The Argo Navis raced southward along the Lunae Coast, pursued by the pirates of the Kasei. The wind swept down from the Lunae Planum highlands and both ships were under full sail. Hassan kept his eyes on the rigging as he manned the tiller, and the rest of the crew prepared to defend the ship, for it was clear that the pirates were gaining. Individuals were already visible, hanging in the rigging or leaning over the gunwales of the huge pursuing ship. They were armed with long swords that would have been awkward to handle in Earth gravity but were easy to use on Mars.
"They look like you, Maria," said Atalanta, who was preparing her arrows on the afterdeck.
"Do they?" Sanchez laughed. "They do, don’t they? If I can get my hands on one of those swords, I think I could do a lot of damage with it."
"I imagine you could," Jason said, "but I hope they won’t get that close. Ready?"
Atalanta nodded. The Argonaut pair stood side-by-side on the after deck, nocked their arrows, and raised them to the sky. It would not be correct to say that they calculated the distance to be covered and the arc necessary to reach that distance in one-third gravity, for their muscles did this without calculation, after all their training in the gravity-simulator of the Aries. They let fly the arrows and they thudded into the pursuing ship’s rigging. The magnesium-flare tips devised by Fedorova with materials from Boreal Station burst into flames and the fire spread quickly in the canvas and hemp of the rigging. The pirates went into trained action, dipping buckets in the sea, hauling them up the mast and dousing the flames.
Jason and Atalanta prepared more arrows.
"Look out!" Orpheus shouted. The catapult on the foredeck of the pursuing ship lobbed an iron ball and chain that arced across the sky and crashed to the deck of the Argo Navis. Only Fedorova’s reflexes were able to snatch Doctor Hassan away from the tiller as the ball splintered the helm and careened across the deck, the chain writhing like an enraged beast as it slashed at the rigging. The boom cracked like a twig, lines snapped and whiplashed, and canvas shredded with a horrid ripping sound. Hassan noted with relief, as he scrambled to his feet, that the mast itself had not been damaged, though the ship was slowing visibly now.
The pursuers were partially disabled too, but they were gaining again. Hassan swept aside his cloak to reveal his side-arm, the only true weapon they had found in the research station. Orpheus unslung his lyre; it had been re-designed by Fedorova, once again, and more closely resembled a laser-rifle than a musical instrument, and he knew that the pirates were in for considerably more trouble than they had bargained for.
"Doctor," Fedorova said, "take a look at the southeast horizon."
He turned his gaze away from the closing pursuers for a moment and glanced toward the distant Ares Coast. A shaft of light descended from the equatorial heavens into the waters of the Chryse Gulf.
"It’s an orbital mirror," Hassan said, "heating the water." They could already see the steam spiralling into the sky. "Mikal, I think your Morgh Rajah is cooking up a hurricane."
Brother Mikal, clutching his staff, turned and peered into the distance. "I’ve heard that this could be done, but I’ve never seen it."
"Why would he do that? To influence this battle in some way? Or is he completely indifferent to its outcome?"
"I have no idea, Doctor. We have sailed much farther south than most shipping will venture, and I imagine the pirates have been tempted to do the same. Perhaps this is an automatic response to the intrusion."
"Well, we don’t have time to speculate. They’re almost upon us."
The two ships closed with a crash, and grapples descended upon the Argo Navis. The pirates leaped or swung aboard and were met with a horrific onslaught. The arrows of Jason and Atalanta thudded into their throats or chests, Hassan’s sidearm cracked with devastating effect, and Orpheus sent beam after beam of light sizzling into the pirates’ bodies. Brother Mikal stepped up and wrought terrible damage with his staff, whirling and thrusting and cracking heads and bones right and left. He was pressed back, then he twisted his staff and each end emerged as a steel sword. With the short in his left and the long in his right hand, he stepped back into the fray. Sanchez leaped upon one of the pirates, snapped his neck like a twig and snatched his sword from his falling grasp. She waded into the melee, screaming in Spanish, swinging the heavy, razor-sharp sword with demonic abandon. The pirates fell back before her, tripping over each other in their haste to escape, and they continued to fall beneath the hail of bullets, arrows, and laser-fire.
They re-grouped aboard their ship, still determined to seize the rich prize that the Argo seemed to represent, and anxious to get their hands upon these devastating new weapons. Brother Mikal raised his sword, the Brotherhood symbol on the hilt clearly visible. "Depart in safety," he shouted. "You cannot win this battle."
Just how much reverence for the Brotherhood remained in the breasts of the pirates he could not know, but Mikal was certain that the pronouncements of a Brother would have a certain superstitious power. The pirates muttered among themselves as the storm-clouds billowed on the horizon. In the end, perhaps, it was the threat of the approaching storm that made their decision for them. They cut loose their grapples, hoisted sail, and turned back toward the safety of the Kasei Vallis.
Hassan realized there was no chance to escape the storm. In time he could repair the boom and the sails, re-rig the ship, and make it nearly as good as new, but now there was nothing to do but reduce sail, repair the tiller, and try to keep the ship’s prow into the wind and waves. He barked orders and the crew leaped to work, Jason and Atalanta scrambling into the rigging, Sanchez and Fedorova binding a piece of broken boom to the cracked tiller, Orpheus and Mikal stowing the sails and everything else they could get their hands on below decks. The clouds billowed to the heavens, towered over them, blotted out the sun. The waves rose higher, capped with white, and the ship heaved.
They met the storm prepared. Hassan, backed by the strength of Fedorova and Sanchez, was lashed to the tiller, the rest of the crew tethered to the mast, so they could attend to any damage without being swept overboard. The winds shrieked and drowned out their voices, waves crashed and poured over the deck. The tiny ship rose high in the air and slid down the trough of huge waves, Hassan fighting to keep the prow headed into the onslaught. One particularly towering whitecap splintered the ship's boat, though it was firmly lashed down, and the small craft careened across the deck toward the helpless figures at the stern. Shouting unheard into the gale, Sanchez played out her line and stumbled across the deck to intercept the jagged object before it slammed into Hassan.
The ship tossed beneath her, throwing her off her feet, and her line became entangled in the smashed boat. It slid over the gunwale, and she was caught, dangling over the side of the ship as waves crashed down upon her. Jason played out his line and stumbled to her aid. As he reached for her, the jagged edge of the boat's steel frame slashed her rope and it parted. Her head struck the gunwale as she was dragged overboard. Shouting, Jason reached for her, and his grasp fell short as she was tossed into the sea and vanished astern. Despite the unheard protests of the rest of the crew, Jason whipped out his knife, cut his own tether, and dove into the raging sea. He could still see her bobbing in the towering waves as he struck out with powerful strokes to her side. In a moment, both of them were carried beyond even Fedorova’s sight.
***
In the morning, the seas were calm. On the deck of the battered Argo Navis, Fedorova peered at the horizon. "I’m sorry, Doctor," she said, "there is no sign of them."
Jason and Sanchez were kilometres away, clinging to the few scraps of wood that were all that remained of the smashed ship’s boat, as they drifted on the calm waters beneath the pale sun of Mars.
"You’re an idiot," Sanchez said.
"I love you too, Maria."
"Do you think I would have jumped overboard to save your worthless hide?"
"In a Nueva York minute," Jason said, and Sanchez laughed.
They heard a distant shout and lifting themselves as far out of the water as they could, spotted a sail on the horizon. Sanchez shouted and waved.
"Nadia! We’re here."
Jason clapped his hand over her mouth, but it was too late. The pirates had heard them and were changing course.
There seemed little they could do. Even with Sanchez’ powerful muscles, and expert swimmer that Jason was, there was no hope of out-running the ship.
"Do we fight?" Jason asked.
"They’ll kill us if we do. They might anyway, if we surrender, but at least we won’t drown, and there’s always a chance of escape later."
They were hauled aboard at sword-point by a jubilant and angry crew. None of them were likely to forget Sanchez, and the muttering grew to a growl about them as the pair stood dripping on the deck. The ship was badly damaged but had survived the storm. One figure who was obviously the Captain strode toward them, unslinging his sword as he came. His eyes burned, and Sanchez returned his gaze. If she could wrest the sword away from him before he struck, she might be able to kill him before she was run through by a dozen other blades. And perhaps Jason might survive.
But Jason stepped in front of her and held out his arms, in an unmistakeable gesture. The Captain raised his sword as the captives stared into his eyes. Suddenly he laughed and thrust his weapon back into its scabbard. He walked about them, examining their powerful bodies in the remains of their soaked clothing, grasped Sanchez by the wrist and examined the muscles and tattoos of her arms and torso.
"Don’t resist," Jason whispered to her as she began to chafe under the indignity. "He’s assessing your worth. He won’t lose a valuable commodity for the sake of revenge, even if his crew would. That’s why he’s Captain."
"I know," Sanchez whispered back. "That’s why I’ve got to resist. To prove my worth."
The Captain examined Jason with the same familiarity, feeling the muscles in his arms and legs, opening his mouth and peering at his teeth. Suddenly, the Captain whipped out his dagger and before they could move, slashed Sanchez’ belt and stepped back. Her garment slid to the deck and she stood naked, the artwork on her body completely revealed. As the crew gasped in admiration, she stepped forward in a movement too swift to follow, snatched the dagger from the Captain’s hand, and touched the tip to his throat.
The crew froze, and the Captain stood immobile, sweat beading his forehead. Then, after a few seconds, Sanchez flipped over the knife and slid it into its sheath on the Captain’s belt. Then she stepped back to Jason’s side and folded her arms under her high breasts. She tossed her black hair in a disconcertingly feminine gesture.
The Captain roared with laughter, and barked orders. The captives were seized, hustled down the gangway into a stinking cell, and chained to one of the ship’s ribs. There were at least a dozen other people there--men, women, and children--likewise chained.
"Good news," Sanchez said. "The rest of our crew aren’t here. It may mean the Argo survived the storm. I begin to wonder if the hurricane wasn’t started to help the pirates. Villages all along the coast would have been devastated, and the people easy pickings."
"Where are they taking us?"
"Kasei Vallis, probably. Mikal says there's a big slave-trade centre on the Sea of Kasei, a few hundred kilometres from the coast. We’ll be sold there."
"At least we won’t be molested till we get there," Jason said.
"Well," Sanchez tossed over her shoulder as she curled up in the straw to sleep, "I won’t."
***
They were not molested, though Jason got an occasional glance from a sailor who quickly left after a disapproving look from Sanchez. The other prisoners were not so fortunate, however: several women and a few boys were dragged away amid a great deal of screaming and wailing, to be returned in a subdued frame of mind later. One woman was not returned and was never seen again. By and large, the young girls were not bothered, probably because their virginity was considered too valuable.
Food that was as nutritious as it was unappetizing was brought on a regular basis, as the prisoners’ health no doubt also contributed to their value. They could see nothing of the world outside, though Sanchez kept a count of the number of times the opened hatch revealed sunlight as opposed to darkness, and she had a fair idea of how many days had passed.
"We should be coming to the city soon," she said, and indeed one morning the sailors brought soap and water, and the prisoners were encouraged to wash themselves and each other. Most of them were so glad to be clean again that they ignored the grins of the observing slavers. When a few of the young girls who had slipped into depression showed no interest in washing and were seized by the sailors, some of the older women volunteered to clean the girls and brush their hair. It was a sight as saddening to the other prisoners as it was entertaining to the slavers.
The noises through the hull revealed that the ship had docked, and as the prisoners were shackled and brought up on deck, they could hear the din of a great city.
Port Kasei was situated on an island in the Kasei Vallis. The Sea of Kasei was a hundred kilometres wide at this point, having widened from the narrow strait that connected the smaller sea to the Chryse Gulf to the East. The island thrust precipitously from the waters, the city climbing the steep slopes toward a broad plateau three thousand meters high. It was an excellent place to build a city--easily defended, protected from the storms of the Chryse Gulf, but giving quick access to that body so pirates could prey on the shipping that passed by, and equally quick access to the agricultural plains of the interior, where slaves could be traded.
The masts of ships towered about the prisoners as they blinked in the sunlight, and the city gleamed. One by one, or by twos, the slaves were examined and haggled over. The children and prettier young men and women were marched down the gangway and taken into the city, as their relatives called after them piteously and held out their shackled arms. What remained was a collection of able-bodied adults, who were brought back to their cages below, presumably for transport into the interior. Jason noticed that there were no sick, old, or injured; he guessed they had been dumped overboard at sea, before he and Sanchez were picked up.
Sanchez counted the days until they had reached the estuary of the Kasei River, where the town of Sacra Fossa guarded the way to the interior. This was a smaller, more provincial town, with more hovels than palaces. The slaves were transferred to a river-raft and forced to row up the broad Echus River, which had its headwaters in the glaciers of the high Tharsis itself. On the way, a number of slaves were auctioned off as agricultural workers, but Jason and Sanchez noticed that the strongest specimens remained.
On the right, the plains stretched over the horizon to the northwest, all the way to distant Mount Olympus, but on the left were towering cliffs, as the Echus Chasma cut deep into the highlands. At times, they towered five or six thousand meters into the sky, draped with magnificent waterfalls like silver threads. Some were so tall that the waterfalls themselves dissolved into mist before they reached the bottom.
There would be times of the year, Sanchez said, when dust-storms would pour off the airless deserts above, dumping tons of nutrient-rich soil into the rivers to be carried downstream to the vast irrigated plantation fields to the north. All the inhabited portions of Mars could be said to be one oasis, surrounding the Boreal Sea, in a planetscape that was still dominated by rust-red Martian desert.
The canyon narrowed, and finally they were boxed in on three sides by nearly vertical scarps several kilometres high, decorated with spectacular waterfalls. There was a small town here, called Echus Deep, where the Sun and Deimos would be visible for only an hour a day, and Phobos perhaps for only a second or two as it zipped meteor-like across the narrow sky above.
"This was an Old Martian settlement," Sanchez said. "See the dome, and the hatches to the underground caverns? And look, that’s a Sand Rover passenger-train. Huge tires for the desert, and airlocks connecting the sections. I don’t see the driver-car, though. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!"
The captain of the slave-barge was coming toward them, accompanied by a military officer of some sort. Behind them strode a creature with metal arms and legs, a torso partly covered in metallic armour, and a metal helmet with infra-red lenses, like Jason’s late companion Chiron. The rest of the creature--the portion not obscured by metal armour and robotic limbs--was rotting human flesh.
The prisoners began to scream. "Demons! We’re being sold to demons!" Many struggled in their chains and the boatmen had to lay about them with cudgels to restore order. Still there was moaning and desperate weeping, as the prisoners shrank back from the monstrous vision. It thumped down the dock with the whir of motors and cables and the thud of steel boots on creaking wood. It peered down at them, eyes clicking open and closed like camera lenses, as it apparently memorized their faces.
The military officer studied the slaves carefully as well, then turned to the slave-trader. "They seem in good condition. They’ll do. I’ll see to your payment." Then he turned to the monstrous creature behind him. "You will accompany the prisoners. They must not escape. Do you understand?"
They heard a synthesized voice, echoing as if from the grave:
"I will accompany the prisoners. They will not escape." Then the creature turned and thumped away across the dusty square. There was a whirring from the sky above and a long-bladed Cargo Copter dropped from the cliffs to settle on the Sand Rover like a dragon fly on a lily pad. The other prisoners cowered before this apparition with the same terror with which they had greeted the demon, but Sanchez watched with interest as the Copter and Rover were latched together.
The prisoners were dragged by their chains across the square and thrust into the Rover. They shrank back as the Demon climbed in behind them and sat at the end of the car. The latch was shut behind him and there came the hiss of pressurized air. The Demon looked about, examining each face with its camera-eyes, as the objects of its attention cowered and wept, and then there was a whir as a laser-weapon slid out of its arm and clicked into place.
The copter shuddered into motion and the car was lifted vertically. The cliff-face dropped past with increasing speed as it rose, and the prisoners wailed again. The sky changed from blue to pink, and suddenly the vast rusty plains of ancient Mars stretched before them. Far behind, they could see green farmland and blue rivers stretching away into the distance, but ahead of them was nearly airless desert. They could feel the intense cold through the walls of the car.
The Copter set them down, labouring to stay airborne in the thin atmosphere, and flew away. A driver-section backed into the car with a clunk and a hiss, and then the Sand Rover rattled off across the dusty plains--heading due west, Jason calculated as he peered up at the bright stars in the salmon-coloured sky.
"What the hell is this thing?" he asked, keeping his voice down. The monster seemed not to hear or notice him any more than the sobbing occupants of the car.
"You mean Corporal Corpse, here?" Sanchez snorted. "It’s a Morg. At least, that’s what we called them in the Old Days. It never occurred to me that Brother Mikal’s Morgh demons were the same."
"You had these in the Old Days?"
"They were rare, but they did exist. It’s a dead cyborg."
Jason shuddered, remembering the way that some of Old Chiron’s parts had continued to whir and click after he died, until Jason himself had to shut them down, lest they continue to make noises in the grave and attract scavengers. "But it can move around. And talk."
"Yes, and it can kill too. Not like a robot." The Morgh ignored them, but some of their fellow prisoners had stopped wailing and were beginning to listen.
"There were lots of cyborgs about--both workers and soldiers. Limbs and eyes were lost to accident or in battle and replaced with robot parts better than new. Each one of these parts would have its own tiny computer and a rudimentary task-oriented intelligence. After a while, they sort of added up, and started carrying out more complex tasks on their own. First, there were reports of pilots who would black out from pulling too many gees and wake up to find the plane fighting an air-battle on its own, acquiring targets from the pilot’s artificial eyes and using his artificial hands to fire the weapons. Then soldiers on the march began to report that they could fall asleep and keep marching, their legs pumping on as ordered, and they would only awaken when their implanted ears and eyes had caught sign of something worth waking up for. They liked this, some of them, and so did their superiors.
"Then there were reports of dead soldiers walking around on patrol, or roustabouts continuing to work on simple tasks in space though the human being in the suit had been asphyxiated by a sudden leak. Sometimes there were gunships with dead men at the controls, or skeletons walking out of the jungle, years after they were listed as lost in battle. They were called Morgs by the troops, though at first their existence was denied by the authorities, and then their use was banned and declared a war-atrocity. Once or twice, they found squads of these things guarding forgotten outposts, and once a raving mad officer marched a whole platoon of them into camp. He’d assembled it out of what he thought were stragglers, not even knowing that his troops were dead.
"The trouble is, a robot has a higher functions control, and they can’t even think of harming a human being without shutting down. And a living cyborg has a human brain in control, with some kind of higher intelligence and humanity and conscience. Not a hell of a lot sometimes, but usually enough to prevent it from killing civilians or its own buddies. But these things have limited intelligence. The feet will walk where they need to, to get the Morg where it’s told to go, and the eyes will look and the gun will shoot if the eyes see something described as a threat, but all of this only in response to immediate stimuli." She moved in her chains and the creature turned its head with a whir to face her. "If I made a threatening move, it would kill me without a thought."
"These are the Morgh," someone said in a tremulous voice. "They have been raiding our villages and kidnapping people for years. At first, we thought the victims were being devoured, or sacrificed in some way, but they take only strong adults, so we think they may be..."
"What?"
"...breeding demons. For the Rajah."
Sanchez stared at the Morgh. It focused its gaze on her, trying to determine if she was going to be a threat. "That's not exactly what happens," she said. "This Morgh Rajah of yours takes human beings, cuts off their limbs and removes various sense-organs..."
The prisoners began to moan.
"...replaces them with robotic parts, and when the systems are able to function on their own, he kills the human."
There was a general wailing and sobbing. The Morgh's head swivelled back and forth.
"He’s building a Morgh army, that’s what he’s doing. Will you people stop whining, for Christ sake? You’re upsetting the demon."
The wailing subsided and the Morgh returned to a lowered state of alertness. "Good. All this commotion is not helping the situation here, you know."
"What help is there?" one prisoner demanded. "You seem to know a lot about them, but do you have any ideas...whatever your name is."
"I’m Sanchez. And this is Jason. Jason, you know about cyborg systems. Does Sergeant Wormfood here have speech-recognition, do you think?"
"He talked."
"Talking doesn’t necessarily indicate intelligence. It never did. He repeated a few phrases, and he seems to respond to vocal stimuli, mostly in terms of threat-assessment. But do you think he actually understands what we say?"
"I don’t think so. Without robotic higher functions or a living brain?" Jason looked at the Morgh. "I’d say no. His main job is to scare the hell out of people. His second job is to kill them if they get out of line. I don’t think what we say means a damn thing to him."
"He’s like an animal, in other words: he responds to movement and tone of voice, without understanding the words spoken."
"That’s about right. Remember the precise way his superior spoke to him? He’s probably trained to give orders in a particular way, using particular phrases, and the Morgh is programmed to respond to those phrases spoken by that officer."
"Good. That’s what I thought, too." She turned to the man who had spoken, and who seemed to have gained control of his fear. "I’ll tell you what help there is. I am the only person you ever met who can drive one of these Sand Rovers. And Jason here is possibly the only man on the planet who knows how to shut down a Morgh."