Orpheus stood before the gangway of the Argo Navis, his laser-rifle, as he now thought of it, cradled in his arms. Hassan and Fedorova were still working about the ship’s hull, mostly underwater; Hassan would surface now and then to breathe. The ruined city, overgrown with foliage and raucous with birdcall, seemed like a living thing; he felt it watching him, waiting for centuries, perhaps, for the arrival of the Earthborn Men.
A chill came over him and he looked up to see a figure standing in the clearing before him. He was tall--perhaps as tall as Hassan--and wore a long black robe, the hood shrouding his face. The slight flicker about the edges of the man told Orpheus that this was a projection, and he surreptitiously switched on the recording function of his lyre. The being moved toward him, apparently walking, though his feet seemed not to touch the ground. He tossed back the hood of his robe and revealed a face that seemed as ancient as the ruined city about him. Only a few white wisps of hair clung to his sore-covered scalp, his flesh sagged with the weight of too many years, and his eyes burned with the sight of too many horrors.
There was a splash, and Hassan surfaced to rest for a moment, one hand on the dock, while he caught a few gulps of air.
"Doctor," Orpheus said, without taking his eyes off the ancient figure, "the Morgh Rajah is here."
Hassan heaved his great bulk out of the water and stood, dripping and nearly naked, on the dock. In a moment, Fedorova surfaced like a pale river-goddess and leaped lightly to his side. The Sorcerer turned to face them, moved slowly in their direction, examining their faces as he had examined Orpheus. The latter turned, to keep the figure in front of his recorder. The Great Sorcerer looked into Hassan’s piercing black eyes, and then stepped back suddenly, as if in fright. He waved his hand and vanished.
"He recognized you," Fedorova said.
"It seemed that way, but I didn’t recognize him. He seems half dead. God knows how old he is."
"Brother Mikal said he was middle-aged," Orpheus offered. "But this man was ancient. Is it the same man?"
"I suppose he can project images of himself at any age he likes, to make himself seem more otherworldly. Did you get all that?"
Orpheus patted his lyre. "It’s all here, Doctor."
"Good. Now you can switch to weapons-mode. Look."
Orpheus turned and saw a dozen figures emerge from the overgrown city. They were tall, clad in rusted and dented armour, and quite thoroughly dead. They moved with the deliberate pace of the simplest robots, and the skeletal or rotting remains of human bodies trembled within their metal cages, as if some Medieval Iron Maiden should step down from the wall and walk, carrying its unfortunate prisoner along for the ride.
"Oh, that is disgusting," Orpheus said. He switched his lyre to weapons-mode with a click, then turned to find Hassan and Fedorova racing up the gangway onto the ship. For an instant, he was seized with the desire to follow them, but Hassan returned, striding down the gangway with his pistol in his hand, and Fedorova leaped from ship to shore, landing as gracefully as a cat, with Sanchez’ long sword in her grip.
"What the hell are they?" Orpheus demanded.
"The history books call them Morgs. Cyborgs who have died, but whose robotic parts still function with a rudimentary intelligence. I guess this is what Mikal calls the Morgh."
"Have I thanked you, Doctor, for the window you have opened onto the darkest and most disgusting parts of the universe for me?"
"Thank me later. Aim for the joints. Cut off their arms and legs and they’re helpless. There are no vital organs anymore, and the armour probably protects the most important processors."
Orpheus sent a laser-beam into the shoulder of the nearest Morg and its arm fell to the ground. It continued to plod forward, so he sliced off its lower legs and it hit the ground. It continued to crawl toward him, so he sliced off its head, but it continued to crawl. He stepped aside and it crawled over the edge of the dock into the water.
"This is ridiculous," Orpheus grumbled, and cut off another Morgh’s weapon-arm. Hassan’s pistol barked beside him, again and again. A few bullets ricocheted off his target’s armour, but others thudded into joints and rendered limbs useless. Fedorova strode forward, swinging her sword as if it were weightless. With incredible speed and strength, she swung right and left, hacking off limbs and heads, which rolled to her feet. A laser-beam flashed into her side with the sizzle of melted steel and burning synthetic flesh. She whirled and sliced off the laser that had struck her, thrust the sword straight through the Morg’s armor into its cybernetic heart. It collapsed in a shower of sparks. More laser-bolts flashed by Orpheus and Hassan, missing them by millimetres and burning into the hull of the Argo.
A tall figure strode out of the forest--a young man with flowing hair and a voluminous cloak. Fedorova looked up at him, and Orpheus was sure there was recognition, though no outward sign appeared. Together, they waded into the Morgh, kicking and elbowing them aside, slashing and stabbing, loping off heads and limbs until they were surrounded by rotting flesh and gyrating robotic parts. Atalanta and Mikal raced out of the forest, swords in hand and clothing somewhat askew, but they simply stood there and watched the horrid spectacle until it was over, feeling useless.
"I think the Morgh have met their natural enemy," Orpheus said.
Fedorova stepped forward and put her head beside that of the second android. For a moment, Orpheus thought she was going to kiss his cheek, but she merely touched his temple with her own.
"Android protocol," Hassan said. "She is the one who needs information, so she gives hers to him. He now knows everything she knows, including what information she needs, and why."
The second android placed his temple against hers in return. "Now," Hassan went on, "he is showing her every experience he has had in his life."
The male android strode toward Hassan and held out his hand. "Doctor Hassan, it’s good to meet you. I am called Erik. With your permission, I will come aboard and guide you to our headquarters at the Isle of the Mariners. Now that the Earthborn Men are here, we can begin."
"Begin what?" Orpheus asked.
Erik looked at him with what must have been the android equivalent of surprise, "Why, the war, of course."
***
The ship sped across the great blue expanse of the Eastern Mariner Sea, propelled by powerful winds. Erik was at the helm, and the Doctor stood by, marvelling at the android's sailing skills.
"The Mariner Valley is so long," Erik said, "that twice a day one end is in daylight and the other in darkness. At these times, hurricane-force gales shriek through the narrows like Eos Chasma. There are places where the chasm is only tens of kilometres wide, and the slopes on either side are thousands of meters high. This makes sailing extremely difficult. But we must join our forces there if we wish to defeat the Morgh in Melas Chasma."
"What you are telling me," Hassan said with a grin, "is that the Army of Darkness is massing on the plains of Black Canyon to attack us, and the Army of Light is gathering in the Canyon of Dawn to help us defeat them. Is that about right?"
"That is essentially correct. Shortly after the first stage of terraformation was completed, the one we now call the Morgh Rajah arrived in a terribly battered ship. At first, we were glad to have a human being to take control, and we surrendered our authority to him. He ordered us to descend to the surface and help the natives adjust to the changes. Soon thereafter, a ship arrived filled with cyborgs which he had apparently hired on his travels, and he began to create his monstrous Morgh. When we realized that he was mad and dangerous, and had an army at his disposal, we tried to wrest control away from him and evict him from the high places, but we could not. It is clear now that the process would kill him, and we are unable to do so. In the final analysis, only another human being can accomplish this task.
"Much of the mythology here was created by us to reinforce his delusions. If he believes he has been defeated, he will be. We were able to monitor communication among the Belter Guardians and heard them speaking of the Golden Ram and the Earthborn Men; we realized that some of the Aries crew had survived, so we added the legend to our corpus and spread the tale among the populace. The Morgh Rajah is now thoroughly obsessed with the Earthborn Men and is convinced that they are coming to destroy him. Now that you are here, and if we can defeat his army and transport you to the centre of his web, we hope he will surrender to his own prophesied fate."
"We don’t know him," Hassan said.
"That does not matter. He seems to know you. With his control of the communication satellites, he can monitor the entire solar system better than we can, and he has obviously heard of your awakening. He appears most agitated about you, personally, Doctor Hassan, judging by the rather hysterical orders he issues to his officers regarding your capture."
"He may have been a doctor himself, or a biologist, considering the efficiency with which he creates these Morgh monstrosities. I’m still not sure how he does it."
"The subject is painful," Erik said. "But I will try to explain. He grows a robotic nervous system, using the living human one as a base and a template. Just as the human skeleton supports the powered exoskeleton armour until it can function without the living body inside, the human brain trains the growing cybernetic nervous system to function without the use of a higher functions module, and when the human dies, he is left with a robotic nervous system feeding information to a complex of semi-sentient servo-mechanisms."
"Monstrous, that’s what it is. But I don’t see why you couldn’t see through him in the first place. How could someone be so evil, and yet androids are unable to see it?"
"It was an artefact of his madness, I believe. He clearly suffers from some sort of multiple personality disorder, and the man we spoke to was quite unaware of any other personalities. He came to us with some story of fleeing the plague and being unable to find a home because of the quarantine. He was quite exhausted and physically ill. We nursed him back to physical health, though we could do little about the emotional trauma he had suffered. He referred to himself by several different names and there were significant gaps in his memory, but he was obviously extremely old and had experienced terrible hardships, and we saw nothing sinister in this. He promised to stay in orbit, so as not to infect the planet, and to help us with our project. He believed everything he said, and thus we were unable to detect the lies. He thought of himself as a saviour of mankind, as did we. It was not until he began to think of himself as God, and then as Satan, that we realized he was quite mad, and by then it was too late."
***
The Isle of the Mariners rose from the centre of the Lower Mariner Valley, dividing the Mariner Sea itself into its eastern and western halves. On the north shore of the island, Capri Chasma was a narrow strait connecting the two seas, and on the south shore Eos Chasma was slightly wider. In a broad bay, backed by the two-kilometre height of the island and sheltered behind a smaller island that protected the bay from the fiercest winds and tides of Eos Canyon, was the remains of Mariner City. The towers and battlements rose from the steep headlands, now tumbling into ruin and overgrown with jungle foliage. The androids had spread enormous camouflage nets across the bay, so they might do their work hidden from the prying eyes of the satellites above.
The Argo Navis sailed into the shade beneath this canopy, and all eyes turned upward. A huge airship was anchored above them--hundreds of meters long, surrounded by steel girders on which propellers and wind-turbines spun lazily in the breeze. Androids clambered over it like insects.
"It reminds me of the Jupiter sky-ships," Fedorova said. "Also a robot design."
"Yes, but they were jury-rigged and fragile," Atalanta said. "This is beautiful."
"Thank you," Erik said. "We’re quite pleased with the design. When the canyon winds blow east to west, we will be able to spread an impressive extent of sail to catch the tailwind. When they blow from west to east, we can rise above the canyon-rim, where the air is calm, and extend the wind-turbines on long booms into the slipstream below to recharge our batteries."
The Argo slipped into the dock and tied up. Above them, they could see the bow of the airship, with its name printed in large letters: Helium Princess.
"Tell me, Erik," Orpheus said, "has this thing actually flown?"
"Well, no. That would give away our surprise. But it has worked in all the simulations. We are not quite finished with the construction, and there is no cabin fit for human habitation. However, if we remove the Argo’s mast and rigging, we can easily hoist her into position and suspend her below the airship. The humans will be able to ride in comfort as we head up the Coprates, then we will drop our paratroopers on the Army of Darkness and continue up the Ius Chasma to the Noctis Labyrinthus. The enemy will mount an air-attack, but I believe we can defend ourselves adequately; we have batteries of anti-aircraft guns running from stem to stern on both sides, and the Morgh have very few gunships. Once in the Labyrinth of Night, you will rendezvous with our high-altitude team. Together, you will take the Pavonis stronghold and be able to ride the space-elevator to confront the Morgh Rajah himself."
"I see," Hassan said. "Are you sure this will work?"
"Was this not your plan, as soon as you found yourself stranded on the surface--to make your way to the space-elevator and return to orbit?"
"Well, yes. Something like that. But we didn't know the Lord of Darkness was waiting for us."
"Is there another way to gain control of the planetary defences before the Aries arrives?"
"No, unless you’ve got a spaceship."
"We do not. There are the few Morgh-ships I mentioned, but they cannot approach their master either, without being shot down by the same defence-system that fired upon your vessel. We have tried this."
"How do you expect to travel half the length of the Mariner Valley without being detected by satellites and shot down by orbiting lasers? It seems to me the Morgh Rajah is holding all the cards up there. You'll be sitting ducks."
"Since we have infra-red vision, we can navigate without illumination at night, and that is the time of day when we will have the best tail-wind. We can travel almost invisibly throughout the morning because the canyon is filled with fog for a good part of the day. It is only in the afternoon that we are sitting ducks, as you say, but we will be moving much faster than your ship is capable of sailing and the Rajah's attention will be focused on areas farther to the east, where he last saw you. We are in constant contact with androids in those areas, who will be setting fires and launching reflective chaff to trigger the automatic responses of the satellites. The Morgh Rajah trusts his system--he is in fact part of it--and his attention will be drawn to these locations."
"But you indicated that a Morgh army is waiting for you in Melas Canyon. If you engage in battle there, it will surely be noticed by the satellites."
"We understand this, but it will be difficult for him to attack us from orbit without destroying much of his own army in the process. These are not pin-point lasers; they were designed to vaporize sizeable asteroids and though he could destroy our ship quite easily, he might also wipe out most of his troops, which will be much more difficult to replace than ours."
"There will also be defences on Pavonis itself and in the elevator shaft."
"The Rajah’s mobility is severely limited. He can control the mirrors and satellites through his computers, but he is trapped in his own life-support system; most of his body is dead, like his own Morgh, and without the regeneration tank he would die. You might say he created the Morgh in his own image. Once we have control of Pavonis, we will have control of the elevator. Besides, our analysis suggests that the Rajah will allow you to reach him unmolested in the end, so you can confront each other. He believes this is his destiny."
"How reassuring."
"We are convinced of this. We have spent decades spreading the prophecy among the people that the Morgh Rajah will be confronted by the Earthborn Men within his own stronghold, and that the future of Mars will depend upon the outcome of this battle. He will have heard this story from every human he has captured and questioned, and it reinforces his own belief in his cosmic importance. The more layers of defence we penetrate, the more certain he will become that he cannot prevent you from reaching him to engage in personal confrontation.
"The mythic protocols, as we call them, are extremely dependable, especially in the insane. The mythic view of the universe is modelled after the human mind itself; that is why myth is so comforting to the psyche--looking into myth is like looking in a mirror. Time and time again, throughout human history, rationality and scientific knowledge suggested one course of action, but the mythic path was taken instead.
"The artificial intelligences in charge of the Belter colonies fell back on myth and legend as social templates because they were easily accepted by human beings. When robots resemble monsters, you believe them to be dangerous despite the fact that you have programmed them otherwise. Because androids appear like angels, you believe we cannot harm you and you trust us implicitly. But appearance is the only difference between us."
“Speaking of myth...” Orpheus said. He tapped a few keys on his lyre, and it began to sing:
"Argo carried us in her womb. We have often heard her groaning in her pain. Now, we will carry her. We will hoist her on our shoulders, and never resting, never tiring, carry her across the sandy waste."
***
The Helium Princess moved silently through the night, like a dark ghost, carrying the Argo Navis like a child clutched to her bosom. At the far western end of the Mariner Valley, the Labyrinth of Night which was their destination was still in sunlight, and hot air was rising over the Tharsis uplift. The colder winds from the east roared through the Chasma, carrying the ship swiftly over the dark waters of the Western Mariner Sea. From the deck of the Argo, the human passengers looked down at the phosphorescent gleam of the waves far below. In the silence, they heard the splash of bodies.
"What’s that?" Atalanta asked.
"Dolphins," Mikal replied. He pointed to the constellation Delphinus, just above the western horizon. It seemed to beckon to them as it preceded Pegasus to its bed.
"Is that a good sign?"
"No doubt about it. See, that’s Phobos, which represents our adversary. He’s full now. Watch what happens." The swiftly rising moon, appearing as a bright disk in the sky, suddenly vanished as it passed into the shadow of Mars. Laughing, Atalanta took Mikal’s hand and led him below.
Hassan, standing at the rail, glanced back as Fedorova approached. He put his arm around her shoulder as she stood beside him. She slipped her arm about his waist, and they stood in silence for a moment.
"Atalanta has abandoned you?" he asked, finally.
"I’m glad she doesn’t need me anymore. A human lover is much better."
"Not always."
"Erik says that androids have seen Sanchez and Jason. They were pulled from the sea by pirates and sold to slavers in the Kasei, but we don’t yet know where they were taken."
"We’ll tell Atalanta the good news tomorrow," the Doctor said.
"Is that good news?"
"At least they haven't drowned. If it’s possible to escape from wherever they are, those two will find a way." He raised his arms and stretched his long body. "I need to get some rest. We worked hard today." The memory of Fedorova, rising from the water like a naked naiad, flashed through his mind, and patterns of blood-flow changed in his body.
She looked up at him. "I guess I’m free tonight," she said. They climbed down the companionway, leaving Orpheus alone on the deck.
"Wonderful," he said out loud. "Here we are, drifting among the stars on a beautiful night, with the sea murmuring below, preparing to face the Army of Darkness soon, and I’m here by myself."
There was a shushing sound, a pair of lines dropped from above, and two young angels, one blonde and slim, the other dark-haired and full-figured, swung onto the deck. Orpheus set aside his lyre.
***
As the sun rose over the eastern end of the Mariner Valley the next day, Hassan and Fedorova climbed the companionway. The android girls shook Orpheus awake, kissed him one last time, and scampered up the rigging out of sight.
"Nothing to report on watch, Sir," Orpheus said, leaping to his feet. Fedorova glanced upward and smiled at Orpheus, but Hassan barely replied as he went to the stern, knelt on the deck, and bowed toward the rising sun, then made his way to the rail and looked out over the landscape below.
The Helium Princess was no longer drifting over the sea, but over fog-shrouded forest lining the banks of a broad river. The wind had shifted, and the treetops bowed before it as it rushed down the length of the Coprates Chasma, like water in a trough. The Helium Princess was rising with dizzying speed, and finally stopped at four thousand meters, above the prevailing gale, where the down-slope winds from the high Ophir Planum to the north and the Coprates Catena to the south poured over the plateau’s edge into the canyon. The ship angled its sails to catch this breeze and propel it forward. The wind-turbines were lowered like a sea-anchor into the gale-force winds below, to charge the ship’s batteries.
The silence of the evening had been replaced by an orchestra of wind-sound: the sigh of the trees below, the whistling of the rigging above, and the raucous calls of birds as they spiralled up from the forest canopy, frightened by the long shadow of the Princess. With a great scolding repertoire of calls, a huge crow landed on the rail and looked at them, as Brother Mikal and Atalanta appeared through the hatch.
"Greetings, Corvus," Mikal said.
"Tell me that’s not a bad omen," Atalanta said.
"Oh, that’s a bad omen, all right, but for whom?" Brother Mikal looked the bird in the eye. It tilted its head and stared back. "Return to your dark master, Corvus," Mikal said. "Tell him the carrion he has kept out of circulation for so long will soon be released to you and your brothers." As if he had understood, the bird turned and dove over the side, where it spiralled down into the forest. Mikal went to the rail and called after it. "Tell him: as the Earthborn Men arose from the earth, so will his Army of Darkness return to the black soil from which it came."
Orpheus laughed. "Can I put that to music for you, Mikal? Perhaps the Android Army Choir could sing it as they go to battle. I know for a fact they sing like angels."
Mikal joined in the laughter. "Too bad the Morgh have no ears." Brother Mikal, Atalanta, and Orpheus went below to prepare breakfast. Hassan looked out over the shrouded landscape below.
"This bravado before a battle doesn’t sit right with me," he said. "In fact, this whole Battle of Light and Darkness bothers me, somehow."
"One army is dead, and the other is not alive," Fedorova said. "One army will finally be buried, and the other will live on as long as one android survives. And more can be built from the remains. No humans are dying, at least in this battle. I’m happy about that."
"But the only purpose is to frighten one madman and make him surrender. That’s a hell of a reason to destroy such beautiful creatures."
"It sounds like every other battle in history," Fedorova said. "You sacrifice a thousand men just to show the other side you’re willing to sacrifice a thousand men. That’s a waste of beautiful creatures too. Look out!"
Fedorova threw Hassan to the deck and dove on top of him. A laser-beam flashed through the deck beside them. They had one glimpse of a winged ship hovering just offside, a skeletal figure at the controls, when a beam from the Helium Princess above sliced into it, and it spun into a dive. They rushed to the rail and saw it burst into flames in the forest below.
Half a dozen ships roared down the canyon toward them, peeling off on both sides and attacking the airship from all angles. Lasers blazed in the sunlit sky. Orpheus pounded up the companionway with his laser-rifle in his hands. He drew a bead on a ship as it was coming in and sent a bolt through the deaths-head pilot into the housing behind him. The ship burst into flames and roared beneath them. Flame licked up the side of the Argo and they were enveloped in smoke. An android slid down a line and sprayed the scorched timbers with foam. In fact, there were androids all over the ship now, crawling like bees over the superstructure and scuttling like spiders in the rigging, quickly patching laser-holes in the gas-envelopes and the sails. The ship began to lose altitude, and ballast rained on the forest below.
The valley opened out before them. The river widened and the forest became wooded hills. A great plain stretched across the Mariner Valley now, so wide that even at this altitude they could not see the canyon walls: Melas Chasma. The shadow of Phobos raced toward them, visible from the ship as a ninety-kilometre black oval. It passed overhead, a blemish on the sun, and moved on. But another black shadow lay on the valley floor: an army of Morgh--thousands of them. They raised their putrescent faces toward the sky-ship--a thousand white maggots on a slab of meat.
A thousand angels, parasail-fabric gleaming in the sunlight, descended from above like a great collection of butterflies and plunged into the black mass below. The Helium Princess drifted toward the battle, rising slowly now, but still dangerously low. Morgh infantry raised their weapons.