Sanchez peered at the Morgh army spread out over the plains below. "We have to get to the Argo somehow," she said. "We have to warn Hassan before he sails right into the trap." She turned her binoculars to the base of the bluff on which they lay. "If we turn down this slope to the left, we might be able to get to that game-trail and work our way down the northern slope of the canyon, out of sight. Sooner or later the game-trail will have to lead to the river. We can camp there and rig up some way to signal Hassan."
They returned to the Rover. "Get in," Sanchez told the group. "There’s a huge encampment of Morgh in the valley below. We’re going to try to sneak by them."
The party piled into the Rover and Sanchez started the engine. The vehicle crept down the slope of the hill, under cover of the trees as much as possible, then crossed a shallow brook, where the game-trail vanished into the forest. Sanchez paused for a moment and glanced back toward the Morgh encampment to see if there was any sign of their detection.
"Mary, Mother of God!" she said. "Will you look at that!"
A shadow fell over them as a huge airship appeared in the sky, nosing over the treetops directly above them and veering off toward the Morgh. The hull of the Argo Navis was suspended beneath it. Jason clapped the binoculars to his eyes and focused on the human figures battling on the ship’s deck.
"It’s the Doctor, all right. Fedorova too. And an army of angels." Dozens of humanoid figures on parasail dropped out of the bottom of the airship, right behind the Argo, and spread out across the plains. Another dozen followed. And another. The Morgh rose in arms to meet them, and the angels dove into their midst.
"What’s going on?" Tiler poked his head in through the hatch. "Name of Phobos! Look at that!"
Sanchez spun the wheel and the Rover roared off across the plains, directly toward the battle. It ploughed into the Morgh army at high speed, scattering robotic limbs and rotting flesh in all directions. The great tires thumped as they rolled over the corpses. The viewport was splashed with gore, and Jason switched on the wipers.
"What are you doing?" Tiler shouted.
"That’s my ship. Those are my companions. The Earthborn Men."
"The Earthborn Men? Here? Now? You?" Tiler sat down in shock. It is not every day that one stumbles into Armageddon.
On the deck of the Argo, Fedorova’s sharp eyes spotted the Rover ploughing through the battle in their direction. "Look, it’s Sanchez."
"How do you know?" Hassan asked.
"Who else would do a thing like that?"
"You’re right. We’ll have to lower a ladder or something. See if you can contact one of the androids and get them to land on top of the vehicle." Hassan ran off to arrange for a rope-ladder and Fedorova searched the skies for a familiar face. She found one.
"Erik!" she shouted.
He glanced her way and she pointed toward the Rover, ploughing through the carnage below, then pointed downwards. Erik nodded, pulled on a cord, and swung in the vehicle’s direction. He landed on the roof and released his parasail, which rose into the sky. He crawled to the back of the rear car and swung down onto the hatch, then began to bang on it with his steel fists. The people inside screamed, and Jason glanced at a screen on the panel.
"Tiler, you want to get that?" he called back. "There’s an angel at the door."
Tiler made his way back through the bouncing and swerving vehicle, past the crouching and terrified passengers, and punched the panel on the lock. The hatch irised open and Erik swung inside. He bathed the astonished passengers in his smile. "Hello, I’m Erik. Good day, Sir. Hello, Madame." He made his way forward. "You must be Sanchez and Jason," he said. "My name is Erik. Shall I take control of the vehicle while you climb on top? I believe Doctor Hassan will be lowering a ladder for you."
"Perfect. Listen, Erik, can you see to it that these people reach safety?"
"Of course. It would be my pleasure. Please tell Fedorova that I hope to see her again some day."
"I’ll do that, Erik." Sanchez slid out of the driver-seat and Erik slipped in without so much as slowing down the vehicle. Sanchez and Jason stumbled aft. "Tiler? Ko-Ree? I’m leaving you in the hands of a guardian angel. He’ll see that you get home, or he’ll die trying. Nice working with you."
Sanchez and Jason were showered with kisses, embraces, and thanks as they made their way through the crowd. They swung out the hatch and clambered onto the roof. The airship was directly above them now, and a rope-ladder unrolled to just above their grasp. They reached for it frantically as it swung by, the roof-deck bouncing beneath their feet, threatening to dump them into the midst of the ground-battle at any moment. Sanchez lifted Jason off his feet and thrust him into the ladder. He clutched at the ropes, found his footing, climbed a few feet, wrapped the rope about his wrist, and reached for Sanchez.
The ladder swung by her, she reached and missed, nearly lost her balance. A Morgh claw came up behind the vehicle and clutched for a handhold. A heavy, armoured, rotting body heaved up onto the roof and stumbled toward her. Jason shouted a warning and she turned. A claw shot out and seized her wrist. She struggled in the powerful grip, teetering on the edge of the careening vehicle, desperately tearing at wires. Jason started to climb down.
"Get up there, dammit!" Sanchez shouted.
"Not a chance."
There came the sound of a rope sliding through steel hands. A cable dropped from above, and Fedorova slid down onto the roof. She gripped the Morgh’s arm and ripped it off at the shoulder, put her foot against its back, and shoved it off the roof. It hit the ground and rolled.
Fedorova picked up Sanchez as if she were weightless and thrust her into Jason’s arms, then began to climb up the rope, effortlessly, hand over hand. The Rover turned away and roared off toward the edge of the battle. Fedorova waved as it vanished into the woods. She reached the top of the rope in time to help Hassan haul in the rope-ladder.
As Jason and Sanchez climbed over the rail, Atalanta threw herself into their arms and showered them with kisses. "I knew you were alive," she said. "I knew neither one of you was going to let the other die!"
Then they were wrapped in the great embrace of Doctor Hassan, who lifted them both off their feet, bellowing with joy. They were greeted by Orpheus and Brother Mikal just as warmly, if less spectacularly, and then they turned to Fedorova. She attempted to greet them in the matter-of-fact Android manner, but Sanchez grabbed her and planted a great kiss on her lips, and Jason did the same.
"You were right the first time, Mikal," Sanchez said. "They're all angels. And Nadia is Our Angel. And you, Doctor, are the Great and Wonderful Wizard of Mars. Helium Princess! Nice touch. So, what do we do now? Are we going after the Rajah’s Butt, or what?"
"You could rest, if you like."
"Rest? I’ve just had a long drive in the country. Vacation is over."
"All right," Hassan said. "I’ll show you what’s next." He led them up a ladder into the framework of the airship. They walked along a catwalk, greeted by androids as if they were old friends. Of course, the androids by this time were all in possession of Fedorova’s memories, and they really were old friends. At the stern, beneath the throbbing propeller-motors, there was an open deck, lined with lockers. Hassan threw open the lockers and Sanchez whistled her admiration. She took out one of the weapons and examined it.
"These are beautiful," she said. "Android design, I suppose."
"They found a cache of weapons left over from the Martian Rebellion of 2150," Fedorova said. "They improved the design and reproduced them in quantity."
"Can’t kill human beings themselves," Sanchez mused. "But they’ll make weapons for human beings to kill each other."
"They’re for human defence," Fedorova insisted. "The paratroopers use them against Morgh."
"Look at this. Is this a laser-sight or a laser-weapon?"
"You have both. In addition, the smaller barrel on top fires a high-speed rifle bullet, the larger barrel on the bottom fires an armour-piercing explosive shell."
"A door-opener. Very nice."
"There is a handgun version as well, not as accurate, but the grip will adjust itself to your hand and it’s very light. This is important, as you will be carrying quite a bit of weight when you rappel from the ship."
"Rappel?"
"This is the training area." Fedorova pointed upward; from a catwalk several hundred meters above, a series of ropes unrolled and dropped down to dangle before them. "The ship will not be landing when we get to Noctis Labyrinthus. This is the only way you will be able to get off."
***
Below them now were the pine-forests of Ius Chasma, rising to the snow-covered slopes of the Tithonia Catena highlands. Phobos emerged from the shadow of Mars as a full disk, moving swiftly overhead. It seemed so low that Brother Mikal thought he could touch it. Wolves began to howl in the canyon below.
"Hear me, Lupus," Mikal said. "We are training hard and will be a wolf-pack soon. Hassan is our Alpha Male, Fedorova our Alpha Female. We attack under the sign of the Scorpion, and we confront the Sorcerer under the Serpent-Killer. If all goes well, we will achieve our freedom under the sign of the Eagle."
By the time they had reached the end of the Mariner Valley, they were indeed a wolf-pack, working together with android efficiency, and each of them--whether Earthborn, Marsborn, or Argonaut--was a powerful and well-trained warrior. Centuries before, the Labyrinth of Night had been the scene of countless guerrilla battles in the Martian Rebellion, as the Martian mining communes rose against the Terran overlords from the space-habitats above, seeking always to seize the spaceport at Pavonis Mons. The 14-kilometre-high shield volcano on the Martian equator was now the base of the space-elevator, and in order to reach it they had to cross a thousand kilometres of Tharsis highlands--space-cold, airless, and bathed in lethal radiation. The Doctor had been briefed with the androids' plan, and though he considered it fraught with danger, he could see no alternative.
Noctis Terminal was tucked into the cliffs at the end of the valley, surrounded by glaciers. Morgh sentinels stood atop the high walls, searchlights swept the courtyards, lights blazed coldly in the prison-like buildings. As the Helium Princess appeared around a bend in the canyon and rushed toward the Terminal over the snow-swept pine forest, illumination blazed from heaven. A beam of light, reflected from areo-stationary orbit far above, bathed the valley in light as bright as day.
Ports opened in the cliff-faces about the Terminal and a terrible bombardment began. Shells tore through the superstructure of the ship, ripping open the helium bags, snapping cables, tearing catwalks from their moorings. The Argo Navis burst into flames, its moorings snapped, and it swung down beneath the airship, showering the snow-slopes below with flaming wreckage. It finally snapped free and plummeted to the ground, where it crashed in a great mass of blazing rope and timber. The airship veered sideways into the kilometre-high escarpment, crumpled like paper, and slid downward. The fire reached the munitions-lockers and the ship erupted in a ball of flame. A mushroom cloud rose into the cold air, blazing like an inferno. The valley floor was covered in burning wreckage, slowly melting into the snow and ice.
Hassan and Fedorova crawled to the top of the ridge and stretched out in the snow. They watched the wreckage burn forlornly in the valley below, as Morgh soldiers marched out of the prison-gate and began kicking and poking the wreckage. The main body of the ship, at the bottom of the cliff, was being reduced to a molten mass by the intense heat of its destruction. The Morgh returned to their headquarters and the light from the mirrors above blinked out, returning the night to star-studded blackness.
Hassan and Fedorova slid back down the embankment to join the rest of those who had rappelled from the ship. Androids had been dropping out for days and spreading out through the forest.
"Success," Hassan said. "They won’t even expect to find bodies in that inferno. Nadia?"
She led them to a clearing in the pine-forest and pointed to a spot. The team pulled out their collapsible shovels and dug through the snow until a hatch was revealed. Fedorova pulled it open, the team climbed down into blackness, and the hatch closed behind them. Fedorova switched on the lights to reveal a warren of tunnels spreading out in all directions.
"Most of the weapons were found here," she said. "But this is the best find." She led them down a tunnel into a hangar, where a Sand Rover sat waiting with an air of infinite patience. "It’s been restored to working order. And considerably improved." She raised her voice. "Are you all in position?"
"Yes, Fedorova," came a voice. "We have surrounded the Terminal on three sides, and their back is to the cliff. Did everyone survive the rappel without injury?"
"Yes," said Hassan. "We were worried that some of you might have been damaged by falling debris."
"We were quite far back. The last of us got off the ship very quickly after you did."
"Excellent," said Fedorova. She turned to her human companions. "I’ll be preparing now."
"I’m not looking forward to this," Hassan told her.
"Neither am I. But it has to be done." She left the room with a few androids and the humans were left alone to load the Rover. Their individual packs were stashed in such a way that they could snatch them up in a hurry. More ammunition and supplies were stored under the floor.
Suddenly the door flew open and a Morgh soldier burst into the room. Its right arm came up and a laser clicked out. Everyone was frozen into shocked immobility as the creature looked from one face to another, its eye clicking rapidly. Inside the rusted armour, the body was pure white skeleton, one black eye-socket staring at them with hollow malevolence, the other eye glowing red with laser-light.
"You look fabulous, Nadia," Sanchez said. "Have you lost weight?"
The laser clicked back into place as the Morgh put one hand on its armoured hip and placed the other on the back of its hollow skull. "You like the look? I’m thinking of keeping it."
"Over my dead body," Hassan mumbled.
The Morgh turned and peered at him, its one lens clicking open. It clanked toward him, stood before him, and looked up into his face. "No, over my dead body, Big Boy. Give us a kiss."
He shook his head in exasperation. "All right. Enough of this. Let’s get this circus on the road."
Atalanta came to examine Fedorova more carefully. "Are those real human bones?"
"They have to be. I will be scanned automatically. The skeleton must scan as accurately as the robotic parts. We are hoping they won’t notice the over-abundance of brain-pathways. The angels tried re-programming real Morgh for this purpose, but they were not intelligent enough to work reliably."
"That’s the disadvantage of being on the side of Darkness," Brother Mikal said. "The Army of Light may be hampered by the fact that it can’t be as ruthless as the other side, but the Army of Darkness is hampered by its lack of trust. The Rajah created the Morgh, in part, because he did not trust human beings, and he is stuck with their stupidity."
"Doesn’t it disturb you to be so intimate with human remains?" Jason asked.
"They were found in the desert, bleached by the sun," Fedorova said, "and I am only taking them to be buried. The other androids were troubled by contact with the remains, but I appear to have developed a greater tolerance for human mortality." The Morgh leaned forward, and its eye-lens whirred. "I’m thinking of running for public office."
"We’re ready," Hassan said. "Take your places."
Sanchez climbed behind the wheel, her body-armour and weapons concealed under a blanket behind her and made to look like a person sleeping on the bunk. Jason and Orpheus, Atalanta and Brother Mikal sat in the rear car. Their faces were haggard and dirty, their hands apparently chained; they huddled together in simulated fear and cold. Hassan lay slumped in a seat, curled up to hide his face and his size. Fedorova, in her new look, sat at the rear, by the hatch.
Sanchez started the Rover, and the androids opened a hatch in the wall. The vehicle drove up a snowy ramp and emerged through a screen of pine-boughs into the deep snow of a glade. As sure-footed in snow as on desert sand, the Rover made its way through the forest onto a trail. In a few minutes it was approaching the gate of the Terminal. Searchlights played upon it from all directions and weapons were swung toward it from the battlements. An armed Morgh trudged up to the rear hatch and it irised open.
The Morgh guard peered about the car, analyzing everything, including Fedorova. It paid particular attention to her, as if it was struggling to understand something.
"Hey," Sanchez called from the driver’s seat. "Can we hurry this up? I want a meal and a hot bath."
The Morgh raised its head to the tower and waved. The gate began to open. "Stupid Morgh," Sanchez muttered as she changed gears and spun the wheel. "I haven't got all fucking day, you know."
The Rover rolled in through the gate and stopped in the yard. The gate shut behind it, and for a tense moment it was trapped. Then the inner doors opened, and it rolled into a hangar, where several other vehicles sat waiting. A human being lounged behind glass, with his feet on a desk. Sighing, he dropped his feet, pressed a button, and came out of his booth. Several armed Morgh emerged from a door and fell into step behind him.
The hatch of the Rover irised open and the man’s jaw dropped in shock, just before it was broken by a well-executed kick from Hassan’s boot. The Morgh guard were mowed down, silently, with lasers, before they could deploy their weapons. A half-dozen human soldiers poured out of the Rover, clad in body armour, carrying packs and weapons and ammunition clips, followed by a skeletal Morgh that moved like a dancer as it raced across the hangar and into the glass booth, where it examined the security screens.
"Prisoners are one level down," Fedorova said. "Through this door and down the stairs. Hospital facilities up one level.
This door leads to the train."
"Nadia, secure the area," Hassan ordered. "Orpheus, get into the comm system and prevent any communication with the outside. Sanchez and Jason, free any prisoners and bring them here. Atalanta and Mikal, come with me."
Hassan pounded up the stairs toward the hospital. A pair of Morgh guards swung up their weapons-arms and were cut to ribbons with laser-fire. The small army headed down the corridor.
Hassan raised his arm and the troop halted. Through the window before them they could see the Morgh centre spread out below, in a vast chamber carved into the mountain--tank after tank of what appeared to be cryogenics chambers, and a few lab-coated technicians walking among them.
"They’re breeding human beings," Hassan mumbled. "I suppose kidnapping and mutilation is too inefficient."
***
Sanchez and Jason burst through a door and clattered down the stairs. Sanchez kicked open another door and found a human guard, who dove for the alarm button. A red dot appeared on the back of the man’s head and a laser-bolt emerged from his forehead. Sanchez burned away the lock on the barred door and raced down a corridor. Jason followed, slicing open locks on one room after another. Cyborgs, male and female, looked up from the floors of the rooms. Some had artificial limbs or skulls, some were almost completely encased in metal, some were nearly fully human.
"Follow us if you want to live," Sanchez said each time, and each time the cyborg prisoner leaped to its feet and clomped after her. When all the prisoners were free, the party raced up the stairs and into the hangar again.
Morgh bodies lay scattered on the floor, some burning with a horrid smell. Fedorova stood over them, her Morgh rifle smoking.
"Don’t worry about that one," Sanchez said. "She’s with us."
The door flew open, and a line of prisoners emerged; they were dressed in medical smocks and had their hands on their heads. Some of the cyborgs roared in anger and started toward them, but Sanchez intervened. "Doctor Hassan is in charge now. We will follow his orders. All of us. Is that clear?" Many of the cyborgs were much more powerful than Sanchez, and all had reason to hate the doctors, but the diminutive woman’s air of authority kept them in check.
Doctor Hassan appeared, and the look of rage on his face was even more intimidating. The cyborgs shrank back from his gaze. "Lock up these so-called doctors below," he said to Mikal and Atalanta. "Use your lasers to seal the locks. We’ll decide later whether to put them on trial, let them starve to death--" He glared at one of the lab-coated figures. "--or eat them."
"We’re not doctors, Sir," one of them pleaded. "Just technicians. We helped only because we would have been turned into Morgh otherwise, and we were promised safety and prosperity for our families."
"Of course, you were. Every atrocity in history was perpetrated in the name of the children. Take them away. We'll sort out the ethics later. Orpheus, report!"
Orpheus appeared at the door of the comm booth. "I’ve tapped into the com system and routed everything through this station. We can control everything from here."
"Good work. Nadia, signal your troops outside." In a moment they could hear the sound of splintered wood and tearing steel as the androids assaulted the gates of the compound and attacked the Morgh defenders.
Hassan turned to the cyborgs. "There are Androi waiting in the forest outside," he said. "You will be free soon and you can go home with them or join with us. Some of you can assist my men in securing this facility behind us. Others can come with us into the heart of the Morgh Rajah’s Web and help us attack him.
“If we succeed, we may be able to make you whole again. But for now, the Rajah has given you power than can be turned against him. We have armour and weapons for you all." He stepped closer to tower over them. "You may be killed in this endeavour, as may any of us. We may fail entirely, in which case the forces of Darkness will continue to dominate Mars. Or we may destroy him utterly, save Mars from destruction, and bring light to the entire solar system. What do you say?"
Sanchez whispered to Jason, "You know what Davis said once? Inside every true believer is a Messiah waiting to get out." But she was drowned out by the cheers of the cyborgs.
"Okay," she said. "Everybody, line up at the Rover. Let’s go. Plenty of weapons for all." The cyborgs stood in line, where Mikal and Atalanta checked their physical condition, and Jason and Orpheus examined their limbs and motors. The cyborgs shrank back as Fedorova came clanking toward them. There was a moment of shocked silence as she stared at them, hollow-eyed and clicking.
"So," she said. "Anybody here from the Ukraine?" There was silence as she raised her own arm with a whir and a click, and then they heard Sanchez cackling inside the Rover.
"Nadia," she called out as she dragged out the weapons, "that new body brings out your sense of humour better than the other one. Maybe you should keep it."
"No," said Hassan quickly.
"Never," said Mikal and Jason.
"I think not," Orpheus laughed.
The cyborgs looked at each other in perplexity, somewhat more comfortable, but still frightened.
"Oh, here," said Orpheus, and tapped his lyre. "This is her real body." The image of Fedorova flickered into view before him, stripped nearly naked, bending over a ship’s timber she was planing--a particularly attractive pose that had somehow found its way into the instrument’s permanent memory. The cyborgs stared.
***
In a few hours, the facilities had been completely secured. Sanchez and Orpheus remained to guard the expedition’s flank. Sanchez was busy training the small army of cyborgs, backed up by android personnel, whose job it was to maintain the image of business as usual in the Terminal. Orpheus was at the comm, monitoring all communication, and would maintain a link with Fedorova throughout the operation. The most fit of the cyborgs, armed and armoured, followed Hassan and Fedorova, Jason and Atalanta, and Brother Mikal into the accelerator-train station behind the hospital. Mikal had abandoned his Brotherhood robe in favour of a soldier's leather armour and exchanged his staff for a strange-looking rifle that felt awkward in his hands. The party boarded a car and the doors shut behind them.
"Orpheus, we’re ready." Hassan said. The bard was monitoring them through Fedorova’s comm-system.
Silently, on a cushion of magnetic current, the train slid down the tunnel, cycled through a lock, and burst out onto the cold and airless landscape of the Tharsis plains.
The cyborgs sat quietly, lost in their own thoughts--jubilation at their sudden and unexpected freedom, fear of the unknown future before them, and determination to destroy the evil force that had kidnapped and imprisoned them, forced them to endure unthinkable medical atrocities, and would have snuffed out their lives and turned them into monsters, if not for the intervention of the Earthborn Men.
"It’s the Solar Return," one of them said, and the others nodded in agreement.
"What’s that?" Hassan had been lost in his own thoughts, staring out at the bleak planetscape rushing by. The maglev accelerator was cruising at several hundred kilometres per hour now, under frictionless magnetic drive in a frictionless environment.
"An old legend," Brother Mikal said. "The vernal equinox is referred to as the solar return. Also, it's a common name for one's birthday. These returns are symbolic of the return of the Sun-hero, risen from long sleep, who will free Mars from the powers of darkness. He is always accompanied by a strange beauty who appears and disappears magically, a pair of young children or soldiers who are never far from his side, and in the final battle he is assisted by the Brotherhood."
"I see," said Hassan. "You believe our presence here is the fulfilment of a prophecy, and that you have been chosen to represent the Brotherhood in this quest."
"I am even more certain of it now than when I left the monastery to follow you. I had no choice then, for I could not have lived with myself otherwise. Now I can face my future with equanimity, whatever comes."
Hassan’s gaze flicked toward Atalanta and returned to Brother Mikal’s serene features. He bent down to whisper.
"Do you believe me to be this sun-hero?"
"I do, Doctor."
"Do I have prophetic powers, in your opinion?"
"Undoubtedly."
"In that case, Brother Mikal, this is my prophecy: You are not going to die in this cold place. You still have a major role to play in the restoration of Mars. Do you understand?"
Brother Mikal smiled beautifully. "Thank you, Doctor," he said, but did not appear convinced.