis-McChord, sealed like a bug in a jar while the docs wait for me to sprout wings or grow horns or whatever the fine green powder that coated the insides of the Drifter wants me to do. DJ—Corporal Dan Johnson—called the powder Ice Moon Tea. Is he here at Madigan? I know he came back. So did Joe—Lieutenant Colonel (brevet) Joseph Sanchez. Joe told us all to lie low and stay away from the doctors and not cause a fuss. I suppose I screwed that up, too.
I sent out my first packet just two weeks after I arrived at Madigan. My first and so far only report—along with a coin that I found in the pocket of some old overalls I wore in the Drifter. I have no idea whether all that got back to Joe.
There’s a lone fruit fly in the room with me. I’ve left it a piece of Washington State apple on the gray desk that serves as my writing table. He’s my buddy. Maybe he dreams about being human.
I dream about being a bug.
Ninety-seven days. That’s how long I’ve been here, with the docs filing past my window and telling me it won’t be long before the Wait Staff comes to see me, and maybe I’ll get to tell my story directly to the Gurus, really, and that will be a good thing; don’t worry. Be happy. I’ve been debriefed and inquested and examined and cross-examined, from behind thick glass—squinted at from high and low by disembodied heads until they’ve blurred into one giant, whirly-eyed wizard.
One head rises above the whirl, however: high, smooth brow, impeccable English with a South Asian lilt, Pakistani or Indian, doctor or scientist, not sure which; soft, calm voice. Precise. Reassuring. Civilian clothes. Never reveals his name, position, or rank. He’s talked to me, with me, five or six times, always with a gentle smile and sympathetic eyes.
My personal favorite. He’s the first I’ll strangle with my bare hands when I get the chance.
ONE FINE DAY IN THE BUGHOUSE
How are you today, Sergeant Venn?”
“Still waiting.”
“I understand you’ve been brushing up on your Chinese. And your Hindi and Farsi.”
“Urdu, too. Also.”
“Very good. Your skill with languages is impressive. Better than it used to be.”
“More time.”
“I envy that.”
“No you don’t.”
Without skipping a beat, he continues, “I am indifferent at Farsi myself. If you will allow me, I’d like to ask how you are feeling, what sorts of dream you have had since returning to Earth?”