The Medida War Read online

  "Your pa was right, Rusty."

  "But Pa - he never liked this planet none. He used to say life on Mars is a plate of biol and every day we eat another mouthful. Only we never got biol out here cos the pipeline never come this far."

  "I think maybe you're better off without it, Rusty."

  "That's what Pa said, too. Only I don't reckon I can eat another marshroom after... after..." He began to cry. "Pa and Ma and Sandy and Fertility were good people. They didn't deserve to die. Why did they die? Why?"

  "Well, Rusty," she said, "too much goodness is actually against the natural way of things. It offends the Universe."

  "You mean they made it angry? Gee! I didn't know we made the Universe angry!"

  "It's why terrible and tragic things are more likely to happen to good people. And why the good often die young."

  "That don't seem fair somehow."

  "The Universe isn't fair, Rusty. As you well know."

  "But how do you know, Morrigun?"

  "Because my sisters the Maras taught me."

  "Who are the Maras?"

  "They are the night mares."

  "Like the one I had with Pa and Sandy coming back to life and coming to get me?"

  "No. the Maras are horses. Until they change their equine form and turn into witches."

  "Gee! So you're a witch?"

  "Yes."

  "But you're a good witch? Right?"

  "No, Rusty. I'm not."

  "You mean you're a bad witch?"

  "Sometimes."

  "And I guess all these witches must be like your family?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you miss them, Morrigun?"

  "Very much. I dream of riding on their backs again through the great forest of Menark."

  "Where's Menark?"

  "It's on a planet called Hekate. It's my home planet. And it has three beautiful moons - Lamia, Mormo and Gila."

  "And will you get to ever see them again?"

  "I think so, Rusty. I think I'll be going home soon." Morrigun looked up at the sky and smiled quietly to herself.

  "Very soon."

  Later, the Warriors buried the father and son and arranged for Rusty to stay at a neighbouring farm. Deadlock then spoke to the others. "It seems that Medusa had good reason to call us back."

  "Yes, there is much work to be done on Mars," agreed Hammerstein. "We must find a way to make the settlers live in peace with the planet."

  "Before she destroys them," continued Deadlock.

  "And if she does, that will bring us into conflict with her too," added Joe.

  "Worst case scenario," agreed Hammerstein. "Although seven robots against a planet like Medusa is not a scenario I want to think about."

  "So where do we begin our peace-keeping mission?" queried Blackblood.

  "I say Viking City," said Hammerstein. "It's the capital. The place where we can make the greatest difference."

  "And I say Marineris City. That is where we must go," said Morrigun authoritatively.

  "Why?" queried Hammerstein.

  "Because something is drawing me there. Something that can only be finished there."

  "It's strange. I felt it should be Marineris City for some reason," said Joe Pineapples.

  "For once you and I can agree," said Blackblood. He indicated his Book of Judas. "There are references in the bad book which strongly indicate this is where we must go."

  "I believe we should begin our great work in Marineris City," confirmed Deadlock.

  Mongrol grunted. "Wherever Morrigun want go, Mongrol go. So he say Marineris."

  "Mek-Quake, he has been giving this matter a great deal of thought as well."

  "Careful."

  "And he agree with the rest of you. He believes it should be Marineris City, too."

  "Whose turn is it to give him his computer upgrade?"

  "I think it's Hammerstein's."

  "Yes. Mongrol upgraded him yesterday."

  "I'll do it later, okay?" concluded Hammerstein. "I'm outvoted. Marineris City it is."

  SIX

  Marineris City, Mars. Regularly given the Ugliest City in the Galaxy award, narrowly beating the underground stalagscrapers of Necropolis for the dishonour.

  It was a prize Senator Diaz, the city boss, regarded as very unfair. People just needed a little time to get used to the scaffolding and the loading bays where passengers entered the windowless transport bins. And to the skyline of cranes that lifted and lowered them through the air. And to the steel girders that criss crossed what had once been a canyon of outstanding, natural beauty.

  Hologramic adverts proclaimed the delights of "Biol - the fastest food on Mars: straight from the tap." "Neuropeptide - The Right Stuff: courage in a can." And "Digital Angel - your intimate friend. Where will you put your Digital Angel?" To illustrate its point, it showed a Marilyn Monroe lookalike, trying and, of course, failing to hold down her skirt during a gravity storm. Somehow she managed to look saucy and puzzled at the same time.

  In time, Diaz believed, people would see Marineris City as a Martian Venice, Florence or Rome.

  In the U-Crane lanes, citizens drove their own automobins. Their overhead wheels sped them along the cables. Grabbers on their roofs also enabled them to reach across and change lanes. Automobins ranged from family cable cars to sporty open skips.

  Swinging from one lane to another was not unlike the way the cyboons propelled themselves through the air. They were used to performing necessary maintenance work on the system. The descendants of intelligent apes used to help terraform Mars, the cyboons lived down in Bowel Town, although some "illegals" had their nests in scaffolding higher up, especially around Spaghetti Junction.

  Unlike humans, they didn't eat biol but lived on Martian vegetables, fruit and fish. Thus far, none of them had turned trinary.

  Around Spaghetti Junction, drivers sped along the cables, because if they slowed down, a super-simian armed with bucket and squeegee might leap across and land on the automobin roof. The cyboon would then offer to wash the windscreen, an offer it was wise not to refuse. A few limobins had electrified windscreens that dealt with demanding cyboons.

  G Men, riding their anti-grav saddles, ensured the problem didn't get out of hand. If a cyboon went "off his trolley," the cops had orders to "shoot on site."

  Marineris's similarity to a giant construction site was deliberate. Its "Terran Brutal" style was a proud endorsement of its pioneering spirit. The style extended even to clothing. Just as people in earlier times wore fashionable workingmen's jeans, so its citizens made a fashion of their construction clothes. They wore lime green waistcoats with grey reflective strips, adorned with designer labels like Lowry and Scargill, and plastic hard hats in funky colours.

  Thanks to heated underwear or "hot pants" clothes weren't strictly necessary, but most citizens still wore them. For their blubbery bodies, bloated to one hundred and ninety kilograms or more on a diet of biol were an acquired sight.

  Fat was fashionable because of the widespread use, by wide spreads, of sound system implants: belly blasters. These made use of the body's natural resonance chambers and would turn a stomach into a powerful speaker. The sound blasted out through the navel. This had given rise to fashionable dances like the Blubber Shudder. And, the bigger the blubber, the better the shudder.

  With the latest advances in anti-gravity, it was also possible to take daily anti-gravity pills to support enormous stomachs, so "obeasts" could graze as often as they liked. Personal Striders and robot sedan chairs would help provide additional assistance, and pedestrian cranes could lift biol heavy-users up from one level of the city to another.

  These obeasts were the basis of Diaz's support. They shared his view that it was time to get tough with Mars; to conquer the Red Planet, as their ancestors conquered Earth. Diaz knew the citizens of Marineris City were behind him now as he urged President Cobb to take action. And should he refuse - well, there was talk that the Confederation of Martian Industries might be forming a
breakaway state to the Martian Union.

  Cobb was visiting Marineris City for crisis talks with Senator Diaz. Right this moment, the senator was drawing his attention to the latest atrocity by Medusa. "Mr President, a gang of zombies known as the Jung Cannibals are attacking and eating humans on the Trans-Martian Highway outside Marineris. They have set up the Road Kill Kafe, meals off wheels, and are ambushing and killing motorists."

  "Are you serious?"

  "Take a look at the menu."

  "I see what you mean. Bull Bar Burgers. Trailer Tripe. Rack of Man. Head and Chips. Tyre Track Tart. Skid Mark SoufflÈ. Road Rash Risotto."

  "And the lunchtime special: Pensioner Pie."

  "And all, fresh as the day it was frozen in your headlights."

  "It cannot go on, Mr President," insisted Diaz.

  "Why haven't they been arrested?"

  "The cops who tried ended up as Highway Patrolman Hash."

  "This is not good. Medusa must be taught the folly of reanimating our dead."

  "And quickly - before we all end up as 'Pedestrian Pizza'. Medusa sees us as aliens, as extra-martials. She must learn this is our home now."

  President George C Cobb, (or "Corn on the Cobb" as he was often known) nodded sympathetically. But he had to keep his own power base happy too. This included the Clones Free State, the Robots Free State and the Aliens Free State, with its emigrants from the Terran Federation. Also the radicals in Redpeace were calling for a truly "multi-spatial society" and would object to any severe measures taken against Medusa.

  Diaz looked coldly at him. He could trace his lineage back to the Foundation Fathers - the astronauts who first landed on Mars - and he didn't especially care for the nouveau riche Cobb, the friend of aliens, robots and clones. "So what are you going to do, Mr President?"

  "We're doing all we can."

  "Like what?" asked the Confederation aristocrat.

  "Let me get back to you on that," smiled the president, pretending to read his notes. Diaz decided not to distract him by pointing out they were upside down.

  "Mr President, I must have some idea."

  "Me too. I'm pretty short on ideas."

  Cobb was little more than a mouthpiece for some of the various power factions on Mars. Without his Special Adviser, he had trouble making off-the-cuff comments.

  Fortunately, at that moment, his cuff links returned.

  His advider was Seraph Rosesand.

  Diaz regarded the grotesque squinting figure of Rosesand with secret fear and disdain. Alien-human interbreeding and "hosting" was common in many Martian states, particularly with alien immigrants from the newly formed Terran Federation. However, like most Confederates, he believed in the purity of the human form and rejected the idea of a multi-spatial society.

  But Diaz was as two-faced as Hoodwink himself. He was aware Hoodwink was the real power behind the throne. They were all Arch-Angels - the inner circle from whom the rulers of Mars were selected. Consequently, he greeted Hoodwink effusively.

  "Seraph. A real pleasure to meet you again."

  "You too, senator."

  "And how are you, Snnktts?"

  "Fgusfdsfcbvc."

  "I'm pleased to hear it." He knew a few words of Sirian.

  As they shook hands, they flapped the palms of their right hands downwards, so they touched each other. The limp-wristed gesture was the Arch-Angels' greeting, in imitation of a pair of wings.

  As Rosesand turned to speak to the President, Diaz discreetly wiped his hands with his handkerchief.

  "We're going to show Medusa we mean business," said Hoodwink. "We're sending in the Biohazard Troops to destroy the Martian ghetto in Bowel Town. Its trinary inhabitants will be transferred to "relocation" camps. Any resistance by the Martians will result in their immediate liquidation."

  "Yep," confirmed Cobb. "That's just what I was about to say."

  "Excellent," said Diaz. "That's more like it."

  Hoodwink rubbed his disjointed crab-like fingers together. All was going well. Snnktts was pretty happy about it. In fact he was positively zxzioipoixx. The only fly in the ointment, apart from the ones that buzzed around Seraph's head, was the ABC Warriors.

  But Hoodwink was sure they would not be a match for the Biohazard Troops, if they turned up and intervened. That was his plan A. And if he was wrong, he had a plan B. And a plan C.

  Mek-Quake's killdozer drove towards the centre of Marineris in the direction of the Senate Building. It was making its way along the regular roads which were relatively free of traffic, as people seemed to prefer to let the crane take the strain.

  On board, the Warriors decided that their next move would be to talk to President Cobb and Senator Diaz. It seemed fortuitous that Cobb was in Marineris at this time.

  Hammerstein pondered how their meeting might go. He was rarely off-duty. The others, meanwhile, were pursuing more personal agendas.

  Morrigun was recalling the time she first met the Maras. It was on the night of the Blood Moon when they transformed from night mares into beautiful, voracious women. "Soon, my sisters, soon," she whispered quietly to herself.

  Joe appeared to be in stand-by mode. But he was actually playing the battles with Mass Destruction back in his head. He critically observed his combat from every angle, and considered whether any of his moves could be improved. They couldn't. He was also scanning the crane tops for snipers.

  Mongrol was thinking once again of Lara. He had been a paratrooper officer and his robotic body was destroyed when his parachute failed to open. Lara had discovered his head on the battlefield. Despite the impact, he was still barely sentient. The beautiful battlecomber had given him a new body assembled from parts of dead robots. He had become a robotic Frankenstein.

  She was later murdered by the Volgan enemy, but continued to live on in his head as his muse. Morrigun had become a kind of substitute for her; a reminder of his beautiful creator, whose memory grew dim as the centuries passed. But recently Lara began talking to him once more. Her voice filled his mind with bittersweet memories.

  But she had returned to tell him that it was time he forgot her forever. It was time for him to move on. Time to be what he once was, before he became a beast. She had come back to say goodbye.

  Deadlock was looking hungrily around him. He needed nourishment, some of the dark energy he fed on when he sent living creatures on "The Great Journey". He fondled his Ace of Swords in anticipation. Unfortunately, he couldn't see any Marineris citizens who needed cleansing. In fact, they were walking along the scaffolding walkways in silence, acting as if they were already dead.

  Mek-Quake looked up in awe as a crane raised a passenger container high into the air. It was laden with a thousand commuters. It swung around and hooked it onto one of a spider's web of cables that would transport the cable to the suburbs. "Big Jobs! Big Jobs!" he murmured admiringly.

  Blackblood was reading from the Book of Judas. Inspired by the betrayal of the Messiah, he saw an analogy with the betrayal of humans by robots when they rebelled. As he fingered his silver gallows and lovingly turned the well-thumbed pages, he sang softly:

  "As he was swinging in the breeze one day,

  Stretching out his neck in a good old way,

  Happy to wear the noose and hood,

  Popping out his eyes as he dropped good.

  "O Judas, let's go hang!

  Come on hang, we gotta go hang!

  O Judas, let's go hang!

  Hanging on the gallows today!"

  "No talking! No talking!" came a voice far below the killdozer.

  Mek-Quake's snake-like neck peered down at a red and white striped traffic cone. Only this cone was talking; it had an eye on top of it and tank tracks underneath it.

  "This is a No Talking Zone. In future, make sure your passengers refrain from conversation between the hours of 9.00 am and 5.00 pm. At this time you must communicate by thought only. Do you understand?"

  Mek-Quake didn't respond.

  Two more cones jo
ined the first. They repeated its words with automated relish. "Talking is forbidden. Talking is forbidden. Talking is forbidden."

  "Frag off," said Mek-Quake.

  "Perhaps you are a stranger to our city. It is an offence to insult an operative of the TIA."

  The cone waited for Mek-Quake to ask what the TIA was. Most people would want to know, but Mek-Quake had no curiosity whatsoever.

  After an awkward pause, the cone explained: "Total Information Awareness."

  The other cones repeated in chorus, "Total Information Awareness. Total Information Awareness."

  Inside the killdozer, the Warriors were paying no attention to Mek-Quake's traffic difficulties.

  "For any complaints, paying fines and for more information on how you can reduce noise pollution, visit the Total Information Agency website on Mars Media Management. Ssshhh! Com."

  In such situations, Mek-Quake had a simple and successful way of determining what to do. It was based entirely on a matter of scale.

  He was very big and they were very small.

  He ran the problem over in his mind. It didn't take long.

  Then he ran over the cones. That didn't take long either. He scrunched them into the ground, singing happily to himself. "You are the squeal beneath my tracks."

  Hammerstein and Blackblood heard the squeals and looked out irritably from the killdozer. They saw the crushed cones smeared all over the road behind them.

  "Stop, Mek-Quake!" They climbed out to have a look at the damage. Blackblood picked up the remains of one of the cones, intending to dissect it later.

  In the distance, they could hear a wail of sirens.

  "Before they stopped squealing, they must have alerted the cops," observed Blackblood.

  They would be arriving to investigate at any minute. Hammerstein had downloaded data on the customs of the floppies in Marineris City, so he knew it was a serious offence to talk in a No Talking Zone.

  But he'd overlooked the fact that Mek-Quake did not have the same facility. His tiny brain simply could not take in so much new information.