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, go to SCIENCE FICTION: Martian Holiday on
the right and scroll to the bottom for the first story. If you’d like to read
it from beginning to end (100,000+ words as of now), drop me a line and I’ll
send you the unedited version.
QuinnAH tightened his arm around Stepan’s waist and
said, “You can come back when the people aren’t going to murder you and feed
you to Mayor Peta Nasseri.”
Squirming, Stepan finally gave up to hang limply
over Quinn’s shoulder. “You know I have to…”
“You have to live today so you can come back and
keep doing your God’s work!” Quinn threw Stepan over his shoulder. “You’re
gonna go down the chute…” Quinn opened the floor chute and kissed Stepan on the
cheek, then shoved him into the chute and slammed it shut. Outside the crowd
got uglier. Looking at the door, Quinn sighed, then hurried to the secret
stairway door. A moment later, the warehouse was empty.
Half way down to the stuffcap tubes, he stopped on
a landing. “Wasn’t here before,” he muttered. All Artificial Humans had
perception enhancement – it made them more useful to Born Humans. He could see
into both the infrared and the ultraviolet. His hearing range had also been
altered. Where Humans could hear sounds between low-pitched speaker hum, up to
a high-pitched, nearly unheard squeal – not volume, but sound, felt more than
heard. AH’s couldn’t quite hear the low hum, but could hear dog whistles, which
some Humans used to “call them”.
He heard a sound, just at the edge of his hearing –
and he had better hearing than most of his friends. An oldster had quipped,
“New model upgrade!” and slapped him on the back of the head.
Quinn stopped in the dark, kneeling, and felt
around. An object, roughly spherical but…he rubbed his hands over it…dented and
smooth now, but maybe with a rough surface once a long time ago. He dropped the
sphere. What if it was something that had belonged to the alien who’d been in
the weird space suit Stepan had found and given to the older Artificials? What
if this was another artifact? He reached gingerly out and found it, picking it
up. Maybe it would be worth a lot of money? Maybe her could buy his freedom. He
tucked it into his pants and continued down into the underground as the tunnel
of the stuffcap shook around him.
Stepan
hadn’t intended to lie to Quinn, but God had laid a call on his heart, not only
to feed the poor here on the Rim, but to bring hope to the hopeless. He was
fairly certain that the rioters outside the warehouse had been set up for this
by his father – if not personally, then set up by agents acting for the Home
Owners District. He just didn’t know if the mob was made up of Rimmers or hired
thugs from the HOD. He shook his head. There was only one way to find out and
Quinn tossing him down the chute had taken that chance away. He sighed. Not
that he could have fought himself free.
He had
no idea what Quinn would think of him if he knew he’d once been a HODder
himself. For an instant, he felt like he should spend some time praying, then
smiled. An old Christian he’d known had been leading an underground – literally
underground, in the maintenance tunnels under the stuffcap tubes – service when
Security blundered into one of their alarms.
The smile faded. If he couldn’t be honest with the
boy, who could he be honest with? He needed an…agent…in the area. Someone to
speak to his honesty…realizing the irony of that thought made him shake his
head and sigh.
First chance he had, he’d tell Quinn everything.
This time he did stop and get down on his knees, holding up the entire
situation to God, and asking Him to both orchestrate the moment and prepare
Quinn’s heart.
And his own.
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