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

was whimper like a child and
shake his head. I looked at Bel. He shook his own head, telling me
my questions were triggering nothing useful on the memory hack he
was running. Fohat really didn’t know. He knew about Pax, but
nothing else. Asmodeus had kept him in the dark, knowing he
would be disposing of him soon. And Fohat didn’t think beyond
making his killing toys, beyond the joy he got from watching them
slaughter men, women and children.
    “Fine.”
    Before Bel could protest (assuming he would), I drew
my pistol and put a timed explosive round through Fohat’s new
forehead. Then I slammed the container shut before his skull blew
all over the inside of it. What it’s going to cost him to grow that back again gave me a moment’s satisfaction, but only a
moment’s.
    I let myself out of the ship without saying another
word, got on my flyer, and threw myself into the sky to go ask my
questions to the right person. And I knew he’d be happy to chat.
The fucker always is.
     
    Now I’m sitting in the wind, on the rock ledge just
outside the Forge-dug entrance into the mountain, overlooking the
seemingly endless expanse of the Lake below me. I don’t remember
getting here. Too tired. Too hungry. Too damaged. Too lost in
thought, my abused, addled brain endlessly replaying the last
twenty-four hours as if anything I could have done or not done
would have resulted in a different outcome.
    Looking up, I watch Phobos fly across the night sky
on one of its four rounds per day, close enough to see the craters
that pock its surface. But I don’t see the new UNMAC base on its
surface, not even with my enhancements. Nor do I see the orbital
station or any of the satellites, including the mass driver (or
drivers) that tried to vaporize me. But then I wouldn’t, not from
here, since the sky here is Yod’s illusion, as is the horizon of
low mountains barely visible in the distance across the Lake. It’s
all a virtual projection, a panorama of the world Yod erased, like
a convincing scene painting all round this human game preserve, for
the benefit of the residents (prisoners?) of Haven, and anyone else
Yod lets in here. The Lake, combined with Yod’s cognitive barriers,
keep those living here from reaching it, from defeating the
illusion, though I’m sure they suspect that’s what it is,
especially since they’ve recently had visitors from the “real”
world, the outside world.
    The Lake itself is peaceful now that the evening
winds have died down, its gently rippling surface sparkling in the
faint moonlight, soothing. If I wasn’t in so much pain, and so
angry, I could happily let it lull me to sleep.
    Instead I just stare in a daze across kilometers of
water that very few people beyond this preserve know is here (even
though it’s right under UNMAC’s satellite eyes), appreciating the
perfection, the beauty of the illusion. But then I fix on something
that destroys it for me: From this side of the Lake, the Pax
Mountain is still there, still intact, not demolished by chunks of
scrap metal accelerated to meteor velocities and hurled down from
space.
    And I loop into second-guessing myself again, my
choices. It is my fault? Would the Hold Keep still be there if I
hadn’t gone running back? I doubt it. I may have added another
tempting target to the field of fire, but I’m sure Earthside would
have pulverized the site anyway, as soon as they’d confirmed the
Harvester infestation.
    The Harvester infestation that I reported to
them. In good faith.
     
    I remember the flyover: Two of the sleeker new-drop
AAVs screamed over my head from the west just after I’d dropped
from my flyer onto the crest of the long, low mountain. I
habitually activated my visual camo, and risked a subtle hack to
ensure I wasn’t seen. But if Earthside had been tracking me at all,
it was an easy guess where I’d gone after I went radar-invisible
(and then visible invisible), especially if they believe that
Asmodeus and I are in some