“You’ve finally thought of something,” Omi said.
“What gives you that idea?”
Omi made a softly deprecating noise. “I’ve seen that look on your face before. You’re psyching up to charge through a wall. But whatever you’re planning, I’m in.”
“Good,” Marten said. “I’m going to have a word with Major Diaz. Then we’re off to see Chavez.”
Major Diaz continued running the commando troop through the target-practicing drills. In the lobby, Marten and Omi donned bulky spylo-jackets and hurried onto the cold street.
There were on the tenth city-level of New Tijuana. Instead of high-arching levels with bright sunlamps and well-modulated temperatures like Sydney, the Martian city had a claustrophobically low ceiling a mere twenty feet high. Many of the glass buildings reached that high, making it seem even more cramped. Instead of sunlamps on the ceiling to simulate sunlight, streetlamps provided dim lighting. Worst of all, both men could see their breath as the cold seeped into their bones.
Martian children ran screaming past. They wore sythi-woolen caps, spylo jackets and ragged shoes. They chased a bouncing ball, and theirs were the only bright faces. The adults all looked haggard, were amazingly thin and moved with slouched shoulders. They all shuffled out of Marten’s way and avoided making eye-contact, treating him as if he were some escaped beast.
Omi had complained before that wherever he went, he felt eyes staring into his back like needles.
The Red Planet was closer to Luna’s density than to Earth’s density. What it came down to was that Mars lacked a large, molten core like the Earth. It also lacked the richness in metallic ores. Although it was a shorter distance to drill a deep-core mine here, the type of planetary mantle and other factors had mandated against planet-deep drilling. Too, the Social Unity government had never granted the necessary funds for such work. Thus, the Martian cities used nuclear fusion plants to power everything. That meant they needed sufficient fissionable ores to feed the hungry reactors. That meant mines and in the past, it had meant importing massively from the Jupiter Confederation. Mars also lacked sufficient water. The Jupiter cartels and the Martian Water Corporation had combined to scour the Jupiter System for ice asteroids and to import from Saturn. Saturn’s rings contained a treasure in movable ice, one that had been mined for decades.
These and other factors had contributed to Martian squalor, at least in Earth terms. Marten felt constricted in New Tijuana and at times found it difficult to breathe. Until reaching New Tijuana, Marten and Omi had received a false impression about Mars. As Marten had said, “We only saw the best, the military people and the defense facilities.”
With fusion plants instead of deep-core mines, the need to import water and the struggling food domes, the Martian economy wavered on permanent disaster. Likely, the constant rebellion had heavily contributed to that. Too many glass buildings in New Tijuana had blast holes that had never been repaired.
“I’d hate to see the slums here,” Omi had said their first day down.
“Mars is the slum of Inner Planets,” had been Marten’s observation.
The two ex-shock troopers now showed their special passes to the elevator police and rode a lift up two levels. Then the lift stopped and police in black-visored helmets asked them to step out. Levels one through seven were the best lit and the best heated. They contained the government buildings and the homes for the highest ranked in the Planetary Union.
Only after placing a call through to the Secretary-General’s office did the police grudgingly let them enter the prized levels.
Marten might have grumbled to Omi about it, but both of them knew the lifts were monitored. They knew because Major Diaz had warned them about it. Soon, the two hurried down a cleaner street. And here, all the broken streetlamps and buildings had been fixed. In time, Marten and Omi waited in a plush office, each half-sunken in a soft chair.
A little over three weeks ago, they had fled from Olympus Mons with the cyborg in their skimmer. None of them had trusted her, if such a thing could be called female. Marten had used several opportunities to talk with Osadar Di. The one fact that had stuck in his mind was that originally she had been from the Jupiter System. She had been a pilot that had escaped to Saturn and then to Neptune. She used to be human. Someone named Toll Seven had captured her and her ice-hauler crew, and on a Neptune habitat, she had been turned into a cyborg. It was a horrifying tale.
As Marten sat waiting for Chavez, he realized that Osadar Di had been trapped worse than he ever had been. No one had ever ripped his humanity from him. Yet the more Marten thought about it, the more he wondered if that was so. She wasn’t like Blake, the Bioram Taw2. Blake’s mind had been sliced and rearranged. It sounded as if Toll Seven had left Osadar her original mind, reprogramming it in certain ways and vastly changing her form. But if she had her brain, wasn’t she still Osadar Di, still the human from the Jupiter System? It was hard to decide. The interesting point was this: She knew the Jupiter System. She had lived there before escaping to the Neptune System where the cyborgs had caught and transformed her. He knew nothing about Jupiter, or almost nothing. If he was ever going to find Nadia Pravda there, he could use a native Jovian. But if he was ever going to reach his shuttle, the Mayflower—
Marten’s head twitched. He didn’t even want to think about that right now. It was his secret. He hadn’t even told Omi.
There was a truth about secrets. If you told them to someone, others soon learned about them. The only way to keep a secret was to keep it secret. And that meant to tell no one. Marten knew that, and he was the only one who needed to know about the secret—for now. Besides, he couldn’t make a stab for the Mayflower just yet. Mars orbit swarmed with a Social Unity Battlefleet. The fact there hadn’t been any space bombardments or city invasions or food-dome invasions meant the rumor must be true. Major Diaz had told him about the rumor a day ago. The Highborn were heading to Mars with three Doom Stars.
As Marten sat waiting, he brooded. Three Doom Stars would keep the Battlefleet busy.
His mood shifted and Marten lurched to his feet. He hated slouching in the soft chair. He began to pace. A plush carpet covered the floor and strange, no, bizarre paintings hung on the walls. He could feel Omi’s eyes on him. Marten wondered if hidden cameras recorded his actions.
Marten needed Osadar Di. He needed the cyborg because what he planned was madness. Getting the cyborg out of Unionist hands would be hard, however, if not impossible. The Unionist scientists had taken Osadar Di and according to Major Diaz had run her through a battery of tests and asked her thousands of questions. Also according to Diaz, the cyborg had become stubborn and now remained silent.
Would Chavez continue to feel grateful that the cyborg had saved his life? Marten was grateful. Maybe as importantly, he sympathized with Osadar’s extraordinary resolve to gain freedom. Despite the metallic quality of her voice, the few times he’d talked with her, he’d felt connected. He’d understood her. Marten suppressed a shudder. If Osadar Di hadn’t killed the other cyborgs, would Omi and he now be cyborgs? The thought was terrifying. Whatever else happened, Marten knew he had to get off Mars. He had to get out of the Inner Planets. Cyborgs verses Highborn verses Social Unity—the Inner Planets might become cinders before such a war ended.
When faced against overwhelming odds, one either had to fight for honor or run away. It was time to run away to live to fight another day. But to do that, he was going to have fight better than he ever had in his life. He could have used Kang, Vip and Lance. He would have loved to see Stick or Turbo again and hear their voices.