Ash retreated, kneeling beside the hearth.
The idea of tea made his mouth taste foul, his stomach ache. But that reaction wouldn’t last. The hearth needed to be cleaned, and he was desperate for some small chore to help pass the time. Bare hands swept the ashes and a few still-warm coals into a bucket that had no other job. Hands and then wrists turned white, and when the bucket was full, he stood and carried it downwind, upending it on a ridge that always caught the wind, allowing the finest ashes to be blown away in the next minutes, leaving the rest to be washed away with the occasional downpour.
The white on his fingers tasted like salt and like earth. He licked three fingertips clean and then washed everything else.
Then he sat with his back against the bristlecone, the sun filling his eyes.
Arsia Mons. It was easy to assume that he chose this patch of ground and its false sun because they triggered memories of his Martian home. But the truth was that he didn’t need reminders. He never stopped thinking about Arsia Mons, about the weather and the scenery that he had loved. A shield volcano with a huge caldera, the mountain’s high reaches were famous for their cold dry air and the bristlecone forests. Brought from the Earth, the trees were tweaked until they thrived with the high carbon dioxide levels and the strong UV flux, and then other people tweaked them again, allowing them to live forever. Human cells; plant cells. In a universe full of aliens and odd biologies, those two lineages were just slightly different versions of the same cells, and humans had a need for handsome trees that served as immortal friends.
In those days, Ash wore a different name. And in front of that other name was the noble label of Doctor.
An academic, he lived in a small university with his spouse and many friends, good work and eager students from all parts of the solar system. The Doctor kept his focus away from the political troubles of the world below. A few government people came to the university seeking help. His colleagues said, “Yes,” and then moved away, throwing in with the war effort. Or they said, “No,” and were allowed to remain neutral in a struggle that seemed awful, but only because it was still so young and small.
That university was famous for its odd thoughts and arcane fascinations. Some colleagues invented weapons, but more important, others invented the surveillance and propaganda tools used against underground foes.
Bioceramic brains. They were Ash’s passion, the reason for every professional success. Immortal flesh needed a mind that could carry huge amounts of memory, crossing millennia while retaining the sum total of a life. But the bioceramics weren’t devised by humans. They were just the latest species to borrow technologies old before trilobites ruled the Earth. Intercepted broadcasts delivered the magic, and save for a few odd faiths and enclaves, humanity had thoroughly embraced the technology. Except nobody understood them perfectly. Indeed, there were days when the Doctor uncovered one or two secret talents hidden in the finer workings of these ancient machines.
University life continued, the Martian war grew worse, and the government suffered from errors and bad luck. One major problem was that prisoners couldn’t be interrogated with any hope of success. Bioceramic minds were too tough, their owners too certain of their own invincibility. Death was always a threat, yes. But the modern body didn’t suffer horrible pain, and the ageless minds couldn’t be bored or sleep deprived into madness, or fooled in any of the traditional ways.
The Doctor had opinions about how to break a man. Indeed, working with student volunteers, he proved concepts that would revolutionize the entire business of making an enemy confess.
Publishing his work, he fully expected the government to send agents to beg for his advice, if not his out-and-out aid.
And he would say, “Yes.”
Or, “No.”
He wasn’t certain how he would answer the pleas. But the moment never came. Mars ignored him, even when he sent messages of support and teases of possibility. According to the government’s resident experts, his work was too experimental and far-fetched. And silly and shallow as this was, that’s why he became angry. The noble professor was pissed by the insult, and that was when he decided to travel to Ganymede, attending a minor conference where he would meet with colleagues who understood what a good mind was being carried on his shoulders.
The Doctor was homebound when Arsia Mons was attacked. An experimental starship had been hijacked. A substantial quantity of metallic hydrogen spiked with antimatter was liberated above the mountain’s caldera. The immortal bristlecones burned, and the university was destroyed, every mind obliterated in a fire that was briefly hotter than the interior of most stars.
A few days later, the new widower tried to cross the ravaged landscape. He couldn’t walk far. The energy was drained from his legs, his soul. Sitting in cold sunlight, this expert of the mind again offered his aid to his world. But because both sides were guilty and both sides were incompetent, he didn’t commit to either cause. This innately clinical man understood what mattered. The war had to end. And he was prepared to end it by himself, if necessary.
That’s what he told the world below.
Sitting where fire had obliterated wood and soil, homes and souls, he said, “Whoever comes to me first, wins me.”
Then, speaking to himself as much as any audience, he added, “Ash is my name.”
“My face,” said the human.
“Yes?”
“Where do you see my face?”
In the shadow of the young bristlecone. The face was between two odd hands and a deficient mind: Not a generous assessment, but that was how the 31-1s regarded their human landlords.
This 31-1 threw his focus on those hands.
Working together, the hands held a tangle of wires and sensors. That was Ash’s weapon of choice. A third hand was holding an expensive, profoundly illegal gun. The two human faces were pointed at one another. Both of their wet little bodies were sucked and blowing air. One man wanted his air to carry meanings, and placing those realities into a string, the 31-1 absorbed the voice while his translator interpreted all of those painful noises.
“What you did to me, you had no right, I want you dead, the hurt you caused, for me and everyone, torturer, goddamn torturer, I’ll kill you now, you shit, where you stand, shit bastard.”
Ash’s face didn’t hide its pain. The man exhaled, and the translator said, “He sighs,” and then Ash let the wires fall to the ground.
“We aren’t alone,” Ash said.
The furious man kept talking.
“A witness is watching us,” Ash warned.
The cursing continued until the man was breathless. That’s when his face turned just far enough to look at the 31-1. The 31-1 had walked all of this way, and he was standing beside the sad, angry humans. The furious man looked pale, but in the same reality, the 31-1 saw something else. In those eyes, there was a radiant, sick and intoxicating joy.
“Where do you see my face?”
Ash and his face were beside a tall table. Drinks waited in glasses and various humans stood at the table and drank. Ash was holding the hand of the man beside him. This 31-1 had never been among humans before. He didn’t know any of their names and very little about the species. He would never guess about the relationship between the men, or care. But other realities existed, moored in places deficient minds called “the future,” In those places, this 31-1 appreciated that the men were lovers, and a willing and competent translator was able to offer up the words that the 31-1 had overheard.
Both men saw the long, five-legged alien.
“There walks beauty.”
“A 31-1.”
“Is that its name?”