So we have met the High Martians.
These rather bellicose chaps are smaller in stature than either the Steppe or Hill Martians, but have a membrane connecting arm to body that can be used as a wing. This, in conjunction with a "lift gland" that produces a similar chemical to Liftwood sap, conveys the power of flight to the High Martian. This, along with their remarkable prehensile feet, makes them a power to be feared in the mountainous areas of Mars as they swoop through the air, spears gripped in their feet.
High Martians live in immense, multi-tiered "Kraag"s excavated into cliffs. They are fierce, terriorial, clannish. They capture and keep slaves from any and all races. They perhaps of all the races on mars deserve the epithet "savage".
We have also brushed up against the Ground Cleanser movement.
This is a socio-political movement, sometimes represented by high organisation, sometimes only by sympathy of views, which can be summed up as "Earthman Go Home", inside the boundaries of the Boreosyrtis League more specifically as "Englishman Go Home". Regarded as a terrorist organisation by the Colonial Office and by the British Armed Expeditionary Forces, most martians will likely show degrees of sympathy with the message, if not the methods, of the more zealous members.
Extremist Ground Cleansers have made common cause with Dynamiters and Fenians, clearly reveling in the paradox of having hated earthmen become actively involved in driving other earthmen off Mars. Ground Cleansers are known to act as agents of other Terran nations on Mars.
Ground Cleansers have committed kidnapping and murder against Her Majesty's subjects and sabotage against Her Majesty's military and bureaucracy infrastructure on Mars. Proof of Ground Cleanser activity is enough to get any Martian hauled off to some secret location for interrogation and imprisonment.
Interest and participation in the Ground Cleanser conspiracy increases during times of outrage, and stories of outrage spread like wildfire on a regular basis, whether or not they are rooted in fact. As our team have already discovered, Ground Cleanser fanatics can marshal surprising levels of cooperation from the local populace, which they do by fanning such stories of Terran perfidy. A wise earthman or earthwoman will always have at the back of their mind that no matter how well they get on with a specific martian individual, that individual will have Ground Cleanser members in their family or circle of acquaintances even if they harbour no such sympathies themselves.
Life has not become more complicated for the team; the team has became more attuned to the complicated life of which they've become a part.
No comments:
Post a Comment