On a well-settled Mars, the five major city Council regimes
struggle to meld into a stable, working government. Embracing an official
Unified Faith In Humanity, the Councils are teetering on the verge of pogrom
directed against Christians, Molesters, Jews, Rapists, Buddhists, Murderers,
Muslims, Thieves, Hindu, Embezzlers and Artificial Humans – anyone who
threatens the official Faith and the consolidating power of the Councils. It
makes good sense, right – get rid of religion and Human divisiveness on a
societal level will disappear? An instrument of such a pogrom might just be a
Roman holiday...To see the rest of the chapters and I’m sorry, but a number of
them got deleted from the blog – go to SCIENCE FICTION:
Martian Holiday on the right and scroll to the bottom for the first
story. HanAH, the security expert (m); DaneelAH, xenoarchaeologist (m); AzAH, language
expert (f); and MishAH, pattern recognition (f) are
artificial Humans owned by the Mayor of Malacandra Dome.
“I ain’t never seen no one named like you said,
that Paul Oh. Stepan never said nothin’ about him, neither,” said the young
blue Artificial Human. He released DaneelAH and stepped out of the circle of
the vat mates.
“Who’s Stepan?” HanAH said.
“That ain’t important no more,” he replied, but his
face had started to change. He’d looked like a typical young Human, guarded and
hard. But something else passed over his face now.
“Why?” DaneelAH said.
“‘Cause he gone be dead if you don’t come with me.”
The tone was very matter-of-fact, but he clasped his hands and fidgeted with
his fingers.
“What?”
“A monster in the warehouse done eat him!” and with
that blurt, QuinnAH broke down, weeping.
DaneelAH looked at his vat mates. HanAH shook his
head in disgust. AzAH scowled, but stepped closer. Only MishAH reached out to
touch the youngster. When he didn’t flinch or move away, DaneelAH said, “You’ll
have to take us to him if we’re going to help.”
QuinnAH looked up, wiping the tears from his face.
His gaze narrowed and the harshness returned to his voice, “You agents of the
Mayors?”
HanAH exploded, “Shattered Domes, boy! If we were
agents, you’d been on your way to reclamation by now!”
QuinnAH glanced at HanAH and rolled his eyes to the
ceiling, saying, “You wouldn’t have caught me, old man.”
HanAH took a step toward him, but DaneelAH and
MishAH both raised hands in a warding gesture. MishAH said, “We’re not agents
of any Mayor, though we are owned by the Mayor of Malacandra.”
He grunted, then said, “Just as well. Nobody here
likes that one.” He nodded, “You gotta keep up and we’re going to the Rim – not
the squishy HOD.” He stepped away from them and started walking, long strides leading
back toward a transit shelter. He went around the back to the inti
entrance and disappeared into it.
HanAH, “We’re really going to follow this sewer
turd?”
DaneelAH laughed, “You should talk! He acts just
like you did at his age!”
HanAH scowled fiercely and plunged after QuinnAH
only to stop abruptly when he appeared out of the stairwell and said, “You old
people are slow! We have to hurry before the monster eats Stepan!”
They hurried after him, disappearing into the
bowels of the Dome. They weren’t, in fact, far from the Rim, but had to get off
the rail platform before they actually arrive. QuinnAH had stopped both talking
and taunting, hurrying through shabbier and shabbier corridors, dust
accumulating into a grinding grit beneath their feet the closer they got to the
razor-thin barrier separating the interior of the Domes from the thin,
suffocating atmosphere of the surface of Mars. Despite ongoing terraforming,
the end point of a habitable surface was still a century in the future – and then
there’d only be exit with complete environmental suits rather than hard
spacesuits.
He stopped at a hollow lift tube, slapping the
activation pad. The floor glowed a dim red as he stepped onto it.
“I’m not riding on that!” HanAH said. “It’s so old
it’ll quit halfway up!”
The boy shrugged, “Suit yourself. The stairs are
down the corridor and to your left.” AzAH, DaneelAH, and MishAH stepped in with
the boy.
DaneelAH waved. “See you upstairs.”
HanAH strode forward, muttering, “Someone in this
pod has to use their head for something more than a battering ram!” He squeezed
between the boy and his vat mates as the gMod lift tube started up to the
surface.
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