“Marine! Hey, Marine!”
A gloved hand slapped his right shoulder, startling him. “Wake up, son.”
He turned quickly, dropping into a defensive crouch before he saw that it was Captain Warhurst, his helmet tucked under one arm.
“Sir!” Garroway came to attention.
“At ease, at ease,” Warhurst said. “I just wanted to requisition your pig sticker.”
“My…what?” Then he realized Warhurst was talking about the three-meter spear he carried. Several other Marines had gathered nearby…Corporal Womicki, Sergeant Schuster, Sergeant Dunne, Lance Corporal Vinita. Kat Vinita was carrying an American flag, still folded in a tight blue triangle with the white stars showing.
“Flag-raising time,” Warhurst said. “Gotta let ’em know down below we’re all right.”
Schuster and Dunne attached the flag to the butt end of the spear. Together, then, the six of them planted the spear tip in a crack between paving stones close to the western edge of the pyramid’s top, wedging it in tight. They stepped back and came to attention as the flag unfurled in the freshening Ishtaran breeze, thirteen stripes and fifty-eight stars representing the United Federal Republic. Captain Warhurst saluted for the six of them.
Those stars, arranged in three concentric circles on the blue field, suddenly and irrationally and almost painfully reminded Garroway of home. The referendum to determine statehood for Sinaloa and the other three Mexican territories had been scheduled for six years ago. He wondered if this flag with its fifty-eight stars was out of date now.
It still represented home, no matter how many stars it bore.
He felt something catch in his throat and swallowed to clear it. Flag-raisings. There was a particularly emotional connection with this one, as he remembered photos of two other similar flag-raisings, one at Cydonia on Mars during the UN War a century ago, and the one on the original Suribachi a century before that.
His ancestor, Sands of Mars Garroway…what would he think if he were here now, watching this simple ceremony?
Garroway’s helmet external mikes were picking up a strange sound. He tried to identify it—a low-pitched rushing or roaring—and failed. Damn, if he just had a link to the net….
“Detail, dismissed!” Warhurst said.
Garroway unfastened his helmet and pulled it off one-handed, trying to make out the source of the sound with his own ears. It was coming from…
Ah. That was it. Looking down on the Legation compound from his vantage point atop the Pyramid of the Eye, he could see a huge crowd of Marines in the courtyard near the north gate. The sound…he was hearing cheering, the sound of hundreds of Marines cheering the flag atop this alien Suribachi.
“I need volunteers,” Warhurst said. “We’re going down to the Chamber of the Eye. Who’s with me?”
The other four all had their hands up, and Garroway raised his own. His arm was beginning to hurt now, a dull, pounding throb in his shoulder, but nothing serious. He felt fine…maybe a bit light-headed.
“Where’s your weapon, Marine?” Warhurst asked him.
“It kind of got bent on a Frog’s skull, sir,” he replied.
“Is your arm okay? There’s blood on your armor.”
“I think I got winged by a gauss round, sir. Doesn’t hurt, but I’m having a little trouble moving it.”
“Okay. Here.” Warhurst unholstered his sidearm, a heavy, 15mm Colt Puller, and gave it to Garroway. He unslung his other weapon, a Sunbeam LC-2132 laser carbine, a lightweight weapon that was low-powered compared to a 2120 but didn’t need the three-cable connection with a shoulder-carried power pack. “Okay, Leathernecks. Move out!”
Together, they began descending the pyramid’s western steps. Behind and above them the flag continued to flutter in the breeze.
Chamber of the Eye
Pyramid of the Eye
Shumur-Unu
Third Period of Brightening Day
Tu-Kur-La emerged through the inner passageway from the Deeps, stepping into the Chamber of the Eye. He felt a bit light-headed, mildly dizzy, almost, with the shock of the past few periods. The Memories had not prepared him for this…not at all.
The Ahannu were gods. Gods. Beings who once had strode among the far-flung stars, wielding lightnings that could render whole worlds barren and lifeless. How was it that these Blackhead warriors—these Marines, as they called themselves—could defeat the combined will and consciousness of the Zu-Din?
He found the charred and broken corpse of Zah-Ahan-Nu near the outside entrance to the Chamber. The Blackhead fliers had seared this entire side of the pyramid with their light weapons, burning down hundreds of god-warriors swarming up the steps. Zah-Ahan-Nu, the Keeper of Memories serving as an eye of the Zu-Din, had gotten too close to the sky outside and been caught in the firestorm.