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CHAPTER 3

MARS

Two days before her departure for Earth, Dreams-of-War left the Memnos Tower and made a short journey across the Crater Plain to Winterstrike, in order to register her departure documents, undergo a necessary modification, and take a medical assessment for her suitability to withstand the temporal forces of the Chain. This last was merely a formality; Dreams-of-War was in excellent physical shape. She knew, however, that at least once a week some luckless passenger was found shriveled and wizened at the end of a voyage, ruthlessly aged by the forces that governed travel within the confines of the Chain.

It was, after all, a form of haunt-tech, and thus little understood except by the technicians of Nightshade and presumably by the Kami who had given it to them. It was alien and could not be trusted, at least if you were Dreams-of-War. The only piece of haunt-tech with which she was prepared to deal was the armor, and that only because its previous occupant had been such a great warrior. And while Dreams-of-War trusted the armor’s spirit, it still occurred to her to wonder whether this was wise.

She further distrusted the prospect of the modification that she was about to undergo—more alien tech—and she did not care much for Winterstrike, either. The city was ancient, dating back before even the Lost Epoch. Its black-and-crimson mansions and narrow streets were a testament to its age: basalt, iron, stone—old materials for an old city. The more recent buildings rose up around the edges, etched metal towers and turrets connected by hanging bridges.

Dreams-of-War took a rider, crammed with standing passengers, in through the southern gate of the city, past the clan holdings and mansions, and finally past the sunken fortress of the meteorite crater that had given Winterstrike its name. She looked neither right nor left, though when the rider rumbled by the great lip of the crater, her head involuntarily turned and she gazed into the pit: a caldera of garnet stone, pockmarked with holes and rifts. The fortress rose up at its center, a place of shattered spires, half-ruin, half-home to the city’s dispossessed, of which there were many.

The fortress was a grim place, but better this, thought Dreams-of-War, than the Crater Plain and the mountains. There, the ordinary women who were not warriors would not fare well against the men-remnants: the hyenae and vulpen and awts. Better they remain here, living off the verminous birds that infested the pits of the crater wall.

The fortress passed by; Dreams-of-War once more stared ahead. This long, winding street, fringed with engine shops and child-supply emporia, was the road to the spaceport. She would be coming this way again tomorrow, in the cold early light, to take a ship for the Chain and Earth: the city known as Fragrant Harbor. She had been told little enough about her mission. There was a child, it seemed, and the need to guard her.

Dreams-of-War had done her best to find out more, by devious routes she disliked pursuing, but she had failed. This in itself was disquieting. Memnos only bothered to keep closemouthed about those secrets that were a danger to the bearer, and they had seen fit to tell her nothing. Thoughtfully, Dreams-of-War jostled her way to the front of the rider as it approached the next stop, and stepped down onto the street.

The medical evaluation was carried out in a Matriarchy building: a weedwood-and-basalt tower behind thick walls. Dreams-of-War sensed the prickling discomfort of weir-wards over the exposed skin of her face as she walked through the gate, but she passed through without incident. Inside, she presented her credentials, but it seemed that they were already expecting her. A woman wearing a doctor’s robe and high red hat ushered her through a hushed corridor into the black light chamber. The doctor’s hands had been modified, Dreams-of-War noted; a scalpel blade shone briefly beneath one fingernail.

“You’ll have to take that off,” the doctor said, barely glancing in the direction of Dreams-of-War.

“Very well.” Dreams-of-War stood at the center of the room, before the flickering glitter of the black light matrix. “Armor!”

The armor flowed smoothly from her body, forming for a moment the gaunt figure of its previous owner. “No, that won’t be necessary. I don’t want to talk to you. Just keep out of the way.”

She watched as the armor folded itself into a small, curdled sphere, no bigger than her fist. It struck her, somehow, as sad. She glanced down at her own exposed skin. Tattoos covered her arms and breasts: spirals, spikes, the mathematical gematria of Memnos. The small child-markings were a faded indigo around her wrists.

“And that,” the doctor remarked, glancing at the bands of her black rubbery underhamess. “And we’ll need to do something about your hair.” Without asking, the doctor seized a handful of Dreams-of-War’s pale hair and bundled it up into a knot. Dreams-of-War jerked away, snatching the coil from the doctor’s probing fingers.

“Don’t touch me!”

“Stop complaining.”

Dreams-of-War stood, fuming, as the doctor made the final preparations.

“Why couldn’t this be done in the Memnos Tower? They have a more extensive matrix there.”

“It’s off-limits for now,” the doctor said. “They have a client coming in who wants something special.”

“Special?”

“Someone all the way from Io-Beneath, apparently. You know that the matrices can be hired.”

Dreams-of-War gave a snort. “For the right price.”

“Of course. Now lie down. No, not there. With your feet facing the wall.”

Dreams-of-War did as she was instructed. The black light matrix sparkled over her, causing an itchy crackle to cross her skin and raise the hair on the back of her neck.

“Are you all right?” the doctor asked, clearly caring little as to the answer. “Not scared?”

“Of course I am not scared! I do not like the sensation, that is all.”

“No one living is supposed to like it. It brings you close to the Eldritch Realm, to the spirit dimensions.”

“I’ve faced death many times,” Dreams-of-War said, affronted.

“That is not what I meant. It is a neurophysiological reaction. In the case of we the living, consciousness is welded to body and brain, until the point of physical death when the particulates that compose the spirit detach from the shore-surface of the brain and leave the interface between the dimensions. You’re not about to die; you are, in fact, a long way away from it as a healthy young person. But now your spirit is trying to tug free, drawn by the matrix, and that is why you’re uncomfortable.”

Dreams-of-War squinted up at the doctor. “And if it did tug free, what then? Would I die?”

“Yes. Body and soul would part company, and then your essence would drift into the blatklight matrix and be snapped through into the Eldritch Realm. This is what befalls you when you enter the Chain, except that in there, people are held together by the internal structures. Usually. But nothing like that is going to happen to you now. I’m going to put you under—”

“Oh no, you are not!” But before Dreams-of-War could utter another word of protest, the doctor touched a sleep-pen to her neck. Dreams-of-War fell, snarling, between the warp and weft of life and death, and knew no more.

When she awoke, it was dark outside. She was lying on an ordinary metal bed, her head supported by an iron pillow. The armor reposed in a glistening lump on a table by the bedside. The doctor was nowhere to be seen.

Shakily, Dreams-of-War sat up. She could not see her underharness, but no matter.

“Armor!”

Instantly, Embar Khair’s armor uncurled itself from its resting form and flowed across her outstretched hand. Soon she was covered in familiar gleaming green. Dreams-of-War stood up, supported by the armor. She felt no different—at first. But when she looked into herself, she was conscious of a new, sore spot inside her head. Dreams-of-War probed it, imagining fingers gingerly touching, and the result was a flooding anxiety, an adrenaline rush that made her gasp. She closed her eyes, and had a sudden disquieting image of the interior of her mind. Normally as dark, hard, and resolute as metal, her inner self now contained a small hole, pink and tender from recent bleeding. The sensation was as compelling as a stolen tooth.

The door opened. The doctor’s face was disapproving beneath the high scarlet hat.

“You should not be on your feet! And who told you that you could get dressed?”

Dreams-of-War took a single stride across the room and seized the doctor by the throat.

“What have you done to me? What have you put in my head?”

“Rather,” the doctor said faintly, scrabbling at the hand around her neck, “you should be asking what it is that we have removed. Now let me go.”

“Removed?”

The doctor was gasping. The scalpel blade shot out from beneath her fingernail. Desiring answers, Dreams-of-War let go and experienced a curious and unfamiliar sense of relief.

“This is what I have done,” the doctor said, massaging her neck. “There is a psychological callus that is grown on the mind of a warrior, that increases day by day after your release from the growing-skin. It is that callus that enables you to act fearlessly, to make your goals your only focus, that permits you to go forth and slaughter your enemies with as little compunction as I feel when I swat a weed bug down from the wall at night. That emotional callus makes you everything that you are, and now it is gone. You will feel as a normal made-human feels. You will feel love, affection, need, and anxiety for a child.”

“I have no intention of having a child!” Sitting by a growing-skin for months while someone congealed within, followed by years of restriction and worry? No thanks.

“No, but you will be looking after one. An indifferent guardian is no guardian at all. You have to care. And Memnos is determined to make you care. I do not understand you warrior clans. What is wrong with having emotions?”

Dreams-of-War stared at her. “Nothing at all. Emotions are a fine and necessary thing—pride, aggression, loyalty . . . As for caring,” she added, bristling, “my duty as a warrior should be enough.”

“It seems Memnos does not think so.”

“How much have they told you about this child whom I am to guard?” Dreams-of-War asked.

“They have told me very little. In all probability,” the doctor added, “as little as they have told you.”

“And what about me?” Dreams-of-War asked uneasily. “If this—this cork in my psyche permitted me to function as a warrior, to kill without qualm, what will happen now that it is gone?”

“Since you have just recently embarked upon my throttling,” the doctor said, rubbing a bruised throat, “I wouldn’t worry too much about that.”