Alastair Reynolds - Great Wall Of Mars

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Alastair Reynolds

Great Wall of Mars

Here’s a relentless, wildly inventive, pyrotechnic thriller, paced like a runaway freight train, that

takes us to Mars for a mission of peace that instead leads us ever deeper into the heart of war…

New writer Alastair Reynolds is a frequent contributor toInterzone,and has also sold to Asimov’s

Science Fiction, Spectrum SF,and elsewhere. His first novel, Revelation Space,is being widely

hailed as one of the major SF books of the year; coming up is a sequel, Chasm City.A

professional scientist with a Ph.D. in astronomy, he comes from Wales, but lives in the

Netherlands, where he works for the European Space Agency.

You realize you might die down there,” said Warren.

Nevil Clavain looked into his brother’s one good eye; the one the Conjoiners had left him with

after the battle of Tharsis Bulge. “Yes, I know,” he said. “But if there’s another war, we might all

die. I’d rather take that risk, if there’s a chance for peace.”

Warren shook his head, slowly and patiently. “No matter how many times we’ve been over this,

you just don’t seem to get it, do you? There can’t ever be any kind of peace while they’re still

down there. That’s what you don’t understand, Nevil. The only long-term solution here is…” he

trailed off.

“Go on,” Clavain goaded. “Say it. Genocide.”

Warren might have been about to answer when there was a bustle of activity down the docking

tube, at the far end from the waiting spacecraft. Through the door Clavain saw a throng of media

people, then someone gliding through them, fielding questions with only the curtest of answers.

That was Sandra Voi, the Demarchist woman who would be coming with him to Mars.

“It’s not genocide when they’re just a faction, not an ethnically distinct race,” Warren said,

before Voi was within earshot.

“What is it, then?”

“I don’t know. Prudence?”

Voi approached. She bore herself stiffly, her face a mask of quiet resignation. Her ship had only

just docked from Circum-Jove, after a three-week transit at maximum burn. During that time the

prospects for a peaceful resolution of the current crisis had steadily deteriorated.

“Welcome to Deimos,” Warren said.

“Marshalls,” she said, addressing both of them. “I wish the circumstances were better. Let’s get

straight to business. Warren; how long do you think we have to find a solution?”

“Not long. If Galiana maintains the pattern she’s been following for the last six months, we’re

due another escape attempt in…” Warren glanced at a readout buried in his cuff. “About three

days. If she does try and get another shuttle off Mars, we’ll really have no option but to escalate.”

They all knew what that would mean: a military strike against the Conjoiner nest.

“You’ve tolerated her attempts so far,” Voi said. “And each time you’ve successfully destroyed

her ship with all the people in it. The net risk of a successful break out hasn’t increased. So why

retaliate now?”

“It’s very simple. After each violation we issued Galiana with a stronger warning than the one

before. Our last was absolute and final.”

“You’ll be in violation of treaty if you attack.”

Warren’s smile was one of quiet triumph. “Not quite, Sandra. You may not be completely

conversant with the treaty’s fine print, but we’ve discovered that it allows us to storm Galiana’s

nest without breaking any terms. The technical phrase is a police action, I believe.”

Clavain saw that Voi was momentarily lost for words. That was hardly surprising. The treaty

between the Coalition and the Conjoiners—which Voi’s neutral Demarchists had helped draft—

was the longest document in existence, apart from some obscure, computer-generated

mathematical proofs. It was supposed to be watertight, though only machines had ever read it

from beginning to end, and only machines had ever stood a chance of finding the kind of

loophole which Warren was now brandishing.

“No…” she said. “There’s some mistake.”

“I’m afraid he’s right,” Clavain said. “I’ve seen the natural-language summaries, and there’s no

doubt about the legality of a police action. But it needn’t come to that. I’m sure I can persuade

Galiana not to make another escape attempt.”

“But if we should fail?” Voi looked at Warren now. “Nevil and myself could still be on Mars in

three days.”

“Don’t be, is my advice.”

Disgusted, Voi turned and stepped into the green cool of the shuttle. Clavain was left alone with

his brother for a moment. Warren fingered the leathery patch over his ruined eye with the chrome

gauntlet of his prosthetic arm, as if to remind Clavain of what the war had cost him; how little

love he had for the enemy, even now.

“We haven’t got a chance of succeeding, have we?” Clavain said. “We’re only going down there

so you can say you explored all avenues of negotiation before sending in the troops. You actually

want another damned war.”

“Don’t be so defeatist,” Warren said, shaking his head sadly, forever the older brother

disappointed at his sibling’s failings. “It really doesn’t become you.”

“It’s not me who’s defeatist,” Clavain said.

“No; of course not. Just do your best, little brother.”

Warren extended his hand for his brother to shake. Hesitating, Clavain looked again into his

brother’s good eye. What he saw there was an interrogator’s eye: as pale, colorless and cold as a

midwinter sun. There was hatred in it. Warren despised Clavain’s pacifism; Clavain’s belief that

any kind of peace, even a peace which consisted only of stumbling episodes of mistrust between

crises, was always better than war. That schism had fractured any lingering fraternal feelings they

might have retained. Now, when Warren reminded Clavain that they were brothers, he never

entirely concealed the disgust in his voice.

“You misjudge me,” Clavain whispered, before quietly shaking Warren’s hand.

“No; I honestly don’t think I do.”

Clavain stepped through the airlock just before it sphinctered shut. Voi had already buckled

herself in; she had a glazed look now, as if staring into infinity. Clavain guessed she was

uploading a copy of the treaty through her implants, scrolling it across her visual field, trying to

find the loophole; probably running a global search for any references to police actions.

The ship recognized Clavain, its interior shivering to his preferences. The green was closer to

turquoise now; the readouts and controls minimalist in layout, displaying only the most mission-

critical systems. Though the shuttle was the tiniest peacetime vessel Clavain had been in, it was a

cathedral compared to the dropships he had flown during the war; so small that they were

assembled around their occupants like Medieval armor before a joust.

“Don’t worry about the treaty,” Clavain said. “I promise you Warren won’t get his chance to

apply that loophole.”

Voi snapped out of her trance irritatedly. “You’d better be right, Nevil. Is it me, or is your brother

hoping we fail?” She was speaking Quebecois French now; Clavain shifting mental gears to

follow her. “If my people discover that there’s a hidden agenda here, there’ll be hell to pay.”

“The Conjoiners gave Warren plenty of reasons to hate them after the battle of the Bulge,”

Clavain said. “And he’s a tactician, not a field specialist. After the cease-fire my knowledge of

worms was even more valuable than before, so I had a role. But Warren’s skills were a lot less

transferable.”

“So that gives him a right to edge us closer to another war?” The way Voi spoke, it was as if her

own side had not been neutral in the last exchange. But Clavain knew she was right. If hostilities

between the Conjoiners and the Coalition reignited, the Demarchy would not be able to stand

aside as they had fifteen years ago. And it was anyone’s guess how they would align themselves.

“There won’t be war.”

“And if you can’t reason with Galiana? Or are you going to play on your personal connection?”

“I was just her prisoner, that’s all.” Clavain took the controls—Voi said piloting was a bore—and

unlatched the shuttle from Deimos. They dropped away at a tangent to the rotation of the

equatorial ring which girdled the moon, instantly in free-fall. Clavain sketched a porthole in the

wall with his fingertip, outlining a rectangle which instantly became transparent.

For a moment he saw his reflection in the glass: older than he felt he had any right to look, the

gray beard and hair making him look ancient rather than patriarchal; a man deeply wearied by

recent circumstance. With some relief he darkened the cabin so that he could see Deimos,

dwindling at surprising speed. The higher of the two Martian moons was a dark, bristling lump,

infested with armaments, belted by the bright, window-studded band of the moving ring. For the

last nine years, Deimos was all that he had known, but now he could encompass it within the arc

of his fist.

“Not just her prisoner,” Voi said. “No one else came back sane from the Conjoiners. She never

even tried to infect you with her machines.”

“No, she didn’t. But only because the timing was on my side.” Clavain was reciting an old

argument now; as much for his own benefit as Voi’s. “I was the only prisoner she had. She was

losing the war by then; one more recruit to her side wouldn’t have made any real difference. The

terms of cease-fire were being thrashed out and she knew she could buy herself favors by

releasing me unharmed. There was something else, too. Conjoiners weren’t supposed to be

capable of anything so primitive as mercy. They were spiders, as far as we were concerned.

Galiana’s act threw a wrench into our thinking. It divided alliances within the high command. If

she hadn’t released me, they might well have nuked her out of existence.”

“So there was absolutely nothing personal?”

“No,” Clavain said. “There was nothing personal about it at all.”

Voi nodded, without in any way suggesting that she actually believed him. It was a skill some

women had honed to perfection, Clavain thought.

Of course, he respected Voi completely. She had been one of the first human beings to enter

Europa’s ocean, decades back. Now they were planning fabulous cities under the ice; efforts

which she had spearheaded. Demarchist society was supposedly flat in structure, non-

hierarchical; but someone of Voi’s brilliance ascended through echelons of her own making. She

had been instrumental in brokering the peace between the Conjoiners and Clavain’s own

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