Ian Douglas - The Complete Heritage Trilogy - Semper Mars, Luna Marine, Europa Strike

“Okay,” Garroway said, dropping his voice to a whisper barely audible above the racket. “We have one ranged weapon, and that’s close-up only. We’ve got to figure out a plan. How can we get in close enough to use it?”

“Make them come in here?” Jacob asked.

“Ah, they’d be stupid to do that,” Knox replied. “At least, all at once. And we’re gonna have to surprise all of ’em quick, so they can’t radio for help.”

“We’re gonna need to sneak up on the sons of bitches,” Ostrowsky pointed out quietly. “That could be tough. They’ll have heat sensors in the cat.”

“Yeah,” Knox said, nodding. “Especially since we’ll have to make our move at night. Our Class-Ones are pretty good at scattering heat plumes, but we’re still gonna show up like torches if we go out there in the middle of the night, when the ambient temp’s down to something like 150 below.”

“Why do you say we’ll have to move at night, Gunny?” Garroway said, thoughtful.

“Well, we sure as hell can’t walk out there in broad daylight….”

“I’m wondering about that.” Garroway reached out and flicked his forefinger against Knox’s torso armor, eliciting a hollow thump.

“You’re thinking it’ll be easier to mask our heat signatures out there at high noon,” Ostrowsky whispered.

Garroway nodded. “Affirmative. We’re close to the equator. Midday temperatures here can get up to a few degrees below freezing…or even higher. Thermal sensors work by comparing the contrast between the background temperature and what’s being scanned.”

“These tin suits still give off a hell of a lot of heat,” Lieutenant King pointed out. “It’s their main weakness. Besides, even their active camouflage won’t provide a perfect blend with the environment, especially if we’re moving.”

“Well, there may be a way around that,” Garroway said. “What we need to work out is a way to take down that Mars cat…and to do it before the bad guys can radio an alarm back to Bergerac….”

2158 HOURS GMT

Heinlein Station, Mars

0935 hours MMT

“There’s no more time for discussion,” Alexander said quietly. “We’re going to do it.”

It was quieter now in the hab, though there was still an echoing murmur of people talking. Alexander had gathered the other archeologists about the plastic table at the center of the big room for a quiet, hurried discussion.

Significantly, it was the same group that had been with him yesterday when he’d discovered the vault and the mummified bodies—Dr. Craig Kettering, of Penn State; Dr. Devora Druzhininova, from the Russian Academy of Science; Edward Pohl, on extended loan from the Field Historical Research Foundation in Chicago; and Louis Vandemeer, from the Smithsonian. Everyone who’d actually seen the find had been packed off to this out-of-the-way outpost…probably on the assumption that if Graves and the rest of the US and Russian scientists could be kept out of the site, no one would be able to file a detailed report with Earth. Possibly they planned on manipulating those still at Cydonia, in order to suppress the find.

Suppress the find. His find. The knowledge that they were covering up his discovery, and the resultant frustration and anger, burned in his stomach and in his throat. It was happening again, damn it. He’d found a tiny crack in the wall that hid the past, just enough to let one slender shaft of light pass through and illuminate a piece of the Truth…and they were troweling the crack shut just as quickly as they could manage.

“We can’t, Dave,” Kettering said, “Don’t you see? This could cause a war, a shooting war, right here on Mars! Remember what happened to the Sphinx? Napoléon?” The French invasion of Egypt at the end of the eighteenth century had been both a boon and a curse to archeologists. It had uncovered the Rosetta Stone and introduced Europe to the glories of Egypt’s lost civilization.

At the same time, soldiers had shot off the nose of the Sphinx with a cannon, apparently just for fun.

“I can’t lend my support to this,” Vandemeer added, shaking his head. “It’s just damned irresponsible!”

“‘Call me…irresponsible…’” Druzhininova sang lightly, as though trying to ease the black tension hanging above the table. She had a thing for Western music, they all knew. Then she grew serious. “David is right, guys. By the time these people get done, we may never be able to figure out what the story is at Cydonia.”

“But…what would be the point?” Vandemeer wanted to know. “They just want to make sure other countries have access to the technology we find. And, as for the, uh, discovery yesterday, it sounds to me like they’re just concerned that, uh, sensitive information might be released too quick, maybe give fanatics the wrong idea. All they want is a responsible approach….”

“Responsible my ass!” Alexander snapped. “I understand their concern, but so far we haven’t found a hell of a lot we can use. Learning anything at all is going to take all of the resources of Earth for, for, I don’t know, centuries, maybe, before we can make much out of it. And as for the discovery, it seems to me that they’re not giving ordinary people credit for even a little common sense.”

“The fanatics’ll make what they want out of things,” Pohl said, “whether we provide the fuel or not.”

“That’s right,” Alexander said. “Don’t you see, Van? What we found out there says some profound things about who we are, where we came from. Things we’ve got to know! These bastards could scramble things so badly we may never get at the truth!”

“I’d like to know where these people get off setting themselves up as the arbiters of the dissemination of information,” Druzhininova said.

“It’s worse than what happened to me in Cairo,” Alexander said. All of them were familiar with his expulsion from Egypt in ’37, and the reasons behind it. “If we let them get away with this—”

“Are you sure,” Vandemeer interrupted quietly, “that you’re not just worried about your chances for publication?”

Alexander lunged to his feet, overturning his lightweight, plastic chair and nearly knocking the table aside. “You take that back!”

Druzhininova put her hand on Alexander’s shoulder. “Easy, Dave.”

Pohl stepped between him and Vandemeer. “Yeah, Dave. We’re all in this together, right?”

“I’m not so sure about that,” he said, his eyes still locked with Vandemeer’s. He shook himself as the others released him. “I’ll try to forget you said that, Vandemeer. But you hear me, and hear me good. You too, Craig.”

“David…” Druzhininova began.

“It’s okay, Devora.” He kept his voice low and level. “If you two guys want to sit here and rot for the next three months, you’re free to do so. But our military friends here are working out a way to block the UN bastards, and I’m going to help them every damned way that I can. If that means giving me a gun and charging that Mars cat out there, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m sick of being shoved around, told what I can’t dig, or told what I can’t say, and I’m not going to sit still for it any longer, understand me?”

The odd part about it all was, Alexander still wasn’t sure what he thought of this whole idea. He still hated the military…the regimentation, the spit and polish, the regulations, the dehumanization, all the aspects of military life that had grated on him when he was growing up as a Navy brat in Charleston, Pensacola, Portsmouth, Roosey Roads, and all of those other bases and stations scattered up and down the East Coast of America where he’d lived until his father had been killed. The thought that he was now voluntarily helping a bunch of US Marines was as startling personally as the find beneath the sands of Cydonia the day before…something that couldn’t be, but was.