Blue Remembered Earth

  ‘Piton-drivers,’ Dorcas said. ‘We use them to fire anchors into the ground when we need to moor-up during a storm. They use compressed air to drive self-locking cleats fifty centimetres into solid rock. Just think what that would do to common-or-garden suit armour.’

  ‘I didn’t come to steal from the Overfloaters. You know why I’m here. Whatever’s in that box is family property, that’s all, and it was buried here before the Evolvarium was created. It’s got nothing to do with you or your machines. If I take it, nothing changes. No one gets richer or poorer.’

  ‘If that’s the case,’ Dorcas said, ‘then you won’t mind if I have it instead, will you?’

  ‘I said it belongs to me, to my family.’

  ‘Can you prove this?’

  ‘Of course. I didn’t end up here by accident. I followed clues, all the way from the Moon.’

  ‘Then you can submit a claim for return of confiscated property through the usual channels.’ Dorcas seemed to think for a moment. ‘Of course, to prove that you followed those clues, you’ll have to mention that incident with the Chinese, to which your name hasn’t hitherto been linked.’

  ‘Who’s behind this?’ Jitendra asked.

  ‘There’s no one “behind” anything,’ Dorcas said. ‘I’m merely asserting the rule of law.’

  ‘It’s just that you’d only know about what happened on the Moon if the Pans had told you,’ Jitendra said.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Sunday said. ‘If anything, I’m amazed it’s taken them this long.’

  ‘To do what?’ Gribelin asked.

  ‘To steal the box from under my nose. It’s been too easy, hasn’t it? They’ve been falling over themselves to help us get this far. Now they’ve decided: enough is enough. We don’t need Sunday to follow the rest of the clues. We can do that on our own, thanks very much, or just not bother.’ She shook her head, disgusted at her own unwillingness to see things clearly until this lacerating moment. ‘Soya warned me,’ she said.

  ‘Soya?’ Dorcas asked. ‘Who the hell is Soya?’

  ‘Someone I should have listened to when I had the chance. Not that it would have made much difference. How far could I have got, without the Pans’ assistance?’

  ‘Maybe I’m missing something,’ Gribelin said, ‘but if the Pans are paying me, why is this shit happening?’

  ‘Let’s not allow this to come between us, Grib,’ Dorcas said soothingly. ‘We’re both too old for that. You’ve done an honest job and you’ve been paid for it. You had no right to assist in the extraction of materials from the Evolvarium, so you could say that you’re getting off very lightly by being interdicted before the crime could be fully actualised.’

  ‘I told you what we had in mind. You said nothing about stealing the fucking box from me at the last minute.’

  ‘Yes, well, that was before I was fully cognisant of the possibilities.’

  ‘When did they contact you?’ Sunday asked. ‘Was it yesterday, after we’d been brought aboard? Was that why you delayed the dig, when we still had daylight to spare? So you could haggle terms with the Pans?’

  ‘She’s not going to admit to them being behind this,’ Jitendra said.

  ‘No,’ Sunday said. ‘You’re right. But I thought they could be trusted – to a point, at least. I trusted Chama and Gleb. I even trusted Holroyd. And if they’re screwing me over, what are they doing to my brother?’

  ‘I very much doubt that Chama and Gleb had anything to do with this,’ Jitendra said.

  On an open channel, obviously not caring that her words would be heard by everyone present, Dorcas said, ‘The box is secure. Send down two more crew to pick us up and start prepping for departure. I want to be out of here before the golem leads the hammerheads to us.’

  ‘May be a bit late for that,’ Gribelin said, angling his helmet to nod eastwards. Still kneeling, Sunday twisted to look as well, keeping her movements smooth and slow. She made out a plume of dust, a bumbling silver glint at the point where it met the ground.

  Dorcas cursed, some Martian oath that the translation layer couldn’t parse. ‘I was meant to be alerted!’

  ‘Nine kays and closing,’ Sibyl said. ‘There’s still time, if we hurry.’

  Dorcas prodded Sunday. ‘Get up.’

  ‘Make your mind up. You just told me to kneel down.’

  This time the prod was harder, enough to rattle Sunday’s head against the inside of her helmet. ‘I won’t ask again. Remember, bad things happen out here. No one’s going to bat so much as an eyelid if you don’t show up in Vishniac again. They went into the Evolvarium without an official escort – what were they expecting?’

  Sunday rose. ‘Whatever you think you’re doing, understand this. You’re not just stealing this box from me. You’re stealing the corporate property of Akinya Space. Are you really sure you want to make an enemy of us?’

  ‘Tell that to Lin Wei. I seem to remember Akinya Space stuck the knife in her business, all those years ago.’ A prod, less violent this time. ‘Now walk. All of you. Go as far as that ridge, and keep close to each other.’

  Sunday pushed any thoughts of grand heroics out of her mind. She wasn’t going to take a chance against the piton-driver, not when Dorcas was only a few paces behind her. The three of them did as they were instructed, leaving Sibyl free to retrieve the smaller box. Turning to look back while she walked, Sunday watched the other woman extract the lacquered box from the larger container without incident. She held it up to her visor and with one gloved hand eased up the patterned lid.

  Sibyl examined the contents for a few seconds, poking a finger into whatever was inside, then closed the lid carefully. There was no way of telling what she’d seen.

  ‘Keep walking,’ Dorcas said.

  Despite the order, Gribelin stopped and pointed. ‘Hammerhead!’ he bellowed, like a whaler sighting a spout.

  ‘Move!’ Dorcas snarled.

  The hammerhead was some distance beyond the golem’s rover, but it was rearing up now, assuming full and dreadful aspect. Sunday’s visor graphed up a high-mag zoom, sensing her focus. A down-angled claw hammer, big as the rover itself, pivoted on the head-end of a mechanical spine as long as a train. The machine cut through the terrain in an S-wave, each of its house-sized spinal modules equipped with out-jutting legs, sinuous and in constant whipping motion. The golem was travelling quickly, kicking dust back at its pursuer, but the hammerhead looked to be gaining. They watched it scoop up boulders and fling them through the air, raining down on the golem with ballistic precision.

  Sunday had been running from the golem from the moment it had announced itself in Crommelin, but now she welcomed its arrival. Given the alternative, she would far rather deal with Lucas than Dorcas and the Pans. Watching the hammerhead close the distance on the rover, she willed the golem forward.

  It wasn’t enough. A car-sized boulder spun through the air, barely missing the rover and landing slightly ahead of it. The rover bludgeoned into the obstacle, its nose digging down as its tail flipped up. Wheels spun in the air. The rover, its front end crumpled, fell onto its side. The hammerhead continued throwing rocks as it approached.

  Sunday tore her gaze away from the spectacle long enough to see the airship reaching down its arms to scoop up Dorcas and Sibyl. It hauled them into the sky, along with their improvised weapons and the black box.

  ‘Good luck!’ Dorcas said over the suit-to-suit channel. ‘We’ll do what we can to push that hammerhead away, but I wouldn’t stick around if I were you.’ She let her piton-gun fall to the dust. ‘I’ll buy you a drink next time we’re both in Vishniac, Grib.’

  The gondola’s airlock was open: another crewperson was waiting to receive Dorcas and Sibyl. The airship’s engines swivelled on their mountings, the deltoid gasbag turning with the ponderousness of a cloud. Gribelin looked dumbstruck. He was hurrying back to the truck, kicking dust with his heels. He paused to scoop up the piton-gun, shaking the dirt from its workings. Sunday and Jitendra started afte
r him.

  But she couldn’t not look at the golem. The hammerhead was on it now, rearing above the crashed rover. It swung back its head, angling it as far as the hinge allowed, then swung the hammer down, putting its entire body into the movement so that it looked, for an instant, as if the robot were no more than a whip being cracked. The hammer drove down onto the rover. The head angled back, swung again. The rover was being crushed and pulverised. Sunday thought of the golem inside, what must now be left of it. She hoped it had come alone.

  They had reached the truck. The hammerhead had smashed the other vehicle six or seven times now. Bits of it had broken off, and now the Evolvarium machine was employing its cilia-like legs to pick through the debris. There was something obscene and avaricious about the haste with which it went about the task of recycling the broken machine, shovelling the prime cuts into a ring-shaped aperture just under its hinge-point. A horror of counterrotating teeth spun at high speed inside the maw, grinding and slicing.

  Gribelin hauled himself onto the side of his truck. He looked back, still holding the piton-gun, and then switched his attention to the hammerhead. Sunday looked at it as well. It was still next to the wreck, but it had interrupted its feeding. The ‘head’ was swivelling slowly around, like a battleship turret moving onto its next target.

  ‘It knows we’re here,’ Gribelin said.

  ‘Then we’d better do what Dorcas just said,’ Sunday answered. ‘Get the fuck out of here.’

  ‘Lucas couldn’t outrun it, could he?’ Jitendra asked, fear breaking his voice. ‘What hope have we got?’

  ‘Maybe Dorcas can scare it away,’ Sunday said. Instead of heading towards the hammerhead, however, the airship was moving in the opposite direction.

  ‘And maybe I trust Dorcas about as far as I can piss, right now,’ Gribelin said. Through his visor, the set of his face was grim and calculating. He glanced at the hammerhead again, then his truck, then Sunday and Jitendra.

  ‘Run,’ he said.

  Sunday frowned. ‘What do you mean—’

  ‘Run,’ he repeated, lowering the muzzle of the piton-gun in her direction to dispel any remaining doubt. ‘Run, sweet cheeks, and keep running. Hammerheads lock on to the biggest target they can find, and they’re smart enough to go after a machine rather than a person in a suit. Until the machine escapes, or they catch it. Whichever happens first.’

  Sunday wasn’t processing. All she was seeing was a man pointing a non-weapon at her, blocking her access to the one thing that stood even a remote chance of outrunning the Evolvarium creature. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Let us in.’

  From his position on the truck’s side, Gribelin kicked hard. His boot caught her in the middle of her chest. She crashed back, falling against Jitendra, who stumbled and flailed before finding his balance. ‘Gribelin!’ he called. ‘You can’t do this!’

  ‘Run,’ Gribelin said again. He was in the truck now, venting its cabin air in a single explosive gasp so that he didn’t have to go through the airlock cycle. Still on her back, Sunday watched him settle into the control position and work the levers. The stabilising legs spidered away. The wheels churned, found their grip.

  ‘He’s abandoning us,’ Jitendra said.

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Sunday replied as the truck backed away and turned. She rolled onto her side and forced herself up. She remembered what Gribelin had told her, that they should do exactly what he said if the shit came down. This predicament, she decided, adequately satisfied the requirements. ‘But I do think we should run.’

  So they ran, as fast as the suits allowed, which was nowhere near as fast as she would have liked, and maybe a fifth of the speed of Gribelin’s rover, now scudding away from them with a huge peacock’s tail of dust behind it.

  ‘It’s taking the bait,’ Jitendra said, between ragged breaths. Sunday barely had breath herself. They were pushing the suits to their limit, their own lungs and muscles doing at least as much work as the suits’ servos.

  ‘Keep moving,’ she said.

  But she couldn’t resist a look back. The hammerhead had abandoned its first kill. Now it was going after Gribelin, but not with any sense of urgency. Conserving its energy, knowing that it could catch him up in patient increments, over kilometres. She forced herself to keep running, or to maintain what was now little more than an exhausted shambling jog. She was starting to feel light-headed, with stars spangling the edges of her vision. The faceplate readouts were all in the red, warning her that she was pushing the suit beyond its recommended performance envelope.

  Never mind the suit, she thought. This is pretty far outside my own performance envelope.

  There’d been no stated intention, no agreement between them that they should run in a certain direction, other than away from the truck. But that had been sufficient shared volition, Sunday realised now, to send them towards the golem’s wreck. It had looked awfully far away, but distances on Mars were deceptive. She crested a shallow ridge, and with a dreamlike lurch of contracting perspectives it was suddenly much closer.

  It looked bad, too. She’d never had any real expectation that the attack had been survivable, but any hopes she might have entertained were now obliterated. The rover was in pieces. It had been ripped apart and pounded into mangled and flattened shapes, now barely recognisable as the vehicle parts they had once been. She thought of Dali again: of sagging watches draped over leafless branches. The Evolvarium creature had turned the rover into art.

  The suit’s warning alerts were now more than she could endure, and her own heart felt like a piece of machinery about to burst from her chest. Her lungs felt as if the sun had been poured into them. She could not keep running.

  Lucas’s proxy lay on the ground.

  The golem had no need of a surface suit, and was dressed as it had been in the Red Menace. For an instant her eyes tricked her, telling her that half of it must be buried under dust, until she realised that half of it was missing. The golem consisted of a head, an upper torso, one left arm. Lucas’s proxy body had been severed in a diagonal line from the upper-right shoulder to the left hip. Sunday could not see the rest of it. Perhaps the other parts were in the remains of the rover, or scattered, or had already been digested by the Evolvarium creature.

  It was the first time she’d seen the inner workings of a golem. There were glutinous layers, sheaths of active polymer, a skeletal structure of translucent white plastic, fibrous bundles of nerves and power-transmission circuits. A blue-grey blubber of artificial muscles, precisely veined with fluid ducting. Not much metal, and very little in the way of hard mechanisms. Purple ichor, some kind of lubrication or coolant medium, had spilt out of it and was already freezing on the Tharsis ground. The right side of its face was mashed in, the ear and scalp missing. An eyeball lolled out of its socket, trailing a rope of greasy fibre optics. The golem’s intelligence, in so far as it had any, was distributed throughout its entire anatomy. But the eyes were still its primary visual acquisition system.

  She stood next to it, hands on knees, waiting for the fog of exhaustion to clear from her vision.

  The golem looked at her. The good eyeball tracked her in its socket, the other one twitching like a fish on land. The mouth moved, clicking open and shut in the manner of a ventriloquist’s dummy, as if operated by a crude mechanism. For the moment, there was no animation in the face. It was like a limp rubber mask with no person wearing it, sagging in the wrong places. Then Lucas seemed to push through, his personality inhabiting the golem. The face tautened, filled out, and the mouth formed a smile.

  ‘I’m in trouble,’ Sunday said over the suit’s general comm channel. ‘I can’t reach the aug, and aside from my brother and some people I don’t trust any more, no one knows I’m here. That leaves you, Lucas. And I don’t even know if you’re hearing this, or if you still have a ching bind back to Earth.’

  The golem spoke. She heard it in her head. ‘I think we’re both in trouble, Sunday.’

  ‘When was the last time
you received an update from Lucas?’

  ‘I’ve been autonomous for hours now. I’m afraid it’s highly unlikely that there’ll be any re-establishment of contact, at least not before I become inoperable.’

  ‘Is Lucas aware of my whereabouts?’

  ‘Lucas knows that I followed you into the Evolvarium, and that your probable target was Eunice’s landing site. However, he didn’t know that for a fact.’

  Sunday looked around. Gribelin and the hammerhead were a long way off now: from this distance, she couldn’t see much more than the rover’s dust plume. She hoped Gribelin was still maintaining his lead.

  Jitendra staggered to a halt, bracing his hands on his hips. He saw the golem, shuddered instinctively. It was a natural reaction. It looked so plausible, so lifelike.

  ‘It should never have come to this, cousin,’ Sunday said, with genuine sorrow.

  The golem’s one good eye twinkled with bitter-sweet amusement. ‘I was always prepared to put the family before my personal advancement. It’s just a shame you didn’t feel the same way. What have you gained, though? They took the item. You came all this way for nothing.’ The face smiled. Purple ichor drooled from its lips. ‘You wasted everything, Sunday.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that.’ She planted a foot on the golem’s skull. ‘There are always compensations.’

  She felt the plastic crack wetly under her weight, like some large, brittle, yolk-filled egg. The pettiness of the gesture sickened her to the marrow. There was spite in her that she had never once suspected.

  But at the same time she did not regret it at all.

  Jitendra had been digging through the wreckage of the rover, the parts that hadn’t been completely pancaked, for many hours now. He was looking for something, anything, that might enable them to send a distress signal. Sunday had helped, at first, but then the futility of the exercise had burst over her in a wave of bleak despair. He would not find anything of use, nor would they succeed in contacting anyone who could help. If they tried to walk, they’d still be inside the Evolvarium when night returned, and their suits would certainly not keep them alive for more than a couple of days. It was already long past noon and the sun was hurtling back down towards the horizon with indecent haste.