Free The God Mars Book Five: Onryo by Michael Rizzo Page A

with Fohat’s Seed, let the
Toymaker slowly overwrite his brain, his mind. Not unlike a
Harvester…
    I wonder what the leader of Eureka must be like, and
what Asmodeus may have offered to buy the Keepers’ service, their
sacrifice. Or did Asmodeus simply take the colony by force?
    I check my map again, and zooming out to take in the
entire Trident, I’m struck with an amusing realization: We’ve been
so impressed with how the Pax and Katar move in this strangling,
blinding green world. But beyond their familiar lands, they seem
not much more competent than we are, the strangers from a faraway
desert. And their territories, as I can see them on my maps, are
measured in tens of kilometers. In Melas, ours was measured in
hundreds.
    Granted, they have more than they need in that small
area, but suddenly their world seems so small to me, and not only
because I can only see a few meters in any given direction. In
fact, it’s small to them as…
    As one, the Katar all stop dead, crouch down, and
then carefully spread out through the green. I can see Straker up
on point, signaling us to hold. The Ghaddar scans the growth, and
seems confused. I look at Murphy, and he shrugs. Straker comes back
our way.
    “I’ve got a signal. Faint. Repeating.”
    “Automated?” Murphy guesses.
    “Probably. Code’s all corrupted. Can’t make sense of
it.”
    “Damaged bot?” I offer. “Or one of those dead body
drones, broken down?”
    Now she shrugs. “Whatever it is, it’s a single
source. Somewhere ahead, along the rim.” She nods her head in the
indicated direction.
    She goes to inform Negev, and we start moving forward
again, this time even more cautiously. The Katar keep fanned out
like a skirmish line.
     
    We go another two-and-a-half klicks up the still
steadily climbing and narrowing belly of the canyon, advancing as a
broad wedge through the green. The Katar are definitely starting to
look fatigued.
    We get one start, in the form of a flock of
Butterflies taking flight in a storm of fluttering wings. We don’t
make the mistake of assuming they were disturbed by our approach,
but there’s still no sign of any other human-sized heat or motion,
not even to Straker’s enhanced senses. The signal stays steady.
    We’re all in shadow now, the whole canyon except a
bit of what I can see of the crest of its south rim. The sun is
setting. I begin to hear the howl of the evening wind, but very far
away, over in the Central Blade. The air here stays pretty
still.
    “I haven’t seen a single set of tracks,” Murphy
informs us. “Or paths through the growth. If anything’s moved
through here recently, it’s been exceptionally careful.”
    “I doubt one of those stolen bodies could manage that
kind of skilled movement,” the Ghaddar adds her own assessment. “Or
any of the bots we’ve seen.”
    “What about a Keeper?” I ask. Murphy gives me a
shrug, but the Ghaddar looks like she knows it’s possible. I’d ask
Straker, but she’s well up ahead of us.
    I haven’t slung my rifle since the gap. Now I click
the safety off.
    Straker holds us up again, then gestures one-o’clock,
up the northern slope. We take every step like surgery, and start
climbing steeper. We’re going up into the rock fall at the base
slope of the rim.
    The rocks get tiring fast. A lot of them require
climbing over rather than stepping over. The Katar have an
advantage with their longer limbs, making us look like the stunted
things they think we are, but we keep up if only because their
muscles are probably getting numb with hypoxia (though I doubt
they’d admit it to the likes of us).
    The sky starts to get dark. It’s gotten cold enough
to easily see my breath, but the effort has kept me warm.
    Just above us, Straker’s stopped again. But this
time, she’s not signaling us to hold. She’s just looking at
something, something down on the ground. When we get to her, she’s
found a patch of nearly level ground. Among the rocks is a marker
made