The Beast Arises

Fourteen

The dead of Mars

Clementina Yendl disembarked from the transit tube, the dusty windows of the station affording her a view of the facilities clustered about Pavonis Mons. Low volcanic slopes rose imperceptibly, a bulge in the land that somehow managed to attain fourteen kilometres of altitude at its apex. Much of the mountain’s shield was covered with manufactoria of immeasurable size, stepped ranks that marched ever upward until they passed out of the Martian atmosphere and into the airless void. One of the great Tharsian forge temples soared over its attendant factories, in its shadow the barracks of a Titan Legion. Pavonis Mons looked like the rest of Tharsis, but there was a sombre air about this part of the Tharsis quadrangle, and rumours of a secret buried deep. Yendl knew it was more than hearsay. Yendl knew a lot of things. No data-stream was safe from the infocyte.

She passed down the platform and out through crowd-flow barriers. Machines inside the baroque pillars kept watch on the teeming citizenry of Mars. They read her implants, chiming acceptance of her signum codes. Yendl hurried down steps, arms hugging her data-slate to her chest in perfect imitation of a lowly acolyte late in performing her errands.

Wide doors opened into a wider hall. A curved plex-glass roof, its panels thick with the leavings of the last great dust storm, showed the pale blue of the Martian sky fading to yellow towards the horizon. A thick brown line of smog trapped by atmospheric temperature striation formed an artificial boundary between them, dividing one from the other definitively.

The stairs plunged deeper into the Martian world-city down a square shaft, and Yendl followed them for dozens of flights. A barrier divided the stairs into two, the left side for those going down, the right for those coming up. Cyber-constructs buzzed through the air, using the shaft’s middle as their own highway.

Only lower-ranking followers of the Omnissiah used the steps, but they numbered in the billions, and examples of all of Mars’ strange humanity could be seen there. Clanking servitors carrying giant burdens caused chokepoints, slowing the descent to a crawl, their monotasked minds ignorant of the curses and shouts of those they delayed. A file of electro-priests passed upwards singing a buzzing electric song to their god, their blinded eyes and tattooed blue skin all but concealed by the grey robes and hoods they wore. Adepts of less humble station clattered about on skittish spider sedans, using the weight of their machines to push through the throngs. Yendl pushed also, muttering to herself angrily about delays and systems failures, often checking the chronograph set into the upper lip of her data-slate with a frown.

‘Please, please, let me through,’ she said, ‘or Magos Saultis will be angry with me again!’

Hers was but one of a million small problems harboured by those tramping the stairs, but a few allowed her to pass. She slipped around them, vox-augmetics chittering effusive binharic thanks into the noosphere, and vanished into the crowd. Just another lowly adept, one among teeming multitudes.

Ordinarily Yendl would not have drawn even this small measure of attention to herself. Her temple’s way was to watch, rarely to act, to blend seamlessly into whatever place they found themselves in. To be a face in a crowd that no one would remember.

Time was short. Tracking phages were close to sniffing out her data-thieves parasiting the Martian world-mind. Verraux had arranged to meet with her the day before, but had not arrived at their rendezvous or contacted her since. Given a few more hours Yendl could have divined her fate with certainty, but she did not need to. Red Haven had been compromised.

Already she had begun to compile probable vectors for their discovery. Urquidex was the most prominent, but not likely, for the information he had provided her had been extremely sensitive. If she survived this mission, she would pay him a visit, after Pavonis Mons.

The Martians had hidden their intentions well, but not well enough. Another experimental undertaking had been established in the volcano’s laboratoria. The same encrypted signifiers that were attached to the matter transportation experiments had been buried deep within the encoded data packets regarding this new development. Vast amounts of something were being delivered, but she had yet to ascertain what. The noosphere would only give up so many of its secrets. Yendl was forced to act, her task given greater impetus by Verraux’s disappearance.