It took most people a lifetime to learn how to move fast on an asteroid that had a minuscule escape velocity. The subjective years in the Web-Mind simulator had given OD12 those ‘years’ of training. She was an expert, likely one of the greatest in the Solar System. Her only equals in asteroid-gliding were the other cyborgs in the attack team. Thirty-six of them had made it. That was less than Toll Seven had computed they would need to storm and capture the moon intact.
The internal computer listened to emergency instructions messaged from the Web-Mind on Toll Seven’s command pod. The internal computer computed and injected enhancement drugs into OD12’s system. The agenda had been set and Web-Mind had decided to risk possible burnout to heighten cyborg functions.
Thirty-six, machined-enhanced humanoids in battlesuits converged on the first bunker in the Stickney crater. The Martian Planetary Union was about to experience the first Inner System battle with the nightmare called cyborgs.
-16-
Lisa awoke for the last time as the clone of Madam Blanche-Aster.
There were odd humming noises around her and the light was an eerie, dark green. A harsh chemical odor made Lisa scrunch her noise. She wanted to spit, as a rusted taste was on her tongue.
Lisa frowned. The last thing she remembered was Toll Seven pointing a finger at her. The cyborg had shot her with a dart.
Lisa tried to shake the sluggishness from her. She had to get up and warn somebody that the cyborgs were dangerous. She had chopped off the cyborg’s fingers and he hadn’t seemed to care.
It was then Lisa realized she was immobilized and quite nude. There was a strap around her forehead and others securing her torso, arms and legs. All she could see by rolling her eyes was an ominous humming machine. It had a human-sized chute. Fear surged through her as her stomach painfully tightened. She lay on some kind of belt that led into the human-sized chute. Her feet would go in first. The belt or conveyer would take her into—was it a medical machine?
Where am I?
As if to answer her silent question, Toll Seven floated before her. Lisa glanced at his hands. They were whole, his shorn fingers fixed.
“Where am I?” Lisa whispered.
“In the cyborg command pod,” Toll Seven said. He pushed himself to the floor and there was a tearing-cloth sound as he attached his feet to a Velcro-carpeted floor.
“You have to let me go,” Lisa said. “I’m sure to be reported missing.”
“General Fromm has already reported you as a suicide.”
Lisa’s heart beat faster. “Fromm is your spy?”
It seemed as if the cyborg wanted to smile, but something held him back. “General Fromm has learned the uses of Web-Mind. He is a Webbie.”
“What is a Webbie?”
“I had considered it for you,” Toll Seven said. “But the Martian Unionists have fought back more efficiently than Web-Mind had computed. Web-Mind has recomputed the casualty rates and indicated an immediate need for cyborg reinforcements.”
“From Neptune?” Lisa asked.
“Fear pheromones are leaking from you,” Toll Seven said. “But I had computed you capable of rational thought even under dire stress.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“You are a clone of Madam Director Blanche-Aster.”
“Madam Blanche-Aster is dead,” Lisa said.
“We know.”
It wasn’t I know, but we know. “How could you know?” Lisa asked.
“By direct communication with Chief Yezhov of Political Harmony Corps,” Toll Seven said.
“I am the Blanche-Aster now.”
“There are other clones.”
“But none are as highly ranked as me.”
“Ah,” Toll Seven said. “You are bargaining in the hope of forgoing your transformation.”
“I can help you,” Lisa pleaded.
“The Rita-Tan Solution failed.”
Those fear pheromones Toll Seven had talked about poured off Lisa now. She struggled, but the straps binding her head, torso, arms and legs were too snug and too strong. She was trapped on this nightmare conveyor and she was about to enter the ominous machine.
Lisa’s mouth was bone dry. “What does this thing do?” she asked hoarsely.
“It converts human flesh into a cyborg soldier.”
Lisa struggled harder and was soon panting. “I can kill James Hawthorne for you!” she said.
“Our cyborg-reinforcement need is more pressing.”
“I’ll become like those things you shot at Phobos?”
“No.”
Lisa’s eyes boggled as hope retuned. “No. What do you mean?”
“You will not be as efficient as those soldiers. This is a micro-converter. Once we land on Mars, I will construct a true converter and the process of complete conversation will begin.”
“Do to me what you did to General Fromm,” Lisa begged.
“The risks increase with each Webbie.”
“Have mercy,” Lisa said, while trying to control her terror.
“Mercy is illogical.”
Lisa tried to thrash. She twitched and heaved against the straps. Toll Seven’s metallic hand touched her naked shoulder.
“Cease these useless efforts,” he said. “You will tear a muscle and that will make conversion less useful.”
“Let me go!” Lisa screamed.
“Such emotional flesh,” Toll Seven said. “It is a wonder humans ever made it off their mud-ball world.” Toll Seven stepped back, becoming harder to see in the dark, green light. He seemed to make a minute gesture.
The conveyor lurched. Lisa Aster the clone began screaming. The scream became piercingly loud. She struggled as her feet entered the human-sized portal. She tried to lift her head so see what would happen next, but the straps were too tight.
She should have tried to kill Supreme Commander James Hawthorne back on Earth. She should never have agreed to this journey. Stupid General Fromm had allowed Toll Seven to change him. The cyborgs were invincible. They had no mercy. They had no flaws whatsoever. They would shred the Martians, Social Unity and then shred the arrogant Highborn.
A cold spray spewed against Lisa’s feet and then her legs. It made them numb.
Lisa’s screams became hoarse as her head disappeared into the whirring machine.
Marten and Omi ate cold soybean sandwiches in an EVA tent. They had been skimming for forty-eight hours in a southeastern direction. After passing Pavonis Mons, they’d entered jumbled terrain composed of huge blocks and deepening channels. One of those dangerous channels had led into the Noctis Labyrinthus, the most western of the Valles Marineris Rift System.
The Valles Marineris was the largest canyon in the Solar System and stretched for nearly a quarter of Mars’ circumference. It wasn’t a single vast canyon, but was made up of many different, merging formations. Nearest the Tharsis Bulge was the present canyon. Traveling east, one would reach eight different canyon systems before it ended at the basin of the Chryse Planitia. The Valles Marineris was a vast tectonic crack in the Martian crust, formed as the Tharsis region had risen in the west. Over the centuries, carbon dioxide fluid and gas had eroded even more of the canyon.
In the tent, Marten’s hair was oily and his face dirty. Surprisingly, Omi seemed fitter. Being on a planet again, even one with only one-third Earth’s gravity, had accelerated Omi’s health more than his many hours on the Mayflower’s workout unit had.
After finishing the sandwiches, both ex-shock troopers donned their environmental helmets and turned their heaters up to full blast. Only then did they zip open the EVA tent. The warm, oxygen-rich air left in a cloudy rush.
They were in shadow beside a towering cliff eight kilometers high. There were ice crystals on the rocks and patches of carbon-dioxide snow on the ground. Those patches were less than a quarter-inch thick. It was cold down here at the bottom of the Valles Marineris Canyon. But it wasn’t as cold as the Martian South Pole, which sometimes hit -193 degrees Fahrenheit in winter. It was cold enough. Because they were eight kilometers down from the regular Martian surface, there was enough atmospheric pressure for it to rain or snow.