Wingrove, David - Chung Kuo 02 by The Broken Wheel (v3.1)[htm] Read Free Book Online Page B

that you may know where strength is superabundant and where it is
deficient.
    —SUN
TZU, The Art of War, fifth century b.c.
     
     
CHAPTER
ONE
     
     
The
Fifty-Ninth Stone
     
    IT WAS DAWN on
Mars. In the lowland desert of the Golden Plains it was minus 114
degrees and rising. Deep shadow lay like the surface of a fathomless
sea to the east, tracing the lips of huge escarpments; while to the
north and west the sun's first rays picked out the frozen slopes and
wind-scoured mouths of ancient craters. Through the center of this
landscape ran a massive pipeline, dissecting the plain from north to
south, a smooth vein of polished white against the brown-red terrain.
    For a time the
plain was still and silent. Then, from the south, came the sound of
an approaching craft; the dull roar of its engines carried faintly on
the thin atmosphere. A moment later it drew nearer, following the
pipeline. Feng Shou Pumping Station was up ahead, in the distance—a
small oasis in the billion-year sterility of the Martian
desert—discernible even at this range from the faint spiral
curve of cloud that placed a blue-white smudge amid the perfect
pinkness of the sky.
    The report had
come in less than an hour earlier, an unconfirmed message that an
unauthorized craft had been challenged and brought down in the Sea of
Divine Kings, eighty li northwest of Feng Shou Station. There
was no more than that; but Karr, trusting to instinct, had
commissioned a Security craft at once, speeding north from Tian Men
K'ou City to investigate.
    Karr stared down
through the dark filter of the cockpit's screen at the rugged terrain
below, conscious that after eight months of scouring this tiny planet
for some sign of the man, he might at last be nearing the end of his
search.
    At first he had
thought this a dreadful place. The bitter cold, the thin unnatural
atmosphere, the closeness of the horizon, the all-pervading redness
of the place. He had felt quite ill those first few weeks, despite
the enjoyable sensation of shedding more than 60 percent of his body
weight to Mars' much smaller surface gravity. The Han Security
officer who had been his host had told him it was quite natural to
feel that way: it took some time to acclimatize to Mars. But he had
wondered briefly whether this cold, inhospitable planet might not be
his final resting place. Now, however, he felt sad that his stay was
coming to an end. He had grown to love the austere magnificence of
Mars. Eight months. It was little more than a season here.
    As the craft
drew nearer he ordered the pilot to circle the station from two li out. The five huge chimneys of the atmosphere generator dominated
the tiny settlement, belching huge clouds of oxygen-rich air into the
thin and frigid atmosphere. Beneath them the sprawl of settlement
buildings was swathed in green—hardy mosses that could survive
the extreme temperatures of the Martian night. Farther out, the red
sands were rimed with ice that formed a wide, uneven ring of
whiteness about the Station. The generator itself was deep beneath
the surface, its taproots reaching down toward the core of the planet
to draw their energy. Like thirty other such generators scattered
about the planet's surface, it had been pumping oxygen into the skies
of Mars for more than one hundred and fifty years. Even so, it would
be centuries yet before Mars had a proper atmosphere again.
    Karr made a full
circle of the settlement, studying the scene. There were four
transports parked to the east of the pipeline, in an open space
between some low buildings. At first, in the half light, they had
seemed to form one single, indistinct shape—a complexity of
shadows—but through the resolution of field glasses he could
make out individual markings. One was a craft belonging to the
settlement; another two were Security craft from out of Kang Kua in
the north. The fourth was unmarked. A small, four-man flier, the
design unlike anything he had seen before on Mars.
    He leaned
forward