San Damien and the Red Daggers

by Brian Yapko

Table of Contents

Chapter 5: Unanswered Questions

Q. AIRPOST LETTER: CLEMENT FIRESPEAK TO ADRIAN MARLOW (July 22, 2990)

Advocate Marlow,

Forgive me if I withhold congratulations on your successful prosecution of my clients. Given the politics of this case, their conviction was probably a foregone conclusion. I do, however, appreciate your skill and professionalism, particularly when contrasted with the abrasive and prejudicial conduct of your Minister of Habitation Justice. I must now tax your professionalism once more.

As you know, Ji Bellamy has withdrawn as advocate for the Red Dagger defendants. From this point on, I will be their sole representative.

Now to the point. The defense has argued that the explosive device which my clients planted in San Damien (for which they took responsibility prospectively) was of a completely different nature from what they had believed it to be. For there to be murder, there must be malice aforethought. That did not exist in this case. This was an act of political expression — admittedly criminal in nature — which went horribly wrong. However, the Red Daggers never intended to kill anybody.

The standard for a new trial motion is the production of evidence which could not have been reasonably provided earlier. I believe I now have such new evidence at hand.

Devon Quindes is finally willing to speak and has agreed to give his statement under oath. Devon claims that a document exists that verifies my clients’ claims. It is hidden inside his flat in Burroughs. He says it is a letter that proves that the bomb was provided by an outside group and that the bomb’s purpose was demonstrative, not violent.

Devon was previously unwilling to testify because he believed the party that provided the bomb was deeply invested in Martian terraforming and that exposure of this party would halt the terraforming. However, Devon now believes that the Red Daggers were betrayed by someone who never intended to help the Numen. I hope you can now see why Devon refused to testify earlier.

Advocate Marlow, I appeal to your sense of decency. Six lives are on the line for a crime that, though heinous, was not their fault. It was this unknown party, whom we need to identify and bring to justice. The Red Daggers lacked malice. They deserve punishment, but surely not execution. A seventh life also hangs in the balance: Devon Quindes, at 15, does not deserve to be condemned either to death or to a lifetime in institutions for a crime he never intended.

In light of all this, I propose two items of post-trial discovery: (a) a site inspection of the flat of Devon Quindes; and (b) your interrogation of Devon Quindes under oath. I want you to accompany me to Burroughs to find that letter.

Is Xanthe’s advocate not compelled to learn the truth? You know the implications if my position is accurate. It means an enemy far bigger than the Red Daggers looms over Mars. That evidence must be allowed to see the light of day.

Advocate Marlow, come with me to Burroughs.

Yours Respectfully,

Clement Firespeak, NJC

* * *

R. LETTER FROM ADRIAN MARLOW TO ANNE MARLOW (July 25, 2990)

Dear Anne,

It’s over four months since you died. So much has happened.

I won convictions against the Red Daggers! The six adults, that is. This was the hardest trial of my life. The scale of the crime. Because I saw your face every time the word “victim” was spoken. It won’t bring you back, but I feel satisfaction knowing that these terrorists will hang.

To most of Xanthe I’m a hero. To a few Numen-lovers on the margins, I’m Satan himself. What did you used to say? Let the dogs bark? I did what justice demanded. Just one thing leaves me uneasy. None of the terrorists had the skill to create the type of bomb that went off. Not one knew enough about dome engineering to know how to cause total collapse. They didn’t even have schematics of the dome. Were they merely “useful idiots” for someone else?

They’ve been protecting someone they’d give their lives for. Who? The question has been dogging me for months. I thought that chance was gone forever, but something has changed and I may actually have the opportunity to find out.

The Numen advocate, Clement Firespeak, says the boy, Devon Quindes, is ready to talk. He claims to possess a letter that the Red Daggers leader received from “someone big.” A smoking gun letter that might create reasonable doubt and save their lives.

Firespeak wants me to go to Burroughs with him. He wants me physically present when this letter is retrieved. He thinks it’s the only way to establish foundation, because I’ll actually be privy to it being found.

Anne, I don’t have to do this. Why should I help this man and his murderous clients? I want these terrorists hanged. I don’t care if they’re innocent or not!

Jesus, Anne. Did I really just say that?

Listen. I’m not as good a man as you thought. How did you stay with me all these years? You who were kind to every living soul. What would you do?

I know what you’d do. Alright, Anne. I’ll go. I need to know the truth. I feel no great sympathy for these angry Numen, but I believe in justice. And you believed in goodness.

Plus I need to know who was really behind your murder, consequences be damned.

Do I explain my decision to Pound? He cares nothing for justice. He cares about the election in December. And he likes the taste of blood. I shall tell him nothing till after the fact.

Tomorrow I go to Burroughs, deep in the heart of hostile Numen territory. God help me.

Your loving husband,

Adrian

* * *

S. TRAVEL PERMIT (July 26, 2990)

UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE CONFEDERATION OF NUMEN TRIBES

TRAVEL PERMIT TO BURROUGHS, XANTHE, CNT
	Name of Traveler Nation of Residency Address Occupation Employer Date Projected Stay	Adrian Marlow Nation-State of Xanthe 12 Maxwell NE, Aberdeen Nova Advocate Xanthe Ministry of Habitation Justice 56 June, 873 (July 26, 2990 OE) Six hours
The bearer is required to carry this Travel Permit at all times. This Travel Permit may not be altered or transferred. While in CNT territory, the bearer must comply with all CNT regulations or face criminal penalties.

* * *

T. LETTER TO ANNE MARLOW (July 28, 2990)

Dear Anne,

Now that I’m back home in Aberdeen Nova here’s what I’m grateful for: clean air thick enough to breathe, heat, uncontaminated water, undehydrated food. The color blue.

I visited where this teenager, Devon Quindes, lived before his arrest. To call it an adventure... well, I’ve had enough of the Beyond to last a lifetime.

Here’s how it played out. I met Firespeak in front of his temp-flat here in A.N. He borrowed a habster from one of his supporters. The drive to Burroughs was uneventful, though interesting. It’s easy to forget the desert planet on the other side of the metakrylic dome.

We got to Burroughs about 11:00. Burroughs hasn’t changed since 20 years ago when I had my problems there with the XPF. A strange assortment of adobe buildings at the base of an enormous cliff — utterly exposed to Martian nature.

Firespeak exited the hab without a breather. I tried managing without a breather for just 30 seconds. I nearly suffocated. Firespeak watched me and laughed. He said “air-soft Trads shouldn’t even try it.” I guess that’s me: air-soft.

I’d forgotten how deeply uncomfortable it was to be the only Trad man surrounded by Numen. It also felt weird ambling through a city watching an entire race of people exposed to Mars without any life support. These outback people are darker than the Numen you see in the domes — probably all that ultraviolet light tanning the hell out of their skin.

We were met by a member of Numen law enforcement. He had me put a cos-hood on over my head so the Numen on the street couldn’t identify me. He said if people recognized who I was, they might well kill me. The Numen of Burroughs believed that the Red Daggers were set up. I knew this trip would be dangerous, but I didn’t realize how hostile they would be.

The Numen officer kept staring at me past his sunshades. Probably assuming I was a Numen-hater and wondering what a spoiled, air-soft Trad was doing in their capital. In fact, in the city of — what, 50,000 Numen? — I saw maybe three other Trads total, all traders. Even though they didn’t know who I was, the breather and the cos-hood surely shouted to them that I was Trad. I got a lot of hostile looks from the people on the street as we were escorted to the Percival Catacombs. Still, I’m confident no one recognized me as the man who had prosecuted six of their own.

No vehicles were allowed in the town center. There were agravs, wasps, tuk-tuks. Firespeak insisted we walk. He wanted me to get a feel for how the Numen live — where the Red Daggers came from. I think he wanted to rub my nose in it.

Once I got used to being surrounded by these hostile, alien-looking people, it struck me how normal life in Burroughs felt. It was just Martians going about their business: costermongers selling vegetables, stalls in the bazaar selling fabrics in long rolls, icons of deities I couldn’t recognize. This must be how the poor cities of Earth looked before the Dolf-Yago Impact. It felt like stepping backwards in time.

A peculiar thing, though. I wasn’t the only one using a breather. Maybe 20% of the Numen were as well. Firespeak explained that with the failure of the satellite array, Martian air has become unbreathable even for many Numen, especially the old and infirm. That’s why they’ve started to live underground. And why so many of them seek refuge in our domes. They can’t afford to build their own domes, and the very idea of a Numen dome is anathema to most of them.

Walking through the narrow alleyways of Burroughs, I finally grasped the implications of tefo failure. The surface is quickly becoming uninhabitable. Frankly, if this were something that affected the Trads, we’d have found the resources to fix the satellite array. But the Numen have neither numbers nor political clout nor wealth. Their days of living on the surface are numbered. Soon they’ll have to migrate into domes that don’t want them and are unequipped for their peculiar anatomy. They’ll use breathers. They’ll seek out caves and build habitats underground like in the pioneer days. They’ll belong nowhere.

I mentioned these things to Firespeak. He said, “Very good, Marlowba. You’re starting to understand the pressures we Numen face.” He was a bit condescending. But this is the crux of the problem between the Numen and Trads. A people whose world is being destroyed and who have nowhere to go will do anything to save themselves.

That brings me to Devon Quindes. Of course, I researched his background at length. He’s no juvenile delinquent. He comes from one of the oldest families on Mars. The Quindes family wasn’t rich, but they managed the fees for Corelli Academy where he got top grades until he dropped out last year. His parents were farmers: Obed and Jerusha Quindes. They both died last year. Outback Cancer, which is becoming a common condition in the Beyond. After his parents died, Devon fell far and fast. He quit school, took what money was left out of the homestead, moved to Burroughs and disappeared.

The filthy tenement where he ended up... Anne, I’m grateful you didn’t have to see it. It’s one of those carved out-of-rock flats two levels down in an underground complex they call the Percival Catacombs.

There’s an old plaz door tagged with graffiti on the face of a cliff. Someone painted the words “Abandon Hope All Who Enter Here” in red. There are some traditional petroglyphs on the cliff wall, but it’s mostly tagged with graffiti. Hateful anti-Trad messages. Firespeak says there is serious gang activity in Burroughs.

We entered through the Abandon Hope doorway. We passed through an airfoyer which only half works but once you get through, it doesn’t much matter. There’s enough air to take your breather off. Then you immediately wish you hadn’t due to the dust and the stench. A combination of urine, marijuana, spoiled amlek, whiskey and dog. Yes, dog. A pack of Arean hounds subsists in the main cavern, begging and snarling.

I almost couldn’t continue from the stench. Firespeak seemed embarrassed by the way his people live. But he was also defiant. “Not everyone can afford a flat in Bonum Caelum,” he said, taking a dig at some of Aberdeen Nova’s city council. Anyone could easily read his mind: This is how we have to live. This is how we subsist.

The back of the main cavern tapers off into a wide tunnel, which leads down to a network of passageways. There are dozens of chambers built into them, almost like those dioramas you see of ant hills. This is where the dregs of Numen society live. The stench gets worse the lower you descend. You hear “hance” music from behind closed doors. We saw a Numen man passed out in front of his flat. He reeked of whiskey.

I was nauseous. I started to put my breather on, but Firespeak slapped it from my face and said, “Don’t you dare.” His fury shocked me. I almost punched him. Then I figured that for an hour, I could experience how the Numen live. We kept going. The urine-whiskey-dog stench was joined by a flinty smell. Mars before people came and changed it.

There were three levels of passageways and chambers, most no more than the size of a jail cell. A bed, a flame-toilet, a water-sink, a quantumizer to cook with and that’s about it. I asked about showers, and Firespeak showed me the tub room as we passed by. It was a hole in the ground filled with fetid water. He said most of the residents use airwash. Ineffective. Another cause for the stench of Percival Catacombs.

We found Quindes’s flat. The Catacombs manager unsealed it. He was short and dark, even for a Numen. He glared at me with those amber eyes like I was the devil. Is that what these people think of us?

Quindes’s flat was a crime scene: Numen SF searched it when the Red Daggers were arrested. When they broke in and arrested Quindes, they say he was just lying on his bed strumming a banjolin. Didn’t even bother getting up. The smashed banjolin is still there in a corner of his flat along with cockroaches, one of the few Earth imports that seem to be everywhere on Mars.

The room looks like a cave dwelling from neolithic times. No window, no light, bare rock walls. Claustrophobic. And lonely.

Little to personalize Quindes’s cell except some fantasy jals strewn on the ground, piks of some Numen people — his parents, Jerusha and Obed, presumably — and a pantry full of dehyde and canned amlek. How a boy from a decent family could live in such grinding poverty is beyond me. For the first time I felt sorry for this orphaned Numen boy. What kind of life did he have? I began to fathom how he and his friends felt like they had nothing to lose.

There was a chamber in the wall completely hidden by adobe that Devon had painted to match the rockface. Firespeak had instructions on how to find it. There were some old family registry papers.

There was something else in that chamber but I...

Anne, I’m not prepared to talk about it just yet. I should have told Firespeak, but I didn’t. We had come for a letter on bamboo paper. I found it and handed the letter to Firespeak. As he was distracted reading it, I took a foolish risk and did something I now regret. I can’t tell you just yet. Let’s see how things play out.

I don’t want to write any more, Anne. I’m tired. We retrieved the letter. I’d had enough. I had done and seen more than I wanted to. It was time to come home. Nothing else worth mentioning was said between Firespeak and me on the way back to Aberdeen Nova.

I need to have a drink now, Anne. Maybe two. Then some food. And then I’m going to sleep for twenty hours. Tomorrow I’ll get ready to question Quindes. I’ll write when I can.

Your loving husband,

Adrian

* * *

Proceed to Chapter 6...

Copyright © 2023 by Brian Yapko

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