THE BOW OF HERCULES
Atalanta descended on a cloud of dust just outside the gates of what Karil now thought of as Snakesville. A crew of burly men rushed out with a great roll of camouflage netting. They stopped dead as a giant mechanical spider climbed down off the ship and barred their way, bending back and raising two front legs in a defensive stance, as they had seen Tarantulas doing, but two meters long. They were rough and brave men, and they did not scatter in terror, but they stopped in their tracks.
“Who goes there?” Arachne demanded from somewhere in her file of human phrases.
The leader spoke up: “Atalanta’s shape can be seen from orbit. This will make her look like the desert.”
“Proceed.” With amazing grace, Arachne helped them draw the netting over the ship, then turned to the forward port and gave the ship a snappy salute. Karil nearly asphyxiated himself choking back his laughter, but Loris, with typical self-control, returned the salute.
When he could contain himself, Karil said, “Oh, I love your new friend, Atty!”
“Thank you, Karil. So do I. She kept me company in the Odysseus Yards.”
Loris was busy snapping off switches and killing lights. “I’m sorry we left you hanging out, Atty. Maybe we should work on some new procedures.”
“I understand completely. If the Quasi-Police had gotten their hands on me, I would have had no option but self-erasure.”
Karil shook the thought of Atalanta as a dumb machine out of his head. He distracted himself by whistling a tune he had heard called, he believed, Spiders and Snakes, as they unloaded their passengers and handed out some of Warden’s weapons to Baby Snake’s crew, who were as delighted as children in a toy store. The passengers, exhausted after a wild ride clinging to cargo netting, appreciated the barbecue and some formidable home-brewed beer. Before the party got too raucous, Snakes addressed her followers and the passengers.
“My friends have just been snatched from a horrible prison by Atalanta and her crew. They are tough and hard-working—otherwise they would be dead. I think that some of them might want to stay with us.” She turned to the passengers. “It’s a hard life here, but you’re used to that, and we’re free. Loris has whipped you into pretty good fighters. If you have no home to go to, you are invited to join us. Or Karil and Loris have offered to take you to a place called Montreal, where the Quasi-Police will have no power over your lives. It’s at the end of the Underground Railroad and most people have to work a lot harder to get there. If you want to try to get back to your families, we can take you across the desert, though you are escaped prisoners and might put your families in danger. Think it over. I can’t ask Karil and Loris to transport you all home because they really have to get to Mars as soon as they can. But those three options are there to think about. For now, drink up and relax.”
She returned to Karil and Loris, accompanied by a friend. He was over two meters tall, powerfully muscled, with long braided hair and a bushy beard. He towered over her, and even Loris was impressed.
“This is Ratchet, my baby brother,” she said. “He runs the place when I’m not around. He’s a lot smarter than he looks.”
Ratchet laughed a great booming laugh and gave Baby Snakes a good-natured shove. She was ready for it and was not knocked off her feet, but he picked her up and hugged her. Then he picked up Karil and embraced him as well, and Loris let him do the same to her.
Later in the evening, Snakes accompanied Karil and Loris into the ship. They could hear the celebrating and see the flickering torchlight and the stars in the black sky above. Baby Snakes was a bit tipsy.
“Do you want to see?” she asked Loris, suddenly little-girl shy.
“Yes,” said Loris. “I’ve been admiring your artwork but had no time to examine it at leisure.”
Baby snakes peeled off her ragged clothing and Loris studied her small, hard, illustrated body. Karil pointed out his favourites. Loris had to laugh to see the serpents biting her nipples or emerging from various nooks and crannies, as she traced the tangled creatures with her fingertips. The girl began to breathe heavily, and suddenly she grabbed Loris and kissed her passionately.
“The thing that kept me going in the camp,” she told Loris, “was sleeping with you curled up around me.” Loris and Karil kissed away her tears.
They pored over her in Atty’s subdued light, stroking and teasing the tough little barbarian to shuddering orgasm, and together they showed her the reality behind their reputation on Ganymede. Afterwards, they lay spooned as Atty played soft music.
“Can I come with you,” Baby Snakes whispered in Loris’s ear, “Captain?”
“Are you sure?” Loris asked her. “It’s a long journey we’re on. Three different gravities to deal with. There’s a war going on, and Mars in the best of times has a way of killing the people you love. It’s a worse desert than this, and you can’t even breathe without help.”
“Karil has told me about it. He told me about Jupiter and its moons too. Cities in the ice. Like fairy tales.”
“I’m sure he made it sound romantic and wonderful.”
“I’m tired, Loris. Staying in control of this crew is exhausting. Keeping them following me is a matter of sheer bravado on my part. They like me like a sister and admire my smarts and my skills, but any one of them could kill me without breaking a sweat and take over if I slipped up. Ratchet might not even be able to stop them. And I can’t take a lover among them without threatening discipline. Besides, I’ve met Terry and I’d like to help her. And I want more of this.” She kissed Loris. “Lots more.”
“You wouldn’t be the leader,” Loris said. “I’m the Captain, and the only one who can disobey is Atalanta. You’d also have to follow the orders of whoever leads the Rebellion, once you’re involved in it. Power can be hard to give up.”
“I can still control some things.” She reached down and grabbed the part of Karil that was knocking for entry. Again.
“I don’t have to ask Karil’s opinion,” Loris said. “Or Atty’s. Welcome aboard.”
Baby Snakes proceeded to make them both happy. They enjoyed her enthusiasm. Atalanta hummed contentedly.
***
Several of the rescued prisoners decided to stay in Snakesville, welcomed by all. She revealed that she was leaving for a while for adventures in the Outer Worlds. She handed over the reins to Ratchet, and no-one disputed the appointment. To her surprise, the farewell was quite warm. One after another picked her up and hugged her. Perhaps they had always wanted to be that affectionate but felt it inappropriate.
Passengers took their places in the holds as the camouflage netting was rolled back, Snakes took her place in one of the passenger seats flanking Loris above Karil’s astrogation station, Arachne climbed on top of the ship like a huge, bizarre hood ornament, and Atalanta rose into the sky, banked, and roared off across the desert.
Montreal was a city at the junction of four independent Republics—Québec, Kahnawake, Vermont, and Ontario—part of the Canadas. It was on an island in the Saint Lawrence Sea, and four bridges guarded the gates to the Four Quarters—the French Quarter, the Mohawk Quarter, The American Quarter, and the Canadian Quarter. Karil loved that the place was full of libraries, universities, and museums, like ancient Alexandria. There was great food from all over Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the Caribbean, and dozens of languages could be heard in the streets. It reminded him of Ganymede at times.
Atalanta approached from the south over the forested mountains of Vermont. She crossed the waters lapping against the Escarpment—a cliff looming over the drowned towers of Griffintown—and settled to the spaceport atop Mount Royal in the centre of town. The refugees, as always, were welcomed by the Underground Railroad. Arachne was a big hit.
Karil and Loris brought Snakes to one of their favourite restaurants, but they had to get ready for the trip to Mars. Atty had received several encrypted messages from other freetraders. “Chi-Chi Li and Aaron Ben David,” she reported, “were arrested in the Belt and sent to High Venus. They managed to escape with a small army of prisoners on Fancy Dancer with Wog and Gay. They are on their way to Mars right now. Jay has been drumming up support in the communes for some kind of rescue attempt for Terry, who we believe is being held at Pavonis Spaceport.”
“Good news,” Karil said. “Are we ready?”.
“Are you kidding?” Baby Snakes said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited.”
“Then strap in. This going to be some magic carpet ride.”
She kissed Karil as he climbed past her and down into the astrogator’s well, kissed Loris as she fired up the drivers, and then strapped herself into one of the passenger seats.
Atalanta lifted off, hovered for a moment as she turned about, the SPIDER clinging to the fuselage just behind the bridge, and then she leaped for the sky. Baby Snakes was not afraid of speed—the first time Karil had laid eyes on her, she was leaping off the back of a motorcycle, coming at him with a knife—but the crushing force of take-off was something else again. With the roar of the fusion drivers, she could barely hear the conversation between Loris and Atty. She looked down and saw a bewildering variety of lights and curves and flashing figures on the panels as Karil’s fingers danced over the keyboards as if he were playing multiple pianos.
Then the scramjets kicked in and the ship leaped toward the night. The landscape below bent like a bow. The sky turned from blue to black and the stars came out. On the screen, she saw the Earth as a planet. For a second, there was nothing and she felt herself rising from the seat into the straps, and then there was talk of Martian insertion and another kick slammed her back into her seat. She understood it all—it was kind of like changing gears.
“Are you all right up there?” Karil asked.
“I am fine,” Arachne said over the comm.
Karil laughed. “I was talking to Snakes, actually.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Baby? Okay?” Karil said.
“I’m excited, but my ass must be black and blue by now.”
“I’ll kiss it and make it better later on.”
“It’s a deal. How do the beds work here?”
“You sleep in a bag hung on the wall.” Karil said. “The bags zip together. But we’ll have to train you how to use the head.”
“The head?”
“The john.”
“Men have it much easier, as usual,” Loris said. “I’ll show you later.”
Baby snakes didn’t answer. She was looking at the stars all around them. Having reached the required velocity for Mars insertion, Loris switched off the drivers, and suddenly there was silence. It seemed as if the universe had stopped dead. But the digits rolling by on a readout in front of Karil showed them falling toward Mars at tremendous speed. Snakes saw Earth and Luna, tiny and far apart, behind them and growing smaller. She stared at the stars that Karil and Loris were ignoring. Loris was checking figures and Karil was studying a display on the big screen.
“Is that it?” he asked.
“The Quasi-Police don’t exactly publish the layouts of their prisons,” Atty said sweetly. “This is the best I could piece together. I do have something of vital interest, however. Some tourist coming down in a shuttle from the White-Armed Hera liner has taken a picture of the spaceport and it has been shared.”
It was a picture window in the residential tower atop the southern slope of the Pavonis caldera, and the figure inside was adorned with extraordinarily long golden hair. No facial details were visible, but none were needed. For a second, Snakes felt a stab of jealousy as Karil and Loris stared at the figure, and she realized she could never be better than second in their hearts. But then, she realized that this was Teresa of Tharsis and first in the hearts of everyone who loved Mars.
Loris looked down at the diagrams. “Here, here, and here,” Karil was saying. “Anti-aircraft guns. And this is the landing pad and the cargo-lock… Atty, what kind of ship is this?”
“It’s a troop-ship,” Atalanta said. “Designed to fly in thin atmosphere, and land on the surface. That’s the reason for the huge swept-back wings.”
“Really,” Karil laughed. “Loris, does that shape look familiar to you?”
***
Fancy Dancer sidled up to the asteroid Pallas to check on the miners there. They found the Aegis moored to the colony, but the surface of the asteroid where the mining works had been located was a mass of blackened craters and melted machinery. Eric appeared on the screen and recognized Aaron Ben David.
“What’s happened?” Aaron asked. “Are you alright?”
“Some of us were hurt. But nobody was killed and we’re alright physically. But the Poseidon Earthshaker, on the way back to Mars, stopped in to bombard Pallas.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“No, Aaron. No. We did what we did because it was the right thing to do. For Mars and the Belt. We knew it was dangerous.”
“What will you do now?”
“We still have our ship. But our livelihood is gone. We’ll have to pack up the family and the team and go to Ceres or somewhere and look for mining jobs. We have skills and we can probably make a living. But how are you here? In a freetrader.”
“This is Wog and Gay. And Fancy Dancer.”
“I’m so sorry to hear about this, Eric,” the ship crooned.
“Thank you, Fancy.”
“We found them in High Venus,” Aaron went on. Li came forward and stood beside him. “We escaped and took a small army with us.”
“I can see that,” Eric said. Li was in Martian camouflage with her handguns and bandoliers, and behind her could be seen others in fatigues.
“We’re on our way to Mars to give Martian Mining and Manufacturing a big black eye.”
“Really?” Eric looked at his wife and daughter Sarissa.
“We’ve got weapons and supplies. The MLF and Ancilius Group will join us when we get there. And Free Traders are helping us. Karil and Loris are on the way, according to what I call the Ships’ Telegraph. Terry is in prison there, and all the Martian rebels are ready to rise up and create a living Hell for those bastards.”
Sarissa spoke up. “You guys are good at secret messages. Do you suppose you could write something that sounds like ordinary mining chatter but would really be asking for volunteers? If we broadcast it all over the Belt, I bet we could get quite a few answers.”
***
The rover had left the Mariner Valley and was speeding across the open plains of the Margaritifer Sinus, headed for the huge domes of the Margaritifer Commune. The day was clear and cold, the sky a kind of butterscotch colour, but on the southern horizon Jay could see a yellow wall across the plains.
“That looks like a big storm,” Brandy said, “coming out of the Sinus Sabaeus.”
“Compared to the little dust-devil we were caught in last half-week, yes,” Jay said. “It’s the first big storm of the season. I was hoping to get to some shelter in the Margaritifer Chaos up ahead. But it’s beginning to look as if we won’t make it.”
When the storm struck, the beams of the rover’s headlamps were swallowed up in the yellow gloom. Jay slowed down, but continued to creep forward, his eyes on the radar screen. A big double thump told them two of the big wheels had dropped into a dust-filled crevasse, and when he tried to back out, another wheel stopped spinning. The rover rocked and groaned, but Jay couldn’t get traction from the remaining wheels. In a matter of moments, they were covered in dust and the internal lights flickered out. They cuddled and listened to the ghostly moan of the wind, and the light from the ports faded as night fell.
In the middle of the night, they were awakened by a thud and a clang, and the rover shook. Jay peered out through the port into the darkness and saw tiny lights close by, visible through the swirling dust. Then there was a slight clearing outside, and Jay jumped back with a cry of terror.
“Jesus, Jay, what was that?”
Jay tapped on the oxygen readout to see if he was suffering from CO2 hallucinations. “I’m not sure,” he said. “It looked to me like a giant spider.”
“A what?”
“A spider. Legs about two meters long, a dozen glowing eyes.”
The rover shook and tilted and seemed to be riding up a slope. A hatch clanged shut behind them and they could hear what sounded like a huge vacuum cleaner. The ports cleared and the dust was blown away and they found themselves in the cargo hold of a ship. A hatch irised open and Karil appeared. He tapped his ear and Jay switched on the comm.
“You okay in there?” Karil asked.
Jay burst out laughing and opened the lock. He cycled through and Karil embraced him. Brandy emerged behind him, and Karil embraced her too, perhaps a little longer. Loris swung grinning into the hold, and behind her came a young woman dressed in the brief clothing that Free Traders preferred, and snakes. Lots of snakes. Jay remembered her from years ago, when her tribe was sheltering the dying Progeny Brown in his exile on Earth. She was hard to forget. This time, however, a great deal more of her was on display.
“Welcome aboard, Jay,” Atalanta crooned. “You remember Baby Snakes, I take it. And this is my friend Arachne.”
He turned and the big SPIDER appeared from behind the crawler.
“Pleased to meet you, Sir,” she said, and bowed graciously.
Jay turned to Karil. “So, I guess it’s a normal day for you,” he said.
***
The children of Margaritifer Commune were a little afraid of Arachne at first, but Niner, the main corridor robot, had a brief whistled conversation with the SPIDER, and soon the children were climbing all over her.
“Atty, what were they talking about?” Loris asked.
“Niner told Arachne the children’s names and she addressed them individually.”
The elders of the commune were gathering in the conference room. Some of the young people brewed coffee. Karil and Loris and Baby Snakes, Brandy and Jay joined them, and it was the first meeting of the fledgeling Martian Rebellion War Council. Atalanta, of course, was listening in and had control of the screen. Loris spoke up first.
“Atty has received a coded message from Fancy Dancer. Aaron and Li are on the way with a small fleet of Belter ships and think more will be coming. So, an army is gathering. The plan is for them to land in Hellas, just south of here. A lot of meteorites come down there without much attention because it’s pretty much uninhabited territory. Then they can make their way here.”
“That’s a good idea,” Jay said, looking at the clan-mothers. “Judging by the quality of this coffee, the Quasi Police don’t come around here much.”
Loris laughed. “You like it? We brought it. But you’re right: most of the Quasi-Police activity is over near the spaceport.”
“I guess that's why we have such lousy coffee at Tharsis,” Brandy laughed. “The Free Traders don’t hang out there.”
“Atty also has proof that Terry is being held at Pavonis,” Loris went on. “We’ve got a pretty good idea what suite she is in and how to get there from the hangar bay. But Karil noticed something interesting. Atty?”
She displayed the spaceport on the screen.
“This,” Karil said, “is a troop-carrier.”
“Yes,” Jay said. “We see them over Tharsis all the time. Those wings are for flight in a thin atmosphere. They can put boots on the sand anywhere in short order. It’ll hold an entire platoon with their gear.”
“Well,” Karil said, “we have to get our hands on one of those, somehow. Atty?”
Her flying-wing planform appeared on the ship in the photo.
“We can attach Atty to the underside of the ship and she will be completely hidden from the view of the cannon-sensors on top of the tower. We separate them inside the hangar, take control of the hangar with our troops, go in and get Terry, and fly her right out of there. Then the troops occupy and defend the prison wing.”
“You need cover,” Jay said. “You’d be attacked from all sides and above. The biggest problem is the Poseidon. Its power is enormous, and a handful of Belter freighters and a couple of freetraders aren’t going to do the trick. We might be able to take on the Ares—maybe—but not the Poseidon.”
“We need a BFG,” Karil said.
“A big fucking gun,” Jay laughed. “You know, I think we could get our hands on one of those. Just as powerful as any the Poseidon has.”
“Really?”
“The trouble is, we’ll have to talk the Professor into loaning it to us.”
“Kelley?”
“Yes, he’s back in the Belt now, working on the Wily Odysseus.”
“What’s that?” Baby Snakes asked.
“It’s an interstellar exploration ship, his latest project. He has Al-Zubair’s prototype antimatter drive, which could take it to the near stars in a human lifetime, and the annihilation-drive requires an enormous laser, which is already built. He can’t launch for several years yet.”
“Well, you’re his favourite student…” Karil began.
“No,” Jay said. “Terry is his favourite student. That’s why he might loan it to us. It’s probably the most valuable piece of technology in the Solar System—that’s why he’s got all the intimidating Jovian-mining cyborgs living on it—but he might just let it out of his sight for her. We’d probably have to take the cyborgs too, but I’ll bet they’d come in handy.”
“The mind boggles,” Loris said. “A laser powerful enough to cripple the Poseidon Earthshaker, followed by a Jovian cyborg boarding party. That would be demoralizing.”
***
Terry awoke and went out into the main room of the suite. She found a meal in a covered dish sitting on top of a box, with a note:
“Terry, this meal is an example of what is now being fed to the prisoners here. I have no power to improve the lives of prisoners being held elsewhere, but I have ordered that my own prisoners be fed the same rations as the guards and convinced my superiors that this is an economy measure. In the box is a gift for you, a poor apology for my behaviour. Alexander.”
Terry removed the cover of the dish and, after weeks of terrible food, nearly fainted at the delicious aroma. She opened the box and found a signal-scrambler, of the type often found in Martian communes when the miners believed they were being surreptitiously recorded. In fact, it was the same sort of scrambler she had used at her meeting with Loris and Chi-Chi Li on Ganymede.
After breakfast, she set it up in the bedroom/bathroom suite, switched it on, and was rewarded with a blinking light. Later, Alexander himself arrived to remove the breakfast dishes, and she invited him in for a conversation.
***
Atalanta approached the rare O-type asteroid 5143 Heracles and its tiny moon, surrounded by the huge Wily Odysseus under construction and its accompanying habitats. A number of ships, including the freetrader Maggie Moto, were berthed at a harbour torus. Atty nosed in, welcomed by the harbourmaster. Professor Kelley appeared on the screen, sitting at a desk surrounded by what appeared to be a bookstore explosion. His cinnamon red hair and beard were touched with grey, and his craggy face had picked up a few more worry-lines, but he still seemed larger than life, like a Norse god.
“Jay! Karil! It’s so nice to see you in this godforsaken cluster. Loris, you look as Junoesque as ever. And Atalanta! I hope we’ll have time for a conversation.”
“I would enjoy that very much, Professor,” the ship crooned. “I am very interested in your project.”
“I’ll send Celeste immediately. Atty, please stay in contact.”
The Professor’s personal ship, Celestial Intelligencer, arrived shortly. Celeste, the AI in control, greeted them warmly in her lilting voice, with the touch of Irish accent.
“Karil, Loris,” she said, “it’s so nice to see you again. Jay, pleased to meet you. And Baby Snakes. Atty has told me all about you.”
Arachne hopped on board before Celeste cast off and made her way to the revolving habitat where the engineers and roustabouts dwelt. The Professor welcomed them, dumping books and cats higgledy-piggledy off the chairs and heating up coffee in the micro. Everyone received a patented Charles Kelley bear-hug, which was indeed rather like being hugged by a bear. His eyes lit up when he saw Brandy and she received a particularly bearish hug.
“I remember you,” he said. “You were a little girl when I saw you last. No longer! I understand that you are married to Terry and Jay, and you gave birth to their little Shagrug. I’m happy for all of you.”
Professor,” Jay said, “the invitation to retire in Tharsis Commune is still open. We have several generations to be taught.”
“I will keep that under advisement, once the Wily Odysseus is on its way to the stars. A quiet retirement on Mars might keep me alive until the data comes in.” He opened his arms to Loris, and she flowed into his hug like water over a rock. To Karil, it was like watching gods embrace.
“This is Baby Snakes,” he said. “You remember her.”
The Professor seemed stunned by the diminutive creature. “My God, you’re beautiful,” he said, and her face lit up. “I do remember you. Who could forget? You and your tribe sheltered us when we were being hunted with Progeny by that Armand Sollo creature. But I’d frankly forgotten how beautiful you are. That’s a Diamond-back, and a King Cobra and a Florida Anaconda, a Coral Snake, a Copperhead… And who is that surfing on the shuttle?”
Atalanta spoke up. “This is Arachne, my friend from the Galilean. She’s proven useful in many ways.”
“Pleased to meet you, Professor.” Arachne’s voice came over the comm.
“Our Cyborgs would be pleased to meet you, I’m sure. They’ve all worked with SPIDERs in the Jovian atmosphere.”
The Professor sat down at his desk, picked up his coffee, and sipped carefully so as not to spill the hot liquid on the cats that suddenly appeared on his lap. Most everybody found a cat on their laps. A kitten was playing with Brandy’s long black hair. Another was eyeing Baby Snakes suspiciously, and when the girl reached out for her, it sniffed at the python on her muscular arms and evidently decided it wasn’t a real snake, so it climbed into her lap and curled up, purring.
“I sometimes get news out here,” the Professor said. “I’m very glad to see you two alive and free, and I’d love to hear the story, but what’s the news about Terry?”
Jay filled him in as well as he could.
“I have no influence whatsoever in the High Companies,” Kelley said afterwards. “I did once, but no more. You’d think a guy with an antimatter drive in his pocket would be listened to. But they know I can’t threaten them with it. Anyway, the stuff’s too damned expensive to be used—like the World War I battleships and the Stealth Bomber. I still have a lot of friends out at Titan, so I could probably find help there, but they’re so far away. That’s why I’m here—access to materials in the Belt, yes, but Heracles is an Earth-crosser and a Mars-crosser, and I thought, rather naively, I’m afraid, that I could bring the planets together with this project.”
“Professor,” Jay said. “I’m afraid we’re here to ask you to loan us something rather valuable.”
“Well, the Odysseus won’t be spaceworthy for years yet, and it’s of no use in… Ah! The Bow of Hercules.”
There were puzzled looks, except for Jay and Karil, who had both received the classical education available in High Europe. “There was a prophecy that the Greeks could not defeat the Trojans without Hercules’ Bow,” Jay explained, and turned to the Professor. “The most powerful weapon the High Companies have is the Poseidon Earthshaker. There’s not another ship in the system that could take it on in a fight. Sitting on the ground and even in the air with the few small ships we have—and not a thousand of them either—we’d be sitting ducks. It’s got banks of lasers as powerful as the one you built for Odysseus.
“It’s the only way we can think of to deal with that ship. My biggest fear is that the Martian people are going to start protesting in large numbers, giving the High Companies the excuse to come down hard on them. We need to get Terry out of their custody as soon as we can, and our only hope to do that is to create distractions all over the planet. Aaron Ben David and Chi-Chi Li are on their way with their own troops, and that will help. But if we can disable the Poseidon, the Quasi will think High Mars is threatened and they’ll pull back their forces to defend it.”
The Professor said, “I hate like hell to have this technology used in war, just as I’ve fought tooth and nail to keep antimatter from being used that way, but I see your point.”
“Professor,” Loris said, “Galilean Security listens to me, and I will do my best to talk them into picking up the tab for this, and maybe compensating you for any damage to…”
“The Bow?”
“The Bow. They’re getting pretty fed up with the High Companies’ constant incursions. Karil and I were kidnapped in the middle of Ganymede City by their agents, bold as brass, and they came damn near to getting control of Atty. The whole Libertaria would breathe a sigh of relief if the Poseidon was put out of commission for a while.”
“Well, they pulled the same kind of trick on Titan, as you know too well.” The Professor thought for a minute. “You’ll have to talk to the cyborgs. They might help, and I’m pretty sure you’d need them to transport the thing. The fact is, they’re pretty much a part of it.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
“Well. I’m doing it for Terry, frankly. The thought of her being locked up without her family makes my blood boil. We can’t let them get away with that. When you go to see the cyborgs, I suggest you bring this one with you. They’re all part machine, you see, and really into decorating their bodies.” He turned to Baby Snakes. “They will just love you.”
***
The cyborgs gathered around the port as the shuttle approached their habitat, laughing and talking about the SPIDER clinging to it, particularly when it bowed to them like a circus-horse. The human visitors cycled through the lock and emerged into the dining hall. The cyborgs gathered about them, a remarkable sight. Trained to work on the hydrogen-mining aerostats in the Jovian atmosphere, they were all of them of similar high-gravity body-type—short, broad-shouldered, and powerfully muscled. Nearly all of them had steel plates on their bodies, comms functioning as their eyes or ears, and robotic limbs, as a result of injuries sustained in their dangerous occupation and—not widely spoken of—career decisions.
“I’m Badger,” said the spokesman, who appeared to have been chosen because he still had a natural right arm for handshaking. “The Professor said there was a group who wanted to speak to us.” He smiled as he shook hands with Karil and Loris. “I know you two by sight and reputation. This is J.B. and Jimbei, the crew of the Maggie Moto. We’re very familiar with Free Traders.” J.B. and Jimbei were twins and could have been Sumo wrestlers except that they were all muscle rather than fat. They also had biomechanical prostheses similar in design to Samurai armour, and a great deal of body art.
“This is Baby Snakes of Earth,” Loris said.
She was met with a chorus of oohs and aahs. Baby Snakes seemed taken aback at first as a crowd of huge knights in battered armour gathered about her, but she quickly drank in the admiration, and the other visitors found themselves ignored. Badger pulled himself away from the demonstration and sat down with Karil and Loris, Brandy and Jay. As Baby Snakes peeled off her ship-suit, the better to display her art, and began to admire the artwork both abstract and realistic on the rock-hard bodies of her admirers, the visitors spoke at length with Badger about the Martian situation.
Eventually, the rest of the cyborgs joined them. At the end, it was decided that they would prepare the laser, making it fast within a construction framework, attaching fusion drivers, and mounting Maggie Moto as the bridge. Using their encrypted communication, Maggie and Atty would co-ordinate and the new ship called Bow of Hercules would appear in Mars orbit as the many-pronged assault began.
This arranged, the Atalanta Group had dinner with Professor Kelley in the open-air restaurant of the residence torus. The garden curved up around them and returned, the grape arbours in the sky responsible for the excellent wine. At first, Jay denied it, but the Professor insisted that he was the de facto General of the Army, and he might as well get used to it. Aaron and Li might be the best troop-leaders and Karil and Loris the best pilots, but Jay was the Martian Commander in Chief and the best mind of them all. When Atalanta launched to return to Mars, the war preparations had officially begun.