Free The God Mars Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming by Michael Rizzo

sustenance
from handy corpses. That I’ve never actually tasted the flesh, that
my nanites do the extracting for me at a sustained touch, doesn’t
make it more palatable. I’m still a cannibal.
    (How the fuck did it come to this?)
    I’d rather be in pain. Broken. Barely knitted
together by the nanotech in every cell.
    My dragging footfalls echo in the caverns of the
Barrow, no matter how softly I try to walk. Even without
enhancements, I can hear the grinding inside of me. But more than
pain, every step, every time I force a leg forward, feels like I’m
waist-high in molasses. I’ve barely got enough left just to keep
moving.
    I distract myself by appreciating Yod’s thoroughness.
The whole facility is indeed gutted of every single piece of
technology from that other world, cleanly stripped to the cast and
cut floors, walls and columns. Only the hatchways are left, though
they have to be opened manually (and some of them are monolithic).
I still see no sign that any of the equipment was physically moved,
of course. No heavy lifting necessary—Yod just thought it all out
of existence.
    (From what Jon Drake showed me of Peter Nagasawa’s
memories, it was done between ten and fifteen Standard years ago,
between two of Yod’s idle behavioral experiments, letting humans
from the outer world in here to see what they would do. So did he
gut it all because what happened to Nagasawa and Harris went so
ugly, or was he simply done with it?)
    My left eye still won’t open all the way. Of all my
injuries, this is the one that’s bothering me the most for some
reason. It doesn’t really hurt, especially compared to the rest of
me, but it feels like something is pressing into it. I could have a
chunk of mountain—or a chunk of Asmodeus—stuck in my face. Assuming
I still have all (or any) of my face. I get the odd impression that
it’s not just squeamishness that’s keeping me from reaching up and
touching it and finding out for sure. It’s like I somehow know if I
try, there’ll be something palpable in my way, though it’s probably
just knowing that the damage to my muscles and joints will prevent
me from raising my arms that high, or make the act more unpleasant
than it’s worth.
    In the dark, I remember the Pax Keep, or the rubble
that was the Pax Keep, like I can see it now. The whole fucking
mountain… Not so much a mountain anymore. That marvelous, amazing
complex… the dragonfly nurseries… the livestock pens…
    Rubble. Like a blasted quarry. The whole
mountain.
    How many times did they hit it? I wasn’t counting. I
think I remember four or five impacts. I was well-buried after the
first one. The rest just kept pounding and crushing through the
rocks and dirt of my impromptu grave, a few minutes between each
world-scarring blast as they recharged and reloaded up in orbit.
(Was it just the one mass driver that did all that? Or do they have
more now? The files Lisa flashed me had plans and manifests, but no
indication of what they’d already managed to cobble together and
get online in terms of orbital weapons systems—I expect that’s the
secret they’re keeping most guarded.)
    I feel a flash of blame, of anger at the ETE. Did the
“deal” they made help fuel the orbital construction efforts? Would
I have had more time if they hadn’t have been so unbelievably
stupid, thinking they could actually bargain with these people?
     
    “You shouldn’t have come.”
    The darkness and space is fucking with my memories.
Or maybe it’s a head injury. I probably finally passed out. Either
that, or my Modded body has an autopilot. But I’m suddenly just
back in the moment, another moment, yesterday, right after my
infuriating meeting with Jackson: Flying to White Station. Waiting
stubbornly in the cold thin outside their airlocks.
    Paul. Paul came out to meet me. Alone. Of course he
was alone.
    “My father still won’t see me. The excuse is network
vulnerability. But the others…” His face wrinkled up,