So it was impossible, sends Orphu of Io. While you were schmoozing with the Greeks and Trojans, our science ‘vecs, both Five Moons and Belt, have been studying terraformed Mars. It wasn’t done by magic, you know… asteroids were used to melt the ice caps and free the CO2, more asteroids were targeted on the huge underground frozen water deposits and crashed into the Martian crust to set H2O flowing on the surface after millions of years, lichen, algae, and earthworms were seeded to prepare the soil for larger plants, and all that could happen only after fusion-fired oxygen and nitrogen generating plants had thickened the Martian atmosphere by a factor of ten.

In his submersible control crèche, Mahnmut quits tapping at his computer screen. He unjacks from virtual ports and lets the schematics and images of the sub and its reentry shuttle fade away. That would mean… he sends hesitantly.

Yep. That means that it took almost eight thousand standard years to terraform Mars to its present stage.

But… but… Mahnmut is sputtering on the tightbeam line, but he can’t help it. Asteague/Che had shown them astronomical photos of the old Mars, the airless, cold, lifeless Mars, taken from Jupiter and Saturn space only a standard century and a half ago. And the moravecs themselves had been seeded in the Outer System by human beings less than three thousand years earlier. Mars certainly hadn’t been terraformed then—except for a few domed Chinese colonies on Phobos and the surface, it was exactly as the early probes from Earth had first photographed it in the Twentieth or Twenty-first century or whenever.

But … sends Mahnmut again.

I love it when you’re speechless, sends Orphu, but there is none of the accompanying rumble that usually means the hard-vac moravec is amused.

You’re saying that we’re either talking magic or real gods here… a God-type god… or… Mahnmut’s tone on the tightbeam is approaching anger.

Or?

That’s not the real Mars.

Exactly, sends Orphu. Or rather, it’s the real Mars, but not our real Mars. Not the Mars that’s been in our solar system for lo, these billions of years.

Someone… something… swapped… our Mars… for… another… one?

It appears that way, sends Orphu. The Prime Integrators and their top science ‘vecs didn’t want to believe it either, but that’s the only answer that fits the facts. The sol-day thing cinched it.

Mahnmut realizes that his hands are shaking. He clasps them, shuts off his vision and video feeds so he can concentrate, and sends—Sol-day thing?

A small matter, but important, sends Orphu. Did you happen to notice during your travels through the Brane Hole between Mars and the Earth with Ilium that the days and nights were the same length?

I guess so but… Mahnmut stops. He doesn’t have to access his nonorganic memory banks to know that the Earth rotates once every twenty-three hours and fifty-six minutes, Mars every twenty-four hours and thirty-seven minutes. A small difference, but one whose disparity would have accumulated during the months of their stay on both Mars and the Hole-connected Earth where the Greeks were battling the Trojans. But it hadn’t. The days and nights on both worlds had been the same length, synchronized.

Jesus Christ, whispers Mahnmut on the tightbeam. Jesus Christ.

Maybe, sends Orphu, and this time the rumble is there. Or at least someone with comparable God-powers.

Someone or something from Earth punched holes in multidimensional Calabi-Yau Space, connected Branes across different universes, swapped our Mars for theirs… whoever and wherever “theirs” is… and left that other Mars… the terraformed Mars with gods on top of Olympos… still connected to the Ilium-Earth with quantum Brane Holes. And while they were at it, they changed the gravity and rotational period of Mars. Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and holy crap!

Yes, sends Orphu. And the Prime Integrators now think that whoever or whatever did this little trick is on Earth or in near-Earth orbit. Still want to go on this trip?

I… I… if… I… begins Mahnmut and falls silent. Would he have volunteered for this trip if he’d known all this? After all, he already knew how dangerous it was, had known since he’d volunteered to go to Mars after being briefed on Europa. Whatever these beings were—these evolved post-humans or creatures from some other universe or dimension—they’d already shown themselves capable of controlling and playing with the very quantum fabric of the universe. What’s a couple of moved-around planets and altered rotation periods and gravitational fields compared to that? And what the hell was he doing on the Queen Mab hurtling toward Earth and its waiting god-monsters at a velocity of 180 km/sec and climbing? The unknown enemy’s control of the quantum underpinnings of the universe—of all universes—made this space-ship’s puny weapons and the thousand sleeping rockvec soldiers on board seem like a joke.

This is sort of sobering, he finally sends to Orphu.

Amen, sends his friend.

At that moment alarm bells begin ringing all over the ship, while alarm lights and klaxons override tightbeams and flash and clang across all other shared virtual and comm channels.

“Intruder! Intruder!” sounds the ship’s voice.

Is this a joke? sends Mahnmut.

No, replies Orphu. Your friend Thomas Hockenberry just… appeared… on the deck of the engine room here. He must have quantum teleported in.

Is he all right?

No. He’s bleeding profusely… there’s already blood all over the deck. He looks dead to me, Mahnmut. I’ve got him in my manipulators and I’m moving toward the human-hospital as fast as my repellors can get me there.

The ship is huge, the gravity is greater than anything he’s operated in before, and it takes Mahnmut several minutes to get out of his submersible, then out of the hold, and then up to the decks that he thinks of as the “human levels” of the ship. Besides enough sleeping and cooking quarters and toilets and acceleration couches to accommodate five hundred human beings, besides an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere set at sea-level pressure to be harmonious for humans, Deck 17 has a working medical infirmary outfitted with state-of-the-art early Twenty-second Century surgical and diagnostic equipment—ancient, but based on the most updated schematics that the Five Moons moravecs had on file.

Odysseus—their reluctant and angry human passenger—has been the only occupant of Deck 17 for this first day out from Phobos, but by the time Mahnmut arrives, he sees that a majority of the moravecs on the ship have gathered. Orphu is here, filling the corridor, as is the Ganymedan Prime Integrator Suma IV, the Callistan Cho Li, rockvec General Beh bin Adee, and two of the pilot techs from the bridge. The door to the medlab surgery is closed, but through the clear glass, Mahnmut can see Prime Integrator Asteague/Che watching as the spidery Amalthean, Prime Integrator Retrograde Sinopessen, works frantically over Hockenberry’s bloody body. Two smaller tech ‘vecs are taking Sinopessen’s orders, wielding laser scalpels and saws, connecting tubes, fetching gauze, and aiming virtual imaging equipment. There is blood on Retrograde Sinopessen’s small metal body and elegant silver manipulators.

Human blood, thinks Mahnmut. Hockenberry’s blood. There is more blood spattered here on the floor of the wide access corridor, some on the walls, and more on the pitted carapace and broad manipulators of his friend Orphu of Io.

“How is he?” Mahnmut asks Orphu, vocalizing the words. It is considered impolite to tightbeam in the company of other ‘vecs.