Saving Mars Box Set
Author: Cidney Swanson
Date: 2013-12-09T08:00:00+00:00
Publisher: Williams Press

SAVING MARS

THE SAVING MARS SERIES Books 1-3

THE SAVING MARS SERIES

Saving Mars Book One

Defying Mars Book Two

Losing Mars Book Three

Cidney Swanson

Summary: Seventeen-year-old Jessamyn Jaarda flies to Earth to raid for food for the starving Mars Colony. Earth-Mars relations couldn’t be worse, and her brother is captured in the raid. Breaking rules of no contact, Jess finds an ally in Pavel, but their friendship only makes more agonizing the choice before her: find her brother or save Mars?

Copyright © 2012, 2017, 2024 by Cidney Swanson

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover art © by Nathalia Suellen. All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-1-939543-11-0

Also by Cidney Swanson

The Saving Mars Series

SAVING MARS

DEFYING MARS

LOSING MARS

MARS BURNING

STRIKING MARS

MARS RISING

The Shadow of Mars Series

SO DARK THE SKY

SO BRIGHT THE STARS

SO STILL THE DAWN

For Toby

Chapter One

NOT BIG ON PROTOCOL

She was the kind of girl who slept with books on her bed. Not merely collections of books stored on computer wafers, but actual paper-made books from Earth, one of which lay upon its belly, spine protesting. It was this unforgiving surface that woke Jessamyn early, having already imprinted a crease along one side of her face. She sat up rubbing her cheek, rolled over, and kicked off the bed, landing silently so as not to awaken her family.

The getting-out-of-bed-before-the-sun wasn’t a preference for Jess; rather, being perennially out of funds forced her into resourceful behaviors where she spent time (which she had) instead of credits (which she lacked.) She wished she were the sort of daughter who purchased thoughtful gifts for the ones she loved, but she couldn’t hold on to credits very long. The cause for this littered her bed.

As she crept through the central room of the dwelling, Jess saw her walk-out boots, leaning upside down next to the heat exhaust. The sight made her smile; her older brother had placed them there, of course. Ethan had known his sister would be ice cutting today. He understood, as Jessamyn did, what would make their mother happy on her birthday. As long as you didn’t blatantly hoard, Mars Colonial generally turned a blind eye to the mandate against water acquisition for personal consumption. Jessamyn was no water-grubber—she hadn’t flown to the northern polar cap for lucky ice since her mother’s last birthday, and birthdays only occurred twice annually.

Slipping into the airlock that kept Mars’s frigid air from entering their home directly, Jess shivered. The thermometer told her it was well below freezing. Working fast, she shoved her legs through the walk-out suit designed to protect her from the harsh environment outside. A quick seal up the front, feet into warmed boots, helmet secured, and she was ready to go.

No one had questioned her when she put in the requisition for a planet-hopper yesterday. First Lieutenant LaFontaine, whom everyone called Lobster because of his red beard and hair, liked Jess and let her take a vehicle overnight when she asked.

It was just an old settler’s superstition about polar ice being lucky, but a gift of ice would give her mother at least a week’s reprieve from pain. A sufferer of dry-lung, Jessamyn’s mother found relief from breathing humidified air—a practice abandoned a generation ago when the Mars Mandate had been adopted.

Closing the airlock behind her, Jess crossed the permafrozen ground and climbed aboard the tiny craft. Within seconds, she was airborne.

Lobster hadn’t asked what Jess wanted a planet-hopper for, and Jess hadn’t told. It was both illegal and dangerous to visit the polar caps. Marsian ice only melted when some external heat was applied, such as the heat from a descending planet-hopper. No matter how carefully you flew, hoppers came down hot. And if you came in hot, the ice melted and refroze, holding your craft so that it tended to become a permanent feature of the icescape. A handful of abandoned vehicles littered the northern polar cap.

But Jessamyn was a good pilot. An exceptional pilot, like her mom had been before her accident. When Jess reached the northern pole, she teased the thrusters on and off a handful of times, bouncing the craft up and down until the surface cooled the landing gear to where Jess could sense the ice losing interest in seizing her craft. It was a method she’d invented before she’d turned ten. Her father had tried (unsuccessfully) to have the unusual landing introduced into the pilot curriculum at the Academy. Jess had received a polite vid-mail from the academic dean thanking her for her inventive spirit, but explaining that her method taxed several parts of the landing gear beyond what they were designed to support.

“In other words, Mars Colonial doesn’t want citizens running to the poles whenever their refiltration system needs water,” Jessamyn’s mom had said. Jess’s father had scratched his head and agreed with the dean’s point that the landing method was likely to damage certain models of planet-hoppers. Jessamyn’s brother hadn’t said anything aloud, but by that afternoon, he’d sent a set of modified ship designs to the Academy which would allow for safer Jess-style landings. These, the Academy implemented in hopcraft design going forward; Ethan’s genius had been apparent to them from early on.

Jess hadn’t bothered requesting one of the newer modified ships, which required approval by Lobster’s commanding officer. Consequently, her borrowed planet-hopper objected to her several land-and-release bounces by groaning and emitting a series of red-flashing blips and beeps. She disregarded these; the hopper was fine. She knew this craft as well as she knew her own brother. Perhaps better, even. Ethan was the less predictable of the two in many ways.

After double-checking the systems that were essential for ignition, Jessamyn began to power down the craft. Standard protocol required leaving a vehicle idling when stopping at a remote locale such as a polar cap. Standard protocol also specified that the correct number of persons in a craft visiting the poles was two and not one. Jess didn’t think much of standard protocol. Besides, if she turned the engines off, she could imagine herself as an early settler, living when Mars hadn’t held enough air pressure for sound to travel far on the surface.

Jess felt a quiver of happiness run through her as the small craft quieted. She heaved the seal-door open and stepped out onto the planet’s frozen crust. There it was: the absolute silence of the red planet. Jess smiled and glanced briefly at the sky—still some stars out—before turning her attention to the land below. Before her lay Mars’s true wealth. The discovery of tellurium deposits—rare on Earth—had created a frenzy of excitement once, but since the No Contact Accords had ended all legal trade with Earth fifty orbits ago, it had become clear that water, and not tellurium, provided Mars’s true hope for a future. As such, water was highly regulated, and even the wealthiest citizens conserved to hurry the dream of a terraformed Mars into reality.

Overhead, the sky was shifting from inky darkness to a warm purple. Jess allowed herself a few minutes to gaze upward. Even the Terran satellites, circling in their deadly orbits, looked beautiful in the pre-dawn sky. She identified her favorite spring constellations before they blinked out—the Apple Tree, the Three Tilapia, and the Horn of Plenty. In the pause before dawn, the stars seemed especially close, as if Jess could reach up and pluck one from the sky for her mother’s birthday gift. She smiled, imagining her mother’s response. Oh, Jessamyn. Where am I going to keep this? There’s no room! It was her mother’s favorite complaint in spite of the fact that their family had a larger dwelling to accommodate Ethan’s alter-abilities.

Low in the sky, Jess identified the warm glow of Earth. Terra, the home world of her human forebears, was about to set, dipping below the horizon line. A swelling rush filled her ears, made her fingertips tingle.

Earth.

Terran-Mars relations might be non-existent (dwellers on the red planet went so far as to refuse to be called by the Earth-name Martian, insisting upon Marsian), but Jessamyn still ached to see vast Terran oceans, to soar through clouds, to catch snow on her tongue. All these things—and many more—her pirate granddad had spoken of. Jess’s earliest memories were filled with his tales. She would never have traded her life on Mars for a life on Earth as a filthy body-swapper, but she ached to visit, to see the wonders of the blue-green planet with her own eyes. In fact, Jessamyn had enrolled in pilot training for one purpose: so that she could qualify as a Mars Raider, piloting as her grandfather had done, as her mother might have done.

The thought of her mother brought Jess back to the task at hand, and sighing, she pulled her gaze from the heavens. Before her spread a wide expanse of late-spring ice. Today, it was covered in dull, gritty dirt, evidence of a recent storm. Her work was simple enough. It was only a matter of finding a section of cuttable ice, working quickly, and getting away without succumbing to the desire for the riches that a larger and then a larger cut of ice would yield in certain back streets of New Houston. But the acquiring of wealth wasn’t a real temptation to Jess. The things she wanted most weren’t things at all.

When Jess switched her headlamp on, a stunning transformation rendered the dull surface into a symphony of reds, tans, and dark browns struck through with glistening points of ice. She moved her headlamp from side to side, watching ice crystals wink on and off. She imagined this would be what fireflies (something she’d only read of) looked like. The gutter-and-spark so beguiled her that she forgot for several minutes the task that had brought her to the polar cap. But at last, twinkling made her think of birthday candles which reminded her of her purpose.

The sun, close now to breaching the horizon, seemed to be telling her to hurry along as well. Squatting, she sliced her heat knife through a layer of frozen dirt. As she shifted the outer layer to one side, her breath caught anew. The ice hidden below the surface glittered, having formed a tiny, crystalline cavern into which her lamplight now flashed. She stared for a moment, awestruck, gazing until her eyes ached from brightness which gleamed like a small mine of diamonds.

Blinking, she bagged her frozen prize and turned back to the planet-hopper. Her mom’s birthday had fallen on the same day as the Festival of Singing Ice this annum, and Jess would be hard pressed to finish her academy flight hours if she didn’t hurry home now. And she couldn’t wait to see her mother’s lined face soften as she opened the gift. Lillian would scold her daughter for cutting ice, of course, but her eyes would also kindle with a delight that had grown rarer with each passing orbit.

From her mother, Jessamyn had inherited both her red hair and an uncanny ability to fly. Any craft, under any conditions. To some, it looked as if the ships simply acknowledged Jess’s inherent right to pilot them. The truth was that Jess understood ships, which perhaps boiled down to the same thing.

“You’re not happy this morning,” Jess murmured to the planet-hopper as it lifted free of the planet’s low gravity. As if in response, the ship shuddered. “We’ll get Lobster to have a look at that port thruster as soon as we get you back to base.” Her fingers skipped along the control panel, making a series of adjustments to calm the complaining engine. Jess didn’t mind the extra demands the hopper made of her this morning; in truth, she preferred flying manually.

She aimed her craft south and to the east, which would take her away from the jet-black sky. She wished she had time to fly west first, then turn to enjoy a second dawn, but what with her mom’s birthday and the Ice Festival, it would be a busy day. She waved a goodbye to the night sky, smiling as she picked up speed.

A moment later, an explosion in the port thruster wiped the smile off her face. Orange sparks spun from her craft, bright against the night sky. Even as some part of her mind registered the beauty of the fiery trail on her aft view screen, another part was busy running through scenarios that would not end with her as a splat upon Mars’s cold surface.

The ship’s emergency systems came to life, and a message flashed across the screen before her: Contact MCAB immediately! From inside her helmet, the warnings were reproduced aloud: “Pilot, initiate emergency contact with Mars Colonial Academy Base.”

Jess’s heart rate jumped as she evaluated the damage to her craft. She’d lost a thrust engine, which was bad, but she hesitated to contact the base. Even though none of her attempts to stabilize the vehicle were working yet, she didn’t want some grounded land-lubber telling her what to do. She knew that in a few moments, if she failed to call in the incident, the ship’s controls would cease responding to her commands and re-route to the Academy Base instead. Ethan had shown her a work-around to keep control of her ship in such a situation, and she quickly keyed in the coding for it. Her gut told her she was seconds away from having the command of the ship shifted to someone on base.

Her gut was not wrong.

“Pilot-in-training Jessamyn Jaarda, this is Academy Base. We’ve got a report of a thrust engine failure on Planetary Hopcraft Bravo-Tango-One-Three-Four. Please confirm. Over.”

Her mouth felt dry inside and she realized she’d left her dwelling without sipping her morning wet ration.

“MCAB, this is BT134. I’m on it,” she shouted back.

The ship pitched violently in response to an adjustment she made. “Okay, not that one,” she muttered. Her head spun, registering the nauseating effects of the failed fix. Attempting to regain her bearings, she called up a new set of readings on the navigation screen. She didn’t like what she saw. The ship didn’t like it either, and spewed forth a new series of warnings to eject forthwith.

Jessamyn did not need additional warnings clamoring for her attention now. Dancing her fingers along the control screen, she succeeded in disabling the ship’s internal audio and visual warnings. Now she only had to deal with a craft careening out of control and a base flunky who probably wanted her to abandon ship.

“BT134, we’re attempting to run additional tests to determine the degree of danger associated with your situation,” said the base official.

Jess knew what was wrong with her craft: her secondary port engine had blown to smithereens. Without responding to MCAB, Jess addressed the sharp yaw pulling her counter-clockwise. “Easy does it,” she murmured, engaging vertical stabilizers to counter the ship’s desire to spin like a top.

“Trainee Jaarda? We’re having difficulty communicating with your ship’s navigational controls.”

They wanted to force her off of piloting her ship. Oh, no you don’t! Jess thought. Aloud, she said, “Yeah, there might’ve been some damage to navigation.”

There was a pause in the MCAB chatter and then came the one order Jess knew she would not obey.

“BT134, we’ve decided it would be in your best interest to abandon your craft. We have a lock on your coordinates and will send someone to recover you within the hour. Over.”

Eject? The thought filled Jess with a hot flush of anger, causing her skin to match her fiery hair. She’d corrected her yaw and roll and she still had one engine on her port side. She would not abandon her planet-hopper. They were a valuable class of ship. Hades, she had three out of four thrusters. Fueled by anger, she realized what she needed to do. Forget vertical landing; there’s more than one way to bring this baby down.

“Trainee, you are ordered to eject from your damaged craft now. Do you copy?” said the tinny voice.

“I’m having trouble receiving you, MCAB. Please say again.” Jess hoped they’d buy that.

“Jess, this is Lobster.” A new voice registered in her helmet. “I know you can hear me. Get your skinny little hindquarters off that ship before it blows up.”

She shook her head—an answer no one at MCAB could see.

“Jess, that’s an order. I suggest you comply.”

She could imagine Lobster’s face, redder than usual as he tried to talk her out of the sky.

“It’s not going to blow. It was just the one engine,” she argued. “I can bring her in, Lobster.”

A new malfunction warning began flashing on her panel. The primary port thruster!

“Holy Ares!” she cried.

“Jess, eject now!”

“Kind of busy here,” she shouted, switching off power to communications.

If the primary port engine gave out, she’d be spinning in circles momentarily.

You are making it home. It was both statement and command, to herself and the ship—they were one creature now, with one shared fate. Jess settled into a cool and quiet place in her head where her mind seemed to meld with her craft. She raced through a power-down like she’d done at the pole. While she knew they couldn’t glide all the way back to MCAB, she thought she could bring both of them down safely in the Great Sand Pit.

“You’d better appreciate the efforts I’m making here,” she said to her craft. “‘Cause we are both making it home!” She cut the oxygen supply to her ship’s starboard engines and breathed a sigh of relief as the engines flamed out.

Everything went silent and the cabin dimmed, lit only by the rising sun. She felt a moment’s panic: had she kept her speed high enough to land using only rudder, stabilizers, and ailerons? It wasn’t like they taught this in class. She made an adjustment to the ship’s yaw—it responded and she sighed in relief.

This is going to work! She reached out to pat her nav-panel.

For as long as Jess could remember, she’d wanted to try an old-school horizontal landing. MCAB covered the concept in stale texts, all designed to explain how vertical take-off and landing improved efficiency, saved fuel, and cured the common cold. Jessamyn didn’t care. Today, a protracted horizontal landing would keep one more hopper operational. She was honest enough to admit she couldn’t wait to try it.

With her primary nav-panel powered down to cut off communication with MCAB, Jess would be relying on her memory of the location of the Great Sand Pit. It would have been a lot harder in the middle of the night, but dawn brought vivid color to life: the deep red of Bradbury Canyon, the pinky-browns of Mount Cha Su Bao. Jess knew right where she was and how to get to where she needed to go. She experimented with the spoilers, and her heart beat faster as she felt the ship respond, gliding up and then down in relation to the planet’s surface. Once she could see the Haddad Hills, she began her descent.

The ship responded eagerly and Jess murmured to it, “Bet you’ve always wanted to try this too, huh?” The vast lake of silica opened before them. Using the spoilers to full effect, Jess felt herself descending and slowing. It was noisy as anything, but so easy—almost too easy. She grinned broadly, imagining how she would demand this form of landing to be included in the pilot curriculum just as soon as someone came out to get her. As the sand rose up to meet the ship, a memory or instinct told Jess to keep her nose up as long as possible.

Impact, when it came, felt as unlike the gentle descent as possible. Jessamyn hurled forward toward the front viewing window, her harness cutting into her walk-out suit at the shoulders as it prevented her from striking the polycarb. Immediately after, she was flung to the left. She experienced a split second of weightlessness followed by a slamming sensation that made it feel like her skull was parting company from her brain. A final jolt forced her downward into her seat, and then the world tilted to one side as the ship spun clockwise, digging its way into the deep brown sand. Jess held her breath to see if she’d truly landed. Emergency lighting glowed pale blue, directing her to an exit hatch. She scrambled out, noting a sharp pain in her left shoulder where the harness had apparently been overzealous in protecting her. Quickly, she checked her suit’s integrity. It was no use setting foot outside if her walk-out suit had torn. But no, her suit remained fully functional. She blinked in the sun, stepping round and round her craft. It was in one piece. The undercarriage would be scratched to Hades, but she could tell the hopper would fly again.

Jess began laughing and hugging herself. Shouting to the sand and sky, she cried out, “Worst landing ever!” Then, grinning, she bounced up and down several times.

Unfortunately, the landing was easy compared with the news that awaited Jess when the rescue crew arrived thirty-two minutes later.

“Pilot-in-training Jessamyn Jaarda, you are hereby suspended from all flight until further notice.”

Jess felt her temper flare at the words of the helmeted officer delivering this appalling news. “I just saved a planetary hopcraft from certain destruction. No way are they grounding me. I’ll appeal the decision to the Academy dean.”

She peered to make out the face behind the speaker’s reflective helmet. She’d been certain Lobster would come to find her or her charred remains, but the voice hadn’t sounded like Lobster’s. She felt a twinge of disappointment that her fate meant so little to him. And then, as she caught a clear glimpse of the face inside the pressurized suit, she felt sick. There would be no further appeal—she’d been sentenced by the dean of the Academy himself.

Chapter Two

FOR THE LOVE OF MARS

In the early days of Mars Colonial, surviving to another birthday had been an accomplishment worth recognizing. But Mars’s annual orbit around the sun took 686 Earth days, and waiting that long for a birthday felt wrong to early settlers. In the end, they kept to the Terran reckoning of age which resulted in almost two birthdays per annum, or single Mars orbit. Later Marsians stuck with the tradition because no one particularly wanted to give up their “extra” birthday.

Today’s celebration of Lillian Jaarda’s spring birthday had been subdued by Jessamyn’s announcement that she’d been suspended from flight. Jessamyn would not be rushing off from the birthday party to training. She would not be dashing from training to the Festival of Singing Ice. Instead, she found herself with seven long hours before she could even think about preparing for the festival—an event she no longer cared about. Even her books failed to console her. What was there left to care for if she’d been grounded?

“Make yourself useful. The solars need scrubbing,” said her mom, turning briefly from her algae pots to her morose daughter.

The solar panels always needed scrubbing. It was a job Ethan liked, as it got him out of the house. And Jess knew better than to argue with her mother after this morning’s debacle. There had been an abrupt thank you for Jess’s water gift and silence on the subject of the suspension from flight. Her mother’s lack of response wasn’t a good thing or a sign of indifference. Lillian Jaarda had been a promising pilot—the most promising of her generation—and Jess now felt the weight of her mother’s disappointment pressing upon her like a malfunctioning airlock.

Ethan joined his sister outside before long and the two worked in companionable silence. Ethan didn’t tell Jess that he was sorry about her suspension, although she knew he was. But it wasn’t a subject she felt like discussing. It was a gaping hole in the center of the universe and if she stared at it too long, it might suck her in like a black hole.

“I am relieved the planetary dog will be at the festival,” said Ethan, breaking a two-hour’s silence.

Jess knew that if she waited, her brother would probably add something more to give the remark context. The two continued scrubbing side by side. Their oversized home required more heat and oxygen than most houses and a correspondingly greater number of solar panels.

“I do not have any of its hair,” said Ethan.

Jess tried to untangle the path of thought that had led her brother to make these two statements. Ethan collected things. Ethan loved the planetary dog—the only animal on Mars. Ethan would be at the festival tonight because he was receiving another award for something he’d invented. This line of thought led Jess to figure out why her brother was thinking about the dog: Ethan was probably worried about the crowds and trying to find a focal point which would keep him from becoming overwhelmed by the high levels of stimulation.

“Collecting a dog hair would be a good thing for you to focus on tonight, huh, Eth?”

Ethan didn’t say anything. He’d stopped scrubbing and was staring blankly at the solars.

“Hey, Eth, come back to me,” said Jess. “You’re going to be fine tonight. I promise.” Well, she hoped her brother would be fine. Although the festival occurred in a large and open space—the kind of environment Ethan liked—something about crowds made Ethan respond as though he were in a tightly enclosed space. Now Jess had something to worry about besides how miserable an existence she would lead without flying.

“You could stay home,” suggested Jess.

“No.”

“Mom’s staying home this time.”

“No.”

“You really want that dog hair, huh?”

Ethan smiled. “Yes.”

Jess laughed. Her brother was a genius, but he had some very odd quirks, like his collecting. He’d created a series of layered-level boxes holding objects he found meaningful. Or interesting. Or something. Jess wasn’t able to divine the guiding principle behind his collections.

When she’d been small, she’d thought of his containers as miniature houses: Ethan would wall off each collected item so that when you looked at one of the levels from above, it was as if you were peering inside a house where the roof had been removed. Each level stacked atop an earlier level so that the whole thing resembled a multi-storied building.

Her brother’s soft voice interrupted her thoughts.

“You will fly again, Jessie.”

Jess was undisturbed by the abrupt change of subject—normal for Ethan—but she flushed at his use of her baby-name. Her fair skin colored at the least provocation and burned easily. Friends murmured with jealousy that Jess was sure to get her First Wrinkle before any of the rest of them.

“Who wants to be a Mars Raider, anyway,” she said, feigning indifference.

“Jessamyn does,” replied her brother.

“Yeah,” she agreed quietly. “No fooling you, huh?”

“I know that you want this badly enough to risk capture upon Earth, to risk being re-bodied, to risk starting a new war—”

“All right, already,” said Jess, cutting him off. “Yes to all the above. And tons more. Hades, Ethan. I need a get-out-of-jail-free-card at this point.” She bumped into her brother’s shoulder—a form of contact he tolerated—as she referenced a Terran game he loved.

But Ethan shook his head. “You need an advocate—someone who will stand up for you and alter the decision of the dean or the board of directors.”

“How about you?”

“No,” said Ethan. “My skills in the art of persuasion are negligible. Also, I believe you acted wrongly. You need someone who can persuade others that your wrong action was a right action.”

Jess laughed, causing her walk-out suit to rush additional oxygen to her helmet. “You’re a freak. You know that, right?”

“So you have told me.”

Jess shook her head. “Let’s call it a day. My afternoon wet ration says I can beat you at a game of Monopoly.”

They bounded back toward the house, bantering.

“Jessamyn cannot beat me,” insisted Ethan. “There exists adequate data to demonstrate this.”

“Then I guess Jessamyn will be pretty thirsty come the festival Tea Offering,” she replied, subtly reminding him to refer to her with a pronoun instead of by proper name.

After a short pause, Ethan said, “You will be as dry as Mars.”

“Oh, good one,” she said. Figures of speech were challenging for her brother, who thought almost exclusively in terms literal.

They re-entered the dwelling, shrugging out of their suits. Jess felt her brother’s anxiety rising in the enclosed space.

“Monopoly,” she said, redirecting his attention. “Go find it.” She hoped it would be enough to distract him out of a downward spiral that led, ultimately, to panic and the fetal position.

“Yes,” he said, a tiny smile forming.

She breathed a sigh of relief. Her brother’s phobias and idiosyncrasies became more pronounced when he had a large event looming before him. She appreciated that for most families, the Festival of Singing Ice in spring and the Festival of Coming Cloud in fall were joyous occasions. A time to meet people you hadn’t seen all annum. A chance to hear one of the Secretary General’s inspiring speeches. But for Ethan, the festivals were primarily hurdles to get past.

Still, the fact that their mom was planning to stay home this annum meant that at least one member of the family felt confident Ethan could handle the crowds and noise. Jess hoped her mom was right.

~ ~ ~

“Take care of your brother,” murmured Jessamyn’s mother. “You know what your father’s like at these things.”

Yes, Jess knew that her dad would be at his absent-minded-professor-est at this event where so many vied for his attention.

“Maybe I should go,” her mother said, frowning.

“No, Mom,” said Jess. “It’s your birthday. You stay home and enjoy the humidifier. Ethan will be fine. He’s a man on a mission.”

Her mother raised one eyebrow.

“He wants a piece of dog hair for his collection,” explained Jess as her father joined them.

Her father looked surprised. “All those birthday visits to pet the planetary dog and he doesn’t already have one?”

“Guess not. At least, not from this planetary dog,” said Jess.

She had no idea if this was the same dog or if they’d had to bring a new embryo out of cryo since her childhood. Jess had never once touched the planetary dog on her birthday visit. She’d refused year after year and given up the visits as soon as she’d turned ten Terran years old. Ethan’s visits had continued until his seventeenth birthday.

“I am ready,” said Ethan, emerging from his room. He’d dressed up for the occasion, donning a proper lapelled jacket.

Jess could see the orange collar of his favorite tee shirt circling his neck like one of Saturn’s rings. “Pull down on your tee,” she said. “It’s showing.”

Ethan adjusted his shirt. Jess knew no one would laugh aloud at her brother anymore. He was too well-respected. But she didn’t like to see him looking so obviously different. Still, if donning a worn-out tee was what it took to keep him comfortable for the evening ahead, she was all for it.

They arrived at the Crystal Pavilion early to give Ethan the chance to become gradually surrounded by increasing numbers of people. Jess kept him busy viewing exhibits from school-age children, studying works of art, and of course, looking for planetary dog hairs. New Houston’s Ice Fest brought citizens from all over the northern hemisphere together for one very big party. While Marsians inherited much of the independent spirit of their pioneering forebears, they knew that their best chance of survival in the unfriendly climate was to maintain excellent relations with their neighbors. “We need one another,” was an oft-repeated Marsian proverb.

Lobster lumbered over to Jess, a sad frown disfiguring his face. “I’m sorry Jess, I did what I could for you, but …” He didn’t need to say it. You disobeyed a direct order rang out clearly in both of their minds.

“I know,” she said.

Jess had managed to keep her fears about never flying again from the surface until she said those two words: I know. She felt a contraction in her throat and a burning behind her eyes. Like all Marsian children, she knew better than to waste water with tears. She squeezed Lobster’s large forearm and moved off, herding Ethan toward the front of the Pavilion so he wouldn’t have to push through the crowd to receive his award later. The Secretary General and CEO of Mars Colonial would be addressing the gathered crowd shortly. Most of the members of the board of directors had already taken their seats on the raised dais.

You need an advocate. Jess heard her brother’s words in her head. She scanned the faces of the board members. Several were friendly with her father, most owed her brother a huge debt of gratitude for some solution he’d proposed during various crises. But none knew Jess on a first name basis. She doubted any would recognize her. And they’d all agree with Ethan, most likely. She’d clearly and obviously committed a wrong action. Worse, she’d do it again, given the chance.

Jess glanced at her brother as the Secretary General marched on stage, followed by a black, white, and tan Australian shepherd. The crowd surged forward, clapping and stomping in support of the planet’s most popular leader in two centuries. Jess saw her brother reaching for his eyebrow, stroking it once, twice, three times, before replacing his hand at his side.

Only three times, she thought to herself. That’s good. She wished she could comfort her brother with a quick squeeze, but she knew that her touch would increase his discomfort. Instead, she leaned close, whispering a reminder.

“Don’t forget your third eye,” she murmured in reference to a membrane-implant her brother had invented. By blinking in rapid succession, the eye forced the membrane to drop into place. It served only one purpose: the membrane allowed a person to see items hidden under or behind high-tech cloaking material. Ethan didn’t react well to surprises, and festival organizers loved springing a surprise reveal of an onstage object or person. The membrane helped. When she was small, Jessamyn had pestered him for one of her own ‘til he’d said yes.

Waiting for the crowd to settle for the Secretary General’s opening remarks, Jess blinked rapidly, causing the membrane to slide down. Sure enough, onstage—hiding beneath a cloak—rested a beautiful ice sculpture of a teapot. A tribute to the Tea Offering, no doubt. She looked over at her brother, who was studying the hidden sculpture with great interest.

Crisis averted, thought Jess.

The Secretary General began her speech commemorating the accomplishments of the past half-orbit since Cloud Fest. Jess’s ears pricked when she heard her mother’s name praised for her Household Algae Pot Program, but mostly she missed the Secretary’s speech. She was moving from face to face down the row of board members, trying to decide which one might be willing to advocate for her, to get her back in the air.

Even thus preoccupied, however, Jessamyn couldn’t help looking back to the Secretary General when it came time for the Presentation of Plenty. The entire room silenced as a screen appeared so that every citizen of Mars Colonial could see with their own eyes the store of ration bars in their copper-shiny wraps. Like everyone in the room with her, Jess found comfort in viewing the food supply that would keep starvation at bay until such a time as Marsians could grow non-toxic crops.

The current Secretary provided ridiculous access to Rations Storage, in case there were any doubting Thomases among the citizenry. Rations Storage sat next to the Crystal Pavilion and all were welcome to tour the facility on any non-distribution days. Mostly, families strolled past the rows-upon-rows of foodstuff only during festivals. Jess had never bothered with the tour. She knew firsthand, from her granddad, the exact date upon which the nutrition bars would run out: one annum after the next raid was scheduled to be completed. Which meant just over three annums from now.

Jess’s heart rate picked up at the thought of raiding. To be considered for piloting the next raid, she needed hours. To get hours, she needed her suspension revoked. She had to get back in the air.

The Secretary continued speaking as the screen behind her cleared. “Citizens of Mars, over three Terran centuries ago, our foremothers and forefathers arrived upon this planet, having determined that humanity could and would prosper upon Mars as it had upon Earth. They came for many reasons: some for fame, others for wealth, many to satisfy an abiding curiosity. But they stayed for only one reason: for the love of Mars.”

Secretary Mei Lo paused as heads nodded and a few “amens” sounded. Then she continued. “But after two centuries had passed and Terrans grew desperate upon Earth, battling the dark fronts of environmental disaster, poverty, and hunger, the governments of Earth declared the Mars Project a failure and refused to send needed supplies, even those Marsians had paid for with tellurium shipments. Colonists remained, tightening their belts. Why did they remain?” Her eyes swept the room as she waited before pronouncing the words. “For the love of Mars.”

The room grew silent as the Secretary reached the darkest part of the tale. “Some left to join the Re-body Movement on Earth. Yes, some chose to leave. But your ancestors remained. Every one of you on Mars today is here because your great-great-great grandfather or grandmother thought Mars was worth fighting for. And when war came—a war not of our making—your ancestors fought. When Terrans set their deadly satellites in high orbit surrounding Mars, we protested. When they demanded we return to Earth, we declared our independence. And when Terran aggressors destroyed our orbital mirrors, forcing temperatures back toward frigid pre-colonization levels, we grieved. But did we give up? Did we give in?”

The answer came back, resounding as it did every annum at the festival: “No!”

“No,” repeated Mars’s Chief Executive Officer. “We did not give up and we did not give in.” She raised her hands in anticipation as she asked the question, “Why?”

The answer thundered through the building: “For the love of Mars!”

The Secretary reached her trademark ending: “Citizens of Mars, my friends and my inspiration—we will prevail. We will create the Mars our ancestors could only dream about. Work hard. Be courageous. Be bold.” Here she paused, smiling. “And always, be as generous as a dog.” She bowed and sat beside the planetary dog, giving it a quick pat on the head.

Jess felt a shiver run its way from her head to her toes. No generation of Marsians had ever known a braver or more inspiring leader. Jessamyn had arrived tonight indifferent to the Ice Festival’s marking of the anniversary of Marsian colonization. But she felt certain no one could have remained indifferent after that speech. She wondered how it affected Ethan. She turned to look at her brother as a group of very tiny schoolchildren bounced onto the stage to sing.

But Ethan was no longer beside her.

“Hades and Aphrodite,” she muttered under her breath, glancing behind for her brother. A few people frowned at Jessamyn’s lack of attention to the singing children. Jess smiled weakly and moved off to one side, slipping down the length of the building, looking for her brother. She jerked her head swiftly to one side, activating another of her brother’s inventions—an inner earpiece that allowed the two to communicate.

“Ethan?” she whispered. She suspected she already knew where to find him—against the back, where a patch-worked wall of glass soared over five meters high to the ceiling. The Crystal Pavilion had been named for this glass-work, an ancient effort pieced together by the first generation of Mars-born pioneers. Sure enough, Ethan stood, staring out at the planet’s surface, his forehead just touching the glass.

“You okay?” she asked softly.

“I am better now. The window helps. I began to feel trapped. The number of people this annum …” Ethan broke off.

Jess heard the strain in his voice and her heart melted for her brother and his vulnerability in this environment. “Let’s find your dog hair and get out of here,” Jess murmured.

“They were using vac-mechs onstage,” said Ethan.

“The invention they’re giving you the award for?”

“Yes,” said her brother. He’d come up with the device to improve the air quality of heavily occupied interior spaces where people with dry-lung suffered worse than in their small homes. He spoke again. “The vac-mechs will have gathered all the dog hairs.”

“Can you … I don’t know … empty it?” asked Jessamyn.

“The mech incinerates whatever it gathers,” replied Ethan.

“Ah,” said Jess.

A sonorous gong rang out across the pavilion, bringing the roar of the crowd down to a soft whisper. “The Tea Offering,” murmured Jess.

“Harpreet is as generous as a dog,” said Ethan.

Harpreet Mombasu, retired pirate-raider, spoke softly into a voice-amplifier. “Won’t you join me for tea?” Some annums she spoke at length. The crowd stood in quiet anticipation, to be sure she had finished. Apparently however, she had no more to say, for the tea servers had already begun handing out small rations of tea from behind a row of tables set end-to-end along one side of the pavilion. This annum, or maybe the next, would see the end of the small stash of tea Harpreet had brought back from Earth. She could have hoarded it. She might have sold it for an untold fortune on Mars. Instead, she had chosen to brew it once an orbit for the Festival of Singing Ice and to offer cups to every man, woman, and child on the planet for the asking.

“How many cups of tea can one woman drink?” she was often quoted as having said, and the saying had been added to Mars’s other pithy proverbs.

“Harpreet!” murmured Jess. “Harpreet!”

Ethan looked at her inquisitively.

Jess felt a wild, hopeful fluttering deep in her belly. “Don’t you see? Harpreet will go to bat for me!”

“Go to bat?” asked Ethan.

“Figure of speech,” explained Jess. “I mean, she’ll advocate for me, Eth! And then they’ll have to listen. She’s … she’s … well, she’s Harpreet!”

Ethan’s brows furrowed for a moment and then he nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I believe Harpreet might succeed where others would fail.” He brought a clutching hand to his belly and forced himself to look out the window again.

He’s not doing well, thought Jessamyn.

“I’m taking you home,” she said aloud. “I’ll make your apologies and then we’ll go.”

“Yes,” said Ethan, pressing his head to the glass.

Jessamyn dashed to the front of the hall and explained to festival personnel that her brother felt too unwell to collect his award. Then she found her father, interrupted his technical explanation of the algae pot program to a group of students, and murmured into his ear that she had to take Ethan home.

Her father frowned. “Should I go with you?”

“No, I’ll drop Ethan off at home and come back for you later,” she replied.

Before returning to her brother, Jess grabbed an assortment of Festival souvenirs, hoping one or more would keep his attention during the brief journey home. He wasn’t fond of traveling in the enclosed space of the family’s tiny get-about. But in less than twenty minutes, Jess managed to get herself and her brother suited-up for the ride, into the get-about, out of the get-about, and back inside their home.

By this time, she felt desperate to return to the Ice Fest in hopes of speaking with her grandfather’s friend, Harpreet Mombasu. When she arrived once more in downtown New Houston, parking was a nightmare. Her family’s original space had, of course, been taken, and Jess ended up leaving the get-about on the far side of Rations Storage.

Grumbling every step of the considerable distance, Jess pondered how best to approach Harpreet. The old raider was known for thinking unconventionally, but could she be made to agree that Jessamyn had done a right thing and not a wrong thing by disobeying a direct order? Jess threw her arms up. Who knew?

She bounced along the paved surface swiftly in Mars’s low gravity, sparing only a quick glance for something that caught her attention as she passed the storage facility’s front windows. The building looked empty at the moment, although she caught sight of several of her brother’s vac-mechs, hungrily seeking the leavings and detritus of today’s thousands of visitors. All of whom were probably back inside the Crystal Pavilion now, cheering as medals and honors were given in the Awards Ceremony. She would have to see about collecting Ethan’s.

There it was again, a flash of something caught only by her peripheral vision. She looked into the windows as she continued alongside the rations facility. And then she saw it. A bright tongue of flame.

One of her brother’s vac-mechs had caught fire.

Jess hesitated. The building looked empty—predictable during the awards ceremony. Was no one watching the security feed? She could call for help, but fire would spread quickly in the oxygen rich environment of Rations Storage. Someone needed to put that fire out now, before it spread. On instinct, she pressed the button of the next airlock door she came to. Not bothering to remove her walk-out suit, Jess pushed through the secondary door and dashed toward the small mech. The quivering flame looked like it was dying, and Jessamyn felt a moment’s relief. But as she stepped forward to make certain the fire was out, a terrible thing happened. Jess heard a loud explosion and reeled as something struck the side of her helmet with enough force to knock her sideways.

Chapter Three

NOT DYING LIKE THIS

The chunk of exploding vac-mech knocked Jessamyn to the ground and sent her skidding along the smooth floor of Rations Storage. Sliding, she reached out with her right leg, hoping to catch it against one of several shelving units. The maneuver worked, but the shelf teetered precariously as she came to an abrupt halt. And then, to Jess’s dismay, the entire unit tipped and came crashing toward her. She rolled to one side, narrowly escaping entrapment as a dozen ration boxes tumbled to the ground.

Jess didn’t think they would have crushed her, but she had no time to wonder. Looking back to where the exploding vac-mech had first attracted her attention, she saw bits of it, scattered and still flaming. She vaulted upright and dashed back to stomp out the dozen tiny fires. She started with the largest, blazing alone surrounded by several feet of nothing, but then realized this fire was the least likely to cause problems. A few meters away, three other burning pieces of vac-mech threatened to either melt or ignite objects they touched. Jess hesitated, glancing from one to the next, trying to decide which fire to put out first.

“Aw, Hades!” she cursed, flying toward one that had, in fact, caught a nearby box on fire. It made no sense—why would a metal box catch fire? Too late, she realized the answer. Flames exploded from the container as an oily and highly flammable substance oozed out the box’s damaged corner seams. The liquid followed gravity’s call and flared a path to Jess. She jumped back, noticing a second fire growing in ferocity to reach her own height and beyond.

She reached for her emergency call button, hitting it twice before making a true connection. “Fire!” she shouted. “In Rations Storage! Hurry!” She glanced about desperately, seeking something she could use to douse or smother the flames. A banner hung on a nearby wall announcing fifty annums of Marsian independence.

“Make yourself useful,” she growled at the outdated piece of fabric as she yanked it from the wall. Turning, Jessamyn realized that the oil-fire had jumped, replicating itself several times. The entire shelf appeared to hold containers of the flammable liquid. She beat the banner against the hungry flames, but her efforts seemed futile. Worse than futile. The banner itself ignited and Jess had to throw it to avoid catching her garments on fire.

Where were New Houston’s emergency techs?

Just then Jessamyn heard the sound of another explosion, from somewhere behind the flames now threatening to engulf her. A second vac-mech? Another explosion sounded. And then another. From behind, Jess sensed a sudden brightening. As she turned, she realized to her horror that the cloth she’d thrown aside had ignited several shelves of ration boxes.

“No, no, no!” she screamed, beginning to fear for her own life. Flames surrounded her on all sides. She could feel heat through the suit. And that was very, very wrong. Walk-out suits were designed to protect the wearer from temperature change. How hot was it in here?

A small memory came to her from early school days, and she threw herself to the ground, seeking out the least deadly-looking of the many flaming objects surrounding her. You are not dying like this, she told herself. Find a way out! But there was no way out—no way that didn’t involve passing through flame. She thought she could smell smoke: was it her imagination or was her suit giving up? Dragging herself forward on her elbows, Jess crept toward the most diminutive of the fires closing in on her. She felt certain she could smell the awful odor of burning suit as she shimmied through a gap between two growing fires.

Black smoke drifted lazily, and she wondered how long her walk-out suit would protect her; it was intended to ward off cold, not heat. Crawl, she commanded herself. Groaning and crashing sounds rang out behind her, and she witnessed a large shelf to one side of her buckle, appearing to deflate as it melted from the high temperatures. Keep crawling! You will make it to one of those airlocks! She didn’t know if the doors would function or seal her inside. Just crawl!

A door shimmered into view two meters away and she jumped up and ran for it, noticing that one of her suited legs appeared to be smoking. She beat at it and registered a sensation of hot that quickly died back. As she reached to open the door, another shelf collapsed, toppling and pinning her so that, try as she might, she couldn’t reach the airlock button.

This is it, she told herself as a yellowish dust filled the air. Your own personal “the end.”

But then strong hands lifted the groaning shelf from off of her back. Jess scrambled to stand. The air was a mixture of black smoke, grey ash, and drifting soot.

“She’s helmeted,” cried the woman who’d pulled her free. “I’ll get her outside.”

Jess felt herself being lifted and carried out of doors. Shaken and grateful, Jess leaned on the tech.

“Are you injured?” asked the woman as she helped Jessamyn inside an emergency vehicle.

“Don’t think so,” grunted Jess. Her throat felt like she’d gargled sand.

The woman pointed to two medical techs already removing Jess’s helmet. “This is Ngala and that’s Frank. They’ll take good care of you.” With that, the woman dashed back outside.

Minutes later, Jessamyn recognized her father’s helmeted form as he entered the parked medical vehicle. The med techs stood aside to allow Jess a quick hug from her dad.

“You’re okay?” he asked.

Jess spoke, her voice gravelly. “Never better.”

For the next hour, with her father at her side, Jessamyn submitted herself to a series of pokings, proddings, and measurings all of which confirmed what she already suspected: she was fine. Her air system had been contaminated during the last minute inside the building, but she hadn’t taken serious smoke into her lungs, and the med techs assured her that her throat would feel fine by morning.

When a Mars Colonial Command representative came by to question her, Jess described the fire from her perspective.

The official shook his head as Jess finished. “You’re an exceptionally lucky young woman,” he said.

But when Jess asked what kind of damage the building had sustained, the official shook his head. “We have a team evaluating the situation,” was all he would say.

Jess’s father squeezed her shoulder. “I’m sure they’ll tell us all about it tomorrow, when they know more.”

At last, the medics declared Jessamyn fit for release. She was offered a new walk-out suit which smelled funny and tugged in all the wrong places. Jess fell asleep on the drive home and could barely keep herself awake enough to slip out of the hateful new suit and crawl, exhausted, into her bed.

In spite of the grave ordeal, she dreamed not of fire, but of flying.

Chapter Four

BOTH KINDS OF WISDOM

Harpreet Mombasu was the most curious citizen ever to dwell in New Houston. She was curious about the weather, curious about technological advances, curious about school essay competitions and sporting events. But mostly, she was curious about people. She appreciated the opportunities that city life afforded for encountering a wide swath of humanity. She loved conversation and good, strong tea. Since her own generosity prevented her from consuming the Terran beverage more than once per annum, she had become a consumer of chat, a connoisseur of the tête-à-tête. She’d come closer to speaking with every citizen of Mars Colonial than anyone before her had or anyone after her would.

Harpreet (she refused to go by her official title of Raider Mombasu) had a reputation for seeing a person’s future that led many parents to bring their children to her for advice about career paths. In reality, it wasn’t the future she could see, but rather the quintessential person-ness of whomever came before her. Nine times out of ten, Harpreet could tell from a single interaction with someone what that individual would find most satisfying in life.

In short, she listened well and truly.

Jessamyn hoped the old pirate would follow her regular schedule the next day, going to the New Houston Fountain. Jess left early, avoiding her father’s inevitable, “Don’t leave the house without your wet ration. It’s the most important water of the day.” She wasn’t planning to skip it.

Lacking anything that resembled an actual water feature, the New Houston Fountain served one product: wet rations. It was housed in a glass-like structure beside the Crystal Pavilion. As with many of the city’s popular destinations, pressurized tunnels connected the Fountain to the larger pavilion.

Arriving, Jess passed through the outer door of the airlock. She shifted her shoulders in a practiced move which allowed her to slide off her irritating new walk-out suit. She would need to inquire after a replacement. Looking through the inner windows, Jess searched for Harpreet’s dark skin and bright smile. She glimpsed the raider admiring a very new baby in its mother’s arms. At least there wasn’t a line of people wanting a word with Harpreet.

Jess placed her helmet on a locker shelf and hung her suit below it. She’d forgotten house-shoes, so that meant slipping back inside her walk-out boots. Tapping the airlock button, she stood, impatient. “Come on, come on,” she muttered to the sticking door.

It released with a gasping sigh and she squeezed through as soon as the gap would accommodate her, hurrying to the side of her intended savior.

Harpreet seemed to be saying goodbye to the woman and child.

“Harpreet,” Jess called.

Harpreet, her dark eyes dancing with delight, stood with outstretched arms. “Jessamyn, child!”

The greeting reminded Jess that there were niceties to be gotten through before she could blurt out her problems.

“Goodness,” exclaimed Harpreet, “How you’ve grown! How long has it been since we’ve sipped water together?”

Jess felt her face and neck heating up. It had been half a Marsian annum; Jessamyn had celebrated a birthday since visiting the old pirate, dear friend of her departed granddad. She’d meant to stop by. She’d thought about sending a video greeting. But she’d forgotten to do either. She mumbled an apology and asked after Harpreet’s health.

“I am well.” Harpreet nodded her head in a tiny bow and then narrowed her eyes. “And you, child? Your name is upon everyone’s lips this morning.”

“Why?” Jess felt suddenly worried. “Are they saying it’s my fault?”

“No, child. What a dreadful thing to assume,” replied Harpreet. “Everyone speaks of your bravery, daughter.”

Jessamyn frowned. She hadn’t felt at all brave. “Do they know the extent of the damage yet?” she asked.

Harpreet tilted her head to one side. “The Secretary General will be making an announcement shortly. I think it would be unwise for me to say more.”

Jessamyn nodded. She wasn’t here to talk about the fire, in any case. “Did you already have your morning wet ration?”

“No, child. I have been sitting here, waiting to see who the Divine might bring my way this morning.”

“Oh,” said Jess. “Well, I don’t want to get in the way of anything, um, divinical.”

Harpreet gazed for a long minute into Jess’s eyes. Then she reached her soft, brown hands to take one of Jessamyn’s. “I see only you before me this morning.”

“Oh,” Jess repeated. She smiled a tiny bit.

“Let us go place our orders, shall we?” asked Harpreet.

Jess wondered how the old woman knew she hadn’t already sipped water with her family. Maybe Harpreet really could read minds.

The old raider leaned in and whispered, “Your lips are still chapped this morning. You weren’t planning to skip the most important water of the day, were you child?”

Jess touched her lips self-consciously as the two crossed a small plaza, joining a line of others waiting for their morning fix. When Jess reached the front of the line, she pressed her thumb atop a glowing square.

“One regular,” she said. “Please,” she added, thinking of Harpreet’s easy politeness.

“We’ll have that right out for you,” said the young man, indicating the far end of the counter.

Jess collected her drink and looked around for an empty table out of earshot from others. She found one nestled into a corner and waved Harpreet over to the lonely nook. Harpreet had stopped to scan her thumb at a ration-vending box. After retrieving a copper-wrapped bar, the old woman walked briskly to join Jess.

“So, my dear Jessamyn,” said Harpreet, angling into a chair across from Jess, “How can I help you today?”

Here goes, thought Jess. She took a deep breath and began. “There’s been a terrible mistake.” As the suspension and the fire swirled together in her mind, she felt her chest tighten.

“Have a sip first, daughter,” said Harpreet. Her voice sounded so sad, as though she, and not Jessamyn, had just lost her future.

“I’m so sorry,” Jess murmured as she blinked back tears.

“There is no shame in a tear or two,” replied Harpreet. “They are a gift from the Divine meant to remind us to pay attention to our feelings. You have survived a terrifying ordeal.”

Jess shook her head. “It’s not that. I didn’t come to talk about the fire.”

Harpreet’s dark eyes widened a fraction of a centimeter as she raised her eyebrows. Go on, she seemed to say.

“I’ve been suspended from flight,” said Jess. “Even though I did everything right. I saved my ship. I kept retrieval costs to a minimum, bringing it in as close as I could. I did the best job I could, Harpreet, and now they won’t let me fly.” She lowered her voice. “For all I know, they may kick me out of the Academy.”

The old woman reached for the copper-colored nutrition bar and began peeling the wrap away from the ration inside. The wrapper caught a bit of sun and flashed orangey-gold light back at the window. She smoothed the wrap, preparing it for the recycling mechs, not meeting Jessamyn’s eyes.

“You are not being expelled,” said Harpreet at last.

Jess swallowed in relief. She’d been worried that with the Ice Fest and the fire, something had slowed down her receipt of an expulsion notice. But if Harpreet declared her still a student, she was still a student. She watched as the old woman examined the date-stamp on the wrapper. It listed a Terran time Jess never paid any attention to.

“I miss your grandfather, Jessamyn,” said Harpreet.

Jess looked up and saw that the old woman had now fixed her gaze upon the Marsian landscape.

“He was one helluva pilot,” said Harpreet. “I’ll never forget his fearlessness, taking on the passage through the satellites.”

Jess squirmed. She didn’t want to be impolite, but she wasn’t here to discuss her pirate granddad.

Tapping the date-stamp with a bony finger, Harpreet spoke. “I remember the day he and I loaded this particular shipment of rations onto the Red Galleon.”

“This exact ration shipment?” asked Jess.

Harpeet nodded. “He was in a foul temper that day. It was our second on Earth and he thought that, as pilot, he should be exempt from such a menial task. A quick look at the duties roster showed that he was wrong. He’d signed on without reading the fine print.” Harpreet laughed. “Oh, he was angry.”

Jess wondered how to politely bring Harpreet back around to the problem at hand.

“But a pilot must always obey orders,” continued Harpreet, meeting Jess’s eye. “Our commanding officer exercised her right to keep your grandfather working the entire day. He swore at her long and loud, but she didn’t back down—”

“And when they returned home, she married him,” Jess murmured. It was a story she knew well.

“When they returned, they married,” agreed Harpreet. “And it lasted just long enough for your mother to be brought into the world.”

Jess nodded. Her grandparents’ divorce was notorious. Most Marsians, if they married, stayed married for life.

“He could only see things from one point of view, your grandfather.”

Jess remembered the arguments between her granddad and her mom. “His point of view,” she said.

“Precisely,” said Harpreet. She pushed her mostly uneaten ration bar a few centimeters away. “Do you know, I find I have less appetite as the orbits go by. Would you do me the great courtesy of preventing my ration from being wasted?”

Jess stared at Harpreet. No Marsian would ever think of wasting their dry ration. It would have been the worst form of sacrilege, a dishonoring of those raiders who had risked everything to obtain food. That aside, Jess wondered how could anyone not want two-thirds of their morning meal? As a seventeen-year-old, Jess still received three dry rations a day and couldn’t imagine how adults made do with only two.

“Are you sure?” asked Jess, already eyeing the ration hungrily.

“Yes. You sit here for your meal and think about your grandfather.” Harpreet swung her feet around as if in preparation to leave the table.

“But—” Jess paused to compose herself. “You haven’t told me anything. Please. You have to tell me what to do.”

Harpreet sighed, settling back into her bunk. “You are very alike, your grandfather and you.”

“My granddad’s dead,” replied Jess. “He can’t help me.”

“Hmm.” Harpreet resumed gazing out at the landscape of red dirt and brown rocks. The sky glowed, warm and golden. “He died a bitter and lonely man. I visited him every day, but he had long since given up challenging himself, looking for ways to grow, to learn, to become attuned to the harmonies of minds unlike his own.”

Harpreet turned and faced Jessamyn. “You must not make his mistakes, my child.” She paused and waited until Jess’s eyes met her own. “If you can see things only from your own limited perspective, what does it matter if you are the best pilot of your generation?”

Jess’s heart swelled within her. If she was the best pilot of her generation, then why in Hades had they grounded her?

Harpreet continued. “To be a pilot, to be a raider, especially, one must learn to see things from more than one perspective. What is it that makes you a good pilot, Jess?”

The question caught Jessamyn off guard.

“Take a moment and think about it,” said Harpreet.

Jess closed her eyes. What made her a good pilot? How was she supposed to know that? She came up blank. And then she remembered something her father had said to her mother the first time Jess had been at the helm of a flying ship. “She flies from here,” her father had said, pointing to his belly. It was true, Jess thought. She felt things with her gut that others didn’t seem to notice. She acted with certainty when others doubted. It led her to take risks others wouldn’t.

“I fly with my gut,” said Jess.

Harpreet nodded. “Yes, child. You fly using this intelligence.” Harpreet tapped the space over her navel. “Exactly as your grandfather did.”

Jess waited for Harpreet to say more. When she didn’t, Jess spluttered out, “And?”

The old woman smiled. “Can you learn to call upon your other intelligences? To see things not only from here,” she pointed at her belly, “But from here as well,” she said, pointing to a spot on her forehead, just above her eyes. “A pilot must be a member of a team, Jessamyn. A pilot must learn to say ‘no’ to the voice which tells her to disobey a direct command.”

Jess flushed. So Harpreet had heard everything.

“There are times, child, for both kinds of wisdom.” Harpreet leaned in and took Jess’s pale hand once more in her own dark ones. “But even as it takes teamwork to put out a great fire, so also it takes teamwork to keep a pilot in the air. Daughter, if you wish to be more than a merely good pilot—if you wish to be a great pilot—you must learn the wisdom of working in harmony with others.”

Jess wavered, uncertain whether she felt affronted or encouraged.

“And now, my dear, you must excuse me as I have an engagement with the Secretary General.” Harpreet smiled as she rose. “It does not do to keep such a busy person waiting.”

Jess found herself seated alone, staring at the barren landscape, with no idea how she was ever going to get herself above its surface again.

She knew she ought to go to classes. But if they were grounding her, and if Harpreet refused to help her get un-grounded, well, what was the point of returning to MCAB? Expulsion, which had sounded so terrifying this morning, no longer seemed so awful. The really dreadful thing had already happened: she couldn’t fly.

And so, after sitting by herself for an hour in a lonely corner, Jessamyn heard the news that the Secretary General was giving an address in the Pavilion about the Rations Storage fire. A Fountain employee found Jess in her corner.

“We’re closing,” he said, apologetically. “Everyone wants to hear Mei Lo’s announcement.”

Nodding, Jess followed the crowds exiting through the tunnel that linked the Fountain with the Crystal Pavilion. The news awaiting them was not good. In fact, it was the worst news Mars Colonial had heard in a century.

Chapter Five

I’LL DO MY BEST

Inside the pavilion, citizens had gathered; many had remained in town after the Festival of Singing Ice, and these were joined by reporters from as far away as New Tokyo. Jessamyn hugged the back wall of windows, settling between two families with small children, one of whom asked in the over-loud whisper of the very young, “Is that the hero, Mama? Her?”

Jess felt her face flaming with color and pushed forward into the crowd. She was no hero. For all she knew, her presence at the fire had made things worse and not better.

The Secretary mounted the dais which had been hastily reconstructed from yesterday. She took a moment to survey the crowd before her. Then, gripping either side of the podium, she spoke.

“My friends, I come before you today in my capacity as Chief Executive Officer of Mars Colonial. I am here to inform you of what we know and what we don’t know. It is with deep regret that I confirm the destruction by fire of over ninety percent of our dry ration reserves.”

Whispers rushed through the building like tiny breezes. It wasn’t possible. Someone must have gotten a detail wrong. Surely ninety percent was the amount of food which survived, not the amount which had been destroyed. The Secretary allowed time for the implication to sink in: Mars could not wait the scheduled number of orbits before sending raiders to Earth to trade for rations on the black market.

Jessamyn felt as though parts of her body had liquefied and were now sinking down, down, settling low in her abdomen, growing heavier with the passing seconds before the Secretary spoke again.

“For a century and more, we have dared violating the No Contact Accords in twenty annum intervals,” continued the Secretary. “The fact that it comes earlier than expected is unfortunate but does not mean our defeat as a people. Every generation has had to face the risk before us now.”

Jess, only seventeen, had never experienced the anxious launch, threading a route past the armed Terran satellites in high Mars orbit, never known the weeks of radio silence while Marsians waited to see if this was the raid where they were discovered—the raid which ended in all-out war between Mars and Earth.

The emotional climate of the pavilion felt to Jess as many-layered as a Terran cake. Underpinning all rested a base-mood of anxiety. A thin paste of frantic hovered over this, followed by alternating layers of disbelief and wonder that such a thing could come to pass. Atop everything however, was spread, like a smooth ganache, the sentiment of sobriety.

The Secretary spoke again. “The fire began last night at approximately 7:50 New Houston time. It has been determined that the cause was the small vacuum mechs deployed to keep the facility free of external contaminants. Yesterday, during the Festival, some four thousand persons toured the facility housing our rations. The mech’s designer recommended last annum that we install a cooling system in the devices which would prevent conflagration should the mechs become overtaxed by excessive cleaning.

“Because we did not heed that advice, we now stand at the brink of the collapse of Marsian civilization.” The Secretary took a slow breath and began to outline a plan to prevent widespread starvation.

“Mars Colonial Command informs me that a window for travel to Earth will open in less than six weeks. I am confident that the brave men and women who have been preparing for the opportunity to serve as Mars Raiders will be more than able to meet the challenges brought on by an accelerated timetable.

“Raider Mombasu—forgive me—Harpreet has conferred with me and agreed to reassume the role of negotiations specialist aboard the Red Galleon when it launches for Earth.”

The crowd stomped and clapped their approval upon the mention of Harpreet’s participation. The plan would surely succeed if Harpreet supported it.

But Jessamyn’s heart was already sinking with a terrible realization: her life-long dream of flying as a raider had just been obliterated. With the recent suspension on her record, MCAB would never recommend her for this raid. And in twenty orbits, her fair skin would look too reddened and wrinkled—she would have a characteristically Marsian appearance. Only those with skin healthy enough to pass for Terran were chosen for the journey to Earth. The risk of someone discovering that Mars was in violation of the No Contact Accord was too great—no one who looked Marsian could go to Earth.

Harpreet, old though she was, had been blessed with melanin, which offered her body natural protection from Mars’s high dosage of ultraviolet light. Harpreet’s warm chocolate visage was neither reddened nor wrinkled. She was the ideal raider, regardless of her age. But even if Jess’s record was spotless for the following twenty annums, Jess would never be selected for the next raid.

She missed the close of the Secretary’s speech. Dragging herself back through the tunnel, Jess waited for the Fountain to reopen, retrieved her walk-out suit, and went home with her heart cut in pieces like a handful of Mars-rock reduced to gravel.

Jessamyn’s family sat for evening rations that night, minus Ethan, who had been called to Mars Colonial headquarters. Jess at first assumed this was because the government wanted to blame him for the fire—the mechs were his invention.

“No,” sighed Lillian. “No one’s blaming him. Ethan told them how to prevent this and they didn’t listen. Now they all look like idiots.”

“They’re asking his advice on ancient Terran computer systems, if you can believe it,” said Jess’s father, separating two ration bars into four pieces.

He handed Jess a half-bar.

“What’s this?” she asked, pointing to her meal.

“We’re on half-rations,” her mother replied, lips tight and thin. “Weren’t you listening to the Secretary?”

Jessamyn stared mournfully at the reduced portion, not thinking it wise to admit she’d left the Secretary’s address early. “Won’t people starve?” she asked.

“The old and the sickly are at risk,” replied Jess’s mom. “The very young as well.”

Jessamyn felt her heart miss a beat: did her mother’s dry-lung qualify Lillian as sickly? “Planetary Ag respects you, Mom. You have to tell them.”

Jess’s mother stood abruptly and left the room.

Her father sighed, smoothing ration wrappers.

“Your mom’s upset. She spent the morning running experiments for Planetary Agriculture, and she’s worried about a test that calls into question the nutritional value of the emergency rations from New Tokyo,” said her father. “And she’s angry that her algae pot program wasn’t implemented last annum. As a supplement to ration bars, it would have helped.”

“We’d be eating that stuff?” asked Jess, staring at an algae pot. “What about health issues?” Everyone knew people got sick on Mars-raised food.

Jess’s father gave her half a smile. “Your mom will always have detractors, but even they agree the algae’s not going to kill anyone. All the data looks promising.”

A call from Mars Colonial Command interrupted the silence between Jess and her father. He took the call, making a series of nods, grunts, and assents before clicking off.

“Looks like your mom was right. Again.” He fixed his eyes on a small piece of copper wrapper, rolling it back and forth between his right thumb and forefinger.

“About what?” asked Jess. “Starvation? Algae pots?”

The wrapper made crinkling noises in the quiet room.

“They want to send Ethan on the upcoming raid.”

“Hades,” murmured Jess. “Ethan?”

Her father sighed heavily.

“He can’t go,” said Jess. “He wouldn’t make it.”

“I’d better talk to your mother,” said Jess’s father. But he remained at the table, crinkling the piece of wrapper between his fingers.

“I won’t let them stuff my brother in a deep space vessel,” said Jessamyn. “No way! In confined quarters like that, he’d be catatonic by the time he reached Earth.”

Jess’s father rose. “It’s not our decision to make,” he said. “Your brother’s an adult and he’s agreed.”

That night, Jessamyn waited in Ethan’s room for him to return. The book in her hands couldn’t keep her attention, and she gave up and watched the deadly Terran satellites roll past her brother’s clear ceiling.

When Jess was very young, Ethan’s room had been customized to suit his alter-abilities. She had no memories of the changes that had come over Ethan as a result of his new environment. But she believed him when he said it had improved his life profoundly.

Jess knew only too well what it was like to be with Ethan in any sort of confining room or vehicle. She’d helped him through countless trips. “Eyebrows,” she’d murmur, reminding him to touch his bushy brows. He said they felt like the fur of the planetary dog. Or sometimes she would whisper, “Counting.” Numbers soothed Ethan, and repeating them in patterns took him away from present discomforts. When things got really, really bad, Ethan closed his eyes and asked Jessamyn to tell him stories. She could always find one that would transport him from panic’s biting edge. Jess knew it wasn’t the tales alone. One long journey, when she’d told him particularly lame stories, she’d realized it was the sound of her voice, her presence, which restored him.

Jess heard his loud footfall as he came through the front airlock. Although Ethan was sensitive to sound that originated apart from himself, he rarely remembered to modulate his own voice or keep his boots from clomping.

Jess sighed. Her task tonight—that of talking Ethan out of traveling to Earth—would not be an easy one. Ethan was more stubborn than a stain from Mars’s red soil.

“Hey big brother,” said Jess.

“Jess,” said Ethan. It was his standard way of greeting anyone, a compromise between saying, Hello, how are you, which his parents preferred, and saying nothing at all, which he preferred.

“I hear they want you to go to Earth,” said Jess.

“I depart in six weeks’ time,” he replied.

“Ethan, I don’t know how to say this to you nicely, so I’m just going to say it … not-nice. Your brain will be mush by the time you get to Earth. I don’t know what they think they need you to do, but it can be done by someone else, whatever it is. You know I’m right.” She paused. “Right?”

Ethan stood gazing at Mars’s larger moon, Phobos. “Which statement would you like me to respond to? You made six distinct points.”

Jessamyn groaned.

“I was attempting humor,” said Ethan. “I assume you would like me to assess your statement that the task given to me can be performed by another.”

In actuality, Jessamyn had been hoping to go straight to the “brain as mush” part of her speech. She appealed to his rational sense. “Logically,” she began, “If your mental state is compromised, you will be in no position to perform critical tasks.”

“I will not allow that to happen,” said Ethan.

“Eth—” Jess broke off. She’d fought tooth and nail for others to treat Ethan as alter-abled and not dis-abled by his differences. And now she was going to tell him what he could and could not do? She sighed and flopped on his bed.

“Phobos is bright tonight,” said Ethan.

Jess opened her eyes and looked up. “Yup,” she said. “The big moon’s close to us this week, that’s for sure.”

“When Earth draws near to Mars, I must be ready to travel on the raiding ship,” said Ethan.

“Why does it have to be you?”

“I am not permitted to tell you the nature of my assignment.”

“It’s got something to do with your hacking-genius, I figure,” said Jess. “Tell them to send Yokomatsu. He’s got mad hacker-skills. You said so yourself.”

“Yokomatsu has not studied ancient Terran—” Ethan broke off. “Yokomatsu is not my equal. Also, Yokomatsu’s Marsian appearance might cause Terrans to surmise they were the subjects of an invasion. Mars is not in a position to wage war.”

“So make them find someone else to take your place,” said Jess, still determined to keep her brother safe.

“Goodnight, Jessamyn,” said Ethan.

Jess twisted her head and raised an eyebrow at him. His polite use of “goodnight” was almost unprecedented. She knew he hadn’t become suddenly interested in politeness and what he called “wasted language.” No, if he used the phrase, it was because he wanted her to leave now.

“All right, all right. I’m going.” She stood, resisting her urge to hug her brother, which he would hate. He had enough to distress him as it was.

“Jessamyn?”

She turned.

“I am sorry it will be me going and not you.”

Jess shifted her gaze to Phobos, racing for the horizon. “Goodnight, Eth.”

She lay awake for hours, her mind running through problems she couldn’t solve. Mass starvation. Her broken dreams. Her brother stuck in a tin can for weeks. At last she reached for one of Ethan’s favorite stories, The Snows of Kilimanjaro. It was the only piece of fiction she knew him to have read on his own, after she’d told him the story on a trip to New Tokyo. And it was sufficiently depressing to suit her mood. She read until her eyes drifted, and when she slept, she dreamt of blue skies, golden plains, and tall, snow-covered peaks.

The next morning wasn’t a school day, and Jessamyn’s mom insisted Jess should be allowed to sleep as late as possible.

“Sleep burns fewer calories than being awake,” Lillian murmured from where she sat calculating starvation scenarios at her wafer-computer.

But a call from Harpreet put Jessamyn’s sleep to an end.

“Jessie?” Her father, entering her room, spoke gently. “Jess, Harpreet Mombasu wants to speak with you. Are you awake enough?”

Jess rolled over. She felt refreshed for a brief moment, but then the weight of her planet’s calamity and her own flightless future pressed upon her, heavy as heartbreak.

“I’m awake,” she said, her voice dull. She held out her hand for the comm. “Hello?”

“Good morning, daughter,” said Harpreet’s voice. “I am wondering if you would be so good as to meet me at the Secretary General’s office in half an hour?”

“Um, sure, yeah,” said Jess, sitting up and running a hand through her night-matted hair.

“Excellent,” said Harpreet. “Goodbye.”

Jess felt a warm glow spark inside of her. Hope, her heart whispered. After donning her cleanest Academy whites, she raced through morning rations.

“What’s the meeting about?” asked her mother.

Jess shrugged, feeling the hopeful spark zooming around her insides. “I talked to her yesterday, right before the Secretary’s announcement. Maybe she’s found a way to get me back in the air.”

On the outside, Jessamyn appeared calm as she drove to the New Houston headquarters of Mars Colonial. Inside, a veritable galaxy of small bright sparks had big-banged to life. She knew she should care more about the fate of Mars and less about her fate as a pilot. She knew it, but she couldn’t make it so.

Glancing down at the chrono-tattoo on her wrist, Jess saw she would arrive early. Her brother, knowing his sister’s propensity for behaviors culminating in late arrivals, had created the glowing tattoo for her eighth birthday. They each had one. Ethan had worked in a sort of compass as well: if it told time in red, the siblings were close to one another. The cooler the color, the farther apart they were. Jess’s rebellious streak had been the inspiration for several of Ethan’s earliest inventions—answers to their mother’s frustrated cries of, “Now where’s that child run off to?” An orange glow on the skin of Jessamyn’s wrist informed her of two things: she was near her brother and she still had three minutes to spare. She allowed herself a tiny smile entering MCC.

“Ah,” said Harpreet, as Jessamyn stepped into the stark office. “Here is the young woman I told you about.” Harpreet, taking Jess’s hand, placed it in the hand of Mei Lo, Secretary General and CEO of Mars Colonial.

Jess hoped she had an impressive handshake. Her mother had said that a firm and brief grasp told people that you were someone who meant business.

“Pleased to meet you, Pilot-in-training Jaarda,” said the leader of Mars Colonial.

“Likewise,” Jess replied, her heart beating faster. Was she still a pilot-in-training?

“It’s going to be a very long day,” said Mei Lo, “So I’ll get to the point: I need a chauffeur. My full-time pilot and both of my back-ups are busy flying redistribution runs of emergency rations. Even if MC Command would let me, I don’t know how to fly anything but a planet-hopper. I have several weeks of travel coming up, and I’d like to interview you for the job.”

Chauffeur? Jessamyn hesitated. No self-respecting Academy graduate would apply for the position. You can always chauff the CEO was a pass-phrase for what a trainee who failed final exams could do with a pilot rating, second-class.

Jess wanted to fall through a hole in the floor.

Harpreet added, “I’ve already spoken with the Academy dean. He’s agreed to grant you immediate second-class licensing in light of our current emergency.”

Jess felt her face redden.

“I spoke with him as well,” said the Secretary. “He told me you could pass an exam for a first-class license with your eyes closed.”

“Probably,” she agreed, shifting her weight uncomfortably. She wanted to cry out that she would give up a week’s water to fly ration redistribution runs instead, but the Secretary continued.

“He also told me you’ve been grounded for disobeying a direct order,” she said.

“I saved a planet-hopper, Ma’am,” said Jess. “I prevented the loss of a valuable Marsian resource.”

“Jessamyn,” said the Secretary, her voice softening to a murmur. “Our children are Mars’s most precious resource. You risked your life, and I appreciate the courage that took, but I need to ask you: will you obey orders if I accept you as my personal pilot?”

Jess looked at Harpreet, who gave a subtle nod. Go on, child, this is the only way you are getting back in the air, she seemed to say with her wide dark eyes.

“I’ll do my best,” said Jessamyn.

The Secretary’s eyes narrowed. Then her mouth turned up on one side. “You didn’t give me the answer I wanted to hear. You gave me the truth.” She smiled. “I like that. And I don’t believe in coincidences; I think you’re here for a reason. Pilot-in-training Jessamyn Jaarda, you are hereby granted the title of pilot, second-class.”

Mars’s diminutive leader struck her hand forward once again and Jess took it, holding it a second longer this time.

The Secretary turned to leave, calling over her shoulder, “My assistant has your uniform. I’ll see you in the launch hangar in forty-two minutes.”

The forty-one minutes following Harpreet’s brief hug and best wishes were a blur. Her father and mother congratulated her during a hurried call. But it was her brother’s words that stuck in her head: “You will have the ear of the most influential person on the planet.”

Jess had been so struck by what Ethan said that she hadn’t even praised his use of figurative language. It was true. She, Jessamyn Jaarda, would have direct access to the Secretary General and CEO of Mars Colonial.

Thinking of her eyebrow-stroking, junk-collecting brother, she knew exactly what she would ask for: to spare Ethan the three week journey through hell. Jess straightened her uniform and tidied her flyaway red hair. She had six weeks to gain the Secretary’s trust.

Chapter Six

THE PLANETARY DOG

The earliest Marsians, sailors of the heavens, swore vigorously and frequently, often adopting the creative phrasing of their fellows without understanding precisely which body part, saint, or god was being invoked. So long as the settlements were composed of military men and women, this arrangement worked quite well. However, with the introduction of a pluralized civilian population—and in particular the introduction of children—there came an increase in outbreaks of violence when certain salient phrasings were uttered before those who deemed them offensive.

Marsians, more than their Terran counterparts, understood the importance of getting along with their neighbors. Opportunities for saving the lives of your fellows occurred with greater frequency on the inhospitable red planet. Marsian settlers learned the value of maintaining cordial relations, and, by common consent, it was agreed that the use of curses which gave grave offense to the person who might save your hide in the next dust storm was probably inadvisable. Only a fool gives offense was a proverb frequently murmured under the breath, even by those who very much wished they could afford to offend.

Early on, a thoughtful Secretary General came to the conclusion (through experimentation) that no one minded if she swore by the Greek names of the solar planets. Forward-thinking citizens followed her lead, and within a generation, the entire Mars colony railed against Ares, swore by Hermes, and invoked Aphrodite when upset, injured, or deeply moved. To swear otherwise—at least in the hearing of others—was, quite simply, not Marsian.

During Jessamyn’s first week as the current Secretary’s personal pilot (Jess refused to refer to the position as “chauffeur”) she had ample opportunity to observe Mei Lo’s preferences in cursing. Jess shuttled the busy woman from one settlement to another so that the Secretary could provide personal reassurance that all possible measures were underway to keep Mars from starving.

They discovered one remote outpost where half-rations had been the norm since the last raid. The Secretary wasted the water of half a dozen tears as the citizens of that locale politely returned the emergency rations they’d received earlier in the week.

“Send ‘em somewheres they need ‘em,” said the enclave’s spokesperson, a haggard-looking woman whose ruddy skin spoke of more than forty orbits.

They’d done just that.

Today Jessamyn had flown Mei Lo to a meeting in New Tokyo. On their return flight to New Houston, the Secretary repeated a now-familiar pattern of spending nearly every minute on a comm-call.

So much for having her ear, thought Jess. She couldn’t complain about the job itself. Nearly every day brought a new craft to the Secretary General’s dedicated launch pad at headquarters, and Jess loved the challenge of mastering each vessel’s quirks and traits. Today, however, they flew in the Secretary’s personal ship.

“Ares, but it’s good to have my Cloud Runner back,” sighed the Secretary.

The Cloud Runner was a luxury-class personal ship with non-standard landing requirements. None of the settlements they’d flown to last week could have accommodated the strange craft: when docking, the ship was designed to settle onto a series of prongs allowing it to recharge. The Secretary’s executive dwelling had the necessary dock, which meant Jessamyn could fly her directly home today.

Jess ran her fingers down the launch schedule. “Looks like I can take you out in the Cloud Runner all this coming week,” she said.

“Mmm, that will be nice,” said Mei Lo with a pleased sigh. “Decadent, but nice.”

“You’re planetary CEO,” replied Jess. “There’s nothing decadent—”

An incoming comm-call interrupted Jessamyn.

“This is the Secretary General.” Mei Lo launched into a discussion that cut short Jess’s hopes of an actual conversation with her new boss.

Jess scowled and aimed the Cloud Runner at the setting sun. A distant dust storm had filled Mars’s shallow atmosphere near the horizon, creating a brilliantly burnt-orange sunset. It was stunning. Jess adjusted the speed of the craft so that she could keep the sunset in sight all the way to Mei Lo’s home. The beauty relaxed her. She ached to fly and fly, chasing nightfall around the planet.

Once, Jessamyn had overheard her father trying to explain his daughter’s response to natural beauty. Most people have five senses, he’d said. Jess has a sixth: the sense of wonder.

Jessamyn hadn’t understood what he meant at the time, and she still wasn’t sure she could explain it to anyone else, but his words sounded right to her somehow. On the other hand, she asked herself, how could anyone be other than wonder-struck by the flaming sky spread before them?

She turned back to smile at the Secretary, who had ended her comm-call. But Mei Lo’s eyes were closed, her head sagging at an angle that suggested sleep. Returning her gaze forward, Jess sighed. The Secretary had fallen asleep without re-securing her harness. Now Jessamyn had a decision to make: follow standard protocol and wake the exhausted Secretary, telling her to buckle in, or let the poor woman sleep. It wasn’t like Jess would have trouble landing the ship. But harnessing was standard on this vehicle for a reason.

The decision was no-contest, actually. If Jess wanted to prove she could fly by the rules, she’d darned well better wake her passenger.

“Madam Secretary,” Jess called. “We’re nearly there.”

Ahead, Jess could make out the yellow lights of the Secretary’s home and the blinking blue lights of the landing pad.

Mei Lo yawned and sighed contentedly. “Thank goodness,” she said, buckling herself without Jess needing to remind her.

Jessamyn brought the craft in slowly, nearly silent. She spun the ship, aligning the prongs to the receiving outlets. And that was when she saw the blur.

“What the …?” Jess took an infrared reading. “No, no, no!”

She pulled the craft out of the landing pattern, causing the Secretary to cry out, “Holy Ares!” just as Jess shouted, “Hold on tight!”

Jessamyn had, in fact, decided to do something very stupid and most likely career-killing. But she knew she could never face her brother again if she landed on top of the planetary dog.

To her credit, Jessamyn attempted to land the craft such that it wouldn’t tip sideways. But the uneven Marsian surface was set against her and within seconds of touching down, the ship wobbled, tilted, and collapsed, tumbling down on its side.

In the silence that followed the crash, the Secretary spoke.

“What in the name of Hades happened there, Pilot?”

Jess licked dry lips. “I wrecked your Cloud Runner, Madam Secretary.”

“Yes, I did notice that,” the Secretary remarked dryly.

Another moment’s silence. This is going to be so, so bad, thought Jessamyn.

“Would you care to tell me why?” asked the CEO of Mars Colonial.

Jess wanted to reply, Because your idiot dog was about to get ground into dog-burger. But she held her temper. Anger wasn’t going to make this mess any better. “Your dog was bouncing around down there in its …” Jess struggled to remember the word. “Inside its hamster-ball. It was trying to bite the landing lights or something. If I’d attempted to take us back up again for another pass, I would have cooked your dog with the heat from the thrusters. I chose to land the craft … unconventionally.”

“You made a split-second decision to kill my Cloud Runner instead of my dog.”

It sounded idiotic to Jess’s ears when the Secretary put it like that.

“I’m afraid so, Ma’am.” All the fight whooshed out of her and suddenly she felt very, very young. She was an idiot. She’d destroyed her career just as surely as she’d wrecked the Cloud Runner.

The Secretary shook her head slowly and began sealing up her walk-out suit.

“Suit up, Pilot. You won’t be taking this thing anywhere else.”

Jess swallowed against the lump in her throat, wondering why the Secretary wasn’t shouting and cursing. Perhaps the planetary CEO had moved past mere anger and into quiet rage.

Jess hoped the door allowing them to exit remained functional. She pushed the release locks and breathed a sigh of relief as the door opened outward, allowing them to crawl free. The planetary dog rolled his habitat to the Secretary’s side and the three of them walked into the Executive Dwelling.

Once she’d stripped out of her walk-out suit, the Secretary focused her attention on the dog instead of Jess, freeing him from the globe-shaped unit that allowed him access to the outdoors.

“Come over here, you! Someone is trying to lose his nose! Oh, look at you. If that’s frostbite—oh, come here, come here. Goo-ood boy. Oh you are such a naughty dog! Goo-ood boy.”

Jess stood awkwardly to one side, watching the interaction between the two. When, at last, the Secretary stood and turned to look at her, Jessamyn had calmed enough to be able to speak rationally.

“I acted on impulse. I’m sorry, Ma’am.”

The Secretary tilted her head to one side. “Sorry? Are you apologizing to me for saving the life of the planetary dog?”

“It was inexcusable of me, Ma’am.”

“Pilot?”

“Yes, Madam Secretary?” You are so dead, said a voice in Jess’s head.

“Thank you for sparing the life of Mars’s most iconic and best-beloved inhabitant. Our planet has never been more in need of good cheer than we are at this moment.” Mei Lo smiled. “And frankly, even on a cost basis, activating a new canine embryo is more expensive than replacing my ship. Not that Rover could ever be replaced.”

Hearing his name, Rover thumped his tail twice.

Jessamyn stared, at a loss for words. She’d done something right by doing something wrong.

“May I?” The Secretary extended her diminutive arms as if for a hug.

Jess gave half a nod and then felt the arms of her planet’s leader encircling her.

Pulling back out of the hug, Jess asked, “So, does this mean I still have a job?”

The Secretary threw her head back and shouted to the ceiling, “Do you still have a job?” She bent down to scratch her dog’s head. “Does the nice pilot still have a job, huh, Rover?” The Secretary stood again, recovering herself from laughter. “You’ve got any job you want, kid, saving Rover’s life like that! Ares! If I had a son, I’d make him marry you right now!” Mei Lo’s eyes danced. “My job’s a very lonely one at times. You’ve saved me from … from …” She blinked several times. “You’ve made my life immeasurably better by not barbecuing my dog. Thank you, Jessamyn.”

Embarrassed, Jess didn’t know where to look and found her eyes resting on the dog. It sat, head cocked to one side, eyes fixed on the Secretary.

“Would you like to say hi to Rover?” asked Mei Lo.

Jess wondered if the Secretary would be offended if she declined. She’d never wanted to meet the dog before, and she didn’t feel particularly interested in meeting it now. Then she thought of her brother.

“Sure …” she said. It came out sounding almost like a question.

The Secretary smiled. “Rover, come. Meet Jessamyn.”

The dog stood and quickly closed the few feet between himself and Jess.

Jessamyn lowered herself to one knee as she’d seen countless children do when she’d been young enough to be taken for her birthday visit. Remembering the other celebrants making fools of themselves with the planetary dog, she decided it would be best to get it over with quickly.

But something happened when Jess’s eyes connected with Rover’s. His eyes, light-blue like Ethan’s, caught her at once with their intelligence. Who are you? the dog seemed to be asking. He tilted his head from side to side, never loosing her from his gaze except to blink.

“The blinking is one of the ways he’s acknowledging you as being ahead of him in the pack,” said the Secretary.

“Huh,” said Jessamyn. She wasn’t really paying attention, though. She felt a rush as something swept through her. A something that reminded her of taking her craft toward breaking day or of watching Phobos as the swift moon zipped across the night sky. The dog was … wondrous. A shiver ran along her spine. “Hi,” she said to the gentle-eyed creature before her.

Rover leaned in and licked her.

“He gave up water—to me, a total stranger,” gasped Jess.

“It’s a shock the first time,” said Mei Lo. “Think of the proverb, though, and it all makes sense.”

“Be as generous as a dog,” murmured Jessamyn.

“Exactly,” agreed Mei Lo. “Put your hand out where he can get a good sniff. Dogs learn from their noses as much as from their eyes. Maybe more.”

Jess extended one hand. Rover leaned in snuffling, blowing, and, incredibly, licking her once again. She giggled this time. Looking at Rover’s black, tan, and white coat, Jess grew curious. What does it feel like? She plunged one hand into his thick fur. It reminded her for a moment of her granddad’s bristle-y mustache. But underneath she found a softer silken layer.

“Incredible,” she murmured, pulling her hand back and forth through his fur.

Rover’s muzzle darted toward Jess’s chin and he licked her again.

“Unreal,” she said.

“He reminds me to act with generosity,” said the Secretary. “It’s hard to have a water-grubbing attitude with Rover giving up moisture ten times a day.”

Jess didn’t want to stop pulling her hand through the soft furry layers. Incredibly, she realized she was petting the creature. No wonder Ethan liked the planetary dog so much. No wonder Mei Lo was so grateful. Why don’t I see these things coming? Jess asked herself. Of course saving the dog had been the right thing to do. Of course the Secretary would be grateful and not angry. Harpreet’s words of the other day floated through Jessamyn’s mind: You must learn to see things from more than one perspective. But how was that even possible when she was stuck inside her own mind? Jess sighed in the quiet room.

Then, with a kind of shiver, Jess realized this was the moment she’d been waiting for: she had the Secretary’s undivided attention right now. Like she might never have it again. It made her a bit dizzy, like coming in too hot on a fast ship.

But Jessamyn found, as she considered this waited-for moment, that she did not wish to take unfair advantage of the Secretary’s current state of gratitude.

“Listen, Madam Secretary, there’s something you should know. I wasn’t thinking about you just now when I saved Rover’s life. Or about Mars,” she added. “I saved your dog’s life because I don’t think I could’ve faced my brother otherwise. He’s crazy about your dog.”

“Mars’s dog,” corrected the Secretary.

“Yeah, well, Ethan’s the reason I did what I did. I don’t want you having any false ideas about how I was trying to be all noble for the citizenry of Mars or whatever. ‘Cause I wasn’t.” She noticed her fingers gripping tightly to a handful of fur and forced herself to relax. Rover didn’t seem to mind. She spoke again, quietly. “It was all for my brother’s sake.”

“All right,” said Mei Lo, nodding, narrowing her eyes as she examined Jess. “I can still be grateful for the end result, you know, regardless of your motives.”

Jess swallowed and continued before she had a chance to get scared and freeze up. “Listen, I know you want Ethan for some secret assignment, but it won’t work. Eth won’t make it to Earth. You put him in that ship for three weeks, and by the time he comes out the other side, his mind will be destroyed. He’s claustrophobic. Severely claustrophobic. And that’s only one of his peculiarities that I can put a name to. He’s got other … habits and preferences and quirks that don’t have names. But I can guarantee none of it will look good aboard the Red Galleon.”

“I’ve noticed he is … different,” said the Secretary. “But he seems strongly committed.”

Jess released Rover and straightened up so that she could look the Secretary in the eye. “Let me ask you something. Can you afford for him to fail at … whatever this is?”

The Secretary turned sharply. “Has he told you what I’m asking him to do?”

“No,” said Jess. “And you can bet he never will.”

Rover shook his coat and wandered off to a pillow that had his name on it.

Frowning, the Secretary crossed her arms and looked at Jess. “Why do you ask whether or not I can afford for him to fail?”

“I know my brother. I understand that whatever you want him to do, he’s convinced that only he can do it, and he believes it ought to be attempted. But he’s not sure of himself. Asking my brother to climb inside a small, enclosed space with no escaping for three weeks is like …” Jess struggled to come up with something the Secretary might be able to understand. She saw Rover. “It’s like your dog wanting to be outside. Sure, Rover can survive in his hamster-ball for a short time, but if you left him in the cold for three weeks, what would you find when you went back to collect him?”

“He’d die,” said the Secretary.

“Yes,” said Jess. “Even though your dog wants to go outside, it isn’t an environment he can survive in for long.”

“You’re saying your brother can’t survive three weeks in the environment of the Red Galleon.”

Jess pinched her lips together then spoke. “Maybe if he had a couple of annums to prepare for it, he might make it. As he stands now? No.”

The Secretary stood as still as one of the ice carvings from the Festival.

Jess felt the long pause that followed as if it were a physical thing pressing down upon her.

“Would you bet the future of Mars on that certainty?” The Secretary’s face blanched as she whispered the question.

“The future of Mars?”

The Secretary nodded.

Jess hesitated. She remembered trips with her brother that ended with him rocking back and forth, eyes closed, making a steady humming noise at the same pitch for hours on end. She remembered other times she’d worked hard with him, sitting beside him and feeding him distractions, telling him stories, keeping him protected as best she could from the deleterious effects of an enclosed space.

She looked up and met the Secretary’s eyes. “He can make it if he has me with him. But otherwise, no, Madam Secretary. My brother’s mind wouldn’t be the same by the time he reached Earth. If you need him in his right mind, send me with him.”

The Secretary was quiet for several minutes. Jess stared into the black expanse beyond the large windows. Ethan would like it here, she thought. She saw the small moon Deimos and wondered if Earth had risen yet. Beside the window, Rover rested his chin on his paws, lying on his pillow. His eyes darted from the Secretary to Jess, back and forth in clear acknowledgement of the tension in the room.

At last, the Secretary, who’d been staring out the window as well, spoke. “You could have lied to me about your motivation for saving Rover’s life. But you didn’t. Just like the day I hired you: you told me the truth instead of what I wanted to hear. I abhor lying and dissembling, Jess. I’ve seen plenty of both as CEO of this planet.” She turned so as to face Jessamyn directly. “As I’m sure you are aware, raiding parties are formed with five team members.”

Jess nodded, recalling the pang of jealousy she’d felt when she’d heard that a young woman only two orbits her senior had been named captain of the mission.

Mei Lo continued. “What I have not yet announced is that we will be sending two teams of raiders this time—two teams with two separate missions.”

Jessamyn’s heart beat faster, clattering in her chest like storm-tossed pebbles upon a window.

“I need your brother to accomplish a task that I believe only he can complete as a special mission. At present, the board of directors is locked in disagreement about the choice of a pilot for this mission. Obviously we need someone capable of guiding a ship past the Terran satellite lasers in high orbit around Mars.” She smiled softly at Jessamyn. “As you already know, I don’t believe in coincidence. I have the final authority to decide this assignment, but the awarded duty comes with a caveat.”

“I’ll do it,” whispered Jess.

“You haven’t heard me out,” replied the Secretary, her face now sober. “I am sending your brother to hack the control codes of the satellite array, placing them under our direction. That is the top-secret task that falls to the second crew. There is a very real chance he may fail and that some or all of you could be captured with no hope of rescue.”

Jessamyn thought of her granddad’s tales of body-swapping and shuddered.

“The Terrans would certainly re-body you or kill you.” The Secretary paused. “This is a far more dangerous assignment than merely retrieving ration bars.”

Jess nodded. “Send me.”

Chapter Seven

SENSATION OF WEIGHT

Two days later, Jessamyn officially received the assignment as pilot and first officer of the Red Galleon. She wasn’t permitted to divulge the true mission, so her parents, along with the rest of Mars, assumed Jess would be on an ordinary raid with the second crew acting as a safety-net and possibly obtaining additional food.

Lillian glowed with excitement, certain if MCC had ordered double shipments, then the Secretary General was making a commitment to develop a domestic food-source within forty orbits.

“This is everything we’ve worked for,” Jess’s mother said, hugging her daughter.

“We’re deeply proud of you both,” Jess’s father said to the siblings.

At the words of praise, worry creased Lillian’s red-dry face.

“They’ll be fine,” said Jess’s father. “MCC doesn’t make mistakes when they choose a crew.”

Ethan walked back to his room, returning a moment later.

“Here,” he said, handing Jess what appeared to be a piece of clear plastic half the size of his palm.

Jess took the object.

“It is from my collection,” he said.

She looked closely at the clear card and discovered a thin hair enclosed between two layers. “What is it?”

“I obtained a strand of Rover’s hair. Now that you have met, I would like you to have it. For luck.” Ethan smiled.

Jess shook her head. “What about you? Don’t you need good luck?”

Ethan shrugged. “I will have Jessamyn.”

~ ~ ~

Jess’s congratulations from the Secretary General were mixed.

“Having you at the helm of the Galleon gives me great peace,” said Mei Lo as Jess flew her home one last time from a meeting in New Tokyo. “But it also means I’m losing the best chauffeur I’ve ever had.”

“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” said Jess. “I could ask for another couple of days, to get you settled with someone else.”

“Holy Hermes, no!” replied the Secretary. “You’ve got a job to do, Pilot Jaarda. I hereby order you to forget my self-indulgent complaint.”

Jess smiled.

“Between you and me, they’re going to ride you extra hard the next four weeks because of the suspension on your record. You may feel less enthusiastic about this assignment before long.”

Jess glanced over at the Secretary, who chewed on her lower lip as she gazed at Mars spinning past below them.

“I’ve thought long and hard over the resolution to destroy Earth’s hold on our planet by seizing control of the satellite array,” Mei Lo said softly. “Ares, I hope I’ve made the right decision.”

“I won’t fail you,” said Jess.

The Secretary nodded and then seemed to lose herself in dark contemplation of the red-brown planitia for the remainder of the journey.

Jess piloted the Secretary’s ship into MCC for the last time strictly according to standard protocol, landing with a textbook precision the Academy dean would have been proud of.

~ ~ ~

Jessamyn’s pre-launch training proved both difficult and unpleasant. She consoled herself with the fact that it gave her more time with her brother, whose official function was as the crew communications specialist. Besides her brother and Harpreet, Jess had to learn to work with the payload specialist, a quiet mechanic nicknamed Crusty, and the young captain of their crew, Cassondra Kipling, a woman with political aspirations. “Kipper,” as she was called at MCC, was only four years older than Jess, but within the first week, Jess became convinced there was no world in which the two might have been friends.

“She’s awful,” Jess confessed to Lobster, who would serve on the other ship, as they walked together after a full day’s training. “She has no sense of humor. I asked what she liked to read for fun and she said stories were for children and that she had better things to do with her time. Honestly, I don’t think she likes flying all that much. I wish you were captaining my ship.”

“Kipper’s all right,” replied Lobster. “You’ll get to know her on the flight to Earth.”

“Won’t that be fun,” Jess murmured.

“Between you and me,” said Lobster, “I asked for you on my team. Took it up with Harpreet Mombasu and the Secretary General.”

Jess looked hopefully at her red-bearded friend. Everyone knew Harpreet had tremendous influence over the planet’s leader.

He shook his head. “It was no good. It seems Harpreet put a lot of thought into the balance of each team. She spouted about the combination of hot and cold, head and heart and stomach and I don’t know what else. Most of it went right past me, to be honest, but I left that meeting confident she knew what she was up to.”

Jess sighed heavily. “I’ll make it work.” She gave Lobster a quick hug. “But I would have loved flying with you.”

Ethan stood waiting for his sister, already in his walk-out suit, eager to return home. She wondered how he would manage the final week before launch when they were required to live on base. She’d noticed a determination in her brother to meet every new situation as if it were a game he had to win. It made her proud, but even more importantly, it gave her hope for the weeks to come.

“This extra weight makes me feel like I’m tired all the time,” Jess said to Ethan as they climbed into the family get-about. Like the other raiders, she’d been outfitted with weighted garments which she would wear for the duration of her time on Mars. On Earth, she would weigh almost triple what she weighed on Mars. To accustom the team, the weights were increased every three days; the process would continue aboard ship, by increasing its artificial gravity

“I find the sensation of weight pleasurable,” said Ethan.

Jess laughed, thinking her brother was attempting humor, but it turned out he genuinely liked the feeling of being more solidly anchored to the ground beneath his feet.

Neither sibling, however, enjoyed their daily “tonic.” All crew members were required to consume a noxious mixture of fermented cod liver oil and whey protein, a beverage kept in deepest storage for strengthening the bodies of the raiders.

“Tastes like it’s been sitting around for the past eighteen annums, all right,” muttered Jessamyn as she sat with her family for evening ration. Secretly, she enjoyed watching her body respond to the increased demands and supplements. She’d always been wiry; now she grew muscled.

But far worse than the weights or foul-tasting drinks were the flight trials and simulations, which Jessamyn had fully expected to enjoy.

“I swear it’s like they’re waiting for me to screw up,” Jess remarked after downing the tonic.

“Well, of course they are,” said Jess’s mother. “Honey, half the board members glower at me every time I show my face at MCC. These are smart men and women who think you can’t be trusted to obey orders.” Lillian shook her head. “You’d better prove they’re wrong.”

~ ~ ~

Earth and Mars approached the positions from which the raiding ships would launch. By day Jessamyn drilled and simmed and watched vids of previous raiding ships as they traced the dangerous path between the satellites circling Mars. She noted the caution with which previous pilots had “threaded the needle,” as they called this path-finding, and she began to see possibilities, ways to demand more of the ship, ways to confuse the satellites. She was terrified and couldn’t wait all at the same time, and one or the other made sleep challenging. She took to hauling a sleep-mat into Ethan’s room and watching the satellites as they swept overhead until, at last, the steady sound of her brother’s breathing lulled her to sleep.

The lasers weren’t designed to rain terror upon the planet’s surface. The war against Mars had lacked popular support on Earth, and the Terran government had understood that bombarding the surface could only amplify sympathy for Marsians—something the Terran government had no intention of increasing. Instead, they’d placed a series of satellites in high orbit which would systematically strike with high intensity lasers anything trying to leave Mars. The weapons derived power from the sun, so they would never “run out” of ammunition.

As the lasers couldn’t focus upon planetary targets—something Terran government officials repeated frequently—Earth’s military appeared less greedy for a high civilian body count. Of course, the high body count would be provided courtesy Mars’s harsh environment, they whispered, grinning smugly.

“Cut off Mars’s ability to reach Earth, and you seal their fate,” Terran Brigadier General Bouchard had said. But Bouchard, the same officer who had ordered the destruction of Mars’s orbital mirrors, hadn’t counted upon Marsian determination, their love of their planet, or their independence.

And he certainly hadn’t counted on Secretary General Mei Lo, born long after his death. Her sworn objective was a completely and truly independent Mars. For that, she needed crops that wouldn’t poison the population with soil toxins and a way to defend Mars against possible attack. A group of agricultural specialists were seeing to the first goal. By seizing control of the hated satellites, she could accomplish the second. The lasers, once under Marsian control, could be used to destroy undesired incoming ships, missiles, or even the occasional meteorite.

It was no wonder Jessamyn had difficulty sleeping. Much rested upon her ability to pilot her ship free of the lasers and safely onward to Earth.

~ ~ ~

The requisite number of sun risings and settings passed and the final week before launch arrived. Although they’d been allowed to return to their own homes each evening after training thus far, the crews of the two ships would live on base at MCC this last week.

Jessamyn and Ethan were awakened by their father, who placed a kiss upon his daughter’s forehead. Jess rolled over, looking automatically to Ethan’s clear ceiling. Mars’s yellow sky glowed softly. So long as the clear weather held, they would launch in one week’s time.

“Good,” muttered Jess, rising. She was ready for the next step. She hoped her brother was. Time flowed oddly during that final week, and when the day arrived upon which the crews boarded their sister ships—Red Dawn and Red Galleon—Jess felt as if minutes and not days had slipped past her since leaving home.

The week leading to the launch had felt to her like a combination of graduation exercise, planetary holiday, and funeral. The impression of the latter had been strong enough that, as she sat aboard the Red Galleon, waiting through the final countdown to launch, Jess had composed an impromptu epitaph:

Here lies Jessamyn Harpreet Jaarda, a Damn Fine Star Pilot.

During Mars’s first raid after the No Contact Accords, a very brave pilot had destroyed two lasers on one of the satellites before her craft was carved into pieces by four remaining lasers. Having created a narrow window for raiding vessels to escape, Pilot Dorothy Bin Puri was posthumously awarded the title “Star Pilot,” and while Jess planned to survive her flight, she still liked the sound of the honorary title. It had only been awarded once, as future endeavors to take out the lasers had ended badly. A ban against such attempts had been in place for forty annums. If there was one thing more important than water to Mars Colonial’s survival, it was her citizens.

Today Jessamyn’s ship, the Red Galleon, and Lobster’s ship, the Red Dawn, would fly together past the satellite Bin Puri had damaged. Their hope for escape was two-fold. First they would attempt to pass by in range of only the defunct lasers. But a tandem passage through high orbit had never been attempted before, and in preparation for what would undoubtedly be a more difficult getaway, MCC had coated critical portions of the Galleon with cloaking material. The Galleon would stand between the Dawn and the lasers. If all went well, the Galleon wouldn’t be noticed and the Dawn, shielded, would be invisible as well. And if all didn’t go well, then Jessamyn’s piloting skills alone would have to save them.

When she’d asked Harpreet about sims versus real maneuvers through the dangerous high orbit zone, the old woman had laughed. “The two can’t be compared. In simulation, they spin us around, mimic g-forces, give us a pretty screen to look at, but when the real thing comes—well, you’ll see what I mean.”

Jess felt the hum of her ship’s anti-gravity as it came alive. She had the urge to hold her breath, watching the instrument panel while seconds ticked past. Jess had badly wanted to be the one who chose the moment of ascent, but MCC insisted upon a computer-initiated launch. Which gave her little to do but watch the clock before her as the digits to the left of the decimal point zeroed out. Once this happened, she lifted her gaze from the screen, eyes wide for the moment MCC passed control of the ship into her hands.

The Galleon thrust free from the surface and began a steady trajectory that would place her between two satellites, skewed toward the one with non-functional lasers. But no one knew the exact size or shape of the blind spot in the damaged satellite’s lasers. It was guess work, based on repeated viewings of past flights. Detection by the lasers remained a distinct possibility.

Jessamyn looked behind her for one last glance at her crewmates before they attempted to “thread the needle.” Harpreet looked at peace, smiling softly at Jess. Ethan was too engaged by screens to acknowledge his sister. Crusty was in a different part of the ship. Kipper glared at her first officer—Jess had no idea what for. She turned back to her navigation panel.

“Come on, baby, let’s do this.” Jess murmured to the Red Galleon. They approached the range where detection by the array grew more likely. Jessamyn’s jaw clenched tight as she waited for MCC to release control of the ship to her. When the moment came, she sensed it as strongly as a blind person might experience a sudden shift to sight. “Woo-hoo!” she hollered. Working swiftly, she initiated a total dark sequence where all of the ship’s systems were powered off.

There was no engine noise. The only light came from a micro-voltage nav-screen. Artificial gravity disappeared and Jess felt her body’s attempt to tug free of the seat harness. Going full-dark might help them evade the satellite’s sensitive detectors.

“Don’t give ‘em anything to notice, my beauty,” murmured Jessamyn. She felt a surge of love for the ancient craft and couldn’t resist patting the ship’s wall beside her. This is the tough stretch, she told herself, her jaw clenching tight. Four minutes of dark where the ship seemed to float like a mote of dirt on a Mars breeze. It was almost peaceful, if you could put the thought of lasers and destruction out of your mind. Jess found she couldn’t, quite.

Two minutes passed. Jess’s fingers, sheathed in tight-fitting gloves, itched as they hovered over the controls that would initiate thrust if it were needed for escape. Another minute ticked by. She practiced clenching her abdominal muscles in a g-straining maneuver. She noted the subtle fluid pressure of the g-suit. Another couple of minutes and the ships would be out of range. A blip on her screen told her the Red Dawn remained precisely where she should be in relation to Jessamyn’s ship.

And then something very bad happened. The satellite boosted power to the detector array; it must have seen something. Shrill pips from the Galleon’s monitors indicated they would be discovered in seconds. They’d slipped past the dead targeting lasers—would the live ones be able to reach them? Jess knew the answer, although she didn’t want to.

Immediately, Jessamyn burned her aft engines full blast, hoping to avoid becoming locked by the satellite’s targeting system. As everyone aboard was smashed into their seats by the acceleration, Jess felt her g-suit responding to the sudden and intense shift in gravity. She forgot to tighten her abdominals and felt her peripheral vision degrading.

Slamming the engines off, the pressure shifted—hard—as Jessamyn rotated the ship ninety degrees. She executed another brief but powerful engine burn to send the ship along the new trajectory. It felt wrong not to be aiming away from the deadly lasers, but this sort of bait-and-switch was her best hope for confusing the targeting system on the satellites. Cutting all power and bringing them to black out once more, Jess held her breath. Or tried to—her g-suit’s partial-pressure breathing made that impossible.

Are we safe? Jess wondered. The Galleon’s monitor continued its shrill warnings that the satellites were searching for them. She glanced quickly to see if the Red Dawn had slipped through or if it had mimicked her maneuvers. She cursed. Lobster had matched her move for move, which meant his flank was now partially exposed to the live lasers. For several seconds, it looked like the confused satellite had decided no one was there after all. And then Jess heard Lobster’s voice in her ear.

“They’ve got a lock on you, Red Galleon. You are hot, I repeat, YOU ARE HOT!”

Cursing again, Jess confirmed what Lobster reported. A laser had begun its deadly work, cutting through the outer surface of her ship, melting a streak across the hull.

“No you don’t!” Jess shouted. She initiated another blast full forward while shouting to her brother. “Missiles, Ethan, now!”

He’d anticipated the command and released a dozen missiles which mimicked the Galleon’s heat signature, aiming them at the satellite. Jess waited to see if the missiles would grab the laser’s attention. They did.

She felt buoyant, jubilant as she shouted to her brother, “It worked, Eth!” Then she cut all power to her ship, hollering to Lobster, “Get your ship out of range, Lobster! You’ve only got a few seconds! You might not get another chance!”

Meanwhile, the satellite laser ruthlessly targeted and destroyed the Galleon’s missiles within less than one minute’s time. Jess used the distraction to turn the ship away from Mars and the high orbit death traps. She initiated a brief burn to pick up speed and then went dark. There was a tense minute’s silence. Was the cloak providing some protection, confusing the laser’s targeting protocols? The satellite knew what quadrant to search. Before Lobster called the warning, Jess saw the laser targeting her ship’s aft section once again. She felt a boiling fury at the thought of the blackened streaks, the melting metal.

She fired her engines once again, sending the ship hurtling forward, but the laser adjusted course as well and continued heating its way through the metal exterior. Jess heard an auditory warning.

“Twenty seconds to hull breach,” said the ship’s audio.

“I’ve got you, baby,” Jess muttered to the ship, hoping the Galleon could handle what she planned—it was time for something unconventional. She shouted at Lobster to get clear and abruptly cut the aft engines, flipped the ship 180 degrees using the side thrusters, and then fired the thrust rockets well above safety ratings. The ship groaned and Jess shut everything off once again. She felt a blackening rush that told her she was about to pass out. Vaguely she recognized the sound of someone being sick in their helmet.

A second later, her pressure suit and her own efforts brought her back to full consciousness. She noted with intense relief that the Galleon had evaded the laser, which continued to overshoot its target. No ship should have been asked to do what Jess had just demanded of the Galleon. The satellite locking system was baffled, and the cutting laser shut off, seeking its target anew. Jessamyn saw multiple warnings flashing on the panels before her.

“I know,” she whispered to her ship. “I know. Hold together for me.” She double-checked the calculations she’d made before throwing the ship in the new direction.

“By Ares, Lobster, get yourself out of range, now!” Jess called. Her limbs felt odd and she suspected she’d see pervasive bruising from the g’s the next time she had a chance to look.

The Red Galleon continued on a silent trajectory away from Mars, away from the Terran satellites designed to confine her people to low Mars orbit. She heard several deep sighs over her comm-system.

“Everyone okay?” she asked. “I sure hope so because we are out of danger, people! I repeat, we are out of range!”

As if in response, Jessamyn heard the laser detectors wail once again as the targeting system locked onto her ship once more, but at this range, the cutting laser was too weak and unfocused to give the ship anything more than an ugly sunburn. The Galleon continued on her silent course for a few last seconds before Jess fired the engines again and corrected course for Earth.

“Red Dawn, we are en route,” called Jessamyn. “You ready to go grab some rations?”

Jess heard a crew member coughing, fighting nausea.

“Lobster, you okay?”

And then, with a certainty that didn’t require checking her instrument panel, Jessamyn knew what had just transpired. Her mouth filled with a metal taste which she tried to swallow away. She felt the void created by the Red Dawn’s absence. She had no need to search the skies for dismembered pieces spinning away from one another. She knew the truth. They were gone. All dead.

Chapter Eight

WE ARE SMALL CREATURES

No!

Her mind pushed back, hard against the insistent fact: the Red Dawn was no more.

It’s a mistake, thought Jessamyn. And weren’t mistakes things you went back to fix? You gathered the pieces together, put everything back where it ought to be, and said, “Let’s try that again, shall we?”

Death, always intrusive, felt so wrong here—a wrong-ness that grated along her spine like a rock traced upon glass. Lobster, red-bearded and laughing, couldn’t be merely “no more.”

Seated alone in the pilot hotseat, Jessamyn couldn’t see the others. But she could hear their feelings in the way they breathed. A hitched gasp, an inhalation suddenly held, a sigh too agonizingly long.

The Captain broke the silence.

“Communications specialist, you will please send a transmission to MCC indicating the loss of our sister ship and the loss of …”

Jess heard the strain in Kipper’s voice as she forced herself to continue.

“The loss of Captain LaFontaine, First Officer Tedjomuljano, Payload Specialist Ben-David, Communications Specialist Neru, and Negotiations Officer Wu.”

“Aye, Captain,” replied Ethan.

“First Officer Jaarda, will you please confirm our course heading?” asked Kipper.

“I’ve adjusted course to take us to Earth,” replied Jessamyn. There was no question of doing anything else—the Red Galleon would have to accomplish both missions now.

Behind the Galleon, the golden globe of Mars seemed to watch as the lasers continued their work, cruelly reducing the Red Dawn to finer and finer pieces, so much space debris. Jess flicked off the screen showing what was now, irrevocably, a part of the mission’s past. A chill that originated in her bones hummed and vibrated inside her, cold as space.

She felt a primordial impulse to close her eyes and scream, but instead forced herself to run checks using her instrument panel. The Galleon appeared to have forgiven Jessamyn’s exacting treatment. Are you grateful you were spared? wondered Jess. The question pinged back to her: Are you grateful? Are you? Her fingers made course adjustments automatically, and it seemed to Jess almost as if she was watching someone else piloting the ship.

Below, her home world retreated, and she allowed herself to gaze at Mars, to watch it as it raced away, or as she did. The planet shifted from a yellow-orange sphere to a smaller orange-y circle and finally a reddish smudge against a backdrop of velvety black. Jess lost all sense of time as she sat, immobile, watching her world shrink away.

“First Officer,” said the captain’s voice inside Jessamyn’s helmet, “I’d like a word on a private line.”

Jess felt a cool emptiness in her stomach. She knew she should feel something more: Kipper was almost certainly going to offer praise for the quick thinking that had allowed the Galleon to escape.

“This line’s secure, Captain,” Jess replied with a sigh. She wasn’t in the mood for congratulations. Or for Kipper.

“What in Hades did you think you were doing back there?” asked Kipper, sounding like she had Mars-sand stuck between her backside and her flight suit.

The question caught Jessamyn off balance. I could win an award for my inability to predict other people’s responses to my actions, she thought. Closing her eyes wearily, she asked, “Could you specify which part of my rescue of the Red Galleon and her crew you’re referring to?” She heard the sarcasm in her voice and found she didn’t regret it.

“We could start with the part where you began shouting orders to LaFontaine, without reference to the fact that your rank is inferior to—was inferior to—”

Jessamyn cut Kipper off. “I was trying to save his life. Which I think you can agree was more important than worrying about who outranked whom. Sir.”

“It was insubordinate and unprofessional in the extreme, First Officer, and it may have cost the crew of the Red Dawn their lives,” said Kipper. “If this ship had a brig, you’d be cooling your heels in it right now.”

Jess’s throat burned with the words she couldn’t say with certainty—that it wasn’t her fault. Instead, she lashed out. “Fine. Send me to my room.”

“You will address your commanding officer with respect, First Officer Jaarda.”

“Send me to my room, sir.” Jess knew she sounded like a child. In truth, she felt angry and frightened to a degree she hadn’t known since childhood.

She heard Kipper’s loud, angry exhalation.

“Jaarda, you will confine yourself to quarters for the remainder of the watch. You will write up a full report detailing the possible harmful consequences of the maneuvers to which you subjected the Red Galleon and her crew. You will evaluate the possibility that you endangered our sister ship, and you will compose letters of condolence to the family members of the crew of the Red Dawn.”

Jess sighed. “Okay.”

“First Officer, you are a member of my crew and you will answer your captain according to standard protocols.”

Jess closed her eyes. She could do this. “Aye-aye, sir.”

Another loud exhale. “Captain out.”

Jess wasn’t surprised by how her commanding officer treated her; rumors had reached Jessamyn that Kipper had tendered her resignation when she’d found out Jess would be her first officer. And Jess knew exactly why Kipper had, in the end, remained on the mission: returning home as a victorious raider would help her politically. Jess despised her for using the command of such a mission as a stepping stone.

But Jessamyn had promised Lobster she would try to get along with Kipper. Her throat tightened as she remembered the conversation. She owed her fallen friend this much. Jess entered the quarters she would share with Harpreet for the next three weeks. She found that she craved the relief of examining every choice she’d made upon the bridge, laying bare what had happened and why and how. Far better this than the haunting question: Could I have done something that would have saved both crews?

Collapsing on the upper bunk, Jess pulled up the ship’s vid log. How quickly everything happened. From the ship’s first warning of discovery to her final, daring maneuvers, only four minutes of time elapsed.

She replayed the moment where she had put her ship into a hard turnabout—the moment the lasers lost the Red Galleon. She saw how they overshot their target and then ceased firing, seeking the missing ship. It had been pure dreadful luck that placed the Red Dawn square in the line of fire. Jess steeled herself to observe the video and saw how the laser had sheared through the Dawn’s wasp-like midsection, cutting the crew off from the bulk of their propulsion rockets. Horrified, she saw Lobster trying what she would have done herself: burning side thrusters in small bursts to turn the crewed half of the vessel back toward Mars and the safety of a lower orbit. But the laser tracked the movement and opened steady fire upon Lobster’s helm. Without the big thrust engines, the Dawn hadn’t stood a chance.

Jess stopped the vid and leaned back in her chair. In saving her own ship, she’d exposed Lobster and his crew. The image of the laser burning through the Red Dawn kept repeating itself in her mind’s eye, a torment never to be forgotten. She rose desperate to go somewhere, but then she realized where she stood—aboard a space-faring vessel confined to quarters. There was no planet-hopper to take her deep into the Marsian desert. And so, kneeling in the center of her quarters, Jess grieved in the manner of her people, moaning tearlessly, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

Harpreet found Jessamyn like this during the hour before evening rations.

“Child,” she said, placing her own strong arms around Jess. “Ah, daughter. We blame the wind when it blows dust upon our windows. But the wind blows for a thousand reasons we cannot name, sparing our neighbor’s windows one day and our own another.”

Jess felt the strong arms surrounding her and curved her head into the embrace.

“Let blame go, daughter. Cast it to the wind to be borne far away.”

Jess pulled back, nodding. “I’ll try.”

“Come and eat, child. Our stomachs are permitted no rest, even though our hearts have broken.”

Together, they rose and joined the other three. Kipper seemed to have calmed herself. No longer accusatory, she greeted Jessamyn with a curt nod.

Over the subdued meal, Kipper addressed the other four crew members. “We have received three transmissions from MCC in the hours since the destruction of our sister ship. The first contained the Red Dawn’s audio log.” Kipper paused. “It appears that once the Galleon was initially struck by laser, Captain LaFontaine determined to draw fire from the Galleon no matter the cost to himself, his ship, or his crew.”

Jessamyn’s heart wrenched. Of course. It made sense. Why else would he leave his entire flank open to fire?

“In doing so, he was following orders given by the Secretary General. In the event that the safety of one ship became compromised, the Red Galleon’s safety was to be held paramount.” Kipper’s eyes rested on the table. “The men and women of the Red Dawn, under orders, sacrificed themselves to give us a chance.”

The Galleon crew sat in silence, digesting the revelation.

Then Kipper spoke again. “In the second transmission, the Secretary General extended solemn congratulations to our crew for having passed into deep space, along with a special commendation of First Officer Jaarda’s bold tactics, without which, and I quote, ‘evidence suggests the Red Galleon would have been lost as well.’”

Jess tried to feel satisfied with the commendation. But she felt only empty. She would never again swap stories with her red-bearded friend. Never again ask him for a vehicle it would have been wiser for him to withhold. She swallowed hard against the lump swelling her throat.

“In the third transmission, the Secretary informed me that while the final decision is hers, MCC is split as to whether or not to recommend the assignment of both missions to our single crew. She added that it will likely be days if not weeks before they are able to agree upon a recommendation.”

Harpreet placed her hands atop the table, bringing her fingertips together as if in prayer. “Yet our time is limited by the length of the journey. So it will fall to us to create a course of action,” she said quietly, her gaze upon her hands.

Kipper nodded. “She suggests we determine for ourselves whether the two tasks can be accomplished by five persons using only the Galleon. There are no other space-worthy vessels to send. The Galleon must retrieve rations for Mars. The question is whether or not we will also attempt to transfer satellite command from Earth to Mars Colonial.”

“Hades, yes,” said Jessamyn. “We’ve all seen what those death-rays can do.”

The Captain bristled but did not reprimand Jess for the interruption. Instead, she continued. “I would like to ask Negotiations Specialist Mombasu to consider this matter. As the only one of us with prior experience of the conditions on Earth, I will be guided by her when I present my evaluation to the Secretary.”

Jessamyn refrained from rolling her eyes at the Captain’s stiff formality. Jess had made the point she wanted. She hoped Harpreet would agree with it.

The Captain addressed Harpreet. “Will you please prepare a recommendation for me by 06:00 tomorrow?”

Harpreet bowed her acquiescence.

“Very well,” said Kipper. “We will begin our deep-space rotations immediately. Crew dismissed.”

The Captain, Harpreet, and Crusty, the on-duty officers, filed out of the rations room. Ethan remained and Jess approached his side.

“You okay?” she asked softly.

“The Galleon’s supply of tellurium must prove adequate,” he replied.

Jessamyn frowned. “Adequate for … ?”

“Harpreet must now convince our Terran contact that the supply of tellurium currently in our hold is as valuable as a double amount of ration bars.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.” Jess shrugged. “Harpreet’s a shrewd negotiator.”

“She will have to be.”

“Hmm,” agreed Jess. “But you didn’t answer my question, Eth.”

“The tellurium must be enough, so it will be. Ethan must survive this journey, so he will.”

Half a smile crept onto Jessamyn’s face. “You amaze me, Eth.”

Ethan checked the chrono-compass tattoo on his wrist. The deep red glow matched what Jess knew she would see on her own.

“It is time for me to visit the observation deck,” said Ethan, rising.

Jessamyn raised one eyebrow. “It’s time?” she asked, following her brother on the brief walk.

“I believe that regular visits, in six-hour intervals, will allow me to better manage the three weeks before us.”

“Oh. That’s really smart, Eth.”

The two entered the ob-deck, kept darkened for better viewing of the heavens.

The stars! Jess saw them as sharp prickling points, scattered carelessly by a sower of star-seed. They swam dizzily before her as she tried to take them all in at once, differently colored and sized, in quantity beyond what anyone could number.

“It’s beautiful,” murmured Jess, after they’d sat in silence for several minutes.

“I find the outlook to have a balancing effect upon my autonomic nervous system,” replied Ethan.

Jess laughed quietly. “Yeah, I guess that’s what I meant.”

“You will pardon me,” said Ethan, “But I do not believe that is what you meant. Jessamyn finds beauty where others are not able to appreciate it. I do not believe that it is the beauty of what I observe that calms me. It is simply that when I view the vastness before us, I do not feel as uncomfortable as when I am confined to … other parts of the ship.”

The two sat in silence before the canvas of ink-black, spattered with the bright dust of a thousand worlds. Jess felt a tugging grief, a Lobster-shaped space inside her that was now empty.

“I can’t believe I’m not going to see him again,” Jess said.

“Him?” asked her brother.

“Lobster. All of them. You’ll miss Wu, won’t you?”

“Wu was a formidable opponent in Monopoly,” said Ethan. “I will think of him often, and when I think of him, yes, Jessamyn, I will regret his absence.”

Jess felt a flash of hot anger against Earth and the cruel satellites. “Promise me one thing, Eth. Promise you’ll take control of that laser array.”

“That is what I am meant to do.”

“It shouldn’t have happened,” whispered Jess. “It’s wrong. As wrong as …” Jessamyn broke off, unable to think of anything that was comparably unwarranted.

Her brother sat beside her, not speaking, not demanding that she complete her thought. She found his presence deeply comforting.

At last, pointing to the heavens, she spoke again. “We’re traveling fifty-five million kilometers and the stars don’t change. They should be different, don’t you think?”

“What other stars would they be?”

“I don’t know. It seems like, if we journey so far, shouldn’t the stars be different?”

“Fifty-five million kilometers is a very short distance, Jessamyn. We are not leaving our solar system.”

“I know. It just feels like … I don’t know how to explain it, Eth.”

“We are small creatures, Jessamyn, and the universe is infinite.”

Jess followed the arch of the treated observation window from one side to the other across the field of stars. “Yeah, guess we all got a good dose of our insignificance today.”

“We are small, but we are also infinitely great, Jessamyn. Infinitely important.”

“You figure?”

“Our companions are gone, but their importance reaches outward and onward. For each of us. For everyone on Mars. Their importance is boundless. Like the universe.”

The pair sat in silent contemplation of the heavens. At last Jess spoke again.

“Do you believe that, Eth? That the universe simply goes and goes and goes?”

“Of course it does.”

“I know it’s infinite.” Jess said, repeating her brother’s word. “But do you actually believe in it? In infinity? In something that has neither beginning nor end?”

“I believe,” said Ethan.

“Hmm,” sighed Jessamyn.

Between Mars and Earth, while clocks kept time with the stars, the Red Galleon and her crew advanced toward hope.

Chapter Nine

ANOMALOUS READING

Prior to the inception of the Terran Re-body Initiative, Earth faced several grave problems. Overpopulation had led to hunger and war on an unprecedented scale. Local governments attempted to eliminate these problems, but none had anything like the success of those who recompensed desired behaviors using a variant of a re-bodying program. Such plans offered a reward, in the form of placement inside a new younger body, gifted to those citizens engaging in behaviors that combated their nation’s worst problems. Put simply, the Terran obsession with youth provided an incentive to work toward peace and plenty. But where to find healthy young bodies in numbers sufficient for those who had earned them? A program in Belarus gained precedence and became the model for the worldwide Terran Re-body Initiative.

Predicated upon the idea that youth was wasted on the young, eighteen-year-olds “swapped” places with fifty-four-year-olds using a method of consciousness transfer. The eighteen-year-old, now said to be in “twobody,” spent the next eighteen years in the aging fifty-four-year-old body whilst apprenticing for the work that would be his or her life’s contribution. At the end of the apprenticeship years, another body transfer was made into “threebody.” (Most Terrans agreed that the switching from a seventy-two-year-old body into a thirty-six-year-old body was the single most satisfying transfer.) Threebodies thus had a body age that matched their chronological age. And when they completed their eighteen years of useful contribution and good behaviors (their “working years”), they retired, at the age of fifty-four, into svelte, young, eighteen-year-old bodies for the last quarter of their lives.

A beautiful solution, agreed most Terrans, providing severe checks against anti-social behaviors at eighteen year intervals. The one fly in the ointment was that, in order to provide a steady stream of correctly-aged bodies at correct intervals, life spans had to be limited to seventy-two years. No one was allowed to reach a seventy-third birthday, in any body. It was a price most Terrans were content to pay. They had peace, they had food, they had a lovely retirement plan for eighteen truly golden years. And besides, prior to the peace brought by the Terran Re-body Initiative, life spans of seventy-two years, though possible on Mars, had become rare on Earth.

Earth’s problems prior to the Terran re-bodying solution had been the same issues that created funding cuts for the Mars Project. However, when it was discovered that tellurium allowed for better success rates in consciousness transfer, Terrans demanded more of the precious metal from Mars, coming up with large bills for “advertising” the Mars Project on Earth.

Marsians laughed. They shook their heads at both the advertising bills and the bizarre practice of re-bodying. Their refusal to pay for “advertising” on Earth, when combined with Earth’s refusal to send food and supplies Mars had pre-paid, led to a breakdown in relations between the two worlds that culminated in war, a cease-fire, and finally, the No Contact Accords.

What this meant for Jessamyn and her fellow crew members was that the two cultures had grown to have completely different attitudes towards aging and life expectancy, among other things. Yet Jess’s crew, as the Marsians disabling the satellites, would be called upon to act as Terran twobodies or fourbodies whose chronological age didn’t match their body age.

Jessamyn found re-bodying all rather confusing. It was silly, as well, from her point of view. Who didn’t want to age? On Mars, growing old was a sign you were clever, resilient, and a survivor. She had tolerated role-playing as a “fourbody” during her MCC training because she couldn’t pilot to Earth without agreeing to it. But she had dreaded assuming the fake role upon Earth, and during training, she frequently lamented not being a part of the team whose mission it was to simply retrieve ration bars. However, the loss of the Red Dawn changed everything. Whereas there had been two teams, now there was only one. This meant extra days planet-side on Earth, and she would almost certainly have to pretend to be an aged person in a young body at some point.

18:00 hours meant the end of Jessamyn’s twelve hour “day” shift which had begun with morning rations at 06:00. 18:00 also meant evening rations. With neither sunrise nor sunset, the distinction of day or night could hardly remain important. The crew operated on a Terran twenty-four hour clock with some overlap in their waking hours, and it was during these overlaps that morning and evening rations were shared among the crew.

Jessamyn didn’t miss the extra minutes from Mars’s slightly longer twenty-four hour and thirty-eight minute day. On Mars the extra time was allotted to mid-day contemplation or napping. But aboard ship, Jess had more than enough time to spend in thought or sleep.

As the crew gathered once more for a meal, Jessamyn suspected they would hear news of a revised mission. She was not disappointed.

The Captain expressed her confidence in the new plan to take on both missions. Jess noted with a mixture of relief and slight disappointment that she would spend her entire time on Earth waiting with Crusty alongside the Red Galleon so that they could return rations to Mars in the event the satellite-hacking mission should not proceed according to plan.

Crusty, who rarely spoke more than two words together, shocked everyone by breaking the silence after the Captain’s new plan was announced. “Glad to hear we’ll be killing two birds with one stone. We owe that much to the memory of the good folks lost on the Red Dawn.”

At the conclusion of that lengthy speech, Crusty stood and went to check the health of an algae he kept in the rations room. After grunting at what he saw, he left with the Captain to begin the “night” shift.

Jess sighed, looking over her assigned role as a “fourbody” while on Earth. “Why can’t Terrans stay in one body like regular people,” she muttered, standing.

“Regular is different on Earth,” said Ethan. “Their system has worked for centuries, and, assuredly, they feel that it is normal.” He followed his sister, who trailed Harpreet out of the rations room and into the central corridor.

“There’s nothing normal about swapping in and out of bodies every eighteen years,” said Jess.

“The desire to practice consciousness transfer is difficult for us to understand,” agreed Harpreet.

“Their lives are not so different from our own,” said her brother. “The divisions of their lives are like ours: early schooling, apprenticeship for an occupation, serving in that occupation, and retirement.”

“And mandatory death at seventy-two. Oh wait,” said Jess in a voice dripping sarcasm, “We don’t do that part. Besides, it’s not like you have to swap bodies to do those other things.”

“You do not,” he agreed.

“Sleep well, Ethan,” said Harpreet as she and Jessamyn arrived at their quarters.

Ethan turned back to his room and Jess entered hers, crawling up to her top bunk.

“I don’t know how I’m going to impersonate an elderly person, if it comes down to it,” said Jess.

“Being old is not so difficult, child. I would not know my own age if I never looked in the mirror,” said Harpreet.

Tired, Jessamyn smiled. She didn’t have it in her to continue the conversation. She’d found it impossible to sleep last night, so her body felt exhausted now. She brought a hand to her mouth to cover a huge yawn. Looking at her fingers, she wondered who she would be in the body of another person. Not Jess, she thought. How could she possibly separate the part of herself that knew flying in her bones from the part of her that understood it in her head? Crazy. That’s what Terrans were. She yawned once more and fell asleep.

~ ~ ~

Life aboard the ship settled into a simple and somewhat dull routine. Earth began to appear brighter, and Jessamyn sometimes thought she could see a blue tint. Her brother continued visiting the observation deck four times a day, Jess joining him each morning before and each evening after their duty shift. The systematic visits, especially those made with his sister, provided incalculable relief for Ethan. He admitted that he often felt an unpleasant sensation that the walls were pressing in on him, but when Jess questioned him about it, he insisted he would survive. His sister worked hard at believing him, ever watchful for telltale signs that all was not well. Ethan certainly performed his tasks with efficiency, running systems checks several times a day that would have made his sister cross-eyed with boredom.

“Ship still holding together?” Jess asked her brother one morning as he completed a report.

“I believe so,” said Ethan. “Although I have detected an anomalous reading in the observation deck.”

Jess snorted. “The window’s tired of you, Eth. This is its way of saying, give it a rest already.” She grinned at her brother. Privately, she was proud of him for finding a way to manage his claustrophobia.

Ethan didn’t reply but stared intently at a series of readings. His fingers flew across the screen and he frowned. “The observation deck appears to be drawing oxygen from other parts of the ship.”

The smile faded off Jessamyn’s face. “You serious?” She left her post at navigation and stood behind her brother as he scrolled through a series of numbers.

“There,” she said, pointing to a reading.

“Yes,” said her brother. “I believe this may indicate a small leak.”

“Small leaks don’t stay small out here, Eth. How long has this been going on?”

He retrieved a set of readings from the prior day. “Nothing yesterday.”

“It could still be nothing, today, too, I suppose,” said Jess.

Ethan, shaking his head as if uncertain, checked his chrono-tattoo.

“You thinking what I’m thinking? Wake up Crusty?” asked his sister.

“The payload specialist will have entered REM sleep at this hour.”

Jess rolled her eyes. “Crusty would want to be woken, trust me. And don’t do that. Don’t go all Kipper on me with the names.”

“Payload specialist is his designation.”

Jessamyn groaned, then tapped the screen. “Refresh those readings on the ob-deck.”

Ethan startled visibly at what he saw.

“Holy Ares,” murmured Jessamyn. “Is it me or did those numbers just take a big jump in the wrong direction?”

“I believe we must interrupt the payload specialist’s sleep cycle,” said Ethan.

But Jessamyn was already on the ship’s comm, hollering for Crusty to wake up now.

They met him in the hall that connected Crusty and Ethan’s shared quarters with the rest of the ship. Crusty was already pulling up readings on a screen beside the ob-deck.

“That ain’t good,” said Crusty, shaking his head.

“Can you fix it?” asked Jess.

“Fixing things is what Crusty does,” said Ethan when the payload specialist didn’t answer.

The gruff mechanic strode back down to his quarters, grabbed his diagnostic wafer, returned, and hit the seal door opening to the ob-deck.

“Wake the Captain,” said Crusty as the door slid shut.

Moving forward along the narrow hall, Jessamyn got Kipper up, sending her back to the mechanic.

Harpreet would want to know, too, thought Jessamyn, pausing at the quarters she shared with the old raider.

By the time Harpreet and Jessamyn returned to the ob-deck, Ethan was performing a suit-check for Crusty. The walk-out suits aboard the Galleon met outer-space standards, and protocol for their use included a systems check prior to and after any use.

“Does Crusty expect to use that thing?” Jess asked her brother in a quiet murmur.

“Yes,” replied Ethan.

“Where’s Kipper?” asked Harpreet.

Ethan explained that the Captain had returned to the bridge to examine the readings. “And Crusty has suggested that we should all move to the forward portion of the ship.”

Jessamyn and Harpreet left for the bridge while Ethan finished checking the suit for Crusty. A few minutes later, Ethan joined his sister, Harpreet, and Kipper.

“What does Crusty think?” asked Jess when her brother returned.

“He is a man of few words,” replied Ethan.

Jess guffawed. “Says the man of few words.”

Kipper spoke. “You caught this early, Communications Specialist Jaarda and First Officer Jaarda. I commend you both.”

“Thanks would do just fine,” muttered Jess.

“Did you have something to say to your captain?” asked Kipper.

Jess bit her tongue, holding back the things she would have preferred to articulate. Instead she said, “It was Ethan who noticed the readings, Captain, sir.”

Kipper nodded in response.

Crusty’s voice came through the ship’s comm. “Captain, I have one confirmed leak along the starboard hull. Requesting permission to go outside and get a better look.”

“Permission granted,” said Kipper. “I’m bringing down the inner seal door on the ob-deck as a precaution.”

“Just what I was about to recommend,” said Crusty. “Though it won’t stop a bad leak. That seal door ain’t no confinement barrier.”

For the next twenty-five minutes, the crew listened to the sound of Crusty’s breathing, punctuated with occasional exclamations of “Huh,” and “I’ll be.” When he reentered through the aft airlock, they heard him muttering a series of unpleasant wishes regarding Terrans and their technology.

“I slapped a piece of hull-seal on the outside,” Crusty reported on the comm. “The sons-of-bugs made all kinds of work for me when we get planet-side.”

“And the prognosis?” asked Kipper.

The mechanic grunted. “Hull-seal’s only good so many days, ain’t it? I’m mixing up some omni-poxy right now for the inner seal. That oughta hold her together.”

The crew sighed in collective relief.

After a moment, Kipper spoke. “I am declaring the ob-deck off-limits for the duration of our flight.”

Jess gasped. “You can’t do that.” She glanced anxiously at her brother.

Kipper stared coldly at Jessamyn for several seconds. “Don’t give me another reason to confine you to quarters, Jaarda.” She turned to Ethan and Harpreet. “Wake me at once if there is further degradation to the ship’s hull.”

Jess followed Kipper down the hall. “I’m sorry I said it that way. Kip—Captain, wait, please.”

Kipper paused, one hand on the door to her quarters. “First Officer?”

“It’s my brother,” said Jess. “You can’t seal off the ob-deck. Ethan needs to go there to keep his … his autonomic nervous system balanced.”

“Duly noted,” said the Captain, turning to her door.

Jess grabbed Kipper’s shoulder to keep her from leaving. “Crusty’s fixes always work. Please. If you don’t let Eth stand and stare out at the stars four times a day, he’ll shrivel. He won’t be able—”

“That’s enough, Jaarda,” said Kipper, removing Jess’s hand.

“—he won’t be able to make the kind of discoveries he made today. I know my bro—”

“I said that’s enough, First Officer. Are you incapable of recognizing an imperative when your captain issues one?”

Jess stood, caught between shame and panic. “I know how to obey an order, sir.”

“My order stands. For the safety of this crew, the ob-deck will remain sealed.” And with that, Kipper punched her door button and left Jessamyn standing alone in the hall.

Harpreet, standing at the far end of the hall, had seen at least some part of the interaction.

“Ares and Aphrodite! She makes me crazy,” Jess said, her voice angry and low.

“No, Jessamyn, child. You do that to yourself. The Captain is not answerable for your responses. You are.”

“But, this isn’t even about me! It’s about Ethan. He needs to spend time on the ob-deck every six hours. It’s how he’s keeping it together.”

Harpreet touched Jessamyn’s face softly. “Daughter, your brother is a remarkable young man. Perhaps it is time for you to let him fight his own battles. Did you hear him demanding that the Captain change her mind?”

Jess thought about it for a moment, then asked, “You think I get in my brother’s way?”

“I think your brother would have spoken up if he felt the loss of his time upon the observation deck would impair his performance.”

Jessamyn frowned. “I want him to succeed so badly. To prove to himself that he can live any life he chooses.”

Harpreet smiled. “Then allow him to prove this to himself.”

Jessamyn placed a hand over her eyes and slowly shook her head. “I only want to help, but I don’t have the first clue, do I?”

“It is always that way with those we hold closest, child. Give your brother some room and see what he does on his own.”

Jess laughed half-heartedly. “Give him some room. Yeah, that ought to be obvious enough, huh?”

Further down the hall, Jess saw Crusty exiting the ob-deck, sealing the door behind him. He removed his helmet and took a long, deep breath.

Jess straightened her back and lifted her chin. “Crusty,” she called. “You want a hand with your suit-check?”

“I’m fine,” he said, shuffling toward the rations room, removing his gloves. “I’ll check it come morning. Evening. Whatever.”

“Good night, daughter,” said Harpreet, returning to the sleep quarters they shared.

“Good night,” said Jess. “And thanks.”

Returning to the bridge, Jessamyn seated herself back at navigation. “So I guess everything’s going to be fine,” she said to Ethan.

“Everything will be well,” replied her brother.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Chapter Ten

CALIBRATED TO SHATTER

At the end of her shift, Jessamyn felt as if she’d completed twenty-four and not twelve hours on duty.

“I will never complain about boredom on the bridge again,” she said as she sat between Harpreet and her brother.

“Boring over drama any day,” mumbled Crusty from across the room.

“Crusty obtained some vid footage of the outside of our ship,” said Harpreet, passing a computing wafer to Jessamyn.

Jess winced upon viewing the long ugly scarring along the starboard side of the Galleon. “Poor old girl,” she said, her voice a mere whisper. Tracing her fingers along the image of the scar, Jess shivered. It was a grim reminder of the destruction of the Red Dawn.

“‘Nother two minutes was all they needed,” said Crusty. The dark flash of anger in his eyes told Jess he felt the same way about the ship as did she. “You did good, kid, getting the Galleon out of range.”

The Captain entered, looking bleary-eyed, and the conversation turned to their mission. With only four days remaining in transit, many details remained to be hammered out, reconsidered, and otherwise determined upon. Jess tried to focus upon her ration, but the images from Crusty’s vid danced before her eyes still. She realized anew how fortunate they were to have suffered only damage to the observation deck.

The meal ended, bringing with it the moment when Ethan would remember he couldn’t visit the ob-deck before retiring. Jess followed him with her eyes as he rose and said good night to the crew, but would not allow herself to trail behind him, ask if he was okay, feel sorry for him.

Instead of turning aft to his room, officially the captain’s quarters, Ethan strode forward to check something on the bridge. Kipper’s giving up of the ship’s largest quarters to Crusty and Ethan had surprised everyone, Jessamyn most of all, but she felt certain the additional space was helpful to her brother.

Turning to Crusty at her side, Jess asked, “Will you be able to fix the ob-deck leak on Earth?”

The payload specialist shrugged. “Likely, I can.”

Crusty was standoffish to a degree that made Ethan look friendly and accommodating. But it was plain enough why MCC had chosen him: he could fix anything. It was rumored that you could set him out on the planitia with only a methanol/oxygen fuel-cell system suit and a reverse-water-gas-shift reactor, and in a week he would be not only alive, but living in a structure he’d built from dirt and ice by turning these into metals, glass, and other useful items.

It was rumored, but no one had dared him to do it. He didn’t invite or welcome conversation.

“Well,” said Jessamyn, “If you need someone for grunt work, I’m at your disposal. I won’t have much else to do.”

Crusty grunted.

Harpreet smiled at them both, but whether it was because Jessamyn’s attempts at conversation amused or pleased her, Jess couldn’t tell.

“I’ll be on the bridge, Payload Specialist,” said Kipper, rising to depart.

“If Ethan’s on the bridge still, would you tell him I’m calling it a night?” Jess asked. Catching Harpreet’s gentle eye upon her, Jess restrained herself from adding but he can wake me up if he needs me.

The Captain nodded curtly.

Harpreet smiled, and this time Jess felt sure what it meant: Well done, daughter.

Crusty, bent over the used walk-out suit for a thorough systems-check, called after Jess as she rose to leave. “Thanks for the offer to help. You’re like your ma, you know.”

Jessamyn flushed and smiled. Usually people remarked upon her similarity to her granddad, which was fine, but this was a welcome change. Turning forward to her quarters, she tried to remember what she knew about her mom’s acquaintance with the gruff mechanic. She had just entered her room and pressed the hatch button to close behind her when she heard Crusty’s voice again.

“Bells of Hades!” he swore.

Jess caught the utterance as her door slid shut. She paused, then punched the hatch button to re-open her door. It pulled back just in time to reveal Crusty, racing for the bridge, shouting on the ship’s comm to the Captain.

“Shut down the whole mid-section!”

Harpreet, trailing in Crusty’s footsteps, stopped to speak to Jessamyn. “It’s the ob-deck leak. The patches didn’t take, and the seal-doors aren’t to airlock specification. He’s going to have to seal off the back end of the ship.”

Jess looked down the hall. She could already hear the grind of the emergency airlock seals. “My brother!”

“Is he not on the bridge, child?”

Jessamyn was already dashing along the hall to make sure. She called out, “Ethan? Eth? You on the bridge?”

Reaching the front of the ship, she looked to her brother’s seat at the communications panel. He wasn’t there.

“Where’s Ethan?” cried Jess. “Stop the isolation protocol!”

“Belay that,” shouted Kipper.

“No,” Jess shouted, “You have to stop—”

Kipper bellowed, “Get off my bridge, First Officer.”

Harpreet, examining a screen, spoke softly to Jessamyn. “It cannot be stopped, daughter. The hull breach is venting air into space at a terrible pace.”

“My brother!” cried Jessamyn.

“Payload Specialist, seal the aft sleep quarters as well,” called Kipper. “Mombasu, get her off my bridge, now!”

The order was unnecessary; Jessamyn was already running, hurling herself at the emergency bulkhead, calling her brother’s name. Harpreet grabbed Jess, threw her to the ground, and used her own weight to pin Jessamyn.

“You cannot cross the seal!” said Harpreet.

Jess struggled—a mad, wild thing desperate for freedom.

Harpreet shouted, “Listen: the Captain has ordered the bulkhead on the far side to be closed as well. If I allowed you to pass, you would suffocate, sealed between doors.”

The bulkhead’s set of airlock doors bolted into place, shuddering the floor beneath Jess’s pounding heart. Harpreet shifted off of her, allowing Jessamyn to move. But Jess lay still.

“He’s trapped,” she whispered.

“He’s safe from the breach,” replied Harpreet. “He is in his quarters and he is safe.”

Crusty pounded down the hall, a leak detector in his outstretched hand. He ran the device along the seams of the bulkhead. “We have a lock-seal on this side, Captain,” he said into the comm-link.

Kipper strode down the hall as well, calling into her own comm-link. “Communications Specialist Jaarda, do you have a secure seal on your side?”

Jess dug her nails into her palms as she heard her brother’s voice. “The airlock doors have followed the protocol for confinement mode. I detect no leaks.”

“How are your oh-two levels?” she asked.

“I am checking,” replied Ethan.

Jess held her breath.

“Oxygen levels in the aft portion of the ship are stable,” said Ethan.

“Good,” said the Captain. “But I still want you to suit up immediately. We’re going to evaluate the possibility of bringing you through the aft airlock, past the ob-deck, and through the mid airlock. Do you copy?”

Crusty spoke to Jessamyn. “The doors to the ob-deck aren’t airtight, but they’re shut, and that should be enough to get your brother past ‘em.”

Jessamyn’s voice, when she found it, was so low as to be almost inaudible. “He has no suit.”

Crusty swore.

Kipper turned. “What in Hades is wrong now?”

“It’s the walk-out suit, Captain,” said Crusty. “I left it in the rations room. I hadn’t finished checking it, Sir.”

There was only one walk-out suit assigned to the aft quarters—the quarters intended to house a captain. In the hushed moment that followed, Jess cursed herself for not having foreseen this.

“‘Fraid he’s stuck,” said Crusty.

“I’ll take him a suit,” said Jessamyn. “Suit me up and I’ll carry an additional suit to Ethan.”

Kipper hesitated. “Your idea has been noted, Jaarda. Crusty, I want you on the bridge. You, too, Mombasu.” She strode along the hall.

“I’ll suit up,” Jessamyn called after her.

Kipper whirled to face her. “I have issued no such directive. You will confine yourself to quarters, Jaarda. No one is going through those airlocks until Crusty and Mombasu confirm it is one-hundred percent certain such an attempt will not place Specialist Jaarda or yourself in additional danger.”

Jess bristled, ready to shout down her captain, disobey direct orders, and otherwise do anything necessary to rescue her brother.

But Ethan spoke first. “I believe they will concur that the safest course of action would be for me to remain here. I have air and water.”

Jess opened her mouth to speak, but found she had nothing to say and closed it again.

Kipper spoke to Ethan as she continued her march to the bridge. “Specialist Jaarda, I’ve got the payload specialist and Harpreet running checks for me right now. We’ll get you out if we can.”

Her back against the wall, Jess slowly shrank to the floor, knees up in her chest, hands loose at her sides. She wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.

Remembering the earpiece that allowed her to communicate privately with her brother, Jess jerked her head to one side, activating the device.

“Hey, Eth,” she said as she heard his beep in response to her hail.

“Jessamyn.”

“You okay?”

“I am in excellent health. I have water and oxygen.”

“Check your pockets,” said Jess. “I’ve seen how you stuff your rations away ‘for later.’”

She heard a rustling noise as he searched.

“Jessamyn is correct. I have food as well. That is fortunate.”

Yeah, thought Jess. This whole thing’s just one big piece of fortunate. Aloud she asked, “What are you going to do?” She felt her fingernails as they dug into her palms.

“I will rest.”

Jess sighed in frustration. “That’s not what I meant.”

“What did Jessamyn intend to inquire after?”

“You’re in a small room, Eth. What’s your plan for dealing with that?”

“Thanks to the generosity of Captain Kipling, I am in the largest quarters normally reserved for a captain.”

“Yeah,” said Jess. She itched to ask for more, to demand that her brother present a five-step plan, but then she remembered what Harpreet had said. Allow him to prove things to himself. She sighed.

“Okay, so, um, call me if you get bored,” she said.

“It is unlikely boredom will be a problem. I require sleep. When I awake, I have a wafer-computer to read. I have occupations to forestall boredom.”

But what about forestalling claustrophobia? She felt her nails digging into her palms again and took a slow breath, unclenching her fists.

Her brother was an adult. A remarkable adult. It was time she started treating him that way.

“Goodnight,” she said. “Call me if you need, you know, anything.”

“Goodnight.”

“Hey, Eth?”

“Jessamyn?”

“Would you leave your audio earpiece turned on?”

There was a pause before he answered. “Very well.”

“Thanks, Eth. Goodnight.”

Her brother, having already uttered the word once, did not repeat it a second time. Before long, Jess heard the regular sound of her brother’s sleep-breathing. It lulled her, reminding her of the nights she’d spent sleeping on his floor before launch. Without intending to sleep at all that night, Jess fell fast asleep. When she awoke the next morning, hearing nothing from the audio device, she thought at first that her brother was sleeping still. Then she remembered the device was supposed to shut down when she slept. Shaking her head to the right, she reactivated her link to Ethan. To the sound of her brother humming to himself.

She sat up at once. For most people, humming was an activity carried out when they felt especially happy. Her father hummed while working. Her brother, however, hummed—at one unvarying pitch—only when severely distressed.

“Ethan?”

He paused and then resumed his flat hum.

“Hey, Eth. You don’t sound so good.”

The humming stopped again. There was a quiet pause before Ethan spoke. “I am coping.”

“Um, yeah,” said Jessamyn.

“The Captain informs me—” Her brother paused again. “The Captain informs me it is too dangerous to cross through the sealed portion of the ship, and I concur.”

Jess’s heart contracted and she punched her firm mattress.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay. So, um, three days to go, huh, Eth?”

He didn’t respond.

“Come on, Eth, you got to talk to me here.”

“Speech is challenging at this time,” said Ethan.

“Sure. Of course.”

“I have endured only one panic attack, however.”

Hunched over on the edge of her bunk, Jess ground her palms against her knees.

“One’s better than ten, huh?” She squeezed her eyes shut tight. What a stupid thing to say. “How about I tell you a story?”

“Yes.”

Jessamyn launched into a tale about a dragon guarding a treasure. The crazier tales accomplished two things: they gave her brother something to focus upon during the time it took her to tell them, and it gave him a series of logical fallacies to pick apart when she had finished.

Jess glanced at her chrono-tattoo as she drew to the tale’s close. The bright red glow told her she needed to join the others for morning ration and then begin her duty shift.

“That tale was ridiculous, Jessamyn.”

“Yeah, I know. Good one, huh?”

“If by ‘good’ you mean ‘improbable,’ then, yes,” said her brother.

Jess laughed. He was being funny. Funny was good. “I need you to do something for me, Eth. You get out your wafer and type up all of the things that make that story impossible, okay? All of them.”

She heard her brother’s soft breathing.

“That would be a time-consuming pastime,” he said. “Jessamyn tells highly unlikely stories.”

“You work on it.”

Ethan’s interactions with his sister on the second day were brief. Jess noted that Kipper had trimmed a few hundred kilometers here and there during her duty shift. The Captain’s kindness—or perhaps desperation—encouraged Jess to do the same. At the end of her own duty shift, Jessamyn’s brain ached from the hundred calculations she’d run and re-run to shave off a few thousand kilometers with minute course adjustments.

Earth grew closer and larger, but by his third day of confinement, Ethan stopped talking at all, humming at a monotone pitch exactly calibrated to shatter his sister’s heart.

Jessamyn left her audio comm permanently turned on in case he should call for her. Off-duty, Jessamyn could focus upon her brother exclusively. But she had felt him each day passing beyond help, locked in a tiny prison of the mind with boundaries more definite than those of the quarters in which he now lived. Jess spoke to him constantly, told stories when she could, and begged him to hang on, please just hang on.

When Kipper discovered Ethan had become non-responsive, she began to talk of changing the mission once more. Jessamyn scowled and told Ethan increasingly improbable stories, but secretly she feared Kipper was right. And even if her brother recovered entirely, would he do so in time to complete the hacking mission? Or had he traveled all this way only to suffer, only to fail?

Chapter Eleven

SKY TOO BLUE

Jessamyn allowed that some might call the spinning blue and white planet below them beautiful. But dread filled her heart as she contemplated Earth from the Galleon’s bridge. Where were the warm reds and golds that whispered home? To her, the planet appeared a chill and hostile place, fit dwelling for those who had destroyed the Red Dawn and her brother’s peace of mind. She felt now that her Earthward yearnings had been childish dreams—gossamer things which fluttered away before the cold reality of the planet beneath her.

Terrans had grown complacent through the years, no longer patrolling the skies for Marsians. Most believed Mars Colonial had long since perished, and if members of the Terran government knew otherwise, they kept it to themselves, speaking of the Mars Project only in the past tense. Now, the Terran government kept a lazy eye out for any of their own people tempted to break the regulations in place against flights more than 300 kilometers above Earth.

Nonetheless, for a century, Mars had paid for the secret maintenance of blind spots within Terran surveillance, and Jess followed the coordinates from MCC more carefully than she’d ever followed orders before. If she burned through the atmosphere at the wrong angle or wrong speed or if she deviated from the specified path by even a half-kilometer, the Red Galleon would be visible on Terran monitors. And there was always the very real danger that an amateur astronomer might notice and report them.

Her fingers flying across the navigation panel before her, Jess caught sight of the European continental mass. She adjusted her ship into geosynchronous orbit above the blue planet. In a few minutes, she would have the final landing pattern calculated and the Galleon would continue its descent.

A small smile crept along Jessamyn’s face. In spite of the loss of the Red Dawn, in spite of her brother’s sufferings, Jess couldn’t help but feel a rush of pride as she guided the Red Galleon down to Earth exactly like the great raiders before her had done.

“Commencing final descent on my Mark: three, two, one, Mark!” she called.

Easing the ship through Earth’s dense atmosphere felt different from coming in to land on Mars where one second you were surrounded by black space and the next you were touching the rocky surface. But the ship and Jessamyn worked well together.

“That’s right, my beauty, nice and easy,” murmured Jess. She gave the ship one final series of commands and then she was free to gaze at the surface beneath her.

“Nearly there, Ethan.”

His hum, a constant in her ears, faltered for a moment and then resumed.

The now-large island of Britain slid off the view screen to reveal a smaller island off to the northwest: her destination—the tiny, ash-covered Isle of Skye.

Falling into this world, the crew was silent, hushed by the strange colors, or maybe the solemnity of their charge to save Mars. Even the Galleon quieted before the final noisy vertical landing on the green-and-ash-colored surface that had played home to Mars’s ancestors.

A cloud of grey-blue volcanic ash billowed around the ship.

We made it, thought Jess. Aloud she said, “Captain, the Red Galleon has landed.”

She wanted to rip off her helmet and race for the sealed doors separating her from her brother, but there were protocols to follow, systems-checks to run; and besides, she couldn’t take him outside until the ash settled.

The Isle of Skye, just off the west coast of Scotland, endured regular dustings of volcanic detritus from Iceland’s two dozen active volcanoes. The nearby volcanic activity made the remote Scottish island an undesirable location to most, but a quite perfect location for the clandestine activity of Clan Wallace, maintainers of the black market trade with Mars.

Jess rushed through her duties as Harpreet, beside her, attempted communication with their Terran contact. It would have been Ethan’s job, had he been on the bridge. Jess was glad the task hadn’t fallen to her; her skill set with communications systems consisted of the ability to shut them down when she wanted to.

While completing her tasks, Jess heard a voice on the receiving end. Clear. Crisp. An oddly accented, Hello?

Harpreet followed a simple script. “I wish to speak to Brian Wallace.”

“Aye, ye’ve found him, then, haven’t ye?”

“We’re here about the sheep,” said Harpreet.

“Bloody right on time, aren’t ye?” replied Wallace.

Jess glowed briefly with pride in her precise landing.

“I’ll code the gate to let ye pass,” continued Wallace. “Take the second left and ye’ll see me place.” The call was disconnected.

Crusty spoke over the ship’s comm. “Captain, the confinement barriers are down mid- and aft-ship.”

Jess jumped from her seat. “Permission to leave the bridge, Captain?”

“Permission granted,” said Kipper.

Jess wobbled down the hall. The ship’s artificial gravity was off now that the Galleon had landed and Earth’s gravity pulled, insistent, although Jessamyn didn’t have the inclination to give it much thought. Pounding upon the button to open her brother’s door, she called his name. The door receded and Jess rushed to her brother’s side.

He didn’t look good. Ethan had folded his body together until he occupied only a small corner of the already small quarters. Knees pulled up in front of his chest, Ethan had wrapped his arms around his legs. His eyes stared into the darkness under his bunk, but Jess didn’t think he was seeing whatever was down there. He hummed a single deep note, pausing only for the briefest of periods when he required breath.

He didn’t move his eyes to look at his sister.

“Ethan, I’m here. I’m going to tell you the story about the girl who stole a kingdom.” Jess kept her voice low, in hopes he would quit humming so as to hear her better.

Only toward the end of the story did the humming cease. Though still lost in a place of anguish, Ethan had calmed enough to simply breathe, without the accompaniment of his monotone hum. It wasn’t as good as standing and walking, and it was a far cry from talking or working at a console, but it represented a start.

“We made it to Earth,” said Jessamyn. “And you’re going to make it, too, Ethan.”

She heard her brother whisper a single word: “Water.”

Her mind struggled for the connection. “Yeah, Eth. The water planet. We made it.”

“Water,” he repeated.

Her brother’s lips were cracked and swollen. Jess reached for an unopened water packet lying beside him and, fumbling with the closure, brought it to her brother’s mouth. He swallowed and nodded his head a mere fraction of a centimeter.

“Good,” he whispered.

“I know you feel stuck, Ethan, but there’s a whole world outside this ship. You want to see that, right?”

He nodded, barely.

“The colors here are crazy, I’m telling you. Everything’s blue and green. No yellow. No red. No brown.”

Ethan nodded.

It took another half-hour of murmuring to her brother about Earth’s wonders to get him to rise from his crouched fetal position. But Jess saw a light in his eyes replacing the dull glazed look they’d had when she’d entered his room.

“Okay, look, Eth, there’s clothes you’ve got to change into. And I’m not helping you with that, ‘cause … just …gross! You want Crusty to give you a hand?” she asked, indicating his jumpsuit.

“Send Crusty,” whispered Ethan.

She stepped out and called for the gruff mechanic.

“Ah, Jessamyn,” said Harpreet, who had changed into her Terran outfit of black pants and a black shirt. “The Captain would appreciate a word with the two of us.”

Jess followed Harpreet to the rations room.

“Status report on Communications Specialist Jaarda?” demanded the Captain.

Jess felt her face flushing with anger. “My brother’s not a machine with a re-set function.”

Kipper exhaled loudly and Harpreet stepped in. “Yes, but the Captain does need to know if your brother can do what he came here to do.”

“I can only say that when he’s been like this in the past, once we got him home, he recovered quickly. In a day or so,” replied Jess.

Kipper frowned.

“If I might make a suggestion,” said Harpreet, “Perhaps the best way to approach things would be to move forward as if he will make a full recovery. We have come a very long way to abandon our planet’s hope of a freer future.”

“Indeed,” said Kipper. “Very well. First Officer, you will do whatever is necessary to promote your brother’s recovery.”

As if I’d do anything else, thought Jessamyn. She felt a scowl forming but forced herself to maintain a neutral expression.

“Aye-aye, sir,” she replied.

There followed a hurried half-hour scramble to descend to the bowels of the ship where an amphibious Terran transport had been stored for the past eighteen annums. The crew piled aboard, a hatch was opened allowing them to drive out of the Red Galleon, and the five Mars Raiders rumbled out onto a field of what resembled blue-grey snow.

Kipper had directed Jessamyn to keep close to Ethan, who was humming again, and this meant Jess got out of driving and could look about her on the five ash-blanketed kilometers to Brian Wallace’s dwelling. Jess startled at something green peering up through the coat of grey.

“Grass,” she murmured. “There’s grass, Ethan!”

Her brother broke off mid-hum to look but gave no verbal acknowledgement.

“Still thirsty?” she asked him. He shook his head once to the right—the briefest of answers.

Jess frowned. His color looked off, but maybe that was because Earth had such odd light. The sky—the very air—was too blue.

“I shot him full of rehydrant,” murmured Crusty. “He’ll pull through fine.”

Jess smiled at the mechanic, grateful.

Glancing outside once more, she startled as a dozen faces turned toward their passing vehicle. “What on Ares are those?”

Ethan spoke. “Amend your phrasing.”

Jess looked to her brother.

Crusty chuckled. “Bet he means, you should ask, ‘What on Earth?‘”

Harpreet turned from her position in the front, beside Kipper. “The answer to either question is that they are hybridized goats designed to survive in this climate,” she said. “The Wallace family keeps a large herd as their cover, claiming to be farmers.”

Several dozen golden eyes, rimmed in black, stared at the passing vehicle. Then the heads turned back to crop grass, and the creatures, colored the same blue-grey as their surrounding, seemed to vanish.

“I wonder what their fur would feel like, huh, Eth?” Jess now wished she’d thought to ask about walking the five kilometers to Brian Wallace’s cottage. They drove over a low rise. On the opposite side was an entire field of green sloping down to meet the ash-grey field before Brian Wallace’s tiny dwelling.

Jessamyn blinked, uncertain her eyes truly saw what she thought she saw. “Oh, stop!” she cried. The field of green was so unexpected, so lovely. She felt certain she could bring her brother back inside his own skin if he would only step outside.

Alarmed, Kipper applied a braking system that caused everyone to lurch.

Crusty’s head and shoulders fell forward. As he lifted himself, he muttered, “Bells of Hades, we’re heavy on Earth.”

“What is it, First Officer?” asked Kipper.

In answer, Jessamyn opened her door and escaped out into the fresh air of Earth. “Ohhh,” she cried. “It’s so … wet!” Laughter burbled up from deep inside and she giggled like a child.

“Jaarda, return to the vehicle at once,” called Kipper.

Jessamyn heard the order, but only barely. Even sound carried differently through Terran air. She felt the tremendous tug of gravity calling her earthward and yielded, sinking to her knees so that she could touch the blades of green growth blanketing the hillside. Oh, she sighed again, this time to herself. She ran her fingers across the tips of grass. Bent one strand over between forefinger and thumb. A drop of moisture clung to the backside. Oh, oh, oh.

“Officer Jaarda, I order you to return at once!” called Kipper.

Jessamyn looked back to the transport and saw her brother, his brows furrowed.

Ignoring her commanding officer, Jess asked Ethan, “Do you want to get out?”

Harpreet murmured quietly to Kipper, and Jess heard her brother’s name.

Jess told her body to stand, but was surprised at the effort the simple motion required. Moving back to the transport, she offered Ethan her hand, but he shook his head.

“Ethan, it’s … unreal,” whispered Jess as she returned to his side in the vehicle. “Like a dream.”

“A good dream,” replied her brother, his voice rough-sounding from lack of use.

Jess closed the door and the vehicle advanced once more.

Straining to look as far away as she could see, Jess searched for the horizon line.

“The sky is blue here,” she said. “That’s so weird.”

Harpreet’s light laughter filled the transport. “Your eyes must grow accustomed to a myriad of differences. The horizon will feel too far … the colors strange … so many adjustments …” Harpreet fell silent, her mouth curving slightly upward as she remembered her last visit, perhaps.

As they drew close to Brian Wallace’s dwelling, a black-and-white blur rushed toward them. The front door of the building opened and Brian Wallace himself whistled. The blur—a dog, Jessamyn was sure of it—returned to the house, disappearing inside with its owner.

“That dog’s gait is shortened by Earth’s gravitational pull,” said Ethan.

Jess grinned at her brother’s lengthy observation. Interest in the world outside was an excellent sign. Of course, he was still humming off and on. He’ll be fine, she told herself, longing to grab her brother’s hand and squeeze it. But he would hate it, so she didn’t.

They parked beside the tiny whitewashed cottage of Brian Wallace. Jess looked nervously at her brother after she exited, waiting to see if he would follow.

He set one foot and then the other upon the wet surface of Earth. His face calmed, the furrow between his brows smoothed. Jess realized with a pang that Ethan had acquired his First Wrinkle during his lonely ordeal.

He stood outside the vehicle, then took a step and smiled softly.

“I like Earth,” he said.

Jess closed her eyes in a moment’s gratitude.

Chapter Twelve

WHAT IT FELT LIKE

It was an anxious moment for four out of five crew members—Harpreet alone had encountered a Terran before.

The front door swung open and their contact emerged into the alcove before his dwelling. The dog was nowhere to be seen.

The first words of Brian Wallace, representative of the Clan Wallace, struck Jessamyn as extremely odd. “Ye’ll want to be leaving yer great boots just here.” He pointed to one of two built-in benches on either side of the door. Both benches—colored white like his home—had a series of shoe prints painted in black upon the stone floor of the alcove. The shoe prints were grouped in pairs of two: left and right.

Harpreet, smiling pleasantly, removed one shoe and placed it carefully upon the painted image. Raising an eyebrow significantly to the rest of the crew, she indicated that they should do the same. Only once all five Marsians had removed their footwear did Wallace move to allow them inside.

His front door, instead of sliding into the wall to admit them, swung into the room. No need for airlocks, thought Jessamyn. An odd smell greeted her nostrils. After a moment, she recognized it as the smell of damp rock, like one of her mother’s labs in New Houston where they grew experimental algae in hypertufa. She looked about her for the origin of the odor. Instead of hypertufa containers, Jess noticed shiny pots—ceramic, she thought—containing plant life.

Crusty was already bent in examination of an exotic bloom.

“Is this what you eat?” asked Jessamyn, approaching the white-and-magenta flower on its tall green stalk.

“Don’t touch!” cried Wallace, crossing the room to prevent Jess from fingering the plant. “Orchids, ye know. Very fussy. Fragile in this climate.”

Placing himself firmly in front of the flower, he attempted a smile. It looked very much like a worried frown.

“Not for eating, though, no,” said Wallace. “Ornamental.”

“Imagine that,” she murmured. It was difficult to conceive of a world where water existed in such abundance that it could be wasted upon plants merely decorative.

Hearing a noise from outside, Jessamyn glanced up. In Wallace’s home, the windows were single-paned and sound traveled right through. Jess noted a dust storm picking up speed—it would be a bad storm, she thought, hearing the first small pebbles kicking up and hitting the windows. Then, experiencing a momentary disorientation, she realized that on Earth, that sound wouldn’t come from a dust storm. So what was it?

Jessamyn crossed to the closest window and beheld her first rainfall. Like tiny bits of glass falling from the sky, drops of rain pelted down. She gazed at the angled descent of the water, enchanted, and turned for the door so that she could feel the rain.

“Ask first,” grunted Crusty beside her.

Jess’s fists clenched, but she followed his advice. “Permission to exit the building with Ethan and observe rainfall, Captain?” she asked politely.

Harpreet stood beside Kipper, murmuring.

“Oh, very well,” said the Captain. “But I want you two back in ten minutes.”

Jess raced outside, shoved her feet back inside her Earth-style footgear, and dashed into the falling rain. Her brother followed suit. Their Terran garments offered protection from the deluge, but drops struck the backs of their hands and scalps. Instinctively fearful of any cold sensation out of doors, Jess felt a brief panic, drawing her hands back inside her sleeves. On Mars, such exposure would have meant frostbite, at the least. Of course, this was Earth.

Laughing at herself, she turned to her brother. “Nothing’s cold here, Eth!” It wasn’t exactly true. The rain did feel cold as it struck her, but unfathomably, wondrously, it couldn’t harm her.

“Remember the day I touched the pump?” she asked her brother.

Ethan gave a brief nod in response.

Their mother had sent her and Ethan outside on a rare, warm day when the temperature hovered a handful of degrees below freezing. Jess had waited until Ethan got interested in something besides his little sister, and then she’d slipped off one of her outer gloves and pressed a minimally-protected forefinger to the pump handle.

“Everyone said it would freeze you so fast you wouldn’t even feel it,” she said. “And then they’d have to cut your finger off.”

“Why did Jessamyn do it?” asked her brother.

Another complete sentence, thought Jess. And sometime in the last minute, Ethan had stopped humming.

“I wanted to know what it felt like,” she said, shrugging. She recalled the burning sensation, how it had almost felt nice.

“I told you to replace your glove,” said Ethan. “That was the first time you defied me.”

“But not the last, eh, brother of mine?” She giggled. “Mom,” she said, imitating her brother, “Make Jessie put her gloves back on.”

“You should have complied,” Ethan said.

Jess, examining the sense-dead spot on her finger, had to agree.

They continued walking through the rainfall as it grew heavier.

The sensation of being rained upon was entirely novel. It reminded Jess a bit of being tickled. When a gust of wind swished past, she had the impression that the temperature dropped suddenly. But just as quickly, it passed. Of course she had read that wind passing over moisture created the feeling of temperature change, but actually experiencing it was wondrous.

Peeling off her jacket, Jess turned into the storm and ran, laughing as drops struck her face and arms and soaked through her shirt. She paused atop a small hill, her heart pounding with the effort of climbing. Below, her brother had stopped, clearly weakened by his last few days. She bounded back down to where he stood gazing at something upon the ground.

He pointed to the object as she drew close. It was a marvel of tiny fibers, stretching outward in spokes from a central circle.

“The web of an arachnid,” said her brother.

Jess watched it quiver as a gust of wind passed by them. Tiny beads of water clung to the conjunctions of one thread where it met another. It looked to her as if the weight of the water or the pressure of the wind ought to dissolve the slight strands. Jessamyn had never seen anything at once so delicate and strong.

“Beautiful,” she murmured.

They stood for a minute, admiring the spider’s handiwork until Ethan pointed to his wrist tattoo.

“It has been nine minutes and five seconds,” said her brother.

“I wish I’d brought a wafer to take pictures,” said Jess, gazing with regret at the web.

“Store the image in your mind,” said Ethan.

She smiled and together they tromped back through the muck of wetted ash and grass. Shedding their footwear once again, the siblings prepared to reenter Brian Wallace’s dwelling.

But something was wrong with Ethan. He stood before the door, making no attempt to enter.

Jessamyn moved to where she could observe her brother’s face, expressionless as usual, but there was something beyond his normal bland visage; his gaze, where it rested on the door, seemed troubled. Jess heard the humming resume, starting as a low rumble and building to the sustained single note that said Ethan suffered distress.

He doesn’t want to go back inside, thought Jess. “Eyebrows,” she said softly.

Ethan brought a hand to his forehead, located a brow, and ran his fingers over and over the short hairs.

“Good, Eth,” said Jessamyn. “Now I want you to count down from ninety-eight to zero by sevens. When you reach zero, we’ll open the door and go inside.”

The humming came to a stop. “Ninety-eight,” said Ethan, “Ninety-one. Eighty-four. Seventy. No. That was incorrect.”

The mistake struck Jessamyn’s ears like shattering glass. Her brother never made mistakes with numbers.

Ethan exhaled slowly, his chin dropping to his chest. Then he raised his head and began over. “Ninety-eight. Ninety-one. Eighty-four. Seventy-seven.”

Jessamyn realized at “seventy” that her lungs were aching—she’d held her breath too long. Inhaling deeply of Earth’s moist air, she listened as her brother finished the count correctly.

Upon reaching zero, Ethan grasped the door handle. But he didn’t open the door. Jess felt a dozen small muscles around her mouth and forehead as they tightened.

“Eth? It’s time to go back inside.”

Very quietly Ethan began to hum once more.

No, thought Jessamyn, racking her brain for another idea. The dog.

“Ethan, Brian Wallace has a dog.” She watched her brother carefully. His hand tightened upon the doorknob. “Would you like to see it?”

Ethan answered by pushing the door open and stepping inside. Jess sighed in relief as she followed him.

Inside, everyone gazed at a vid-screen from which a woman spoke, her deep voice lovely and completely free of the rasp normal for Marsians. She said, “We will prevail,” as if in conclusion, and Wallace flicked the image off.

“I don’t trust that woman,” he muttered, shuffling toward another room.

Jess stared at the vid-screen. “This is Marsian-made, isn’t it?”

“Oh, aye,” replied Wallace. “You recognize the symbols, then? No one on Earth can understand it, outside the Family Wallace.” He laughed as if this amused him.

Harpreet spoke. “The computer aids Brian Wallace in communicating with the Galleon during our stay.”

Jess nodded. Having seen how much ash the ship kicked up when it touched down, Jessamyn understood the need to separate Wallace’s home from the landing site. Readily-available communication was a necessity.

“Mr. Wallace?” Jessamyn glanced over to see her brother staring at his feet. He hadn’t started humming again, at least. “Would it be possible for Ethan to meet your dog?”

Brian’s wide face broke into a generous grin. “Oh, aye. She’s a friendly one. Didn’t think Mars-folk were much for dogs.” He gave a short, sharp whistle and a blur of black-and-white rushed into the room.

Once Wallace had introduced Ethan to his dog, the Terran disappeared into what Jess decided was a rations room before returning with a tray bearing a covered vessel that exuded dust as he set it upon a low table.

No, Jess realized with delight, that’s steam, not dust. It was tea. Jessamyn smiled at Harpreet.

“Who was that woman?” asked Kipper. “On the broadcast?”

Wallace grunted as he poured out mugs of dark tea. “Och, that’s Lucca Brezhnaya, that is. Politician. I don’t trust her. Not at all. She’s up to naught that’s good.” He shook his head gloomily and poured an ivory-colored liquid into his tea. “Anyone else, a wee drop of goat milk? There’s sugar, too, somewhere …”

The crew declined the additions.

“The tea is delicious,” said Harpreet.

Brian continued between sips of tea. “Lucca’s the one who brought in the Red Squadron. Bloody nuisance, they are. Any other branch of security, ye can buy them off. But don’t even think of trying that with the Red Squadron. Don’t know what she’s paying them with, but they’re bloody incorruptible.” Wallace shook his head as though this were a terrible shame. “Still, if ye’re dead set on visiting Budapest, it’s best ye know these things ahead of time.”

“I’m afraid we must travel to Budapest,” said Harpreet. “And you will be able to provide us with the type of identity chips we require?” she asked.

“Oh, aye. The ones identifying each of ye as members of a single family are no trouble at all. I can do those me own self. But I’ll be calling in some favors to land ye the security clearance ye’re asking for with the other set of chips.” Wallace paused, tapping both thumbs lightly on the table. “Ye do realize that double-chipping’s illegal?”

Harpreet nodded. “It is our understanding that forced scans are also illegal.”

Wallace shrugged, removing an outer layer of clothing. Jessamyn realized with surprise that Wallace was a very round individual. She had assumed his outer garment contributed to his bulk. It did not. She had never seen anyone so … enlarged.

“Aye, it’s illegal, but with the attacks today …” Wallace sighed, shaking his head.

“What attacks?” asked Jessamyn.

“Ah,” replied Harpreet. “You missed the broadcast while you were out of doors.”

“It’s those bloody inciters,” said Wallace. “Terrorists, they are.” He leaned in toward Jess, conspiratorially. “Gone and blown up one of the main transfer hospitals.”

“Someone has attacked a consciousness-transfer hospital?” Ethan asked, looking up from Wallace’s dog.

“A main one for Western Europe,” replied Wallace. “In Paris, it was. I reckon ye couldn’t have picked a better day to fly down through our atmosphere, what with all eyes turned to the breaking news.”

“Will this make our additional mission more … difficult?” asked Ethan.

Jess thought she saw a quick wordless exchange between Harpreet and the Captain. Were they having second thoughts about the mission?

“It is impossible to be certain,” Harpreet said aloud. “But Wallace is correct in surmising that the Terran government’s preoccupation with inciters made it easier for us to arrive undetected. Perhaps our other task will be simplified as well.”

“Or maybe they’ll take additional precautions that will make our job impossible,” said Kipper, glancing nervously at Ethan.

“With regard to those security clearances,” said Wallace, “They’re going to cost extra.” He leaned back, smiling.

Harpreet suggested that they discuss the price while the rest of the crew begin exchanging the ship’s holding bays of tellurium for ration bars.

“Bays one through six,” Harpreet murmured.

Jess, her brother, Kipper, and Crusty took the transport vehicle back to the Red Galleon. While the party had been inside, rain had washed several sloping hillsides clear of ash.

“The color is amazing,” admitted Jess. She didn’t want to like Earth. But her father had been correct about her sense of wonder. The beautiful, the new, the strange—these acted upon her as surely as scent and light, pressure and sound.

“Green looks fake,” muttered Crusty.

“Mars will look like this one day,” said Kipper.

The crew of four arrived at the Galleon and unloaded bars of pressed tellurium into a shelter the Wallace family had erected a century ago, refilling the emptying holds with precious ration bars. After a couple of hours had passed, Wallace and Harpreet joined the group, riding on an odd hovering craft. It looked to Jess like the top of a table, with low sides.

“What is that?” she asked.

Crusty was already staring at the unusual form of transportation as if eager to take it apart and find out how it worked.

“A most exhilarating ride,” said Harpreet as she descended.

“Hovercart,” explained Wallace. “Meant for hauling things about. Me brother’s lad makes them. I must have two dozen lying about. Darned things are always getting buried beneath the ash. Suppose I should have offered ye the use of a few …”

Crusty stood to one side of the hovercart, running his hands over the controls so that the tiny craft moved up and down, forward and to the side.

Brian Wallace smiled, nodded, and murmured something to Harpreet.

“Actually, my friends,” began Harpreet, “We will be emptying bays seven and eight as well in order to compensate our friend Mr. Wallace for his additional trouble. So we will have the opportunity to utilize the hover-crafts.”

Wallace rustled up another pair of carts, and the work was soon finished. Jessamyn, noting how much more quickly things moved by hovercart, felt irritated that Wallace hadn’t suggested the devices sooner. But Crusty pointed out the exercise worked as a good replacement for shipboard calisthenics.

“Humph,” grunted Jess as they shifted the final load.

“Ye’ll be wanting supper, now,” said Wallace once they’d finished. “It’s goat stew, carrots, and potatoes.” He looked at the confused faces before him. “Unless ye prefer ration bars? I have a stash somewhere in the cottage.”

“Ration bars would be lovely,” said Harpreet.

Jess stopped herself from saying aloud that she thought goat stew, carrots, and potatoes would be lovely. They’d been warned back at MCC that their stomachs wouldn’t tolerate rich Terran food very well. For a moment, she regretted the additional mission before them. On a regular raid for rations only, they’d have been free to simply leave Earth. They could have eaten whatever they liked and suffered bellyaches on their flight home.

Wallace hopped aboard one of his strange carts, and Kipper drove the raiders back in their own transport for a shared evening ration. The earlier storm appeared to have moved on, and Jess could see the horizon clearly. The edge of the world felt too remote, Earth too large a world. But it was when she risked a brief direct look at Sol that she gasped aloud.

“The sun’s huge from here,” said Jess.

“Do not look at the sun,” warned her brother.

Jess rolled her eyes and bumped his shoulder. “I only looked for a second. I’m not an idiot.”

“You are not,” he agreed. “But you take unnecessary risks.”

Jessamyn flushed and threw an annoyed glance at her brother. He looked tired and she realized she felt very tired herself. They’d been up all night—the hours aboard ship had been set to coordinate to a morning landing upon the Isle of Skye. Aboard the Galleon, Ethan and Jess would have just risen for their shift. She’d missed an entire night’s rest.

She watched the over-large sun dipping behind a hill. The flares of oranges and yellows reminded her of home and she closed her eyes. She didn’t awaken until much later. Someone must have carried her inside, because she found herself resting in a soft chair beside Brian Wallace’s rations table. A familiar copper-wrapped bar sat at an empty place—mine—she realized, and an unfamiliar scent filled her nostrils. Goat stew, she thought. It looked remarkably unappealing, except perhaps for the bright orange bits. It smelled wonderful, however, and Jess wished she could try it.

She attuned herself to the conversation, which seemed to be a discussion of the route to their next destination: Budapest, Earth’s capitol city. In fact, it seemed they were discussing having Jessamyn accompany them there.

“It’s not true, of course, that firsties have a better chance at a good apprenticeship simply by taking their exams in the capitol,” Brian was saying, “But it’s one of those myths that won’t die. Hope springs eternal, as the saying goes.”

“We have that saying as well,” said Ethan.

Brian laughed, a merry sound. “Aye, well, ye’d have to, living on the ball of dirt and ice like ye do!”

Jessamyn saw Kipper scowling and, for once, found herself in agreement.

Harpreet spoke quickly. “And yourself? Do you have plans to leave your island of ash and rain?”

“The early retirement’s a blessing, indeed,” replied Wallace. “No one’s happier than me own self that ye showed a few years early. I’ve got me eye on a patch of land in the Great Victoria Desert in Australia where me goats and I could be quite happy.” He frowned, turning to look at his orchid. “Don’t know that the flowers will be too pleased about the move. I’ve a greenhouse full of ’em. But a greenhouse in the desert … seems a bit implausible, eh?”

Crusty cleared his throat. “Not necessarily.”

“He speaks,” said Wallace, laughing.

“Can I see the greenhouse?” Crusty asked.

Once the two departed, Kipper turned to Jessamyn. “A decision has been made that you will accompany us to Budapest in order to better assure your brother’s continued recovery.”

“Brian Wallace has suggested we travel under the pretense that you are attending your apprenticeship examination,” said Harpreet. “It gives us an unassailable excuse for travel to Earth’s capitol city.”

Jessamyn saw something in the angle of her brother’s body that told her he wasn’t at peace. Was the smallness of the room bothering him, or was it the arrangements under discussion that he didn’t like? She wanted to ask him, but not in front of Kipper. Besides, she had another more important question. “We need two people to get the Galleon back to Mars. If something goes wrong, I mean. Crusty can’t make that voyage alone. Why take all four of us to Budapest?”

Harpreet began to explain. “We feel that it would be best for your brother if you journeyed with him. And once we arrive, of course, the Captain has been trained to assist your brother—”

Kipper exhaled noisily. “Which means the four of us go because MCC saddled this crew with a hacking expert who apparently needs babysitting.” She marched to the door and stepped outside, slamming the door behind her.

The room was silent. Jessamyn felt heat building along her neck and face. She rose, spitting mad, to give Kipper a piece of her mind.

“Jessamyn,” said her brother, “No good can come of an interaction with the Captain at this time.”

Jess turned, her face flaming. “She—she—Eth, she insulted you!”

“She bears a great weight as captain for the success of this mission,” replied Ethan. “Also, the insult was directed toward me and not toward Jessamyn.”

Jess looked from her brother’s face to Harpreet’s. She could hear Harpreet’s thoughts as clearly as if the old woman had spoken them aloud: Let your brother look out for himself.

Furious, she strode around the tiny front room, wishing the items inside were hers to kick and break. Finally, the fatigue brought on by Earth’s heavier gravity brought her to a standstill and she returned to the rations table to sit.

“My question is still perfectly valid,” said Jess. “Harpreet, why don’t you stay behind instead of me?”

“For two reasons,” said Ethan. “Though your presence on the journey to and from Budapest will promote my well-being, I believe that, should you attempt to fulfill Harpreet’s role as lookout during the mission, I would be concerned for your safety to the degree that it would be a distraction from my task.”

Jess recognized immediately that what Ethan said was true. He wouldn’t focus on hacking if he had her to worry about—”big brother” was too ingrained a part of his identity.

“Also,” continued Ethan, “You do not have Harpreet’s skills as a negotiator should we find ourselves … detained.”

Jessamyn frowned. Her brother’s rationale was, as usual, sound. “Okay, then. Crusty stays here alone. I go with you to the satellite control center.”

“The plan is to conceal you and the transport beneath a cloaking-tarp,” said Harpreet.

“The tarp should render your discovery highly improbable,” said Ethan, sounding as if he were trying to convince himself. He looked like he might add something, but in the end he remained silent.

“Sounds fine,” Jess said. She hated it when her brother worried about her.

From outside the house, Jessamyn heard Crusty and Wallace speaking.

“Mighty convenient, not having to keep your greenhouse pressurized,” Crusty said. Looking around, he frowned. “Where’s Kip?”

Harpreet replied, “She discovered a need for fresh air.”

“Bells of Hades,” chuckled Crusty. “Plenty of that here.”

The crew spent the night scattered on the floor of Brian Wallace’s living room. Jess was the last to wake the next day. Outside, she saw a sky impossibly blue and dotted with white clouds. A strong smell, vaguely sulfuric, drew Jess to the room Wallace called “kitchen.” She stared curiously at Wallace’s cooking egg, a golden orb set within a white orb.

“A lovely morning for travel,” said Wallace, smiling as she entered.

It’s really happening, Jessamyn thought. They were about to pit themselves against the murderers who had killed Lobster and the others. Who were they to move against such dreadful power? A recently catatonic hacker, a bookworm-pilot, a captain with a serious attitude problem, and Mars’s most friendly citizen. Assaulting a Terran satellite control facility. It was insanity. Her stomach seemed to drop through the floor.

The vaguely sulfuric odor of Brian Wallace’s breakfast made Jess feel nauseous. Turning, she fled outside.

Chapter Thirteen

COLLECTING

In the end, they left later than intended. Crusty had insisted upon giving their amphibious craft a thorough going-over.

“I don’t see why we can’t use a flying craft,” grumbled Jess as Brian Wallace prepared a midday ration.

“Flight is monitored whereas ground travel is not,” explained Harpreet.

Jess snorted. She had no very fine estimation of Terran government to begin with, and interference with flight didn’t improve that opinion one bit.

A cousin of Wallace’s arrived with precious scan chips which would provide the raiders with the Terran identities they would need. Ethan, who’d been quiet all morning, perked up to ask questions about the chips and their subcutaneous insertion, one into either wrist.

“Ye’ll only want to offer one hand at a time, obviously,” remarked Brian Wallace. “Fortunately, there exists considerable disagreement upon which hand ought to be chipped. Ye can offer either, as suits at the time.”

Harpreet offered a phrase to help the crew remember which scan chip went with which identity.

Left for family, right for escape, Jess repeated to herself, hoping she wouldn’t have cause to use either identity. She’d never been good with rights and lefts, despite her ability to pilot her way home in a dust storm without instruments. Left for family, right for escape.

Wallace shook each of their hands farewell in turn but hugged Harpreet. “Thank ye for the generosity ye’ve shown,” he said. “I’ll nae forget ye.” Jess thought he might be blinking back tears.

Once they’d begun driving away from Wallace’s home, Kipper spoke sharply to Harpreet. “I hope, Negotiator, that you have not increased the expectations for future transactions with Terrans.”

Jess snapped back, “If we get this right, there won’t be any future transactions.” To herself, she added that if they got it wrong, there wouldn’t be any future transactions either.

Harpreet answered calmly. “Mr. Wallace has sufficient incentive to keep his excellent bargain secret from others. If he tells, he will have to part with a larger percentage.”

“Harpreet is as generous as a dog,” said Ethan.

“Harpreet understands human nature,” said the old raider. Laughing, she added, “But I certainly try to be like a dog, child.”

Their route led them off the small island of Skye and onto the larger island of Great Britain. Jess hadn’t been sure the amphibious craft would keep them above water, but they arrived on the shores of the Scottish highlands unharmed. They came to the border of a wilderness preserve Wallace had spoken of and had their first opportunity to test the scan chips, as passage through the preserve cost credits.

“Would you like a receipt?” asked the attendant, after removing credits for travel from Harpreet’s wrist-chip.

“No,” said Kipper.

“Yes,” said Jessamyn, holding her hand out to receive the piece of plastic. “And we’ll take any other … publications you might have on the ecosystem of the area,” Jess added.

Harpreet paid for three small plastic cards which were apparently intended to be read on a computer that most transports came equipped with.

“No stick-reader, eh?” said the attendant, looking at the vehicle. “I haven’t seen one of these old Dashers since I was in first-body! Don’t worry—the cards will work on your stick-reader at home. The one on the Scottish Highlands Recovery program is very good, and you can only buy it at this entrance. Enjoy your visit to the wetlands reserve.”

Jessamyn passed the receipt and video sticks to her brother. “Time to start in on a Terran collection, eh?”

The journey through the reserve was unexceptional. A recent eruption on Iceland had left the area covered in a layer of fine ash. Noting that her brother seemed relaxed as he studied his collectibles, Jessamyn allowed herself to feel hopeful for the mission.

Beside her, Ethan had figured out a way to make his wafer-computer read one of the sticks, and a video of the Scottish Highlands Recovery program began playing on the screen. Jess saw artist’s renderings of what the area would look like when the volcanoes were done erupting. She smiled. It reminded her of terraforming vids she’d seen in school as a child.

They continued southward under heavy cloud cover—a phenomenon Harpreet recalled with delight. As the day wore on, though, a brilliant flash stirred Jessamyn from her drowsy state—the sun had sunk below the clouds, lending a mellow gold to the bottoms of the clouds for the last hours of daylight. The amphibious craft crossed a stretch of sea called The Channel and Jess amused herself watching the light shimmer and glint upon the waves.

When the sun set a few hours later, Jessamyn’s stomach had begun to hunger.

“Sunset means rations, right?” Her stomach punctuated the question with an impressive growl.

Kipper nodded at Harpreet who retrieved the box of rations Wallace had insisted upon giving the crew.

“Goodness,” said Harpreet. “He’s given us a full box of one hundred rations.”

“If all Terrans are the size of Wallace,” said Ethan, “Then they would have higher caloric requirements to maintain their bodily weight.”

“Ugh!” said Kipper. “Something’s wrong with this bar. It tastes dreadful.”

“No,” said Harpreet. “It is a fresher box than the one Wallace offered us from his kitchen. You three young ones won’t remember the last time a fresh batch came to Mars. The taste is more pronounced before they’ve had a chance to age.”

Jessamyn read the ingredients listed on the box, like she’d done a thousand times back home: desiccated liver, butter oil, coconut oil, palm oil, whey, sprouted kamut, dried sauerkraut, acerola powder, and a string of minerals. This time as she read, she wondered if her mother’s agricultural program would allow them to grow these exotic-sounding foods in her lifetime.

Marsian terraforming had succeeded in so many ways already. Mars had a thin but permanent atmosphere now, and temperatures were rising every orbit thanks to a greenhouse effect. Jessamyn’s teachers had stressed how quickly Mars would change by the time Jess had grown up. “It’s the first two centuries that were the hardest. The next twenty annums will see miracles, children.” The promise of miracles had been what started Jess reading: she had wanted to know what Mars would be like when she grew up.

Finishing her ration, Jess passed the wrapper to Ethan.

He shook his head no.

“I have collected a large number of objects already,” he told his sister. From his pocket, he withdrew several items: an entrance ticket, an exit receipt, the video cards, a receipt for fuel purchased in a place called “Calais,” and something that Jess thought looked like a hunk of dog fur.

“What’s that?” asked Jess.

“Thistle down,” said Ethan. “A form of plant life.”

“Huh,” said Jess.

“Ethan,” called Kipper, “Can you check your wafer and see if we’re expecting a halt up ahead?”

The stream of vehicles which they were following did, indeed, seem to be slowing. Another kilometer proved this was the case. Traffic crept forward at a fraction of their former speed.

“We should have requested a vehicle that wasn’t ground-only,” murmured Jess. “This is ridiculous.”

“Remember your identities,” said Harpreet.

“Is this dangerous?” whispered Jess to her brother.

“On Earth, a slowing of vehicles can indicate that security forces are investigating or interrogating travelers,” replied Ethan.

Jess shrank down in her seat. She didn’t want to be investigated. Left for family, right for escape, she told herself again.

An aircraft flew lazily down the line of transports. It shone a floodlight upon the vehicle three ahead of the raiders. Then two ahead. One ahead. The floodlight came to rest on their transport. The aircraft hovered slowly beside them before landing on the shoulder of the road.

Three armored guards stepped out, weapons drawn, and approached the Marsians.

Chapter Fourteen

GUMPTION

“Everyone will please remember that we are a family on our way to Budapest where we plan to drop off our first-body daughter for her apprenticeship examination tomorrow morning,” said Harpreet. Her voice, calm, had the effect of calming others.

But when one of the officers tapped a weapon against Kipper’s window, Jessamyn failed to repress her gasp of shock. Ethan ran a finger along his brows.

“What’s the meaning of this interruption?” asked Kipper, sliding her window so that she could speak with the person aiming a weapon at her. “My granddaughter has her firstie exams early tomorrow morning. We have no time to waste.”

In that brief moment, Jess felt proud of her captain. Kipper had gumption.

“Step out of the vehicle, ma’am,” said the officer. “Hands where I can see them. Slowly.”

A second officer pushed his head into the vehicle. “Where’s your stick reader?” he barked at the three inside.

“There is no stick reader in this craft,” said Ethan.

The officer stepped out and conferred with his team. “Their vehicle’s from the last century,” he said. “Like you said, perfect for avoiding a stick-scan.”

Jessamyn and the others could only pick up bits of the other officer’s reply. There was something about “… automatically suspicious” and “thorough search of the vehicle,” neither of which sounded good.

“The fourbody outside tells me you’re the head of household,” said an officer who had just opened the door beside Harpreet.

“That would be me,” said Harpreet.

“Where have you driven today?”

“Oh, my,” said Harpreet. “We began our day visiting the Scottish Wetlands Reserve. Then we drove south, past London, and crossed the channel between Dover and Calais, and we’ve been on the motorway ever since.”

“With no stick reader to prove it,” said the officer.

“I’m afraid not, Officer,” said Harpreet.

Beside Jessamyn, Ethan pointed to his wafer computer. There had been an inciter bombing in London only a few hours earlier.

“What time did you say you passed through London?”

“I didn’t say,” replied Harpreet. “But I believe it must have been just four o’clock. The children complained when we didn’t stop for tea. We’re in a hurry, you see. It’s my daughter’s exam tomorrow. In the capitol. So, we’d appreciate anything you can do to speed us along.” She flicked her left wrist.

It could have been nothing, that casual gesture of Harpreet’s hand. Merely a nervous shake. But Jessamyn remembered Wallace describing how to initiate a bribe by wiggling your chipped-wrist.

The officer grabbed Harpreet’s wrist in a violent motion. “How can you even think about bribery after what’s happened in London? I should arrest you right now.”

Jess held her breath, but Harpreet remained calm.

“If I had the credits to bribe a fine officer such as yourself,” said Harpreet, “Do you really think I’d be driving this vehicle?” She smiled warmly.

The officer dropped Harpreet’s wrist and stepped around to the far side of the vehicle to speak with his fellows.

Ethan’s fingers flew across his wafer as he enabled it to voice-capture the conversation outside. Jess leaned in to read it in transcript form.

Male officer: The head of household claims the family are on their way to exams and that they passed through London at approximately 4:00 this afternoon.

Female officer: I’ve got the same story from the fourbody who was driving. But they’re in an untraceable vehicle. It looks suspicious.

Male officer: I don’t know. My Opa drives one of these old amphibs. This family doesn’t seem the type.

Female officer: They never do. I say we send them in for further questions.

Male officer: I concur. Let’s scan them in.

Ethan passed his wafer to Jess, opening the door to step out.

“Halt!” cried the male officer. “Hands where I can see them!”

Ethan held his hands out in front of him, palms up. “I have proof that we have been to the places of which my mother spoke,” he said. “Within my shirt pocket.”

“Freeze!” commanded the female officer. “Gabor, check his pockets.” To Ethan, she barked a short, “Keep your hands up.”

Gabor removed the contents of Ethan’s pockets, containing items he had “collected” during the day’s journey.

The female officer asked, “Well?”

Gabor answered, “This corroborates everything the head of house and the fourbody claimed.” He shook his head. “Ma’am,” he said to Harpreet, “I think you lost track of what time zone you’re in. This says you left Britain prior to 3:00 p.m.”

“You will forgive me,” said Harpreet. “We are all a bit turned around from our travels.”

The female officer spoke. “You have date stamps I can check?”

“Several,” said Gabor. “This fuel receipt says they were in Calais at 4:03 p.m. They certainly didn’t blow up a hospital in London at 4:30 p.m.”

“Very well,” the female officer said to Gabor. “Place a twenty-four hour tracker on the vehicle, and let’s move on to the next one.”

Gabor placed a small device upon the front window, and Kipper was permitted to return to the driver’s seat.

Jessamyn, observing her brother, saw anxiety written in his posture as he contemplated returning to the confines of the small craft.

Ethan spoke to Gabor, beside him. “If we are innocent, why use the tracking device? And if we were not innocent, could we not simply disable it?”

Jessamyn froze. Stop talking, Jess thought. Just stop talking!

“That’s my grandson, always curious,” said Kipper, laughing lightly.

“Young man, you couldn’t disable it without understanding a whole lot more about radio-frequency encryption than someone like yourself. And the tracker is standard. Nothing personal, son. Now get inside before your family leaves without you.”

As Gabor walked to Harpreet’s side of the vehicle, Jess whispered to her brother, “I need you to get back inside, Eth. You can tell me about your collected items, okay?” She breathed a sigh of relief when, after a brief hesitation, he complied.

“Ma’am,” said Gabor at Harpreet’s window, “You’re free to continue to Budapest. Good luck to you,” he said, nodding to Jess. “My daughter’s testing tomorrow as well. Guess that makes you birthday buddies.”

“Guess so,” murmured Jess.

“Officer,” said Harpreet, resting a hand upon his armored arm, “Thank you for the job you are doing. I’m certain it is unpleasant and thankless work.”

Through his face-shield, Jess could see Gabor frown and then soften. “You say your daughter’s taking her exam in Budapest?”

“Yes,” replied Harpreet. Jess nodded in the back seat.

“Here,” he said. “Let me see your daughter’s wrist real quick.” He held out one of the small plastic sticks Terrans seemed so fond of.

Jessamyn panicked, momentarily unable to remember which wrist to offer. Her brother tapped her left hand.

Gabor spoke quickly. “We bought a pass for the awards banquet, but my daughter won’t be going. With everything that’s happened today, she wasn’t in the mood for a party. Someone ought to get some use out of it. It cost a fortune.”

“How kind of you,” said Harpreet. “Here, darling.”

Jess held her left wrist-chip out to the officer. He passed the stick over her chip. Something glowed briefly under her skin.

“You must allow me to compensate you,” said Harpreet.

“No, no,” said Gabor. “How often do you think I’ve been thanked for doing my job in sixteen years? Not once. Your gratitude is compensation enough.” He turned to Jess. “You go and have a fabulous time, young woman.”

“Absolutely,” said Jess as Kipper revved the vehicle.

“Gabor, we’re on the clock here,” said the female officer.

“Good luck,” said Gabor, waving them ahead.

The road before them was empty now, and Kipper pulled forward into the dark.

Chapter Fifteen

REAL SILK

Ethan surprised everyone by suggesting that Jessamyn leave the group prior to their arrival at the Terran satellite communication facility.

“Not going to happen,” said Jessamyn. “I came to make sure you can do your job and I intend to see it through.”

Her brother spoke again. “I have recovered sufficiently from my confinement to perform my task. However, I find that I am distressed at the thought of Jessamyn’s safety. I believe it would be difficult for me to concentrate on hacking ancient Terran code while knowing her to be in harm’s way.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Jess. “We’ve been in harm’s way every minute since we boarded the Galleon.”

“I have been researching the customs surrounding first-body apprenticeship examinations,” said Ethan, ignoring his sister’s retort. “Budapest throws the largest awards banquet. The opportunity to purchase admission is earned through a merit system. Jessamyn has been given a ticket and I believe the awards banquet would be a remarkably safe place.”

“Humph,” said Jess.

“The party lasts all night and the examination is held in the upper portion of the same building the following morning,” concluded her brother.

“That’s a ridiculous way to prepare for an important exam,” muttered Jess.

“We are attempting an important task, and we are under-rested,” Ethan countered.

Kipper glanced back at Ethan. “Your suggestion to increase your sister’s safety has merit. First Officer, is it your conclusion that your brother has made a full recovery?”

Jess, out of the Captain’s range of vision, rolled her eyes and muttered. “He just disabled the tracking device those Terrans placed on the front window.”

“Indeed?” Kipper sounded impressed. “Harpreet, what is your recommendation?”

“Ethan has watched over his sister her entire life. If he feels her presence would compromise his productivity, I suggest we do as he asks. A Terran banquet is certainly a safer location than a cloaked transport, should we encounter … difficulties.” Harpreet paused to smile at Jess. “And daughter, I must implore you, for my sake, to sample a raspberry at the banquet.”

“Very well. First Officer,” said Kipper, “You will await us at the banquet.”

And so Jessamyn found it a settled thing: she would remove herself from the rest of the crew, maintaining communication through the audio device of Ethan’s invention. She felt disgruntled at being set aside during the real action. Then she remembered a conversation around Brian Wallace’s table. She recalled how her brother had seemed to be trying to convince himself that she would be safe under the cloaking tarp. He’s been worrying about this all along, she realized. Her brother didn’t need additional worries. She smiled softly. She was doing what Harpreet said she needed to do: to consider a situation from someone else’s point of view.

Budapest sprawled, a vast city on either side of the Danube River. The boundaries of the capitol had doubled several times over in the centuries since colonists first left for Mars. The city center maintained some of its antique beauty, the ancient buildings in warm browns, golds, and pinks that felt restful to Jess’s eyes after the blue-greys and greens of Scotland.

As they drew closer to the exam building where Jessamyn would depart from her crew, she found herself recalling her father’s final words to her before she’d said goodbye on Mars: Remember to use all your senses, Jess. Her sense of taste had been vastly underutilized so far. She smiled; she would rectify that omission tonight.

Kipper brought their vehicle to a halt beside the award banquet building, a sunset-colored building ornamented with crumbling statuary, several stories tall and some eight kilometers distant from the crew’s mission. Half an awkward hug from Harpreet, a nod from Kipper. And then, against her better judgment, Jess leaned over and hugged her brother.

“I’ll be in range of what the ear implants can handle, right?” she whispered.

“Yes,” replied her brother. Tense.

She released him from the hug and he relaxed.

“I will contact you when we have completed the task,” he said.

“See you all in a few hours, then,” she said, exiting next to a long row of hover-bikes available for rent.

Slipping into the back of a queue for admission, she watched her chrono-tattoo move from red to orange: Ethan was already half a kilometer away. The line snaked forward. She flicked her wrist to turn the tattoo on again. Green. Two kilometers. Jessamyn could hear music belting from inside the building. It sounded lively and not unpleasant. Another wrist flick. Blue. Many kilometers.

Behind her, several girls laughed. Jess felt hairs rise along her neck, certain they were discussing her. She turned back and glared at them.

The first-body girls stared at her in silence, then tittered again.

Jess turned to the front. Terrans.

A boy in front of her cleared his throat and addressed her. “You should’ve had it removed.”

“Pardon?” asked Jess.

He touched his wrist. “Your tattoo. You’ll lose a couple credits toward your twobody for marking your current body.”

“Oh,” said Jess.

“Why didn’t your parents make you remove it?” asked the boy.

The line advanced and Jess—to avoid answering—pointed forward, indicating the boy should move. They shuffled ahead.

“I’m sorry,” said the boy, turning back again. “That was rude of me. Tattoo removal is outrageously overpriced for first-bodies.”

Jess, lacking a frame of reference from which to respond, kept silent. She found his accent fascinating and subtly shifted the shape of her mouth wondering how to match his “o’s” and “i’s”.

“I’m Pavel,” he said. “In case, you know …” He trailed off as if Jess should know the remainder of the sentence.

“In case what?” she asked.

“Oh,” he said, a look of surprise flitting across his face. “It’s only that … well, a lot of people know my name already because of the election campaigning.”

“Sorry,” said Jess. “I don’t recognize you.” She thought she’d done a good job matching his long vowel sounds.

He flashed a row of white teeth, then hid them again, amused. “So, I say ‘I’m Pavel,’and you say—”

“Jessamyn,” she heard herself replying.

“I would have worn black, too,” he said, gesturing at Jess’s garments. “But Aunt Lucca’s a hard woman to say no to.” He laughed as if Jessamyn would get the joke.

Her blank stare told him she didn’t.

“Never mind,” he said, sobering. “Did you lose someone you knew in today’s attacks?”

Jess shook her head slightly. He thinks I’m grieving, she thought, recalling Earth-stories where people dressed in black to mourn death.

“You’re showing solidarity, then,” said Pavel, nodding approval. “I should have packed a change of clothes. This—” he indicated his midnight blue garb. “This is one hundred percent Lucca Brezhnaya.”

“Hmm,” said Jessamyn, nodding. She thought the name sounded familiar. Maybe from a book she’d read?

Immediately ahead, Jess saw the reason for the line’s slow progression. A group of three women assessed the attendees’ appearance before allowing them to scan inside the building.

“Good luck with the outfit,” said Pavel, seeing where Jess’s gaze rested. “You could try explaining your reasons. Solidarity with the victims is running high tonight, my aunt says.”

He crossed to stand before the trio of inspectors. Each gave a curt nod “yes,” and Pavel gained admittance.

“See you later, Jessamyn,” said Pavel.

Not likely, thought Jess.

She approached the group of arbitrators. All three women shook their heads no at the same time. One took Jess by the upper arm and jostled her to the entrance, murmuring, “I’m sorry for your loss, but the dress code has not been relaxed. Someone will help you with a change of clothes just inside. Look for a gentleman in red. Bright red. Talk to him about renting an outfit, dear.”

Jessamyn glanced back before passing through the narrow entrance door. She wanted to turn and run. Inside her Terran shoes, her toes curled and uncurled. Run.

No, she told herself. Staring down at both wrists, she chose the left one containing her admission, scanned it, and passed inside the building.

The music proved much, much louder now than it had been outside. It wasn’t in a style she recognized, though that was hardly surprising. Colonists had destroyed Terran recordings, and a good deal of Terran art, during the war fifty orbits earlier. Jessamyn had to admit the Earth-music at the banquet stirred her. It shook the floor, hummed through her breastbone, steady like a pulse. She looked for the man in red, but he found her first, grabbing her upper arm like the woman outside had done. It was irritating.

“Size minus six?” he asked as he steered her to a counter.

“What?” asked Jess, shouting to be heard over the music.

“Your dress size. Minus six? Minus eight?” He let go her arm. “They’ll help you find something … appropriate.” He gazed at her from head to toe, shaking his head in disapproval. Then he was gone.

“Your wrist, sugar?” said a woman from behind the counter.

Jess repeated her left/right mantra and held out the correct wrist.

“Hmm, tall and thin. Not a lot to choose from in your size,” said the woman. Her hands tapped the counter separating them and it lit up with images of dresses. “Black-and-white means we don’t have it, full color means we have it in your size.”

Jess nodded. She stared at the counter as it came aglow with a row of six gowns. Six very ridiculous-looking gowns. Fortunately all were grayed out. Not available, she said to herself.

“Hurry up, honey,” said the woman behind the counter. “The speaker address starts at 9:00 whether you’re dressed or not.” As the woman finished speaking, she swiped her hand across the counter, revealing for Jess a new set of dress pictures. “I can help the next guest over here,” she said, moving to the far side of the counter.

Jess passed her hand across the counter, moving past one page and another and another. The gowns were equally repulsive or bizarre, but she hadn’t seen any in color yet. Then three slid into place before her in color. They reminded her of gowns from a book of Terran fairy tales she’d loved once. The dresses might have enchanted her when she was five or six years old, but she couldn’t imagine encasing herself in those layers of … whatever the gauzy material was. Another page with two more gowns. One had no sleeves or shoulder-covering. How does that stay put? She scrolled again.

END-END-END read the panel before her. She pushed backward. Between two gowns that reminded her of illustrations from the long-discarded fairytale books, she saw something she might actually wear. It’s called a sari, some part of her remembered. She’d read a sprawling saga set in India with a heroine who’d appeared on the cover wearing the long, pleated skirt and abbreviated bodice of a sari. Harpreet had given her the book.

The short-sleeved top which bared a hint of belly would have been vastly impractical on Mars; the flowing, long skirt would be a nuisance, impossible with a walk-out suit. Here’s to new experiences, Jess thought, shaking her head slightly. She raised her left wrist once again and held it over a box that read “Select Me!”

Looking up, she waited to see what she was supposed to do next.

“Move on, syrup,” said the woman behind the counter to Jess. “To your left.”

Glancing left, Jessamyn saw a small glass door lighting up. Behind it lay an orange length of fabric. She reached for it.

“Dressing rooms to the right, sugar,” said the woman behind the counter.

Taking the package, Jessamyn suddenly remembered the pages-long description of how the heroine had dressed herself in a sari. She wasn’t at all certain she’d be able to turn the length of fabric into something meant to be seen in public.

But inside the dressing room, she discovered several elderly Terrans waiting to help girls with their gowns. “We’ve got a sari here,” called one of the women. “The skinny redhead.”

A wrinkled and white haired woman shuffled toward Jess. “I can do a sari,” said the old woman. She grinned at Jessamyn. “This would be a lot easier if my fingers weren’t so arthritic.” She laughed. “Just you wait. Tomorrow’s going to be a big shock, I can tell you.”

Jessamyn stood uncertainly and then realized the woman was referring to Jess’s presumably-imminent re-bodying.

“Go on, then, undress,” said the old woman.

Jess didn’t want to undress. She wanted to be ready to leave as soon as Ethan contacted her. She stared at her black top and trousers.

“What’s wrong?” asked the old woman. “You want to wear the sari over your shirt and pants?”

“Yes, please,” replied Jessamyn.

“Suit yourself,” said the old woman. “Come closer. You can move quicker than me. For now.” She cackled again. “I’m going to do a quick spray-shrink,” she said, removing a canister from a pocket.

When Jessamyn looked puzzled, the old woman said, “It’ll wear off by morning. Don’t worry.”

With that, the woman spritzed Jess’s top and trousers. She felt a mild tingle and gaped as her garments contracted to form a second ink-black skin.

“There,” said the wrinkled woman, nodding in approval.

Next, Jessamyn was pushed, prodded, and spun round a few times. The fabric of the sari, when it drifted past her cheek once, felt warm and soft and light as sunshine.

“Wow,” Jess whispered, running her fingers over the pleated length at her waist.

“Silk,” said the old woman. “Real silk. No expense spared for those of you invited to the Awards Banquet. I almost got in, myself. It was easier though, fifteen years ago. Don’t know how you kids manage all those volunteer hours and lessons and the rest of it.”

“Mmm,” said Jessamyn, nodding. “Getting here was no easy feat.”

“Your generation will be running things when I make fourbody, so I’m glad to see the increase in civic contributions, I can tell you,” said the old woman.

Jess realized with a shock that the woman wasn’t old at all—that she was maybe the age of Jess’s own mother. A shudder of aversion ran through Jess. Body-swapping was real here—not just an imagined thing.

“You’re done. Go have a look.” The not-really-old woman smiled, revealing a few missing teeth. “Oh, no. Wait-wait-wait!” The woman shuffled off to a counter, pushed the lid off of a small, thin box, and removed something Jess couldn’t quite see.

Holding her arms apart, as though pantomiming the carrying of an object, the woman approached Jessamyn. Jess caught a glitter of something that looked like the spider’s web she had seen with Ethan. She felt a light tickle as the something was draped over her head and fluttered to rest upon her shoulder.

“Mmm, yes. That does it. Make sure you find a mirror out there in the banquet hall. The web comes alive under low lighting,” said the woman, wheeling an oblong mirror in front of Jess so that she could see herself.

She looked … not like Jessamyn. Back home, she’d avoided wearing orange (popular for hiding dirt stains) because of her red hair. But she looked really good in the flame-colored sari, she realized with a tiny smile.

She took a small step forward. Swish-swish—the silk whispered against her, more a thing of liquid or air than the solid fabrics Jess knew from home. Another step—swish-swish—it was marvelous.

“Deposit the gown before you leave for exams,” said the woman who had dressed her. “Or they’ll garnish your first day’s wages. First week’s wages, with that much real silk.”

Jessamyn smiled her thanks, wondering if she was supposed to pay the woman, when a bell sounded in the hall outside.

“Hurry up or you’ll miss the graduation address!” cackled the old woman.

No paying, then. Jess took a deep breath, gathered the soft layers in front of her, lifted them a few centimeters, and stepped into the hallway.

Chapter Sixteen

A ROPE TUG OF SADNESS

She followed a group of brightly costumed eighteen-year-olds up a broad marble staircase as they pushed into a large and dark room. The room wasn’t merely large—by Marsian standards, it was enormous. Strangest of all to Jessamyn was the high ceiling; it made the Crystal Pavilion seem dumpy and squat. The air required to fill such a room would be … Jess stopped herself, laughing inside. Breathable air was everywhere on Earth. They could make their ceilings as high as they liked without regard to the cost of filling them with breathable air.

Upon the distant ceiling, star-like pulses winked on and off to the beat of the music. The lighting inside was subdued and Jess thought the small points of light were meant to imitate a vast night sky. Everywhere, she saw decorative plants and trees. A girl beside her plucked something from a nearby tree. A pear? The girl took a couple of bites and then tossed the fruit into a large receptacle before reaching for another one.

Jess stared at the girl, stared at the receptacle. It was full of things that smelled strongly. Two more girls drifted past, swathed in cloud-like fabric, and dumped half-full drinking vessels into the receptacle.

Waste, thought Jess. The container is for waste. She stared in amazement as guest after guest tossed half-full plates or uneaten pieces of fruit into the large container. Appalled, Jess moved away from the waste receptacle.

Swish-swish-swish whispered her sari as she trailed along the walls of the great room. Her eyes caught movement and she looked up, catching sight of herself in a mirror. She gasped. The “spider’s web” glistened on her skin, countless jewels held within the silken strands. Beneath the soft lights of the banquet room, the orange-colored silk had turned the burnt-rust of a Marsian sunset.

A bell sounded and the “mirror” disappeared. Upon every wall, Jessamyn now saw repeated the image of a woman she recognized from the broadcast at Brian Wallace’s. It was the woman Wallace didn’t trust.

“Welcome,” boomed the politician’s deep voice. “Welcome and congratulations on this, the eve of your eighteenth birthdays.”

More interested in finding food, Jess tuned out the speaker’s voice. As the politician upon the walls wished everyone good luck, Jess found a queue for a long series of tables laden with foods she’d only seen in pictures. Hundreds of scents wafted upon the air, and she could identify none of them.

Stomach-ache or not, she was so going to eat Terran food.

Ahead of her in the queue, a group of boys took disks from a stack as they approached the rations table. They placed food upon the disks. Upon the plates, Jessamyn corrected herself. Plates weren’t in use on Mars, but Jess could see they would come in very handy for the sort of rations spread before her. She watched the others picking and choosing from amongst the varied offerings. Placards glowed before each food, identifying it with a name.

Realizing her throat felt parched, Jess reached for a small cup marked “honey,” which she felt fairly certain was a Terran beverage. Then she took several leaves of a curly, dark green vegetable that resembled an overgrown algae. It was unlabeled, which made Jessamyn think it must be popular enough that it didn’t need a placard. Atop the leaves of dark green nestled a variety of small items labeled “mixed berries.” Jess took one of each type, hoping, for Harpreet’s sake, that one of them was a raspberry. A girl behind her piled twenty or thirty of the round blue-colored ones onto an already-full plate.

Jess’s own plate looked very empty in comparison. And she was holding up the line with her indecision. She took several steps forward, pausing at “butter.” She placed a stack of the yellow-y slices on one side of her plate.

“Way to live it up your last night,” said one of the girls clustered in line behind her.

Jessamyn smiled and continued past plates of strange-smelling steaming dishes. There was a delay beside a food called “pizza.” Jess remembered pizza from a series of detective novels she’d read over and over when she was ten. There seemed to be several varieties, but she kept looking until she discovered one labeled “pepperoni.” That had been the detective’s favorite. She took a triangle-shaped portion.

Behind her, she heard whispers. “She took one raspberry. Look—one!”

“Must be how she stays thin. Look at her.”

“If she turns sideways, she’ll disappear!”

Jessamyn turned around. “I’m thin, not deaf,” she said, glaring at the trio of whispering girls. Remembering Harpreet’s request, she asked, in a gentler voice, “So, which one’s the raspberry?”

Two of the girls had covered their mouths, eyes wide. The third pointed to the red berry on Jess’s plate.

“Thanks,” said Jessamyn.

She left the food line, even though the laden tables continued on into the distance. She already had more food than she was sure she could finish. “Waste must be contagious,” she murmured, grasping a handful of sari so that she could cross the crowded room more swiftly. The setting brought to mind her first day at school—the hushed awkwardness of being surrounded by complete strangers.

Well, she was here, and she had a plate of Terran rations, and she was going to consume pizza of pepperoni. Crossing to a tall window, she found a corner where she could sequester herself behind a column. The window looked out over a large rectangular body of water. A pool, her mind told her. So many things she’d only read of or seen in pictures, and now she saw them in reality. A smile grew on her face. She would collect experiences so that she could pass them out through the annums like Harpreet’s tea.

Jessamyn reached for the raspberry and passed it cautiously beyond her lips. It felt dry and velvety upon her tongue. Crushing it against the roof of her mouth, she felt herself puckering. The unfamiliar combination of sweet and tart made her shudder once. Such flavor in so small an item! It was wondrous. She swallowed and noticed how the scent of the fruit lingered in her nasal passages and upon her tongue.

On Mars, she would have drawn out the experience of raspberry-ness. Would have rested with closed eyes to concentrate on its subtleties. Would have replayed the experience in her mind. But she had limited time and a large plate of rations to finish before her brother and crew returned.

She reached for a fingerful of butter. Wet, she thought, Slippery. She took another mouthful, trying to focus on the flavor. Delicious. Then, she noticed in annoyance a heated discussion happening on the other side of her column. Taking another mouthful of butter, she paid attention to the rate at which her mouth converted it from semi-solid to liquid. The great thing about butter, she decided, was that you didn’t have to chew it at all. It was a very … restful ration.

Behind her, the discussion between a boy and a girl had become an argument.

“Why can’t you see the flaws in the system for what they are? Flaws!” The girl’s voice undercut the music.

“All systems have flaws,” replied the boy. “Ours has remarkably few. And there are ways to express dissent that don’t involve killing innocent people.”

Jess picked up the vessel of honey, feeling thirsty after several mouthfuls of butter.

“You’ve never lived a day in the real world,” snapped the girl. “For most of us, expressing dissent, as you call it, is simply another way to lose next-body credits. When have you ever spoken out against this government or its practices?”

The boy was silent. Jess hoped the arguing pair would move on.

“Oh, shizer!” said the girl. “Are you going to report me as an inciter-sympathetic?”

The boy sighed with exasperation. “Of course not. You’re entitled to whatever view you like, however misguided.”

“Thank you,” said the girl.

“Look, if I don’t speak out, it’s not because I’m afraid something bad would happen to me. It’s because the system works. But if that changes, I’ll be the first in front of the news-cams, telling the world what I think.”

The girl made a snorting kind of laugh. “Your aunt or one of her minions would make sure the segment never posted.”

The two fell silent, during which time Jess decided honey was not a beverage. At least, not a particularly thirst-quenching one. She wanted to go find a wet ration, but she’d have to walk past the arguing pair, and she didn’t want them chasing after her, making her swear to keep their secrets.

The boy was speaking again. “Lucca’s not like that. You don’t know her like I do,” he said. “But look at what you do know: her government’s first act eight years ago was to bolster the Freedom to Speak edicts.”

The girl gave a joyless laugh. “Those edicts are to make it easier to catch and punish inciters and sympathizers.”

“Listen,” said the boy. “I’m the last person to say my aunt is an easy person to live with. We argue almost every day. But you’re wrong about the edicts. And you’re wrong about the system. It prevents untold suffering. It keeps poverty and crime at levels previous generations only dreamed of. We’re about to celebrate a century without war. Doesn’t that count for something?”

The girl laughed again. “There’s a war. Wake up, Brezhnaya. What do you think the inciters are playing at?”

Brezhnaya. Lucca Brezhnaya. Jessamyn’s mouth formed a tiny o. The boy in line had mentioned an overbearing “Aunt Lucca.” Jess realized she was overhearing Pavel. Who was important on this planet, apparently. Now she really didn’t want to draw attention to herself. Grabbing her sari, she pulled it slowly back and out of the view of those on the far side of the column.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” said the boy. “Do you want to tell the banquet officials or shall I?”

“Tell them what?” asked the girl. Jess heard fear in her voice.

“About the midnight kiss?”

“Oh,” said the girl. “That.”

“Kissing doesn’t seem reasonable given our … differences in views.”

“No,” said the girl. “I mean, yes. But I don’t want to lose credits over it.”

Pavel sighed. “You won’t. The system doesn’t work like that, whatever nonsense you’ve heard to the contrary. I’ll message the officials that I’m not feeling well. They can go with the next pair on their list,” said Pavel. “Unless you still want the honor, but with someone else?”

“No,” the girl replied. “It’s not an honor I covet. Goodbye, Pavel. And good luck. A starry-eyed dreamer like you—you’ll need it.”

Jess heard clicking heels as the girl departed.

“Good luck to you, too,” called Pavel. Then, softly, Jess heard him murmur, “Better starry-eyed than bitter.”

In her stomach, and somewhere behind her forehead, Jessamyn felt odd. She decided the odd feelings were unpleasant and possibly related to her sense of balance. Was she having an adverse reaction to gravity? Think about the rations, she told herself, picking up a small, blue berry. The tart sensation felt refreshing after so much butter. She picked up a piece of the green, leafy food.

And so, when Pavel slipped around to the back side of the column, nearly seating himself in Jess’s lap, he observed that the girl in orange was eating decorative green kale.

“Oh,” he said. “I didn’t realize anyone was here.”

Their eyes met and Jessamyn set the dark leaf back on her plate. “I promise I won’t repeat that conversation. If you’re worried,” she said.

“Um, no,” said Pavel. “Not worried about that. Oh—you’re the girl from outside.”

“That’s me,” she agreed. She took another bite of the leafy green. It seemed to combat the uncomfortable sensations in her head and belly.

“Is that … good?” asked Pavel.

“Yeah,” she said, holding one up. “Have one of mine. I took too much food, I think.”

Pavel took the offered piece of kale. “It’s only decorative, you know. Not meant for eating. At least, I’ve never seen anyone else eat … kale.”

Jessamyn felt her face turning red. “It’s a delicacy where I come from.”

“I didn’t mean to offend,” said Pavel. “Nice job wearing black under your dress, by the way. Oh. Was that offensive, too?”

“Why would it be?”

“Guess you missed the start of my last conversation.” He looked down over the pool outside. “I tried telling her that I admired her choice to wear a black evening gown and that I thought the banquet should have been a bit more subdued in light of the bombings today and things pretty much went downhill from there.”

“Sounded like it,” said Jess.

“Yeah. We were supposed to lead off the midnight kiss. I thought maybe we should get to know each other. So I introduced myself, and, well, you heard how that went.” He shrugged. “Stupid of me.”

“Stupid to get to know someone before kissing? Or stupid of you to introduce yourself?” Jess asked. “‘Cause you’re pretty much repeating the second offense.”

Pavel laughed. “No, I meant the first. I’m glad I don’t have to do the kiss.” He looked at Jess out of the corner of his eyes. “Seeing as you and I will probably never meet again, I have something to admit: I haven’t kissed a girl since I was eight. Believe me, I’m relieved to get out of doing it so publicly.” He placed his arm, bent, high on the large window before them. He sighed loudly and leaned his head against his forearm. “Tell you what I won’t miss tomorrow evening: no one will recognize me as Lucca Brezhnaya’s nephew. For awhile, at least.”

Jessamyn shuddered as she heard how easily he talked about shedding his own body.

“How’s the pizza?” Pavel asked, still gazing down at the pool.

“I was saving it for last,” said Jess. Since it was the only thing left on her plate, she took a bite, chewed, and then paused, her taste buds ablaze. How could anyone, she wondered, give proper attention to so many sensations? Nor were the flavors confined to her mouth. She found that drawing breath brought additional pleasure. She sniffed the scent of pizza. Intoxicating! She took repeated small breaths until she grew light-headed. “That is the best thing I have ever tasted,” she said at last.

“What, you’ve never had pizza?” asked Pavel.

“I’ve never tried pizza of pepperoni before,” said Jess, gulping down another bite, larger than the first.

“No kidding?” Pavel laughed. “Hey, you want to get out of here?”

Jessamyn considered the question, but the pizza was so good, so distracting. She took another bite, chewing and swallowing swiftly.

“Just down to the pool? They made a little sandy beach area—the sand’s heated, even. It’ll be quiet,” said Pavel. “When you’re done eating, I mean.” He watched as she continued inhaling the pizza. “Unless you were planning to just eat pizza all night?”

“Oh, um, no,” she replied. “Just this one pizza.” It happened suddenly—she was no longer enjoying the myriad flavors. In fact, she felt odd. Placing the remaining pizza in the waste receptacle was unthinkable, so she decided to be done with it as quickly as possible. As she swallowed the last bite, the unpleasant sensation behind her forehead and in her stomach increased.

“Outside sounds good, actually.” The air quality was poor inside, even by Marsian standards. “Lead on,” she said, placing one hand protectively over her stomach.

“You feeling okay?” asked Pavel.

Jess shook her head no. Then she realized head motion was a very bad idea at the moment.

“Come on. Let’s get you some fresh air,” Pavel said, walking toward a large window that parted as they approached it. “If you need to be, uh, sick, you’ll have more privacy outside.”

Sick, thought Jessamyn. That’s what’s wrong with me. The advice to avoid Terran food now seemed imminently sensible. She would never, ever, disregard Harpreet’s counsel again. They rode down in an elevator. The slow ride and slight jolt at the bottom did little to improve conditions in Jessamyn’s stomach.

She stumbled toward what looked like Marsian soil. She sat, sinking her fingers into the pale grains. It wasn’t frozen—it felt warm—another Terran miracle. How would she remember half of what she’d experienced this day?

“Better?” asked Pavel.

“Working on it,” said Jess.

“Give it a minute.” Pavel turned to stare at her, as if wanting to say something more.

Jessamyn frowned. “What?”

“Listen, I’m not an idiot. You’ve spoken, like, twelve words to me. Obviously you want me to leave. And I will as soon as your color returns. I’ve never seen anyone so pale outside a hospital.”

“You haven’t?” Jessamyn wondered if he knew that Marsians with light skin tended to be paler than Terrans with light skin. She wished she looked like Harpreet.

Pavel took her wrist in his hand and held a finger over the small blue veining on the inner side.

Here it was—another Terran grabbing her arm without asking. But Pavel’s touch was light and warm and kind. “What are you doing?” whispered Jess.

“Hold on,” he said, frowning in concentration. Several seconds passed. “Checking your pulse. You’re within a normal range.”

Jessamyn looked at him in surprise. “You checked my pulse without a pulse-reader?”

“Sure,” he said. “It’s easy.”

“We always use pulse-readers back on … back home,” Jess said, flushing slightly.

“I’ve done my volunteer months in hospitals the past five years. Pulse-readers are broken half the time, I swear.” He grinned broadly, revealing very white teeth. The two front teeth overlapped slightly, reminding her of Ethan’s. “By the way, I think you just doubled the number of words you’ve spoken to me. So either you’re feeling better, or you changed your mind about ignoring me.”

“I wasn’t ignoring you,” said Jess. “You simply … talk a lot.”

Pavel laughed. “Are you always this friendly?”

“Not as a rule.”

The light had been growing steadily brighter since they’d stepped outside. Pavel looked up and just behind them. “Full moon,” he said, pointing overhead to where the moon had just cleared the top of the building at their backs. “It’s supposed to be good luck for exams. Better than the midnight kiss, even.”

Jess smiled at the odd Terran beliefs. Then, twisting, she followed Pavel’s gesturing hand.

“Oh,” whispered Jess. “Oh, Hades, that’s beautiful!”

“Better get an eyeful tonight,” murmured Pavel. “Loss of night vision is the most common complaint among twobodies.”

I’d better get an eyeful tonight, because by dawn, I’ll be counting down a launch, thought Jessamyn.

“What are you hoping for?” asked Pavel.

Jessamyn wondered briefly if “hoping on the full moon” was a Terran custom like wishing on a shooting star back home.

“For your apprenticeship?” Pavel added.

“Oh, um, for tomorrow?” How could it hurt to give an answer, she wondered. “I want to be a pilot.”

“Really?”

Jess frowned. “Yes. Is there something wrong with that?”

Pavel laughed, threw a small pebble into the pool before them. “No. I’m a licensed pilot myself.”

“What do you fly?” asked Jessamyn.

“You name it, I’ve probably flown it,” said Pavel. “I took every level they offer, so I’m good right up to 300 kilometers above Earth.”

As they discussed the merits of various crafts Jess had only read about, she had to remember to keep back certain pieces of her familiarity with flying. She could tell her knowledge impressed Pavel as it was.

“Tell you what I’d do if I weren’t interested in medicine,” said Pavel. “I’d sign on for satellite-trash harvesting just so I could fly the high-orbit runs.” He leaned back on his elbows, gazing at the heavens. “Not that Aunt Lucca would ever allow that.”

“Why not? She’s not the one taking your exam, is she?”

Pavel grunted. “You can bet she’d like to.” He grimaced. “She’s got her mind set on me following a medical course so I can be elected Head of Global Consciousness Transfer someday.” He sighed, burying his hands deep in the sand and bringing them slowly out.

Jess watched the sand trail off his long fingers. He had what her dad would call surgeon’s hands. Of course, he wouldn’t have them tomorrow once he transferred into a new body. The thought made Jessamyn sad, although she didn’t know why it should.

She leaned back, nestling into the warm sand, turning to face Pavel. “Is that what you want? To be a politician?”

“I want to help people. Heal the sick. I guess I’d be okay in a transfer hospital if I could do the recovery therapy part. I’ve assisted at a few transfers already for my volunteer hours. Tomorrow, I’ll be new-bodied at New Kelen, where I volunteered. It will be interesting to experience the change from the point of view of a patient.”

“Interesting,” said Jess, feeling an uncomfortable twist in her stomach. “Yeah.”

They lay silent for several minutes. As Jess looked at clusters of stars overhead, she wondered how much of what she saw was satellite trash, how much actual gaseous giants across the galaxy.

‘In a couple of minutes,” said Pavel, “The New Terra Space Station should pass overhead.”

“I thought space exploration was banned,” said Jess, feeling confused.

“A hundred and eighteen years ago. But the space stations still circles. Hardly anyone remembers it’s up there.”

“You do.”

“Yeah. I’ve got … reasons.” Pavel was quiet for a few minutes, then raised a finger. “That’s it. See?” Another silent half-minute as he followed the bright spot across the sky with his finger.

“I see it!” said Jessamyn.

“My parents died up there,” said Pavel, his voice dropping low.

“I thought—” Jess paused, curious, but not wanting to give away her ignorance of Terran law. “Wouldn’t that have been illegal—going to visit the space station?”

“It was. Is,” said Pavel, correcting himself. “They took risks. They paid for those risks with their lives.”

“I’m sorry.” Jessamyn tried to imagine life without her parents. She couldn’t. “Has your aunt been a good … surrogate parent?”

Pavel grinned lazily. “That’s a very expensive question. If I had a credit for every time a reporter asked me that, I could build my own illegal space station.”

Jessamyn flushed and turned away, murmuring, “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.” He twisted onto his side to face her. “Hey.” Nudging one of her feet with one of his own, he said softly, “I’m the one who should apologize. I just implied you’d sell my answers for credits.”

“Of course I wouldn’t,” Jess snapped.

“I know. Forgive me.”

She raised her eyes to meet his—so earnest, so dark and lovely—and she felt herself softening inside. “I only meant to say,” she murmured, “That I don’t know how you survived growing up without your parents.”

A furrow grew between Pavel’s brows. “I had them my first ten years. And Lucca’s okay. She tries hard, anyway. We’re just … we’re very different from one another. Even though we believe in a lot of the same things. I don’t know if that makes any sense at all.”

“It does,” Jess replied. “You should see how different my brother is from me. But we get along great.”

“Hmm. Yeah, that’s the thing. I don’t think anyone would say Lucca and I get along well. We argue a lot. Junk harvest is a perfect example. She says she’d never want to see me go into something like that because of how my parents died up there. But really, that’s not why. Really, she hopes I’ll get a more prestigious apprenticeship, because that will reflect well on her. I mean, Lucca doesn’t want her nephew taking an apprenticeship that actually accepts volunteers.”

He glanced quickly at Jessamyn. “I don’t mean to imply that I look down on trash harvesting. I think it would be a great job.”

“I’m not offended,” said Jess. “Even if I were planning to volunteer for it.”

Pavel smiled, relieved. “Well, my aunt’s attitude towards junk harvesting is a perfect example of where we don’t see eye-to-eye. Her public policies are fine—but privately, she’s a bit of a snob.”

“I’ve met someone like that,” said Jess, thinking of Kipper. Although, at the moment, she was having a hard time feeling hostility toward the Captain. Every time she remembered Ethan’s mission, her stomach sloshed and she felt a downward whoosh, like riding the elevator, which left a hollowness behind. She wished one of the crew had remained with her. Even Kipper.

“You’re quiet again,” said Pavel, after a couple of minutes passed without either of them speaking. “Do you want to go back inside to the party? They’ll be bringing out desserts now that it’s almost midnight.”

The idea of further food (and she was fairly certain desserts meant food) made her feel ill. Better to remain outside, with Pavel and conversation to distract her from unwanted worry. “I’m fine here,” said Jessamyn. “I want to enjoy the night sky one last time.”

Pavel sighed contentedly. “Me, too.”

It was true, Jessamyn realized—she was exactly where she would choose to be, lying on her back, breathing out-of-door air, staring into the heavens.

“That moon is amazing,” she said. “It’s like someone cut out a piece of mirror and hung it in the sky.”

“I wish it were still legal to fly to the moon,” said Pavel. “If I were in my aunt’s shoes, that’s a law I’d bring before parliament.”

“It must’ve been amazing, back in the day,” said Jess.

“Can you imagine being Neil Armstrong? Or Roberta Zubrin-Trujillo? That was the golden age, Jess. I mean, I know there were wars and poverty and life was awful for so many people, but can you imagine being the first person to set foot on the Moon? Or Mars?”

Jess smiled.

“Tell you what. I’ll run for Head of Consciousness Transfer when I’m a threebody, then, once my political career takes off, I’ll see about re-opening the Terra-Luna shuttle runs. And you can be a shuttle pilot. Deal?”

“Sounds great,” said Jess. “But what about you, don’t you want to pilot, too?”

“Shuttles? Nah, where’s the fun in that? I’ll hold out for a flight to Mars.”

Jess turned sharply to face Pavel, her brow furrowing.

“Just kidding,” he said. “Anyway, it would be too sad. For me, at least.” He paused to brush sand off his chin.

“You can see Mars over there,” he said, pointing. “It’s as close as it’s going to be for over a year, which makes it bright. I wonder how long the last survivors hung on for, anyway?”

Jess held her breath. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to fake her way through.

“There’s Arcturus,” said Pavel. He pointed to a bright stellar cluster. “Did you know ancient peoples used that star for navigation? One group traveled all the way from Tahiti to Hawaii with only that single star in view to keep their course true. Can you imagine that? Weeks in a boat on the sea, guided by the heavens?”

Jessamyn could imagine it in some detail, if you substituted “ship in space” for “boat on sea,” but she kept her thoughts to herself.

Another bell sounded from inside the hall and Pavel sat up, checking a device which flashed a readout of the local time.

“Almost midnight,” he said.

Jess couldn’t remember what time her body—still accustomed to ship time—thought it was now. “Do we have to go back inside?” she asked. “For the kiss or whatever?”

Pavel shook his head.

“Good,” said Jessamyn, settling back into the sand.

“Hey, Jessamyn, can I tell you something?”

Jess looked at him. “Isn’t that what you’ve been doing all night?”

Pavel’s eyes looked bright, animated. Jess waited but he didn’t speak.

“What?” she asked, finally.

Licking his lips once, he spoke. “So, I know it’s a load of shizer, what they say about the midnight kiss being good luck.” He paused and took a deep breath, then spoke very quickly. “But if I’d met you this year at school, well, I’m pretty sure my last kiss would have been a lot more recent than the one when I turned eight, assuming you’d said okay, because obviously I wouldn’t have just grabbed you in the halls, even though I would have wanted to very much.” He laughed and covered his eyes with one hand. “I cannot believe I said that out loud.”

“You want us to kiss?” Now Jess laughed, too, shaking her head at Pavel, his face half hidden under his hand. Then, more quietly, she asked another way: “You want to kiss me?”

“Pretty much since I saw you standing there in line, all dressed in black,” he said, looking at her through parted fingers. His hand dropped away from his face and he met her gaze.

Her skin tingled like it had when the woman doused her with spray-shrink. She thought she liked the feeling, this time. She smiled at Pavel’s dark eyes, turned upon her. She fingered her sari, slippery against her skin.

“I’m shallow,” groaned Pavel. “Go ahead. Hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” said Jess. She thought about New Orbit countdowns back home where Marsians kissed at midnight for good luck. As a child, Jess had always hidden behind Ethan, covering her eyes against the thousand kisses. Last New Orbit, she’d watched. It hadn’t looked all that bad.

“I’ve never kissed a boy,” she whispered. “Not when I was eight. Not ever.”

A tiny smile broke upon Pavel’s face. “I don’t think that one counted for me.”

“Come closer,” said Jessamyn. As she shifted toward Pavel, burnt-orange silk cascaded from over her shoulder making a sh-sh-sh sound.

Pavel gathered a handful of the silk where it had settled between them. The sari whispered susurrations once more as Pavel tried to arrange it correctly over Jess’s shoulder. “It’s as soft as parachute-silk,” he said, voice quiet with wonder.

“It is silk,” said Jess. “At least that’s what they told me.”

They were very close now and Jess detected on Pavel’s breath things he’d eaten at the banquet. Nice things, she noted. A shout went up from inside the Banquet Hall.

“The countdown,” murmured Pavel.

Jessamyn scented the moisture humming between them. Remember this, she told herself. Pavel, the moon, the moisture-laden air. Hundreds of voices chanted five-four-three—

“I probably suck at this,” Pavel whispered.

Distantly, from inside the hall, a clamor rose.

“Hush,” said Jessamyn. As she shifted to meet his mouth, her dress whispered shhh.

Jess’s heart beat faster than it should have for so small an effort, the pressing of her lips against Pavel’s. This is what sweet tastes like, she thought. And then she stopped thinking and simply felt the kiss: silk-soft, honey-sweet, Earth-moist.

They pulled apart, eyes flickering down. Then, in turn, their two pairs of eyes darted back to take in the other before them—lips warmed red, cheeks flushed, eyes shining. Pavel laughed first, and then Jessamyn did, and they passed happy echoes back and forth until both sighed and laid their heads back upon the sand. Overhead the stars wheeled in an ancient dance.

“Do you know any constellations?” Jess asked Pavel, running her fingers in a sweeping motion across the sky. She wondered if they would be called by the same names as back home.

“Sure,” Pavel said. “But the moon’s so bright that most of the constellations are hard to see. Can you find Mars?”

“I hope so.” Jess couldn’t help herself—she giggled.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Keep going. Mars.”

The side of Pavel’s mouth quirked and he showed her how to draw an imaginary line from where Mars sat over to a bright star in the Milky way. From there, he began outlining constellations: Bootes, Cygnus, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. “Mom used to tell me this story about that bright star in Cygnus. Well, she told me lots of stories, but I asked for this one often because she would only tell it outside. Which meant prolonging the time before I had to go to bed.” He chuckled at the memory.

“Tell it to me, already,” said Jess, smiling.

“Okay. It’s a Chinese story about two lovers—Niulong and Zhinü. Niulong was a herder of cattle, and mortal, while Zhinü was the daughter of the goddess of heaven. They fell in love and married secretly, having two children. For years, they lived happily together on Earth, but when the girl’s goddess-mother found out, she punished them by placing the two on opposite sides of the Milky Way.”

“That’s a sad story,” murmured Jessamyn, her eyes on Pavel’s lips. She wondered if Zhinü found Niulong’s kisses sweet and soft.

“Wait, that’s not the end,” said Pavel. “The goddess of heaven felt sorry for them after awhile. Or maybe popular opinion was against her. Either way, she made it so that, once a year, the pair could reunite. Magical magpies flock to the heavens and create a bridge for the lovers across the Milky Way.”

Jess thought how much she would enjoy telling the improbable story to her brother.

“See the bright star at Cygnus’s tail? That’s Deneb. The Chinese say that’s where the bridge can be found. And down there and there,” here Pavel pointed out two bright stars astride the Milky Way, “You can see Zhinü and Niulong.”

Jessamyn frowned, thinking about Zhinü’s mother. “What’s it like, living with a powerful woman as your guardian?”

Pavel shook his head. “I couldn’t possibly do your question justice in the next couple of hours.”

“How much time do we have left?” She felt a rope-tug of sadness with Pavel on the other end of it.

Pavel checked and smiled. “Enough time for a few life-with-Aunt-Lucca stories. They won’t start calling for us until nine in the morning.”

Jess yawned. “It’s a stupid idea, making everyone stay up late the night before such an important exam.”

“The food at the banquet is enhanced to increase concentration,” said Pavel. “Didn’t you catch that in the brochure?”

“No,” said Jess. That would account for the gluttony, she thought. Eat more so you can score higher. She yawned again. She should have eaten more, obviously.

“Okay, let me think,” said Pavel, chuckling. “So, when it comes to Aunt Lucca, the biggest difference I’m aware of between me and my peers is that I have a lot more unsupervised time. Lucca’s a busy woman. We don’t sleep on the same continent, most nights when she’s campaigning. You know how in that story Zhinü gets away with being married and having a couple of kids and her mom doesn’t catch on for years?”

“Yeah, that was completely unrealistic.”

“No,” replied Pavel. “I totally get that. If I’d been inclined to, I could’ve gotten away with all kinds of stuff.”

“Oh,” said Jess. “I see. And you never once took advantage of that?”

Pavel’s mouth curved upward. “Well, I didn’t say that, did I? Flying’s a good example. You’ve probably heard how Lucca wants to pass legislation that restricts first-bodies from flying anything that goes faster than the speed of sound.”

“Boring,” murmured Jess.

“I know.” Pavel laughed. “So, when I got my first license, Lucca gave me a motor pool pass and forgot to place restrictions on it. It’s a classic example of her parenting style.”

“Oh,” said Jess, laughing. “So she’s giving speeches about—”

“First-body safety,” Pavel said, completing Jess’s thought. “And I’m listening while I fly sub-orbitals.”

“How very wayward of you.”

Pavel shrugged. “Yeah, I know. But all the statistics about first-body crashes are based on a group who haven’t had the kind of training I’ve had.”

“Does your aunt know you’ve been licensed—” Jess paused to make sure she said it the way Pavel had. “Licensed up to 300 kilometers in space?”

“She never asked,” said Pavel. “But she paid the bills for the tuition.”

“Or her administrative assistant paid them.”

“Probably,” grunted Pavel.

“Does she … do you think she cares about your safety?” Then, more quietly, “Does she love you?”

Pavel sat up. “In her way.” He brushed sand off his fingers. “In the space of a year, I lost both my parents and then the uncle who cared for me. Lucca took me in even though she’d just been elected Chancellor. She did little things to help make my new life with her easier, like finding out what kinds of books and games I liked, fixing up my room exactly like my parents had it, giving me flying lessons when I asked. She did other things, too. My parents’ bodies were unrecoverable, but in the case of my uncle, Lucca made sure the re-body went to someone in her cabinet, so that I’d still be able to see him from time to time. Not everyone would have gone the extra mile like that.”

Jess shuddered. The last thing she’d want if her loved ones died was to see someone else walking around inside their bodies. She scrambled for a change of subject. “What was it like—your first flight where you broke the sound barrier?”

Pavel shook his head. “Scary as anything. But don’t let that stop you from trying it someday. That first time up, I caught seven sunrises before the refuel alert forced me back down.”

Jessamyn smiled. Catching serial sunrises was one of her favorite pastimes back home. “What’s the best place you’ve ever flown?”

“The great southwestern desert in North America. It’s beautiful. Have you seen it?”

“No,” murmured Jess. “Never been.”

“My parents used to take me every year. I think I was six the first time. I remember watching the sun rising on the flat horizon. It had no color and Mom said how that was because the air lacked contaminants. That was the thing about the desert. How clean it felt. And how it smelled: pure. Fresh. Like every breath I took cleaned out my lungs.

“I had figured a desert would have no color. All washed out like the sky at sunrise. But the desert has so much color, Jessamyn. Every shade of tan and brown and pink that you can imagine, all there in the dirt. Close-up, at your feet, it only looks sand-colored. But when you look out, there are these little hills and they look like someone’s been trying different paints, figuring out what color would look best.”

Jess’s eyes drifted shut and she imagined Mars at sunrise, looking just like Pavel described the North American desert.

“Am I boring you?” asked Pavel.

Jess’s eyes flew open. “No,” she said. “I’ve seen pictures of that desert, but it looked like everything was brown.”

“They do that to discourage tourism, I think,” said Pavel, laughing.

“Keep going,” said Jess. “I’m closing my eyes so I can imagine it.”

Pavel sighed and continued. “So, yeah, a million shades of tans and golds, like the colors at the heart of Budapest.”

“Mmm,” Jess murmured.

“I saw cactus for the first time on that trip. I had no idea what it was. It looked like a cluster of pipes sticking out of the ground. I asked my Dad what it could be and he said what he always said.” Pavel laughed softly. “‘Let’s go find out.’ So we took off and when we got close, something very weird happened: I swear I could smell the moisture collected deep inside.”

Pavel looked over at Jess. “I am boring you to death.”

“No,” mumbled Jess, her eyes closed. “The desert sounds beautiful the way you describe it.”

“Yeah. It’s so pure. The worst part was always coming home and trying to sleep—it was like there were too many smells at home. I would grab one of my shirts from camping and sleep with it pressed into my face every night until finally it would lose that clean desert smell.”

Pavel looked over at Jessamyn. Her mouth had parted slightly and she looked like she was sleeping. Stretching out on the sand beside her, he placed himself so he could see the next time the New Terra Space Station passed by.

Jess slept, dreaming of home: the deserts of frozen sand and soil in a thousand shades of orange-y brown, until, just before dawn, her brother’s voice, terror-filled, awakened her.

Chapter Seventeen

THE YOU I MET LAST NIGHT

Inside her ear-implant, Jessamyn recognized her brother’s voice. “Orbitals down! Orbitals down!”

As he uttered the code phrase selected to indicate mission failure, Jess heard the fear in her brother’s voice.

“Follow your tattoo!” Ethan whispered. “Now!” He cut the connection.

Jessamyn found she was already sitting upright beside a sleeping Pavel. To the east, the sky remained dark, but the stars had nearly all vanished. Morning was near. Her tattoo glowed a deep purple and she tapped it to get directions. Ethan was over eight kilometers away. She needed to find transport, now. Remembering the row of hover-bikes for rent, Jess rose, shedding her sari.

As the fabric slipped into a pile of burnt-orange, a few grains of sand spilled across Pavel. His hands twitched and he opened his eyes.

“Hey,” he said, a lazy smile upon his face.

“My brother’s in trouble,” said Jessamyn. “I need to go.”

“Go where? Testing starts in five hours.”

“Yeah,” said Jess, walking briskly toward the front of the building. Left hand family, right hand escape, she repeated to herself.

“Jessamyn. Wait up, Jessamyn!” Pavel jogged alongside her.

It irked her to see how much more quickly he could run. The Terran gravity felt as if it were trying to draw her down inside the Earth’s core.

“Did you hear me? Five hours, Jessamyn. If you no-show, you get a manual labor sentence. In, like, Antarctica!”

“Doesn’t matter.” Jess was so done pretending she was here for an exam.

“You’re telling me you don’t care if you spend the next eighteen years of your life swinging an ice pick in an arthritis-ridden body?”

“Exactly,” she said. “Goodbye, Pavel.”

She stared at the row of rental bikes, looking for anything that resembled a place to scan her wrist-chip.

“Jessamyn, don’t be crazy. Message your parents. Let them deal with it.”

Hades, thought Jessamyn. Ethan hadn’t said anything about the rest of the crew. Were they all in danger?

Pavel placed himself before a box with writing on it, and Jess glimpsed the rental instructions she’d been looking for.

“Message your parents.”

“I can’t. Move out of my way.”

Pavel stood his ground, arms crossed.

“I said, move!” Jess thrust her arms at his chest with a force that would have toppled most Marsians. On Mars, at least.

“Why can’t you let someone else deal with your brother?” asked Pavel, laughing at her clumsy attempt.

“I can’t tell you,” said Jess, swiping her left wrist.

The box made a buzzing noise and a panel flashed a “CHIP DENIED” message.

“Holy Ares,” muttered Jess, swiping her right wrist instead.

“PLEASE CHOOSE A TRANSPORT” flashed across the panel this time and Jess ran down the row looking for something fast. None of them looked like great candidates. Maybe Pavel would know.

“Which one’s the fastest?” she asked. “Please. My parents can’t help. They’re too far away.”

Pavel’s mouth shrank into a frown. “Take my bike. It’s faster than any of those.”

“Really? Where is it?”

Pavel walked away from the motor pool row to another, smaller group of bikes. Placing his thumb over a scanner, he started the engine. Jess hopped aboard.

“Thank you,” she murmured, scrutinizing the dash for gears, braking, acceleration.

“I’m going with you,” said Pavel.

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Jessamyn, tell me what’s going on. It’s like you’re a totally different person all of a sudden.” His grip, as he placed a hand on her forearm, felt strong.

“I’ve told you everything. My brother’s in danger. Now let me go,” she said, trying to shake his hand off her.

“It’s my bike—I’m going with you.”

I don’t have time for this, Jess thought. “Fine,” she heard herself agreeing, “But I drive.”

He shrugged, hopped on behind her, and linked his arms around her waist. “Careful,” he said. “It’s been modified to be faster than most Series 400s.”

Jessamyn accelerated and turned onto the main street, following her chrono-tattoo. The hover-bike was fast.

“When we get to my brother,” she hollered over her shoulder, “You have to promise to leave. Take your bike and get out of there.”

“Your brother’s in bad trouble?”

“Promise you’ll go,” said Jess.

She slowed for a traffic indicator, uncertain what the consequences would be for reckless driving, and not wanting to find out. The engine whined softly as they waited, and Jess decided to pump Pavel for information, something she wished she’d done last night. It had been a fool’s use of time, conversing about stars and deserts.

“Where’s the municipal hoverport?” she asked.

“My bike’s not fast enough?” he asked as she sped forward.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Do you know which city-zone the hoverport is in?

“What’s your brother got himself mixed up in?”

Jess worried that she was spooking Pavel.

“If my brother has injuries, I want better options than waiting for emergency services to respond.”

“If your brother’s injured, I’ve got a med kit under the bike seat. I can stop bleeding, set bones, whatever he needs.”

Jessamyn chewed her lower lip, worrying she’d never get rid of Pavel. She wished she could risk calling Ethan to learn more about his situation, but she couldn’t until she got rid of Pavel. She continued following her tattoo’s directions, feeling more and more anxious as it transformed from green to yellow to orange. Just hold on another minute, Eth, she thought.

“Do you know where the nearest hoverport is or not?” She was less than a half-kilometer from Ethan’s location. Jess blinked her right eye three times, causing the membrane in her eye to shift into place to reveal cloaking fabrics in operation. She prayed they’d cloak-tarped the Terran transport. There it was! Sitting in a parking lot behind a rusted-out truck.

“Jessamyn,” said Pavel. “That last barrier we passed through? People can’t normally drive through that.”

“They can’t?” asked Jess.

“No, of course not. This facility is under high security. The only reason you got through is that my bike is registered to Lucca Brezhnaya. What is your brother involved with?”

“I’m not sure,” replied Jessamyn, bringing the bike to a halt. She swung her legs out. Hades, she weighed so much on Earth. She looked Pavel in the eye. “But I know he’s in trouble and I have to try to help. Please, go. Now.”

Jess glanced down at her tattoo, glowing deep red. Seven minutes had passed since he’d called. She needed to find her brother now whether Pavel stuck around or not. She thought of something.

“If you don’t leave, I’m messaging emergency services that you’re kidnapping me,” said Jessamyn.

“What?”

“Because you’re worried I’ll earn your apprenticeship.”

“You’re joking,” said Pavel. Jess saw an angry look flash across his face.

“I’m counting down from five.”

“Jess—”

“Five. Four. Three.”

“Message me and let me know you’re okay,” he said, flicking his wrist over the spot where her scan chip lay. Jessamyn had no idea how to “message” Pavel, but she wasn’t planning to in any case. “There was no need to threaten me,” he said coldly. “I’m doing this because you asked. Because I liked the you I met last night.”

Pavel revved the hover-bike and drove off, leaving her alone in the dark.

Chapter Eighteen

NO LANGUAGE TO EXPRESS

Jessamyn noted that her clothes had returned from their spray-shrunk state to their former size. Reaching into a back pocket, she pulled out a thin black balaclava and gloves. It wasn’t as effective as a cloaking fabric, but the black rendered her difficult to see in the pre-dawn gloom. She advanced toward the cloaked transport. Through her glove, the red tattoo glowed softly. Suddenly, her ear implant began transmitting again.

But it wasn’t her brother she heard. Voices, electronically altered, filtered through the device in her ear. Ethan was with others, it seemed—but who? Friend or foe? And then, glancing along the building, she saw him. Ethan was being marched and then made to halt facing a wall, legs apart and hands clasped atop his head.

The voices she’d heard weren’t Kipper and Harpreet—where were they? And how was she going to free her brother? She glanced at her tattoo, preparing to flick it off. But it was doing something funny. As she crept toward her brother, the red flashed to orange. She paused. What was going on? Had Ethan set her tattoo to lead her somewhere instead of to him? What else was there? The transport?

She angled toward the vehicle and the chrono-tattoo glowed cherry red. Another couple of steps and it shifted to a deeper red. She crept up to the side of the transport, hoping to find something that would allow her to rescue Ethan. Lifting the tarp and opening the door silently, she slipped inside.

“Jessamyn, daughter,” said Harpreet, seated in the transport. “Thank goodness. Listen carefully. Kipper’s been shot. I don’t know where they took her. Or if she’s alive. Don’t use your left chip again. Stick to the right. Do you understand?”

“What about Ethan?” It was all Jess could do to utter her brother’s name.

“I’m going to negotiate for his release. If things don’t go well, I need you to do two things. Listen to me,” said Harpreet, grasping Jessamyn’s shoulders. “Set aside your concern for your brother; you cannot save him, but I may be able to.”

Harpreet passed Jessamyn a sling-pack meant to sustain team members for up to forty-eight hours solo. Jess couldn’t remember half of what was inside the tiny bag, but the simple act of accepting it awakened a part of her that felt bold and alert, like she felt in a cockpit.

“I’m listening,” whispered Jess. “What are my orders should you fail?”

“First, cover yourself in the small cloaking wrap.” Harpreet handed a flat-folded object to Jessamyn. “It is extremely heavy in this gravity. Then, set this transport to auto-destruct using this device.” Harpreet placed something small and black into Jess’s palm. “We can’t have the vehicle traced back to Skye. There’s another motor pool two streets back. You would have passed it.”

“Yes,” said Jess. She’d seen it.

“If I don’t succeed, go to the Galleon and get those rations back home.”

Jess nodded once, the pilot in her accepting her mission without question. Then the sibling in her struggled to the surface. “Save my brother,” she whispered.

Harpreet touched Jess’s cheek softly and exited the transport. Jessamyn watched from inside as Harpreet strode toward the small grouping, shoulders back, head carried high. In Jess’s ear, a jumble of voices competed for her attention. Her sibling-self ached to follow each word, as if by listening carefully she could expedite her brother’s safe return. But the pilot in her focused instead upon the tasks with which Harpreet had charged her. In minutes, the transport would either carry the three of them to safety or need to be destroyed. It all depended upon how skillful a negotiator Harpreet was. Jess spun up the transport’s navigation and disabled autopiloting. Then she retrieved the small-vehicle cloak from the seat, settling it on her lap. It weighed more than it ought to have, like Harpreet had said.

Harpreet’s clear and cheerful voice echoed in Jess’s ear device. “Good day, gentlemen. I understand my son has been the cause of some trouble. Well,” she said chuckling, “It wouldn’t be the first time he’s gotten me out of bed early.”

A rush of angry voices, shouted commands. Jess couldn’t make out the individual strands of conversation.

“I am sure there will be a hefty fine due from me as his mother,” said Harpreet, raising her right wrist. “Now, then, which one of you collects fines? Or, considering the large amount I am certain to owe, would it be best to distribute the funds evenly?”

Having readied the vehicle as much as was possible short of starting the noisy drive engine, Jess allowed herself to watch Harpreet and her brother. She saw one of the armored officers take Harpreet’s right wrist and scan it. A hopeful smile crept across Jess’s face. Harpreet is so good at this, she thought.

Then the officer grabbed her other wrist and scanned it as well.

“No!” Jess murmured. Would they arrest her for double chipping? Or might Harpreet have enough funds to buy the officer’s silence regarding her second chip? Jess wondered if she should run out as well, to offer the currency stored on her chip. How much would it take? She didn’t know. She hadn’t paid close attention to the lessons on bribery.

But, no. Something was wrong. Very wrong. She heard her brother emit a low hum, monotone, sustained. Then she saw a second officer approach Harpreet with a billy club held high. Through her earpiece, Jess heard the sound of the weapon as it connected with her friend’s tiny form. Harpreet fell, and Jess cried out silently—no!—and in that moment she felt very small, very young, and completely inadequate.

Two officers raised Harpreet—gentle Harpreet—forcing her arms up and over their shoulders. Within her ear, Ethan’s hum grew into a quiet tune. Her brother never hummed anything but one sustained note. But as she listened, she heard him humming a child’s ditty. The goodbye song visiting children sang when playtime with the planetary dog ended. Goodbye, goodbye, next year we’ll both have grown, goodbye, goodbye, we leave you now for home.

Why the goodbye song? What was her brother doing?

He was telling her to leave.

Her eyes stung with tears, hot and sharp.

Yes. It was time to leave. She had a job to do. As she slipped quietly from the vehicle, sling-pack over one shoulder, her eyes caught on something familiar: a plastic container on the back seat. Ethan’s collected items, lying atop his wafer-computer. Her heart seemed to split in two and she felt one of the halves float out of her ‘til it came to rest beside the carefully arranged items. Tenderly, she retrieved her brother’s wafer. She didn’t trust herself to gather his collection without tears.

No tears, she commanded herself.

From inside her head, she could hear a single Terran voice. A commanding officer had arrived and the others kept silent before him.

Jess shifted the heavy cloak to cover her as she walked away from the vehicle. One hundred meters, she told herself. Then destroy the transport. Then take the food home.

Her earpiece relayed a crisp single voice. “That’s the pair of them, commander.”

Take longer strides, she told herself, bowing under the weight of the cloak that shielded her from the officers.

“Counselor, proclaim the pertinent section of The Bill of Human Rights to the inciters.”

Fifty steps to go, Jess told herself.

“All citizens of Earth share certain inalienable rights including the right to live out a span of two-and-seventy years.”

Keep going. Thirty steps more. Each step felt harder than the last.

“Read the findings against the prisoners.”

Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight, she counted. Don’t look back. Her weight seemed to increase in an exponential relationship to her distance from her brother.

“Citizens of Earth, you have been found guilty of attempting acts of terror against your fellow citizens and an act of treason against their government.”

Don’t look back don’t look back don’t look back.

“Pronounce the sentence,” said the commanding officer.

Take another ten steps, she told herself. And then ten more. Then you’re done.

“You are each required to perform acts of manual labor beneficial to those citizens you have attempted to harm. You will receive reorientation training during the balance of the remaining years of your life. Your current bodies will be entered into general reclamation and you will be assigned geriatric bodies in which to carry out your sentences.”

This isn’t happening, Jess told herself. But it was. She turned, the weight of her cloak insignificant beside the weight of her sorrow. One hundred meters stretched between her and the transport. She collapsed to the ground, spent.

“Prisoners, turn slowly about.”

Jess saw her brother turning, saw Harpreet being turned. Ethan hummed the goodbye song again.

“I’ll find you,” Jess whispered. He would hear that. Would it give him hope? Courage?

Ethan hummed the goodbye refrain more loudly.

“Officers, fire,” called the commander.

From inside her earpiece, Jess heard two light popping sounds, like birthday balloons punctured at a party.

Harpreet and Ethan crumpled to the ground.

Jess stared wild-eyed, her face folding into an origami of pain.

Jessamyn, the girl who slept surrounded by words, had no language to express what she felt.

Chapter Nineteen

JOB TO DO

Dawn stretched across the sky, a sickly white which spread like fungus. Slowly, the greys of night gave way to a world tinted with color. Jessamyn’s eyes distinguished red-tones in the guards’ armor which, minutes before, had appeared as merely dark. A flare of light from their hover-transport confirmed the red of the armored officer carrying her brother’s unconscious body.

Jess remembered Brian Wallace’s injunction against bribing members of the Red Squadron Forces. Surely Harpreet had remembered it, too. The old pirate had gambled and lost. Jess felt a fierce anger burning its way through layers of numbing pain.

Why hadn’t Harpreet tried something else? They could have snuck the cloaked vehicle closer and tried a rescue. Harpreet could have approached under cover of the smaller cloak and thrown it over Ethan while Jess distracted the guards. They could have blown up their vehicle—a certain distraction! Surely there were dozens of other scenarios which would have ended better than the one Harpreet had chosen.

Jess shook her head. It doesn’t matter now. You’ve got a job to do.

She crouched under the weighty cloak, awaiting the moment when she could detonate her abandoned vehicle. Ethan’s earpiece continued to transmit, and she heard confused chatter aboard the departing Red Squadron transport. Eager for a name, a destination, something to tell her where her brother and Harpreet would be taken, she listened, breath held. And then her lungs seemed to compress as she realized she had no hope of finding Kipper. Or even knowing if she lived still. It was all wrong, so wrong. It was the destruction of the Red Dawn all over again. She forced herself to take a deep breath, to prove that the weight upon her lungs was a nothing, born of imagination.

From beneath her dark glove, Jess’s chrono-tattoo glowed faintly red, mocking her loss of her brother with its refusal to change color as the hover-transport lifted off and crossed the sky, taking him away.

Don’t think about it, she ordered herself. Just destroy the transport.

Her hand shook as she raised the detonator that would erase any damning evidence pointing to Skye or to Mars. She had no idea whether the device could transmit a signal while the heavy cloaking garment covered her. Deciding not to risk a malfunction, Jess shifted the weighty cloak back so that it lay in stiff folds against the building beside which she crouched. Lifting her black-gloved hand once again, she toggled an “on” switch and tapped a glowing button.

The transport came visible for a split second, lit from inside as the interior blew to pieces. Windows shattered outward and the cloaking tarp billowed, then settled itself back upon the transport, minus the bits which had covered the windows. The vehicle remained difficult to detect. Beside it, a derelict truck rocked gently, as from a gust of strong wind.

Jess stood to leave, folding her own rumpled cloak until it was no larger than a computing wafer. As she tucked it inside the sling-pack between her brother’s wafer and a folder of first aid items, she thought she heard a tiny something. A mere ghost of noise. Not hearing anything more, however, she decided the sound must have been one of the many coming from inside her earpiece. Unfortunately, she was wrong.

Strong arms grabbed both of her hands from behind, twisting one arm to the point where she felt sure bones would shatter.

An angry voice whispered beside her ear, “Give me one good reason why you shouldn’t die right now.”

Chapter Twenty

THE MOST ELOQUENT PERSUADER

Jessamyn recognized the voice, even colored with anger.

“Pavel?” she whispered.

“One good reason, Jessamyn,” he said.

“Let go,” she said. “You’re hurting my arm.”

“Not good enough,” he said. “I saw you blow something up. Your brother—you’re inciters! You don’t deserve to live after what you’ve done.”

Pavel punctuated his words by twisting her arm higher behind her back.

“We’re not terrorists. It’s all a mistake. You have to help me save my family!” She winced as he gripped her arm more tightly. “You have to believe me, Pavel!”

“You want me to believe you over Budapest’s Red Squadron Forces?” Pavel swore. “I saw what you did, Jessamyn. Or whatever your real name is. And I saw you were double-chipped, back when you needed a bike. Who does that unless they have something to hide?”

“Jess is my real name. And if you saw everything, then you know my brother and my friend are in terrible danger. They didn’t do anything wrong. Please believe me.”

“So what are you doing on the wrong side of a barrier you shouldn’t be able to cross? And what was your brother attempting in a strategic deep-space communications facility?”

Jess’s heartbeat increased. “My brother wouldn’t harm a leaf of … kale.” She’d been about to say “algae” as Marsians did, but doubted Pavel would have understood.

“What?”

Apparently her substitute word was no better.

“Your security force picked up the wrong people!” Jess cried. “Ethan is gentle. He’d never hurt anyone. And Harpreet … she’s as generous as a dog.”

“Are you taking narcotics?” asked Pavel.

Just then, from inside her earpiece, Jess heard the phrase she’d been praying for—a location: New Kelen Hospital.

Pavel spoke again, slowly and clearly. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to release one of your arms so I can summon emergency services. If you attempt to escape or fight me in any way, I’ll break your arm. Understand?”

“No!” cried Jess. “You can’t call them! They’ll re-body me. You have no idea what’s at stake here. I’ve got people depending on me. Thousands!”

“So you are an inciter?”

“Of course not!” Jessamyn remembered words her father often spoke to her mother: The truth is the most eloquent persuader of all. But she couldn’t risk the truth.

Pavel grip tightened.

“Ow! That hurts. Release me,” Jess pleaded. “Please, you’ve got to release me.”

“You’re not very strong, for someone mixed up in this kind of mess,” muttered Pavel. He eased his grip, but he didn’t let go. “So start talking.”

Jess took a deep breath. Now the earpiece was emitting the sounds of several voices and machinery. It would only distract her. She could risk a few minutes not hearing Ethan’s surroundings now that she knew where he was. She shook her head sharply to one side, to disable the device.

Unfortunately, Pavel took her action as a hostile move.

Jess heard a sickening crack of bone breaking. She knew it had to be hers, although for a moment after the sound, she didn’t feel anything. And then she did. She moaned, long and low, as the pain enveloped every other sense.

She heard Pavel swear and then felt him release her, gently. Her throat continued to produce a moaning she knew wasn’t helping anything, but she couldn’t make the sound stop. Then she noticed, as if she were outside of her body and observing it, that Pavel had jammed something sharp into her upper arm. The pain from the broken limb dissipated instantly, but a soft fog drifted over her, intensifying the sensation that she’d left her body.

“Does that help the pain?” asked Pavel. He sounded very far away.

Oh, it’s Pavel, thought Jessamyn. “Mmm-hmm,” she murmured. Her tongue felt thick. She watched through half-closed eyes as Pavel placed something on her dead-feeling arm over the section she knew (in a vague sort of way) had been broken. The something began to wind a white, gauzy membrane around and around her lower arm. It was like watching a video of a caterpillar making a cocoon. Why was Pavel putting her inside a cocoon, she wondered?

“Why?” she murmured. Speech came with great difficulty.

“It’s just a bone-set,” said Pavel. “Listen, I’m sorry I broke your arm. At least, I think I am. Maybe I shouldn’t be. I’m going to give you a stimulant, and then I want you to tell me everything, Jessamyn. One side effect of what I’m giving you is that you will have a harder time telling lies. Don’t try. Your pulse and oxygenation levels are terrible, so don’t go wasting your energy on lying to me.”

Pavel stuck a patch with many hair-fine needles onto her upper arm. She felt the moment the stimulant hit her bloodstream. Alertness returned, and with it, a panicked sense that she should be somewhere.

“New Kelen,” she mumbled.

“What?” asked Pavel. “Do you want me to take you to the hospital? Are you ready to confess?”

“No. Yes.” Jess shook her head in frustration. “No, I don’t want to go to the hospital. Unless you’ll let me go alone.”

“Not a chance, Jessamyn.”

She felt a moment’s irritation. Or wrongness. She had to correct him. “Call me Jess. Jessamyn’s too formal for our friendship.”

Where did that come from? She shook her head and took a slow breath in.

“What are you doing here?” Pavel demanded once more.

“I’m not Terran,” she heard herself saying. “I’m Marsian. From Mars Colonial. We are trying to grow algae. We have exactly one dog.” Jess clapped her good hand over her mouth in shock. It was as though she had no control over her speech: things came trickling out—things that she knew she couldn’t reveal.

“Nice try,” said Pavel. “But you shouldn’t struggle against telling the truth. Trust me, your body is in bad shape right now.” He seemed to be consulting read-outs from a device he’d attached to her forefinger.

“We came here from Mars to get some items we need.” Jess cursed herself for letting slip information she knew she shouldn’t share. “What was in that patch?”

“It’s Equidima. It’ll be a lot easier if you stop fighting it and simply tell me the truth,” said Pavel.

“I am telling the truth,” said Jess. “Look in my pack. See if you recognize the manufacturer of any of the items in there.”

Pavel regarded her suspiciously. “You want me to look through your stuff?” He took the sling-pack. “Maybe this is some passive way of telling me the truth, huh? I’ve heard of patients responding to Equidima like that. You got explosives in here? Manifestos?”

Jess shook her head in frustration.

Pavel lowered his voice. “I’d really like to help you, Jess, but you picked a bad morning to get mixed up in all this.”

“You should go,” she said. “I don’t want you missing your exam because of me.”

“I’m not going anywhere until we get this straightened out,” said Pavel.

He’d pulled out Ethan’s wafer and it greeted him with a slide show of pictures from home—Jess’s heart contracted.

“That’s where we live,” she said softly. “I’m not lying about Mars.”

Pavel looked up, shaking his head. “I’ll admit you’ve got some weird stuff in here. And not weird like I was expecting. A first aid folder? Ration bars? And whatever this metal thing is.” He pointed to a flat bar of tellurium.

“It’s meant to help me in the event I’m separated from my crew,” said Jess. Tears formed and spilled onto her cheeks. “Does this Equi-stuff make you … cry?” She’d been about to say “waste water.”

Pavel’s mouth twisted in a frustrated grimace. “Don’t cry.”

“My readings,” said Jess, blinking back the shameful tears. “You said my body’s in bad shape.”

“Your bone density’s terrible, your oh-two levels are off, you’re severely malnourished. Jess, whatever crowd you’ve been running with, have you considered that they don’t have your best interests at heart?”

“Those readings,” said Jess, speaking quickly now, “Would they be consistent with someone who lived her entire life on Mars?”

Pavel’s shoulders raised in a small kind of shrug. “Sure, Jessamyn. But we both know that’s not what’s happening here. Just tell me the truth.”

“Run any kind of test you like. Prove I’m lying.”

Pavel looked at her, eyes narrowing. “You really believe you’re from Mars, huh? Someone’s brainwashed you good.”

“Test me.”

Pavel turned, muttering to himself, something about proving to her she’d never been to Mars, whatever memories she had to the contrary.

As he attached items from his med kit to parts of her body, she tilted her head to reactivate the transmitter. Pavel, preoccupied with his investigation, didn’t respond this time.

He spoke, as if to himself. “These readings are … wrong. This can’t be right.” He stared in confusion at his instruments. “Can I … do you mind if I take a sample of your blood?”

Jess held her hand out. It felt heavy, even by Earth standards, and it drooped.

Pavel, noticing the sluggish motion, apologized. “There was a muscle retardant in the first shot I gave you. Your arm must feel weak.”

“Heavy,” said Jess. “Everything’s too heavy on your planet. Why would anyone live here?” She knew she was rambling, but the words just kept plunking out, like drops of water melting off an ice sculpture.

“Shizer,” said Pavel. “Shizer!” He looked at her with suspicion. “These results can’t be real,” he muttered. “This is impossible.”

It was the right moment for Jess to press her advantage. But from inside her earpiece, she could hear two people discussing the “young-body”—her brother’s body. They might have a match for him. They want to prep him immediately.

“No!” cried Jess. The sound wrenched from deep inside her, trailing off into an extended wail.

Pavel grabbed her arms again, his instruments clattering onto the pavement. He shouted at her to calm down, but all Jessamyn could hear were the voices dooming her brother.

She turned her face, grief-stricken, to look at Pavel. “They’re going to give away my brother’s body. What kind of planet is this? How can people do such a thing?”

Pavel’s grip upon her arm relaxed. “You’re really Martian?”

“Marsian, yes. Now, let me go!” Jessamyn’s voice rose in pitch, frantic. “They’re making a horrible mistake. My brother’s innocent!”

Pavel snatched up the array of items surrounding them, stuffing some into Jess’s pack, some into his med kit. “I’m giving you a different stimulant,” he said. “Some of your pain might come back, but you’ll be able to walk. I’m taking you to New Kelen, and I’ll call my aunt, see if she can get some kind of … interplanetary … immunity … or something for your brother.” He jabbed another sharp into her arm. “This better be real, Jess.”

Jessamyn’s attention was horribly divided. She heard Pavel’s words, and at his mention of “interplanetary,” part of her panicked—Marsians couldn’t be found in breach of the No Contact Accords. But her audio implant was relaying medical language, and she realized some sort of operation had begun. Her next words come out so softly Pavel barely hear them.

“No. Oh, please, please, no.”

Chapter Twenty-One

LIFE ON MARS

Jess rose, desperate to get to the New Kelen hospital. Hurriedly, she explained about the device in her ear. “They’re doing the procedure! It will kill him, being in someone else’s body,” she moaned, grabbing Pavel with her good arm to rush him along.

“What are they saying?” asked Pavel. “There’s no way they’ve started the transfer this soon, Jess.” He pulled on Jessamyn’s hand, his greater strength forcing her to stop. “I know how this works. Trust me.” His eyes bored into hers. “I need you to tell me the exact words you’re hearing.”

Jess listened for a moment. “Something about stasis and a big number …”

“They’re prepping him for stasis while they locate a recipient. Stasis means there’s still time. Is he young?”

“Two years older than me.”

“Hmm. That’s sixteen extra years as a threebody.” Pavel frowned. “That’s the big number under discussion. They’re probably going to enter the extra years in a lottery, which means we’ve got several hours to straighten things out, okay?”

“Okay,” she murmured in response.

Jess’s mind felt clearer as the drug wore off, and she began to realize the gravity of the step she’d taken in telling Pavel about Mars. “I never should have told you where I’m from,” she whispered.

“We thought everyone on Mars died a century ago.” The look in Pavel’s eyes shifted. No longer grave, they appeared now wild with elation. “This is huge. Even Lucca will see that. Although, it doesn’t look good, your brother coming here, of all places. Unless … did you need directions to get home? How many of you are there? Why did you come?”

Jess shook her head slowly, trying to decide which questions were the important ones to answer. Which answers would encourage Pavel to help her and keep her visit to Earth secret.

“When I saw those readings from your blood—the peroxide, the accumulation of sulfur derivatives, the absence of normal toxins—Jess! This is incredible! Mars!” He threw both hands up in the air, staring at the sky in disbelief. “You’ll be subjected to additional testing before they’ll believe it, of course. But, what I can see here … it would be impossible to fake even these readings without replacing every bone in your body … every blood cell …”

“Pavel,” Jess placed a hand on his arm. “Pavel, no one else on Earth can know about me. About my crew. My planet is starving. If I can’t get home—now—while Earth and Mars are close, they will die. All of them.”

Pavel brows drew together. “Well, I’m sure that won’t be a problem. I mean, Lucca will probably want a representative to go back with you, or maybe an exchange. I don’t know. But it’s not like they’d stop you from leaving. I don’t think.”

Jess shook her head. “Mars has broken the No Contact Accords. Repeatedly. I know you’re happy to hear there’s still life on Mars, but that doesn’t mean everyone on your planet would be glad to hear it.”

Pavel consulted his timepiece nervously. “I don’t think you’re here to attack Earth,” he murmured.

Jess laughed, her voice pitched high. “Attack? With what? There’s so few of us left, the idea is ludicrous.”

“Then let me help you. My aunt has influence—”

“You said your aunt and you disagree on important things. It’s a risk I cannot—must not—take, Pavel. I never would have told you the truth without that drug. It’s the most basic command we’re given. No contact.”

“Jessamyn,” said Pavel, his low voice gentle, soft as her banquet gown. He placed a hand upon her face, ran his thumb across her lower lip. “No contact?” He smiled, clearly recalling the moment his mouth had touched hers. “What are you doing here, girl from Mars?”

Jessamyn’s color rose as she remembered their kiss. “I’m here to save my planet.” Then, even quieter, “Will you help me?”

“You want me to help you by … by doing nothing?”

Jess nodded. “Please. Please keep my secret.”

Pavel squinted, staring east at the sunrise. “I don’t know how Lucca would react,” he admitted. “I’d like to think she would act with compassion, but there have been times … Maybe you should go, like you said, without me calling Lucca. Hey, you had some kind of camouflage. I saw you take it off and fold it up.”

“Yes,” said Jessamyn. “Hard to see, though not undetectable.”

“That could be useful,” said Pavel. “Jessamyn—you’re sure you want to try rescuing your brother on your own?”

She knew she shouldn’t. She couldn’t. Saving her planet had to come first. But she heard the words tumbling out: “I have to try.”

“He’ll be guarded. He’s—his body is valuable. You should wait until 2:00 this afternoon. There will be a shift change and you’ll have a better shot at … whatever you’re planning. Don’t tell me what it is. I’m hopeless under Equidima.” He shoved his med kit into Jess’s sling pack. “You might need this. There are stim-patches in there that will bring your brother out of stasis. You’ll need two. They’re marked Primatum. This is crazy, you know? What identity do you have in your right chip?”

“Um,” Jess stared at her two wrists. “Retired fourbody.”

“Good. Lots of fourbodies volunteer at New Kelen. Check in through the back entrance. Here—hold out your wrist. I’m going to transfer my hospital entry clearance to you. “ He extended his arm over hers. “Hopefully it doesn’t expire today.”

“Thank you,” murmured Jess.

“Get into volunteer scrubs and then do whatever you’re planning to do. The video cams are broken in the bay of physician-only elevators. That can be a good place for you to hide out for awhile.”

Jess nodded and her brow wrinkled.

“Ah, shizer, Jess. This is insane.” Pavel took her hand in his. “Let me call my aunt. Let me help.”

She shook her head, gazing at her hand—so pale—enclosed within his.

Then she withdrew her hand, saying, “You could give me a lift to that motor pool two blocks away. Anything else—I’m afraid it wouldn’t be helpful. I can’t gamble my planet’s safety. And you’ve got your exam.”

Pavel’s lips pulled tight; she saw how his mind was torn.

“You’ve done all anyone could,” she said. “Thank you for everything.”

“Everything except the broken arm,” said Pavel, flushing.

“I’m sure you’ll be a great physician,” said Jessamyn.

The two climbed on Pavel’s bike, Jess as the passenger this time. She folded her cocooned arm awkwardly around his waist, catching it with her good arm. Her eyes pressed closed with the small heartbreak of holding so close that from which she must divide herself.

“Oh, hey,” said Pavel. “You can remove the cast this evening. Any time after 8:00 p.m. Until then, your left wrist won’t scan at all.”

Jessamyn laughed, a tiny sort of noise in the quiet flush of dawn. “You do realize that the last thing I need right now is for that chip to be readable? Double-chipping? Not good. Plus, my left chip could link me to the events here.”

“Oh. Yeah. So, nice coincidence, huh? If I had to injure you, at least I picked the correct arm.”

Jess recalled the words of Secretary General Mei Lo, millions of kilometers away: I don’t believe in coincidences, Jessamyn.

“Some coincidence,” she murmured.

They reached the motor pool.

“The hoverport is right there at the hospital, by the way,” said Pavel. “You can rent just about anything.”

“Thank you. I won’t forget you, Pavel,” said Jessamyn. She leaned in, leaving a breath of a kiss upon his cheek, and was gone.

Pavel waited until he saw Jessamyn speeding away on a 300 series hover-bike. “What are you planning, Jess?” he muttered to himself. Then he turned his own bike around and headed for what he knew by rights should be the most important event of his life: his first-body exams. Except everything felt different now. The kiss of the girl from the ice planet burned on his cheek. The Mars Colony had survived.

How was it even possible? But she’d said they were starving. A strange resolve began filtering its way through Pavel. For years, he’d thought he wanted to be a doctor, to help people. Apart from piloting, it was all he’d ever wanted. But what if he could help those who lived on another planet?

With that dawning idea, Pavel formed a new plan for taking the test. He couldn’t answer questions the same way he would have done yesterday, the way that would lead him to become a physician. The solar system had shifted since he had met Jessamyn, and Pavel had shifted as well, tumbling wildly in its wake.

Chapter Twenty-Two

FLOOR TWELVE

Jessamyn sped toward New Kelen Hospital. The audio comm in her ear was clear of voices once more; she heard only whirring noises and periodic beeps, which meant her brother must be alone. She took that to be good. Already near central Budapest, it took her mere minutes to reach the hospital.

The task before her, instead of terrifying her, seemed to bring all emotions to a new level of calm. She’d broken the most important rule of the mission, however influenced by the drug, and yet the person who’d heard the truth had trusted her, had let her go. Pavel, far from turning her over to the authorities, had helped her. She felt as though she could take on a squadron of red-clad officers.

She recognized the cool and settled feeling in her belly. It was how she felt when flying into a dangerous situation. Where others panicked, Jessamyn’s mind cleared and her determination increased. She would rescue her brother, somehow, and take the Galleon back to Mars.

She found the employees’ parking lot and left her borrowed craft in a long row of similar vehicles. The morning air was warm and sweet-smelling and Jess found herself casting her eyes about, looking for the source of the scent. She saw scrubby plants with blooms of white and violet. A large sign informed her she was entering an herb garden. She saw a few yawning workers pausing several feet short of the building doors to scan their wrists, which caused a low gate to open for them. Like her, all wore black, and Jessamyn felt certain it must be in recognition of yesterday’s losses—the workers grieving the deaths of their fellows in London and Paris. Proceeding to the scanning station, Jess felt her heart begin to race.

This better work, she thought, holding out her right wrist.

A red light flashed at the scan-site. The barrier remained in place.

Hades and Ares! Pavel’s clearance must have expired today, after all.

The barrier was low and she could probably jump over it. But a wall of windows faced her, which meant someone could easily notice. She turned back, casually, hoping to make it look as though she’d changed her mind about going in for now.

She saw another woman seating herself upon a marble bench beside a low row of purple-spiked flowers.

“G’morning,” said the woman.

“G’morning,” said Jessamyn. She’d done well, pronouncing and intoning the greeting correctly.

“You volunteering today?” asked the seated woman.

“Yes,” replied Jessamyn.

“Thought so. They told me I couldn’t scan in until 6:00 a.m. on the dot,” said the woman. “I’m Dana. I’m new.”

Jess nodded, realizing the woman probably thought she was a regular. She decided not to offer her name.

Dana didn’t wait for it, addressing Jessamyn again. “I just felt like I had to do something, after watching the news all day yesterday. Anyway, retirement’s overrated.” She laughed.

Jess realized the woman was a fourbody, healthy and youthful, like herself.

“How’d you do that?” asked the woman, gesturing to Jessamyn’s cast.

“Hover-bike accident,” Jess replied. The lie came quickly, easily. Her belly purred, cool and ready for anything.

“New fourbody, huh?” The woman smiled, shaking her head. “You’ll learn. We all go a little crazy making the final transition. But your new body’s not indestructible.”

“Lesson learned,” said Jess, attempting light laughter. “Say, I wonder if you’d let me in on your scan? Mine won’t read through this.” She lifted her cast.

“Of course, honey,” said the woman. “Guess that’s a hint for me to get off my gorgeous young posterior.” She giggled.

Jess smiled and followed her, passing through the barrier without further problem. Her earpiece continued its whirs and beeps.

Jess passed a sign reading New Volunteer Registration and said goodbye to Dana.

Glancing rapidly about her surroundings, Jess moved as though confident of her destination. An alcove marked “clean gowns” caught her attention. Someone had taped a notice which read “Absolutely No Soiled Gowns” beside the alcove. She smiled. This was way too easy. She grabbed a clean gown and layered it over her black garb. You look official, she said to a reflection of herself as she passed a window on her way to the physician’s only bay of elevators.

She garnered a few stares, but no one spoke to her. As she approached the elevators, she slowed, allowing someone with a working chip to precede her. She took the time to read the descriptions of the floors, looking for something that would take her to … Consciousness Transfer. Floor Twelve.

As doctors entered and exited the elevator, Jess caught a scent so familiar, so homelike. Peroxide, she realized. They must use it for its hygienic value. Mars’s high levels of the chemical stood in the way of greenhouse success, according to her mother. It had been one of the things Pavel noticed in her blood. She felt a wave of homesickness.

Arms crossed, eyes to the floor so as to discourage interaction, Jessamyn gathered information about the hospital from her corner of the elevator. Unfortunately, it appeared she would have to ride up and down until someone scanned for the floor she wanted. Well, Pavel had said she had hours, encouraging her to wait until 2:00 p.m. She could wait. Unless she heard something in her ear that indicated action was required.

She took advantage of the empty elevator to examine the patches Pavel had slipped to her from his med kit, locating the two he’d said would awaken Ethan from stasis. She was going to need her brother’s hacking wizardry to get them out of the secured hospital. Ethan would know what to do, she told herself, although for a brief moment, she felt a twinge of longing for Harpreet and, yes, even for Kipper. Jess had never felt more alone.

No one had planned for a means of communication between raiders, who typically stayed together. Oh, she would have plenty of suggestions for the Academy board of directors when they reached home.

Ten minutes passed in the elevator. Twenty. No new sounds from Ethan’s location. Finally a group of men and women requested the twelfth floor.

They entered deep in discussion of yesterday’s tragic bombings. As Jessamyn listened, she realized they were discussing Harpreet and Ethan!

“One of them was a kid still in his original body,” said a graying doctor, “His age indicates he should have transferred two years ago.”

“Terrorists don’t follow the rules,” said a female physician. “Those extra years will go for a premium. How’s the reassignment going to be decided? Lottery?”

The graying doctor grunted. “I can tell you one thing: it won’t be anyone we know. Go ahead and enter the lottery if you want, but mark my words. It will be a business tycoon or politician, most likely.”

“What about the other one?” asked the woman.

“Arthritic, threebody age, only a few extra years, but also appears to have stayed in her first-body. With the arthritis, the extra years won’t have the appeal. My guess is they ship her off to the work-camp with no re-body at all. Completely off record, obviously.”

“Hmm,” intoned the woman.

A new group entered the elevator.

“It all comes down to security,” said the loudest of the new group. “You can’t let people wander around a hospital like they’d wander around a public park.”

One of the new women to enter the elevator stared at Jessamyn. Jess, trying to melt farther into her corner, avoided eye contact.

The elevator settled on floor twelve. I’m coming, Ethan. Her heart beat a little faster.

“Ma’am?” The woman who had been staring at Jessamyn spoke.

Jess ignored the question, hoping she addressing another physician.

“Ma’am,” said the woman, more firmly this time.

Three physicians remained in the elevator. Jess tried to exit, but they blocked her. Everyone stared at Jessamyn. Everyone who, moments ago, had been discussing hospital security.

Chapter Twenty-Three

IT WAS MADNESS

Pavel couldn’t rid his thoughts of the phrases repeating in his mind.

You shouldn’t have let her go. You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t have let her go.

What she hoped to do began to sound more and more impossible as he thought it through. It was madness. But Jess had something about her, some attitude, that made you believe she could do the impossible.

What if he followed her? Apart from asking for Lucca’s assistance, could he help, he wondered? What could he offer? He was a mere first-body with some piloting know-how and some medical know-how and no idea how to help someone steal a body from a hospital. And then there was the small problem of his exam. Exams weren’t reschedulable. Not even for Lucca Brezhnaya’s nephew. Not that he would accept that kind of favoritism. If there was one thing always true of Pavel, it was that he despised special treatment. Pavel loved liberty, fraternity, and equality: the three pillars upon which Terran government rested.

If he went back to help Jess, missing his exam, he’d be picked up off the street and re-bodied for a life in mining. It was whispered that was what happened to no-shows. This was the kind of rumor Lucca and her government would have encouraged to make sure eighteen-year-olds didn’t skip exams and try to pass themselves off as retired fourbodies. Not that you could pretend for long, thought Pavel. As soon as anyone scanned you, you’d be in deep shize.

Which Jessamyn would also be in if he tried to help by calling his aunt, he reluctantly admitted to himself. He knew Lucca too well. She wouldn’t care about Jess or Marsians—she would seek a way to turn the rediscovery of living Marsians into a Terran advantage. No, he had no way to help Jessamyn.

There was only one place for Pavel right now, however little he might like it. And that place was sitting at a screen answering approximately one-hundred sixty-nine questions to establish an apprenticeship match.

Pavel shook his head and gunned his bike engine.

Chapter Twenty-Four

CHIP SCAN

Jessamyn held her head high, glared imperiously at the three detaining her. Instinct told her playing bold like Kipper had done with the officers would pay off much better than trying to run. “Can I help you?” Jess asked. “Is there a problem?”

The woman’s lips pursed. “These elevators are reserved for physicians.”

“They always over-medicate fracture patients,” murmured one of the graying men to the other. “The ones in her age bracket whine a lot.”

Jess whipped her head his direction realizing the gown which she had taken for doctor-clothing must be patient-clothing. “There’s nothing wrong with my hearing, young man. And I assure you I am not over-medicated. I was informed this elevator would take me to floor twelve for cast removal.”

“You want the second floor. You should have been given an escort,” said the woman.

“I declined an escort,” said Jessamyn.

“I’ll take her to second-floor reception,” said the lab-coated man who’d been lecturing the others on security. “And I’ll give them a piece of my mind regarding wandering patients.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Jessamyn.

But the doctor had already scanned the call button for floor two. He then placed a heavy hand upon Jessamyn’s shoulder as the doors slid silently shut. Jess felt all the folly of not bothering to confirm that she’d chosen the correct gown for her disguise.

Speaking to himself the physician muttered, “This is exactly the sort of ineptitude that led to yesterday’s tragedies.”

As the elevator plunged, so did Jess’s heart, feeling heavier with every added floor away from her brother.

The doctor led her into a large room. A glance across the room revealed people dressed like herself, many staring into the distance, eyes vacant. Some slept. Jess felt uneasy in the large and open space with its over-tall Terran ceiling. The chairs were broken into small groupings making her think of a cluster of rooms that should have walls but didn’t. Potted plants were scattered with the careless abandon of those dwelling on a water-planet. It was an utterly alien setting, precisely calculated to add to her unease.

The physician, pulling Jess with him to the front of a queue, demanded to see the floor manager. Beeps, whirs, and blips sounded from the nurses’ station, echoing the noise inside Jessamyn’s earpiece.

“And get someone from security over here,” added the doctor. “I want a chip scan on this fourbody.”

She felt dread lodge in her stomach—how would she rescue Eth if she couldn’t get free herself? Jessamyn swallowed. She could only solve one problem at a time; it was the same as flying an uncooperative craft. One problem at a time.

Several people in the room were now casting unfriendly glares at the line-cutting physician, and Jess took advantage of their collective ill will to demand that he unhand her. To her amazement, he complied.

A woman approached Jess from behind the nurse’s station. “I’m Nurse Yoko,” she said to Jess, smiling. “I’m just going to get your vitals.”

“Does that require my consent?” asked Jess.

Still smiling, Nurse Yoko replied. “Yes, dear, of course.”

“I’m withholding it, then,” said Jess. “No consent. No vitals.”

The nurse looked puzzled. “I guess we can wait a minute. Let’s start with who you are and what you’re here for today, then, shall we? Cast removal, is it?”

“Obviously,” said Jessamyn. “I need some fresh air, if you’ll excuse me.”

The nurse gently blocked Jess’s exit path. “I’m sorry, but there’s a physician with twelfth floor clearance who’s insisting we get some ID for you first.”

At that moment, a member of hospital security arrived beside Jess and the nurse.

Holy Ares, thought Jessamyn. Here goes.

“Ma’am, I’m going to need an ID scan,” said the security officer.

Jess held her cast-encased arm before the officer. “Be my guest,” she said.

The security officer frowned and returned to the desk.

Nurse Yoko said, “You’re a lefty, are you? Me, too.”

The security officer returned after conferring with the physician. “Who is your doctor, ma’am?” he asked Jess.

She fumbled. “I … I can’t remember the young man’s name.”

The nurse spoke in a rapid undertone to the officer. “Memory issues are common among fourbodies.” She turned to Jess. “How about we make you comfortable until we can get someone from your family to vouch for your identity?”

“I live alone,” said Jess.

“In that case,” said the nurse, “I’m afraid we’re going to need to set you up somewhere until that cast is ready to come off.”

“I’ll wait outside, thank you,” said Jess, turning to make a break for it.

The security officer was on her instantly, his grip like iron. “You’re not going anywhere until we get a confirmation that you belong in this hospital,” he said.

“I’m sorry, dear,” added the nurse. “But you know what it’s been like since the attacks yesterday. Let’s just get you some place comfortable. When is your cast due for removal? Do you remember that much?”

Jess felt a bead of sweat sliding down her back, a sensation entirely new and just as entirely unwelcome. “I’m not certain,” she said, playing for time. She remembered Pavel’s words that the cast could come off in the evening. That meant she had several hours in which to manage her own escape and plan for her brother’s.

“All right-y, then,” said the nurse. “Let’s get you settled in.”

The nurse led the security officer, with Jess in tow, down a corridor and into a small examination room.

But when the officer attempted to enter the room, the nurse seemed to swell to twice her size. “No,” she said to the secure. “You will wait outside. This is a hospital, not a military zone.”

The officer grunted and remained outside the room.

Nurse Yoko apologized. “One day and the whole world’s turned upside down. I knew we’d have trouble with secures. You give them a centimeter and they try to take a kilometer. No regard for patient privacy.” She smiled at Jess. “Fortunately, this is my floor, and I have a high regard for patient privacy.”

“Hmmph,” grunted Jess. “Thanks.”

The nurse fluffed a pillow upon a small bed. “They’re asking for permission to monitor in-room conversations, if you can believe it.” She shook her head as though this would be the ultimate violation of patient rights. “Can I get you anything? Food? Something to drink?”

“I’m fine,” Jess lied.

“Okay, then, I’ll be back to check on you as often as I can. You can call for assistance right here,” she said, indicating a screen panel. “And if you see the monitor light on your cast switch from red to green, you let me know right away, okay?”

Jess nodded.

The nurse smiled one last time and left, scolding the security officer on the far side of the door as it swung shut with a dull thud. When closed, the door blocked all sound, including Nurse Yoko’s berating of the officer.

Jess stared at her surroundings. No window. One door. A basin into which it appeared water might collect. A sink, she recalled. And a bed. Jess crawled up on top of the rather high and narrow bed and buried her face in the pillow. It smelled faintly of peroxide, of home. When the tears began a moment later, Jessamyn let them fall. She had failed.

Chapter Twenty-Five

DEFERENTIAL TREATMENT

Pavel scanned into the exam-floor lobby alongside two hundred or so others who’d turned eighteen yesterday. A man dressed in a teach-suit approached Pavel, singling him out from the crowd as it shuffled forward.

“Mr. Brezhnaya-Bouchard,” he said, dipping his head, “If you will step to one side, someone will be right with you to escort you to your exam screen. It is such an honor, sir.”

Looking around, Pavel determined that no one else was getting this special treatment. He frowned. When his escort arrived, she chattered about high profile guests providing possible disturbances to other firsties.

“We want to offer everyone an equal chance to do their best in a distraction-free environment. I’m sure you understand.” She smiled.

“Sure,” muttered Pavel. He might despise the deference, but he had no wish to distract others on such an important day.

His own video screen sat in a smaller room off to one side from the main exam room. From the window next to him, Pavel could look down over the pool beside which he and Jessamyn had traced the constellations last night. He glanced skyward and his resolve hardened. He would take this exam with his new goal in mind: he wanted to help Marsians, and that meant a political career path in civil service, not medicine.

As he sat, trying to think about the exam and not the girl from Mars—Mars!—his mind raced, replaying the last twelve hours. He’d always planned to be a doctor, but in the past half-day of his life, everything had changed and now all he could think of was a red-haired girl from another world and how he might bring their two planets together once more.

The video screen in front of him flared to life. A pleasant voice directed him to scan in. He felt an eagerness to answer the questions—to begin the realignment of his new goals with his new future. The first question appeared, asking him what he would be most likely to do in the event he came upon persons requiring assistance. That was easy: offer assistance while telling others to call emergency services.

He flexed his fingers and glanced down at the pool once again. A second question appeared, asking him whether the statement, “I enjoy helping others and I am good at it,” was true or false for him. Clicking “True,” he advanced to the third question which asked him to indicate which of several dozen journals he followed.

Pavel frowned. Why ask questions that could easily be verified? The examiners had access to the minutiae of Pavel’s life including where he spent vacations, what tooth cleanser he used, and the name of every vid-journal he’d ever subscribed to. He checked the boxes beside MEDICINE TODAY and GENETICS DAILY.

The fourth question asked Pavel whether, within a surgery room, he could best imagine himself as a surgeon’s assistant or as a surgeon. The question seemed innocuous enough, but Pavel didn’t like the ways in which each question thus far seemed tilted toward a field in which he no longer had interest.

He selected “surgeon” as more likely to indicate that he saw himself in leadership roles rather than supportive roles.

The fifth question seemed to return the inquiries to more neutral territory: Did Pavel prefer tasks which were repetitive and predictable or those which provided challenge and surprise. He shook his head and chose challenges and surprises. But he didn’t like the surprise awaiting him on the following screen.

Congratulations. You have been awarded a medical apprenticeship at New Kelen Hospital where you will train for a career in consciousness transfer.

He stared at the screen, first in shock. Then, outrage followed, and he mouthed a single word.

“Lucca.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

Jessamyn allowed herself to cry for a long, long while. It was shameful, wasting so much water. But she didn’t care. She had no idea how to rescue her brother, much less how to find and rescue Harpreet or the Captain, and she felt alone and completely out of her depth. Jess may have been Mars’s best pilot, but she had no training in stealing bodies from a secure facility.

A hospital orderly brought food to her room after an hour had passed. The smells assaulted her and she recognized the creamy scent of butter, but she found she’d lost her appetite for Terran foods. Ignoring the tray of food, she reached into her pocket, grasping the slippery foil wrapper of a nutrient bar. She was feeling the effects of sleep-deprivation, and she knew it would be foolhardy to add hungry to the mix.

Peeling back the copper ration-wrapper, she ate mechanically.

The food worked to warm her belly and the walls enclosing her offered comfort as well. Earth was too full of open spaces. She thought maybe she understood her brother a bit better, if in reverse. He reacted poorly to small spaces; she realized a slight level of unease had settled in her simply because she had been denied the comfort of low ceilings since arriving.

She leaned back against the wall. It vibrated slightly—constantly—like the walls of the Galleon. She closed her eyes so that she could arrange her options before her like one of Ethan’s collections, but fatigue overwhelmed her, and in the small room—exhausted and insulated from all outside noise—she fell into a profound sleep.

~ ~ ~

Pavel Brezhnaya-Bouchard had never felt so angry. He considered simply never returning home as he haunted Budapest’s avenues and alleys for the next several hours. He considered trying to find the girl from Mars—maybe she’d let him leave with her. This idea, he eventually rejected, reasoning that if he went missing, Lucca would call out the Red Squadron to find him. Pavel couldn’t risk drawing the Terran military onto Jessamyn’s trail. His hours of walking did little to calm him, only increasing his outrage over what his aunt had done. In the end, he hopped back on his hover-bike and sped home in order to rail at his aunt.

Seeing Lucca’s palatial residence for the first time as a place he was about to leave instead of as a place he called home, he felt a flush of shame for his aunt’s extravagance. The ostentatious building served as a perfect example of the basic difference between them: Pavel saw others as his equals; Lucca saw others as her inferiors, to be used in ways that benefited her or her agendas. The palatial dwelling? It reminded others, before they’d even caught sight of the woman who lived inside, that Lucca was wealthy and powerful. It begged the question, “Can you really afford to pit yourself against my will?”

“You can’t buy me,” growled Pavel as he parked his bike beside Lucca’s three luxurious travel-sedans.

He stormed inside, shouting for his aunt.

Lucca’s butler greeted Pavel. “Good morning, sir. I regret to tell you Chancellor Brezhnaya is sleeping and unavailable. May I offer you congratulations upon completing your examination?”

Pavel didn’t respond. Lucca’s servants were accustomed to being ignored. But then, despising himself for behaving like her, Pavel made a point of answering politely. “Thanks, Zussman.”

“Your aunt arrived back from Singapore only two hours ago,” said the butler. “She’s planned a dinner to celebrate with you when she awakens and will be accompanying you to the hospital this evening herself.” Zussman smiled. “Will there be anything else, sir?”

“No,” said Pavel.

He took the set of stairs leading to his suite of rooms. When he reached them, he scanned his wrist to gain access to a passageway connecting his rooms with his aunt’s sleeping quarters. It was something she’d set up years ago, when Pavel suffered nightmares. He hoped his chip would still open the passage. A door panel slid back and he smiled in grim satisfaction. One more example of his aunt’s tendency to forget things she’d done for Pavel once they were done.

Lucca Brezhnaya, Prime Chancellor of the Terran Central Government, arranged her morning wake-up calls to imitate the experience of re-bodying. She loved the moment of awakening as a newly thirty-six-year-old, and she’d repeated threebodying a number of times—often enough to have developed the particular habits of a connoisseur. For instance, she liked to begin her awakening—whether to a new day or a new body—to the sound of Tibetan bells. Upon awakening, she kept her eyes closed and flexed her fingers. This was the signal to her attendants to offer bowls of warm rosewater for her hands. The ritual continued with further ablutions until Lucca began her workday. These twenty minutes were stolen, in some sense, from other more profitable activities, but she found the trade-off acceptable.

So, when her nephew stormed into her room three hours before she’d requested the Tibetan bells, she at first assumed she was having a bad dream. Pavel and his parents often featured in her nightmares. She supposed the bad dreams were a sort of punishment for what she’d done. If so, the nightmares were another trade-off she found acceptable for what her actions had bought her.

But this dream was a little too real. Lucca sat up in bed and realized Pavel was actually in her room. Was actually shouting at her.

“… no excuse,” he said. “And I won’t go along with it. I won’t. I’ll volunteer for work as a satellite harvester.”

Oh, thought Lucca. We’re having the conversation now. She frowned, stretched her long white arms over her head and addressed her nephew. “Who, pray tell, am I to dismiss without references for letting you in at this hour?”

“No one. I used the passageway you set up when I was little.”

“Hmm,” she said, adding passage closure to a mental to-do list. “How did your exam go?”

“Exactly the way you set it up,” said Pavel, crossing his arms.

Things tended to go the way she arranged them, Lucca thought, allowing herself a small smile.

“It’s unfair to others, it’s illegal, and I won’t go along with it,” he said.

Lucca took a calming breath, reached for a drink of artesian well-water. “Pavel, you’re eighteen. It’s time you stopped acting like a child.” She let the barb sink in. “I’ve made certain provisions for your future. When you’ve heard them, I’m sure you’ll agree that I’ve been most generous.”

“I don’t want your generosity,” he said. “I want justice. That exam was a farce. Allow me to retake it, properly, or I swear I’ll volunteer to sort space junk.”

Lucca smiled. It was not a friendly smile. “I will pretend you’re not making threats you are powerless to act upon. You will listen to what’s going to happen. I’ve ensured you a career that millions would kill for. I’ve done so not because you are my nephew, but because, according to the surgeons and physicians who have worked alongside you, you are one of the most naturally gifted individuals they’ve encountered.”

Pavel looked down. He’d grown accustomed to remarks like this in the past years.

“In fact, it was the current Head of Global Consciousness Transfer who suggested to me that we treat you as a unique case. That it would be depriving Earth’s citizens to simply re-body you according to ordinary protocol. You are a prodigy. Like Mozart or Tsing.”

Pavel’s eyes flicked up. A hundred years ago, Tsing’s government had refused to allow her to be re-bodied because of her musical genius. A war had very nearly ensued, but in the end, Tsing had fled to a neighboring country where she insisted upon being properly re-bodied rather than become the cause of global conflict.

Lucca continued. “In your case, as in Tsing’s, to separate your mind from your body would be a crime against humanity.”

“Tsing re-bodied,” said Pavel. “It was the right thing to do then and it’s the right thing to do now.”

“Oh, grow up, Pavel. Of course Tsing wasn’t permitted to re-body. There are times when exceptions must be made. Without Tsing in her original body, there would be no International Anthem to Peace.”

“Wait,” said Pavel, his mind jumping like a malfunctioning hopcraft. “Rosenfeldt wrote the International Anthem to Peace. Are you telling me Rosenfeldt was actually Tsing?”

“Of course she was Tsing. The new name was a necessary concession to keep the peace. These things must be handled discretely.”

“These things are illegal!” roared Pavel. “I will not break the very law that’s kept peace on Earth for—”

Lucca interrupted. “I keep the peace on Earth. The system only works because my government makes certain it works. Behind the scenes when necessary. You have no idea what costs must be paid to keep peace as you call it.”

Pavel, caught between shock and outrage, recoiled as he admitted to himself several uncomfortable truths about his aunt. All his life thus far, he’d seen what he chose to see: a woman who loved the law enough to pursue an exhausting career as a politician. But if Pavel had been honest with himself, he would have admitted it was power she loved and not the law. It had simply been more convenient for him to hide from this truth. Until now.

His aunt was speaking again. “You will remain in your own body until such a time as age begins to affect your ability to treat patients. According to official record, you will be re-bodied. However, in actuality, your apprenticeship begins this afternoon. At New Kelen. Where you will pass yourself off as a fourbody who is very keen on volunteer work.”

“No,” said Pavel.

“I’m sorry, were you under the impression you could refuse this generous offer?” Lucca’s voice was icy, her smile lupine. She crossed to sit at a marble counter before a large mirror and began making up her face.

“Of course I refuse,” said Pavel. “There’s nothing you can say to convince me. It’s wrong.”

“I wouldn’t bother with the ‘I’d rather die’ part of your speech, if I were you. You don’t want to know what I’ll do to make sure I get my way on this one, Pavel.”

“I’ll denounce you,” he said softly.

Lucca chose a blood-red lipstick and applied it to her lower lip. “It’s good of you to let me know what you’ve got up your sleeve. I really must return the favor.”

She drew the line of red across her upper lip and reached for a blotting tissue. Leaving the impression of her lips upon the cloth, she dropped it casually to the floor where it reminded Pavel of an ugly gaping wound. He’d always hated his aunt’s habit of placing messes upon the floor for the staff to clean.

“Pick that up for me,” she said.

He saw the action with new eyes now—she meant all who surrounded her to be reminded of their place: at her feet, in a posture of groveling.

“No,” he said.

She smiled.

“It doesn’t matter, you see, whether you pick it up or not. Someone will, in the end.” She paused to let the idea sink in. Pavel was bright and would understand. “However, if I mention to Zussman that Talia has been shirking and leaving messes on the floor, he’ll dismiss her.”

“You’re going to fire Talia if I—”

Lucca’s laughter, harsh, cut Pavel off. “They told me you were a lot smarter than the average first-body. This isn’t about Talia, foolish boy.” Lucca paused, admiring her reflection. “No, I’m simply pointing out that when I convey information to someone, that information is always acted upon. What if, for example, I were to discover that the two hundred twenty-four firsties who took their exams this morning cheated? Tell me, my law-loving nephew, what would the punishment be for that?”

Pavel’s face blanched. “Automatic sentencing to geriatric D-class bodies. Manual labor sentences.”

“How lucky for you to have taken the exam in a separate room. Good thing you didn’t cheat.”

“You can’t do that to them,” said Pavel, his voice a whisper.

Lucca turned, her face powdered white and her mouth like a bloody gash. Meeting her nephew’s eye, she spoke. “I can do anything I like.”

He was trapped.

“Pavel, my dear, dear boy,” said Lucca, her voice suddenly warm. “I’m only doing this for your own good. You like to help people. You like to prevent suffering. It’s who you are.” She held her hands out, as if inviting him to take them.

He stepped back and kept his own arms crossed tightly over his heart.

“Well,” she said, “I can see I’ve upset you. I’m sorry, my dear. You can see that this is all for the best, though, can’t you? Humanity benefits, you benefit, over two hundred students benefit … It’s a win-win.”

Win-win, thought Pavel. That was his aunt’s campaign platform for re-election. Was this the way she ran her office? He felt sick.

“Think it over, dear boy,” said Lucca.

He turned quickly, exiting the way he’d come in. In the years since he’d used the secret corridor to seek comfort from a bad dream, he’d grown large. The narrow passageway pressed upon him, his elbows grazing against one side and then the other as he hurried along the curving route.

Arriving back in his room, he pulled the sheets from his bed, in part because it was an act that felt destructive (and he wanted deeply to destroy something just now) but also because it was a kindness he could perform on poor Talia’s behalf.

Echoes of Lucca’s threats, the obvious ones and the veiled ones, replayed in his mind. It doesn’t matter, you see, whether you pick it up or not. Someone will, in the end. Clearly, it didn’t matter to her purposes whether or not Pavel agreed to become the next Head of Global Consciousness Transfer. Lucca would select (and use according to her purposes) the successor for the position, even if Pavel refused the job.

He thought of her other threat: to condemn an entire test-group to manual labor sentences if he chose to refuse her. It was criminal. Unthinkable. How could he have so blinded himself to her character? Pavel felt suddenly exhausted. He sank into a squashy and dilapidated armchair he’d kept from his first home. He remembered his father reading stories to him in this chair. Stories where there were good guys and bad guys and no confusion as to which was which. But Pavel felt confused. And hungry. And tired.

His thoughts drifted back to the girl with red hair. Where was she now?

It didn’t matter. He couldn’t help her. Lucca had him trapped.

His mind retraced the same dead-end paths over and over. You’ll think better with something in your stomach, he told himself at last. He’d skipped breakfast and lunch and hadn’t eaten much last night, either. And he’d skipped sleeping, mostly. Well, he wanted the chance to say goodbye and thank you to Talia. Rising, he crossed to a wall-screen and keyed in an order for food.

A few minutes later, Pavel heard Zussman’s obsequious knock at his door. Opening it, Pavel asked where Talia was.

“I’m afraid I had to let her go,” said Zussman.

“Why?” demanded Pavel.

“I don’t like to say, sir,” said Zussman. “Shall we leave it at … didn’t live up to expectations, sir?”

Pavel stared at the platter of eggs, cold ham and cheeses spread before him. “Thank you, Zuss. I’m sorry I troubled you. I could have come down if I’d known …”

“Not at all, sir,” said the butler. “Will that be all, sir?”

“Yes.”

Dark thoughts clouded Pavel’s mind as Zussman closed the door silently.

“She fired Talia for no reason,” he murmured, pressing one hand against his forehead.

But he knew the reason. Knew it with certainty. His aunt had fired Talia as a way of showing Pavel that she would follow through on her other threat as well. He stared at the platter of food and found he no longer felt hungry.

Pavel would let Lucca think she’d won, but only until he could come up with a way to outwit her. Gathering the tray, he carried it downstairs where Lucca was completing a conversation—an angry conversation—by conference call.

Pavel placed the tray upon the counter, carefully putting away every item himself, waiting for his aunt to remark that the work was beneath him. But she’d evidently decided against engaging in further arguments.

“I’ll go to the hospital,” he said.

She smiled, but the expression just missed her cold eyes. “There’s my bright boy. Doctor Suleiman will be expecting us.”

“I’ll go alone,” he said.

Lucca pressed her thin lips together. “Very well.”

“And I want you to make sure Talia finds another job. A good job. It’s important to me that we start this new portion of my life on the right footing.”

“Easily done,” said his aunt. “You’ll find, Pavel, I can be very reasonable. So long as you are reasonable.”

Her words sent a chill whispering across the back of his neck as he turned to go.

“Make me proud,” she said. The words sounded simple. Pavel knew they weren’t. He anticipated her follow-up words before he heard them.

“I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” she said.

And I on you, thought Pavel.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

AN EXPERIENCED PHYSICIAN

Jessamyn awoke to a mechanical buzzing sound. After a bleary moment of thinking herself in her snug Galleon quarters, she jolted upright. How long had she slept? As she struggled to read her chrono-tattoo, cold terror filled her belly. She’d lost thirteen hours! She shook her head to the side.

“Ethan!” The earpiece reported the same whirs and beeps as before.

“We’re finally awake, are we?” asked a new nurse, bustling into the room. “You slept right through the other times I buzzed your door. Let’s just see that arm, shall we?”

Gently, the nurse turned Jessamyn’s cocooned arm and pointed to a soft green light. “Monitor says your cast is ready to come off.” She smiled brightly, as though this were exceptional news.

“Good,” murmured Jessamyn, certain it wasn’t at all good.

“Doctor will be here in a minute. Would you like pain medication for the removal?” asked the nurse. “It tends to grab every little hair on your arms when it comes off.”

“No,” said Jessamyn sharply. “No meds.” She needed her wits about her.

“It’s the middle of the night,” said the nurse. “You’re not going to get an experienced doctor on this shift. I strongly suggest an analgesic.”

Jessamyn wondered if she could buy some time. “In that case, I’ll wait for an experienced physician.”

The nurse gave Jessamyn a half-smile. “I’m sorry. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but once Security gets involved …” She shook her head. “From their perspective, it looks highly suspicious, your having no identification, unable to recall your physician’s name, no relatives who can vouch for your identity. In this kind of climate, security gets to scan you as soon as it is medically possible.”

Jess felt her stomach lurch. She wasn’t ready—she hadn’t worked out a plan yet.

“The doctor will be with you shortly,” said the nurse, walking to the door. “And dearie? Your fourbody is lovely. Now see that you take good care of it.” She winked as she left the room.

Jess hopped off the table, opening drawers, cupboards, searching for anything she might use to overpower the physician when he or she arrived. She didn’t recognize most of what she saw, and what she did recognize looked useless.

“Gauze,” she muttered. “Great. I can mummify my doctor.”

Then she remembered her pack and grabbed out the med-patches Pavel had given her. She was just reading through the labeling, searching for one marked as a narcotic, when she heard another door-buzz sound.

The door swung open, revealing a young man. Jessamyn gasped when she saw his face.

It was Pavel.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

THE WORLD SEEMED TO SHRINK

Pavel.

That was her first thought. But it was followed quickly by an absolute revulsion for the practice that landed a new person inside a body that looked so kind, felt so familiar. Her mouth pinched; her face hardened into icy planes.

That is not Pavel, she told herself, it’s his body with someone else inside. She couldn’t look at his face—yesterday the face of a friend in an alien world. Within a space hidden deep inside, she grieved, realizing how very much she would have liked to have been his friend. The boy who would never have the chance to pilot among the stars. The boy who, even now, must be struggling to figure out how to live inside someone else’s fifty-four-year-old body while she sat in a room with the body he no longer called his own.

“Did you let them scan you?” asked Pavel’s voice.

His exact voice! Jessamyn had expected it would sound different when worn by someone else.

She swallowed. “I’m not ready to have my cast removed. Allow me to go home and I’ll retrieve … proper identification.”

“Jess?” said not-Pavel. “Jess, it’s me, Pavel.”

She glanced at his name tag.

His eyes flicked to the name as well: Junior Doctor Yu-Arno. “Oh, that. It’s a complete scam. You were right about not telling my aunt anything.”

She maintained her silence. Icy. Wary.

“C’mon, Jess. You’ve got to talk to me. Are you in trouble? Who do the secures outside think you are?”

Whoever he was, he seemed to know who she was.

In a whisper, she spoke. “You’re not Pavel anymore.”

His smile turned grim as he passed one of the silver instruments from the tray over her left arm. “Yeah, well, turns out I am. My aunt fixed the exam. She’s … She’s not who I thought she was.” His voice dropped. “I should have seen it years ago.”

Jessamyn’s cast, cradled against Pavel’s arm, responded to the gadget in his other hand. The white layers unwound themselves, pinching each small hair on her arm as the nurse had promised. She winced.

Pavel’s eyes filled with concern. “Sorry about the hair-tweezing. I didn’t want to medicate you.”

“It’s nothing,” she said. And compared to the pain of seeing Pavel, but not knowing if it was Pavel, the pinching on her arm was nothing.

“Five questions, Jess. I got my apprenticeship after five questions out of a potential nine-hundred. It’s like she wasn’t even trying to hide what she’d done.” Pavel grabbed the last strands from Jessamyn’s forearm as the cast fell away. “They cheat the system. Lucca and all her colleagues. They’re not transferring me because I’m too valuable to them inside this body.”

“Prove you’re Pavel,” said Jessamyn.

“Um. Okay.” He licked his lips, stared at the wall behind her. At the floor. At the ceiling. “I loaned you my bike yesterday. A 400 series. You drove it.”

Jessamyn shook her head. Not good enough.

“Shizer, Jess. What do you mean, ‘prove I’m me?’”

“Terran Security could be … using your body to get information from me. You all think I’m a terrorist trying to blow up this hospital. Don’t you.” She didn’t inflect the last words as a question.

Pavel gazed at Jessamyn’s arm, still cradled in his. He ran his free hand gently along her pale, thin arm. “I don’t think you’re an inciter, Jess. I believed you when you said you came here from …” He stopped speaking and formed the name with his mouth, soundlessly: Mars.

A tightening in Jessamyn’s stomach warned her that this was either very good or very bad. Her own voice a bare whisper, Jess asked a question she thought only the true Pavel could answer. “Tell me what you want to do when you retire.”

His mouth curved up on one side. “Last night I told you I wished I could re-open space for travel. Right now, though, all I can think of is how I want to help you. Help your people. Keep you all from starving. That would be a tragedy of—” He paused, searching for the word. “Of … tragic proportions.”

Jess grunted a small laugh.

“You eat butter like it’s food,” said Pavel, taking her hand in his, “And decorative kale, too. And you kissed me at midnight.”

Their eyes met. Jess felt a flutter in her stomach that had nothing to do with escape.

“You had a brother you loved very much,” whispered Pavel.

Loved? Jess struggled for breath at his use of the past tense.

“I’m so sorry,” murmured Pavel. “I tried to intervene … to slow things or delay his transfer … but politicians got involved and …” He broke off, brows pulled together, gazing at her arm. “Those extra years on his body are too valuable. They’re spending time re-mineralizing his bones, replacing his blood, and then they’ll release him to someone important. Probably the viceroy, from what I hear. Your brother’s under special guard. It’s not going to be possible—I’m so sorry.”

You will not cry you will not cry you will not cry. And she realized she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She was frozen, like Mars’s soil. She was made of ice. No tears would melt from her.

“How do I get out of here?” she asked in a low voice. That was all that mattered. Her broken heart was inconsequential. Only getting food back to her starving world mattered now. “Help me escape.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Pavel said. “Your face is plastered all over screens in the hospital with ‘Is this your patient?’ written underneath. As soon as I noticed, I came, saying you were my patient.”

Turning, he used his scan chip to open a drawer with wicked looking blades. Blades Jess would have wanted, minutes ago.

“What are you doing?” asked Jess, looking suspiciously at the sharp blade.

“Replacing your chip with one from general reclamation,” he said, squeezing a line of green-goo across her wrist, exactly where Brian Wallace had inserted her chip. “Feel this?” he asked, pinching her wrist.

“No,” said Jessamyn. “I can’t feel anything.”

Pavel nodded. “A bunch of us did this when we were twelve. Told you I was a law-breaker,” he said, grinning.

Jess didn’t return the smile. She couldn’t.

“Reclam-chips are only good until the next database update,” continued Pavel. “They happen twice a day. You’ve got one good scan, for sure. We’ll use it to get you past the security officer out there, but I wouldn’t suggest using it a second time. I’m going to remove your right hand chip as well. You don’t want to have two chips if … if anything goes wrong.”

Jess nodded her permission.

A fine line of red bloomed in the wake of Pavel’s knife. He grabbed a swab from the counter which stopped the bleeding. Choosing a pair of micro-tweezers from the tray beside him, he retrieved the chip from the incision site.

“Here it is,” said Pavel, removing the dangerous chip that tied her to Harpreet and Ethan and the satellite facility.

Pavel set the reclam-chip on a computer. “Are you still good?” he asked in a low murmur. He ran his fingers along the screen like she’d seen Ethan do a thousand times. The familiarity of the motion sliced like a wound through her chest, and she had to look away.

Pavel grunted in satisfaction and took Jessamyn’s wrist once again.

“Why are you helping me?” she asked as he inserted the reclamation chip and sealed her skin.

“Your planet deserves a chance,” said Pavel. “I can’t trust what my aunt would do with the information that Mars Colonial is alive and well. So that leaves me to help.”

There was a something too-casual in the way he said it. Recognition sparked and bounded in Jessamyn’s heart: He’s doing it for me. He just didn’t want to admit it aloud. Jess understood. What was the use of putting words to her own feelings for Pavel? Their worlds divided them.

He reached for her right wrist and repeated the removal procedure. Then he grabbed a device Jess thought looked familiar.

“A heat-healer,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“We used to use them—the first Marsians used them—to remove wrinkles.”

“And now you don’t?” asked Pavel, erasing the scar from her other wrist.

Jess shook her head. “Wrinkles mean you’ve survived. And you’ve got to be smart to survive on Mars.” She reached up to the space between her brows, on the bridge of her nose. “I think I’ll get my First Wrinkle here. Soon.” She pushed away the thought of celebrating the occasion without her brother.

But the thought of Ethan opened a tiny door through which desperate notions crept. Crazy rescue schemes. Impossible ideas. She imagined herself throwing smoke-bombs down corridors. Disabling the power grid for the hospital. Using armor-piercing weapons to take down the secures guarding her brother.

Jessamyn gave herself a mental shake. She didn’t know how to do any of those things. She couldn’t even pick the right hospital gown for a successful disguise. If she tried to strong-arm herself to her brother’s side, she’d end up dead. Or captured. Either way, Mars would starve because Crusty couldn’t guide the ship back home alone.

She had to leave her brother and the others. They were trapped on Earth, but Jessamyn would be free, thanks to Pavel. She couldn’t throw that freedom away. The realization cut deep, deep inside her, sundering what felt like tendon from bone.

You will survive, she told herself. You must.

“I was so worried,” said Pavel, “When I saw your brother’s body still here and no sign of you.”

Jessamyn pushed aside the feelings of tenderness Pavel’s words awakened within her. Twisting forward, she jumped off the bed and tested her wrist. She couldn’t tell that her arm had been hurt earlier. She had a second chance.

“Jessamyn,” said Pavel. “Please tell me you know a lost cause when you see it.”

He meant Ethan, of course. She nodded, her heart fracturing yet again at the thought of leaving her brother. There seemed to be no upper limit to the number of times a heart could be re-broken.

“I’m going home,” she said simply.

He fumbled inside a shirt pocket. “Take this,” he said, presenting her with a plastic stick. “It’s a bit old-fashioned, but it works as good as a scan chip for getting you a transport from the government motor pool. I’m messaging Aunt Lucca that I’m flying down to the Cape of Good Hope this morning. Log a flight plan that direction and then you can change course later.”

“The Cape of Good Hope,” said Jessamyn, nodding. She liked the way the words sounded—she needed hope.

“I don’t want to know where you’re really going,” Pavel added quickly.

Her mouth pulled into half a smile. “Because you’re worthless under Equidima.”

“Exactly,” he said. “I’ll see you out of the building.”

The two moved toward the door, side by side. Pavel raised his hand to deactivate the door lock, but before he could touch the pad, Jessamyn took his face in her hands and kissed him, hard. All the world seemed to shrink down to the one place where her lips crushed upon his and she wanted to live in the moment forever.

But she pulled away and pointed to the door lock pad, eyes bright with unshed tears.

Outside the room, the security officer on duty was someone new.

“Stop!” he barked. “I need a chip scan on this unidentified person.”

Jess’s heart sped up.

Pavel, hands on his hips, looked the security officer in the eyes. “My patient would be happy to provide that,” he said calmly.

As the officer scanned Jessamyn’s ID, her heart pounded wildly—she was sure the secure would detain her. But he merely nodded to indicate she could leave now. With Pavel at her side, Jess walked away free. She felt the warmth of Pavel’s kiss lingering on her lips. But as she rode the elevator at his side, in silence, the wet-sweet taste of his mouth faded. By the time they reached the exit doors, the kiss seemed a lifetime away. It was something that had happened to a girl Jessamyn knew once.

The pair said their goodbyes in hushed tones and Jess walked into the night, away from the boy she might have loved, if only she could have.

“Wait,” called Pavel.

She turned, meeting his gaze.

“Promise me you’ll make it,” he said, closing the distance between them. “To Mars,” he whispered, pointing overhead. “Promise.”

Jessamyn nodded, gazing at the bright spot she called home. “I promise.”

She turned once more toward the motor pool.

She had a planet to save.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

KILIMANJARO

Jessamyn saw the hoverport directly in front of her but had already decided against going through the main entrance which would require her to pass security guards. Instead, she circled to the back end, running her eyes down the rows of vehicles in the transport pool. They had a few of everything on offer, from bikes to newer versions of the amphibious craft her crew had driven to a handful of craft that would fly. The vehicles weren’t guarded, so far as Jess could tell.

The only thing separating her from getting airborne was a three-meter fence, constructed as a series of horizontal bars. It looked to Jess as though someone had placed a set of very wide ladders side by side to create a boundary. She knew she couldn’t leap over it in Earth’s heavy gravity, but ladders could be climbed. It was too easy. Reaching out one hand, she gripped a bar just above her head, preparing to ascend.

It took a moment for the searing heat to register.

In fact, the first sensory input—Jess’s first hint that anything bad was happening—was the scent of something burning. But then she felt it. She wrenched her hand off the bar, squelching a howl of pain. Cradling her hand to her chest, she curled to the ground, shuffling a few meters away until she found cover beside a shrub. Had she set off an alarm?

Pain throbbed in her right hand, a steady pulse to mark the seconds and minutes as they ticked past. She drew air in through her teeth in short, shallow breaths. But there were no alarms, and no secures, and gradually Jess came to trust that no one cared that she’d touched the burning boundary.

She opened her sling-pack, searching for her first aid folder. Seeing Pavel’s med kit, she pulled it out instead and hunted until she found something white and gooey for burns. The relief was instant, but her hand looked terrible. She found skin-heal strips in Pavel’s med kit, including one that was palm-sized. And apparently of a higher quality than the ones from home, she noted, sighing in relief.

She looked at the barrier once more, frowning. Going through the front entrance seemed like the only option after all, but Jess didn’t like any choice that included secures.

Tucking the med kit inside her pack, she disturbed a small creature that had hidden in the bushes. It scampered away, running under the fencing until she lost sight of it amongst the vehicles.

“Of course,” she murmured. Why go over the fence when she could simply go under it? She grinned; her thin Marsian frame would allow her to fit where Terrans could not. The bottom rail of the fence sat at least eight centimeters farther from the ground than the gaps between the higher rails. But as she crept nearer, she began to question whether she would really be able to make it. Or rather, if her head could make it. Her head was the largest part of her as well as being one she didn’t particularly want to fry against the bar.

A memory danced through her mind—her father’s laughter, a teasing phrase repeated at her every success: Don’t get a big head, now!

“I need a hat,” she murmured. She’d lost her balaclava, tossing it aside before entering the hospital. She didn’t know if her hair would catch fire, but she definitely didn’t want to risk it. Earth had so much oxygen—things flamed too easily here. What did she have in her pack that would wrap round her head, preventing a loose hair from igniting the rest of her?

She squatted, examining the space between the bar and the ground. Dragging the side of her face along the paved surface wasn’t going to be pleasant. Then she thought of something.

She reached for Pavel’s med kit once more. She needed one of those cocoon-like casts around her head—a protective headband. It would at once secure her hair, flatten her ears, and provide protection to part of her face. Tucking the ends of her hair into her snug-fitting neckline, she used Pavel’s device to describe an oval around her skull. With a fluttering kind of magic, the device spewed fibers round and round her head. When it stopped, she reached up and felt the strange band. It was hard and smooth.

Jess set her pack on the ground and gave it a small kick under the barrier. It skidded across the pavement, stopping well out of her reach on the far side of the fencing. I’m committed now, she thought.

She sighed and began snaking her way under the bar, feet and legs first, until the only thing remaining on the wrong side of the fence was her head. Hearing voices nearby, she froze. Then she realized that the voices were coming from inside her head. From the earpiece. From beside Ethan, as he lay in stasis. She understood only bits and pieces of the conversation. But one thing was certain. Her brother’s mind was about to be parted from his body.

“You have a job to do,” Jess murmured to herself. That was all that mattered now. She couldn’t think about Ethan. She flattened her head against the pavement in preparation to slip the rest of the way inside.

Focus on what you are doing, she told herself. As she slid her head along the pavement, she felt the “cast” bump briefly against the bottom rail of the fence and then she was free. An unpleasant charred smell permeated the air. The cast, she realized. It reeked, smoking where it had touched the barrier, but it had prevented her hair from catching fire.

She stood, forcing herself to think about what kind of transport to choose. Reaching down, she grabbed her sling-pack and threw it over one shoulder.

From her earpiece, a voice asked, “Is the viceroy ready for transfer?”

“Ready, doctor,” came the response.

Jessamyn’s eyes stung from smoke. She blinked and raced toward a row of ships she recognized could reach high orbit. Something in her heart reached out toward the escape the spacecraft promised, even though she knew no ship could carry her from her grief. Stopping beside a mid-size craft with thrust rockets and jet engines, she checked to make sure it had hover boosters.

“Do we have confirmed availability of next-body for the prisoner?” asked a distant voice.

“Confirmed,” replied a low voice.

“Begin transfer protocol.”

Jess’s breath hitched and she felt for a moment like a Marsian stuck outside their habitat with a busted helmet. Do this, she ordered herself. Squaring her shoulders, she swiped Pavel’s motor pool stick beside the hatch of a low-orbit aircraft. A set of shallow stairs extended before her, and she ordered herself forward. You’ve got a planet to save. She pressed a large button to seal the hatch and seated herself inside.

“Doctor, I’m picking up a signal from inside the patient’s … er, prisoner’s body.”

“Shizer! Could it be a delayed explosive?”

“Negative, doctor. My scanner indicates a transmitting device. For communications only.”

Jess told herself to concentrate on the dash before her. A screen bloomed to life, glowing softly in the dark. The ship’s nav-com asked Jessamyn if she was ready to launch. She punched the systems-go indicator.

A message flashing in red told her to secure her harness.

“Ares and Aphrodite!” she swore, snapping the harness in place. But as she did so, something inside her locked into place, settled irrevocably. She was a pilot. This was what she did best.

“Doctor, shall I alert security regarding the transmitting device?”

A third voice, deep and resonant, spoke out. “When you have removed the device, I will take it directly to Chancellor Brezhnaya. Red Squadron Forces will wish to evaluate it.”

Jessamyn eased the craft out of its berth and onto a short runway. Another message flashed across her screen, requesting a flight plan. She tapped ‘Cape of Good Hope’ into the insistent monitor, and her itinerary was instantly approved.

As she pulled the craft up into the still-dark sky, she heard hospital personnel congratulating one another on their success. Don’t listen, she told herself. The doctor’s voice, detached and cool during surgery, had a gloating quality to it now.

“He’ll have a hard time blowing up hospitals from inside this body.”

Jess flinched at the answering laughter.

“It seems wrong to give the prisoner’s new-body an anti-arthritic,” said a quieter voice.

“First, do no harm,” said the doctor. “Let’s get that audio transmitter removed.”

The craft climbed past three thousand meters, and Jessamyn slammed the ship into autopilot. Jolting her head three times to the side in quick succession, she waited for her own audio earpiece to spiral itself outward and into her waiting hand. She had no wish to hear more. The earpiece no longer linked her to Ethan, only to her loss of him. Small hairs in her outer ear tickled as the device fell loose, reminding her of the day three weeks ago that Ethan had asked her to remove it so he could clean and test it.

“You should have made them for everyone,” Jess had said, that day.

“It is too late now,” Ethan had replied.

Too late now, repeated Jessamyn’s splintered heart.

The memory brought a fresh flow of tears, spilling upon her cheeks as she caught the audio device in the palm of her hand. The stolen aircraft stopped climbing, and Jess pulled free of the safety harness, drying her eyes on her dark shirtsleeve. She threw the transmitter onto the cockpit floor. Her foot crushed it and she heard a satisfying series of cracking noises. Retrieving the broken thing from the floor, she stretched out her arm to deposit it in the ship’s refuse.

But something made her hesitate; she remembered how the smashed bit of technology owed its existence to Ethan, and she couldn’t throw it out. The device slipped from her fingers onto the ground, and Jessamyn gave way to gulping, gasping sobs, sliding onto the hard flooring of the craft.

The Indian Ocean flashed beneath her—day had broken and early light reflected off a vast expanse of water, turning it silvery-grey, like the carbon dioxide snows of Mars.

Snow.

She thought of Ethan’s beloved Snows of Kilimanjaro. The great mountain itself lay just to the west of her current position; a broader sweep on her return north would take her past Kilimanjaro—its white snows and golden plains. Wiping her eyes, Jess nodded to herself, taking the pilot’s seat once more. She made corrections to her altitude to swing in close for a vid that would serve as a kind of tribute to her brother. Something she could bring home to her family when she walked into their dwelling without Ethan at her side. Her throat spasmed closed at the idea of this homecoming.

Her craft sank lower, running before the sun. Soon she could make out two of Kilimanjaro’s volcanic cones. A third came into view as she brushed away the newest tears. She fumbled in her pack for her brother’s wafer-computer and snapped a few quick vids. It was a gesture, a small something, a piece of Ethan to carry back home.

But when she looked at the pictures she’d captured, she felt a swell of disappointment. The great mountain’s height flattened out from on high. Jessamyn knew she didn’t have time to land her craft—she was borrowing time from the people of Mars even now. She hesitated but then decided to descend a couple thousand meters for a better picture.

Kilimanjaro rewarded her—from this altitude, it dominated everything. And even the ground astonished her, mottled with distinct greens and yellows so different from Mars’s rusty-browns. She used her brother’s wafer to snatch image after image as she made a lazy circle around the mountain. She still thought the pictures didn’t do justice to Kilimanjaro’s sprawling bulk. As Jess dropped a last thousand meters, the mountain became suddenly a large and majestic being that dwarfed her, and her craft, and even the needs of her far-away planet for food. She felt thinned out, ghost-like, as if Kilimanjaro were the living creature and she a mere breath, dissipating in a blink of the great mount’s ancient existence.

And then something caught her eye. An undulant river, brown, sinuous, flecked with white. She marveled at how swiftly it flowed, saw with wonder how it pressed against its banks, spilling along the sides and then returning.

But as she watched, she realized it wasn’t a river at all. The vast and swiftly- snaking flow was a procession of animals, all charging together, making adjustments for one another’s movements that pressed them right or left.

“Ohhh,” Jessamyn sighed and the flat-smashed heart inside her expanded.

She strained her eyes to find the beginning of the herd, but it moved far onward, beyond what she could see. Jessamyn felt her heart beating faster and a part of her yearned to dive and join the herd on its pell-mell journey. Who could resist such a call? She adjusted her craft when it began to drift away from the herd’s migratory path. And still, she was nowhere near the front of the line. The creatures must be fast, but not in comparison to her vehicle, which meant she’d flown past thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, already.

She circled back to take it in again, knowing she was using precious time. Back home, Jessamyn had considered the planetary dog as something to amuse children. But these wild creatures? Driving forward like a mighty river swelling its banks, they made Jess want to laugh and dance and cry all at the same time.

How she wanted this great swell of wild creatures for her own grandchildren’s children! And for her brother—yes, she desperately wished it might have been for him—but this feeling went beyond her own personhood, her own losses. And suddenly it mattered to her—mattered terribly—that she return homeward. So that the next generation on Mars would survive and someday make her world into a place where wild things ran free. So that humans on Mars could have the breath knocked clean out of them by this kind of beauty, so full of dread and wonder that you wanted to laugh and dance and cry.

Jess swept one last time alongside the great herd. Then she set a course west that would swing her along the equator and out to the Atlantic Ocean. Slipping the wafer back into her sling-pack, Jessamyn saw an incoming message flash upon the screen before her.

“Deviation from flight plan detected. Please correct your course immediately to ensure your safety and the safety of others.”

Jess turned the screen off, grimacing at the irony. By changing her course to return to the Red Galleon, she was ensuring the safety of others. Abruptly, she heard an audio signal. Not from her earpiece, which lay smashed upon the floor, but from the ship itself.

“This is Central African Air Control requesting to speak with the pilot of Skylight Orbiter Alpha-Zero-Niner,” said a crackly voice.

Jessamyn was not in the mood for speaking with anyone right now. She had a several hours flight ahead of her. Ignoring the message, she aimed her vessel north-west to Scotland. The audio messages continued, annoying and frequent, and Jess wished she could find an “off” switch for audio relay in the unfamiliar craft. But after hearing the same messages for a steady quarter hour, they became for her a kind of white noise.

The messages ceased, finally, and for a full five blissful minutes, Jessamyn enjoyed peace as she flew onward. But then she saw a small approaching craft on her starboard side. Moments later, its twin appeared on her port side. Both sported flashy Central African Air Control logos. The pilot in the craft to her left tapped a headset as he contacted her by audio, ordering her to return to her logged route or face immediate penalties. She took a few sharp turns, curious how determined her escorts were to stick with her.

Maddeningly determined, she observed, scowling.

Her refusal to cooperate earned her an additional escort as well—a third craft dropped into position just ahead of her.

“Holy Ares,” she swore, throwing the ship into a steep climb designed to make accompanying her craft less convenient. She managed to shake off her starboard and port escorts, but the one that had dropped down in front of her looped over backward and tailed her with a disturbing resolve. She received several additional messages, which became increasingly threatening and promised aerial intervention, whatever that might mean.

And then the craft that had dogged her for an annoyingly intense three minutes was simply gone. Gone, too, were the threatening messages. Jess turned her craft back toward Skye. Relieved, she spent the next several minutes trying to figure out if she could use anything aboard her ship as a means of communicating with Wallace and Crusty, so as to let them know the Galleon had better be ready to lift off.

Unfortunately, Jess had never paid much attention to her brother’s attempts to teach her more than rudimentary communications skills aboard ships back home. The Terran ship’s communications system baffled her, absorbing more of her attention than turned out to be good under the circumstances: Jess had company again.

When the four ships representing “aerial intervention” showed as blips on Jessamyn’s radar, she felt resolve like a cool band encircling her core.

“Intervene this,” she murmured, hurtling her ship through a series of drops and turns that her nav-screen warned her were inadvisable at current speed. The stiff language of the message brought a grin to Jessamyn’s mouth.

“Inadvisable?” she said aloud. “Really? You want to see inadvisable?” She examined her nav-com and punched out a string of commands. Ethan’s lesson on disabling safety protocols had been something Jess had paid careful attention to. Grinning at her success, Jess pulled the ship into another steep climb, then looped over into a winding corkscrew. The extra g’s felt good, she thought to herself as she checked onscreen to see who was still with her. It took a moment to locate her own screen-blip, blinking bright blue like the blips of her pursuers. She thought of how her brother would have designed a more practical screen display with differently colored blips.

But as she watched three of them flying rings around one another, she felt a surge of hope. They appeared confused as well. Maybe she could lose them while they played a game of Who’s Who.

Her hope proved short-lived. The four ships quickly regrouped and once more gained in their pursuit. Her ship had to be emitting a signature of some kind. Jessamyn wished she’d paid more attention to what her brother had tried to teach her about vessel tracking.

A new message crackled over the ship’s audio. “Alpha-zero-niner, you are under detainment protocol. You will be fired upon if you continue to resist contact and communication.”

A quick glance at her dashboard told Jess she had no weapons of her own to return fire. She felt her skin flush warm with indignation.

“I did not,” she growled, “Come all this way—” here she broke off to dive into a narrow valley—“Just to get shot out of the sky!”

She attempted a move she used all the time back on Mars, weaving back and forth within the confines of the channel. Only here, nothing about flying felt quite like what she expected. “Holy Ares!” she shouted, pulling left from a too-near canyon wall. Earth-air was so thick, and her craft didn’t respond as she expected.

The ship tailing her was far less fortunate than she.

A fluttering on the nav-screen caught Jessamyn’s eye: one of the blue blips disappeared, and from a rear view screen, she saw the disintegrating craft paving a trail like a comet. She gasped. Now you’re in trouble, she thought. She scrutinized the valley walls—could she use them as weapons to destroy the other three ships? A missile exploding against a wall just to starboard cut short her analysis.

Jess threw hurried glances across screens and windows. Her ship appeared unharmed but there was a red blip now tailing her ship. Another missile, observed a cool part of her mind. Automatically, she banked left and up, then dove down again, narrowly missing a sudden rise in the floor of the valley.

“Hermes!” she shouted, correcting for the rising ground as the missile exploded on impact beside her. Jessamyn felt a flapping kind of panic building inside her belly: she didn’t know how to fly on Earth. The strange atmosphere, so much thicker than that of Mars, made it impossible for her to pilot with precision.

The narrow valley spilled into a vast plain and Jessamyn felt exposed. Chill fingers played through her abdomen and up her spine. How am I supposed to fly on this planet? she asked herself. And then she found her ship climbing, climbing, climbing, as a part of her that didn’t rely on thought took over.

“Of course,” she whispered, “Of course.”

She needed less air. If she stopped hugging the planet’s surface, she could find that part of the sky where she could manage her craft with ease. She soared into the thinner air of the upper atmosphere.

“Just like back home,” she said softly. “Now we’ll see who knows how to fly.” A smile crept across her face. It had been no accident she’d chosen a craft with orbiting capability. Running a hand over her gut, she murmured, “You knew.”

Her unexpected climb had bought her a few precious moments and she used these to scan her dashboard, looking for a way to render inoperative the signal her ship transmitted to the pursuing vessels. Finding something called an emergency beacon locator, she attempted to disable it, holding her breath to see if they’d lost her signal. But three trailing blips on her screen told her they still knew exactly where she was.

She fired a forward thruster, squinting as the g-force slammed her against her restraint harness. A missile flared past her, curving in a slow arc as it adjusted for her sudden change in direction. Using a combination of her jet engines and rocket thrust, she rolled into an elongated corkscrew. Hades, but it felt good to be free of those extra millibars of atmospheric pressure.

One of her pursuers snuck in close and tight, nearly matching her maneuvers. She fired a port thruster and dove in time to see a flash of bright light—the craft that had followed her exploded as the missile struck it instead of her.

“Wings and rudders don’t work quite the same in thin atmo, do they?” Jess murmured. She’d yet to see anyone fly in a way that suggested they knew how to use rocket-thrust to advantage up here. Did their ships even have it? She needed to find out. Using bursts from her forward thrusters to slow herself, she allowed the nearest ship to close on her. Then she looped back in a tight circle to position herself behind the other ship.

“Harder to fire on me if I’m hunter instead of prey, huh?” She examined her enemy’s ship. And then she grinned: it was clear their vessels ran on jet engines only. She had an incalculable advantage.

“And I know how to use it!” she shouted firing both rear thrusters.

Just then the second pursuer passed across the back of her ship. She sucked in a quick breath—his mistake was more than she could have hoped for. The pursuer was caught unawares in her jet wash, spinning flat, in a jerking motion that smoothed out until it reminded Jessamyn of a child’s toy, spinning across the floor. She felt a moment’s pity—it wasn’t a spin she’d want to try to recover from. The pilot would likely pass out long before impact. A sudden rush of hope replaced pity: only one pursuer remained. She liked those odds.

The real question now was whether or not she could lure her pursuer to follow her into a higher orbit. She suspected the answer would be yes as she aimed her craft toward the heavens. A bright necklace of satellites glinted and sparked above her. She fired her rear thrust rocket and watched as the satellites seemed to pull her forward.

Onscreen, she saw the remaining ship veer drunkenly toward her. “Jet engines don’t like it up here, do they?” she muttered. An alarm flashed across her nav-screen. Warning: insufficient oxygen. Jet-engine failure in twelve-point-five seconds on these coordinates. Warning: correct course immediately. Warning—Jess slapped the cautionary screen to black and smiled as she hurtled into the deep.

The other ship fired at her again and Jess had to use her rockets to veer off her intended course. The missile sailed past her, unable to correct itself effectively in the thinning air. She waited for her jets to notice they had no oxygen.

“Come on, come on, come on,” she said, urging her engines to cut. But what if Terrans had different technology? What if jet engines didn’t die here, even without oxygen? The enemy ship was gaining on her once more. Would it fire? Would it break off pursuit?

The ship sent another missile hurtling toward her vessel and she burned her starboard rocket, hating how it aimed her ship back toward Earth and oxygen. But it happened anyway: her first engine flamed out and then her second followed suit. Jess held her breath watching the pursuing ship. And there it was: she saw a last gasping flare as her enemy’s engines darkened. The pursuing ship glided out and away from Earth on a trajectory into the stars. Her gamble had worked. That ship was not changing course.

Unless the pilot started firing missiles, thought Jess, looking at his problem as if it were her own to solve. She felt a part of her brain whispering: Fire them, idiot! Fire them! She didn’t actually want the drifting ship back on her trail, but she hated knowing the vessel would’ve made it back to Earth if she’d been piloting it. She murmured a prayer for the doomed pilot, and then, sighing, Jessamyn fired her thrusters in a series of burns that directed her Earthward. Maybe seeing what she’d done with her thrust rockets would give the other pilot the idea to try the missiles. But she wasn’t sticking around to find out.

“I’ve got my own planet to save,” she said aloud.

Slowing her re-entry into the lower atmo with repeated rocket burns, Jessamyn was nonetheless relieved when her engines restarted. Landing without them, with Earth’s heavy gravity, wasn’t something she wanted to experience. As she crossed the Terran north pole and aimed for the Isle of Skye, she realized she had a small decision to make. Should she bring her craft to a landing beside Wallace’s cottage or beside the Galleon?

Cursing her inability to figure out how to contact either Wallace or Crusty, she decided to try the cottage first. Crusty might well have decided to hunker down and await her at the Red Galleon, but she had to speak with Brian Wallace. It was possible someone would trace the Marsian crew or their vehicle back to the Isle of Skye. She owed Brian Wallace a warning; it was what Harpreet would have done.

Her landing disturbed more ash than she’d expected, reminding her why Wallace had located his dwelling those few kilometers away from the storage barn. Holding her shirt over her mouth and nose, she approached the front door, an apology for the ash—now floating like snow—on her lips. As she knocked, she remembered Wallace’s preference for shoes-off and was attempting to slip out of her footgear when the door flew open.

“Ye’re back, then!” said Brian Wallace. He frowned, looking past Jessamyn for the others.

“It’s only me,” she said. She explained the events of the last two days with detachment—things that might have happened to someone else. Concluding, she asked where Crusty was.

“Aboard the Red Galleon,” replied Wallace, “Fretting that he’ll have to fly back alone. I told him ye’d make it back. But ye say that ye fought off a detainment squadron to get here?”

Jess nodded.

“Ye’ll have disabled the beacon for the craft before landing her here, then?” said Wallace, looking nervously to the sky.

Jessamyn inhaled in alarm. She’d forgotten about the tracking device!

Wallace groaned. “Damned good thing I transferred the tellurium off-island yesterday,” he muttered, shaking his head. Then, placing his hands on his hips, he took a deep breath. “We’ll be having company shortly, lass. There’s not a moment to waste. Quick now, get aboard that Mars vessel and get yerself off-planet!”

Jess nodded and turned for the stolen ship she’d abandoned moments ago.

“No,” called Wallace. “Leave that beaconed ship for me, if ye please. Here.” He grabbed a hovercart from beside the cottage. “These are swift.” Wallace hollered after her, “Ye’ve given me a right fast escape ship, for which I thank ye!”

Jess hopped aboard the hovercart, swerving alongside her Terran friend. “But, what about the beacon?”

Wallace grinned. “I know how to disable a beacon, lass. Now get out of here! I’ll contact Crusty to begin pre-launch!”

Jess pointed the hovercart in the direction of the Red Galleon. Only the topmost section was visible, but the sight made her sit a little taller, throw her shoulders back. The Galleon was a beautiful ship and it would be a honor to fly her again.

She pushed Wallace’s tiny cart as fast as it would go. The ride was exhilarating, if jolting, and it made her think of piggy-back rides on her father’s back. She let slip a brief giggle as the cart jounced along the curve of a low hill. But what she saw over the rise extinguished all laughter.

A small puff of ash drifted in the air from a recently landed craft. Three figures dressed in vivid red armor jumped from the vessel and aimed weapons at her. She swerved, nearly flinging herself to the ground. Grasping the sides of her small carrier, she hurtled forward. She could see the Galleon, gleaming, beckoning. She heard the slightest of rumbling shudders—Crusty had gotten Wallace’s message and was commencing the pre-launch sequence. She would make it—she had to!

And then suddenly she heard a loud shot ringing out beside her. The Galleon disappeared from view and Jess found herself staring up at a whirling sky as she was violently dislodged from the hovercart. She tried to focus on a single cloud, tried to stop the world from spinning, tried to stand and flee. Strong arms restrained her.

She heard herself screaming, told herself, You must break free—you must! But her torso was held fast in a manacled grip. She wasn’t strong enough. Things were too heavy here. She felt her legs collapse as someone tugged her, dragging her backwards. She stared in wonder at a bright bloom spreading along her left arm, a match to the crimson-clad guards who pulled her in the wrong direction, away from the Galleon. There was a sharp ache in the arm, but she had no time for pain.

“No!” she shouted. “No!” A third no trailed out into an anguished cry as she struggled to free herself, to race back to the Galleon and hope and the salvation of her world.

She heard shouted commands, but the world’s edges seemed to be growing fuzzy. A part of her recognized she’d been shot, which explained how she’d become dislodged from the cart. As spots danced across her vision, she stopped struggling physically and instead struggled to maintain consciousness. She focused on her feet as the secures dragged her backward along a path to the front door of Wallace’s cottage. Her feet bounced along the uneven surface and one shoe slipped free.

“Throw the prisoner over your shoulder,” said a deep voice. “She’s in no condition to fight.”

Jess watched the world tip so that grass and ash became up, sky down. She shook her head. You will not pass out, she ordered herself. The ash and grass dimmed and then darkened.

And then the world up-ended itself again as Jess felt herself being hurled onto something hard. A chair. Her vision spun, steadied, and righted itself. Her hands had been bound and a bandage slapped over her arm wound. It disturbed her that she couldn’t remember either of these things happening. In fact, she’d missed re-entering Wallace’s cottage altogether. But she felt awake now, and the pain in her left arm helped keep her alert.

Across from her, Wallace sat at his computer, gagged and handcuffed, rather sloppily, to the desk. He was shouting at the Red Forces officials, who looked puzzled to see him. One stepped closer and removed Wallace’s gag.

Brian Wallace twisted wild eyes at Jessamyn, shouting meanwhile at the secures. “That’s her, I tell you! She’s parked a nuclear weapon in my sheep pasture!”

A secure addressed Wallace. “She tied you up?”

“Aye,” said Wallace, wagging his head up and down, “Only minutes ago, when she found me, hiding here. I’ve been sending messages to the constabulary on the mainland for two days now about her missile, but no one would listen. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? That great bloody inciter missile?”

The two officers conferred. While their heads were turned away from Wallace, he aimed a long slow wink at Jessamyn. Her eyebrows flew up. He nodded briefly and in that gesture she saw reassurance. Whatever he was up to, it didn’t involve giving away her planet’s secrets.

Jess could play along, she decided; she bowed her own head slightly, mouthing an “okay” to him as well.

“Inform the prisoner of the charges against her,” barked the superior officer to the one who had carried her before turning himself to interrogate Brian Wallace.

“Citizen,” droned the guard beside Jessamyn, “You stand convicted of attempting to launch a nuclear weapon of mass destruction to destinations unascertainable which is an act of terrorism against the people of Earth and treason against her government.”

Jessamyn’s mind spun. She knew what came next—the part where they shot her and she collapsed unconscious.

“You are required to perform acts of manual labor to benefit the citizens you have attempted to harm. You will receive reorientation training during the balance of your years of life. Your current body will be entered into general reclamation and you will be assigned a geriatric body in which to carry out your sentence.”

Jessamyn’s breath caught, stretching the moment to an infinity, but no one raised a weapon at her.

“You’re not going to shoot me?” she asked. Hope rushed in. She was bound and she was under armed-guard, but she was conscious. The Galleon lay just outside. And Wallace was now unbound. They believed him.

Emboldened, she spoke. “You have to take me to the … to my weapon. I’m the only one who can disarm it.” The guard watched over her, expressionless.

She clawed through the back rooms of her brain, looking for anything that would end with her aboard the Galleon. “You must release me. The fate of the planet is in your hands!”

“The Chancellor is en route,” reported the commanding officer, ignoring Jessamyn.

“Release me or everyone dies,” she cried. “Desolation! Destruction.”

“Seal the prisoner’s mouth,” barked the officer in charge.

As a piece of skin-heal was slapped roughly over her mouth, Jess sank farther back into the unyielding chair. She considered screaming continuously, but if the officers hadn’t been convinced by her words, stifled groans probably wouldn’t go far. In fact, based on how annoyed the secure looked at the moment, he might decide to render her unconscious. She held silent.

Through one of the windows, Jess could see the top of the Red Galleon. Everything in her strained toward the ship. Could Crusty make it alone? Her gut whispered, No. She had to escape. What resources did she have? She was no Harpreet with negotiation skills, obviously. What do you have, Jess? Think!

She was conscious. Miraculously, she retained the use of her legs, unsecured—she could run if the opportunity presented itself. Jess glanced at the weapon trained on her. Outside, she heard an animal noise. A dog’s woof-woof-woof. She remembered their hope-filled arrival: Wallace’s dog bounding beside them, barking. And something in that memory undid her. Despair settled upon Jessamyn like a mantle ice cold and brittle. But even as she bowed under the imagined weight, she commanded herself, You will not give up!

Another noise shook the windows: the rattle of a large hover-transport as it descended. The dog barked at an even more excited pitch. The security officers stood at attention and one opened the front door.

“Welcome, Madam Chancellor,” said the commanding officer, in tones of deep respect.

Half a dozen angry drops of rain blew in through the open door.

Craning her head, Jessamyn saw a woman who was tall by Terran standards. A middle-aged threebody. Thin enough to pass for Marsian. Her wide-set eyes looked cold—exactly as they had when Jessamyn had seen them first, in this very room, upon Brian Wallace’s video screen.

Lucca Brezhnaya.

Wallace’s eyes flew wide.

As Pavel’s aunt stepped inside the house, Jessamyn saw the Chancellor wasn’t alone. Someone wearing physician’s garb stood behind her in the narrow entrance.

“This is the girl?” asked Lucca, directing the question to the doctor accompanying her.

He stepped from behind her so that Jessamyn was able to see his face.

Pavel.

Chapter Thirty

A STORM

Avoiding eye contact with Jessamyn, Pavel murmured, “It’s her.”

What have you done, Pavel? Had he told his aunt everything? And if he had, would that save her planet or damn it?

Lucca Brezhnaya spoke to Jessamyn. “Do you know who I am?”

Jess, seeing no benefit in pretending otherwise, nodded.

“Is that a bandage covering her mouth?” asked Lucca, incredulous. “Oh, for the love of …” She broke off and turned to her nephew. “Remove that.”

While Lucca berated the security officer standing beside her for overzealousness, Pavel crossed to Jess.

“I need a hot, moist cloth,” Pavel said to the other secure.

“Go on,” said Lucca to the officer. “You heard my nephew.”

The man strode briskly to Wallace’s kitchen.

“Who are you?” Lucca asked Brian Wallace who had been nodding and bowing at her since she crossed the threshold.

“Such an honor,” said Wallace, smiling at the Chancellor. “Welcome to me humble dwelling. I’m afraid the weather’s none too pleasant for the honor of yer visit.” Thunder rumbled far off, punctuating the oily greeting.

Jess hadn’t known he could sound so … unctuous.

“Now, then,” said Pavel, “Let’s see how that seal’s been applied.” After saying this, he leaned in close and whispered, so softly Jess almost missed it, “I’ve got Ethan. Lucca thinks you’re an inciter. Don’t tell her about Mars.”

The secure, returning with a cloth, handed it to Pavel. Wallace continued his tale (of nukes in his garden and no one paying any heed) to an increasingly irritated Lucca Brezhnaya.

“This is filthy,” said Pavel, refusing to take the damp towel. He dug through his med kit, found a clean cloth, and handed it to the security officer. “Run this one under hot water and bring it back to me at once.”

Pavel sounded like Lucca, thought Jessamyn. The thought wasn’t a pleasant one. But he was keeping the truth from his aunt, exactly as Jess had asked. Pavel caught her eye briefly and she saw the boy she trusted.

Outside, rain began to spatter the windows.

Before the security officer returned with the cloth, Pavel leaned in closely as though examining Jessamyn’s eyes with a small bright light. “I’ll help however I can. Stall. And don’t try anything while security’s here. ” Then, taking the steaming cloth from the secure, Pavel gently dabbed at the piece of skin-seal and pulled it away. “You can question her now,” said Pavel to his aunt.

Lucca ordered the junior officer to stand guard outside.

As soon as the secure had stepped out of the cottage, Pavel’s aunt took two slow steps toward Jessamyn. Jess drew herself tall, noting she had a few centimeters on the Chancellor.

“I know all about your pathetic attempt to destroy New Kelen Hospital,” said Lucca as she stared at Jessamyn. “I know you bargained with my nephew, exchanging your release for a promise not to destroy the hospital. Which means I know two important things about you. First, I know you stick to your bargains.” Lucca stepped so close that Jess could see a small stain of lipstick on one of her lower teeth. “And second, I know you’re not the type to throw your life away for the so-called greater good.”

“Or maybe I wasn’t in the mood to die yesterday,” replied Jessamyn.

“Oh, I’m certain I could put you in the mood to beg for death,” said Lucca, red lips pulling back from white teeth in a false smile.

“Perhaps,” agreed Jessamyn. Keep stalling, she told herself. “This woman is your aunt?” asked Jess, addressing Pavel.

“Yes.” Pavel replied warily, his eyes narrowing.

Jessamyn spoke to Lucca. “You should be proud of him. He is incorruptible.”

“He let you go,” said Lucca.

Jessamyn shrugged. “He made a deal for the benefit of others rather than for his own benefit. Did he tell you what he turned down?”

Lucca laughed harshly. “Let me guess: you?”

“Aunt Lucca, please,” muttered Pavel.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” said Jessamyn. “But that’s not all.”

“Pray, continue,” said Lucca, seeming amused by Pavel’s discomfort.

“Your nephew turned down butter as well,” Jess said, landing on the first thing she could think of.

“Butter?” repeated the Chancellor, turning to the security officer. “What do we know about butter?”

He shrugged as he dug through Jessamyn’s bag. “Might be the street name of those potent narcotics coming out of Greenland.”

“You offered narcotics to a physician?” Lucca asked Jess. “You’re bluffing.” Her clear eyes piercing Jessamyn’s. “And you’re wasting my time.”

“He also turned down a double-kilo bar of pressed tellurium,” said Jessamyn.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” snapped Lucca. “Where would you get tellurium?”

“Excuse me, Madam Chancellor,” interrupted one of the security officers. In one hand he held Jessamyn’s sling pack. In his other, the thin bar of pressed tellurium from her emergency supplies.

Lucca’s mouth fell slightly open. Then she spoke in clear tones to the security officer. “You never saw this.” She seized the tellurium from him. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Absolutely, Madam Chancellor,” replied the officer.

“Where did you get this much tellurium?” Lucca asked Jessamyn.

Jess shrugged. “There’s more where that came from.”

“Hmm,” said Lucca. “Somehow I doubt that. Also, unfortunately for you, incorruptibility runs in the family.” Saying this, she tucked the bar into a case she carried and barked an order to the remaining officer. “Search her transport for tellurium. And butter or any other valuables.”

“With all due respect, Madam Chancellor,” replied the officer, “Perhaps you might not wish to remain alone with the prisoner?” He glanced at a window as lightning sparked outside.

“You will not question my orders if you value your … position,” said Lucca, her voice a soft purr.

Noting the officer glancing at the window again and seeming to hesitate, Lucca raised her voice. “I want you outside! Your armor’s not going to rust, imbecile.”

As the remaining security officer exited, Jessamyn’s heart beat faster.

“Everyone has a price, Madam Chancellor,” she said, trying to match Brian Wallace’s oily tone. “What would yours be, measured in tellurium? Perhaps we can come to an agreement.”

Jess saw Lucca’s pupils dilate, watched her nostrils flare. The Chancellor wanted tellurium.

Lucca walked to Jessamyn’s side. Placed her mouth beside Jess’s ear. “Whatever my price might be, you couldn’t have enough,” whispered the Chancellor. “You couldn’t possibly.” Lucca walked back to the other side of the room, crossed her arms, and gazed out the window at the darkening sky. “Now, let’s discuss your disarmament of the weapon sitting out there.”

“Oh, aye,” said Wallace. “Please can we discuss that.”

Without even turning to him, the Chancellor uttered an order. “Silence this man.”

With no one there to act upon her order, Wallace continued speaking. “I’m sure I’m honored to have ye at me own humble dwelling, Ma’am,” he said. “Can I offer ye something? Goat cheese griddle cakes, perhaps? Or a lovely bit of goat steak?”

Jessamyn’s heart did a sort of hop as Wallace slipped free of the “restraint” that had attached him to the desk.

“This is your dwelling?” asked Lucca.

“Aye,” said Wallace, grinning proudly. “Me own castle in miniature.”

“I’ll take a coffee. Black. Make it strong.” The Chancellor turned her back to Wallace, dismissing him.

Jessamyn, finding herself with two allies and only one enemy, grasped her head and groaned, as if in pain.

“Aunt Lucca?” called Pavel. “The prisoner seems to be in pain.”

Jessamyn moaned again, swaying her head and collapsing to her knees. “My head,” she cried.

“Go on,” said Pavel’s aunt. “Examine her. Who knows what those idiots in armor did to her before we got here.” She lowered her voice. “I want that body kept whole.”

From across the room, Pavel spoke to his aunt. “This cast was inexpertly applied,” he said. “She has untreated burns and a wound to her left arm as well.”

“Fix her,” said Lucca. “I need her alert for questioning.”

Wallace shuffled back from the kitchen, coffee in hand, murmuring about there being a proper storm brewing.

“My hands,” whispered Jessamyn to Pavel.

Pavel cut them free with a small scalpel.

“Let me take you hostage,” she said.

And then things began to happen very quickly. Wallace presented the Chancellor with a mug of coffee. As soon as Lucca’s hands were occupied and her eyes turned from her nephew, Pavel passed something small into Jessamyn’s hand, tipping his head toward his aunt. Only after this did he give Jess the requested scalpel. She placed the bright instrument at his throat, using the opposite forearm to lock Pavel’s head into her shoulder, which left a hand free to grip the unknown item he’d passed to her. In the moment before Lucca looked up, Jess glanced at the object: a med-patch. What did she need a med-patch for, she wondered? She kept it hidden in her hand.

“Order your guards to set their weapons aside and to lie face-down with their hands clasped over their heads,” Jessamyn said. Thunder rattled the windows.

Lucca, her eyes now upon Jess and Pavel, uttered two short words: “Or what?”

Jessamyn blinked in confusion. Could Lucca really be that stupid? “Or I slit your nephew’s throat, obviously.”

“Oh, that,” said Lucca, waving a hand to indicate disregard. She took a slow sip of coffee. “Yes, well, by all means …”

Jess stood, dumbfounded. “I’ll do it,” she said.

“Will you really?” asked Lucca, lazily, taking a moment to stare as the rain pelted the windows, a sudden tattoo.

“Call off your guards,” said Jess. “Now!”

Wallace made a whimpering kind of sound.

“And you, goat-herder,” said Jess to Wallace, “Stay out of this unless you want the boy’s death on your head.”

Brian Wallace covered his eyes with both hands as if terrified. Another flash of lightning, the snap of thunder close behind.

The Chancellor took a couple of slow steps toward Jessamyn.

“I mean it,” said Jess. She felt Pavel’s breath, warm and rapid upon the hand gripping the blade.

“Do what the terrorist asks,” Pavel said to his aunt.

“No, my dear boy, I don’t think I will,” said Lucca, advancing slowly upon the two. “You see, if she intended to kill you, I think she would have done it already.”

Jessamyn swelled with anger at this woman— at Lucca’s seeming disregard for her nephew’s life, at the skill with which Lucca read the situation, at how Lucca stood between life and slow starvation for her world. Something in Jess pulled taut and she said, her tone venomous, “Or maybe I’m just waiting for you to come close so I can kill you instead!”

“Give me the knife,” said Lucca Brezhnaya. Her voice, cutting like the wind of a Marsian winter, sent a chill along Jessamyn’s spine.

Jess shook her head. “Come closer,” she whispered. “I dare you.”

The Chancellor did. “The knife,” said Lucca, holding her hand out.

Straining against a fury boiling inside, Jess held her position, the knife at Pavel’s throat becoming the center of her world, the core about which the universe revolved.

“You’re a child,” whispered the Chancellor. Lightning revealed for a brief moment her face, white with anger.

Jess saw again the smear of red lipstick upon white tooth. She felt the knife dropping away from Pavel’s throat as if by the sheer force of Lucca’s desire. And then the rage inside Jessamyn exploded outward and she struck at the Chancellor’s outstretched palm with the bright blade.

The windows shook in their casements, and Lucca howled in fury, and Jessamyn, suddenly understanding the power Pavel had placed within her hand, slapped the med-patch hard against the Chancellor’s throat. Gasping in surprise, the Chancellor’s eyes flew wide and then, just as quickly, fluttered closed as Lucca Brezhnaya slumped unconscious to the floor. Jessamyn dropped the bloodied scalpel from her hand.

“It’s a very short acting sedative,” said Pavel as Jess released him.

Wallace shouted, “Go!” to Jessamyn as he aimed a small gun at Pavel.

“Don’t shoot him!” Jess cried. “He’s with me.”

“Right,” said Wallace, lowering the weapon. “Lucky I held off firing then, isn’t it? I contacted Crusty while I was making that creature’s coffee. The ship launches in four minutes and thirty seconds. I suggest ye move quickly.” A coolly efficient Wallace had replaced the whimpering, blustering one. “Can ye bluff past those two outside?” he asked Pavel. “Because this gun will be worthless against their armor.”

“I’ll say my aunt wants Jess aboard the shuttle,” he replied, “And you can carry her, like she’s unconscious.”

Wallace nodded. “That lad’s a good one to have on yer side. Four minutes, ten seconds.”

Wallace scooped Jess up as if she weighed nothing and the three moved outside and into the storm.

Chapter Thirty-One

FOLLOWING ORDERS

“Where are you going with the prisoner?” asked the soldier guarding the door.

The other secure looked up from his inspection of Jessamyn’s stolen vehicle.

“My aunt has ordered me to transport her to the nearest hospital,” said Pavel.

“I’m going to have to confirm that before I let you escort the prisoner any farther,” said the soldier.

“Suit yourself,” said Pavel. “But I should probably warn you, Aunt Lucca’s orders are that no one goes inside until she opens the door. She’s on a private call with the viceroy.”

The secure hesitated. His commander shrugged.

“The Chancellor’s a real pain when her orders are disobeyed,” said Pavel, blinking at the rain striking his face. He smiled sympathetically at both officers. “But you interrupt her call. I’ll wait.”

“Don’t look at me,” said the man guarding the door. “It’s more than my life is worth, disobeying the Chancellor’s orders.”

The commanding officer apparently agreed, motioning Pavel and Wallace forward to Lucca’s ship.

“Three minutes, forty-five seconds,” Wallace mumbled.

Pavel released the hatch on the near side of the vehicle and Wallace carried Jessamyn inside. As soon as he closed the door, she dashed for the controls, firing the engines.

“Shizer, shizer, shizer!” groaned Pavel.

“Let’s move it!” Brian Wallace shouted to Jess.

“Where’s my brother?” Jess called as she swung the transport up, aiming it toward the Galleon. She threw a glance back at Pavel, who was staring at what looked like a hard-sided travel case, opened and empty. They cleared a slight rise and Jess could see the Galleon, bits of cloaking camouflage on one side, its hover boosters ready to fire.

“Jess,” said Pavel, his voice hollow. “Ethan’s gone.”

“What do you mean ‘gone’?” Jess felt her heart contract. “You said you had him.”

“I hid your brother in this travel case and he’s gone.”

The transport landed in a muck of grass, mud, and ash beside the Red Galleon.

“He must have made a run for your spacecraft,” suggested Wallace. “Smart move, really.”

“He’s got no chance of making it. Jess—aw, shizer!” Pavel’s voice had a defeated accent that made Jess’s skin clammy.

“What?” she demanded as she opened the transport’s door.

“Your brother’s in an amputee’s body now. Getting out of that suitcase and off my aunt’s hover-ship? I don’t know how he managed that, but there’s no way he dragged himself five kilometers to this ship. One of his arms is useless, Jess.”

Two minutes forty-five seconds.

Jessamyn’s stomach wrenched and she felt as if her own legs had turned to jelly. “An amputee?” she wheezed. A gust of wind shuddered the Chancellor’s craft.

“His new body has no legs,” said Pavel. “Jess, two minutes to go. What are we doing? My aunt will be awakening any second.”

“You can’t ask me that,” she said, her voice a whisper. “I have to … I’ve got to …” She looked at Pavel, every muscle in her face straining against the horror of the choice before her.

“Tell me what we’re doing,” said Wallace, a hard edge to his voice.

Jessamyn stumbled out of the shuttle. She reached for the Galleon’s hatch, but the door flew wide before she reached it.

“Jess?” It was Crusty. “Ares, you’re a welcome sight. I hear it’s just you, then. Ship’s set to lift off in two minutes. Gonna need a pilot for that.”

“Let me go in your place,” said Pavel. “I can fly an old M-class like this …” His voice trailed off as he ran his eyes along the ship’s curving surface, evaluating it.

For the space of ten agonizing seconds Jessamyn considered her friend’s offer. You could stay and find Ethan. Your brother needs you. And then she remembered her words to Mei Lo—I won’t fail you. Remembered the golden light sweeping across the gentle rise of Mount Cha Su Bao. Remembered the people who would perish and see that light no more if she failed them. And she spoke the hardest words she’d ever uttered.

“I made a promise.” Turning to Pavel, she murmured quietly, so quietly, a simple request. “Will you find Ethan?”

“Yes,” he said. “I swear it.”

“Get him a dog. He loves dogs.” Her feet refused to move.

“We’ll get him to safety, lass,” said Wallace. “Yer planet’s counting on ye. Go.”

“Tell him I love him,” she murmured, wind whipping her bright locks into a reddened fury. “Tell him I’ll be back and I’ll find him.”

“Not if ye don’t get yerself on that great ship now!” warned Wallace.

Shoulders pulled back, head tilted Mars-ward, her eyes streaming, Jessamyn lifted one foot and then the other from off the water planet.

“Let’s go,” she whispered to Crusty.

Chapter Thirty-Two

AWAKENINGS, RUDE AND PLEASANT

Lucca Brezhnaya, awakening in a manner utterly unlike the one she favored, noted the rain had stopped. She noted as well the unpleasant stink of dog as she lifted her head from a worn patch of rug.

“Pavel?”

Hearing no answer, she ran through a series of silent curses. I need that boy, she thought. Rising, she glanced out the window. One of the guards—she neither knew nor cared which—remained at his post outside the door. Had the girl snuck out a back way? Were plans afoot to ransom Pavel?

Rage welled up inside her. Lucca needed to kill something. The dog? She looked about her, but the smelly creature was evidently not in residence at the moment. No matter—there were other things soft and worthless nearby. She strode to the front door, head pounding from the sedation—damn the girl!—and stormed outside.

“Idiot! Do you realize what you’ve done?” shouted Lucca.

The secure hesitated, evidently weighing the wisdom of responding. “Just following orders, Madam Chancellor,” he said at last, reasoning that the Chancellor liked having her orders followed.

“Give me your weapon,” said Lucca, her voice calmer.

His final act was to follow the Chancellor’s order.

As the soldier fell dead, Lucca smiled at the weapon. She really needed one of these for herself. Feeling rather better, Lucca continued to the small craft Jessamyn had stolen from New Kelen’s hoverport.

The remaining officer was just peering around as Lucca strode into view.

“Madam Chancellor, I thought I heard weapon-fire,” he said.

“Nothing wrong with your hearing, then,” said Lucca, baring her teeth in an artificial smile. “Or, wait, perhaps there’s something wrong with it after all. I don’t suppose you noticed the sound of my hover-transport as it flew away?”

“Yes, Madam Chancellor. That would be two minutes ago.”

“I’m surrounded by idiots,” Lucca said softly. She discharged the weapon a second time. She felt much better now. Much better indeed. In the distance, she heard the rumble of thunder. Although she’d mocked the officer lying at her feet for his hesitation to go into the rain, she had no desire to experience it herself. Sighing she turned back to Wallace’s cottage to await transportation.

Then, feeling a shudder that vibrated the very bones of her body, she realized it hadn’t been thunder at all. The inciter’s missile arced across the blue and white sky. Or perhaps it wasn’t a missile at all. “Of course,” she murmured. “A transport. How foolish of me.”

Saying this, she emptied several rounds of ammunition into the sky. The bullets fell far short of their target and she did not feel better.

~ ~ ~

The storm which raged over Skye was passing on to the mainland now, having shifted great swathes of ash in its wake. Clusters of Brian Wallace’s goats searched for the newly revealed patches of green, paying little heed to either the Galleon or to the Chancellor’s craft as both flew past.

Brian Wallace laughed softly.

“What is it?” asked Pavel.

“There’s no tracking beacon of any sort on this ship.” His fingers flew across a small screen. “It’s meant to fly without leaving a trace.”

Pavel grunted. “Sounds like my aunt.”

“We’ll bring her down right there,” called Wallace. “On the north side of that wee stone croft.”

Pavel observed a small building constructed of rock that had been white-washed many years ago, but now stood neglected, blending with the island’s ashen-greys.

“You think her brother came all the way here?” asked Pavel, puzzled.

“Nay, but we’ve a need to keep this vehicle out of sight. This is as close as we dare approach me cottage, lad. And Elsa likes to slumber here, the great slacker.”

“Elsa?” asked Pavel.

“Aye, me dog. Elsa. She’ll find the lad faster than ye or I can ever do.”

Saying this, Brian Wallace punched open the door hatch and leapt out of the craft, Pavel on his heels. Wallace withdrew a silver cylinder upon a chain from his shirt. It was no bigger than his little finger. He blew into it, but nothing happened.

“Will your dog—will Elsa hear that thing?”

“Aye,” said Wallace. “More importantly, those men in red armor won’t hear it any more than ye could have just now.”

“I hear barking,” said Pavel.

“This way,” said Wallace, grabbing a hovercart that leaned against the stone hut.

The two leapt upon the cart, Wallace urging it as fast as it could go, toward the sound of Elsa’s bark.

“She’s nae coming to me,” muttered Wallace, after blowing into the dog whistle a second time.

“Try again!”

“She’s a stubborn lass, Elsa. As like to run if it suits her.”

Pavel’s lips pinched thin as he calculated how likely it was his aunt had awakened already.

Wallace brought the silver whistle to his lips once more. Elsa barked in response and the cart sped toward the sound. She barked again and again.

“Perhaps she’s found him already, then,” murmured Wallace. “She took to the lad uncommon fast, the other day.” He blew into the whistle once more.

Elsa barked in reply, sounding nearer than last time. The hovercart glided over a low hillock to reveal a deep, grassy hollow just below them. The wind shifted.

Pavel saw him first. In the quivering grass lay a man, old, bereft of legs, and about his head curled a black and white dog. The man’s one good arm lay buried in the dog’s soft coat.

Wallace slowed and Pavel leapt from the cart, sweeping Ethan into his arms. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t like to be touched. Your sister told me.”

Ethan looked in confusion at Pavel, but seeing Wallace jump from the cart, he calmed.

Pavel lifted Ethan onto the small transport. Another cart, spilled at an odd angle beside where Ethan had lain, told his story—he had fallen off and been unable to hoist himself back on. The dog whined anxiously, darting between legs, herding the three until all were settled upon the cart.

“Jessamyn,” Ethan said in a whispered hush. He raised a palsied hand, pointing to the sky. “Jessamyn,” he said again. His rheumy eyes met Wallace’s. “Did she make it?”

“She’s on her way to Mars,” said Pavel. “You’re a very lucky man, having a sister like that.”

Ethan closed his eyes, a sad smile upon his lips.

Wallace pulled to a halt beside the Chancellor’s ship and the cart jolted. Both men reached for Ethan, grabbing him to prevent his falling off. Pavel murmured another apology, hurriedly carrying Ethan inside his aunt’s craft.

Ethan laughed softly. “It would appear that this body, despite its several faults, is not strongly affected by touch. What a pleasant thing to awaken to.” As the ship departed for the safety of the skies, Ethan laughed to himself again and sank a gnarled hand into Elsa’s thick fur.

EPILOGUE

Dear Pavel,

You may wonder why I am writing to you.

No, I guess not.

You won’t wonder because I have no way to send this message. But as I watch Earth shrink farther and farther behind us each day, it seems sometimes like none of it was real. Not pizza or that silly orange dress or even you. So I’m writing because I need to remind myself it was real. You are real.

The wisest person I know once told me that I need to accustom myself to the harmonies of minds unlike my own. (Her words, not mine.) I can think of a few who qualify in that regard. Kipper. The dean at my flight school. Your aunt. But I think I need to start with someone I don’t feel active hostility toward.

So I thought of you. Well, to be honest, I was already thinking of you. It’s something I do often. I imagine you finding and rescuing my brother. I see you standing up to your aunt. I picture you becoming a great leader some day.

I’ll be home soon, and I’ll try to see my world with your eyes. I think that’s part of what Harpreet meant with all that harmony language. I hope, as I look at Mars through your eyes, that you will love my planet.

Please tell my brother that I miss him. No. Tell him that I wish he’d invent a switch I could flip so that I would not think of him because it hurts so badly when I do. That might make him laugh. Then you can tell him never mind, because by the time I see him again I won’t need the stupid switch anymore.

I will return for him, Pavel. Tell him that. I will return with my memory full of how Mars appeared through your eyes: what you thought of the shadows of the Valles Marineris at sunset; how you smiled to see Zhinü and Niulong set in a veil of stars a thousand times more numerous than what you can see from Budapest; how sweet a morning wet ration can taste when drunk with those who love you.

Farewell for now.

Your friend,

Jessamyn

THE END

Continue reading in Book Two

DEFYING MARS

Summary: Back on Mars, Jessamyn must rebuild her life without Pavel or her brother Ethan while she guards a secret which could launch an interplanetary war. Now the time is coming when, in order to save the world she loves, she must defy it.

Acknowledgements - Book One

Very special thanks to Toby and Isabel, who have been listening to this book morph for over two years, passing from one voice to another, one tense to another, and reinventing itself way too many times. For help with key plot problems, thanks to Chris, Jacob, and Toby. Also, for when the physics started making my brain hurt, an extra helping of merci to Chris. Jacob and Nathan convinced me that the ending had taken a wrong turn at a critical moment. Thumbs up, guys!

To NASA and Star Trek, I owe incalculable debts for the formation of my young imagination.

And to you, dear reader, I am grateful beyond what words can convey. To be able to sit and imagine my days away beats anything I know, including pizza of pepperoni.

Marsians and Mars-fans, ahoy! Would you like to read special behind–the–scenes content from Cidney and get letters from her characters? Join here. Unsubscribe anytime!

DEFYING MARS

Book Two in the Saving Mars Series

Cidney Swanson

For Isabel

1

HAUNTED

An image haunted Jessamyn Jaarda as she journeyed home to Mars. She saw her hand, pressed flat against the viewing portal while Earth rocketed from view: first a blur of cloud and ash, then a convex globe of land and water, and finally a child’s bauble, inky-blue swirled through with white.

Mars called her homeward, but in her bones she felt the pull of Earth. It was not gravity which tugged at her as she fled. Rather, she woke nightly from nightmares where those she’d left behind called out to her: First Officer, turn the ship about; come back, daughter; sister, where are you? From these dark dreams she woke shouting aloud, her heart pounding in the darkness of her small quarters, no Harpreet to ask from the bunk below if she were well.

No Harpreet. No Ethan. No captain. No survivors at all from their sister ship, the Red Dawn.

Of the ten Mars Raiders who’d departed Mars less than a Terran month earlier, only two raced homeward in the Red Galleon with the ration bars that would keep the human settlement on Mars Colonial from starving. Only two. Jessamyn heard the words as if they were repeated by unseen whisperers while she sat alone on her bunk.

She unclenched a frozen jaw, relaxed taut fists, and rose, making her way to the bridge. There would be no more sleep after the dream. There never was.

Seating herself at the ship’s helm, she gazed upon the ice-cold beauty of a million stars. They murmured to her of infinities. They brought to mind her own small size and the vastness of the universe. That she could travel millions of kilometers while the stars remained much the same was mocking proof of how close the two worlds lay and how desperately small Jess and her craft were. Jessamyn felt sometimes as if her ship hovered in space—caught between the pull of Earth and the pull of Mars, neither advancing nor receding.

A comfortless parallel to the tug-of-war that raged within her.

She shivered and pulled up a navigational reading, which told her the watery Terran world lay nine million kilometers behind her already. Seventy-four million to go. Somewhere, upon that alien planet, Pavel Brezhnaya-Bouchard wandered with her brother. She had to believe her Terran friend Pavel had found Ethan, as he’d vowed to do. She considered writing to Pavel, a practice she’d begun their second day out from Earth, but she had nothing to say that she hadn’t already written half a dozen times over. Are you well? Are you safe? Take care of my brother. Tell him I will return. The letters were foolish—she had no way of delivering them. No, her only task now was to get the ration bars home.

Jess forced herself to focus on the ship’s navigational controls. Her heading was true, her speed excellent. In another few days, she might need to make a small burn to correct their course, but the ship needed nothing from her today. The screen appeared exactly as it had since their departure: Earth behind the Galleon, Mars before her.

Mars. Jessamyn took in a shaky breath, her heart throbbing with dull pain as she thought of home. She yearned for it. Longed for her mother’s arms around her, her father’s soft voice telling her everything would be alright. But how could things ever be right again? How could home be home without her brother there? Her breath hitched.

Think about the Galleon, she told herself. Calculate something.

She pulled up the time remaining for her journey. No surprise there: sixteen and a half days until her craft intersected the path of the Red Planet. Sixteen and a half days until she could begin the process of petitioning for a mission aimed at the rescue of her brother, Harpreet, and the captain.

“I just want things to be the way they were,” she murmured to the ship. “That’s all.” Involuntarily, her head turned to Ethan’s station beside hers. Where was he now? How was he adjusting to his re-body? Was he afraid? Anxious? Humming in the monotone that indicated a retreat into the dark corners of his mind?

A shuffling noise in the hall behind her told Jessamyn that Crusty was approaching, and she pulled her gaze from her brother’s empty chair.

“You’re up early, kid,” said the mechanic.

Jess shrugged. She hadn’t admitted to Crusty that sleep came with difficulty if it came at all. “It’s a big day,” she said.

That much was true. Today she and Crusty would transmit to Mars Colonial Command the message that Mars would not starve. That while the ship’s captain, negotiator, and communications expert had been lost, the ration bars were on their way, safe in the Galleon’s hold.

Ethan would have been able to transmit the message visually or at least via audio. But Crusty and Jess knew only how to key in written messages. Personally, Jess was relieved that she wouldn’t have to smile or look solemn or whatever would have been appropriate. Crusty had insisted she compose the communication, as she was now the ship’s commanding officer. So she’d written and rewritten the message, never completely satisfied with the lifeless words; so cold upon the screen, so incapable of communicating the enormity of joy and despair she felt as she returned home.

Crusty seated himself at the communications station. He seemed to be feeling something as well. Jess watched as his large hands hovered over the panel, closing and opening several times as if he were contemplating performing a difficult surgery instead of merely transmitting a message.

When at last he sent the communication, Jess felt a hollowing in her stomach as though a part of her had accompanied the message of hope and loss. How would her parents respond? She’d promised to take care of her brother, but she’d left him behind. Her throat tightened. She needed to think about something else.

“Well, that oughta shake things up some,” said Crusty, gesturing to the comm panel.

Jess nodded. Tried to count backwards from ninety-eight by sevens to calm herself. I just want things to be like they used to.

“Bells of Hades,” muttered the mechanic.

Jess’s glance flickered to her brother’s station, where Crusty’s wrinkled face had folded itself into deeper lines of concentration.

“What is it?” she asked.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say your brother sent us some kind of message. Looks like it’s been sittin’ here waiting for us to notice.”

Jess’s heart began beating rapidly. “A message? From Ethan?”

“Durned if I can make it out. Must be code.”

Her heart hammered within her chest. A message. From her brother. In code. He would have chosen an encryption within her ability to translate, wouldn’t he?

Clipping an audio-comm to one ear, Crusty swore and mumbled to himself while typing a series of what, to Jess, resembled end-marks and dashes.

“Morse code,” she murmured after recognizing the ancient form of communication.

“Yup. But it ain’t in no language I recognize,” replied Crusty. He diligently recorded the dots and dashes but shook his head in frustration as he tried to make sense of the odd words. “Something math-based, maybe?”

“No,” murmured Jess. Ethan would know Jess didn’t stand a chance with something like that.

Think, she told herself. Ethan was on a hostile planet. He’d only send a message if it mattered. But he wouldn’t have risked making it impossible to decode.

She remembered something—how her brother had admired the Navajo soldiers of twentieth-century Earth. Aloud, she said, “Ethan used to tell me about code-talkers. They communicated using a rarely-spoken language so that the enemy couldn’t understand their transmissions. I’ll bet you anything he’s using Marsperanto.”

“Nobody speaks that,” said Crusty.

Marsians, independent-minded, had tried using a language of their own invention during the years of war with Earth, but abandoned the tongue after a series of communication disasters. Better to be understood and alive than independent and dead, was the widely held sentiment.

“It’s just repeating now,” said Crusty. “Okay, I reckon I got it all down here. You speak Marsperanto?”

Jess shook her head. “Wait here,” she said. Running down the ship’s central hall, Jess punched open her quarters and retrieved her brother’s wafer-computer from its place of honor upon Harpreet’s bunk. She flew back to the helm and handed the device to Crusty.

“This is Ethan’s computer.” She paused as a wash of sorrow rolled past, pulling her under like breakers upon a Terran ocean shore. “Was Ethan’s computer,” she murmured.

“Your brother’s alive,” Crusty said with quiet assurance. “This is his wafer.”

She gave a brief nod and held back her tears.

“Well, alright-y, then,” said Crusty, grinning broadly as he found what he was looking for. “Guess who has a translation program for Marsperanto on his computer?”

Working together, they pieced together the encoded message.

When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you. So says Ethan.

Jessamyn looked at Crusty, her brows drawn closely together. The words conjured for Jessamyn images of consuming flames. Her hand flew to cover her mouth. “They’re making him walk through fire?”

Glancing at Jess and seeing how all color had drained from her face, the mechanic placed a hand upon her shoulder. “Hey. You come back, now. There ain’t no use imagining stuff that never happened. This message don’t say nothin’ about anybody hurting anybody. It’s all about not gettin’ hurt.”

She chewed her lower lip, willing herself to believe Crusty was right.

“Maybe it’s his way of tellin’ us he’s fine,” continued Crusty. “Only it just comes out sounding funny in a translation.”

“Maybe,” she whispered. She couldn’t speak her darker fear: that trapped inside someone else’s body, on the run, her brother was losing his mind. Because this didn’t sound like the sort of message Ethan would send.

“I’m of the opinion it’s some kind of poetry,” mused Crusty. “It’s got that sort of feel to it.”

“Ethan doesn’t write poetry,” said Jess.

Crusty scratched his two-days’ beard thoughtfully. “He’s a smart one, your brother. He’s not going to shoot off a message any fool can understand. The way I figure, this is him sayin’ as everything’s just fine for him. Nothin’ to fret over.”

Jessamyn nodded, pushing back the images of fiery torture. She found herself thinking of Pavel—his brave farewell, his promise to guard her brother.

“Okay,” she said aloud. “I’m off to bed. Have a good shift.”

But in the privacy of her quarters, Jess wasn’t ready for sleep. She sat down to write the boy from Earth.

Dear Pavel,

Today we received Ethan’s message. Crusty says the message is intended to convey to us that you are both well. I want to believe he’s right, but why the stuff about fire? Crusty thinks the message is poetry of some kind. In that case, why not choose a happier poem to tell us you’re well?

I suppose that’s my answer right there. My brother isn’t the kind of person to store up bits of happy poetry. Or perhaps the words were your idea. All I can say is: next time make it a little less cryptic, okay?

She paused, looking up from her letter. She knew what she really wanted to say.

As each day passes aboard the Galleon, I feel myself reaching a conclusion that no one but me will like. I think we should return to Earth right away—drop the food and run back before it’s too late.

There. I’ve said it.

I’m worried, Pavel. I’m afraid that Mars Colonial will argue for waiting two Terran years for any kind of rescue. But in that time—an entire Mars annum—how much might happen? I am sure each day he spends in the body of someone else is a kind of torture for my brother. And if MCC argues for waiting an annum, what is to stop them arguing we should wait two? Or three?

I have to convince MCC that I’m right. That the raiders we left behind deserve nothing less than an immediate rescue. I don’t know how we’ll find a crew. I don’t know if the Galleon has it in her to make the journey.

But I know I must plead my brother’s case. And Harpreet’s. And my captain’s. They don’t deserve to be left behind. I won’t let that happen.

Tell my brother I love him.

I miss you.

Your friend,

Jessamyn Jaarda

2

I’LL STAND BY YOU

Sitting alone in her quarters the next day, Jessamyn frowned, imagining the uproar her request to rescue her brother would produce. She felt sure she could find a few allies—a few who believed, as she did, that Mars Colonial owed it to the Mars Raiders to make the attempt to rescue them. But she felt equally certain she would run into many who would say the rescue was too dangerous. That the raiders had volunteered in full knowledge the trip might end as it had—in captivity or death upon Earth.

If she’d been left behind, Jess wouldn’t have expected anyone to come and find her. She’d accepted the risk and been willing to remain or die upon Earth if it meant saving Mars. But she’d left Earth with an oath upon her lips: a promise to return for her brother. It had been a fool’s vow.

She was no Harpreet, to sway others to attempt impracticable things, but she had to persuade Mars Colonial, and quickly, before Earth and Mars drifted too far apart. The two planets could be imagined as runners chasing laps around the Sun. Earth ran on the inside track, giving it an advantage when it came to speeding about the Sun in only 365 days. Mars was stuck on an outside track, and the Red Planet’s journey about the solar system took 686 Terran days.

When the original crews of the Red Galleon and Red Dawn had departed Mars, Earth had lagged behind the Red Planet. Now, Earth was again catching up to Mars. Soon she would zip past. If Jessamyn wanted to take the Galleon from Mars back to Earth, she would have to depart immediately after her arrival home. For every day Jess spent on Mars, Earth would drift ahead in the lap around the Sun. Wait five days? Earth would surge forward millions of kilometers relative to Mars. Wait thirty days? Jess would never be able to catch Earth before running out of fuel or oxygen. She hadn’t calculated which one of these would kill her first. She only knew she didn’t have the weeks or months Mars Colonial Command would want to spend debating whether a rescue mission should be allowed to proceed.

If MCC agreed to the rescue, they would probably insist upon waiting the annum until Earth and Mars were once more at their closest positions to one another. But thinking about the extended wait made Jess feel as though all the oxygen in the ship had been sucked out. Too many things could go wrong in so long a time. Ethan, Harpreet, and Kipper could all be dead by then. No. If she were to attempt the rescue, it had to be as soon as she touched down, while Earth was still within reach.

And so Jess spent long hours running calculations to determine if she could make it back to Earth. Many times, she found herself wishing for her brother’s presence at her side. She would have welcomed his frown and quiet, “I believe you neglected to take into consideration the effect of this minute detail upon this other even more ponderously minute detail.”

Aphrodite and Poseidon, she missed him.

What it came down to was her uncertainty as to whether the ship could handle the more violent launch required to chase after a fleeing Earth. Was it even possible to load the ship with enough fuel to make such a launch? Jessamyn’s calculations were inconclusive. But Crusty would know what the ship could or could not handle.

As if in response to her musings, Crusty’s voice echoed through the ship’s comm system. “Mornin’ rations,” he called.

“On my way,” replied Jessamyn.

The twice-daily rations provided both crew members with the opportunity for conversation. However, Crusty’s reserved manner and Jessamyn’s grim mood meant that more often than not, meals passed in complete silence between the two. Today, the mechanic seemed to be in a conversational mood.

“Sure miss the aged bars,” he sighed, contemplating the ration before him.

Jess’s mouth curved into half a smile. The flavor of the Terran-sourced bars was far more pronounced before it had a chance to age and mellow.

“There’s something to be said for a change,” she said. In truth, she didn’t mind the intensity of the flavor. It reminded her of the myriad foods she’d sampled upon Earth the night she’d pretended to be a first-body Terran—the night she’d met Pavel. A shiver ran through her, not unpleasant, at the memory.

“Well, the two of us conversing,” said Crusty, “I reckon that’s change.” He grinned and raised his ration as if in a salute to his companion.

Jess returned a small smile and wondered how to best take advantage of Crusty’s loquacious mood. Harpreet would have told her to try honesty.

She took in a slow breath. “Crusty, I’ve been thinking. I want to take part in a rescue mission to bring back the crew we left behind,” she said. “And I need some help determining whether it would be possible to do that right away.”

Crusty’s eyebrows rose slowly. “You mean, right away this annum?”

Jessamyn nodded. “Before Earth gets so far away that we can’t catch her.” She licked her lower lip, noting the cracked spots that indicated she was a full water ration behind. Forgetting to drink was careless. She couldn’t afford to be careless—not with the plans she was hatching.

Crusty leaned back in his chair, sighing noisily. “Kid, I’m sure you’ve spent some time on this already. But I’m tellin’ you it ain’t gonna happen. I can give you a list a kilometer long as to why immediate return would be a bad idea.”

Jessamyn felt a lump thickening her throat. “I don’t care if it’s a bad idea,” she retorted. “I need to know if it’s a possible idea.”

Crusty stood and crossed to examine his plants. He’d talked Brian Wallace out of an orchid. Jess had no idea how Crusty planned to obtain water to keep the decorative plant alive once they got back to Mars. She suspected he was going short on his own water ration to hydrate the exotic bloom at present. His lips looked a lot worse than hers felt.

He cleared his throat. “Sure, kid, I can tell you what you want to hear. Anything’s possible, ain’t it? But you ain’t gonna get permission on this one, so why torment yourself with possibles and impossibles?”

“But I have to get permission!” Jess stood, placing her hands on her hips.

Crusty shrugged. “They might send out a rescue next annum.”

Her heart beat faster at the unwelcome thought and she felt her face flushing with anger. “My brother was sentenced to re-bodying inside a geriatric body with limbs missing!” she said. “He can’t wait two Earth-years. He could be dead by then.”

“Hmmph,” grunted the mechanic, his eyes fixed upon the orchid.

“What do you mean, hmmph?” demanded Jess. “You know I’m right. Ares, Crusty, we’re their only hope. You’re talking about waiting an entire Mars orbit—an annum—and I’m telling you they’ll be dead by then. Pavel said the conditions in the mines—” Jessamyn stopped, unable to continue without wasting water. Like a good Marsian, she held back her tears.

“Listen, kid. My vote is we make the attempt,” said Crusty. “I’ll be volunteering to go myself. Those good folks don’t deserve to be stuck on a planet of filthy body-swappers.”

Jessamyn swallowed, eyes upon the rations table before her. “And you see I’m right, don’t you? That they can’t wait? If we let another twenty-four months go past before we return for them, who knows what will happen?”

“Jess, the rescue only works if the ship can get you there. I been workin’ on a list of everything that needs repair.” He shook his head. “It’s a long list. Even if I start today. Some stuff I can’t do ‘til we’re planet-side. And that ain’t your biggest obstacle. Not by a long shot.”

“So what is, then?”

“It’s you, kid. You’re what, less than ten annums old?”

“I’m almost nine,” Jess said, defensively. “That’s seventeen in Terran years. I’m an adult.”

Crusty laughed. “Kid, I’d put my life in your hands, no questions asked, but ain’t no one back home gonna see you as an adult. They take one look at you without so much as your First Wrinkle and they’ll see a hotheaded teenager. You think they’re gonna let you risk Mars’s last space-worthy ship?” He shook his head.

Jess felt herself flushing again. “I’m a Mars Raider. Hades and Aphrodite! If anyone’s qualified to make a recommendation, it’s me.”

“Sorry kid. Just tellin’ you how I see it.”

“Well, you’re wrong!” With that, Jessamyn stormed out of the rations room.

She’d expected to find an ally in Crusty. But if he wasn’t with her on this, what chance did she stand, really? How could she hope to persuade Mei Lo and the rest of MCC?

I’ll find a way, she thought. There’s got to be a way.

She paced up and down the narrow hall linking the forward and aft portions of the ship, passing the observation deck repeatedly. Once a place of calm and wonder, it was now a location she studiously avoided. Crusty had made a point of bringing her there after their launch to let her know he’d repaired the ugly scar which had caused the oxygen leak on their outbound journey. She’d thanked him but hadn’t returned after that first visit. The ache for her brother’s presence crescendoed in the silent room such that she saw neither stars, nor beauty, but only loss.

Turning one last time, she came to rest before her quarters and pounded the hatch opening. It was time to compose a letter to the Secretary General, pleading her case.

It took her some time to find the perfect words, but when she’d finished, Jessamyn felt as though she’d shed a great burden. Mei Lo trusted Jessamyn’s judgment. The Secretary would surely see the sense in returning to reclaim one of Mars’s brightest minds. Jess felt a small smile forming. She felt ebullient.

In fact, she felt magnanimous. She shouldn’t have shouted at Crusty. Shouldn’t have stormed out of the room. She owed him an apology.

It took her some time to locate the mechanic. Suiting up and venturing below decks, she found him fussing with fuel lines.

“I don’t mean to interrupt your work,” she said on their comm channel. “But I wanted to say I’m sorry I shouted at you. I want to apologize for my behavior. It was … childish.”

The mechanic grunted, made a final adjustment, and lifted the visor protecting his eyes. “Don’t fret yourself, kid,” replied Crusty. “No offense taken for the heated words. You’re a lot like your ma. I used to add a dose of coolant to anything she said.”

She ignored the unwelcome comparison to her mother. “Anything wrong down here?” she asked.

“Not anymore,” replied Crusty. “Got to thinking about my list of repairs. Might as well start in on it, I figured. Work my way up from the ship’s belly.”

Jess nodded solemnly, containing her eager approval.

“Time for a rest now, I reckon,” Crusty continued. “Must be about breakfast by now. Or dinner. Hard to tell ‘em apart with no sun rising and setting each day.”

The pair made their way back to the rations room, where Crusty walked straight to his potted plants.

“How’s your orchid doing?” she asked, determined to prove herself his friend.

“Hmmph,” he grunted. “Reckon it misses Wallace.”

Jess smiled, uncertain if Crusty was joking or serious. Beside the flower sat a small algae pot from her mother’s household algae-pot program. Jess felt a rush of homesickness. Reaching out to touch the pot that held the small green plant, she asked, “And how’s the algae?”

The question elicited another grunt. “It’ll survive.”

Jess stared at the emerald growth, the tiny leaves moist and fragile in appearance.

“Made a slight change to the feed,” murmured Crusty. “Don’t know if your ma’ll be happy or start throwin’ stuff at me.”

Jess waited for Crusty to elaborate. When he remained silent, she prodded. “What do you mean ‘a slight change’?”

“Came out of a conversation I had with Wallace. I got to thinking about the gastro-intestinal die-off that made early settlers on Mars Colonial get sick. Got to thinking it maybe had to do with the low count of probiotics on the plant leaves. They was growin’ ‘em pretty sterile back then.” Crusty shrugged. “So I asked Wallace to harvest me some of whatever he had growin’ on his kale and cabbage out in the greenhouse and we inoculated the algae with a nice dose.”

“Huh,” said Jessamyn, nodding. It sounded like a good idea, but she wasn’t sure how her mom would respond, either.

“Seems to have survived,” said Crusty. “What don’t kill you makes you stronger, they say.”

The smile on Jessamyn’s lips faded, and she felt the knife-twist pain of losing Ethan. No, it had not killed her, the loss of her brother. But she didn’t think it had made her stronger. She felt brittle as factory glass when she thought of Ethan. That is not a sensation you can afford to indulge, she told herself. She would not be brittle. She would be strong. If she wanted to save her brother, she had to be.

“I sent a letter to Mei Lo,” Jess said aloud.

“Did you now?” asked Crusty. “’Bout your little rescue plan?”

Jess nodded. “I think she’ll listen to me. She’ll want my brother to finish what he started, don’t you think?”

Crusty scratched his chin. “Reckon that might be your best line of argument, right there. The Secretary and everyone else on the board knows that was a job only Ethan could manage.”

Jess felt her heart swell with pride for her brother’s abilities.

“Course, they could use the lasers as another reason to keep you from takin’ a ship back up again. Considering what happened to the Dawn and all.”

“I got through the lasers once,” said Jess. “I can get through again.”

“I’m glad the darned things only fire at what’s trying to leave the planet and not what’s trying to get home.”

Crusty sighed and stepped back from the plants to pop his drink packet and ration wrapper in the recycle-mech. “Reckon I oughta head up to the bridge and see about these fuel burns you been makin’. Don’t want to be stuck doing some Jess-style landing come touchdown.” Crusty chuckled to himself and strolled out of the rations room toward the bridge.

“Jess-style?” she called after him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Think on it a spell. It’ll come to you,” Crusty called back.

He must have heard about the landing which had gotten her grounded six weeks prior to the raiding mission. She’d disobeyed a direct order to abandon her malfunctioning hopcraft and made an unconventional horizontal landing minus her thrust engines.

As if she’d consider putting the Galleon through that. The suggestion was preposterous. Which Crusty knew all too well. Smiling, she realized it had been an uncharacteristic attempt at humor, at camaraderie. Crusty must be feeling sorry for her. She’d have to guard against moroseness in his presence in the future.

She tried to remember the last time she’d felt light of heart. In her mind, she heard the whisper of orange silk, recalled Pavel’s lazy smile as he’d spoken of his first time in an orbiting craft. How he’d lied about his age and how his instructor had colluded rather than turning him in to face his aunt.

You wouldn’t be morose if Pavel were with you, said a small and knowing voice.

“Would too,” she muttered.

But as she returned to her quarters, she was already composing in her mind another letter to her Terran friend. She sat at her wafer, spoke the words, “Dear Pavel. It’s me again.”

There were Marsians who got along without a life partner, and Jess had always imagined she’d be one of them. She felt warmth rising along her neck, her throat and cheeks.

“And nothing’s changed,” she said aloud. “Nothing that matters.”

How could she let her mind wander to Pavel’s dark eyes when her crew was stranded on a hostile world? When her planet rested on the knife-edge of starvation?

No. She would never take hands with a partner in the Crystal Pavilion. Would not make the simple vow, “I’ll stand by you all our annums.” Would not even wish for such things. She was not some fool girl looking to find purpose in a pair of brown eyes. She had purpose. She was a pilot, and it was time she started acting like one.

She directed her gaze to the letter on the wafer and uttered a single word.

“Delete.”

3

THAT LIFE IS OVER

Until the night of his eighteenth birthday, Pavel Brezhnaya-Bouchard had two passions in life: medicine and fast ships. But that night, which should have been his last in his firstbody, everything had changed. Pavel had fallen in love with a girl. Where she had gone, he could not follow. But she’d left a brother behind. And she’d left, as well, the idea of her world, so other. In Jessamyn’s absence, Pavel found himself Mars-smitten; his obsession with the red-haired girl twinned with the hope of helping her world.

Already, Ethan had hinted at tasks left incomplete. To these, Pavel swore to devote himself. Aiding Mars would be the compass-star by which he would steer—the purpose he’d yearned for and not found. There was nothing wrong with devoting your life to medicine or piloting really fast ships. Until you found a cause that made these things look petty.

This, the girl from Mars had provided.

Aboard the ship he’d stolen from his aunt less than a day ago, Pavel awaited news from Brian Wallace’s conversation with his clan. What he’d overheard so far didn’t sound promising. Even Brian’s dog looked distressed at the exchange.

“It’s okay, Elsa,” Pavel murmured, scratching a spot under her chin. He hoped it would be okay, at least.

“Well,” sighed Wallace, having finished his call. “We’re in a fair pickle. Farewell cozy retirement, and all that.”

“What is the nature of a pickle?” asked Ethan.

“He means we’re screwed,” said Pavel, glancing over his shoulder at Ethan.

Ethan frowned in confusion but refrained from further inquiry.

“Your family won’t help you after all?” asked Pavel.

“They are at present disinclined to look favorably upon me choices,” said Wallace. “Particularly as those choices have landed me face upon the Chancellor’s list of persons wanted for questioning in regards to the disappearance of her nephew.”

Pavel frowned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see that coming.”

“I take it ye’re not thinking of returning to your aunt?” asked Wallace.

“Not a chance,” Pavel said.

“In that case,” replied Wallace, “I have an idea. A request, really. I’d ask ye to consider drawing up formal terms of indenture to hire me services as bodyguard.”

“Bodyguard?” asked Pavel.

“If the Chancellor finds us, I’d prefer to be presented as the guardian and protector of her errant nephew rather than as his kidnapper,” explained Wallace.

“This isn’t your problem, Wallace,” said Pavel. “I can set you down anywhere you want. Just name it.”

“Lad, me own family won’t have me at the moment. I’ve nowhere to go. I’m not scheduled to re-body for nine years and me face is everywhere.”

Pavel frowned, uncertain he wanted the blustering Scot as a companion. “Aren’t there … illegal re-body operations you could consult?”

Brian Wallace laughed grimly. “Aye. But they’ll make more selling me to Lucca Brezhnaya than re-bodying me. I’ve no wish to play those odds.”

Pavel realized he would face the same problem if he attempted to re-body. Or even get reconstructive surgery to disguise his appearance. “Shizer,” he muttered under his breath.

“I do not with to interrupt your negotiations,” said Ethan, “But I require assistance to reach the communications panel. It is imperative that I relay a message to the Red Galleon.”

Pavel turned his attention to Ethan. “Look, I know you didn’t have a chance to say your goodbyes—”

Ethan interrupted. “This is more urgent than a mere greeting. I have just concluded that MCC has no information regarding the extent of my success or failure upon the mission with which I was charged.”

Wallace shrugged. “Your call,” he muttered to Pavel.

Pavel bristled. Of course it was his decision to make. “Here’s the thing, Ethan,” said Pavel. “My aunt’s got ears everywhere. You send a transmission out to deep space, it’s possible it could be intercepted.”

“Ah,” said Ethan. “You fear that the transmission, if it appears to be directed past the regulatory boundaries, might be subject to additional scrutiny.”

“Something like that,” said Pavel.

“Then I shall consider how to cloak the message in secrecy,” said Ethan, attempting to sit upright. He began to slip out of his seat.

“Hold it, there,” said Wallace, reaching for Ethan. “Beg pardon for grabbing ye.”

“Touch appears to affect me differently in this new body,” said Ethan. “Which is fortunate, as it would appear that I will require frequent assistance.”

Wallace contrived a method whereby Ethan could be strapped onto his chair more securely.

“What he really needs is a hoverchair,” said Pavel. “When we stop to recharge the ship’s fuel cells, we can pick one up.”

“Excellent idea,” said Wallace.

Pavel glanced over to see Ethan’s one good hand flying across the communications screen.

“And I’ll take a look at that bad arm,” said Pavel. “Looks to me like the muscles just need reattaching.”

“Aye,” said Brian. “Can’t have the lad going through life with one hand tied behind his back.” He laughed briefly.

Ethan did not laugh. “Humans are capable of remarkable adaptation,” he said.

“If that was a joke,” said Pavel, glaring at Brian. “It was in very poor taste.”

Ethan frowned. “I am not an ideal audience for jokes that involve non-concrete imagery. However, I believe I can enjoy the humor in my situation.”

Pavel’s brows drew close. “You’re not really like your sister much, are you?” He swallowed back against the ache of remembering her.

“We share few traits,” agreed Ethan as he finished.

Pavel shook his head. If there was a boy-version of Jessamyn, it wasn’t her brother.

“The message has been transmitted,” said Ethan. “I have attempted to delay the receipt of an actual message by encrypting it in a rotating algorithm. It should be some days before the transmission becomes something the Galleon will recognize as a message intended for the crew.”

“Huh,” said Pavel. “Brilliant.”

“Further, if it is intercepted by your government, the message will appear to be merely a quotation from ancient literature.”

“Ingenious,” said Brian Wallace.

“Given additional time I could have created something to match the epithets you dispense so readily,” replied Ethan.

“Now we’ve got the goodbyes out of the way,” said Wallace, “I’ll just mention that the ship’s looking a mite hungry at the moment.”

“Hungry?” asked Ethan.

“Requires refueling,” said Pavel. “Lucca makes her drivers crazy that way. She’s always pushing to get underway with no comprehension that her demands have consequences.”

“She expects others to bear the burden of those consequences,” said Ethan. “It is a common failing of the powerful.”

“Yeah,” said Pavel. “You totally get her.”

Brian Wallace recommended a remote location in Newfoundland where they were able to refuel with relatively few eyes upon them. Pavel suspected the facility was operating without proper government permitting in place. But that suited his new life as a fugitive.

They left after Wallace acquired a top-of-the-line hoverchair for Ethan. Pavel tried to repay Brian, but the Scot wouldn’t allow it.

“Got it for a song,” he said cheerfully. “Unreported manufacturing. Tax-free, ye know.”

Pavel nodded, reconsidering his assessment of the man—Wallace’s black market know-how would be invaluable. The hoverchair in question was powerful, he noted, removing the shielding from its compact engine. Pavel grinned at what he saw and began the task of making a few modifications to the chair to allow Ethan greater speed and maneuverability. Tinkering with the chair made Pavel think of the limitations of his aunt’s ship.

“You know, we should think about swapping this ship out for something faster,” said Pavel, musing aloud.

“Faster, lad?” asked Brian Wallace. “The ship’s untraceable. Who needs speed when you can’t be chased?”

Pavel frowned. He might prefer something faster, but he couldn’t see how to refute Wallace’s position.

Wallace stepped close to admire the improvements to Ethan’s new acquisition. “I really should look into one of these chairs for me own self,” he said, patting his large belly.

Ethan, who had remained silent until now, spoke. “You ought instead to decrease your caloric consumption, and then you would not find the need of such a conveyance.”

Wallace laughed. “Aye, lad, aye.”

With Wallace’s assistance, Pavel helped Ethan into the hoverchair, explaining its responsive design. Ethan was soon comfortably settled.

“We should see about re-growing those limbs,” said Wallace, indicating Ethan’s leg stumps.

“We can’t,” said Pavel, his voice flat. “I reported the death of his consciousness at New Kelen Hospital. We don’t want anyone questioning that report when they start scraping cells and realize who he is. Word would get back to my aunt.”

“I am puzzled,” said Ethan, “as to the nature of your relationship with your aunt.”

Pavel laughed dryly. “There’s no love lost between us. Not anymore. Especially since I colluded with an enemy before her eyes.”

“Did ye now?” asked Wallace. “From my recollection, ye stood hostage whilst a crazed young inciter stabbed and drugged Lucca Brezhnaya.”

“I lied to her guards,” said Pavel.

“The individuals in question are deceased,” said Ethan.

“What?” asked Pavel. “How do you know that?”

“I’ve obtained information on many subjects pertaining to the Chancellor,” said Ethan. “It has not been difficult, given that this ship is registered to her. She reports the guards as having been murdered by the inciter known by only by the name ‘Jessamyn.’”

“We know that’s not true,” said Wallace.

Pavel ran a hand over his face. Those guards were dead because of him. “It’s not hard to guess how they really met their end,” he said. “In any case, there’s no question of my returning to Lucca. That life is over for me.”

“I understand,” said Ethan.

“I hadn’t thought about this ship having my aunt’s security clearance,” said Pavel. “Although, in a day or less Security will remind her that whoever stole her ship has access to her data.”

“You can bet on that,” said Wallace.

“It is not my intentions to place bets,” replied Ethan. “However, I have been cross-loading information to my chair’s computer which, fortunately, is quite robust.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Pavel, smiling at the holoscreen display on Ethan’s chair. “I’ve read about that Z-board. It’s powerful. It’s meant to be an amazing entertainment center.”

“As my requirements for entertainment are modest,” said Ethan, “I have completed modifications to the Z-board, freeing up a great deal of space, and I am in the process of retrieving as much as I can from the ship’s computer.”

“Good,” said Wallace, nodding.

“I have, in addition,” continued Ethan, “discovered Captain Kipling’s whereabouts. She currently resides in the intensive care portion of the hospital from which you rescued me, Pavel.”

Pavel looked at the data and frowned. “Brain injury,” he said. “Those aren’t easy to work with.” He ran a finger along a line of diagnostic code. “Still in her firstbody. That means she’s either in a coma or in significant and irreducible pain.” He placed a hand upon Ethan’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, man.”

“It is most unfortunate,” said Ethan. “However, I am relieved to know she survives. Harpreet, I have located as well.”

Wallace stepped over to peer at Ethan’s screen. “Well, my friend, so ye have. And how would ye like to rescue our good friend Harpreet Mombasu from the New Timbuktu Gold Processing and Re-educational Center for the Retirement of Criminals?”

“I should like that very much,” said Ethan.

Wallace grinned from ear to ear. “I’ve got some connections that might prove useful.”

“Regrettably,” said Ethan, “It is not a matter of what I would like.”

Wallace looked puzzled. “Ye’d like something else, then, lad?”

Ethan hesitated a fraction of a second before answering. “I should like to visit a zoological facility and see elephants and tigers,” he replied. “I should also like to see Terran snow.”

Pavel shook his head, confused. “Are you saying you want to do those things instead of rescuing your crewmate?”

“I am not,” replied Ethan. “Brian Wallace asked what I would like to do. I answered.”

“Aye, lad,” said Wallace. “Ye’re quite literal, are ye not? Allow me to rephrase. What is it that ye feel ye must do, as opposed to the things ye’d like to do, exactly?”

“I believe the time has arrived for me to discuss the nature of the mission I failed to complete,” replied Ethan.

Pavel felt his heart beating faster. A week ago a change from dutiful nephew to fugitive would have sounded ludicrous to him. But now, how eagerly he yearned to pass from merely a fugitive to someone in active defiance of the No Contact Accords and of his aunt.

“What’s your mission?” asked Pavel.

“I must transfer control of the satellites orbiting Mars from the Terran government to Mars Colonial Command,” replied Ethan.

Pavel’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding, right?”

4

GENERALLY A MECHANIC

Mei Lo’s answer to Jessamyn’s impassioned plea arrived three days later. Crusty was the one to notice it first. When Jess arrived for morning rations, he gave her the news.

Her heart seemed to skip beats. “What did she say?” asked Jessamyn.

“Weren’t addressed to me,” said Crusty. “Figured you should be the one to read it.”

Jess dashed to the ship’s helm and sat in her brother’s seat, searching for the communiqué. Crusty followed her at a slower pace.

The news was not good.

“Well?” asked Crusty, his gravelly voice laced with what might have been hope.

“She said, ‘No,’” Jess replied. She felt suddenly cold, as though an icy breath had passed through the bridge. How could the Secretary have said no? Jessamyn’s argument had been logical, impassioned, and complete. She shook her head in disbelief. No? It wasn’t possible.

Crusty grunted. “There’s no and there’s no,” he said. “Which flavor of negatory would you call this one?”

Jessamyn couldn’t answer. She rose, gestured to the view screen and murmured, “Read it for yourself,” before excusing herself from the bridge.

Jessamyn experienced a sudden yearning for the quarters that had belonged to her brother—the place where he had suffered his great anguish.

They weren’t going to let her rescue him.

She slammed the flat of her palm against the hatch button and entered the quiet room. Her body assumed the compact position in which she’d found Ethan after his days locked in the room alone. Seat on the ground, knees pulled up close to her body, arms wrapped tightly around her shins, hand grasping opposite wrist. She didn’t hum aloud. She didn’t need to. Her entire being throbbed with the moaning sound she’d heard her brother make in this place.

Mei Lo said no.

Jessamyn replayed MCC’s reasons in her mind: insufficient fuel load capacity, insufficient time for sanitization and prep, insufficient time for assembly of qualified crew. And worst of all: insufficient likelihood of successful outcome of rescue of stranded crew.

Jess sat upon the floor of her brother’s former quarters, trying to find in her curled position the comfort her brother derived from it. But she was not her brother. Jessamyn was made for action and not stillness. She rose and flew at the wall, fists outstretched. She pounded against the unresponsive surface, hurling accusations of MCC’s cowardice and ingratitude at the unfeeling barrier.

Tears came at last, angry and hot, and Jessamyn didn’t try to stop them this time. After her tears, exhausted and defeated, she sat at the small captain’s desk and eased her feelings by composing a letter to Pavel.

Dear Pavel,

You know the feeling you get when you enter an airlock only to find yourself stuck inside because someone forgot to scrub the solars and now there’s not enough power to open either door and you’re just stuck until someone comes to find you or a storm blows the dust off the solars long enough for them to reset the doors? That’s how I feel today. Stuck between airlock doors. With a raging dust storm on its way and no hope of getting out for the foreseeable future.

Actually, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. Why would you? I don’t think I saw a single airlock when I was on Earth. How can I describe how I am feeling right now? I feel so trapped. Do you understand trapped? Maybe people don’t ever feel that way on Earth. It happens pretty often on my world, though, I can tell you.

I never thought I’d feel trapped out in space. I mean, I’ve got the entire universe on all sides of me for as far as anyone can see and then a lot farther. I’ve always felt free when I fly. But not today.

Oh, Pavel. What am I going to do?

Mei Lo says she cannot support a return mission.

I want to rescue my brother. I want things to be normal again. Is that so much to ask? I never thought the day would come when I wouldn’t trust Mei Lo’s judgment. But she is wrong about this. So very wrong.

I’m sorry for ranting. I think, though, that if anyone can understand how I am feeling, it would be you.

What am I going to do?

Your friend,

Jessamyn Jaarda

The following three rations, Crusty did no more than nod to Jessamyn as he chewed his way through the pungent nutrition bars. On the fourth day, Jess raised her eyes to consider the quiet man before her.

“Crusty?”

He met her eyes with his.

“What am I going to do?”

“Same as you always have, kid. Go with your gut.”

Jessamyn swallowed against the lump swelling her throat. “My gut’s telling me to steal the ship as soon as we touch down on Mars.”

Crusty chuckled. “Well, maybe you oughtn’t to go with that particular notion.”

“Is the Secretary General right?” asked Jess.

“Depends what you’re referring to, don’t it?”

“I mean, about the fuel payload. I calculated the ship could make it, given a turnaround of seven days or less. After that … ”

Crusty shrugged. “The ship maybe could do it. I came up with five days or less when I looked at the numbers. But Mei Lo’s right to mention the air filter. Without a proper scrub, they ain’t much use after a month in space. You don’t want to go out there for fifty, sixty days if your air’s gunked up to where you can’t breathe it.”

“That’s an engineering problem, isn’t it?” Jess looked hopefully at Crusty.

“Reckon so,” he agreed. “But them other problems ain’t gonna disappear with wishful thinking either. Finding a qualified crew ain’t no engineering issue. And she’s right about the risk, too, kid. There’s no guarantee that says you’ll come back successful.”

“Well, I can guarantee I’ll fail if they don’t even let me try,” Jessamyn said, scuffing her boot along the floor.

“Don’t get mad, kid. Get smart. There’s more’n one way to overhaul a leaky water reclamation unit.”

Crusty’s odd illustration made Jess grunt out a small laugh. She straightened up and stared at the mechanic. “But if I could find a crew, those other issues aren’t insurmountable, are they? I mean, not for you, surely?”

Crusty ran a hand along one side of his face. Scratched his chin. “Well, I reckon where there’s a mechanical problem, there’s generally a mechanic as can solve it.”

Jessamyn smiled. “I’m sure you could do it. I bet you two month’s water rations for that orchid.”

“Now you’re just plain teasing me, kid.”

Jess smiled. She knew his mind was already working on it.

5

LIKE A SPIDER

Lucca Brezhnaya fretted as her chauffeur flew her to the derelict satellite facility in Budapest. Ordinarily, examining such a building following a break-in was the sort of thing she left to others. But the incident had occurred only a day before she’d lost Pavel. Lucca was searching for any clues that might point to the identity and aims of those who had taken her nephew. She’d found nothing thus far.

It was possible—probable, she admitted—that the kidnapping stood as a lone event, unattached to other crimes. But she had no other leads. No ransom note, even. That was certain to follow, she thought grimly. Meanwhile, she dutifully inspected report after report of criminal activity, looking for a way to tie Pavel’s disappearance to something Red Squadron had discovered.

As her vehicle touched down, Lucca’s crimson-stained lip curled with distaste. The building wasn’t just old, it was ugly. And ill-secured. It had the abandoned appearance of a place left behind in the wake of technological improvements, which it was.

Before Lucca exited her ship, she placed a call to her head of security. “Any news of my nephew?”

“No, Madam Chancellor,” replied the officer.

She pressed manicured fingers to her eyes and sighed audibly. “I suggest you make finding Pavel a priority. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Madam Chancellor,” came the response.

She cut off the call and contemplated the building before her for a moment before disembarking. But even before she completed her careful tour, Lucca knew it had been a waste of her time to come here.

“Leave no stone unturned,” she said, sighing. In her way, she cared for the boy. Pavel reminded her of her father, long-dead. So earnest. So devoted to ideals that Lucca knew had no place in the modern world.

Well, those ideals had saved New Kelen Hospital, Lucca had to admit. Not that she cared about the lives saved, but she very greatly cared to keep inciter activity far from Budapest where it would reflect badly upon Lucca and her government. London and Paris were permissible targets—far enough away from the center of her power. She would never authorize an attack upon Budapest.

The Chancellor turned from the satellite facility. Another dead-end.

Which brought her back to a question irritating as a pair of poorly made shoes: who was this upstart terrorist who’d taken Pavel? And how long would it be before Lucca could crush her like a spider under her boot?

“I want increased security on this facility and every other ground operations facility that deals with satellites,” barked Lucca as she climbed aboard her ship. “See to it.”

“Yes, Madam Chancellor,” said the security officer who’d provided her brief tour. “Of course, Madam Chancellor.”

“The next time an inciter so much as sneezes beside a facility like this, I want full aerial intervention. Or heads will roll.”

The noise of her ship cut off the man’s frightened response.

6

A PLANETARY TREASURE

The first Marsian dwellings had been round. Not for reasons to do with fashions in architecture or the whimsy of the inhabitants. The round form was dictated, rather, by necessity. Unable in the early years to manufacture building materials upon the planet, the first colonists brought their houses with them in rockets that were, for considerations aerodynamic, universally round.

“Go round or go ground,” early settlers advised those who lamented the limitations of the cylindrical domiciles. Digging into the frozen surface of Mars was the other popular way to construct a dwelling. But many, even those with no previous history of claustrophobia, found the underground dwellings unpalatable. Once a burgeoning plastics market erupted on Mars, enterprising manufacturers of home furnishings designed objects that would fit in homes with curved walls. Thus, even after it was possible to construct homes with four square walls, Marsians stuck to the round shape of their first homes and the pie-slice-shaped couches, tables, and desks to fill them.

Round houses were just one of the many things Jess couldn’t wait to set eyes upon again. Over a month had passed since the Raiders had last seen home, with its scattering of circular dwellings. At last Mars began to grow visibly larger and brighter. From a small reddish smudge on the pilot’s view screen, the planet swelled to a faintly glowing globe of orange, and became at last the world-sized tan and golden planet Jessamyn yearned to see. Upon the thirty-ninth Marsian-length day since their departure from Mars, Crusty and Jessamyn donned spacesuits and clipped into harnesses for the touchdown.

Mars had never looked more beautiful to Jessamyn. Clouds dotted the thin layer of atmosphere that was growing with every passing annum. Jess saw nary a dust storm in the planet’s northern hemisphere—the one enjoying Marsian summer. Her heart swelled. Summer was her favorite season. She recalled her promise to try to see Mars with Pavel’s eyes.

What would you see? she wondered silently. A world warm and inviting? Cold and forbidding? Mars was both. But she remembered Pavel’s love of his planet’s desert spaces and felt hopeful Pavel would look with a gentle eye upon her home.

Now that they had drawn close, Crusty was able to initiate radio contact with MCC.

“We’ve got quite a welcoming committee here for you, Raiders,” said the voice of the Secretary General. “The citizens of Mars Colonial are deeply proud of your courage and accomplishments, as am I.”

Mei Lo’s voice sounded like home—like yellow skies and reddish dirt and the scent of peroxide. In the place of the anger she’d been feeling toward the Secretary, Jess felt a rush of gratitude that Mei Lo had given her the opportunity to serve as a Mars Raider, bringing food to last the next generation and beyond.

“We weren’t expecting this large a turnout,” said Mei Lo.

Jess felt an odd flutter in her belly. She didn’t need a large welcoming party. She didn’t need anyone but her own parents. Her mom’s arms around her, her dad’s whisper that he knew she’d done everything she could—these were the things Jess craved. Not some big party. She vowed to sneak away as soon as possible after touchdown.

Bringing the ship in a sweep along the Valles Marineris, Jessamyn marveled with Earth-attuned eyes at the deep chasm. The Galleon seemed to lean forward, to feel the call of the world that had launched her.

“That’s my girl,” said Jess softly. “Almost home.”

The moment of landing, shuddering and noisy, felt to Jessamyn like an embrace, a longed-for rest, a smile upon the face of a friend.

She noticed a thrill running along her forearms as she hailed ground control.

“Mars Colonial Command, this is First Officer Jessamyn Jaarda. We request permission to disembark.”

There was no immediate answer on the comm, which Jess found odd. She’d begun unclipping herself from her harness when she heard what at first reminded her of the bleating of Wallace’s goats, but within seconds Jess recognized it as the clamoring of hundreds of voices.

She turned to Crusty, tapping her helmet with a resigned expression upon her face. “You hearing what I’m hearing?”

“Reckon they’re glad to see us,” said Crusty, shrugging off the last of his own harness.

Jessamyn stood and experienced a momentary disorientation—her body had reassumed its Mars weight. She felt as if she were literally floating.

“Hmmph,” grunted Crusty, responding to his body’s lack of weight as he stood. “Guess we could’ve stood a few more adjustments to ship’s gravity.”

Jess giggled to see the bounce in Crusty’s step. “You’re walking like a little child.”

“You were young a whole lot more recently than I was, kid,” replied the mechanic.

The buoyancy of her stride matched perfectly the buzzing sort of anticipation she felt thinking of her parents waiting for her just outside. Holy Ares, she’d missed them.

Making no attempt to regulate her own bouncing stride, Jess followed Crusty down into the bowels of the ship, from which they emerged onto the Marsian plain minutes later. Jess’s first thought was how dimly lit her world appeared in comparison to Earth. Her second was that she had underestimated the number of people who had been cheering over the comm. It looked to her as if half of New Houston had suited up for the occasion—several thousand helmeted heads were raised to greet the returning Mars Raiders.

The noise outside thundered and Jess had to adjust the volume on her helmet receiver. Forcing herself to hold her gloved hands down at her sides, Jess resisted a momentary urge to tear off her helmet and run in the opposite direction. Like all Mars-children, she’d read about crazy settlers who had done just that early in Mars’s colonization. She couldn’t remember what got them first—the lack of human-friendly air pressure or the lack of breathable air. Shuddering, she made herself stand still and smile at the gathered crowd.

Just look for Mom and Dad, she told herself.

Many of the gathered throng had placed three blue marks upon their helmets, just above their eyes. Jess only had a moment to ask herself what it might signify before she noticed Mei Lo’s diminutive form before her. The Secretary General and CEO of Mars Colonial held out a glove-protected hand, and Jess reached to grasp it in a clumsy handshake. A spattering of flashes marked the moment and Jess heard Crusty’s grunt of annoyance—the two were still connected by ship’s comm. An interruptive beep-beep informed her of the Secretary’s incoming voice over her comm.

“Welcome home, Pilot Jaarda, Payload Specialist Crustegard,” said Mars’s leader.

“It’s good to be back, Madam Secretary,” replied Crusty.

Jessamyn gave a moment’s attention to the Secretary, but then returned to her search for her parents. They had to be here. Why hadn’t they been allowed up front where she could find them?

“Be nice if the crowd could keep it down already,” mumbled Crusty. “They’re givin’ me a headache the size of Olympus Mons.”

Jess smiled at her cranky crewmate’s remark, causing another series of flashes.

“Ain’t gonna get your face with all that light bouncing off of your helmet,” Crusty grunted. “Guess we’d best get used to it, though.”

A tall woman approached the Secretary, Jess, and Crusty and began angling the three into posed stances.

“Crusty and Jessamyn,” said Mei Lo, “I’d like you to meet my new events coordinator, Nessa Niedermaier.”

Another helmet beep-beep. “If I could just have the two of you stand to either side of the Secretary?” asked the events coordinator.

And so, rather than the homecoming Jessamyn had imagined where she rushed into the arms of her mom and dad, she found herself being pushed, pulled, and tugged into half-an-hour’s worth of staged photographs, punctuated by Crusty’s salient grousing.

During this time, Mei Lo spoke a few brief words to the crowd in praise of the raiders and then encouraged everyone to return home, as the crew of the Galleon would be entering Mars Colonial Command for debriefing and a health check.

“And as much as I’d love to invite all of you inside,” said Mei Lo, “I’m afraid the building would explode. We’ll have announcements for the week’s festivities on the evening news brief.”

Jessamyn, still craning her head for any sign of her parents, heard the Secretary’s quiet sigh as she switched to communicate to the raiders in private. “I think that went well. We certainly didn’t anticipate this kind of turnout, though. A harbinger for the days to come, I suppose. If you’ll both follow me.”

“Madam Secretary,” said Jessamyn, “I was hoping to—that is, um …” She felt her face coloring. How did a Mars Raider tell the planet’s CEO that she just wanted a minute with her mom and dad? “Do you know where I can find my parents?”

Mei Lo’s brow creased, but the expression was replaced almost instantly by a strained smile. “They chose to, ah, watch your arrival from home.”

“Oh,” said Jess. Her voice sounded hollow in her helmet. She felt a tug in the space where her heart lay, a skip of its beat, a moment of lost as if she were a child whose parents had forgotten to pick her up after school. “Okay.”

Crusty and the others had removed their helmets, and Jess realized they’d passed through the building airlock without her having noticed. Hastily, she unlatched her own helmet and took a deep breath.

Home at last, she told herself.

Her nose twitched. The air didn’t smell right. It smelled … stale. And too dry. And breathing felt … odd, as well. Inhaling itched, somehow. It made her feel strangely protective of her lungs, too aware of each arid breath.

Breathing wasn’t something you should have to think about.

“Get over it, Jaarda,” she murmured to herself. Of course things smelled different here than they had aboard the ship. Ship air was notoriously poor after a couple of weeks. This air was good for her, was normal. Get over it.

During the minutes walking through MCC to the briefing room, Nessa Niedermaier kept up a steady stream of talking, addressed to Crusty and Jess. Fortunately, she seemed to require no response.

“We’ll be taking formal portraits following the briefing with the Mars Colonial Board of Directors. Then you’ll have a ten-minute rations break followed by a brief appearance on the evening news. Tomorrow’s schedule has already been sent to your homes, but I’ll just mention the highlights …”

Jessamyn found herself unable to entirely ignore Nessa’s chatter. The events coordinator had a full five days of activities planned for them, including their appearance at a memorial to honor the lost crew members, multiple photo sessions at locations around the planet, and concluding with a special worldwide festival day.

Jess felt a tightening in her chest. She hadn’t considered the possibility that her time would not be her own during the following week. She had plans. Plans that definitely didn’t involve flying around the world posing for hero-portraits. One thing at a time, she told herself.

Mars Colonial Command Headquarters, which had previously seemed a sprawling complex, now struck Jessamyn as squat and small. And drab, she added to herself, remembering the statuary and baskets of flowers which had adorned the edifices of Budapest. She shook her head to clear the unwelcome judgments. This is home, she told herself as she slipped into the War Room.

Inside, Crusty and Jessamyn found themselves subjected to a standing ovation which the gruff mechanic put an end to with a rather loud, “That’s enough of that. We’re just a couple of tired astronauts.”

A nervous titter scuttled about the room and Jess realized Crusty was right. She felt more tired than she could remember feeling for a long time. And hungry. And very, very thirsty. “Any chance of a wet ration?” she murmured to the Secretary General.

“Of course,” replied Mei Lo.

Jess didn’t like the strained look still present in the Secretary’s smile, but her thoughts were soon elsewhere. During the mission debriefing, Jess and Crusty were questioned, while being simultaneously examined by physicians whose obsequious attentions included providing three wet rations apiece to the raiders as well as a series of injections.

Jessamyn tried to answer the questions truthfully. Yes, she had been the one who indicated to her captain that Ethan’s mental health was sufficient for the task before him—the task which had ended in the capture of three raiders. No, once her brother had been captured, she had not been able to communicate with him prior to his being rendered unconscious. No, she had no way of knowing if the captain was alive or dead. She did not try to hide the fact that she had attempted to rescue her brother. And she admitted to having been the inadvertent cause of Terran casualties as she’d fled Budapest on her desperate run back to the Galleon.

She felt, however, a certain reluctance to go into the details of her last half-hour upon Terran soil. Even Crusty knew only some of what had transpired inside Wallace’s cottage—how the Terran Chancellor had believed Jess to be a terrorist, how Jess had escaped with the assistance of Pavel and Brian Wallace.

The debriefing brought sharp emotions to the surface of Jessamyn’s thoughts once more. Her loss of family and friends seemed fresh again, a raw and scraping pain as if she’d inhaled Mars-sand. A look at Crusty’s downcast eyes and tight-drawn brows told her he shared her feelings. She was certain Crusty felt as relieved as she did when the debriefing was declared at an end.

But she was surprised and touched when Crusty turned to the Secretary, saying, “We ain’t doing no more pictures tonight. The kid needs to see her mom and dad. Tell the news folks they can use what they already got.”

Mei Lo nodded and held a hand up to silence Nessa’s spluttering response. “That will be all for today, Nessa,” the Secretary said in a firm voice. “Crusty, I believe your father is eagerly awaiting a visit,” she added, smiling.

“I’m sure he is,” muttered Crusty. “But first I’d like to know who you had in mind for giving the Galleon a thorough look-over.”

The Secretary smiled, and Jess was relieved to see it was a genuine smile this time.

“I take it you’d like the position?” asked Mei Lo, conspiratorially. “They’ve got your name down for a promotion to a desk job.”

Crusty laughter, low and gruff, was all the answer the Secretary needed.

“I’ll inform MCC that I’m appointing you to the Galleon instead,” she said. “Jessamyn, if I might have a word?”

Jess reached out a hand to grasp Crusty’s forearm before he left. Her face, turned from the Secretary, shot Crusty a wide-eyed farewell.

He reached his large arms around her narrow shoulders and whispered into Jessamyn’s ear. “Don’t you fret, kid. Things’ll be back to normal in no time.”

But Jess felt very, very alone as she watched her last remaining crewmate disappear around a corner. She was home, and she loved her planet, but it no longer felt the same to her. What if her parents had stayed away because they didn’t want to see her? Didn’t want the reminder of the loss of their son? She felt suddenly afraid to go home.

“You held a few things back in there,” said Mei Lo in a soft voice, bringing Jessamyn back to the present.

Jess nodded, her eyes meeting those of the Secretary without flinching.

“I want you to consider carefully the possible consequences of either telling me more or keeping it from me,” said Mei Lo. “Right now, you need to get home, see your family, and get some sleep. Tomorrow, you and I have things to discuss. Agreed?”

Jessamyn nodded.

“I’ll send my driver for you at 09:00.”

Jess flushed. “That won’t be necessary.”

The Secretary smiled. “I’m afraid it will be. You’re a planetary treasure now, Jessamyn. There’s a driver expecting you at the front desk as we speak. Your life will be more complex now, but I’m confident you’ll rise to the occasion.” Mei Lo gave Jess a brief hug and turned down the hall, leaving Jessamyn nothing to do but find the chauffeur appointed for her conveyance.

On the short drive home, Jess noticed details she hadn’t paid any attention to since she was a child. She was struck by the soft glow of New Houston, at how she could squint her eyes ‘til they were nearly shut and make the city lights flicker, candle-like. Mars’s sky seemed to her by night a thing immensely comforting, a dark blanket draped over her form like someone tucking her into bed for the night. Home-yearnings brought a sharp prickling to her eyes. She would not think of tomorrow or the day after. She would welcome only this present moment, this homecoming.

The Secretary must have contacted her parents; Jess saw the familiar suited form of her father waiting beside the drive outside her home. Automatically, she checked her own helmet—the simple action came back easily. Would it be as simple to step back inside her family? Her heart seemed to leap its way into her throat as she made out her dad’s features.

“This is good,” she said to the driver, half-rising from her seat as the vehicle slowed and halted. “Thanks,” she cried over her shoulder, swinging the door open. And then she was bounding, bouncing, half-flying toward to the arms of one who loved her best in all the world, ready for that which looked and smelled and sounded and felt familiar—ready for home.

Their helmets smacked as father and daughter collided. No words were spoken, and if Jess or perhaps her father wasted the water of a spilled tear or two, the Marsian sky, quiet and sheltering, kept the secret.

Eventually, the pair made their way through the front airlock and into the familiar round house.

“Your mother …” Jessamyn’s father broke off. “It’s been hard for her since we got the news about Ethan. She didn’t feel like she could face the crowds at touchdown today.”

“It’s okay,” said Jess. She hadn’t enjoyed the crowds, either.

“And then, well, she fell asleep waiting for you to get home and I didn’t have the heart to wake her—”

“It’s okay,” Jessamyn heard herself repeating. It felt anything but okay that her own mom wasn’t awake to give her a hug. “I’ll see her in the morning.”

“Jess,” said her father, frowning and looking toward the room her mother slept in.

“It’s okay, Dad. Really. I’m tired.”

Father and daughter stared at one another, unable to find words that felt as if they were the right size or shape or color.

Finally her father spoke. “It’s good to have you home, Jessie.”

The answer Jess knew she should give stuck in her throat. She couldn’t say it was good to be home when so many things felt awful and wrong.

7

TERRAN FEVER

Jessamyn settled upon the bed in her room, which smelled faintly of peroxide and dust, and fell swiftly asleep. But at some point in the night she awoke from a dark dream. Jumping from her bed and ready to flee, she felt too light, as though the planet were debating simply letting her go, no longer keeping her tethered to the ground. The sensation was vastly unpleasant and put her in mind of her brother’s preference for Earth’s heavy gravity. As she thought of him, her heart felt suddenly too large in her chest.

Already standing, she drifted toward his room. The sleep mat she’d brought in before the mission lay still upon Ethan’s floor. Pulling a blanket from off his bed, Jess curled onto the sleep mat and gazed up through her brother’s clear ceiling. She didn’t know where Earth would be at this time. A quick scan of the heavens showed her nothing with a bluish tint to suggest the Terran world. The Terran satellites, however, rolled past alongside Phobos, Mars’s largest moon. Deimos, the smaller moon, was nowhere to be seen. Staring until her eyelids grew heavy, Jess fell at last into a dreamless sleep.

She woke the next morning uncertain where she was. The surface upon which she lay was vibration-less and her eyes flew open, fearful the Galleon’s engines had cut out, which would mean no air filtration, no heat, no—Ethan’s room met her gaze, and she remembered where she was.

Outside the room, she heard her mother’s voice. Jessamyn was home. She tilted her head to catch Lillian’s words.

“She’s not in her room,” Jess heard her mom saying. “I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose. It’s just …”

Jess heard her father’s deep baritone. “Did you check Ethan’s room?”

There was a long pause. Her mother didn’t respond. And then Jessamyn heard Lillian’s familiar tread as her mom walked toward her.

Jess sat up, eager for the remembered touch of her mother’s worn cheek against hers. She felt like a four-annum-old child again.

But her mother, when she entered into the room, did not offer an embrace.

“This is your brother’s room,” said Lillian Jaarda, voice pinched with anger and pain.

Jess blinked. Her inner child scrambled for cover. Under the pretense of rubbing sleep from her eyes, Jessamyn hid her face. Excuses shuffled against one another for precedence. I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to watch the stars. I miss Ethan. She shoved all the excuses away, unwilling to expose the soft underbelly of her soul.

“It’s nice to see you, too, Mom,” Jess croaked. She placed a hand to her throat. She’d meant for her voice to convey sarcasm, not thirst.

Lillian Jaarda opened her mouth to snap something in retort but then seemed to change her mind. As she left the room, she called over her shoulder, “We’re sitting down for morning rations.”

Jess rose, realizing she’d slept in her clothes. She didn’t feel like changing even though she knew her mom wouldn’t like it. Well, her mom could just deal. Jess paused before the rations table, and her father leaned over to kiss her forehead.

“Morning,” he said, smiling.

“Morning,” she replied, her own face carefully neutral.

“Do you have plans to take over your brother’s room?” asked Jess’s mother in clipped tones.

“No, Mom,” she replied, pausing from a sip of water. “I just had a bad dream. I thought maybe watching the sky would help.”

“I see,” said her mother, her lips tight.

“The Secretary had a case of the new rations delivered this morning,” said Jess’s father, attempting to gently steer the conversation.

Lillian made a noise that indicated irritation. Jess’s mom disapproved of preferential treatment being offered to one citizen over another.

“I said we’d pick our rations up like any other family,” said her mother, “But the courier looked scared she’d lose her job.”

“You have that effect on people,” said Jessamyn, regretting the words as soon as she’d said them.

“One of the many qualities for which I agreed to marry you, my dear,” said her father, smiling calmly at his wife and daughter. “In any case, I signed for the box. And if I remember correctly, the flavor of the fresh rations will be quite, hmm—what’s the word? Eye-popping?”

“Yup,” Jess said, sinking into her place at the family ration table. She stared at her brother’s empty seat and wondered for a moment what it had been like for her parents, staring at the two empty chairs for the past thirty-nine mornings and evenings.

“I’ve got several messages for you,” said Lillian, all business. “You’ve got a full schedule the next week, young woman.”

Jess nodded as she reached for the copper-wrapped bar. She checked the date stamp. From this day forward, she would know with certainty that she or Ethan or Crusty or Kipper had handled these exact rations, exchanging them for bars of pressed Marsian tellurium. She watched her father as he opened his by first running a finger under the flap the length of the back side and then pinching the raised flap between forefinger and thumb. A quick twist and the packaging opened in his experienced hands.

Jess felt her throat squeezing tight. It was the same method her brother used.

“There will be a memorial service for those lost in service on Terra,” said her mother. Her matter-of-fact delivery of the information was intended to hide her emotion. But Jess knew every crease upon her mom’s tired face and could tell how deep the wound ran within her mother’s heart. “Then you’re scheduled for travel to New Tokyo and one other settlement—there’s still some debate as to whether it will be Squyres Station or Allentown.”

“Let her enjoy her morning ration,” murmured Jessamyn’s father. “Plenty of time for that later.”

“No, there is not plenty of time,” said Lillian. “That is precisely my point.” Turning to her daughter, she spoke again. “We’ll need to get suitable clothes for both the memorial and the … the …” Her mother paused, closing her eyes tight and grimacing. Lillian Jaarda never wasted water. “You’ll need something to wear to the celebration as well.”

Jess sighed. “I’ve got my Academy whites. They’re good enough.” She hardly ever had the opportunity to don the impractically white garb. Mars’s red soil made a mess of a good pair of whites so fast that they didn’t get much actual wear.

“Well, apparently the Secretary’s event coordinator feels you should be dressed in civvies for the next week, and that means we have a trip to downtown New Houston to fit into your busy schedule,” snapped Lillian.

“Dear,” interrupted Jess’s father, “I’m sure Academy whites will do.”

“Fine,” said Lillian, rising from the table. She smashed the copper wrap into the recycling mech’s narrow mouth. “You tell that to Ms. Interfering Niedermaier, why don’t you?”

The room became very quiet. Jess listened to the hum of the recycle mech.

“I’ll tell her,” said Jessamyn. “I’m sorry she bothered you. I’ll ask Mei Lo to make her stop.”

Jessamyn’s mother opened her mouth to say something but then seemed to deflate, her head falling into her hands, elbows hanging in the air.

“Mom, it’s going to be okay,” Jess said.

Her mother gave no response.

“It is, Mom,” Jess insisted. And then, before she could stop, she found herself saying, “I’m going back for Ethan. I promise I’ll find him. Then everything can be the way it was.”

That got her mom’s attention.

“What are you talking about?” asked Lillian.

“MCC owes it to Ethan and Harpreet and Kipper to send someone back to get them. Well, we don’t know if Kipper’s still alive. But her family deserves closure, at least. And Harpreet is, like …” Jess paused, struggling to find the words. “She’s a planetary treasure.” More quietly, she added, “And so’s Ethan.”

Lillian Jaarda raised her head, her eyes glistening with tears she refused to let fall. “How do you even know if he’s alive?”

“I know, Mom, okay? I would know if he … if something …” She broke off . “I would know. Besides, he sent a message.”

“He did?” Jessamyn’s parents asked the question together.

“Holy Ares,” muttered Jess. “I can’t believe they considered that classified. Yes. Ethan sent a message. It was weird, but it’s all the proof I need to know he’s okay. He couldn’t have done it if he’d been caught again, which means he must be okay. He’s with two very good Terrans.”

Her mother made a noise of derision and Jess found herself in the strange position of having to defend members of the Terran race.

“Good Terrans exist, Mom.”

“What did Ethan say?” asked Lillian, her voice soft. “In his message?”

Jessamyn frowned. “I didn’t memorize it. I’ll have to get it for you.”

Back in her room, she found her brother’s wafer and brought it to the rations table where she read aloud the strange message: “When you pass through the fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you. So says Ethan.”

Lillian’s face drained of all color. “It was the laser array,” she said.

Jessamyn stared at her mother, who had evidently decided to stop making sense.

“So that’s why Mei Lo wanted his expertise with ancient Terran computer code,” said Jessamyn’s father, nodding, his brow drawn tight.

“She sent him on a suicide mission to disable the lasers,” said Jess’s mother.

Jess’s eyes grew wide. Her mother figured that out from a bit of garbled poetry? “How do you know the lasers are disabled?”

Her father held up one hand. “We’re not asking you anything about your mission. I’m sure MCC has not authorized you to speak upon the subject. However, two weeks ago, a rumor began circulating that the satellites would no longer fire upon ships leaving Mars orbit.”

“It’s created a public-relations nightmare for Mei Lo,” said Jess’s mother, rubbing her temples.

Jessamyn ignored her mother’s statement—which sounded unrelated—and returned instead to the message from Ethan. “Why did you immediately assume Ethan’s message had something to do with the Terran satellite lasers?”

“His message—it’s a quote from a story we used to read to Ethan,” said Jess’s father. “Before you were born. The story of three men condemned to pass through a fiery furnace who survived the ordeal without so much as the smell of smoke upon their garments.”

“If we’re right about the laser disabling—and you don’t have to tell us anything,” continued Jess’s father, “Then the message you received is simply a confirmation that he was the one to disable the lasers’ ability to target ships departing Mars.”

Jess shook her head slowly. “No one was supposed to know except the five Mars Raiders aboard the Galleon, and Mei Lo.”

“We’re not asking you to confirm anything, Jessie,” said her father.

“No, no,” said Jess. “If people know about the lasers, I don’t see the point hiding it from you. I never got the chance to ask him if he succeeded—” She stopped abruptly. Memories of leaving her brother behind threatened to swallow her whole.

“So Ethan is alive,” whispered Lillian.

Jess forced herself to come back to the present, to her hope of rescuing her brother. “Yes,” she replied. “Yes, he is. And I intend to find him.”

“Oh, Jessamyn,” said her mother, shaking her head slowly. “You’re so young.”

“What?” demanded Jess, hands upon her hips. “Is it too much to expect a little support here? You’re his parents. First Mei Lo gives me a bunch of flimsy excuses and now you’re saying no, too? We owe it to them.”

“They’ll never let you go,” Lillian said dully. “Not now.”

“Why not?”

Her father sighed and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Mei Lo is under a lot of pressure right now,” he began.

“You want to know pressure?” asked Jess. Within her a frantic desperation built to tell her brother’s story. She was done with holding things in for the sake of others. “Try standing in front of a firing squad of Terran Red Forces!”

Lillian froze.

“They lined him up with Harpreet, and they shot them, Mom,” said Jess, a tear coursing down her face. “I didn’t know if they were both dead or alive or what. And I broke into the hospital to try to get him back. I tried, Mom, I tried so hard. And it wasn’t enough. Ethan’s stuck inside someone else’s body on Earth because I wasn’t smart enough to save him. But I’m not going to make the same mistakes next time.”

Jess’s mother, her face pale white, rose slowly from her chair. “You talk to her,” she said to Jess’s father. “I can’t.” Lillian walked out of the room.

Jessamyn’s father frowned, uncertain whether to follow his stricken wife or remain with his daughter.

“What is going on?” asked Jess. “I thought Mom would be grateful.”

His decision made, he sat with his daughter. “Ever since the announcement about the lasers was leaked, there’s been a contingency … a faction, if you will, who argue we should use this opportunity to renew trade relations with Earth.”

“Why?” asked Jess. “We fought a war with them.”

“Yes,” said her father. “And now there’s an idea that it’s time to put all of that behind us. That a more prosperous future awaits us if we can re-engage in trade. Things we need in exchange for tellurium.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” said Jess. “Has everyone on Mars suddenly forgotten what Terrans are like? Because I’d be happy to provide a refresher course.”

Her father shook his head. “The ideas are taking hold in people’s minds, Jess. The hope for a brighter future.”

“Our future looked plenty bright last time I checked,” said Jess.

“People don’t want to wait.”

“People are idiots in that case,” said Jess hotly. “What makes anyone so sure Terrans wouldn’t blow us out of the sky from Earth instead of Mars if we went there to converse about trade relations?”

“Hope,” her father said simply. “People—some people—want to speed up the timeline for terraforming. Some want a better quality of life. Some are just struck with Terran-fever, I guess.”

“There’s nothing wrong with our quality of life,” said Jessamyn.

Her father smiled sadly. “Says the girl who’s seen life on Earth.”

“Yes, I have seen it. And it sucked. We don’t want anything to do with the water planet, trust me. They are all crazy over there.” She frowned, thinking of Pavel and Brian Wallace. “Well, most of them are crazy. My point is, we do not need that kind of crazy interfering with life here on Mars.”

“Your mother and I agree with you,” he said. “But all of this Terran-fever means Mei Lo is rather overwhelmed at the moment. It’s not a good time to request a return mission.”

Jessamyn sat silently. She wasn’t going to argue the point with her father. Nor did she intend to drop the subject with Mei Lo.

“I need to go sit with your mother,” her father said softly.

“Of course,” said Jess. She stayed where she was. She couldn’t handle her mom. Not right now.

Down the hall, Jess could hear her father’s soft voice. A sense of disappointment filled Jessamyn as she examined the empty space surrounding her. This was not the homecoming she’d imagined. Nothing was right.

I just want things to be like they used to.

She wanted her brother back. She wanted a version of her mom who hugged. And now a bunch of greedy Marsians were standing in the way of everything she wanted. A faction, her father had called them. She wasn’t certain what it meant, but the word sounded horrible.

Pounding a fist upon the rations table, Jess rose and exited the front airlock, stepping into her walk-out suit and passing out of her dwelling.

Everything was horrible.

8

A PREDILECTION

By the end of her first few weeks at the New Timbuktu Gold Processing and Re-educational Center for the Retirement of Criminals, Harpreet Mombasu had made quite a name for herself. If you were depressed, prisoners advised, you should speak with Harpreet. Anxious? Consult Harpreet. Worried about your future? Harpreet. All of which tended naturally to: Have a yearning to confide desperately secret information? Harpreet will listen.

Not that she had forgotten her own sorrows or concerns. But on the twelfth day of her captivity, Harpreet had awoken from a dream with the certainty that the Red Galleon would touch down safely upon Mars.

“Well, that is most welcome news,” she said upon awakening. She didn’t question the information, simply took her dream as proof-positive the event would transpire.

Which tended to make her even more open to listening to the sorrows and concerns of others.

To date, she had heard the confessions of not one but two individuals who claimed to have formerly served as Head of Global Consciousness Transfer.

The fact that their stories, told individually, corroborated one another made it hard for Harpreet to doubt what either reported. The second (Harpreet thought of him as Number Two) told of how he’d agreed to assume the body of the first and to keep secret this deception. The first (Harpreet thought of him as Number One) expressed dismay at having awoken in prison, in a new body, only to see his former body accompanying Lucca Brezhnaya as if nothing had happened. The same body had apparently now been delivered to a third Head of Global Consciousness Transfer (whom Harpreet thought of as Number Three.)

“She likes to maintain the appearance of stability,” lamented Number Two. “But her government is rife with instability.”

Harpreet nodded and listened.

The Chancellor, it seemed, had a predilection for sending top government personnel to this particular prison. The hard labor wasn’t as likely to be the end of you as, say, the camps in Antarctica or Devon Island. Of course, Lucca had no problem summarily ending the lives of those she deemed of no further usefulness. Or those who simply angered her on a bad day. The political prisoners in New Timbuktu thus had some hope of being of further use to their former employer.

“And it is your desire to work once more for so corrupt an individual?” Harpreet often asked those who brought her their confessions.

The answers varied. Some swore they would die before aiding Lucca again. (Harpreet even believed some who said this.) Others said they would jump at any chance to leave New Timbuktu. No one, however, refused to answer Harpreet’s innocent-sounding question. Harpreet was too easy to confide in.

Thus the Mars-born woman began to form a list of the stories of those who wished to see a different sort of government upon Earth. She had no means of knowing if her information would ever prove useful; she simply gathered it as one might gather and sort interesting-looking rocks back home. And at the same time, she appreciated the opportunity to be of use and encouragement to those who were part of her new life.

One day, she made the acquaintance of Kazuko Zaifa, a scientist who had formerly worked in Budapest at the facility governing the satellites circling Mars.

“They accused me of leaking information to inciters,” she explained. “Information which allowed the inciters to breach security and infiltrate the building.”

“Ah,” said Harpreet. “And you were innocent.”

Kazuko nodded. “But they needed to blame someone. From what I’ve heard here, the Chancellor does not respond well to scenarios concluding without blame and punishment being assigned.”

Harpreet nodded. “It is a common failing of the dictatorial.”

“I’m lucky to be alive, really,” said Kazuko. “And luckier to have escaped interrogation with the Chancellor’s office. Security just threw me in here after asking a few questions about how it was possible for my system to have been hacked.”

“There is a mercy, certainly, in the discovery that we—or our life’s work—might be less significant than we had believed,” said Harpreet.

Kazuko laughed softly. “I suppose so. If I’d worked anywhere that really mattered to the government, I’d be dead.”

“Indeed,” replied Harpreet. “My friend, you have never asked how I came to be here.”

Kazuko flushed. “It felt like bad manners to ask you.”

“You are here today as a result of crimes committed by me,” said Harpreet. “Should I find myself someday able, I shall procure your freedom. In the meantime, I crave your forgiveness.”

Kazuko sat still for several minutes, digesting the news. Then she looked at Harpreet’s soft eyes and murmured, “You’ve been the truest friend I’ve known. There’s nothing to forgive.”

Not everyone shared Kazuko’s qualms about manners, but few ever thought to ask why Harpreet had been imprisoned. Harpreet was not surprised. She knew from long observation that most people were more interested in talking about themselves than listening to others.

So she gathered and listened, sorted and waited.

9

LOOKS LIKE DIRT

The weeks following Pavel’s new alliance with Ethan and Brian Wallace were challenging ones. Pavel had never faced considerations as basic as “Where will we sleep?” or “Where does food come from?” It had come as a shock to Pavel to learn that he was financially destitute. He had credits aplenty, but he had no safe means by which to access them if he wanted to remain hidden.

Ethan, of course, had no credits in his acquired body. Brian Wallace, however, was a very wealthy man, who had laid careful plans to be certain he was never cut off from his credits.

Unfortunately, Brian’s wealth could not buy the three shelter from among his former acquaintances. After a few hours, or a night at most, former friends confessed their reluctance to act in a way that would set them at odds with Brian’s cousin, the head of Clan Wallace.

“I’m sorry, truly, but I can’t risk her disfavor,” ran the responses time after time.

“I’m fine living on the ship,” Pavel declared, stoic.

“Aye, lad, but he’s not,” replied Brian, indicating Ethan.

“I will adapt,” said Ethan in a flat voice that little suggested how difficult it might be.

And so the three lived on their stolen ship, using Brian Wallace’s credits and planning for Ethan’s attempt to complete his mission.

Something of a breakthrough for Ethan’s mental health came one morning when Pavel woke to the sound of a monotone humming.

“Eth?” murmured Pavel.

No response.

“Ethan?”

Ethan broke off humming and, after a long minute’s struggle, spoke. “I am finding confinement difficult,” he confessed.

From the rear of the ship, Elsa whined above Brian’s snores.

“You and the dog, both,” said Pavel. “Listen man, I’m sorry.” He reached back to release the lock upon Elsa’s crate. “This is no life for either of you.” Pavel ruffled Elsa’s fur, but the dog darted to Ethan, licking his hands, his chin.

“Elsa,” murmured Ethan. Pavel had successfully reattached muscle, ligament, tendon, and bone in Ethan’s injured limb such that he now had the use of both arms. Ethan dug his two hands deep into Elsa’s coat. Her tail thumped noisily upon the ground.

“The dog relaxes you,” Pavel said to Ethan. His years at the hospital had made him a keen observer of physiology.

Ethan’s brows drew close. “Yes,” he replied. “I believe you are correct.”

From that day, Pavel began monitoring Ethan’s wellbeing, offering frequent prescriptions of “Elsa-time” to his Marsian friend.

Brian noted the improvement in Ethan’s mental health with a woeful pronouncement. “Me credits come in handy,” Brian said, “But it’s clear enough the real reason ye tolerate me is because of me dog. Ah, well. That’s good enough for me, I suppose.”

“We’re both exiles, man,” said Pavel, smiling sympathetically. It was a turning point in their relationship.

Pavel’s friendship with Wallace was cemented a few days later, following a disagreement over what sort of escape vehicle they ought to use for their upcoming mission to the satellite facility.

“My aunt’s ship is a worthless piece of junk,” declared Pavel. “It’s time we buy something with some real muscle.”

“‘We,’ indeed,” muttered Wallace.

“Muscle?” asked Ethan.

“Figure of speech,” replied Pavel and Brian in unison. They’d grown accustomed to Ethan’s confusion over non-concrete descriptions.

“We want something that can outrun security,” continued Pavel, growing animated. “Something with some actual power under the hood.”

“There’s no need to outrun security with an untraceable ship,” argued Brian Wallace.

Ethan disagreed. “The need for speed could become more paramount in an escape situation,” he said.

“Exactly,” said Pavel, grinning broadly. “If they can’t catch you, it doesn’t matter if they can trace you or not.”

“That is incorrect,” said Ethan.

“Come on, Ethan. Whose side are you on?” asked Pavel.

“Figure of speech,” murmured Wallace.

Pavel rolled his eyes. “Look. All I’m saying is this ship is slow. And now, when we’re planning to break into a secure facility, is the kind of situation where speed could be important.”

In the end, Wallace allowed himself to be persuaded when a ship was found which had the ability to jam tracking technologies.

“And ye’re certain it has to be this one, lad?” asked Brian Wallace, looking at the sleek, reflective silver of Pavel’s choice—a Hercules-class flyer.

“It’s got seven times the power of Lucca’s old dust-sucker,” said Pavel. His grin ran ear-to-ear as he dumped the specifications of the new vehicle on Wallace and Ethan. “Just look at her! She beat out the Novum Oddysseum by seventeen minutes in last year’s Singapore Classic. Now, that is a ship, my friends.”

“Aye, lad,” sighed Brian Wallace. “It’s a ship that says, ‘Notice me, if ye please.’ I don’t care for it.”

“C’mon, Wallace,” said Pavel. “You don’t think the Chancellor’s ship says, ‘Notice me’?”

Ethan was staring at both of them with a puzzled look. “Figures of speech?” he asked.

The pair nodded in response.

“Sorry, man,” said Pavel.

“Conversations with the two of you are most educational,” replied Ethan. “Brian Wallace, the racing ship is approximately twenty percent less likely to gather notice than the Chancellor’s luxury vehicle.”

“Ye don’t say?” asked Brian, surprised.

And so the trio flew away in a newer, faster, and very much shinier Hercules-class craft that afternoon, Pavel whooping at the helm as he put the ship through her paces.

“Thanks, man,” said Pavel to Brian Wallace, grinning broadly.

“You’re entirely welcome, lad,” replied Wallace.

The two argued less after that. In fact, after attracting stares and whistles at their next stop, Pavel allowed Wallace to persuade him of the need for something less visually appealing and consented to having the ship painted a dull shade of brown.

“It looks like dirt,” Pavel said sadly when they’d completed the transformation.

“Aye,” said Wallace, snorting with laughter. “So it does. Dirt. That’s something we two can agree on.”

Meanwhile, Wallace’s many connections with the underground world of activities deemed criminal by Lucca Brezhnaya’s government proved to have their uses. The Scot was not able to obtain direct assistance from Clan Wallace to break into the satellite facility. But through means indirect, the party of Brian, Pavel, and Ethan were finally equipped with scan passes, codes, and intelligence about security within the building, which appeared to have been down-graded to video-surveillance and one security guard only, if reports were to be believed.

The evening of their planned mission arrived. Ethan estimated that he needed ninety minutes to finish the work of redirecting the control of the satellites to MCC. Pavel suggested they arrive between four-thirty and five in the morning, a time night-shift guards favored for drinking the strong black Budapesti coffee known as kávé.

“Zussman—our butler—worked security when he was a twobody,” said Pavel. “He swore by that four-thirty cup of coffee to get you through ‘til the shift ended.”

This led to another disagreement between Brian and Pavel as Pavel steered the craft toward Budapest.

“Lad, we don’t want security distracted,” said Brian Wallace. “We want them unconscious.”

“That is not an acceptable first option,” replied Pavel.

Ethan stepped between the two, figuratively, suggesting that Pavel was well-informed to know what sort of drug might render someone unconscious with the least amount of damage to the individual’s person.

Wallace shrugged his agreement. “It’s more humane than striking them a blow to the brains, I’ll grant ye.”

Ethan, who had been researching medicinal methods of knocking someone out, made several suggestions and Pavel grudgingly approved one of them. He didn’t like the idea of harming someone who could have been Zussman.

“You are a healer,” said Ethan. “It would be morally reprehensible in you to be eager to cause harm.”

Pavel looked at his long fingers arrayed upon the nav-panel. He had been a healer. Now he didn’t know what he was.

He brought the ship to a halt just one street over from the satellite facility.

Quietly, they gathered the few supplies they required. Then the two walking and the one hovering made their way in a silence broken only by the sound, overhead, of large cruisers carrying commuters to or from work. The air was fresh with the nutmeg-scent of something like fossil fuels or perhaps paint thinner. Pavel, who had been hoping to smell kávé, was disappointed. At the corner of a neighboring building, Ethan stopped to wait, leaving him closest to the ship and safety, while the other two proceeded ahead of him.

Ethan had manufactured earpieces similar to those he and Jessamyn had once worn, so that the three could stay in communication with one another.

When Brian Wallace and Pavel reached the narrow food-service entrance in back, it became Wallace’s turn to stay behind while Pavel scouted out the building. Pavel proceeded cautiously around a darkened corner toward the room Ethan would need to access. Having seen no one yet made Pavel nervous rather than confident, but he gave the signal for Ethan to cross the empty lot and enter the building. Wallace remained to stand guard at the entrance.

Vaguely, Pavel wondered if Ethan would feel afraid approaching the place where he’d been captured by Red Squadron Forces. A slow minute ticked past and then Pavel heard the hum of Ethan’s hoverchair.

Shizer, he thought. He hadn’t counted on the noise of Ethan’s mode of transport. The slight whine was a result of a modification Pavel had made to boost power to the chair. Wallace had laughed at what Pavel had done, calling it overkill. Pavel didn’t see how giving a hoverchair the ability to outpace most hoverbikes was a mistake. He’d have wanted it if he were reliant upon a chair to get around.

But the whining sound didn’t give them away; the place seemed abandoned. Ethan appeared and immediately set to work upon a flat panel lining the entire wall of the small room. Pavel consulted a chronometer and then left Ethan so as to stand guard in the hall. The building was eerily silent.

But after some twenty minutes had passed, the quiet hum was joined by the sound of Brian Wallace’s voice in Pavel’s earpiece.

“We’ve got company, lads,” whispered Wallace.

“Shizer!” Pavel muttered, already dashing back to Ethan.

“Visitors! We’ve got to go—now!” whispered Pavel. “This way!”

But Ethan was gliding in a different direction. “Follow me,” Ethan said to Pavel. “I have memorized the floor plans.”

Pavel nodded.

“Grab the back of my chair,” Ethan called softly.

A moment later when Ethan put the hoverchair through its paces, careening madly around corners and down corridors, Pavel understood the genius of having him ride behind. It was faster and quieter than running.

Beyond one open door, Pavel thought he saw a flash of red armor and his heart began to beat wildly.

We should be to Wallace by now, he thought worriedly.

And then abruptly they were back to Wallace. Who was pinned against the wall by an officer in red.

10

BUNCH OF BLAMED FOOLS

The sun had risen hours ago and glided now along its summer-arc, warming Mars’s northern hemisphere to just above freezing. Jessamyn stood outside her home awaiting the arrival of her transport. Her time with her parents had left her frustrated, and she kicked at small rocks along the front of their home. When this failed to settle her, she began to pick them up and throw them as far as she could, gazing with envy at the freedom with which the rocks sailed away.

A small hopcraft arrived within half an hour and Jess repeated the unsatisfying experience of not being the pilot inside one of the Secretary’s transports.

Upon arriving at MCC, frustrated and disgruntled, she slipped out of her walk-out suit and was immediately ushered into the private office of Mars’s CEO.

“Good morning, Pilot Jaarda,” said Mei Lo, smiling.

“Madam Secretary,” said Jess, nodding in deference, trying to shed the frown that had taken up residence upon her face.

“I’m behind schedule as usual,” said Mei Lo. “Some things never change.” A swift shake of her head. “I need to discuss a pressing matter with you.” The Secretary rose and crossed to a small window set to overlook the Marsian desert. “In spite of your brother’s efforts, we do not have control of the satellite array.”

Jess frowned. “My parents told me everyone is saying the lasers can’t hurt us anymore.”

“Yes. We had a fine time decoding your brother’s message, I can tell you.” She pressed her lips together. “Unfortunately, that information was leaked to all of Mars Colonial and has now become a banner behind which many rally.”

“I heard about the faction who want to reopen trade with Earth,” said Jessamyn.

“You would have, with Lillian and Geoffrey for parents. They’ve been a great support.” Mei Lo sighed softly. “But merely turning off the targeting lasers solves very little and has created new problems for MCC.”

“I’m happy to tell everyone the truth about Terrans,” said Jessamyn. “The way I see it, we just need to educate the citizens of Mars Colonial as to the true nature of Terrans and that will do two things. It’ll change everyone’s mind about trade relations and convince anyone who needs convincing that we owe it to the Mars Raiders to bring them home.”

“Jessamyn, Jessamyn,” said Mei Lo, sighing. “If only things were that straightforward.”

“It’s very simple, Ma’am,” said Jessamyn, gathering steam. “You’re right that I didn’t tell you everything about my encounters on Earth. But I’m willing to lay it all out in front of you. And when I do, it will be plain as day that we do not want to establish relations with any member of the Terran government.”

“You don’t have to convince me,” said the Secretary. “What you don’t understand is that you won’t be able to convince those who are pro-trade.”

Jess scowled. “You’re right I don’t understand. But it’s pretty basic: Terrans are cruel and selfish and wasteful. What’s so hard about explaining that to people?”

Mei Lo rose and stood before the small window behind her desk. “I can’t send you back,” she said at last.

Jessamyn spluttered, attempting to begin a new argument.

“No—” Mei Lo held up a hand. “I cannot send you back now. If we are very careful and considered in our actions for the next twenty-three months, it may be possible to send a rescue party the next time Earth draws near.”

Jess felt her skin grow suddenly cold. “If I don’t go now, I think my brother will die,” she said softly. “He won’t make it a full annum. I just know it.”

The Secretary shook her head. “If I were to send a ship now, without making allowances for trade, the public outrage would grow beyond what I can contain. My government would fall. I’m doing everything in my power to prevent that, Jess, because if this government goes down, the one that rises in its place will be committed to changes to the Marsian way of life that will destroy us.”

When she finished, the two remained silent, the room echoing with the Secretary’s words.

“I don’t understand,” said Jess at last.

“I know,” said Mei Lo. “There are days I don’t understand either.”

Jessamyn sat still for a moment, gazing at the opaque-glass door sealing off Mei Lo’s office. Shadows passed by in ones and twos. “Do the people who say they want us to trade with Earth really mean it? They’re not just, I don’t know, flirting with the idea?”

“They believe and argue with passion that it is in Mars’s best interest to re-open trade,” replied the Secretary.

Jess didn’t know what to say. She only knew she would never, ever, want to be in a position to bargain with Lucca Brezhnaya or her government.

Mei Lo sighed softly. “I’ve managed to keep peace by promising to carefully examine the possibility of sending a negotiations team in an annum. That’s what this has come to: delay as my best option. My government has maintained that the Galleon cannot fly again so soon after her recent voyages. I never thought I’d say this, but there is a mercy in our having only one space-worthy craft.”

The finality of Mei Lo’s rationale sank in and Jessamyn felt as though ice ran through her veins instead of blood. “I see,” she said quietly.

“Give everyone an annum to cool this Terran fever, and perhaps we can send a mission to rescue our friends without the danger of awakening the Terran beast that will turn upon and devour us.”

“I see,” Jess repeated. But then she wondered. Did she see it clearly? Or was she simply prejudiced against the idea of interactions with Terrans because they’d captured her brother? She looked at the blurred outlines of the people walking past Mei Lo’s office. Maybe she wasn’t seeing things clearly because she’d clouded her vision with anger and hatred.

“Madam Secretary, do you think maybe … is it possible Terrans no longer present a threat to us?” asked Jessamyn.

“Jessamyn,” said the Secretary, her head shaking.

But Jess pushed ahead. “Maybe I’ve just been blinded because they hurt people I loved. I mean, they thought we were inciters—terrorists.”

“Jess,” said Mei Lo, more sharply.

Jessamyn looked up to see Mei Lo closing her eyes and pressing her forefinger and thumb along the bridge of her nose. “They are dangerous,” she said at last. “You know this.”

“I know,” said Jessamyn. What had she been thinking? She knew the truth about Lucca Brezhnaya. She sighed. “I just want my brother back.”

“So do I,” said Mei Lo. “So do I.”

Nessa Niedermaier bustled in. “Madam Secretary? Pilot Jaarda? We’re ready for you in studio one.”

“Bells of Hades,” muttered the Secretary. “Raider Jaarda? You and I will continue this discussion at a later time. Nessa, lead on.”

The hour-long interview with Mars Global Vid proved as much of a challenge for Jess as her exchange with the Secretary. The news anchor asked ridiculous questions: Do Terrans look just like us? Were you able to understand them when they spoke? These, she alternated with questions Jessamyn found too deeply private to answer. What was your lowest point, personally, on the mission? How did you find yourself able to move past the incredible sorrow of the loss of three crew members? Of the Red Dawn?

Jessamyn hid her anguish under a cover of irritability and allowed Crusty to handle increasing numbers of questions.

“Crustegard—we’re all friends here—can I call you Crusty?” asked the eager interviewer. “Did you encounter actual body-swappers?”

The mechanic cleared his throat with a low rumble Jess felt certain hid laughter. “Mighty difficult to avoid ‘em if your intention is to trade what’s in your ship’s hold for what they’ve got planet-side.”

“Hmm,” replied the anchor. “Of course. What we’re all wondering though—and I think I speak for everyone at home—is … how did you feel standing in the presence of someone who wasn’t even wearing the skin they were born with?”

Crusty stared at the face of the woman interviewing him. Jess saw him pause as he regarded her lack of First Wrinkle, her exaggerated eyelashes, her unnaturally colored lips. “There’s plenty enough folk here on Mars dressed in somethin’ that don’t resemble what God gave ‘em to start with. I reckon the Terran I spent my time with would fit in just fine here.”

“Well, that just about wraps it up for our time here this morning,” said the woman. “One last question for each of you. Let’s start with you, Crusty: what did you find yourself missing most?”

“Bein’ left alone,” said Crusty, eliciting laughter from around the room.

The anchor smiled brightly and turned to Jessamyn. “And yourself? What did you miss most?”

Jessamyn’s heart beat faster. Her mind threw answers at her, loud and fast. Sunrise over Mount Cha Su Bao. Rations with my parents. Playing Monopoly. Scrubbing the solars. Flying. Pavel. “The smell of peroxide,” murmured Jessamyn.

“Well there you have it, folks. She travels over one hundred million kilometers and she misses the one thing I spend all day trying to keep out of the house!”

The moment the vid recorders turned off, the newswoman’s fake smile disappeared. After a cursory thank you to the Mars Raiders, the anchor turned to the Secretary and murmured, “Well, I guess you didn’t choose them for their verbal skills, did you?”

Jess flushed and stood to leave.

“Oh-oh-oh,” said Nessa Niedermaier, reaching to grab Jess by the shoulder. “Just one moment. We’ve got you back on camera this afternoon with the board of directors, and that gives us just enough time to get the two of you into New Houston Outfitters for a fresh new look.”

Crusty stared at her as though considering which of the several salient phrases from his colorful vocabulary might best suit the occasion.

“I’ll be wearing my Academy whites for all future public appearances,” said Jess curtly.

“Hmm, well, we were thinking of an image that your average girl-about-Mars could relate to a bit better,” said Nessa.

“Her whites will be fine,” said the Secretary calmly. “I believe this is the ideal opportunity to inspire Mars’s future generation of scientists and explorers. Wouldn’t you agree, Nessa?”

The events coordinator made a series of abbreviated noises before landing on what it was she had to say. “Very well, Madam Secretary. If you think that would be best.”

“It’s settled then,” said Mei Lo. “And Crusty? Feel free to don work coveralls if you’d prefer. We have another generation of builders and engineers to inspire as well.”

Nessa’s powdered face colored visibly, but a small squeak of alarm was her only audible objection.

“Jaarda, I’ll see you back at my office at 14:00 sharp,” said the Secretary. “We’ve still got things to discuss.”

The studio, now empty of all excepting Crusty and Jessamyn, felt suddenly like that last place Jess wished to be.

“I’m going to suit up,” said Jess.

“You feel like takin’ a walk over to the Galleon?” asked Crusty.

Jess nodded. Minutes later the two strode side by side toward MCC’s largest spacecraft hangar. To one side of the Galleon was the space where the Red Dawn should have rested. Someone had piled it with crates and equipment, and the sight felt to Jessamyn like the desecration of a grave.

“Galleon’s in much better shape than she oughta be, by rights,” said Crusty, interrupting her morbid thoughts via their private comm.

“Is she?” asked Jess.

“Well,” said Crusty, bumping a gloved hand against his helmet as he tried (and failed) to scratch his chin. “I reckon she’s good for another couple trips before she starts complaining too bad.”

Crusty grew talkative as he took Jessamyn around the hull of the Galleon, pointing out minor repairs his crew had completed overnight. “Talked that event-nut of the Secretary’s into the idea that the ship oughta look like something special for folks to come see the evening after the big celebratory shindig.”

Neither of them had discussed the memorial service or the celebration. Jessamyn understood that the citizens of Mars deserved these planetary holidays to acknowledge the recent losses as well as the mission’s success. She just wished she didn’t have to be a part of it.

“I know you and the Secretary been talking,” murmured Crusty. “Just so’s you know, there’s nothing standing in the way of you taking this ship back up right now,” said Crusty. “Well, nothin’ I can’t get to in the next two days. Air filter needs a good wash-down. Picked up all kinds of microbes off you and me from our time on Earth. Stuff’s been reproducing like crazy on the trip back here. Thought about callin’ in the interns at Planetary Agriculture to have a peek.”

“You’re telling me this ship can fly a two-month mission now?” asked Jessamyn.

“Sure. Long as you get the Secretary’s say-so,” replied Crusty.

Jess reached for her oxygenation dial. Abruptly, it felt as if there wasn’t enough air to breathe in her suit.

“Hey, you okay? I thought this’d be good news. I say something wrong?” asked Crusty.

Jess pressed her gloved hand against Crusty’s forearm, managing a small squeeze. “It’s great news,” she said. “But you’re keeping quiet about it, right?”

“I ain’t what you might call the talkative sort,” Crusty said. “In case it escaped your attention.”

Jess chortled. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d found something amusing. “You heard about the … faction that wants to trade with Earth?”

Crusty snorted in indignation. “My granny’s elastic knickers—bunch of blamed fools is what they are.”

Jess nodded. “I know.”

“Oh, hey,” called Crusty from where he stood examining a rivet on the landing gear. “They boxed up your stuff and your brother’s stuff. You can pick it up over at suit repair.”

“Crusty?” whispered Jess. “Would there be time to get everything we’d need? Spacesuits, replacement parts for wafers, food and drink …” Her mind boggled at the thought of possible items that could be missing.

“You let me worry about that part,” said Crusty. “I’ve got folks thinking they’re setting this place up like an Ares-i-fied museum. All the parts’ll be there or they’ll have me to answer to.” He leaned in closer. “And I’m a bona fide planetary hero, by Ares.” He stretched his arms out to the side and then patted his chest vigorously. “A hero, I tell you.”

The gesture was so uncharacteristic for Crusty that Jess felt sure he’d done it to lighten her gloomy and cautious mood.

She gave him a tentative smile.

“I’ll see you around, kid,” said the mechanic. “Some of us got work to do.”

11

VULNERABLE

Jess had plenty of time to return to the Secretary’s office on foot for her meeting at 14:00. A simple walk across the plain between the hangars and MCC. Something everyday. Something normal.

“Yeah,” she muttered to herself, exiting the hangar. “Normal.” She kicked a small rock outside, sending it soaring. “Well the ship loaded with normal sailed, didn’t it?” She no longer knew what was normal. Her time was not her own. She couldn’t borrow a planet-hopper and chase sunsets around the globe. She didn’t know to whom she would apply for a craft—Lobster was gone. Her mother was moody, her father apologetic, her brother tens of millions of kilometers away. Her lips cracked no matter how diligently she drained her wet ration packets. Feeling tears pricking the back of her eyes, Jessamyn crossed her arms and sat upon a large, flattish rock halfway between the hangar and MCC’s offices.

Staring out at the tans, golds, and reds of her planet, she took in the fierce and deadly beauty that was Mars. The low rim of Prakash Crater looked especially near today. While she’d been away, the northern hemisphere had crossed from spring into summer. Dust storms, common in winter, often obscured Prakash entirely, but today she could see the shadowed creases of the rim which rose as high as a kilometer above the planitia beside which New Houston had been founded.

Pulling her gaze closer, Jess saw the familiar pebbles and small rocks that broke up the flattened landscape. Ellipses formed to one side of each small stone, reminding Jess of her granddad’s sundial. She’d never been able to tell time with it. Jess smiled to herself, realizing her pirate granddad had probably not been able to either. Most likely he’d just been good at lying about it. He could out-bluff a de-sulfurization salesman talking to first-time home buyers.

The sky had managed to herd a few wispy clouds to one side. Jess tried to remember Earth’s blue sky but couldn’t. Mars’s sky glowed yellow midday, looking exactly like a proper sky ought to. She sighed, wishing she could sit there all day. Wishing she could chase that sun around the planet.

But the Secretary was a very busy woman.

Jess murmured to her world, “You’re so very beautiful,” and rose to leave.

The Secretary kept her waiting several minutes before bursting out of her office and announcing a change in plans. “If I have to spend another minute inside this room I swear I will break something. Grab your suit, pilot. We’re going out in a hopcraft.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” said Jessamyn, a small smile upon her lips. She felt certain that whatever the Secretary had to discuss with her, it would sound a whole lot better from inside a cockpit.

Within ten minutes Jess and the CEO of Mars Colonial were heading toward Gale Crater, a lonely place if ever there was one on Mars. The sun cast shadows long and crisp along the eastern slope of Aeolis Mons. A full third of the crater lay in deep shade as well, due to the mountain-like rise of the crater’s rim. Mei Lo directed Jessamyn to bring the craft to rest along the western edge.

The two sat in silence for several minutes. Jessamyn thought of Kilimanjaro, one of Earth’s great mountains, and how it had seemed immense to her as she’d flown past it mere weeks ago. Mars’s Aeolis Mons, or Mount Sharp, was the taller by several hundred meters. She tried to imagine Gale Crater swimming with wildebeest and smiled at the images her mind returned. Someday, she thought. Someday the embryos would be awakened from their long cryogenic rest. Someday wild creatures would roam free on Mars as they did on Earth.

“I come here when I need to think,” said Mei Lo. “Did you realize this crater hosted one of the early Earth robotic missions?”

Jessamyn thought she remembered something about it from school.

“A rover landed here,” continued the Secretary. “It inspired a generation of children to yearn for the world we call home. Without Curiosity and her predecessors, there would have been no Mars Colonial.”

“Harpreet inspired me,” said Jessamyn.

“Not your grandfather?” asked Mei Lo in surprise.

Jess thought about it. “No. Isn’t that funny? But I remember every one of Harpreet’s visits to my classroom. I wanted to be just like her.”

The Secretary nodded. “You’re well on your way, Jessamyn.”

Another silent minute passed.

Jess noticed a transport craft circling overhead, perhaps bringing citizens of New Tokyo to her own settlement for the upcoming week of gatherings.

“You must miss her very much,” murmured the Secretary.

Jessamyn nodded her agreement. Her throat felt swollen and she didn’t trust herself to speak.

“I miss her every hour of every day, myself,” said Mei Lo. She shook her head once, twice, and then took a deep breath. “I canceled my afternoon meetings to come out here with you today. I wish to speak to you of something that you must never share with anyone else on Mars.”

Jess’s heart beat faster. Was the Secretary going to give her blessing to a rescue mission?

“I became the recipient of a terrible secret when I became CEO of Mars Colonial. I now intend to share it with you.”

Jess turned to the Secretary, feeling confused.

Mei Lo continued. “During our years of conflict with the Terran government, members of MCC became aware of certain irregularities in the Terran Re-body Initiative as it was practiced on Earth. My predecessors noticed other things—similarities in the rhetoric and speech patterns of successive governing officials. Odd disappearances of elected officials which were always treated as though they were deep and unsolvable mysteries. Or not investigated at all. After a decade of these and other observations, the CEO of Mars Colonial came to the conclusion that some members of Earth’s population were using the re-body program to extend their lives indefinitely.

“The deception seemed limited to government officials, but as there were hundreds of these, and as they re-bodied more frequently than the prescribed eighteen-year period, we deduced that many thousands of Earth’s citizens met an untimely demise in order that Earth’s governing officials might remain alive—and in power—for inordinate amounts of time.

“When the Terran Head of Global Consciousness Transfer voluntarily left her position due to ‘irreconcilable differences’ with her government, agents from MCC questioned her privately. She confirmed our suspicions about the abuses of the system. Days later, she disappeared with no trace. No real effort was launched to find her remains or the cause of her death.”

Jess murmured, “She knew too much.”

“It would appear so. The Terran program, while utterly repellant, had at least seemed fair-minded from a certain perspective until this point. However, when the Secretary General of Mars Colonial at that time confronted the Terran Viceroy and Chancellor with this information, they did not attempt to deny our accusations. Instead, they issued a simple warning: Tell the people of Earth what you know, and we will destroy every man, woman, and child upon Mars.”

A sharp intake issued from Jessamyn’s lungs.

Mei Lo nodded grimly. “The No Contact Accords were signed with this understanding between the Viceroy and MCC. Mars’s CEO made a deal with Earth’s Viceroy to keep this secret,” said the Secretary as she gazed out over the lengthening shadows. “We have taken seriously the Viceroy’s promise to use deadly force if we did not keep our silence. Only Mars’s CEO and three members of the MCC board of directors were privy to this information. Those four told only the incoming CEO, who told the next CEO, who told me.”

“Why tell anyone?” asked Jess. It was Earth’s problem, wasn’t it? That much seemed clear to her.

“Why, indeed,” murmured the Secretary, watching as the Marsian sun seemed to hang over the horizon, resisting day’s end. “I have wished, many times, that I did not carry this dreadful secret.” She turned to Jessamyn. “Don’t you see what it means for you? For me? For every citizen of Mars Colonial?”

Jess frowned. “It doesn’t mean anything for us. I mean, for Terrans, it’s definitely a problem.”

The Secretary General shook her head softly. “No, Jessamyn, it’s not only a Terran problem. Do you not see that we live as free Marsians today because we were silent when innocent blood was shed on Earth?” said Mei Lo. “I do not intend to pass this dark secret to my successor.”

Jess shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “You just passed it to me, Ma’am. What am I supposed to do with it?”

“My intention,” said Mei Lo, “Is to let all of Mars Colonial know this secret. To bring it out into the light once and for all.”

“Why?” asked Jessamyn. It seemed to her like the kind of thing that ought to be buried and forgotten.

“I intend to allow Mars’s citizenry to debate whether the information ought to be made public on Earth,” said the Secretary.

“Oh,” said Jessamyn. “Oh, my.”

“Yes. Oh, my, indeed.”

“Begging your pardon, but are you sure that’s a good idea?” asked Jess. “I mean, I can see that from a certain perspective, it sounds fair-minded, but what if the Terran government decides to retaliate?” In her mind’s eye, she saw the laser cutting the Red Dawn into smaller and smaller pieces. She remembered Pavel’s heartless Aunt Lucca. “I have to say that if anyone’s capable of blowing Mars Colonial to Hades, the current Terran Chancellor fits the bill.”

“Yes,” said Mei Lo. “She would do it. It’s my belief that she’s been in power for nearly three hundred Terran years.”

“She—what?” Jessamyn ran the math quickly in her head. “You’re saying Pavel’s aunt has been in power since before the war?”

The Secretary nodded. “In different bodies and with different identities. That is my belief as it was that of my predecessors.”

“That’s appalling,” Jess whispered. Then a long shudder ran from the top of Jess’s skull down to her toes. “We can’t tell Terrans this secret. Lucca Brezhnaya would destroy us if we did.”

“It is a secret I cannot in good conscience keep,” replied the Secretary. “And I could be wrong. The current Chancellor may have arrived in office through more conventional means. But I suspect our old enemy sits to one side of the throne still.”

Jess shivered again.

“In any event,” continued Mei Lo, “Since the day I came to office and learned of this, I’ve sworn to bring the Terran government’s secret to light. However, I have no intention of leaving Mars Colonial vulnerable to destruction.”

“Oh,” sighed Jessamyn, finally understanding the urgency behind Ethan’s secret mission. “This is the real reason you want the laser satellites under Marsian control.”

The Secretary nodded slowly.

Jess looked down. She saw her hands clenched into tight fists, whitening from the strain. “There’s something I should probably tell you.” She took a slow breath. “I stabbed the Terran Chancellor. She’s one of Earth’s highest-ranking officials. She’ll be out for blood.”

“She knows about Mars Colonial?” asked the Secretary, alarmed.

“No, no,” said Jess. “But I talked her nephew into helping me. So he knows about us.” She struggled as she described the decisions that had seemed so clear on Earth when she’d made them. How she’d told Pavel (albeit under the influence of a truth-inducing drug) about Mars. How he’d helped her escape. How he’d turned upon his aunt, the powerful Lucca Brezhnaya. How he’d rescued her re-bodied brother and then lost him. How he’d promised to find and keep Ethan safe.

The Secretary glanced at a clock, grimacing. “We’ve got big problems, then, Jaarda. I’m not sure if I’m furious with you for withholding this information yesterday or relieved that you chose to tell me today.”

“You’re welcome to go with furious, Ma’am. It was as good as lying.” Jessamyn swallowed thickly, recalling how the Secretary despised lies.

“I think I am angry. Holy Ares, Jessamyn, what were you thinking—stabbing the Chancellor?”

Jess felt color rushing to her face. “I was thinking of my promise to bring food back to Mars, Madam Secretary.” Her eyes fixed upon her boots. She’d tracked Mars-dirt into the Secretary’s hopcraft. It was far from her worst offense.

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Mei Lo, exasperation in her tone. “And honestly, it makes no difference to the course of action I’m planning.” Her eyes narrowed. “I wonder if we could spin your encounter to further discourage those who want—” She broke off, shaking her head. “What am I thinking? I’m getting as bad as the pro-trade faction.”

Jessamyn looked over to her planet’s leader just as the last of the sunlight sank behind the crater’s rim. The hopcraft felt colder inside without the glow.

“Well,” said Jessamyn, sighing, “The one good thing in all of this is that you’ve got an excellent argument against the humanity of Terrans.”

Mei Lo turned her gaze swiftly to meet Jess’s eyes. “This secret must not leave this hopcraft.”

“This secret’s your best chance to shut up the pro-trade faction, wouldn’t you say?”

“What do you think would happen if one of them decided to try to bargain with Brezhnaya using this information?” asked the Secretary.

Jessamyn frowned. “What, you mean like, tell the Terran government, ‘Trade with us or else?’”

“Trade with us, supply us with technology,” replied the Secretary. “If Lucca Brezhnaya received such an offer, framed in friendship or threat, how do you think she would respond?”

Jessamyn didn’t even have to consider her response. “She’d annihilate us.”

“This is the fear that keeps me up nights,” said Mei Lo.

It was awful, thought Jess. Mars’s leader had one foolproof reason to avoid contact with Earth, but she didn’t dare expose it. Not until Mars Colonial could defend herself, at least.

“You must look very backward-minded and stubborn to a lot of Marsians right now,” said Jess.

The Secretary laughed. “I’ve been called far worse these past two weeks. This Terran fever is no new thing. Or not entirely new. A smaller group has argued this way for the past decade. But no one really listened until word got out the lasers were down.”

“And we know they’re really down?” asked Jess.

“I’ve been putting off testing until after you returned. Arguing that only a test with a large vessel could be used as conclusive proof, that sort of thing. And of course we don’t want to send the Galleon as test-material. I’ve got things tied up for the next half-annum at least.”

Jess felt her heart sink. “You don’t want proof until after it’s too late for the Galleon to go this annum.”

“I need time, Jessamyn. I’ve got our brightest minds working on the problem of how to gain control of the lasers. I need that control before I can tell Mars Colonial the truth about Earth.” She paused, sighing. “Your brother said it wouldn’t be possible to gain that control anywhere but on Earth. Ares and Aphrodite, I hope he was wrong.”

Jess felt a knot twisting her stomach. “Me too,” she said. But it wasn’t the kind of thing her brother got wrong.

The Secretary placed one of her small hands upon one of Jessamyn’s. “I am so very, very sorry Jessamyn. But you can see what this means—”

“I think so,” Jess replied, cutting her off. Staring out at the darkening sky, she formed her thoughts. “But spell it out for me. If you were to authorize a mission for rescue without authorizing a mission for trade, what would happen?”

“In the current climate? I would face a vote of no confidence. Informal polling suggests I would lose.” The Secretary rested the base of her palms upon her lap. She extended her fingers and stared at her outstretched hands. “The Rations Storage fire was the beginning of a shift, Jess. People saw the truth more clearly: we are vulnerable. No one likes being vulnerable. Trade with Earth seems like a good way to stop being vulnerable.”

“We’ve always been vulnerable,” said Jess.

“Well, now it’s on everyone’s mind. Thanks to a handful of very loud voices.”

“Then you must not send me.” Jessamyn heard the words coming out of her mouth as though they were formed by someone else. “Mars Colonial won’t stand a chance without you at the helm.”

It was the end of Jessamyn’s hope for a return to “normal.”

“Thank you for understanding,” said the Secretary.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” asked Jessamyn.

“Speak honestly about the hostility you encountered. About the military strength of Earth.” The Secretary’s sober face softened into a small smile. “But most of all, Jessamyn, you can inspire others to hope for the free and independent Mars we all want. You’re a hero. Choose your words and actions wisely. The eyes of the world are upon you.”

Jess nodded. She would carry herself differently. She’d been sullen—peevish, even—at the earlier recording. She couldn’t afford to indulge in such selfish behavior. The fate of her world mattered more than that.

“It’s time for us to return,” said Mei Lo.

“I won’t let you down this time, Madam Secretary.”

“You never have, Pilot Jaarda.”

They flew back to New Houston in the light of early evening. Jessamyn did her best in the studio to focus upon what was important, to be sober and engaged, to speak honestly her concerns about the hostility of Terrans towards those who didn’t think like Terrans, to speak with passion about her return to the world she loved, her eagerness for Mars Colonial to continue upon its path of self-sustainability.

The news anchor seemed baffled but pleased at the appearance of this new Jessamyn and thanked her, saying it was an honor to have spent the hour with one of Mars’s true heroes.

But Jessamyn didn’t feel like a hero. She felt like a sister who’d just agreed to let her brother wither upon a strange world.

12

A SNEEZING FIT

Pavel backed Ethan’s chair around the corner. They’d been out of the guard’s line of sight, but Brian Wallace had almost assuredly seen them. Pavel and Ethan could hear Wallace as he blustered through a tale of four monstrous lads in the building.

“I owe them credits,” said Wallace. “They agreed to let me stand guard in exchange for my debt so long as I asked no questions.”

The guard, facing away from the hidden pair, spoke over a com-link. Pavel couldn’t make out his words.

“You can’t put me in a re-education facility,” pleaded Wallace. “I’m due to be four-bodied in just a week. Please don’t turn me—”

“Silence,” shouted the officer.

Brian complied, except for a series of sneezes and apologies.

Pointing behind them, Ethan whispered, “That way,” and sent the chair zipping back down the corridor.

“Using brief bursts only,” said Ethan, “I am going to reactivate vid feeds throughout the building so that I can direct us along a safe route. Chair control is shifting to you. Do you understand?”

Pavel looked down and placed his hands over controls just where someone might guide such a chair along from behind. “Got it,” said Pavel.

“Down this corridor and take the second left,” ordered Ethan.

They flew along the corridor, Ethan calling out directions, Pavel steering flawlessly through a veritable maze of rooms and halls and corridors. The swift turns added to the nauseating quality of the situation; Pavel knew what happened to lawbreakers facing secures in red armor. Lucca had considered it good dinnertime conversation.

Seeing an exit ahead, Pavel breathed a sigh of relief.

“No!” Ethan cried in a harsh whisper.

Pavel heard, but he’d already gunned the chair to the beckoning door with its promise of liberty. They soared across a wide breezeway and a shot echoed beside them. The door was a mere handful of meters away.

“I’m good, I’m good,” called Pavel, meaning to reassure Ethan about the shot as he sped toward the door.

“Turn back!” cried Ethan, not keeping his voice low this time.

“The door’s right here,” Pavel said, bringing the chair to a sudden halt before their access to freedom.

“There are guards on the other side,” Ethan replied tersely. “Turn us back around.”

“They’ll shoot at us again,” replied Pavel.

“They will not. They are racing to join the others out of doors. Two already await our appearance with raised weapons.”

“Got it,” said Pavel, spinning the chair back and heading at a high speed down the hall once more.

“Right here,” said Ethan, his voice pinched.

Years of habituation to the sounds made by the injured caused Pavel to look down at his companion. Blood seeped along Ethan’s shirt from a wound to his upper arm.

“You were shot,” gasped Pavel.

“Correct,” replied Ethan. “Turn left here and then left again.”

“You okay?” It was the question of a friend and not the question of a trained medical professional.

Ethan responded with a direction to turn right and then said, “I will require medical attention presently.”

“Shizer, man,” said Pavel. “I’m so sorry.” The wound was his fault. He should’ve listened to Ethan’s “No!” but he’d seen that door. He’d seen escape. Or thought he had.

“Around the next corner,” said Ethan, “We should encounter the secure who is holding Brian Wallace. I believe you installed an overdrive booster on this chair? I suggest I engage it to allow us to use the chair as a ramming device.”

“I got nothing better,” said Pavel.

But as they rounded the corner, Ethan’s hand upon the overdrive control, they saw the red-armored officer standing with his hands held up in surrender, Wallace beside him holding the guard’s gun. It was too late to slow Ethan’s chair; they crashed into him and the guard toppled and did not rise again.

“Took your bloody time, eh, lads?” asked Wallace as the chair came to a sudden halt beside him.

“How did you …?” asked Pavel, staring at the downed officer.

“I manufactured a sneezing fit,” replied Wallace. “Made m’self appear weak. He lowered his guard, and, well …” Wallace pointed at the weapon he clutched, grinning. “Now then, there were four secures outside, but when I snuck a peek a moment ago, they were re-entering the building. Now’s the time to make a break for it, lads!”

“Sit,” ordered Pavel, pointing to the area of Ethan’s chair intended as a footrest. “And hold on tight.”

Brian Wallace raised an eyebrow. “Thank ye, but I’ll stand,” he replied, stepping onto the footrest and gripping the arms of the chair with all the dignity he could muster.

“Ethan, re-engage the chair’s overdrive,” said Pavel.

As they blasted out of the building, Brian swearing up a storm, Pavel heard the sound of a large craft. This time it was no commute cruiser. A sleek black ship hovered just over the edifice.

Pavel cursed and aimed the hoverchair back beside the satellite facility, hugging the building as he pushed forward.

“Lad, the ship’s that way,” said Brian Wallace, pointing to the side.

“I know,” said Pavel, “But Lucca has strict disincentives for anyone in Red Squadron to fire upon buildings in Budapest. The government looks weak if buildings go up in smoke here in the capitol.”

“Sounds like our Chancellor,” muttered Brian.

There followed several tense seconds as Pavel raced across the street. Sure enough, just as they dashed across to hug another building, a small missile was directed to where they’d been a moment earlier, striking the middle of the street.

Pavel swerved to avoid flying debris.

“Give the ship the order to open the hatch now,” Pavel shouted to Ethan.

The door remained closed and it looked as though they might crash into the side of their getaway vehicle, but at the last second, the door engaged and the three shot inside, coming to a jarring halt.

“That was cutting it close, Jaarda,” shouted Pavel.

“Figure of speech,” murmured Brian Wallace.

“Everyone hold on to something now,” said Pavel. He’d already rumbled the ship to life, the hatch still closing. Pavel lifted off and turned his craft sideways to hug the buildings once more.

The secures’ craft, bulky and deadly, took chase at once, firing as Pavel brought his ship alongside the facility they’d just fled.

A smattering of armaments flashed past, missing Pavel by centimeters, piercing the roof of the satellite facility.

“Shizer!” called Pavel. “Hold on!” Pavel pulled the ship away from the exploding building, up into a straight climb that would have been impossible in his aunt’s ship. Then, looping over and swerving off to the left, he engaged the ship’s powerful thrusters.

“Ethan’s eyes just closed,” Brian shouted.

“Wallace, take over for me here!” called Pavel, jumping up from the pilot’s seat and dashing to the back of the craft.

Brian struggled to pull himself forward and then assumed command of the helm, flying the ship swiftly, outrunning their pursuers. Another powerful blast sounded from behind them and Brian veered hard to port.

“Hey,” cried Pavel. “Trying to treat a patient back here!”

“Apologies,” returned Brian Wallace. “Trying to avoid missiles up here. There now. We’re out of range. Treat away, lad.”

“Come on, Ethan, wake up,” muttered Pavel. “I made a promise to keep you safe, man.” He ripped the seal on a med-patch and slapped it on Ethan’s forearm, then grabbed a length of skin-seal and applied pressure to both an entry and an exit wound. “Come on, man, wake up. Wake up.”

Ethan’s eyes fluttered and opened. “Pavel,” he said softly.

“You’re going to be just fine,” said Pavel to his patient. Then he turned his attention to the front of the ship. “Get us somewhere safe, Wallace.”

The dirt-brown ship pulled to starboard as Brian Wallace said, “Aye-aye, sir.”

“The satellite facility,” said Ethan. “I thought I saw …”

“Yeah, man, I’m sorry,” replied Pavel. “It’s toast.”

“Not a literal description, I assume?” asked Ethan.

Pavel thought about the flames engulfing the building they’d just fled. Toast sounded about right. “No,” he said. “Not literal. But the building’s gone, just the same.”

“That will render my task impossible,” said Ethan. Then he closed his eyes, a pinched look upon his face that Pavel didn’t think came from wound pain.

Pavel felt terrible. Could he have flown the ship differently? Probably. “I just didn’t think they’d fire on a building,” he said at last. “Lucca will kill those guys for blowing up a building in the city limits. They know that.”

Ethan’s eyes closed for several minutes. Pavel checked his vitals. His body would be fine. But his mission? What would it do to Ethan’s mental health? At last Ethan reopened his eyes.

“Pavel,” he said, “I believe it is time for me to consult with my remaining crew. Might we visit Harpreet next?”

Brian Wallace turned back, an eyebrow raised.

“Please,” said Ethan. “I require her advice.”

Pavel nodded, heartsick for his mistakes of the last ten minutes.

“Oh, I do love a good rescue,” said Brian Wallace, rubbing his hands together with childlike delight. Then he punched in the coordinates of the “New Timbuktu Gold Processing and Re-educational Center for the Retirement of Criminals,” Harpreet’s last known place of residence.

13

HE WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME

Jessamyn returned home from her long conversation with the Secretary General feeling exhausted. She discovered her father and mother had put off evening rations for her arrival.

“You should have eaten,” said Jess, feeling guilty. “They could have kept me there for hours.”

“Well, they didn’t,” her mother replied tersely. “Shall we?” She gestured to the rations table where food and drink had been carefully laid.

Jessamyn sat in the chair that had been hers as long as she could recall, noting again the patent emptiness of her brother’s place at the table. She gazed at the date stamp upon the ration as she opened it.

“Your grandfather used to do that,” murmured her mother.

Jess looked up.

“He would check every bar for the Terran date stamp,” explained Lillian, her voice soft.

Jess’s father chuckled. “So he would.”

“Harpreet did it, too,” said Jess, feeling hopeful at her mom’s conversational turn. But then she asked herself, What are you hoping for?

She didn’t know.

“Mars will feel a smaller place without her,” Lillian said. “It’s been so hard. So much harder than I thought it would be.”

Jessamyn looked up. Her mom’s eyes glistened.

“I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost you and your brother both,” said her mother. “It’s good to have you home safe.”

Jess sipped her water. It tasted like dust. She carried her now-empty wrapper to the recycle mech. Watched the copper-colored foil as it fed slowly out of sight. She stood for a moment beside the rations room counter, uncertain whether she wanted to stay with her parents or just be alone.

Stay, she told herself. Stay. Sidling past her mom, Jess shot a hand out to give her mother’s shoulder a quick squeeze. On the table, shining in the softened artificial light, Jess saw two spots of moisture. Her mother was crying. Lillian Jaarda did not waste water.

“Mom?” Jess spoke softly, touching her mother’s shoulder once more. “You okay?”

Lillian took a shaky breath. “I want to thank you, Jessamyn, for making possible—” She broke off, shaking, and took a slow breath in.

Jess watched as her mother, lips pinched tight, drew herself upright, squared her shoulders, and murmured, “Please pardon me.”

“It’s okay, Mom.”

Lillian shook her head ever so slightly as if in silent dissent. “You made it possible for your brother to realize his full potential. Thank you, Jessamyn.”

Jess sat in awkward silence. You’re welcome, felt like an inadequate response. She struggled to find something better, but words felt slippery, elusive. “He would have done the same for me,” she said at last.

Her mother rose to leave, then turned to give Jessamyn half a hug. Without speaking, she turned again and retreated to her room.

“It’s late, Jessie,” said her father. “Get some sleep.”

Her father’s voice, low and soft, recalled to her the thousand times he’d spoken just those words. The thousand times she’d complained at the unfairness of having a bedtime earlier than that of her brother. She did not complain this time. She rose and when she looked back to say goodnight before turning down the hall, she saw her mother within her room sink quietly to the floor, kneeling, her arms wrapped about her mid-section, her mouth opening to form a low moan as her husband moved to join her.

Jess made her way to her brother’s room, where she lay upon her sleep mat and watched Phobos and Deimos travel their bright paths.

14

A TINY O

Lucca Brezhnaya was in a foul temper. Not even reports of the Viceroy’s waning popularity could put her in a better frame of mind. She’d had to discover on a broadcast feed the news that a building in the capitol—a government building—had been fired upon and destroyed. Spending the morning reassuring the public that it was a scheduled military exercise upon a defunct facility had not put her in a better mood.

Worst of all, the troops who had dared destroy a building within the pale of the capitol city had failed to bring to heel the brigands who’d broken into the facility. The Chancellor paced, a fearsome creature, within the confines of her penthouse office.

What was so special about this facility that it merited being broken into not once, but twice? She’d ordered reports on the earlier break-in, as well as information to ascertain which satellites had fallen within the purview of the antiquated facility. Impatiently, she awaited the delivery of this information.

A gentle ping informed her at least one of the reports was available. Crossing to her desk, she glanced over two new pieces of intelligence. One, she dismissed as irrelevant. The other informed her that the building governed satellites she’d not thought of in over a century.

Her mouth formed a tiny O.

It was the facility that governed the Mars Containment Program satellites.

Lucca sank into the chair behind her desk.

Who wanted to know more about Mars? And for what purpose? And what had they failed to achieve upon their first visit? Whatever it was, had they accomplished it this time? She swore aloud, calling down a detailed string of odd and unpleasant fates upon the secures who had failed her.

Shouting for her trembling secretary, Lucca requested the names and dispositions of the criminals apprehended at the previous break-in as well as a complete report of the follow-up to that event.

What she learned was not entirely unsatisfactory. Although the male felon had died during re-bodying at New Kelen, two females lived. One of them was situated in Dunakeszi, at a hospital for brain injury patients.

“Dunakeszi,” she murmured. A quick search confirmed the hospital was close by. She called for her secretary again. “I want this patient brought in for immediate interrogation.” She smiled. Lucca Brezhnaya found interrogation to be one of the more satisfying duties associated with her position.

She glanced down at the record for the other captured female. This one, she saw, had been sent to New Timbuktu for re-education without being re-bodied. Interestingly, there was a scientist from the satellite facility who’d been sent to New Timbuktu following the break-in as well. The scientist had been blamed for leaking information that led to compromised security in the building. Lucca scowled. The lack of compelling evidence against the scientist meant she probably knew nothing. The Chancellor was all too aware of how certain of her underlings were eager to demonstrate a commitment to catching perpetrators of crimes, which resulted in bringing to justice those who were innocent. And, more to the point, ignorant.

Lucca heard a quiet throat-clearing and looked up. She despised quiet throat-clearers. “Yes?” she barked.

“It’s the prisoner at Dunakeszi,” replied the secretary. “It would appear the prisoner has been in a coma for several weeks due to brain injury.”

Lucca scowled. “She’s insensate? Is that what you’re telling me?”

The secretary nodded. “What shall I tell the doctor? Do you still wish to have the prisoner brought here?”

“Fool!” said Lucca. “What am I going to do with an inciter in a coma?”

The secretary blanched. “What shall I tell the doctor?”

“Bah,” muttered the Chancellor. “Tell him to continue doing … whatever it is one does in such cases. Do not bother me with such petty concerns. Do I make myself understood?”

“Yes, Madam Chancellor,” replied the secretary. “Of course, Madam Chancellor.”

“Idiots,” sighed Lucca as the anxious subordinate scuttled out of her sight. “I’m surrounded by idiots.”

At least there was a scientist and one of the perpetrators remaining. Lucca could do with a nice, drawn-out interrogation today. She put through the order to Red Squadron herself: Bring me Dr. Kazuko Zaifa and the inciter known as “Harpreet.”

15

INCALCULABLE DEBT

Exactly twelve weeks after she had addressed the citizens of Mars Colonial following the disastrous Rations Storage fire, the Secretary General stood once more upon a dais in the Crystal Pavilion overlooking thousands.

A hush had settled upon the crowd as soon as Mei Lo approached the podium. Looking about, Jessamyn saw repeated upon foreheads the three blue markings she’d seen when she’d arrived home. Crusty had explained them to her: the blue tear shapes were a gesture of mourning for the three lost raiders.

“Tears’re mighty precious on our world,” Crusty had remarked in approval.

Jessamyn noticed Mei Lo’s forehead remained clear of the marks of mourning. Jess hoped this was a sign that the Secretary did not regard the Mars Raiders as gone beyond recall. Any doubts as to the strength of the Secretary’s hopes were cleared away during her remarks at the podium.

“Citizens of Mars Colonial, my friends and my inspiration, I come before you today not to bury our brave lost Mars Raiders. Rather, I stand here today in order to speak in their praise, to share with you today a few of my own memories and observations of these three brave souls.

“I first met Cassondra Kiplinger when she was a girl of four winters. Cassondra, or Kipper, was a child of Squyres Station. Any of you who have visited this austere settlement know that to pass even one Marsian winter in its harsh environs is a noble accomplishment. Daughter of tellurium miners, Kipper showed an early aptitude for
leadership in a settlement known for the orneriness of its residents. To lead anyone in Squyres Station in any direction is no small thing.”

She paused for laughter.

“And yet Kipper organized activities that brought life and joy to those around her. Her ‘Inspire a Child to Read for Life’ program is in use throughout the settlements of Mars Colonial.”

Jess’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

The Secretary continued praising Kipper’s other accomplishments and ended with a call to action. “Ask yourself what good you can undertake within your own school or neighborhood. How might you contribute to the bettering of your settlement? Be inspired by her example, as I have been.”

Jess allowed that she might have misjudged her captain in some regards.

The image of a smiling Captain Cassondra Kiplinger was replaced by a photograph of Harpreet caught with her head thrown back in laughter. It was a familiar sight to all who had spent any time in the old woman’s presence. A murmuring sigh passed through the Crystal Pavilion.

“I can only say that if you haven’t met Harpreet Mombasu, you must be a cave-dweller of the most reclusive order. More than anyone else I know, Harpreet stands as an example of all that is kindest, wisest, and most giving among our people. A Mars Raider upon not one but two missions, she is surely among the most fearless of us all as well. Many, many of you here today found the courage to follow your own dreams as a result of one of Raider Mombasu’s inspirational school visits.”

A round of thunderous applause rumbled through the building, and Jessamyn joined in.

“As an advisor, she has been worth far more than her weight in water. As a friend, she has brought light and laughter to many.” The Secretary paused to turn her gaze to Harpreet’s shining face upon the wall. “Very wisely, it has been said of the peacemakers that they are blessed. Harpreet did more than just help those of us who keep the peace of Mars; Harpreet Mombasu created peace wherever she roamed.”

“It is spoken among us, ‘Be as generous as a dog.’ At times, it can seem as if our lives as Marsians are composed of lack. I’m the first to admit our descendants will enjoy a life richer and more comfortable than that which we know.

“But Harpreet Mombasu placed little value upon riches or comfort. Instead, she valued the ‘wealths’ of friendship, peacemaking, and sharing with others. Might we find our lives enriched if we acted as she did?”

The Secretary turned aside to cough and a young boy stood to offer his water packet. Smiling, Mei Lo, knelt, accepted the packet and took a slow sip.

“Mmm,” she said to the child. “That’s very good water. I am grateful for your generosity. You remind me of my friend Harpreet.”

The Secretary, standing once more, spoke in a voice that betrayed how close she was to wasting water in a very public way. “And a little child shall lead them,” she murmured. “And now, if you will allow me to bring to your notice another selfless young man, I would like to say a few words about Ethan Jaarda.

“There are many ways to be brave. But where we see someone who acts in spite of great fear, we say: that is courage. I have known many brave adults. Many brave children as well. Yet I have met few who walked so willingly into the heart of what unsettled them as did Ethan Jaarda.

“Ethan could have settled for a life of ease and prosperity upon Mars. In his twenty-two years he invented more useful objects and found more solutions to problems than most engineers will in an entire lifetime. We have no patent system upon Mars. But if we did, my associates at MCAB tell me Ethan would hold more such claims than anyone in the history of Mars Colonial.

“This young man had another compelling reason to remain at home. Ethan bears an alter-ability which profoundly affects his daily life. Those of you who live with claustrophobia will recognize at once the challenges of a Marsian lifestyle. Our dwellings are by necessity of compact size. Travel upon the surface of our world is impossible outside of a walk-out suit. We are at all times constrained by the harsh environment we have chosen to call home.

“Imagine, if you will, how much greater the test of resolve for such a person to contemplate dwelling for weeks at a time upon a small space-faring vessel. And yet Ethan chose to do just this. As you all are aware, MCC sent two crews of Mars Raiders to Earth. Ethan agreed to go when I asked him to accomplish the audacious task of disabling the laser array. This, he did, before he was taken prisoner and re-bodied upon Earth. We owe him an incalculable debt.”

Jessamyn could feel the shift in the mood around her. In twos and threes and then by dozens around the room, people rose from their seats in silence to award their highest form of accolade.

“This ovation and much more, Ethan surely deserves,” said the Secretary. “In fact, it is my hope that you will join me in calling for a rescue to be undertaken to bring back to safety Kipper and Harpreet and Ethan next annum.”

Upon the dais, several board members blanched. Evidently the Secretary had not consulted with them before expressing her hope. But the room went wild with clapping, stomping, and whistling. It was electric and contagious and completely unstoppable. Crusty, catching Jessamyn’s eyes, raised his brows as if to say, Couldn’t ask for a better response than this.

A pair of the more worried-looking members of MCC’s board had approached the podium and stood beside the Secretary. She shook her head vigorously, No. The tension upon the dais thrummed palpably, reminding Jess of all Mei Lo had said about her position being so tenuous.

The Secretary held her hand high for silence, and the audience settled back into their seats. Mars’s diminutive leader spoke softly.

“This is not my decision to make—the sending of a rescue mission. But I urge you, citizens of Mars, consider the contributions made by these lost raiders. Consider what is owed their bravery, their sacrifice. And as you consider these things, remember also how you might alter your own lives to reflect all that is best in these three heroes of Mars.”

Looking about her to take in as many faces as was possible, the Secretary then ended the memorial as she ended all her public addresses. “Work hard. Be courageous. Be bold. And always, be as generous as a dog.” She bowed and exited the dais and the pavilion, leaving a gape-mouthed board to follow her.

“Well, that was unexpected,” said Crusty. “You got time for a quiet word or two?”

Jessamyn nodded and followed the gruff mechanic out of the crowded building.

16

TRYING VERY HARD

Crusty and Jess did not, however, get to enjoy an immediate tête-à-tête. Instead, they were subjected to another round of photographs and interviews, Jess carefully emphasizing the dangers of re-opening relations with Earth.

When the two were finally permitted to depart, Jess stood to one side waiting for Crusty while he joked with a cameraman.

“Excuse me,” said a young man who’d approached Jess very quietly. “Um, good afternoon. Gary Hikari with the New Tokyo Venture.” He flushed and then said, “Forget I said that. This is nothing official. It’s just, well, I knew your brother. We took Combinatorics together. Great guy. And, um, I’d just like to thank you both for your service.” He bowed slightly to Jess and Crusty, who was now paying attention.

“You knew Ethan?” Jess asked, immediately regretting her use of past tense.

“Smartest guy in any of my classes,” said Hikari. “I wondered, that is, well—”

“Spit it out, son,” said Crusty. “’Less you want to choke on it.”

“If you don’t mind,” said Hikari, “Ethan said to me once he’d die a happy man if he could just walk outside without a walk-out suit. Not to imply—oh, Hermes—I’m sorry. I just wanted to know if he got his wish on Earth.”

Something about the deep shade of red covering Hikari’s face softened Jessamyn toward the young reporter. He seemed a very decent sort.

“Yes,” she replied. “Yes, he did. And he enjoyed it even more than he was expecting.” She smiled softly, remembering Ethan on the Isle of Skye. “You can put that in your newsfeed if you want.”

Hikari looked away, flustered. “I’m not authorized to request a soundbite.”

“Well, you got one,” grunted Crusty, as he pulled Jess away with him.

Jess, looking over her shoulder, waved goodbye.

Hikari bowed, smiling sadly.

Jess turned back to Crusty, wishing to prolong her time with him. She dreaded returning to her house, no longer the home for which she longed. “So, how’s your new super-algae doing?” she asked.

“Hmmph,” grunted the mechanic.

The two walked in silence, and Jess realized she felt more comfortable at the gruff old man’s side than she’d felt anywhere these past two days.

“Hey, kid? What would you say about tellin’ your ma about my algae?” asked Crusty.

“Tell her yourself is what I’d say.”

“Yeah, well, we had a difference of opinion a few years back. Before you was born. I don’t know as she’d welcome a visit from me.”

Jess grinned. “You and Mom argued? What about?”

Crusty tried to shove his gloved hands into pockets the walk-out suit wasn’t equipped with. Then he tried to scratch his hand along his new-shaven chin. The sound of his hand hitting his helmet made Jess laugh.

“There was this time your ma thought me and her’d be a good pair,” said Crusty, kicking a small rock in his path.

Jess paused to consider the implications. Crusty as her dad? Well, not exactly. She, Jessamyn, wouldn’t exist at all if the gruff mechanic had married her mom. “Huh,” was all she said.

“Kinda turned her down,” said Crusty. “I reckon we haven’t said more’n two words to each other the past eleven annums.”

Jess shook her head. “You and my mom have some catching up to do.”

Crusty responded using a word with which Jess was unfamiliar. The intention, however, was unambiguous.

“Come on,” said Jess. “Let’s get out of here.” She gazed longingly at a row of fast MCAB ships, sure everything would feel better if she could just get behind the controls. “Hey, do you have the authority to borrow a speeder?” she asked impulsively.

As he settled his helmet, Jess saw Crusty’s broad grin. “You bet, kid. What’d’you have in mind?”

“You’re coming home with me,” said Jessamyn. “After a little sunset chasing.”

But the perfect nightfall eluded Jessamyn and she caught only a dull yellow dusk, disappointing as stale rations. In silence, the two raiders flew back into the darkness and watched as stars and then the Terran satellites popped out visible against the black sky.

At length, she sighed heavily. “Oh, Crusty. If only Ethan had been able to complete his mission.”

“Well, he did the important part,” replied the mechanic.

But that was just it, Jessamyn thought; he hadn’t done the most important part. Terrans still controlled the satellites.

And this insight had been responsible for another set of fears. Mei Lo was trying to convince herself that someone else could complete Ethan’s task from home. But if there was one thing Jess knew, it was that her brother was always right when it came to computers and code. If he said it wasn’t possible to work on the satellites from Mars Colonial, then it wasn’t possible. End of discussion.

And yet, Mei Lo needed those satellites firmly under her control before she could present the reason for not engaging in trade relations with Earth.

It was impossible.

Looking at her navigation readings, Jess realized she’d crossed into the southern hemisphere and was going to be late for dinner. She pulled the ship back toward home, seeking out the soft glow of New Houston. She recalled with a smile Pavel’s shock upon hearing that Mars had cities.

Pavel. Jessamyn’s belly did a kind of flop inside her. She missed him. Wanted to talk to him right now.

But that was impossible. Pushing the wish aside, she pulled up before her home. A sprinkling of low lights burned in the main part of the house. Jess felt a twinge of guilt at the prospect of her parents waiting again for her arrival to begin evening rations.

She and Crusty made their way to the front airlock in silence. Once they’d slipped out of their walk-out suits, Crusty spoke.

“Can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” he said.

“It’s just my mom. She doesn’t bite,” Jess said. “Well, she won’t bite you, at least.”

Jessamyn’s father met the two as they stepped into the main dwelling.

“Raider Daschle Crustegard,” said Jess’s father. “It’s an unexpected honor to have you here.” Turning, he called, “Honey?”

Jess looked around for her mom.

“She might be sleeping,” said her father, apologetically. “Give me a moment.”

But her father, instead of heading down the hall to her parents’ sleep room, turned up the hall toward Ethan’s wing. Jess frowned. Had her mom taken to napping in Ethan’s room? That might explain some of the anger directed Jessamyn’s way the other morning. Or not. Jess wasn’t sure about anything at the moment, when it came to her mom. Maybe it had been a very bad idea to bring Crusty.

But Lillian was calm and appreciative at the unexpected visit, insisting Crusty join them for dinner when she learned neither of the raiders had eaten yet. Crusty took Jessamyn’s regular seat and Jess, looking at the remaining places, slipped into her brother’s chair.

An awkward silence settled over the room. Jess was determined to break it.

“Crusty’s been looking into some new ideas for the household algae program,” she said.

“Oh?” said Jess’s father.

Her mother remained silent, but looked up to meet Crusty’s eyes.

“Probably nothing,” he said. But he moved into a discussion of his curious ideas with Jess’s mother.

Before long, the two rose so that Crusty could take a look at some of Lillian’s experimental pots. Jess thought her mother sounded embarrassed as she crossed to the plants.

Her father spoke softly. “She’s not been giving the algae as much attention lately. I’ve been trying to keep them alive, but I don’t have your mother’s touch.”

Jessamyn’s eyebrows flew up. Her mother, not spending every spare moment on her potted algae specimens?

“That doesn’t sound like Mom,” she murmured.

Her father frowned and placed his elbows on the table, bringing the tips of his fingers together in a thoughtful way. “She’s trying … Really …”

Trying what? Jess wanted to ask. The vagueness of the phrase annoyed Jess. It was as if her father could only speak of her mother in unfinished sentences.

“I thought she might try her hand at hacking code,” said Jess’s father. “Your brother’s talents come from her side.”

“Not entirely,” said Jess, indignant on her father’s behalf. “You’re a genius according to your students.”

He grunted out a small laugh. “Nice to know. Anyway, Mei Lo filled in your mother and me on the rest of Ethan’s mission this morning. I guess she’s hoping someone here can tackle the problem of gaining control of the satellites.”

“Oh,” said Jess.

“I think it might help your mom to focus on something different for a change.”

“Is Mom hopeful about the project?” asked Jess.

“She’s not optimistic,” said her father, shrugging.

“Ethan said it was impossible to fix things from here,” said Jess.

“That’s what Mei Lo said,” agreed her father.

“Do you think Ethan’s right?”

Her father tapped his fingers one against the other. “It’s not likely he’d be wrong on such a subject. I took a look at the problem. It was way beyond anything I could tackle.”

Jessamyn nodded. Looked over to see where Crusty was gesticulating—rather wildly for him—at one of her mom’s algae pots. She heard her mother laugh softly, but it wasn’t a real laugh. It was a small sort of polite laugh people make when it is expected or kind or appropriate.

Jess turned back to her father. “So Mom’s not enthusiastic about hacking the satellites, then?”

He shook his head absently, playing with the foil wrapper left from his meal. “It wasn’t as good of a distraction as I was hoping for. I’m trying to think of a better one.” Then he looked up and frowned. “I shouldn’t have said that. Your mother’s trying very hard.”

Jess leaned in. “Trying what very hard?”

Her father’s face wrinkled with deep furrows. “Forget I said anything.”

“Dad,” she spoke in low tones. “I’m not likely to forget with Mom like … like that,” she said, gesturing her head toward her mother. “What’s she trying to do ‘so very hard’?”

Geoffrey Jaarda sighed. Drew a hand through his thinning hair. Smiled at his daughter. “To find a reason to live, I suppose.”

Jessamyn blinked. Oh.

“I see,” she said. Which was completely untrue.

“Yes,” her father said, as if agreeing to some point Jess had made. “It’s helping, having you back. She’s much better than she was.”

This is better? Jess shook her head ever so slightly.

“We’re both so happy to have you home,” said her father.

Home.

She tried to smile at him. But this wasn’t home anymore, and they both knew it.

“I’m going to bed,” she said, suddenly tired. “Tell Crusty I said goodnight.”

Her father nodded, his attention drifting back to her mother.

Jessamyn walked to the hall, pausing to decide which room offered the better hope of a good night’s sleep: hers or her brother’s? Behind, she heard her mother’s artificial laughter again.

She’s trying so hard.

Reluctantly, Jess admitted her mom might need Ethan’s room more than she did, and she turned toward her own room.

She crawled into bed, but sleep wouldn’t come.

She had too many problems to solve. Problems no one else was going to solve, it seemed. They chased one another in her head, like pebbles tossed round in a dust storm: Mei Lo must retain her leadership, but how can she with everyone seized by Terran-fever? Solution: tell everyone about the Terran threat to annihilate Mars if Mars spills Earth’s dirty little secret. Problem: some idiot will try to use the information to advantage. And get us all killed. Solution: wrest control of the satellites from Earth so we can fire at any weapons or ships they send to destroy us. Problem: Eth says that’s impossible anywhere except on Earth. Solution: … Solution: …

She tossed and turned and thought and repeated her list over and over until she felt like the proverbial dog chasing its own tail. Did dogs really do that, she wondered? She hadn’t observed enough dog behavior to know for certain. Mei Lo. Terran-fever. Terran aggression. Satellites. Ethan. It was no good. Solutions didn’t come because you thought harder and harder about how badly you needed them.

Sometimes, there were no solutions.

17

WHERE YOU SEE FENCES

Within hours of the failure at the satellite facility, Pavel, Ethan, and Brian Wallace were on their way to the New Timbuktu Gold Processing and Re-educational Center for the Retirement of Criminals. Happily for them, the point of these facilities was to keep reprobates in and not to prevent their entry.

Using a combination of Pavel’s knowledge of the medical treatments available to prisoners, Brian Wallace’s understanding of how bribery and procurements were best managed, and Ethan’s skills at persuading computers to perform illegal functions, the three arranged their visit under the auspices of providing arthritis care for Harpreet. Which, according to Pavel, was not normally accorded to prisoners. But the warden, for some reason, made a habit of ordering the injections with a regularity that allowed the additional visit to go unremarked upon.

Gold was no longer processed in the West African location, but the name gave a sort of glamour to the institution. This was useful in keeping at arms-length those elements of the Terran population who disapproved of re-educational imprisonment. In reality, prisoners’ working hours were devoted to ensuring that among the trace minerals which were mined in New Timbuktu, no precious metals or rare earths were accidentally overlooked. The labor was moderately demanding, causing someone in Harpreet’s condition more than a few uncomfortable nights and achy mornings.

Thus she was delighted to be released from labor in order to be seen by a doctor. And she was even more delighted when the assistants of the unknown doctor turned out to be Ethan (in a new body) and Brian Wallace (looking much the same.) Pavel, she immediately accepted as a new friend, expressing remarkably little shock that the three of them had managed to infiltrate the prison.

The true shock was experienced by the would-be rescuers, and it came down to this: Harpreet did not, as it turned out, wish to be rescued.

“What do you mean, exactly, by saying that you’d rather stay here?” demanded Pavel.

“Harpreet is in the habit of stating exactly what she intends to communicate,” said Ethan.

“So I am.” Harpreet smiled and turned her attention to Ethan. “Tell me, son, how do you find your new body?” Her bright eyes rested upon his missing limbs.

“It is sufficient,” he replied, causing Harpreet to laugh softly.

“Ah. Well, sufficiency is something Marsians know how to appreciate.” She sighed. “I believe your sister will have made it home by now.”

Ethan spoke softly. “So I believe.”

“Bringing with her hope wrapped in copper,” added Brian Wallace, with a smile.

“You have a touch of poetry about you, Mr. Wallace,” said Harpreet.

“And more than a touch of the practical, Ma’am,” replied Brian. “Ye really ought to come with us. Young Ethan here needs to consult with ye.”

Harpreet’s dark eyes widened. “Indeed? Tell me, doctor, how much longer do we have for my appointment?”

“They’ll give us another five minutes, max,” replied Pavel.

“Then let us consult now, my friend,” Harpreet said to Ethan.

Very concisely, Ethan recounted his failed mission and the resulting destruction of the building.

“The codes are lost,” said Ethan. “Even I cannot recreate what was destroyed. I wished to know your opinion: ought I to attempt to communicate this failure to the Secretary General? Such communication could draw unwanted attention to us or to Mars.”

“No. I would not communicate failure, if I were you,” said Harpreet. A warm smile suffused her face. “What would you say if I told you knowledge of how to communicate with the Terran satellites can yet be recovered?”

“Indeed?” asked Ethan.

“How?” asked Pavel.

“You must speak with Kazuko Zaifa, formerly employed at the satellite facility you tell me has been destroyed. She is no friend of Terran government at present. However, she is a very good friend of mine.”

“She’s here?” asked Pavel.

Harpreet nodded. “I suggest you discover a reason to treat Kazuko Zaifa’s rather distressing arrhythmia,” she said.

Ethan’s hands flew across his wafer holoscreen just as a loud rap sounded upon the door.

“Two minutes,” called a voice from outside.

Harpreet sighed and then beamed at the three men. “I cannot tell you how pleased I am to see the two of you once again and to make your acquaintance, Pavel.” She rose as if to leave, removing a small coiled something from her pocket.

“But you will not join us?” asked Pavel.

“I have found a place where I am needed,” said Harpreet, shrugging softly. “The gifts placed into our receiving are not to be lightly discarded.”

“Gifts?” said Pavel, gesturing about him. “I’m sorry ma’am, but I see fences and bad food and medical care that would have been a joke three centuries ago.”

Harpreet smiled. “Where you see fences I have found opportunities. Now then, listen carefully. I am consulted by many. I have new friends who once were courted by the Chancellor. It seems she likes to send her former acquaintance here.”

Pavel grunted in a small laugh.

“They tell me things of interest, these ousted politicians and household servants,” said Harpreet. “These items of interest I have stored away.” Here she passed the small coil of plastic into Pavel’s hand. It might have been a twine to secure bags of refuse. Or it might, as she intoned, have held secrets to topple empires.

“Time’s up,” called the guard outside.

“Come see me again some time,” she said smiling. “And consult Kazuko Zaifa immediately.”

“I set up an ‘appointment’ for her just now,” said Ethan.

Pavel raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You did?”

“He is a most astonishing young man,” said Harpreet to Pavel, indicating Ethan. “Until we meet again.” She crossed to the door and joined her armed escort with a smile upon her face.

As she left, the three men heard her asking the guard how he was and if his back was giving him any trouble today.

“Unbelievable,” said Pavel.

“She’s one of a kind,” said Wallace.

“That is no mere figure of speech,” said Ethan.

Pavel stepped into the hall, calling for security. “I believe I am to treat one additional detainee today?”

The officer consulted a handheld wafer. “Prisoner Kazuko Zaifa,” he said. “I’ll have her brought to you right away, sir.”

“Good, good,” said Pavel.

Closing the door behind him, Pavel addressed the others. “Now all we have to do is figure out how to convince this Kazuko Zaifa to tell us everything she knows.”

“I have an idea,” said Brian Wallace, a tiny smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he removed a handheld wafer from his pocket.

A sharp rap sounded once more upon the door and Pavel answered it.

The guard presented a pale woman to Pavel.

“Kazuko Zaifa?” asked Pavel, smiling benevolently.

“The same,” replied the guard. “Red Squadron Forces are sending officers to remove this prisoner from New Timbuktu. So whatever you’re doing, better make it snappy.”

The door closed and Kazuko Zaifa’s face turned pale.

Pavel’s face blanched as well. “Oh, no,” he said. “If Red Squadron are coming here to pick up the scientist from the satellite facility … Ethan, can you hack into the prison’s detainee roster and see if my aunt has authorized them to remove any additional persons?”

Ethan hunched over his holoscreen, frowned, and then looked up at Pavel. “Harpreet Mombasu is scheduled for removal as well.”

“Shizer!” said Pavel.

18

SAND IN A RAW WOUND

Jessamyn awoke to a soft pinging in her room. It took her several seconds to remember what the sound meant. Someone was trying to call her. She opened one eye and pushed up on an elbow to see the caller’s identity. Crusty. At 3:00 in the morning.

“Hello?” Her throat felt furry, her mind thick with sleep.

“Jess?”

Who else would she be?

“No. This is Ethan.” She sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Of course it’s me. What’s going on?”

“I’m workin’ over on the Galleon. There’s someone here you should see.”

“Now?”

“Yeah. Now.”

Jess combed fingers through her tangled hair. “I’m on my way.”

Quietly, she suited up, exited her home, and drove to the hangar, leaving an apology for her parents about taking the get-about. In the middle of the night, Mars seemed colder. The stars burned with greater intensity and the satellites put Jess in mind of comets, although the trailing tails were probably the product of her eyes not being able to focus correctly because this was an hour her eyelids preferred to stay closed.

She pulled up to the hangar and parked her parents’ vehicle. The large building was well-lit at all hours, but Jess’s eyes resented the brightness and she muttered complaints as she stumbled up the ladder-like stairs of the ship’s interior. She supposed Crusty would be found in here, somewhere, and she felt a bit grumpy that he hadn’t specified where she was to meet him.

The ship had a different feel to her, in the middle of the night, as if it was at its most alive somehow. Jessamyn considered the idea, but rejected it as not quite right. What she felt, humming through her bones, was more like the alive-ness of every person she’d spent time with aboard the Galleon. This ladder buzzed with the memory of talking Ethan down it when the ship had landed upon the Isle of Skye. While she awaited the airlock cycle, she recalled Harpreet’s patience waiting here beside her. And in the shallow hall that ran forward to aft, Jess remembered Kipper sending her to her quarters after the ship’s launch.

The memories pressed upon her like small bruises to the soul. She shuddered as she called aloud for Crusty.

“Hey, kid,” said Crusty, emerging from the rations room as though her pre-dawn appearance were the most natural thing in the world.

She half expected, as she rounded the threshold with Crusty, to see Kipper, Harpreet, and Ethan awaiting her for morning rations. Instead of her crew, she saw a man. Brushing nostalgia aside, Jess tried to decide if the stranger looked familiar.

“This better be good,” she muttered to Crusty, collapsing into her regular chair at the rations table.

“Jessamyn, meet Cavanaugh. We was friends at the Academy,” said Crusty.

Jess nodded but didn’t lean forward to shake hands. Cavanaugh looked about her father’s age. His skin had the slightly shiny appearance Jess associated with the use of heat-healers. Why was he trying to look younger than his age? Was he a broadcaster?

Cavanaugh cleared his throat. “I wonder if you have a moment to discuss your immediate future?”

She shot a look to Crusty that said something like, You’re kidding, right? Then she returned her gaze to Cavanaugh. “Normally at this hour, my immediate future would involve snoring or drooling.”

“I’m Cassondra Kipling’s brother,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, her brows raising in surprise. “I’m pleased to meet you. Or, well, I’d be more pleased if it were day. Sorry. I’m not at my best this early.” She glared at Crusty once again.

Crusty laughed softly.

“Wait a minute,” said Jess, examining Cavanaugh’s smooth face. He was familiar. “Did Mei Lo send you?”

“The Secretary?” asked the man, one eyebrow raised. “No. Why do you ask?”

Jessamyn couldn’t determine the precise nature of the emotion he’d held back when she asked if Mars’s CEO had sent him for her. She decided not to hold it against him. It might have been merely surprise.

“I recognize you,” she said.

Now she knew the emotion upon his face. Alarm.

“From the fire,” she continued. “You’re the man from MCC who interviewed me after the Rations Storage disaster.” She smiled to set him at ease. Why was everyone so edgy and apologetic around her?

“I did, indeed, have the honor of meeting you that day for the first time,” said Cavanaugh.

“Kipper was your sister?” asked Jess, her voice softer now.

His brows drew slightly together. “I prefer to say that she is my sister. Her wellbeing is what brought me here today. I hope—that is—her family hopes that you might assist us in bringing her home now while there’s still time.”

“Me?” asked Jessamyn. The hope in his voice grated upon her like sand in a raw wound.

Cavanaugh’s eyes darted from hers to Crusty’s. “We want to take a ship to Earth. But we need someone to pilot and maintain the ship.”

“Who’s we?” asked Jessamyn, chills running up and down her arms.

“I’d prefer not to identify anyone beyond myself at present,” Cavanaugh replied.

Jessamyn’s eyes narrowed. “Why aren’t you talking to the Secretary General about this?”

“The Secretary has made it clear no rescue operation can be sent at the moment. She’s denied the possibility. But anyone can see the Galleon’s in fine shape—”

“No,” said Jessamyn, shaking her head slightly. “Not just anyone can see that. Crusty, what have you been telling Cavanaugh here?”

Crusty shrugged, looking off to one side.

Cavanaugh jumped in. “It’s clear the Secretary is using the ship’s condition as an excuse when the real reason for her hesitation is a reluctance to engage in trade with Earth.”

A tangle of emotions skittered through Jessamyn: eagerness to recover her own brother, pity for Cavanaugh’s plight, exhaustion at the thought of convincing him it was impossible, and finally a tingle of suspicion to do with the odd hour he’d chosen to make his request.

“Are you part of the faction that wants Terran trade to recommence?” asked Jessamyn, her face carefully neutral.

Something behind his eyes flickered. “I just want my sister back. She doesn’t deserve to live out her days on that miserable world. And if she is gone,” Cavanaugh said, “Then surely she deserves to have her bones returned to Mars.”

Jessamyn’s hands clenched at her side, Cavanaugh’s words piercing her like barbed accusations. She had to force herself not to flee, to weep, to howl in anger that none of what he suggested was possible. But then she saw the pain etched in his face—the mirror of her own.

“I’m sorry. I can’t help you,” she said softly. She repeated the words she’d spoken a dozen times on camera: “The Galleon won’t be fit to fly for another half-annum or more.” Her eyes fixed upon the table, noticing a nick upon its edge where she’d once slammed her chair in anger. Probably at this man’s sister.

“Now, now, kid,” began Crusty. “Hear the man out, why don’t you.”

As she looked up, she saw Cavanaugh’s eyes darting between the two raiders.

Jessamyn crossed her arms over her chest, as if to protect her heart. “What are you proposing, exactly?” she asked.

“You loved your brother. Surely you want to bring him back.” Cavanaugh’s appeal cut Jess to the quick, and the air in the room felt too thick, like she was breathing dust.

“If it were possible to return,” asked Kipper’s brother, his voice a mere whisper, “Would you be willing? That’s all I’m asking. Would you consider piloting us to Earth so we can bring Cassondra home?”

Jessamyn wanted to say yes. She wanted it. Wanted her brother. Pavel’s face, laughing, passed across her thoughts. Yes. She wanted him, too.

But she couldn’t have either of them.

“I appreciate the enormity of your loss and your grief,” she heard herself say, parroting the words others had offered, words that fell as flat and empty in this room as they had each time upon her ears. “I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

Her soul seemed to curl in upon itself as she made the pronouncement, and she drew her arms more tightly about her chest.

“I can’t,” she said.

She was saying no to Ethan, no to Pavel, and it felt like the cold fingers of death rending her heart.

“I can’t,” she repeated, a whisper now.

Cavanaugh rose and withdrew without a word, Crusty following on his heels.

The room lay in a silence dark and absolute as space. Jessamyn fought for each breath, pushed back against the black hole that was her loss. She should never have answered Crusty’s call.

The gruff mechanic returned to the rations room and sat without speaking.

“How could you?” she asked Crusty.

“Thought he deserved to be heard,” replied Crusty. “Kipper’s ma’s worrying herself to death over the whole thing. Cavanaugh took me out to see her. Woman’s a shadow of her former self.”

“We all knew the risks,” Jess said.

But that was just another phrase useful for interviews and sound bites. It meant nothing. It was a lie. Her heart had been whole and unmarked the day she stepped aboard the Galleon bound for Earth. She’d known nothing of what she risked.

Crusty kept silent.

“Is it true what Cavanaugh said about the Galleon? Is she ready to fly?” asked Jessamyn.

“She could be,” replied the mechanic. “In less than two days.”

You are not asking these questions, Jess told herself.

“What does she still need?” she asked.

“Not much,” said Crusty. “Overhaul the air filter—that’s the biggest thing I got left. Saved it ‘til last. Planetary Agriculture interns’re having a field day with what’s growin’ inside.”

After a minute’s silence passed, Crusty asked, “You thinkin’ about it?”

Jess shook her head no. Nodded her head yes. Began to cry. Blinked the tears back.

Crusty sighed. “Aw, kid. I know. I know.”

Jessamyn choked out her next words. “Nothing’s right. Home’s not home. I want them back, Crusty. I miss … I miss …”

She couldn’t say more and was content to let Crusty think she meant the three Mars Raiders. But in her mind, she saw her mother’s crumpled form, the emptiness of Ethan’s room, she saw Pavel’s farewell smile. All lost to her.

And then a darker fear struck her.

“What if Lucca finds her nephew and kills them all?”

“Hold up a minute, kid,” said Crusty. “You’re just wasting fuel flappin’ around at that altitude.” He rubbed his gnarled hands back and forth along his work coveralls. “Now, the way I see it, that feller Wallace has enough connections to keep a whole army of Ethans and Pavels safe, even on Earth. I reckon I got to know him better than the rest of you, on account of staying with him when you were off in Budapest. He’s a smart man. And loyal. Plus he’s in real good with that family of his. Clan Wallace.”

Jess looked up. “You think they’re okay, then?”

“I do. If I was a betting man, I’d place water creds on it,” said Crusty. “You head back for Earth—now or in an annum—and get Clan Wallace on the comm and you’ll find out I was right.”

Jess nodded. Her body felt tired. So tired. But at the same time, there was a certain clarity afforded by the lateness or earliness of the hour. Her mind felt crisp, like the air in the house when the heater malfunctioned. It wasn’t something you wanted to live with all the time, but the briskness rendered everything in sharp delineation.

“Now, Harpreet,” continued Crusty, “She’s made of tough stone. Take more’n a few sandstorms to wear her down. Way I see it, Kipper’s the only wild card. She might not have an annum in her.”

“She might be dead already,” said Jess.

Crusty frowned and scratched the beard growing apologetically on his chin. “Cavanaugh don’t think so. Funny thing they do out in Squyres Station. They beacon all the kids—soon as they can walk. Now these beacons emit a certain signature so long as you’re alive. Once you’re dead, it changes to a different signature.”

Jessamyn nodded. She’d heard of the practice, common in smaller communities, especially those where dust storms raged for months on end.

“And here’s the funny bit,” said Crusty. “Back when we was still friendly with Earth, a couple folks from Mars got themselves new bodies and the beacons just up and quit inside the old body. Not the dead-person signal, not the live-person signal—nothin’.”

“That’s weird,” said Jess.

“Separatin’ a mind from a body’s weird, period,” said Crusty. “But the beacons don’t like it, apparently. I let Cavanaugh have a look at the ship’s records on account of he said the Galleon could recognize Kip’s beacon.”

“And?” asked Jess. “Is she … alive?”

Crusty shrugged. “According to the ship, she was still alive and in her own body the day we left Earth.”

“Wow,” said Jess.

“So you can see where her brother’s feelin’ a bit anxious. And of the three raiders, I got to admit, she’s the one I’m feelin’ most fretful about. Don’t know if she’s got what it takes … I don’t know, kid. So I said Cavanaugh could talk to you.”

It was everything Jessamyn wanted—a compelling reason to flee Mars in defiance of MCC. To sit behind the controls of the Galleon once more, to take destiny into her own hands. She could do it. She could feel how right it would be, going back for her brother, seeing Pavel again, rescuing the other raiders. She could seize the opportunity.

But at what cost?

She’d be in trouble once she returned, but that was irrelevant—a little nothing in the face of such stakes. Jess was more afraid of causing harm to Mei Lo’s government, which she feared would in turn spell a slow death for Mars Colonial. Or what if her rescue attempt caught Lucca’s notice, somehow provoking an attack on Mars?

The second fear—that Mars would be annihilated—would remain even if they waited an annum to attempt a rescue. That was a risk so long as Mars Colonial had no means of defending herself. But going now might speed up the process of getting those defenses in place. Then, even if some trade-crazed fool on Mars attracted Lucca’s attention, Mars would be safe.

“Do you think that stealing the Galleon—” Jess broke off. It was a horrible act to contemplate, when she heard herself saying it aloud, but she pushed on. “Do you think it would hurt Mei Lo’s standing?”

Crusty investigated his growing beard once again, sighing. At last he said, “I ain’t no politician, but I reckon it’d make her look weak to folks.”

Jess collapsed her face into her hands, elbows supporting her against the table. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

“Don’t mean it’s more’n she can handle,” added Crusty. “I reckon folks as calls her weak are gonna have their words force-fed back to ‘em with a golden spoon.”

Jessamyn wasn’t sure she could picture that clearly, but she understood. Mei Lo was strong enough to punch back if she had to.

“Listen, kid. I know you’n’ the captain didn’t see eye-to-eye all the time, but I sure hate to think of her so bad injured she ain’t fit to re-body,” said Crusty, shaking his head.

Jessamyn frowned. Could that have been why Kipper hadn’t been re-bodied? The doctors at New Kelen had said Harpreet wouldn’t be re-bodied because of her arthritis.

“I figure that’s the only explanation makes sense of her not gettin’ re-bodied right off,” said Crusty. “Wallace told me they don’t wait around with young-bodies.”

Jessamyn felt a rush of pity for her captain, for Kipper’s brother and family. On its heels followed her longing to see Ethan safe again. And then, quietly, the yearning for Pavel that never quite went away.

Perhaps there were some decisions that could only be made in the heightened lucidity of that time tucked in between too late and too early.

She knew what she would do.

“Would you please get Cavanaugh Kipling back here?” she asked Crusty, her voice ringing clear and solid.

“I left him waiting down in the hangar,” said Crusty, winking at Jess as he stood. From down the hall, he called back. “Oh, and I’ll have him bring up the two other fellers from Squyres Station so’s you can check ‘em over for your crew, Captain.”

Jessamyn closed her eyes and inhaled slowly while Crusty disappeared.

Cavanaugh, when he arrived a moment later, looked triumphant. He introduced two companions, “Mr. Jones,” and “Ms. Smith.”

“I need to clarify something before I agree to work with you,” Jessamyn said. “In addition to being your pilot, I will also be your superior officer—”

“The two of us are civilians,” complained Mr. Jones.

“If we are to work together, a chain of command must be observed,” said Jess, her voice carrying an authority she’d gained in the last months.

“I’m sure we can work with that,” Cavanaugh answered calmly.

“Further, let me make it absolutely clear that I will tolerate no attempts to establish trade relations with Earth,” continued Jessamyn. “So if any of you are hoping to make your personal fortunes on this little trip, you can forget about taking the journey with me.”

“She’s right,” said Crusty. “Regardless of your politics, the timing ain’t right for it on this mission.”

The three others maintained a stony silence.

“Is that going to be a problem?” Jess asked.

“Not at all, Captain,” said Cavanaugh, holding his companions’ gazes with his own. “We just want to bring Cassondra home. She’s all that matters, right?” He looked to his companions.

The other two nodded.

“Very well,” said Jess. “Then I think we can work together.”

With that, she began outlining the duties she would expect them to fulfill (few) and the dangers they might face (many), looking for signs of weakness or uncertainty. It was an odd way to assess a crew. But this would be an odd launch.

When Jessamyn had concluded, Cavanaugh rose and extended a hand. “I knew you were made of sterner stuff than most the first time we met,” he said to Jessamyn. “I look forward to our joint venture.”

Jess shook his hand—firm but brief—and the three departed, leaving her alone with Crusty. A pair of vac-mechs whined along the hall just outside the rations room where the two Mars Raiders stood.

“Ugh,” said Jessamyn. “What are mechs doing onboard? Do you think they’re safe?”

Crusty rose, pushing his chair along its track until it clicked to rest against the table. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

“The Rations Storage fire?”

“Hmmph,” grunted Crusty. “I read up on your brother’s schematics. They was rated for collecting the detritus produced by one thousand visitors apiece. That would’ve meant ten thousand people could’ve traipsed all up and down the storage facility before them vac-mechs started complaining.”

Jess frowned. “I saw one of them explode before my very eyes, Crusty.”

“That don’t mean they was what caused the fire,” he replied. “Only four thousand people went through there that day. Not nearly enough to cause residue build-up problems. Something don’t add up, kid. I don’t know what caused the explosions, but it weren’t your brother’s contraptions gettin’ overloaded.”

Jessamyn watched as one of the mechs paused over a sprinkling of dirt.

“Don’t you worry, kid. I won’t let anything hurt this beautiful ship.” Crusty patted the ship’s walls reassuringly.

“Crusty? What do you think about Cavanaugh and ‘Jones and Smith’?” Jessamyn asked softly. “They’re not even using their real names. Are we fools to accept them as crew?”

“I don’t know Jones or Smith,” he replied, “But I went through the Academy with Cavanaugh. He was a good man. And he’s Kip’s own brother.”

“Of course,” said Jess, shaking off her doubts.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got a few things on my to-do list.” He stepped into the hall mumbling to himself. “First off is that durned air filter.”

Jess watched as he began fiddling with an overhead panel, muttering to himself about the proliferation of microbial life-forms.

But his work was interrupted moments later by a too-familiar voice.

“Oh, there you two are,” said Nessa Niedermaier. “You’re up bright and early! How perfect. This gives us just enough time.”

“Time for what?” Crusty grumbled his question, obviously annoyed by the interruption.

“You’ve got pictures this morning,” replied Nessa, smiling brightly. “With the Red Galleon.”

“Aphrodite’s hair curlers,” Crusty cursed. “So we do.”

Nessa chose to ignore Crusty’s language and smiled at Jessamyn, raising a crisp and obviously new set of Academy whites. “Ta-da!” said the events coordinator.

Jess felt a scowl forming but hastily wiped it off her face. No doubt Nessa thought of herself as doing her part for Mars.

“Brand new!” Nessa smiled brightly at Crusty, holding a crisp-looking pair of coveralls toward their intended recipient.

“Oh, for the love of Ares,” mumbled Crusty.

“We should have just enough time to make sure we’ve got the sizes right,” concluded Nessa.

Jessamyn’s new whites itched and poked and felt completely awful. Crusty looked equally uncomfortable in the coveralls, starched and pressed to within an inch of standing up by themselves in a corner.

The two were photographed alongside the Red Galleon, under the Red Galleon, and aboard the Red Galleon, Crusty muttering under his breath every time cameras got too close to an area he hadn’t polished ‘til it shone.

The photo session, which lasted several hours, was only a prelude to another round of interviews (which Jess endured) and two school visits (which Jess enjoyed.) It was nearly time for evening rations before the Mars Raiders were finished for the day, but before releasing them from MCC’s brightly-lit hangar, where they’d returned for a few last photographs, Nessa spent an inordinate amount of time going over the schedule for the planetary celebration the following day.

Ms. Niedermaier sensed the Mars Raiders’ lack of enthusiasm but mistook it for fatigue. “You poor things,” she said. “Now make sure to get lots of beauty rest for the big day tomorrow!”

Jessamyn’s heart skipped a beat in fear at the phrase “big day,” but of course tomorrow wasn’t the big day at all, as far as she was concerned. The day after the celebration would be the Big Day.

Once the events coordinator left them in peace, Crusty switched his helmet to a private channel and let out a loud sigh. “Well, that was an entire day wasted. Looks likes I ain’t getting much sleep tonight.”

“You want help scrubbing the air filter?” asked Jess.

Crusty laughed. “Naw, kid. Gonna leave it for tomorrow so the interns can have one last peek. You get some sleep. ‘Sides, when was the last time you scrubbed a filter?”

Jessamyn blushed. Filter-scrubbing was reserved for under-achieving Academy students.

“I thought as much,” said Crusty, chuckling.

Jess took a long look up at the ship. “What if I’m making the wrong decision, Crusty?”

Crusty shook his head. “Kid, from what I seen, God gave you an extra helping when it came to that grey stuff between your ears.”

Jess felt her cheeks flushing with color.

“Give it to me in percentages, kid—how certain are you feeling that you’re doin’ what’s right?”

She shook her head. “I can’t answer it like that.” She looked up, meeting his eyes. “But it feels right.”

Crusty shrugged. “Go home. Get some shut-eye. Meet me back here in the morning before the big shindig.”

“What about you? Don’t you need sleep?” asked Jess.

“Ornery cusses like me don’t need much,” said Crusty. “Besides, we’ll have that two-month journey to rest up.”

Jessamyn laughed. Things were finally turning for the better.

“Crusty?” she said, smiling. “Thank you.”

“Just doing my bit,” he said, already engaged in taking a new series of readings.

19

IT HURTS OR IT SCARES YOU OR IT’S INCONVENIENT

Jess turned to walk back to where she’d left her family’s get-about. In its place, she spied an MCC-marked vehicle. Rolling her eyes heavenward, she muttered a mild curse. She had a driver waiting for her, thanks to her status as planetary treasure. But she recognized what she’d done to her parents, and her shoulders sagged forward. She’d run off with their sole form of transportation and then forgotten about it the entire day. The get-about wasn’t here anymore because they’d needed it. And retrieving the vehicle had doubtless been highly inconvenient.

She climbed into the sleek MCC vehicle, greeted her driver, and then rode in silence. In her belly, guilt began to build a cozy nest cobbled together from scraps of what she’d done and shreds of what she intended.

Jessamyn agonized over what she might say to her parents. She couldn’t exactly tell them the truth, but she wanted to ease the shock when they discovered what she’d done. They would see it as betrayal or insanity. Jess wasn’t sure which would hurt them more.

From inside the airlock where she shed her suit, Jess saw her father holding her mother tenderly. Another bad day, then.

“I’m back,” she said as she entered her home.

Her parents pulled apart.

“Your mother’s off to consult with Planetary Ag,” said Jess’s father.

“Now?” Jess asked. Her voice had a forlorn sound to it.

“What with the planetary holiday tomorrow, they decided to discuss the algae inoculation idea now,” replied her father. “I’m afraid we had to eat rations without you.”

“Oh,” said Jessamyn, shifting gears to adjust to the alteration in her evening. “So, were Crusty’s ideas any good?”

Her mother’s face formed a look Jess recognized—it was her problem-solving face. “I don’t know,” said Lillian. “That’s why I need to speak with my colleagues.”

As her mom brushed past her to the airlock, Jess felt a sudden need for a hug, for confirmation that her mom still loved her. Would always love her. It was foolish. It was powerful.

“Mom?”

Lillian turned.

“It’s just …” Jess paused.

“Make it fast,” said her mother. “People are staying late for this meeting.”

“I might be leaving,” said Jessamyn. “The day after tomorrow. For a new assignment. I won’t be able to live here.”

A look of anguish crossed her mother’s face and Jess walked closer for a hug.

“Can we discuss this later?” Lillian asked quietly, one hand on the airlock door. “Your father and I would like you to … that is, we were hoping … Hades and Aphrodite, Jess. Why do you always have to make things so difficult?”

The switch from sorrow to anger was swift and cut at Jess like broken glass.

“We’ll talk about it tonight,” said her father.

“Mom, I’m sorry,” said Jessamyn, her voice unsteady.

“Yes, Jessamyn. You’re always sorry. But it never stops you from doing whatever you want to do, does it?”

Her mother slammed the airlock door behind her.

“Your mother didn’t mean that,” said Jess’s father.

Jess sank into her father’s reading chair. They both knew her mom had meant every word.

Jessamyn’s father continued. “I want you to know that you have my blessing, whatever decision you make about your new job.”

Jess looked at her feet. She’d forgotten to take off her walk-out boots. She’d tracked a trail of cinnamon-colored dirt across the floor. “I don’t have Mom’s blessing.”

“She’ll take it hard,” admitted her father. “But Jessie, you can’t bear her grief. You’re not meant to do that. No child is. You have to live the life you were meant to live.”

In a quick flash, Jess saw herself at Pavel’s side, laughing as she pointed to the star-scattered sky dark above them. She pushed her bangs to once side, frowning.

“Doing what is right is never the same as doing what is easy, in my experience,” said her father. “If you think it’s the right thing to do, and it hurts or it scares you or it’s inconvenient, that’s a pretty good sign it is the right thing to do.”

Jess took her father’s hand and squeezed it tight.

He laughed softly. “I could be wrong about that, of course. I keep waiting for the day to come when what’s right lines up with what’s easy.”

Bringing her father’s Mars-roughened hand to her cheek, Jess sighed. “Let me know how that works for you.”

“I was going to ride in with your mom. Will you be okay here by yourself?” asked her father.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, the truth and the lie of her words mixing uneasily.

He offered her a quick squeeze around the shoulders and dashed out to join her mother.

Jess stood in the silent, empty house, watching as her parents drove off. She could make things better tomorrow. Somehow. Shrugging off her boots, she grabbed the old-fashioned vac-hose from the wall and pointed it at the lines of red dirt, erasing a problem she could fix.

Then she sat down to write the one person in the universe she thought would understand her at this moment. She was not comfortable thinking about how deeply she yearned for the Terran boy, but when her truest thoughts needed expression, she continued to turn to Pavel.

Dear Pavel,

I have decided to embark upon a desperate voyage. I know that sounds dramatic. It feels dramatic, let me tell you. I just don’t see any other way to keep my world free from the influence (or safe from the destruction) of people like your aunt.

I’m going to find you and my brother. Together, somehow, we’ll find a way to protect Mars. Right now, we are sitting rocks. Maybe you don’t have that expression. It means something that is easy to target. We have a lot of rocks on Mars and the figurative language to reflect it.

So I guess this means you’ll be seeing me soon. I don’t know half the things Crusty has done to get the ship ready in time, but I’m glad to have him on my side. You didn’t get the chance to meet him before. I’m sure you’ll like him. And his colorful expressions, which are anything but rock-based.

I have two last nights at home. Tomorrow, I will play the part of hero for another day. After that, I suppose they will call me a villain. Or traitor. Something horrible. But I’m doing this because I want Mars to have a fighting chance. Flying is the one gift I have to offer to my people.

See you soon.

Your friend,

Jessamyn Jaarda

Jess waited and waited for her parents to return. When bedtime rolled around and they still weren’t back, she slunk back to her room. But her bed felt all the wrong size and her room was too warm and she rose at last, drifting from room to room, trying to find a way to say goodbye.

She settled in her brother’s room, lying upon the floor to watch the satellites roll past. The sleep mat felt better than her own bed and soon her eyes began to feel heavy.

An hour later Jessamyn awoke to a bright light. She grunted and blinked and remembered where she was. Her brother’s chronometer reported it was just after midnight. Why had the room illumined?

And then, her eyes adjusting, Jessamyn made out the shape of her mother in the doorway. Lillian’s face was crumpled, a sad arrangement of her features that distorted the familiar, favored the strange.

“Mom?” Jess croaked.

But her mother had already turned back down the hall, shaking with the effort of not wasting water.

Jess arose. “Mom?” She stumbled into the hall, where she saw her father shambling toward her mother.

“Go back to bed, Jess,” said her father, his own face lined with care and fatigue.

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked, even though she knew the answer.

Her father shook his head. Her mother murmured something to him—something Jess couldn’t make out.

“Your mother would prefer—” Jess’s father let out a long sigh. “It would be better if you stayed in your own room instead of your brother’s.”

Jessamyn watched helplessly as her parents walked away from her, her father sliding the door behind them. She stood for a moment before returning to her room. It was cold and dark and smelled stale. She sank onto her bed, too awake for sleep. She turned on a reading lamp and gazed about the room that had witnessed all her childhood.

Now seemed as good a time as any to gather the few things she wanted to take on her journey. She wouldn’t be limited by MCC’s regulations governing weight this time—they were flying with an empty hold. Still, it seemed foolish to take things she could live without. In the end, she settled upon packing only her brother’s wafer-computer, the small plastic card enclosing a hair from the planetary dog (also from her brother), and an old wafer with a collection of books she’d loved as a child. Something to pass the time, she told herself.

Still feeling wide awake, she forced herself to settle back on her bed and take slow, calming breaths. Now that she was no longer moving things around in her room, she could hear the murmur of her parents’ voices beyond the wall that separated them. Her mother’s voice rose in pitch, followed by her father’s gentle tones, forming for Jessamyn a sort of symphony that vibrated through bone and viscera and made her want to go to them and tell them how much she loved them, how sorry she was to be doing something they wouldn’t understand.

But she couldn’t.

Jess sat up. She wasn’t going to get any sleep here. She would fix everything tomorrow with her parents, after the celebration. She stepped into the front airlock, slipped on her suit, shouldered her packed items, and left her dwelling.

20

ACCEPTABLE ALTERNATIVE

In a small exam room in the New Timbuktu prison, Pavel gathered items from the limited medical stock in the room, muttering under his breath as he cobbled together a desperate plan to save Harpreet’s life.

Nearby, Ethan’s fingers flew across the holoscreen of the powerful computer on his hoverchair.

Brian Wallace was engaged in flattering or calming the scientist from the satellite facility—it wasn’t clear which to Pavel.

“Doctor Kazuko Zaifa?” asked Wallace, consulting his handheld wafer. “The same Doctor Kazuko who organized the symposium three years ago entitled ‘Ancient Code: Toward a More Beneficial Understanding’?”

Kazuko nodded, adding a layer of “puzzled” to her agitated appearance.

“I regret I was unable to attend,” said Wallace. “However, your paper upon the late twenty-second century use of non-chronological elisions looks to be most instructive.”

“I guess that will be my legacy,” Kazuko said quietly. She turned to Pavel. “Doctor, I require no treatment for my arrhythmia. Red Squadron are on their way, and I don’t have to tell you what that means for someone in my position.”

“We have something better to offer you,” said Wallace. “I wonder if you would consider accepting employment from my partners at MCC. They share my interest in non-chronological elisions and their applications.”

Kazuko looked confused. “I’m supposed to be here for my heart.”

“Lass,” interrupted Brian Wallace, “It comes down to this: would ye prefer to go off with Red Squadron or with us?”

“I don’t understand,” said Kazuko. “You’re offering me a choice?”

“Aye,” replied Brian Wallace. “And that’s more than ye’ll get from anyone in red armor.”

“We propose absconding with you,” said Ethan, his hand flying across his wafer. “Would that be an acceptable alternative to interrogation and probable un-bodying?”

“You’re serious?” Kazuko stared at each of the three men in turn. “That would be more than acceptable.”

“I am ready when you are,” Ethan said to Pavel. “Everyone will please activate their earpieces now.”

The three men snapped their heads once to the right, causing Kazuko Zaifa’s eyebrows to raise in bafflement.

“Wallace,” said Pavel, “You wait here until Ethan gets back aboard the ship. When Ethan gives you the signal, take Kazuko Zaifa to the ship.”

“M’self and the prisoner, we’re to simply waltz out the door?” asked Brian Wallace.

“I am endeavoring to turn that figure of speech into a possibility,” said Ethan, his hands skipping across the controls. “But I must return to the ship to disguise the origin of the rotating algorithmic—”

“Never mind, lad,” said Brian Wallace, cutting Ethan off. “What about Harpreet?”

“I’ll take care of her,” said Pavel. “You three, get ready to leave as soon as I get rid of the guard.”

With that, Pavel wrenched the door open, shouting, “Why wasn’t I notified of detainee Mombasu’s allergy to xenthophils?”

The guard at the door turned around, looking puzzled.

“She’s got a level six allergy to xenthophils!” Pavel shouted.

“Is that dangerous?” asked the guard.

“It’s life-threatening!” replied Pavel.

The guard blanched. “She’s being held for transfer to Budapest. I can’t have her dying on my watch.”

“Then you’d better get her back here, immediately,” said Pavel. “No. That could be too late. Take me to her.” Over his shoulder, he called. “I want the room cleared out and set up for a full blood transfer protocol.” He turned back to the guard. “Let’s go.”

As the two dashed along the hall, Pavel quizzed the guard. “You are set up for FBTPs here, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know, doctor,” replied the guard, his face still a pasty color. “Our facilities are minimal. What you saw in the exam room—that’s it.”

“That is your only medical facility? What century are you living in?” demanded Pavel. “Never mind. We can do the transfer on my ship.” Pavel tapped a wrist communicator that could be overheard safely by the guard. “Nurse Brian? Instruct Nurse Ethan to set up an FBTP aboard the ship at once.”

“Aye, doctor,” came the answering voice. “I’ve treated and released the heart patient.”

“Good,” said Pavel. “And I want a hoverstretcher in case the patient goes into xenthophilic shock.”

“Doctor,” said the guard, “A detainee transfer will require the warden’s permission. Even if it’s just to your ship.”

“I suggest you obtain such immediately,” said Pavel as the guard scanned the holding cell door open.

Pavel fumbled around in his pocket. “Five cc’s of retriverol should stabilize her,” he said, removing the casing from a med-patch.

Harpreet rose to greet the pair. “Doctor, how lovely—”

The guard interrupted, very distressed. “I’m sorry Harpreet. We didn’t know you were allergic to …” The guard turned to Pavel, unable to recall the name.

“Xenthophils,” interjected Pavel. “Pull her sleeve up for me,” he ordered the guard.

While the guard fussed with Harpreet’s clothing, Pavel stepped close to apply a med-patch to an exposed part of the guard’s neck. But before Pavel could act, a harsh voice shouted at him from outside the cell.

“Freeze! Hands up in the air!”

The three in the cell did as the shouting man ordered.

“Now turn around where I can see your faces,” he demanded.

Pavel and the guard turned slowly. All color drained from Pavel’s face when he saw the red armor worn by the newcomer.

The prison guard spoke quickly. “Officer, with all due respect, the detainee is facing a life-threatening allergic reaction. The doctor is only trying—”

“Silence,” barked the officer, eyes narrowing.

Pavel swelled with determination. “I’m a doctor,” he said. “The detainee requires immediate emergency intervention.” He waved the med-patch in the air.

“Guard,” said the officer, “Retrieve the packaging from that med-patch and hand it to me. Very slowly.”

Pavel felt his stomach wrench as the guard bent to pick up the wrapper. The med-patch was one used to knock patients out, not treat them for allergic reactions. Would Red Squadron personnel have received training in such matters?

From behind the officer’s clear face-shield, Pavel saw understanding and knew he was caught.

“You’re no doctor,” said the man in red to Pavel. He ordered the prison guard to take Pavel out of the cell. The officer followed the pair out, training his weapon upon Pavel.

Pavel made one last attempt. “The patient’s condition can only be stabilized if she is rendered unconscious, hence the med-patch.”

“I’m no fool, boy,” sneered the red-armored officer.

But as the officer stared Pavel down, recognition dawned upon his face. “Shizer!” he said, his eyes wide. “I’ve just found the Chancellor’s missing nephew.”

The secure turned to the prison guard. “Cuff this man,” he said, indicating Pavel. The officer in red then relayed the information of Pavel Brezhnaya-Bouchard’s apprehension on a comm line, nodding when instructions came back.

As the cuffs bit into his wrists, Pavel murmured a code phrase. “Without me,” he said. It was the instruction to Ethan, listening via the earpiece, to continue without him.

“What’s that?” demanded the Red Squadron officer.

“Without me …” Pavel hesitated, looking for something to make the phrase seem unimportant. “Without me, detainee Mombasu—”

But he was interrupted by the noise of Harpreet’s cell door, sliding suddenly shut. All three turned to look at the closed door.

“Get the detainee out of that cell,” ordered the officer in red. “Now!”

The guard tried, but he seemed to be having trouble scanning in. The door would not open. Ethan chose this moment to speak remotely in Pavel’s earpiece.

“Do you see a door at the opposite end of the building?” asked Ethan’s remote voice. “If you can see it, please focus your gaze in that direction, toward the surveillance camera.”

Pavel did so.

“You said ‘without me’,” said Ethan’s voice. “Am I to understand that you wish for us to depart without you? Please raise your eyebrows if the answer is yes.”

Pavel raised both brows.

“Harpreet remains in the cell, does she not?” asked Ethan’s voice.

Pavel raised his eyebrows again.

“I am providing a distraction for the guard,” said Ethan’s voice. “Get the officer out of view of Harpreet’s cell and I may be able to save her.”

This time, Pavel nodded his acknowledgment. It was too late for him. But Harpreet deserved a chance.

21

AIN’T NO SKILLED POLITICIAN

Jessamyn arrived at the Galleon and passed through the airlocks into the ship’s habitable section just as Crusty was preparing to leave. He wasn’t wearing his walk-out suit, which sent a shiver along Jessamyn’s spine. The ship was truly being prepared for tomorrow’s launch. She unclasped her helmet, breathing the Galleon’s filtered air. Her nose wrinkled.

“Never smells too good when you start her back up after a rest,” Crusty remarked. “We’re still on the old air filter, too. Decided to just replace the darned thing.”

He seemed undisturbed by Jessamyn’s appearance in the middle of the night.

“New filter’ll be here in a few hours,” he said. “Figured I’d try for some sleep ‘til then. ‘Less you want company?”

Jess shook her head. “I came here to sleep in my quarters. My house is … impossible.”

“Going to get noisy,” said Crusty. “I ain’t sleepin’ in here. Cavanaugh’s got some folks coming by to fuel the ship, switch out the spacesuits in all the quarters for fresh ones, that sort of thing.”

Jess felt a flutter of alarm. “Won’t that be noticed?”

But Crusty shook his head. “Secretary gave everyone tomorrow off for the celebration, remember? Hangar’ll be empty ‘til it’s too late to matter. And I might’ve done something to the vid monitors just to make sure.” He grinned as he said this. “But you’re likely to get walked in on, if you try sleepin’ in your quarters.”

Jessamyn scowled, feeling very tired. She should have just stayed home.

“Hang on,” said Crusty. “You can bunk up in my tool locker.”

When Jess looked confused, Crusty added, “It’s cozy. Got a sleep mat, even. I slept in there plenty to give your brother a bit more room. Cavanaugh’s bunch won’t have any cause to go in there. Plus it locks.”

“That sounds perfect,” Jessamyn said, a profound yawn distorting her voice.

Crusty led her to the tiny room which did, indeed, appear perfect at the moment. Shutting herself inside, she set the latch and turned off the light. Within moments, she was fast asleep.

Only to be awakened again after two hours. This time, she knew exactly where she was, at least. What she didn’t know was why in Hades Cavanaugh’s crew had to pick the hall beside her to have their very heated argument.

She pulled a palm over one ear, burying the other in the crook of her elbow. But it was no good. The two—or three—were shouting at one another. Jess rose to give them a piece of her mind.

But then she stopped. Why were they discussing the Rations Storage fire?

She pressed an ear to the door and the conversation grew clearer.

“It opened the path for an unscheduled trip to Earth. Another fire could do the same,” said a woman’s voice.

Smith, thought Jess, shuddering at the thought of the woman she was supposed to share quarters with.

“No, you are not destroying the food supply again,” said a deep voice.

Cavanaugh, thought Jess.

“One fire looks like an accident. Two makes people start asking questions about arson. Questions that will lead straight to the Party’s doors. Our cause doesn’t need that. We’ve already got what we want. Eyes on the prize, Smith,” concluded Kipper’s brother.

“She was only suggesting—”

Cavanaugh swore, cutting Jones off. “It will not be repeated. Especially not when we’re this close to achieving everything the Party is working for.”

“Sir,” called a new voice. “That’s the last two loads. Will there be anything else?”

“No,” replied Cavanaugh.

“Did you bring the communications amplifier?” asked Jones.

“We didn’t know where to put it,” replied the voice Jess didn’t know.

“It needs to stay hidden,” said Smith. “I’m not keeping it in my quarters. The girl might ask questions.”

“Agreed,” said Cavanaugh.

“How about here?” asked Jones, slapping the door behind which Jess sheltered.

Jess clawed her way back from the door as someone rattled the handle.

“It’s locked,” said Jones.

“What do you think your thumb key is for?” said Smith, her voice exasperated. “Honestly.”

The door shook again and Jessamyn held her breath, praying the latch would hold.

“This room’s no good,” said Cavanaugh.

“It’s for equipment—” began Smith.

Cavanaugh interrupted. “It’s where that old fool mechanic stores things. I’ll lock it in my quarters.”

“I still say we arrange for a little accident to take the mechanic out of the picture,” said Smith. “He’ll side with the girl if it comes down to a … conflict.”

“No,” Cavanaugh said sharply. “We’ve got a long and dangerous journey. Who’s going to fix things that break down? You?”

Smith didn’t make any sort of response that Jess could hear, but Cavanaugh seemed satisfied he’d made his point.

“We’ve got a full day ahead of us,” Cavanaugh said. “Let’s go.”

Jessamyn’s heart hammered in the dark room and she felt a rage such as had not filled her since she’d stabbed Lucca Brezhnaya.

Those … creatures set fire to Mars’s food supply, she raged silently. She could not fathom the depravity. Not to mention one of them wanted to kill Crusty. The ungrateful wretches!

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, her voice gritty with determination. All that mattered was that she report this to Mei Lo at once. She crept from her hiding place. How did a person reach the Secretary General at this hour? Well, Jess knew where Mei Lo lived. She was halfway into her walk-out suit when she heard someone thundering up from below decks.

“Hades and Aphrodite,” she swore. She had nowhere to hide. With her walk-out suit, she was too bulky to fit back into the tools storage room. Then she sighed with relief—it was only Crusty.

“Mornin’ kid. You’re up ear—”

Jess cut him off. “We’ve got trouble. Big trouble.”

Hurriedly, she repeated the overheard conversation to her friend, who seemed remarkably unmoved by the threat against his life.

“Bells of Hades,” he whispered. “Didn’t see that comin’. Words fail me, Jess.”

“They’re ungrateful wretches,” Jess fumed, sealing the front of her suit.

“Guess we better get a move-on,” said Crusty, shaking his head.

“I’m taking a planet hopper straight to Mei Lo’s residence.”

“What?” asked Crusty.

“Immediately,” said Jessamyn. “Before the celebration.”

Crusty frowned. “Wait a minute. I’m talkin’ about launchin’ the ship. Are you sayin’ you want to go see the Secretary instead?”

Jess stared at her friend. “We can’t launch now. We’ve got information that Mei Lo needs in order to fight the pro-trade faction.”

Crusty stared at her like she was speaking Marsperanto.

“Cavanaugh and the others were going with the blessing of the pro-trade party,” said Jess. “Everyone will hate them once they hear the truth about the party. This is just what Mei Lo needs!”

“Jess, you listen to me. You go blazin’ over to Mei Lo’s with this information and you’ll be in for all kinds of questions. People are going to ask how it is you heard these conversations. How it is a group of arsonists planned to steal Mars’s only spaceship. And who they found to pilot. Don’t think for a minute Cavanaugh won’t rat you out.”

Something in the pit of Jess’s stomach rolled over uncomfortably.

“Oh,” said Jess. It was awful. Crusty was right. “What are we going to do?” she murmured, half to herself, half to Crusty.

“Kid, the way I see it, we got two options. We can launch this morning, before the rest of the crew shows up, or we can give up ‘til next annum and head over to Mei Lo’s and tell her everything.”

Jess felt like she was going to be sick.

“But you better decide quick,” said Crusty. “’Cause Cavanaugh and his buddies were planning to load a few more things on the ship during the celebration this morning. The ship’s packed full up on fuel, but you need a morning launch from this position. Ship can’t carry enough fuel for launchin’ at the wrong time of day.”

Jessamyn nodded. Morning was their launch window. If they took off any other time, it would send the ship in the wrong direction. They couldn’t afford the fuel for large course corrections from space, and besides, they’d never get up to speed without slinging off using the planet’s spin—not when Earth and Mars were separating by nearly four million kilometers a day.

“I don’t like to say it, but it’s either go now or wait another annum,” said Crusty.

“If I stay,” said Jessamyn, “I won’t get a second chance. Not once Cavanaugh opens his mouth.”

She would never leave Mars if she chose to stay right now. Who would trust a spacecraft thief? She’d be stuck. She would never see Pavel again. A weight like a hundred kilos of Mars rock seemed to crush the air from her lungs. She shook the feeling away and took a deep breath.

“If we stay, we could use what we know to sway public opinion,” she said. “We reveal what they did and what else they were willing to do, and Mars Colonial will turn on them. The pro-trade party goes down in flames of infamy. A skilled politician could use something like this to sway an entire population.”

“That’s just it, kid, I ain’t no skilled politician. And with all due respect, Jess, you’re not going to be doin’ a whole lot of persuading from inside a jail cell.”

Jessamyn’s heart sank as she felt the truth of his words.

“True enough,” said Jess. “But the Secretary still needs to know.”

“That’s a call you can place once we’re airborne,” replied Crusty.

Crusty was right again. They couldn’t stay. She felt her resolve forming, originating in the cool space she accessed when she flew. To hand Mei Lo this information while stealing away with Mars’s last ship was crazy. Crazy like taking a planet-hopper into the heart of a storm. But it would accomplish every one of her goals. Mei Lo. Terran-fever. Terran aggression. Satellites. Ethan. Pavel.

Solutions came when your back was up against a wall, thought Jess. When your secondary port thruster had blown and your primary was about to follow suit and you refused to eject.

Her answer was right in front of her: sometimes steering into a dust storm was the right thing to do.

“We launch this morning, Crusty,” she said, her voice as cool as that space in her mind.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Crusty. “We got less than thirty minutes to get this thing off the ground. I need you in the cockpit wearin’ your g-suit right now.”

“Right,” said Jessamyn.

“Suit’s hangin’ in your quarters,” said Crusty. “I’ll run and release the docking clamps and set the hangar doors to retract.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t you go takin’ off without me, kid,” he hollered over his shoulder.

And then Jessamyn was left alone with the enormity of her decision. She wouldn’t have the luxury of a full crew complement. She wouldn’t get a last goodbye with her parents. The planetary celebration … well, that was going to be something of a flop, now, wasn’t it? A bit less to celebrate when your planetary heroes off and steal the last space-worthy ship.

She slipped quickly into her partial-pressure breathing suit. It felt like it had been custom-made for her. Well, it had been. By people who trusted her. She shook the thought off and grabbed her helmet, securing it before she got her gloves on. Flicking the suit’s breathing apparatus to “on,” she strode down the hall to the helm.

“I’m ready when you are, Crusty,” she said on their private line.

“Just double-checking the fuel tanks are at capacity,” replied Crusty. “Everything looks real good.”

Jess ran through a series of checks at the helm. Holy Ares, but it felt good to be back in the pilot’s seat. She saw a tiny brush of something reflect upon her nav-panel and was about to turn when a hand landed on her shoulder.

“Going somewhere, Captain?” asked Ms. Smith.

Jess felt her heart leap into her throat. Quickly, she removed her helmet as if to make casual conversation easier. Images of her own death at Smith’s hands ran through her mind as she shoved Smith’s hand off her shoulder. She thought quickly.

“You know if Cavanaugh loaded fuel in the auxiliary tanks?” asked Jessamyn. “Things look bad on this sim.” She scowled as if she didn’t like what she saw.

“You’re running a simulation?” asked Smith.

“No,” said Jessamyn, voice dripping sarcasm. “I’m leaving right now. Just you and me.” She rolled her eyes at Smith. “Of course I’m running a sim. And I don’t like what the ship’s telling me about our fuel consumption. Do you know anything about the auxiliary tanks?”

Smith shrugged her ignorance.

“Is Cavanaugh here?” asked Jessamyn. “Hey Crusty, you getting all this? You seeing what I’m seeing on these sims?” Was Crusty aware of the sudden appearance of Smith?

“I’m seein’ everything, kid,” said Crusty.

Jess felt a flood of relief that Crusty understood her situation. But now she had to get Smith off the ship. She turned back to the woman. “Is there anyone here besides you who can answer my question about the auxiliary tanks?”

“No,” said Smith, her voice carrying an edge of caution. “Why does it look to me like you’re trying to leave without us?”

“I have no idea why it looks that way to you,” snapped Jessamyn. “Do I look insane to you? Have you read the studies on long-term effects of soloing in space?” Jess knew her excuse was anemic. She prayed Smith hadn’t read any of those studies.

“I’m calling Cavanaugh,” said Smith.

“Fine by me,” said Jess, feigning an indifference she did not feel. “Ask him about those spare tanks, too.” She lowered her voice as if muttering to herself. “And ask him how I’m supposed to fly this thing alone twenty-four point six hours a day. You civilians all think these ships fly themselves.”

She continued mumbling derogatory remarks for a few moments while Smith hesitated. Mercifully, it seemed Smith was concerned about the consequences of calling Cavanaugh this early.

Jess called out, “There! Look at that!”

Smith leaned in, clearly unable to interpret the screen Jess pointed to. “Something is wrong with the lateral stabilizer fin rotator.” She turned to Smith. “I want you to sit here while I go below decks and make an adjustment. I need you to tell me when it syncs back up.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” admitted Smith, her voice sulky.

“Well then we’d better find someone who can,” said Jess. “Crusty? You hear me?”

No response. Which was perfect for Jessamyn’s plan.

“Holy Ares,” muttered Jess, tapping her comm switch. Jess turned to Smith. “Make yourself useful, would you?” she demanded, hands on her hips in her most Kipper-like tone. “Go tell Crusty I need him on the bridge now.” She turned back to her panel. “Just look at these readings. We’re not going anywhere tomorrow if we don’t get that stabilizer fixed.”

She swore using phrases she’d heard Crusty utter. Then she turned back to Smith. “What are you waiting for? Crusty and I have to take off for the celebration in half an hour. I want this stabilizer fixed now!” She brought her palm down on the nav-panel and Smith turned, scrambling down the hall.

Jessamyn waited until she heard the airlock door shut behind the unwelcome guest. Switching to their private channel, she spoke to Crusty. “Please tell me you heard all that?”

“I’m here kid. Listen close. I put out a delayed message straight to Mei Lo’s office about Cavanaugh and his gang. I’m going to have to, er, detain Ms. Smith. I don’t know as I can do that, open the hangar, and get myself up on the ship. So if you see that hangar door open up and the clock zeroes out, you take the ship outta here whether I’m aboard or no.”

“I can’t,” said Jessamyn. “Not by myself!”

“You listen to me, Captain Jaarda,” said Crusty. “You are perfectly capable of making this trip solo. If you still think this mission’s worthwhile, then you go. You fly with me or without me, by Hermes.”

Jessamyn placed her helmet back onto her suit, latching it securely, and something inside her clicked into place. “This mission is a go,” she said.

Over her comm, Jess heard Smith’s voice as she approached Crusty through the airlock that separated him from the hangar’s exposed interior. Then she heard Smith relaying the fake message about stabilizers to the mechanic. So far, so good, she thought.

“You’re launching early,” said Smith’s voice in her helmet. There was certainty in her accusation. Jessamyn’s heart pounded.

“I’m runnin’ a sim with the captain,” replied Crusty. “Put that gun down. You trying to get New Houston’s emergency services over here? ‘Cause they ain’t gonna like what they find.”

“Stop what you’re doing,” said Smith. “Step away from that wafer right now!”

“Keep doin’ what you do best, kid,” said Crusty, apparently ignoring the woman with the gun.

A message flashed upon Jessamyn’s screen.

Hangar doors retracting.

In her helmet she could hear Crusty arguing with Smith. And then she heard a shot and the sound of something large and metal toppling to the ground.

“Crusty?” she called out, unable to stop herself. There was no response. The chronometer ticked down to one minute, thirty seconds until launch. She heard a low groan—a woman’s groan, she thought. It faded and did not resume.

“Crusty?” she screamed. Her stomach seized with cold fear. She opened her public channel.

“Smith? What’s going on down there?” she cried.

No response. One minute to go. She stood and then sat again, mad with not knowing what was happening. Was Crusty racing on foot to the ship? Was he dead? Forty-five seconds to go.

“Crusty?” she called again. “Crusty!”

She heard nothing.

What should she do?

What is it that makes you a good pilot, Jess?

Harpreet’s question echoed in her memory. As did her answer.

I fly with my gut.

What was her gut telling her now?

Crusty!

It was time to listen to her reason. The answer was there, like she’d known it would be.

You are a pilot. Fly.

This was no time for regrets or fears or thoughts of anything beyond this bridge. Jess approved the Galleon’s final launch sequence.

From inside her helmet-insulated world, Jess couldn’t hear the scream of the hover-boosters as the ship flared from the hangar. She approved rocket launch and—not a moment too soon—remembered to harness in for the blast. How many other important details would she forget without a ground crew to assist her?

She pushed the thought aside. She was a pilot. If there was one place in the universe where she belonged, one place where she knew what to do, and how and when to do it, that place was right here—in the cockpit of a space-faring vessel. The Galleon gave a shuddering jolt and Jessamyn was slammed into her seat as the ship lifted through Mars’s shallow atmosphere. In the violence of the launch, she found a moment to wonder if her brother had truly disabled the lasers.

22

IDEALLY SUITED

The guard shook his head at the stubborn door, still locked. “I’ll have to re-code it from the security desk.”

“Get on it,” said the officer in red. “Now!”

The guard scrambled along the corridor, leaving Pavel standing with the Red Squadron secure.

“What will you do with me?” asked Pavel.

“That’s up to the Chancellor,” replied the officer. “But I can tell you she’s not happy with you.”

“I’m ready to speak to her now,” said Pavel. Harpreet’s safety depended upon his ability to force the officer to leave with him alone. “You will inform her at once.” Pavel’s voice, imperious, made the officer frown in indecision.

Pavel sensed a way to play his hand.

“My aunt will not be pleased if I tell her you delayed me from speaking with her,” said Pavel. This was probable and the officer recognized it.

“Very well,” replied the secure. He contacted his team, apprising them of Pavel’s demand. Then he spoke to Pavel once more. “You are to proceed with me to the prison’s holocomm.”

It was perfect. Pavel had gambled on his aunt’s vanity—her need to appear before him large as life as opposed to upon the screen of whatever device the officer might have with him.

However, they did not get as far as the holocomm center. They did not get very far at all. After one set of doors retracted to let them pass, the next refused to open. The doors at either end of the short hall remained sealed despite the secure’s best efforts at opening them. When he requested assistance, he was told he would have to wait, due to an emergency which had arisen within the prison.

~ ~ ~

Brian Wallace had awaited Ethan’s signal and was now making his slow way along corridors filling with ever-increasing numbers of prisoners who had suddenly found themselves staring at open doors. Their cell-doors normally opened to release them for work or food, so most ambled out into the corridor, looking back and forth for the guards who would accompany them at this unexpected hour.

But no one seemed to expect anything from the prisoners at the moment.

“Doors must’ve malfunctioned,” they murmured to one another.

So when Brian Wallace came strolling along the corridor murmuring, “This way if ye please,” and accompanied by Kazuko Zaifa, many fell in step behind him. Ethan’s voice, in Brian’s earpiece, gave the Scot precise directions leading him toward an exit from the prison. Brian trusted Ethan would lead him away from any guards and danger that lay ahead; the group amassing behind them was a sort of insurance policy against attack from behind.

But then, unexpectedly, Brian received a change of marching orders.

“Brian Wallace?” called Ethan’s voice from the earpiece.

“Aye, lad,” replied the fugitive Scot.

“It would appear Pavel has been unsuccessful in his effort to retrieve Harpreet,” said Ethan’s voice.

“She’s not refused again, surely?” asked Brian.

“No,” said Ethan. “Unfortunately Pavel has been apprehended by Red Squadron. They have recognized him. It is doubtful he will escape and he has instructed us to depart without him.”

“I see,” murmured Brian, continuing along a narrow corridor.

“I am unwilling to depart without Harpreet,” said Ethan.

“I see,” Brian replied.

“I propose giving you directions to her chamber,” Ethan said.

“Aye, well, hurry it up then, lad!”

Ethan directed Brian and his growing entourage through halls and doors and in less than a minute, Brian was met by a blinking Harpreet, newly emerged from her cell, which had unlocked seemingly of its own accord.

Unfortunately, at that moment, several guards managed to cut through a locked door leading to the corridor where the fugitives gathered.

“It’s Harpreet,” said some.

“Guards!” cried others.

“Are we supposed to be following the man ahead?” asked others.

The answer came blaring over a loudspeaker system. “Prisoners are to return to their cells at once or face punitive action.”

From within the crowd, which shrank back from the approaching guards, someone took Harpreet by the arm and tugged her toward the center of the huddle. She reached for Brian’s hand, Brian reached for Kazuko, and soon all three were at the center of a moving mass of prisoners retracing their previous steps.

From behind, Brian heard cries of, “The detainee is not here. Her cell’s empty.”

“They’re after ye,” he murmured to Harpreet.

“Perhaps I am not meant to escape after all,” she said softly.

Beside her, one of the prisoners heard what she said and a soft murmur began trickling through the crowded mass.

Harpreet is escaping today.

This man and Kazuko Zaifa are helping Harpreet to escape.

Few were indifferent to the rumor. Either they were disposed to assist or afraid that the attempt would bring “punitive action” upon them as well as upon the attempted escapee.

The mayhem increased.

~ ~ ~

Ethan had never been more grateful for the care with which Pavel had treated his once-gnarled hands. While not as easy to use as the hands of his own body, these were responsive and rarely pained him anymore. Ethan felt a great deal of satisfaction as his fingers flew along several panels. It was a sort of game ideally suited to his abilities.

Open doors.

Lock doors.

Look on surveillance feeds and determine which doors to open or lock next.

All the while he led Brian Wallace, Harpreet, and Kazuko Zaifa closer and closer to an exit.

Pavel, he felt less certain he could help.

But then an idea came to him. Perhaps he could play the door game upon multiple fronts? He rubbed his aged hands together, cracked his knuckles once, and set to it.

~ ~ ~

From inside the corridor where he was trapped with the officer in red, Pavel despaired. For himself, at least. He believed Ethan would be able to set the others free. But his little stint as an adventurer was about to draw to an end.

He was not happy at the prospect. But he was content that, among the five of them hoping today for freedom, he should be the one left behind. It would never have done to leave Kazuko or Harpreet behind. Jessamyn would approve his action. He smiled at the thought of the girl with red hair. And then he felt a deep ache as he realized he would never enjoy her approval. His aunt might not kill or imprison him (he really didn’t know), but she would certainly never allow him any measure of freedom again.

He sighed heavily.

The officer beside him stood suddenly to attention, apparently in response to something over his private comm. “Yes, Madam Chancellor,” he said. “At once, Madam Chancellor.” Turning to Pavel, the officer withdrew a pocket wafer, scanned his wrist across it, and handed it to Pavel. “Your aunt wishes to speak with you.”

Pavel lifted his cuffed wrists, indicating with an added eyeroll the impossibility of taking the proffered wafer.

The officer hesitated for only a moment before releasing Pavel’s hands.

“My dear Pavel,” said Lucca, staring at him in miniature from the wafer.

Her lips were an unnatural red and pulled back in what was meant, he knew, to be a smile.

“Aunt Lucca,” he said, voice flat.

“I am so looking forward to an extended … conversation with you,” she said.

“About what?” he asked.

“Oh, this and that,” she said, tapping her forefinger to her chin. “I will be eagerly questioning you as to your whereabouts, of course. And the identities and aims of your companions. One of them I believe I’ve met before. In Scotland, I think it was.”

He watched as his aunt moved during this speech, seating herself before what might have been a surgeon’s tray. That certainly answered for him the question of whether his aunt was kindly disposed toward him after his extended absence. Upon the tray, as she clearly intended, Pavel glimpsed a hypo-spray of Equidima.

Shizer! he thought. His aunt would make certain to use all means available to get the truth out of him. And he was useless under Equidima.

His pulse quickened, but he was determined his aunt should not see his fear. “I look forward to our discussion, Aunt,” he said, his voice calculatedly casual.

“Oh, I highly doubt that, darling boy,” said Lucca. She grinned once more, feral, and the image disappeared.

23

DEFYING MARS

Mars shrank in the view screen as Jessamyn hurtled through the planet’s shallow atmosphere.

What have I done?

“Crusty?’ she called out. “I’m not cutting this comm.”

Silence.

She checked her heading.

“I’m on a straight course to intersect Earth’s path in sixty-four and one-half days.” It was more of a curved line, really, given the constant tug of the sun’s gravity, pulling her relentlessly toward the center of the solar system.

Ahead loomed the Terran satellites. In moments she would leave them behind with her home world. “After Ethan and I get things fixed up, we’ll have to stop calling them Terran satellites, you know,” she said.

But Crusty made no response. She felt a wispy fluttering in her stomach.

“I’m really alone, huh?”

Silence.

Think about what you are doing, she ordered herself. A shiver ran through her as she rushed toward one of the satellites.

“Hello,” she whispered.

The words of Ethan’s cryptic message played in her mind: You shall pass through the fire and not be burned.

Then, from inside her helmet, sounds assaulted her ears. Jessamyn heard the cries of emergency services personnel: “Two down, I repeat, two persons down!” Her heart shrank.

But she had no time to agonize over Crusty’s fate. Abruptly, she had her own emergency. The Galleon’s monitors shrilled with the pips indicating detection by the satellite’s lasers.

She cut her comm to Mars and initiated a port thrust burn, steering her away from the closest threat. Another set of pips shrilled. She’d been detected by a second satellite. It was too late to go dark—could she make it past? She ordered another burn to starboard, screaming past the satellites.

Her g-suit’s partial-pressure breathing forced her to inhale. Dark spots danced in her periphery as she moved her head to check for laser-fire.

But there was nothing. The monitors continued to shriek, which meant the laser’s tracking systems had a lock on her ship. And then the explanation struck her. The tracking system was still in operation—it was the lasers that weren’t functioning. And she’d just burned how many kilos of fuel?

She terminated the burn, closed her eyes, and sank back into the pilot’s hot seat, calling herself by every unsavory name she could think of. A launch crew upon Mars’s surface would have anticipated the Galleon’s monitors having fits as she flew past the satellites. Would have told her to hold steady, not to worry. Would have prevented the waste of fuel. The g-suit forced another unwelcome breath and she reached up to detach her helmet. She was about to throw it to one side but stopped herself. She had no idea if a replacement was aboard her vessel.

She had no idea if she had suits for the three crew members she planned to rescue. Or ration bars for herself. What other idiotic mistakes was she going to make out in space by herself?

A red light blinked over at communications, her brother’s former station. “Red Galleon, this is Mars Colonial Command. Do you copy?”

She pressed the tips of her fingers to her closed eyelids.

“This is Jessamyn Jaarda aboard Mars-Class Space Faring Vessel Red Galleon.” She sounded very young.

“Please state your intentions regarding your unapproved launch, over.”

Jessamyn cleared her throat, attempting to access her lower register. “I am on a course of direct intercept with the planet Terra. I’ll be returning next orbit with the Mars Raiders we left behind. Over.”

The pause before MCC transmitted again was a long one. Someone important was evaluating her admission.

“Pilot Jaarda, you are not authorized to attempt this mission. You will return the Galleon to MCAB immediately.”

She reached to flick off the channel but then stopped herself. What if they said something about Crusty? They didn’t. Instead, various persons from MCC peppered her with charges of kidnapping a space-faring vessel, accusations that she was acting like an idiot, and strong expressions of the board of directors’ disappointed hopes for her bright and promising career.

She collapsed her head into her hands, elbows resting on the display panel in front of her. What would her parents make of her decision? What humiliations would they suffer each day they went in to work?

What had she been thinking?

The red light at Ethan’s station flashed furiously. Jessamyn rose and walked off the bridge. Dimly, she heard the continued demands that she respond, that she return. She paused at her quarters, punched the door open, and stared but did not enter. Inside the lockers, flung wide during launch because no one had been assigned the task of checking all door seals, hung a pair of space-quality walk-out suits. Wrinkle-free. New.

“Thanks, Crusty,” she murmured. The hatch door to her quarters, sensing no motion, slid closed. She didn’t want to sit in her quarters anyway. She wandered along the empty hall, pausing to stare into the rations room. Someone had Velcroed a full complement of five ration bars and water packets to the small table. She moved closer, fingering the back of the chair her brother had preferred. The table setting made her feel very alone, and she turned to leave the room. Which was when she noticed the orchid.

“What on Ares?” she murmured, walking closer. It was Crusty’s orchid. What did he mean, placing it aboard the ship? She saw a piece of papyra tucked into the base of the container. It was a note.

Set container in water every third day, one half packet wet ration. Talk to it. Wallace says it helps.

Crusty had entrusted his Terran prize to Jessamyn aboard the Galleon? And he expected her to talk to it? Jess shook her head.

“Forget it,” she said. “I’m not talking to you.” She glared at the flower.

Why had Crusty left his beloved orchid? It struck her as the act of someone who’d known all along he might not accompany the Galleon.

Why hadn’t she thought of this before? Even without the unexpected betrayal of Cavanaugh’s team, the timing between opening the hangar doors and the actual launch would have been tight for Crusty to make it aboard. You couldn’t just open the hangars and expect no one at MCC to notice. He’d been willing to remain behind if necessary. To face the wrath of MCC alone.

In fact, seeing as he had placed his orchid aboard early, it would seem he’d expected to be stuck behind on Mars, bearing the brunt of punishment as an aider and abettor of criminals.

“Hades, Crusty!” she swore. “Why didn’t you discuss this with me?”

Rolling her eyes, she snatched up the orchid and marched to the bridge. She looked around for a few seconds before deciding the orchid belonged at Crusty’s station, where it could stand as a reminder to Jessamyn of his sacrifice. The thought melted her and she sank into her seat at the helm, looking at the fragile flower.

“What’ve I done?”

The helm was eerily quiet. MCC must have decided they were wasting their breath. Perhaps they’d moved on to discussing her fate privately now. Obviously she’d be expelled from the Academy, her pilot’s license revoked. Most likely, she’d be placed under arrest in absentia. She’d stolen her planet’s last remaining interplanetary vehicle, effectively committing the largest theft in the history of Mars Colonial.

All of which would be for nothing if she didn’t get herself to Earth. Settling into the pilot’s hot seat, she checked her heading once again. It was off a handful of degrees, due to the ill-advised fuel burns when she’d thought herself under laser attack. She made a series of small burns to return the Galleon to the correct trajectory. As she terminated the burns, she noticed something odd on her fuel consumption report.

Frowning, she brought up a more complete chart of her fuel use in the forty-nine minutes since she’d left Mars. Then she asked the ship’s computer to recalculate. The numbers made no sense. How could she have burned through so much fuel leaving Mars? Hadn’t Crusty said the ship was fully fueled? Yes, she was certain he’d said that. And she was even more certain he wouldn’t have allowed her to launch with inadequate fuel. It wasn’t the sort of mistake Crusty would make, no matter what the circumstances.

Painstakingly, she reexamined the quantity of fuel the ship had held prior to launch. She double-checked this amount with the quantity the Galleon would need to launch at correct velocity to catch up to Earth. Her requirements while on her journey would be minimal thanks to inertia—her ship would sail at a steady rate with no resistance. She might make a handful of course corrections with small burns, but she wouldn’t really need fuel again until it was time to enter Earth’s atmosphere. Large burns would be critical to slow her speed then.

The calculations came back exactly as expected. Crusty (or, technically, Cavanaugh) had loaded the ship with the correct amount the journey called for plus the just-in-case buffer for unforeseen eventualities. Like a pilot misinterpreting danger from defunct lasers. Jess shook her head at her stupidity and then focused once more upon the ship’s readings.

There were only two possibilities. Either Crusty hadn’t checked the fuel or the current readings were inaccurate. The first was impossible and the second was troubling. She counted on her ship to provide her with complete and accurate data. But apparently, some part of the ship’s ability to read fuel consumption was busted. It must have been something Crusty ran out of time to fix—there was no other logical explanation.

Sighing, she turned from the readings. They were flawed, but ultimately the bad readings wouldn’t affect her ability to pilot the ship. She trusted Crusty. The fuel was there; she just couldn’t see it.

It occurred to Jess that she might be able to pick up news about Crusty’s state of health or … otherwise. Her stomach knotting uncomfortably, she shifted over to her brother’s old station. There, she fussed with the communications array until she picked up a broadcast from New Houston.

She and Crusty had made the news, alright.

“Could it be for the purpose of demonstrating the laser satellites are truly non-functional?” asked a male voice.

A female replied. “No, Dan, I don’t think that’s what we’re looking at. Hang on—we’re just receiving a report that Payload Specialist Daschle Crustegard was present at the launch site.”

“Perhaps he can shed some light on this puzzling situation?” asked the male voice.

“Unlikely,” replied the woman. “He is listed in critical condition at New Houston Memorial Hospital.”

“I see. So, back to the other raider—”

Blanching, Jess located a different broadcast.

“And now we hear that Daschle Crustegard has been removed to what appears to be a kind of protective custody within the Intensive Care unit.”

“You know, Fong, what surprises most of us is the Secretary General’s decision to allow today’s festivities to continue.”

Fong laughed. “Well, it’s a planetary holiday. I don’t hear anyone complaining here. Who knows—maybe Pilot Jaarda just needed a little fresh air, Sadie.”

Sadie made a wise “hmm” sort of sound. “She’s Mars’s youngest Raider ever. Perhaps the pressure’s simply been too much. Well, there’s no pressure in space, eh, Fong?”

“I think that’s no sound in space, Sadie, but we’ll leave that to the science experts, shall we?”

“Sounds good to me! We have our raiding program correspondent here. Hakim, what can you tell us about the implications of this unprecedented theft upon Mars’s future?”

Jessamyn rolled her eyes and cut the newsfeed, leaving an echo of the irritating banter behind. She rested her eyes upon Crusty’s orchid. It almost had eyes, if you looked at it just so.

“What?” she demanded, staring the orchid down.

It seemed to return a baleful gaze.

“I’m not going to talk to you. I don’t care what Crusty said.”

But she did care, and she felt tears prickling behind her eyes. Jessamyn sighed and sat up a bit straighter. She was doing the right thing.

A familiar voice blaring over the ship’s comm jolted Jess from her reverie.

“What do you think you’re doing, Jessamyn?”

It was Mei Lo. And she was angry. Several degrees beyond mere anger, if Jess was any judge. In the silence that followed the Secretary’s question, Jess heard whimpering sounds that had to be coming from the planetary dog, Rover. Did dogs respond to strong displays of human emotion?

“Answer me, by Hermes,” said the Secretary, “Or I’ll send someone up to blast you out of the sky!”

“With all due respect, Madam Secretary,” replied Jess, “You and I both know there’s no ship left on Mars that could catch me now.”

The Secretary launched into a string of curses, most of which were unfamiliar to Jessamyn, although their intention was clear as fresh ice. When Mei Lo paused for breath—Rover now howling piteously in the background—Jess asked a question.

“Are you alone?”

“Am I what?” demanded the Secretary. “Alone? Why in Hades would I be alone when I’m dealing with a planetary crisis of unprecedented proportion?”

Jessamyn didn’t answer. If the Secretary wasn’t alone, Jess couldn’t disclose the real reason she’d stolen the ship. She couldn’t say, “Remember that secret conversation we had? I’m going to make sure what you said needed doing gets done.”

She couldn’t let Mei Lo could become implicated in the actions she and Crusty had taken. That might destabilize the Secretary’s hold on her position. Could she tell a sort of lie of omission? Reveal only enough of her plan that Mei Lo would understand?

“Pilot, turn that craft around at once,” the Secretary demanded. “We’ll discuss your motives once I’ve got you under lock and key.”

“Begging your pardon, Ma’am, but that’s not very motivating.”

“Jessamyn!” cried the Secretary in exasperation. “What are you thinking, for the love of Ares?”

And it came to her, a partial truth, a possible way to explain, a tiny something Mei Lo might understand and which might even give the Secretary courage and hope for the future.

“I’m on my way to Earth for that exact reason,” she said.

“What?” demanded Mei Lo. “What exact reason?”

Too vague, thought Jess. “For the love of Mars, Ma’am. I am going to retrieve my brother for the love of Mars.”

Was that clear enough? “My brother, who is a planetary treasure,” she added.

“Potions of Aphrodite!” yelled the Secretary. “You get your skinny hide—”

Rover interrupted with three very loud barks.

“Jess—” Once again, the Secretary was cut off by the dog. “Oh, good grief! Would someone take that dog out for a walk in his hamster ball?”

“Have you received Crusty’s message, Madam Secretary?” Jessamyn asked.

“Raider Crustegard is in the hospital in critical condition,” said Mei Lo.

Jessamyn could hear undertones of anguish in the Secretary’s voice.

“He sent you a message, Ma’am,” said Jess. “I would suggest you read it, by yourself, immediately.”

“You are in no position to be making suggestions, young woman!” shouted Mei Lo.

“Yes, Ma’am,” said Jessamyn.

Speaking to someone in her office, the Secretary demanded a copy of Crusty’s message to be brought to her at once.

There was an extended silence during which Jess assumed the Secretary was reading Crusty’s message.

“Bells of Hades,” murmured Mei Lo.

Then Jess heard another flutter of voices from personnel who must have just entered the room. She could hear the Secretary trying to deflect the persons who had interrupted her. Then, Jess made out the Secretary’s exasperated utterance of something like, Oh, go ahead, then, ask her.

A new voice broke through the comm. “Jaarda, what can you tell us as to the disposition of the Terran satellite lasers?”

“Mars Raider Ethan Jaarda successfully completed the task of disabling the lasers,” replied Jess, eager to sing her brother’s praises. “However, the targeting and locking mechanisms are still very much alive. Anyone who ventures into Mars high orbit should be prepared for a whole lot of sirens and whistles going off. Just no lasers. Sir.”

She wondered if anyone would thank her for this information.

They didn’t.

“I have pressing matters to attend to,” said Mei Lo. “But listen to me very carefully.” She paused. “Jaarda, I want you to think long and hard about every promise you ever made to me. My government cannot support the path you are choosing, and MCC demands that you bring the Galleon back home now. Mei Lo out.”

Jessamyn was not offered the chance to say goodbye. Or that she was sorry. Or that she wished things could have gone differently. No, she was summarily cut off from conversation with the woman she most admired and respected on Mars.

It hurt, but Jess told herself she ought to have expected it. She queued up a recording of the conversation so she could listen to it again.

Jaarda, I want you to think about every promise you ever made to me, the Secretary said.

Jessamyn could think of only two specific promises—one old and one new. She had promised to bring back ration bars (the old promise) and she’d promised to keep to herself the secret about Terran corruption in the Re-bodying Program (the new promise.) Well, she’d made good on the first and would certainly keep the second one.

She listened to the end of the conversation once more. There it was, the strange way Mei Lo admonished her. Instead of making the appeal personal, Mei Lo had referenced the government of Mars Colonial.

She replayed the section.

“My government cannot support the path you are choosing, and MCC strongly advises you to bring the Galleon back home now.”

That was curious. Mei Lo would have known that a personal appeal would hold a lot more water with Jess. And then it struck her. Like Jessamyn, the Secretary had wished to convey more than could be said with so many listening ears in the room. Mei Lo seemed to be telling Jess that the government of Mars Colonial disapproved Jess’s action.

But she doesn’t, realized Jess. Mei Lo knew exactly why Jess was returning to Earth and what she hoped to accomplish by rescuing Ethan. And while the Secretary could not say aloud that she approved Jessamyn’s course of action, Jess heard the unspoken blessing suspended between the spoken words and caught at it like a child clutching at carbon snowfall on a winter’s night.

She felt the swelling of courage inside. She would not let the Secretary down this time. Mei Lo recognized what Jessamyn knew: defying Mars was the only way she could hope to save it.

24

FOR HARPREET

The officer in red armor beside Pavel was speaking quietly into his comm. “How much longer?”

The two had been trapped in a corridor between locked doors for several minutes following Pavel’s conversation with his aunt. Pavel surmised she’d been shown video footage revealing that her nephew was, in fact, acting in collusion with Brian Wallace. Pavel felt grateful Jessamyn was millions of kilometers from his aunt.

“I’ll try the door again,” said Pavel, rising and walking calmly to the door that led away from Harpreet’s cell.

“Stop right there,” warned the officer, breaking off from his comm line conversation.

But Pavel pretended he hadn’t heard. Because inside his earpiece, Pavel had just received instructions from Ethan.

“Proceed to the door on your right,” said Ethan. “I will open it and then lock it behind you.”

“I said stop! You! Brezhnaya-Bouchard!”

Pavel did not stop. He hoped the officer didn’t have orders to “shoot the nephew if he runs.” Even more, he hoped Ethan was serious about the door opening. Pavel broke into a run as the officer started to chase him. Either the door would open or Pavel would have a badly broken nose very soon. He pushed himself faster. Just as he was about to collide with the door, it slid open. He reached the other side, panting, and it clanged shut behind him.

To his right, Pavel beheld a mass of people—detainees by their clothing—striding along the corridor.

“What?” he muttered to himself.

“Doctor!” called Kazuko Zaifa, beckoning Pavel.

Pavel slid in beside Brian Wallace, Harpreet, and Kazuko.

“We break left at the next turn,” murmured Brian Wallace to Pavel.

“Okay,” said Pavel, his heart racing from the run and the unexpected prospect of salvation.

“Now,” called Brian.

The four detached from the mob and dashed left to a corridor with a door leading to the outside.

“This way,” said Brian, tugging at Pavel.

The door to the outside retracted, but on the other side stood a guard who looked very much surprised by both the door’s opening and the presence of the four behind the door.

“Good day, Jonathan,” said Harpreet, who apparently knew the guard by name.

“What’s going on?” Jonathan asked, taking in the prison garb and medical insignia of the four behind him.

“Arrest them!” came a voice from somewhere behind them.

Pavel turned to look and saw the crowd swelling around the corner the four had just slipped past.

“Arrest the doctor!” came the cry from somewhere behind the crowd.

The confused guard shifted his weapon. “You heard them, ma’am,” Jonathan said to Harpreet. “I can’t let you pass.”

She smiled and patted his forearm. “You must do what you feel is right, of course.”

“Let me through,” demanded a guard from the back of the crowd. “Or we start shooting!”

Half the crowd drew back like water toward a drain. The other half stood their ground, protecting Harpreet Mombasu. The old woman’s name was upon many tongues, a susurration, an inspiration.

“Go!” cried a prisoner from the front of the crowd. Along with two others, he hurtled toward Jonathan, knocking the gun from the guard’s grip. Others rushed to tackle the hapless guard, crying, “For Harpreet!”

A handful of shots rang out and pandemonium ensued, the crowd surging forward and then shrinking back.

“You heard the man,” said Brian Wallace to his companions. “Let’s go!”

Harpreet called a hurried, “Have pity on Jonathan,” to the surging crowd before dashing outside.

As soon as the four cleared the exit from the building, the door slammed shut behind them. They ran to the dirt-brown ship awaiting them and clambered aboard, Pavel throwing himself into the pilot’s seat.

“Hold tight!” he called.

Ethan was able to keep the prison doors jammed until the swift ship was several kilometers from New Timbuktu. It was a head start they put to good use, fleeing as if some devil were after them.

Or, thought Pavel, as if his aunt was after them. It amounted to much the same thing, he mused.

Pavel called out to Ethan, “You’re a hacking genius, man!”

“So my sister has often told me,” replied Ethan.

At the mention of Jessamyn, Pavel felt his heart fold over on itself. The smile faded from his face and he fought off memories of the girl in the orange dress, laughing beside him. She’d probably forgotten him by now. He busied himself with the ship’s navigation.

Ethan continued. “It is almost certain the Chancellor will have requested Cassondra Kipling be brought in for interrogation. Should we not make the attempt to abduct her as well?”

“Oh, dear,” said Brian Wallace. “Sounds like we’re headed back to the capitol, then?”

But when Ethan brought up information showing Kipper’s new location at the Dunakeszi Hospital and Clinic for Brain Injury, Pavel flat out refused to attempt her rescue.

“Seems a bit heartless, lad, don’t you think?” asked Brian Wallace.

“No,” argued Pavel. “Look at these records. She’s comatose. My aunt won’t get anywhere trying to question her. And I don’t have the equipment or personnel to handle a patient requiring this level of care. She’s safest where she is. If we attempt to move her, she could die.” He glanced over to Ethan and Harpreet. “I’m sorry. But she’s getting state-of-the-art care at Dunakeszi.”

“How is your aunt likely to deal with a prisoner in Captain Kipling’s state?” asked Harpreet.

Pavel frowned. “She’ll rage and fume at the physician in charge, but once she learns nothing can be done, she’ll forget all about her. Move on to the next big thing.”

Harpreet sighed. “In that case, I am forced to agree it would be in the captain’s best interest for us to leave her in the hospital for now.”

“That’s settled, then,” said Pavel. “So what’s next?”

Harpreet smiled. “Dr. Zaifa has been telling me some very interesting things about the languages used to communicate with the deep-space satellites circling Mars.”

Pavel blinked in surprise. “She knows where you’re from?”

“And she is interested in helping us,” replied Harpreet.

Pavel shook his head. Harpreet had a remarkable effect on people.

Dr. Zaifa spoke. “I’m certain I can recreate the code necessary for communication with the satellites. Only a reasonably robust computing system would be required. However, I must caution you against simply sending the information to the extant deep-space satellite dishes.”

“The Terran government monitors those transmissions,” Ethan said.

“Exactly,” replied Kazuko. “You would be better served by building your own dishes.”

“Oh, sure,” said Pavel, rolling his eyes. “Because there are so many retailers selling do-it-yourself satellite dish kits for use in deep space.”

Brian rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Actually,” he said. “I know of an enclave where this sort of thing could be built.”

“Enclave?” asked Pavel.

“They like to keep their heads low,” replied Brian Wallace. “Not the friendliest of folk, mind, but open to economic opportunities outside those normally sanctioned by Lucca Brezhnaya’s government.”

“A black market,” said Pavel.

“Well, they prefer to be called independent traders,” said Wallace. “Shall I contact them?”

Pavel deferred to Ethan, who in turn deferred to Harpreet.

“That would be lovely,” she said.

25

NEVER GET AHEAD

The range of Lucca Brezhnaya’s emotional states had severely contracted through the centuries. She had attempted to eliminate all strong emotion, but anger remained and revealed itself in either a white-hot rage or ice-cold calculation. In her rages, Lucca killed things, destroyed things. In her cooler moments, she plotted destruction, carefully weighing the many possibilities before her.

She considered it very unfair that so much of her time had to be devoted to destruction. All she’d ever wanted was to cultivate her world as would a careful gardener his garden. But if weeds and weevils crept in, they must be burned or squashed. How else could one ensure a healthy garden?

Once, when Zussman had lain ill, Lucca had ventured to a café for her morning coffee. She’d been struck by something she’d overheard. A housefrau was complaining to a friend: I can never get ahead. No matter how many times I sweep the floor, there’s always a fresh mess the next day. Lucca sympathized. As well, she felt good about her empathy; the fact that she could empathize meant she was still human. She was simply a common human Writ Large, was she not?

She sighed, tapping her dark red nails upon her desk.

Today she was in a cool mood. She was angry, certainly, but in an icy way that her staff often mistook for calm. Look how well she’s handling her nephew’s betrayal, they murmured. Somehow, word had leaked out that all was not well between aunt and nephew. She would have to see to eliminating further leakage. But right now she needed to see to Pavel.

So. He refused to come home.

Very well. Lucca knew how to communicate with him over space and time. She smiled. She brought up a listing of all the hospitals at which Pavel had volunteered the past five years. Of course, he’d logged the most actual hours at New Kelen here in Budapest. Lucca sighed. It was tempting. But, no, she would not risk making her government look weak by arranging an attack upon a hospital in the capitol city.

No, the destruction of one building in Budapest had been quite enough, thank you very much dear nephew of mine, she thought, bringing her palm down upon a tiny spider crossing her desk.

At first she’d not known he’d been at the Martian satellite facility. When she’d learned of it, she momentarily wondered if Pavel’s only goal had been to destroy something, anything, in the capitol city as a way to strike at her. But this possibility had been swiftly eliminated by the fact that he’d chosen to steal away from New Timbuktu with Kazuko and the other inciter.

No, he was involved in the group secretly planning to visit Mars. She was sure of it now. He wanted an adventure, or tellurium wealth, or simply to do something he knew his aunt wouldn’t like.

Of course, she reassured herself, he could have no way of knowing why she wouldn’t like it.

She needed to communicate to him swiftly. To nip this little Mars venture in the bud. She stood and paced—thinking, considering. And then she remembered a tiny something about one of the hospitals. Hadn’t he persuaded her one Christmas to make an excessive donation to one of them? Yes, she was certain. He’d declined interest in any gifts for himself that year, asking only for this charity.

She returned to her desk. There it was. The Hospital for Mental Illness and Recovering Minds. It was an elegant choice as well; if you were going to create a shortage of bodies for the Re-body Program, best do it by eliminating those least deserving of re-bodying. Paris had been a mistake in that regard. The Re-body Program had lost some very healthy bodies that day.

She called in the two members of Red Squadron who had failed her so miserably at New Timbuktu, glad she’d spared their lives after all.

“The pair of you are volunteering for a special mission. I’m in need of a few … committed inciters,” she said. The two officers glanced at one another as if to say, “Did she just say what I think she said?”

Lucca smiled. She adored the moment of puzzled confusion that always followed pronouncements such as this.

“Your target is the Hospital for Mental Illness and Recovering Minds in Hong Kong. I want something messy.” She paused, imagining Pavel’s reaction. “Very messy.”

26

THE PROSPECT OF DEATH

On the morning of her twenty-fourth day out from Mars, Jessamyn awoke with her heart pounding hard against her ribcage. She’d thought of a third reason the ship’s computer might be reporting she had so little fuel remaining.

“Extra weight,” she muttered.

Jumping out of her bunk, she stumbled to her locker. To find out if her hunch was correct, she would need to descend into the bowels of the ship, which weren’t kept habitable. She hesitated a moment between her g-suit and a spacesuit. A part of her school pledge echoed in her head: I will not waste oxygen. She grabbed the g-suit.

Slipping inside the suit, she toggled the oxygen reserve to supply itself from the main cabin. This meant a wait of a minute and gave her time to admire the fit of her boots and gloves. She wondered briefly if she could talk MCC into allowing her to keep the suit for everyday use upon Mars. She rolled her eyes at her idiotic idea. MCC was going to lock her up and throw away the key once she got home.

Even with its customized fit, the suit felt awkward. Jess had grown accustomed to movement without a suit. She’d passed nearly a month in deep space. She was certain she’d never gone more than a single day on Mars without suiting up, often spending entire days back home inside the pressurized suit with the oxygen supply which made her life possible upon Mars’s surface.

She eased into the tiny airlock that led to the ship’s lower levels. Lighting was poor down here, and she flicked on her headlamp.

For over three weeks, she’d assumed her fuel indicator was malfunctioning. But what if someone—some trade-obsessed individual too contemptible to mention by name—had filled the ship’s hold? Jess felt sick as she considered the possibility. But it would explain the larger burn to get the ship off Mars and up to velocity. A heavier ship would have consumed more fuel. Something Kipper’s idiot brother would have been likely to overlook.

Shuffling past the ship’s escape pods, Jess made her way to the large doors leading to the ship’s hold. She felt her pulse increasing as she waited the agonizing time it took for the hold doors to retract. What she saw in the glow of her headlamp took her breath away.

Cavanaugh had filled the ship’s hold with tellurium.

Sinking onto the floor, Jess gazed in despair at the valuable metal.

“No wonder you burned through all that fuel,” Jess whispered to the ship.

It was a potential disaster. If the ship’s fuel readings were accurate—and she had to assume now that they were—she had big problems. Jess leapt to her feet and sped back toward the ship’s habitable level.

This was not a minor issue like last week’s episode with the squealing clean-stall beside her quarters. Not a humorous one like the morning she’d awoken bobbing about in her quarters like a floating cork and had to reengage the ship’s artificial gravity with a cold frame boot to the system.

“Trouble always comes in threes.” In her mind, Jessamyn could hear the rasp of Crusty’s gravelly voice as he’d spoken those words in the past. She heard, as well, Harpreet’s laughing response: “Only a fool borrows trouble from the future.” Jess supposed that meant something along the lines of, “Don’t go looking for a third problem.”

“Well, we’ve got one now,” she said aloud, including the ship in her use of the plural pronoun.

Back on the bridge, Jess ran calculations through the ship’s computer over and over again. Her results, unfortunately, were not encouraging. The fuel indicator reported the consumption of an amount of fuel in proportion to a ship loaded down with tellurium. The fuel indicator wasn’t busted.

No, it was fairly certain Jess did not, in fact, have the fuel she needed to make the kind of safe landing she’d made six weeks ago upon Earth’s Isle of Skye. Nor did she have enough to come to a full stop and return to Mars. In fact, assuming the indicator was correct, she might not even have enough to guide the ship back into Mars’s orbital path to wait out the red planet’s arrival.

“Great,” she said aloud. “I’m dead.”

She’d faced death in a cockpit before—most recently just before MCAB had grounded her. But those times, the prospect of death had been immediate. This time she had nearly forty days between her and her probable demise. And this meant she had time to think about death.

And so, day by day, she learned to live alongside the fact that each day brought her closer to the probable conclusion of all her days. She vacillated between utter despair and a sense that everything would work out in the end.

It was a strange way to live.

She continued to receive periodic communications from Mars with demands for her return. These she read and ignored. Then one day a message arrived from her parents, pleading for her to reconsider. Her mom sent a set of calculations showing she’d still have the fuel to return until day forty-seven. Her mom didn’t know about the additional tellurium weight, of course. Jess stopped reading messages after that, and on day forty-eight, they stopped coming. MCC had apparently given up on her.

Jess spent much of her time analyzing the ship’s three hundred Earth-years of data regarding entry, descent, and landing on the Terran world. But this activity, like reading MCC’s messages, served only to fill her with unease. What she saw did not look hopeful. The day after the MCC messages ceased, Jess decided to discontinue analyzing possible landings as well.

“I’ll make it or I won’t,” she said aloud.

But with two weeks to go, she badly wished she’d brought something to read.

And then she laughed aloud. Running down the hall to Crusty’s storage locker, Jess fished inside the small dark space and pulled out a long-forgotten bag, crammed with the items she’d packed her last night at home. She hadn’t intended for it to be her last night, obviously, but now she hugged the bag to her chest in delight.

She pulled out her reading wafer and settled on her bunk to lose herself in a favorite story. And then another. And another. Until she fell asleep reading.

On the seventh day of this new routine, she woke with a massive headache throbbing through her right eye. You’ll ruin your eyes, her mother had told her when Jess used to read for hours on end.

Standing, Jess stumbled to the rations room in search of synthetic feverfew. While this did the trick for the headache, she decided to spend her time in more varied ways.

Searching her brother’s wafer, she found the music of the Cratercoustics, a band popular on Mars, and she cranked the music until it blared throughout the ship. The band was supposed to have played at the planetary celebration, which made her feel a bit sad. But the music was energetic and soon Jess was bouncing down the hall, singing along with lyrics about the girl she’d left behind in Barsoom Station.

It was a good workout. Crusty would have approved, Jessamyn thought with a smile. If she had to spend some part of each day exercising, she might as well enjoy it. Just in case she managed to land the ship after all.

The song finished and the crooning voice of the lead singer switched to a melancholy ballad about wearing his heart on his sleeve and how his girlfriend had stolen his jacket away. The words were silly. Very silly, Jessamyn told herself as she sang along, but the emotion felt raw and pure and she found herself remembering Pavel, his smile, his mouth warm on hers.

Which brought Jess to a new depth of miserable.

It wouldn’t do. Calling out a command for the ship to cut the audio, she marched to the helm. It was time for a rational activity. Like checking her trajectory.

Staring at the readings, her mouth pulled to one side in half a frown. Not because anything was wrong, but because the trajectory looked perfect. Mind-numbingly perfect.

“The Galleon doesn’t need me,” she said to Crusty’s orchid. Fortunately, she’d never once heard the plant respond to anything she had to say.

She looked for something else to do. She supposed she could swab the decks, but cleaning had never been a favorite task of hers.

Sluggishly, the days crawled by, Jess filling them with letters to Pavel, strenuous exercise, reading through blueprints of her brother’s inventions, and occasional one-sided conversations with Crusty’s orchid.

As dull day succeeded dull day, the nights grew ever more wearisome. Jessamyn had stuck to the twenty-four hours and thirty-eight minutes of a Marsian day until she reached day thirty-two, her half-way mark. Since then, she dropped the thirty-eight minutes and set her schedule to match Earth’s shorter twenty-four hour days.

Not that it mattered a great deal. She lay each night awake for what seemed like hours, trying various rooms to see if change improved her ability to sleep.

One problem that interfered with sleep was simply that Jessamyn felt as if she were doing a Very Wrong Thing each night by allowing the ship to fly itself. She would awaken with her heart pounding, adrenaline coursing madly through her system, and the fear that she’d forgotten something important, left something critical undone. Which led to an inevitable trip to the bridge to check on the ship.

She even tried sleeping at the helm. That didn’t last long. As she lay on the floor of the bridge, she couldn’t help but imagine the Red Galleon frowning sternly at her, demanding to know what, exactly, she thought she was doing asleep at the proverbial wheel.

Her letters to Pavel grew more frequent, although her memory of him seemed each day to thin out until only a gossamer thread of Pavel remained to anchor his memory to her. She recalled in flashes small things: his fingers, with sand pouring off of them; the bright bloom of red as he removed her subcutaneous Terran scan chip; and often, especially as she dreamed, his breath upon her lips as he leaned near for a kiss.

Upon her fifty-first day in space, Jessamyn broke her self-imposed ban from visiting the observation deck. Pausing before the seal-door, she attempted to brace herself against a rush of memories of her brother, an ache for his companionship. But as she passed over the threshold, she saw only the stars. Glorious, infinite in number, bright against an inky backdrop.

She sighed as she moved across the shallow room to lean her forehead upon the window. Why didn’t I come here before? She had no answer. Only a certainty that she’d been a fool to cut herself off from such beauty. It looked to her as if someone had frozen in time an image of rain, the small pelting bits caught stationary and then lit with fire, stretching unto an infinite distance.

Dear Pavel, she composed the letter in her head, I am staring out at Zhinü and Niulong this morning—if you can call it morning—and wondering if you think of me when you look into the night sky. I am surrounded by eternal night (or perhaps it is eternal day), and I know now that I cannot live without the beauty of this vision spread before me. Will we, as the lovers in the tale, find one another? Form a bridge across the distance? I am not crossing the Milky Way. My journey is a minute one, Pavel, and sometimes I have a sense of being caught in a river that carries me to you. Well, I hope it will. Earth seems so tiny when I view her in the vastness of space. How hard could it be to find you upon so small a surface? Your friend, Jessamyn

It wasn’t a letter she committed to her wafer. These were thoughts only, ephemeral, private, foolish. She walked to the far end of the arched window and tucked herself against the wall, watching the fiery worlds, wondering if any watched her back. And then, trying to number the stars between the smallest space she could form between two fingers, she fell asleep.

When she awoke the next day, she decided to move the orchid from the bridge to the observation deck. “The view’s a lot better from there,” she murmured to Crusty’s plant as she carried it. Pausing to open the ob-deck door, she disturbed the pot-within-the-bowl system Crusty had set up for watering. Instantly, her nostrils were assaulted by a smell so rare upon Mars that she had to stop to think where she’d encountered it before.

“Algae rot,” she murmured finally. “Like Mom’s bad pots.”

Wrinkling her nose, she adjusted the ob-deck’s low lighting so she could see the orchid better. The smell definitely originated from the plant—Jessamyn discovered a layer of slime where she’d disturbed the bowl. Quickly, she shifted it back to its former position as best as she could, hiding the slime and the odor.

Jess remembered how her mom got angry when Jess or her father accidentally turned off the lighting over the algae pots. Maybe the orchid needed more light. She fiddled with the ob-deck lighting, aiming one light at a spot just in front of the window. Carefully, she set the plant in the light.

“There,” she said. “That should help you get better.” But as she said this, she saw a black spot on one of the leaves. Rot, she thought. She had no idea how to treat a plant for leaf-rot.

How did a plant even contract such a thing out in space? Frowning, Jessamyn walked to the door, looking back over her shoulder at the plant. The orchid did look happier here.

“You’re losing it, Jaarda,” she said as she exited the ob-deck.

Sleepless nights became an increasing challenge as Jessamyn hurtled through space to her rendezvous with Earth. No longer able to stick to a schedule where she’d be awake at the same time every day, Jess began to set reminder alarms so that she could check her course at twenty-four hour intervals.

She wondered again if sleep might come in a different room, a different bed. A move to the ob-deck had helped, initially. She decided to try out the captain’s quarters next. Walking down the hall, she shuffled inside, bleary-eyed, before depositing herself upon the slightly larger bunk.

A few days ago, her throat had begun to feel irritated. Tonight, the night of day fifty-seven, it felt worse. She yawned, wincing at the ache in the back of her throat. Apologizing in her mind to the citizens of Mars Colonial, Jessamyn reached for a second evening water packet and guzzled it gratefully.

It was only as she crossed from fatigue into the liminal stage preceding sleep that it occurred to her the scratch in her throat might be an indicator of air filter malfunction.

27

WATER-WEIGHT

The desert looked much as Pavel remembered it from childhood. Browns and tans, pinks and peaches, and everywhere, dirt. He brought the ship down to the east of the San Bernardino mountains where Brian Wallace assured him, despite appearances, a small community flourished. Observing the terrain, Pavel wondered how anything could flourish here. He still found the desert beautiful, but it appeared threatening as well to his now-adult eyes. There were few signs of water—a handful of shriveled-looking trees—Joshua trees, he recalled, and small desiccated shrubs which clung to the ground as if shrinking from the desert sun.

Then there was the additional and invisible danger of radioactivity—the real reason no one lived here anymore. Pavel had already applied tattoos which would keep a count of the daily doses of radiation taken in by the party of five, but he had no really effective counter-remedy to offer. Modern medicine’s best treatment consisted of avoiding places such as this. It troubled Pavel. He could only hope their stay would be of short duration.

“Astonishing resemblance to your planet, eh?” said Brian Wallace to Ethan and Harpreet.

“It is what our world might be,” replied Harpreet. “With adequate water.”

“Hmm,” mused Wallace. “Looks a wee bit lacking in water to me.”

“Let’s have a look round,” suggested Pavel, peering out the window before pushing upon the hatch.

A blast of heat, fierce and dry, entered the cabin of the craft.

“Gracious,” murmured Harpreet.

Wallace laughed. “A person underestimates the intensity of the heat,” he said. “It’s like one of those heat-blowers the barber uses aimed straight at the face, isn’t it?”

Pavel leapt ahead, reaching down to grab a small rock. He fingered it for a moment, savoring the rough surface, the heat it had already captured, and then he threw it as far as he could, listening for the satisfying thunk.

Ethan, all the while consulting the screen on his chair, spoke to the group. “I believe this direction will lead us most swiftly to encounter the residents of the area,” he said, pointing to the right.

Pavel rejoined his companions and the five ambled toward an outcropping of what looked like hillocks.

“They’ve no notion of proper houses out here, do they?” asked Brian Wallace.

“Proper in such an environment would of necessity differ from what would be considered proper in most other locations,” replied Ethan.

Pavel grinned. Jessamyn’s brother could interject unintended humor into any situation.

They crested a tiny rise. Ethan, pointing ahead and left, said, “The dark spot is the entrance to a domicile.”

“Hands loose at our sides, then,” said Wallace. “Don’t look threatening.”

Pavel pulled his hands from where he’d stuffed them in his pockets.

As they marched toward the dark opening in the ground, something diminutive emerged from the space. Something human. A small child, shouting.

“Renard, Renard, Renard!” the child cried. “Alice said you weren’t coming back but I knew she was wrong and I told her so a thousand times and now she’s going to have to—”

Abruptly, the small boy stopped running and shouting some ten or twelve meters away. He stared at the strangers. “You’re not Renard.” For a brief moment his body language suggested tears. Then he placed tiny fists upon his tiny hips and demanded, “Who are you?”

“Friends,” replied Harpreet. “Or, rather, we hope to become friends. Is there an adult about, child? With whom we might speak?”

The boy turned tail and dashed back to where he’d come from. Pavel beheld a rough-hewn set of stairs leading belowground, looking much as though they had been carved by winds. Wallace strode forward, calling out a halloo which went unanswered.

“Well, I suppose it’s wait outside, then?” asked Brian Wallace.

“That would be our least-threatening course of action,” replied Harpreet.

A moment later, the small boy reappeared mid-way up the stairs. “Come inside,” he shouted before disappearing below once more.

Pavel took a step toward the entrance and the others followed. They seemed to have entered a residence, but no one appeared to greet them. Pavel was at the point of asking aloud if anyone were home when Wallace cried out.

“Well, isn’t that hospitable?” he asked with delight. A basin of water sat upon a counter, surrounded by small drink cups.

“No,” called Dr. Zaifa just as Brian prepared to dip one of the cups into the basin.

“Nay?” asked Wallace, his hand halfway to the water.

“It’s not ours,” she said simply. Turning to Ethan, with whom she’d been forming a sort of friendship, Dr. Zaifa asked, “Where you’re from, would it be bad manners to take a drink from someone’s home?”

“It would be unthinkable,” murmured Harpreet.

“Wet rations are assigned per person,” added Ethan. “One does not simply drink a ration belonging to someone else. It would be considered theft.”

Pavel restrained Wallace, shaking his head. “We don’t drink. Not unless it’s offered. This is a desert, man.”

A woman stepped forward as if emerging from the wall. Dressed in the same tans and browns of the desert, she might have been standing there all along.

“You’re not thieves, then,” she said. “So what are you?”

“We’re visitors,” said Pavel.

“Greetings, friend,” said Brian Wallace.

From a shadowy corner of the room, a man emerged to join the woman.

“I see no friends here,” grunted the man. “I see intruders—two young, one old, one fat, and one cripple.”

Wallace chuckled softly, patting his belly.

Pavel, however, took offense at the man’s use of cripple to describe Ethan. “This is how you greet strangers? With insults?”

“There is no offense in his descriptions,” said Ethan. “They are accurate, however incomplete.”

“Sir, we apologize for entering your dwelling without permission,” said Dr. Zaifa. “There was a child—”

“It ain’t my place,” said the man. “It’s hers.”

“Where’d you come from?” asked the woman.

“Here and there,” said Wallace, smiling pleasantly.

“You’d best see the Shirff, then,” she responded. “C’mon. Follow me. Roy? You just make sure as they do.”

Roy grinned, placing one hand upon a knife stuck through his belt. The boy, emerging from under the table where the water rested, stared at the strangers with wide eyes.

“What’s a cripple, Roy?” asked the young boy, skipping alongside the man.

“It’s when a feller can’t pull his own water-weight,” replied Roy.

Pavel was on the verge of snapping an angry retort, but Ethan placed a hand upon Pavel’s arm and shook his head no.

Pavel contented himself with clenching and unclenching his fists instead. It had been two years since he’d thrown a punch, and that had been a mistake, but he felt as though this situation warranted one. He’d met some intelligent people working in hospitals, and Ethan outsmarted any of them. The Marsian could more than pull his own water-weight.

“I saw them first,” said the boy, skipping ahead to stare at the strangers. “I thought it was Renard coming home.”

“Hush, Samuel,” said the woman. “It’s not proper to speak of him.”

“I know,” said the child, head hanging to one side. “But I’ll still think about him, even if he decides not to—”

“Hush!” said the woman again.

The “Shirff” being apparently out to parts unknown for the morning, the five visitors were invited to bide their time awaiting him in an underground chamber similar to the one they’d left, but with a gated passage.

“We didn’t do anything,” muttered Pavel.

“It’s much the same welcome ye might expect if ye came unexpected to me cousin’s island,” replied Wallace.

“The Isle of Skye?” asked Pavel.

“Nay, me cousin the chieftain runs Madeira and a few other wee islands, she does. As Head of Clan Wallace, she’s very fussy about the security of those she oversees,” Wallace explained.

Pavel grunted in response and then looked over to the holoscreen Ethan had pulled up. “What’s that?” he asked his Marsian friend.

“I am examining schematics detailing the consumption, regulation, and reclamation of water in Yucca,” replied Ethan.

“That’s … the name of this place?” asked Pavel. “Yucca?”

“That is correct,” said Ethan.

Roy entered with someone new. “This here’s the Shirff,” he said. “Rise out of respect, now.”

Wallace, Pavel, Harpreet, and Kazuko rose. Ethan paused and then moved his chair several inches higher, which caused the Shirff to chuckle.

“Greetings, strangers,” he said. Then, turning to the two desert-dwellers, he asked, “Will you stand witness to my conversation with the new arrivals, Roy and Marie?”

The two nodded.

Samuel let out a loud sigh.

“And you, too, Samuel,” added the Shirff before returning his attention to the visitors. “Now then, what brings you to the desert?”

Harpreet presented their interest in requisitioning a deep-space satellite dish, Wallace adding his willingness to finance the endeavor.

The Shirff nodded. “You didn’t happen upon us accidentally, then.”

“Nay,” said Brian Wallace. “Me cousin’s done business with ye in the past. Do ye know the name of Cameron Wallace?”

The Shirff pulled absently upon his substantial mustache. “Well, sure I know who Cameron Wallace is. We built a radio system for the clan chief not three months ago.”

“I’d heard as much,” replied Brian. “She spoke well of the workmanship. However, I’ll not hide from ye that she and I are not on the best terms at present. I’m as great a disappointment to her as an empty whiskey bottle is to a sober man.”

“I don’t see as that should stand in the way of our doing business with you in the meantime,” said the Shirff. “Like as not the two of you will patch things up before long. You’re family. We all need one another in times like these.”

“Aye,” replied Brian Wallace. “Couldn’t have spoken a truer word.”

The Shirff crossed his arms, stared long and hard at Harpreet, and finally nodded. “You’ve got yourself a contract, then, ma’am.” He spit into his palm and held his hand out to her.

Not batting an eye, Harpreet spit into her own palm and the two shook hands.

Pavel had never seen an odder way to seal an agreement and had to hastily covered his laughter with a small fit of coughing.

Samuel, who’d stared wide-eyed at the strangers during the entirety of the negotiations, tugged at his mother’s shirtsleeve. “Can we go now?” he asked. “The sun’s about to set and I want to look out for … someone.”

“Hush,” said Marie to her son, looking embarrassed.

“Are they coming to the bonfire?” demanded Samuel. “It’ll be a big celebration,” he added for the benefit of the newcomers.

“What are you celebrating?” asked Pavel.

The Shirff ruffled the small boy’s hair and shrugged. “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it, Samuel?”

“Renard’s coming back,” said the little boy, thrusting his lower lip out. “I know it.”

Dropping to one knee beside him, the Shirff spoke in an over-loud whisper to the boy. “I sure hope you’re right about that, but let’s keep it to ourselves, shall we? Your ma didn’t raise you to speak of the departed, now did she, son?”

The little boy cast his eyes to the ground. “No,” he said. “She raised me good. But sometimes words just wiggle out before I can stop them.”

Still in an exaggerated whisper, the Shirff replied, “I know some adults with the same problem. You keep working on it, Samuel.”

The Shirff stood and addressed the five visitors. “Now, then, let’s talk water, shall we? What can you offer as might persuade desert folk to part with their food and drink?”

The negotiations for satellite dish construction had not, apparently, included daily sustenance for the group.

Marie excused herself and Samuel. Roy remained with the Shirff, his hand still resting beside his knife.

At Pavel’s side, Ethan spoke quietly. “Our addition of five persons will tax this community.” Ethan pointed at the water reclamation schematics he’d pulled up earlier.

“Hey,” said Roy, taking a sudden interest in Ethan’s screen. “How’d you get that information on your holoscreen?”

“He’s a genius,” said Pavel, his dark eyes glowering. “I doubt you or I would understand the explanation of how he did it.”

“That’s our water reclamation,” complained Roy. “Shirff, he’s got his grubby little fingers all over it, movin’ stuff around.”

“What you observe is an artificial copy of your system,” said Ethan. “I am merely testing an idea to upgrade your settling pond to a higher level of efficiency.”

The Shirff chuckled and Roy’s chest swelled.

“I’ll have you know,” said Roy, “That we’ve got water loss due to evaporation down to three-point-five percent. I’d like to see anyone else do better.”

“Would you?” asked Ethan. He swiveled the screen so that Roy could see it without having to strain. “And would you consider an evaporation loss of point-zero-two percent to be an improvement?”

Roy made a sound between a snort and a grunt. “Course I would. But that’s plain impossible. And I oughta know—I run the settling basin.” He turned to the Shirff. “Sir, I’d like you to order this feller out of my reclamation program.”

“I am not interfering with your operations,” said Ethan. “I have merely suggested improvements.”

“That’s quite friendly of you,” said the Shirff, moving closer to inspect Ethan’s screen as well. “Roy, you’ve got to admit that’s friendly.” His tone invited Roy to reconsider any further use of confrontational language.

Ethan looked up from his screen and spoke to the Shirff. “Sir, I have transferred my recommendations to your central processing unit where you may take them under consideration.” He hesitated and then added. “I have looked briefly at other water systems in your settlement and am prepared to make further suggestions to improve efficiency.”

“Well, I’ll be,” said the Shirff, examining the recommended changes. “You surely know your way around a decant pond.”

“Mayhap he does at that,” admitted Roy.

Pavel grinned broadly.

The Shirff held out a hand. “You just earned water rights for five for the next … well, I have to admit I don’t know for how long. There’s no precedent for this sort of thing. I’ll have accounting take a look first thing tomorrow morning. Welcome to Yucca, friends.”

~ ~ ~

Pavel looked at Harpreet beside him, her dark skin catching flickers of firelight, a small smile upon her mouth. She struck Pavel as the sort of person who would fit in anywhere. The sort of person who could stand before his aunt and remain unimpressed and unruffled. The sort of person he wished he could be.

Turning his gaze back to the fire, he rubbed his hands together. The desert by night was much cooler than he’d remembered. Of course, he’d probably been asleep in a camp-cocoon for hours by this time when he was a child visiting the desert.

The company gathered round represented, Pavel now knew, the entire settlement of Yucca—some twenty families. That the visitors had been allowed to join the others at the bonfire was no insignificant matter. From what Pavel had been able to gather, they were awaiting the arrival or non-arrival of a young man his own age—the much-anticipated Renard of whom Samuel had spoken.

“I know of several ancient Earth cultures who practiced this sort of survival testing for their young members,” Harpreet remarked softly. “Perhaps you have heard of something like this?”

But Pavel shook his head. The only ceremony he knew of for becoming an adult was the first-body exam he’d taken. Even though less than three calendar months had passed, it seemed as if that had been years ago.

Harpreet continued. “To survive in the desert for three days alone is no small feat. I should not like to attempt it upon my world.”

Pavel nodded agreement. He wouldn’t want to wander out into the desert alone either. But there was a part of him that envied Renard. To be able to prove himself in such a fashion—to deserve the respect of his fellows—this Pavel earnestly desired. You’re nothing but a city boy, his mind whispered. Soft through and through.

“Of course, you have accomplished more,” continued Harpreet. “To have survived apart from the life you were raised to for so many months already. Renard was raised to this existence. But what you have done? Well, it is no small thing, my son.”

Pavel flushed. It felt a small enough accomplishment to him.

From somewhere outside the pale of the firelight, a low sound thrummed.

“A cello,” sighed Brian Wallace. “Lovely instrument, that.”

And it was. Pavel thought the growing strains sounded like a voice, deep and resonant and tinged with a sorrow too profound for words. As the sound grew more insistent, Pavel’s eyes located the source. A single cellist played alone, wringing sweet and anguished notes from the instrument. Swaying ever so slightly as he played, the musician embraced the cello, holding it to him like a lover, fingering the frets with an intimacy born of many years’ familiarity. They knew one another, thought Pavel, the player and his instrument. It made Pavel ache for someone who would know him that well, draw from him those notes so clear and beautiful.

When the piece ended, Pavel looked around to see if clapping was appropriate, but the desert folk applauded in a different way. Beside and behind him, people rubbed their palms together. It made a sound like a soughing wind, gathering and then dying off. The cellist bowed deeply before beginning another piece, a merrier one that brought children wriggling from parent’s laps to dance about the great fire.

And then, just as Pavel recognized that one of the dancers was taller than his fellows, a cry went up around the circle.

“Renard!”

“It’s Renard!”

Pavel found himself smiling, even though Renard was a stranger. The enthusiasm was contagious, and when all about him began to clap (apparently they did clap for some things), Pavel joined in.

After a minute, Renard held his hands up and all fell silent.

“I am Renard, son of Ambrose and Keiko, foster-son to Marie and Roy,” he said. “I have returned to Yucca after a three-days’ sojourn in the deserted places. I ask this community to receive me as a full member. I vow to carry my own water-weight and to relieve those whose burden has grown too great when the chance falls to me. Will you have me as your full brother?”

Having said this, Renard turned so that his back was to the seated community, his face to the fire. He held his hands slightly out from his sides. Almost immediately his hands were taken up by two who slipped forward. Then, one by one, the adult members of the community stepped to the fire to link hands, creating an ever-enlarging circle about the bonfire. The children skipped around the circle, sometimes darting under the linked hands. At last an old woman smoking a clay pipe was the only citizen still seated beside the five strangers. Then, slowly, she stood and walked to close the gap by taking the last two hands.

“Renard, I declare you a citizen of Yucca by unanimous consent,” said the wizened woman, pipe clenched between her teeth as she spoke.

A round of whoops and hollers echoed around the fire as people rushed forward to congratulate, hug, and otherwise smother Renard.

After several minutes had passed in this manner, Pavel saw Samuel tugging hard at one of Renard’s hands. The young boy succeeded in pulling Renard toward the strangers.

“This is my foster-brother,” said Samuel, beaming from ear to ear. “He came back to us. I knew he would.”

“Of course I chose Yucca,” said Renard, scooping Samuel up and tickling him. “Who are your new friends?” he asked, staring from the little boy to the five he didn’t know.

“Strangers,” said Samuel, his eyes wide. “But they’re okay,” he added in a loud whisper.

Ethan spoke the question Pavel was thinking. “Was the choice yours to make? To return or depart?”

Renard’s eyes narrowed. “It’s the same choice everyone here has to make, once they’re grown: Join the community or leave it for conventional life. We take three days on our own to decide.”

“Or die in the desert,” said Samuel with relish. “You could have died, too, you know.”

Renard laughed and tossed Samuel into the air. “And miss the party?”

A laughing group of young men and women Renard’s age came by and swept him off to where dancing had now begun, a fiddler and drummer having joined the cellist.

“Well, about time for bed, is it then?” asked Brian Wallace.

Pavel itched to stay, but this wasn’t his party; these weren’t his friends. And so when Dr. Zaifa and Harpreet nodded and Ethan turned his hoverchair from the fire, Pavel fell in behind.

But as he drifted to sleep in his borrowed bed, Pavel thought of the laughter and dancing by firelight, of the wild and sweet sounds the cello had made, of the firmness of purpose in Renard’s declaration, and he wished he’d been born an impoverished son of the desert instead of a privileged nephew of Lucca Brezhnaya.

~ ~ ~

The five strangers became Renard’s first official responsibility as full citizen during the course of the next days. With Renard’s help, Zaifa, Ethan, and Wallace were kept busy planning and beginning construction of the deep-space satellite dishes for transmissions to Mars. Renard understood manufacturing to a degree even Ethan admired. But Pavel found a better reason to befriend him: Renard liked racing. Whenever Pavel rose early enough, Renard would come by to suggest a set of laps around one of several courses. Renard’s smaller ship was swift and maneuverable, but Pavel took risks that often paid off in a win.

When Renard discovered Pavel’s background in medicine, Pavel was sent round to set and re-set bones, provide basic dental care, and make his best guess as to odd skin rashes. Harpreet assisted, offering her particular brand of wisdom to adults and children alike. It was rewarding work, and over the course of the next week Pavel felt more and more like an accepted part of the community.

Through these interactions, Pavel became fascinated by the sort of life the desert-dwellers had created, so far from government control.

“It’s the radioactivity makes it all possible,” said Renard one morning after a race. “An instance of a curse becoming a blessing, I suppose.”

Pavel blinked as the two watched the sun cresting a set of rocky hills. “I’ve seen the high rad numbers,” replied Pavel. “And I’ve kept my eye on the numbers every time I do an exam, but it’s like no one’s affected. Heck, even the five of us look just as normal as if we’d spent no time here at all.”

Renard smiled, pulling his long hair through a tie. “It’s the tea. I wondered when you’d ask.”

“The tea?” asked Pavel.

“Only full citizens are instructed in its preparation,” replied Renard. “So don’t ask me how to make it.”

“Oh,” said Pavel, understanding dawning upon him. Along with his friends, he’d been offered a bitter drink twice daily. Their hosts had said it helped regulate health, and Pavel had been meaning to analyze its components. “I assumed it was some kind of aid against dehydration,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to get some under a spectroscope.”

Renard frowned. “Best not to examine the tea. Folks might take that as suspicious behavior. The tea is what keeps us alive out here.”

Pavel nodded. More than ever, he was curious about the tea’s constituent parts, but he saw the wisdom of keeping his curiosity to himself. They were here as tolerated guests.

But after a few more weeks had gone past, Pavel found himself itching to know what herb or root or mineral it might be that went into the brewing of the mysterious tea. He determined to ask the Shirff for permission to analyze an undiluted sample.

So, when a morning came that Renard didn’t show up for racing, Pavel trekked over to the Shirff’s dwelling.

“I’ve got a question from a medical standpoint about the tea we’re drinking every day,” Pavel said. “But I don’t want to investigate without your say-so. Would you be amenable to giving me a sample I can analyze?”

“Interesting question,” replied the Shriff. His cool tones ought to have been a warning to Pavel.

“I figured you’d be the one to ask for permission,” Pavel said.

“Shirff here’s not in a partic’lar answerifying way today,” said a familiar voice.

Pavel looked about for the source and saw Roy rising from a shadowed corner of the Shirff’s dwelling.

The Shirff raised a hand to silence the man and gazed at Pavel, head tilted slightly to one side, a frown creasing his brow. “Roy’s been insisting you looked familiar, like he’d seen you somewhere before. This morning he showed me a picture.” The Shirff stared long and hard at Pavel. “Can you tell me what exactly the Chancellor’s own nephew might be doing in these parts asking after secrets kept by settlements as like to bide on the shady side of Terran law?”

Pavel swallowed. And tried to think of an answer that wouldn’t land him or his friends tied to a cactus and left to die in the desert.

28

FATE OF A LONE GIRL

Jessamyn awoke the next morning with the sense of having left something undone. The solars? Did Mom ask me to give them a scrub? Rolling over, her arm struck the metal bar designed to prevent her from tumbling out of her bunk, and she came fully awake, millions of kilometers from her mom and the solars. Her throat felt awful—like it had the day she’d dared her brother to eat sand. Ethan had sensibly declined, but Jessamyn, curious, had tried it. One painful swallow had been enough to keep her from consuming more.

She climbed out of her bunk and shuffled to the rations room where she drank not one but two water packets to soothe her burning throat.

“Water-grubber,” she murmured to herself. Talking hurt, so she made a mental note to stop. It was time for a ration bar. Jessamyn found herself holding it unopened in her hand, certain it would hurt to swallow. Shoving it in a pocket, she decided she’d think about eating later. It was the sort of thing she’d seen her brother do dozens of times. She could do worse than grow up to be like him, she reasoned. Well, minus the part where he got captured by Terrans and re-bodied.

Making her way to the bridge, she went through the routine of verifying her heading. Everything checked out nominally, and after a boring hour at the helm, Jess decided to pay an extended visit to the ob-deck. Perhaps she’d do a bit of napping as well. She felt so lethargic, even with what had been a very good night’s rest behind her. A nap in the ob-deck sounded idyllic right now.

She opened the seal-door. The room’s lighting, normally dimmed for better viewing, glowed warmly on its “orchid” setting.

“I suppose you think you need that light,” she rasped to the plant. The pain in her throat reminded her of her intention to avoid speech, and she thought the rest of her words.

Well, I’m sorry, but I’m turning the light off anyway.

Feeling ridiculous for sending thoughts to Crusty’s plant, Jess was just about to settle for her nap when she saw the nasty blackened patch had grown, spreading across one entire leaf. Or petal. Or whatever they were called. Moving closer and squatting before the plant, Jess twisted the watering bowl to examine the far side. Nothing bad over there, at least. But in twisting the bowl, she disturbed the slimy growth between the watering bowl and the pot.

She pulled back. It had moved on from green and ugly. Now it was brown and nasty.

And that was when Jessamyn recalled the thoughts that had passed through her mind as she’d fallen to sleep. Air filtration. Her sore throat. The slime on the plant.

“Oh, no,” she murmured. What was it Crusty had said about the filter? That he’d had to order a new one? Jess couldn’t remember him telling her that he had installed the new one, only that he was waiting for it. When had that been? Dread filled her belly.

“Oh no,” she repeated.

It had been the night she’d slept in his tool locker. The night she’d discovered Cavanaugh’s treachery. The night that had folded into the day she launched alone.

Crusty had not replaced the air filter.

She rose and dashed back to the bridge, seating herself at the mechanic’s station. Her lungs tickled from the effort of running and she coughed. She glanced through the information the ops panel returned on air filtration.

“Oh, Hades,” she whispered.

It looked bad. The air filter showed significant contamination in five places. She asked the computer for a recommendation and received instructions for an antiseptic flush, which she quickly initiated. The monitor before her began counting down from four hours, informing her that the flush would be completed within that time.

She wondered how many of these antiseptic flushings the ship could perform. Enough for seven more days of travel? She coughed again and it occurred to her that she’d been coughing a lot during her stints on the bridge. Could the air quality on the bridge be worse than in other parts of the ship? Crusty would know how to ask the ship where air quality was suffering right now. Jess made a few frustrating attempts to access this information, but she didn’t know the right sort of question and the answers the ship’s computer returned were either baffling or useless. “I’m a pilot,” she growled. “How am I supposed to make sense of any of this?”

Storming off the bridge, Jess began to explore each room on the ship’s habitation level, looking for evidence of microbial overgrowth. Once she started looking, she found things everywhere. Sometimes what she thought she saw turned out to be a shadow or an imperfection in the paint. But she also discovered seven varieties of oozing, sponging, and flaking growths. Some rooms fared better than others. The microbes displayed a preference for darkened corners. The bridge, her last stop, was worst-off of all.

While she waited for the antiseptic wash to complete, Jess scanned through a handful of articles on the subject of microbial overgrowth in deep-space vessels. None of it was encouraging. Some of it was frightening. Not only did the little creepy-crawlies reproduce rapidly away from normal planetary constraints, but several varieties consumed oxygen.

A shudder ran through Jessamyn. She calmed herself by reasoning that the ship had enough oxygen for five passengers. But she also took a reading to find out what the oh-two levels were like.

“Well, that’s a relief,” she muttered, seeing a nice distribution of the nitrogen, oxygen, and trace element gasses she needed in order to continue in the land of the living.

Four hours later, however, the ops panel returned disappointing readings: the antiseptic scrub had done almost nothing to combat the problem of contamination in the air filter. A new round of coughing shuddered through her. Resolving to spend as little time as possible upon the bridge, where her throat tickled worst, she strode back down the hall to the ob-deck to consider her options.

The orchid upon the floor looked forlorn. She could see clearly where the black spot had enlarged. A closer examination revealed that two other parts of Crusty’s beloved plant had small black spots. As she gazed in grim contemplation, a petal drooped and fell away to the floor, joining one which had fallen earlier. Jessamyn looked away.

What were her options? She could run another antiseptic scrub. She could clean up the growths that she could see. She could look through the herb-sims for something to keep her lungs healthy. And she could pray the contaminating species didn’t need much oxygen.

Not being made for inaction, Jessamyn commenced project Clean The Galleon. She ran another antiseptic wash and scheduled two more during her intended sleep cycle. She scrubbed and scraped and scoured. And, on the chance it would have the opposite effect of talking to the orchid, Jessamyn hurled invectives at every visible microbe she saw.

All of which meant her throat was very sore indeed come bedtime. She drank two water rations and then downed a few more without counting, justifying her behavior with the fact that she had five times as much water as one person needed aboard the ship. Either the water or the herb-sims calmed her throat enough so that she could fall asleep.

After a twelve-hours’ slumber, she returned to the helm, which she now recognized had a subtly malodorous scent. She examined the data from the filter scrubs she’d ordered the day before.

“How’s that even possible?” she muttered. The number of contaminated areas had grown instead of shrinking. “Where’s Crusty when I need him?” she asked aloud.

This was a situation she did not know how to handle. What if the antiseptic washes were making a cozier environment for the microbial infestations? She simply didn’t know what she was doing. She needed Crusty. Or her mom. Her mom would have known how to treat microbial infestation. Jessamyn determined to take a step she’d vowed she wouldn’t.

Sliding into her brother’s comm station, Jessamyn placed a call home.

It took several minutes for the “incoming call blocked by order of MCC” message to be returned to the Galleon. Jessamyn stared at the message in disbelief. She made a second attempt. And a third. And a fourth. But the message came back the same each time.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said aloud.

She decided to give Planetary Ag a try. There had to be someone there who would be willing to speak with her. But she received the same message in response to her attempt to raise someone in her mother’s department.

Jessamyn felt angry and betrayed. Outrage and self-pity battled inside her, with outrage coming out the winner.

“Fine,” she said at last. “MCC it is, then.”

She rubbed her hands against her thighs as she decided what angle to take. Outrage would probably not get her very far. She’d stolen the Red Galleon. So, instead of sending a message that encapsulated her indignation, she chose the form of communication she’d used with MCAB as a pilot-in-training. Language that was calm. Cool. Logical. She felt empowered as she utilized the familiar phrases.

“MCC, this is Mars Class Planetary Spacecraft Red Galleon, Pilot Jessamyn Jaarda at the helm requesting advice on a life-threatening microbial overgrowth aboard this vessel. Over.”

She waited for the message to reach Mars. Counted down the minutes that would bring a response.

The ship’s voice synthesizer spoke the words that appeared in written form upon her screen: “Rogue Vessel, this is Mars Colonial Command. We do not communicate with deserters. Any further attempts at communication will be blocked. Mars Colonial Command out.”

At this point, all her intentions to play nice evaporated. She gathered all of her anger—at her situation, at Marsians who had intended deadly harm to Mars, at the Terran satellite makers, at Lucca Brezhnaya and Red Squadron forces, and at the microbial overgrowth on her ship—and she stuffed every blessed bit of that fury into a three-wafer-pages response.

But as she read through her response prior to sending it, she realized that the missive indicted Mei Lo and Crusty as party to the theft of the Galleon. She couldn’t send the communiqué as it stood. The writing of it had, however, dulled her anger, leaving in its wake her truer, deeper emotions.

What she really wanted was for someone to tell her that everything was going to be okay—that she wasn’t alone. But no one could do that. Jessamyn was really and truly by herself. Sending a letter to MCC—whether angry or contrite—would not change the fact that she was in this alone.

She instructed the comm panel to delete her message and strode down the hall to the observation deck. When she arrived inside the room, darkened at the moment except for a small light directed upon Crusty’s orchid, she sank to the floor, feeling every one of the nearly two hundred million kilometers between her and home for the first time since she’d departed Mars.

Woeful, Jessamyn stared at the small plant. As she watched, two last petals drooped and fell from the flower onto the ground. She recoiled, feeling a fleeting panic. She’d killed her only companion. And before she could stop herself, Jess was sobbing over the loss of the orchid which had connected her to Crusty and made her loneliness upon the Galleon more bearable.

She was alone. Abandoned. No one back home cared whether she lived or died.

A new round of tears began, more bitter than the first. The stars outside the observation deck blurred together, pulled apart, blurred again. Whereas she had seen them before full of glory and wonder, now they appeared cold. Distant. Dispassionate. None of them cared about the fate of a lone girl inside a tiny ship. Jessamyn crumpled, a small creature in a vast universe, and wept until her eyes ran dry.

It was the astonishing experience of having run out of tears that roused Jessamyn. She’d read of such a thing in books, but had never known anyone who could confirm it was possible. She supposed she must be very dehydrated, indeed. She felt worn, like a pair of thermals run through the clean-mech too many times.

“The difference being that you have not yet outlived your usefulness,” she murmured aloud. “You’ve still got a shot at saving your planet. Now get up and find solutions to your problems, Jaarda.”

Stooping, she gathered the fallen orchid petals and carried them to the rations room for disposal. She drank two water packets. And she sat at the rations table to make a list of things to do and problems to solve. Fuel and Not crashing topped her list. Finding Ethan, Pavel, Harpreet, and Kipper was somewhere in the middle, being less something upon which she could take immediate action. Clean the filter and monitor oxygen levels were the last things on her list.

And that was when it occurred to her that there was something much more important than monitoring the percentage of oxygen in the air. What she really needed to ask the ship was this: how much of the oxygen in the tanks had she and her trillions of companions gone through so far? And was there enough remaining for the next seven days?

29

THE PERFECT ECOSYSTEM

Lucca had been very pleased at the rise in her popularity following the inciter attack upon the hospital in Hong Kong. As had happened following the previous “inciter” attacks, citizens clamored for better protection and praised Lucca’s government for its swift response. She smiled. The more she harmed them, the more they realized they needed her. It was the perfect ecosystem.

But the attack had not produced the actual result she’d been after. She’d meant it as a message, a punishment for Pavel. And he’d ignored it. Surely her nephew had received the message: If you continue to defy me, I know how to hurt you. It did not occur to her that he might be someplace where watching vid feeds wasn’t a part of his routine.

She had no further clues as to his whereabouts. She was no closer to locating and destroying his little band of would-be interstellar travelers. Around the clock, her surveillance teams searched to discover anything that looked like a craft intended for launch beyond the travel ban of three hundred kilometers above Earth. Parts and equipment suppliers for such a ship were put on alert and monitored carefully.

How she wished she could send a massed military fleet to destroy the Martian hangers-on once and for all. That would foil Pavel and his new friends. She closed her eyes and reminded herself why she could not pursue this course of action.

Because it would be too large an undertaking to keep secret.

Because it would be too costly an undertaking to keep secret.

Because destroying humans on Mars would be political suicide.

Because someone on Mars might reveal what they knew about improprieties in the Terran Re-body Program.

The expenditure was the real problem. The original Mars Colony had come with an unbelievable price tag. The costs year after year had crippled her ability to run Earth the way it should have been run. She shuddered at the remembrance. And if the cost to establish the forlorn colony had been great, the cost to send an armada of destruction would be unimaginable. It would set her tidy little plans for Earth back by decades.

Of course, Mars had tellurium … but the cost of mining and returning it to Earth had not offset the cost of running the colony previously. Nor would it now. No, best to stay the course with regard to Mars and Marsians. Pretend they don’t exist until, some blessed day, they no longer did.

And that meant preventing anyone on Earth from reaching Mars. Perhaps Pavel would respond more favorably to a series of unfortunate events than to a single one. Everyone had a breaking point. She just needed to find Pavel’s.

Lucca sighed. All she asked was to rule Earth well. That’s what her people needed—what they wanted—a firm ruler. So why did a handful of people have to make her job so difficult?

30

BETTER THAN THAT

Jessamyn frowned as she looked at the readings she’d pulled up at Crusty’s station. The ops screen told her the ship’s oxygen tanks were critically low. Which meant she and her many hitchhiking companions would soon be low. The wee beasties, feverishly hungry, had made a larger dent in the ship’s supplies of oh-two than four humans would have done in the same period of time. It was unfathomable. But it appeared to be true. She would run out of breathable air tomorrow or early the following day.

It began to look as if she wouldn’t die in a magnificent collision with the blue planet after all. Somehow suffocation sounded a far less inspiring way to go.

If she’d been home, she could have taken all the ship’s water and pulled oh-two from it with equipment common in most Marsian dwellings. If she weren’t alone, she could have asked Crusty for a solution.

She wished she had paid better attention during survival basics at MCAB, but she’d spent much of the class rolling her eyes at the sorts of scenarios that stranded people on the planet far from life support. She wasn’t going to wander off into the desert by herself or take a get-about for a joy ride far from home or crash her ship in the middle of nowhere. Jessamyn Jaarda was better than that.

She laughed mirthlessly at her former self.

“Yeah, Jessamyn Jaarda’s the kind of person who takes off in a stolen spacecraft with an insufficient supply of oxygen,” she muttered to Crusty’s leafless plant. She’d moved it back to the bridge—a macabre reminder to survive.

Gazing at the plant, dead or dying, she wished she’d been more attentive to its health. She should have checked it more frequently. She might have enclosed it within a safer environment. A spacesuit would have done the job. She laughed, a gravelly sound, as she imagined the plant encased within a globed helmet, the rest of the suit trailing empty.

And then it struck her.

Oh.

Oh.

Jessamyn’s mouth hung open. She had an alternative source of oxygen. She had five alternative sources in fact, thanks to the Ungrateful Wretch and his cronies. Leaping up from her seat, she raced to the nearest crew quarters and walked straight to one of the lockers holding a clean white spacesuit. She ran a hand along its cool surface. She had air. Each suit was equipped with a full day of air: twenty-four hours and thirty-eight minutes of oxygen.

She’d found the aft quarters to harbor the least amount of microbial growth and she hauled four suits to join the one already back there, helmets clacking as they bounced against one another.

Although her lungs’ tickle bothered her most on the bridge, she returned there now. The helm was where she could Do Important Things. First off was to estimate exactly how many hours she had left of good air and how many hours she had before she reached Earth. Taking a seat at the ship’s nav-panel, she calculated. She had one hundred fifty-six hours of flight to go. But she had only one hundred twenty three hours of “suit oxygen.” She needed to survive another thirty-three hours on whatever the ship could provide.

She stared out the view screen at Earth. “Oxygen, fresh oxygen. Get your oxygen here,” she chanted in a huckster’s sing-song. Then she rolled her eyes at herself.

“Aphrodite’s hair curlers!” she swore, swiping the chair at her brother’s station. It spun round and round.

Did the Galleon have thirty-three hours of oxygen left? She didn’t know. But even if it did, her lungs wouldn’t enjoy breathing air the filter was no longer keeping clean. She thought of the plant and its growing splotches of black. She tried not to think about what her lungs might look like. She badly wanted to race back to the aft quarters and don a suit. But if air quality was degrading with each passing hour, and if there would be no oxygen at all left in a day or two, this was something she had to wait on.

“Safety protocols generally recommend launch and landing be carried out by a living pilot,” she murmured.

No, it wasn’t time to suit up yet. Her best chance was to wait out the thirty-odd hours and then suit up. She added a two-hour buffer as a margin of error, and then decided to spend as many of the intervening hours as possible in Ethan’s and Crusty’s drier quarters.

On her way, she stopped at the rations room to gather food and drink. Then she frowned. Once she began living her days inside a suit, she wouldn’t be able to eat ration bars—the helmet would be in the way. She wasn’t happy at the thought of being hungry for five days. On a hunch, she checked behind panels and cupboards until she located slimy packets of zero-g food.

“Oh, boy,” she murmured. “Won’t that be fun?”

She grabbed up an extra three packets of water for her aft-ship sojourn.

Water-grubber, her mind whispered in accusation.

“That’s me,” she agreed, reaching for a fourth and fifth just in case.

In the middle of the night, Jessamyn awoke from a nightmare where she’d watched in despair as the Red Galleon missed her intersection with Earth.

“Just a dream,” she mumbled, bringing on a fit of coughing. Hades, but her mouth was dry. Her throat burned as well. When she took a deep breath before standing, she realized that her lungs felt as though an iron band were slowing squeezing them shut. Was this what her mom’s dry-lung felt like? The thought of her mom cut through her like a heat-knife through polar ice. Jessamyn didn’t want to think about her parents right now.

And then her wish for distraction from parental memories was dramatically fulfilled. The ship rang out with a warning about insufficient oxygen.

31

SEAT OF YOUR PANTS

Insufficient oxygen was different, according to the ship, from insufficient oxygen for human life. The Galleon was notifying her that the ratio of oxygen to nitrogen and other gasses was no longer optimal. But it wasn’t bad enough to kill her. Not yet. And putting on a suit now would mean she would run out of suit air at a time when the ship had no oxygen left. She shook her head. If she made it at all, it would be by the seat of her pants.

“Well there’s something you’re good at, Jaarda,” she said. “Flying by the seat of your pants.”

She turned from the ops panel to the navigation panel, scowling at the ship’s low fuel warning. It had been glowing steadily since her last course adjustment seven days ago. She needed fuel and she had no way to get it. It was the same as her oxygen problem. Except that with the oxygen problem, she’d found an answer. She hoped.

Was there some “elsewhere” on the ship she could find fuel?

“Come on, Jaarda,” she growled. “This is the kind of thing you’re good at.”

Jessamyn knew the location of the fuel containers upon her ship, understood how the cylinders delivered requested fuel to her aft or forward thrusters, to port or starboard rockets. Ethan had even shown her a non-standard procedure for delivering extra fuel to the ship’s escape pods.

The escape pods!

“Well, I’ll be,” she whispered. “There it is.”

Jess stood with excitement. The person-sized pods each came filled with a small quantity of fuel. In the event of an emergency evacuation, you didn’t want to be stuck taking the time to divert fuel to your escape vehicle. And if she could transfer fuel from the Galleon to those other vehicles, could she not reverse the process? Transfer the fuel from the extraneous vehicles into the Galleon’s tanks?

Jessamyn had five fueled escape pods on board. At least she hoped they were fueled. Would they have been fueled? She wasn’t sure. Maybe the crew of Ungrateful Wretches wouldn’t have thought of fueling them. But Crusty would have ordered it. Without fuel, the pods’ only other method of speed reduction was old-fashioned whiplash-inducing parachutes.

She needed to go below-decks to check the pods. Marching back to the aft quarters, Jess reached out to grab a pressurized suit to descend into the lower levels. She had already shoved one leg through before realizing what she was about to do.

“Use the suit now and that’s one less suit you can use come landing day,” she murmured.

Frustrated, she sank upon the bunk, the suit in her lap now, her fingers pinching at the cool fabric. A faint reflection of her face—fish-eyed by the curvature of the helmet—caught her attention.

“Seven hours until you can suit up,” she murmured to herself. “Okay, get back to your list.”

She frowned at the next task on her list: determine how to safely land the Galleon with limited fuel. Of course, even if she could siphon off a few kilos of fuel, the landing was going to be anything but safe.

Jessamyn soon lost herself checking Academy texts which explained how to calculate the optimal angle at which to enter Earth’s kilometers-thick atmosphere. Enter at too shallow of an angle and you risked simply “bouncing” back out. Enter straight “down” and your craft would come in so hot that no amount of forward thrust could slow you in time to land. Jessamyn preferred landings which didn’t end in a flaming ball of fire.

Having determined her optimal angle of entry, she then examined Earth’s tilt and spin to see which continents would be closest as she approached. She had several possible landing points—all in unpopulated wastelands—but decided upon a deserted position in North America close to where it met the Pacific. This would get her planet-side more quickly than the other locations: she had the limited oxygen to factor into her decision. Best to get off the ship as swiftly as possible. North America it would be, then.

Her destination chosen, Jessamyn then set out to determine how much fuel she would need for braking. While entry through Earth’s dense atmosphere would provide much of the reduction in speed she required, it wouldn’t reduce her speed enough. She would still come down too hot and too fast.

Early Terrans had solved the speed reduction problem with the use of parachutes. In fact, early Mars landings had also used the parachute as the most efficient way to apply the brakes, since Mars, unlike Earth, didn’t have several kilometers of atmosphere to create drag.

Well, the Galleon didn’t come equipped with parachutes, so that option wouldn’t work. Her head ached and her stomach growled. Jessamyn couldn’t remember when she’d eaten last.

A ration bar and a drink of water later, she felt better—physically anyway—and set herself back to calculating how much of her braking would be done by Earth’s atmosphere and how much of it had to be accomplished using her forward thrusters.

Coming up with a number she didn’t like, she repeated her calculations. And repeated them again. And again.

Things did not look good. She knew how many kilos of fuel remained, but precise conditions on Earth would mean she might be off by a bit in her estimation of fuel consumption. Not to mention a degree or two difference between the angle she planned to enter the atmo and the angle she actually achieved meant there would always be a margin of error.

“Anyone want to place bets?” she demanded aloud. “Anyone?”

Shaking her head, she rose and crossed to the clean-stall. Her hair, kept from the influence of sunlight and Marsian peroxides, had darkened slightly. It was still red, but a deeper shade than she remembered. The skin below her eyes was tinted with purple.

Jess startled. If she squinted just right, she could see where her First Wrinkle had arrived sometime in the past weeks aboard the Galleon. She was an adult now. “Well,” she said to her reflection, “You’re probably going to asphyxiate or crash into a million pieces very soon, but at least you look amazing.”

With two hours to go before she could suit up, Jessamyn began to worry that her ability to concentrate was fading. She checked the ship’s oxygen levels—dangerously low—and grabbed one of the suits off the bunk. Sinking down where the suit had rested, she looked into the share-mask. She found her new tiny wrinkle reflected upon the share-mask. She wondered if she should get up and do something to stay awake.

And then she drifted to sleep.

32

YET HERE WE BE

Pavel Brezhnaya-Bouchard was regretting he hadn’t attempted to perform surgical facial alterations upon himself while he had the chance. His claim that despite being Lucca’s nephew, he was only in Yucca to build satellite dishes sounded implausible to many of the residents.

“This whole group of strangers is part of an elaborate trap put into play by the Chancellor,” said Roy to Yucca’s leading citizens, gathered to examine Pavel and his friends. “She makes everyone think her nephew’s been abducted by placin’ that reward on his head, but really she’s got him doin’ her dirty work findin’ dissenters.”

The Shirff frowned and tugged at his moustache.

“It’s true my aunt wants me back,” said Pavel. “The reward is real. But the kidnapping claim is ridiculous. Does it look like I’m with these friends because they kidnapped me?”

Brian snorted in laughter.

“Brezhnaya looks weak if word gets out that her nephew’s run off of his own accord,” muttered the enclave’s oldest citizen, her pipe between her teeth.

“Exactly,” said Pavel. “But it’s also not the case that I’m doing secret spy work for her. My aunt knows the truth about me—that I have no interest in supporting her goals or her government.”

Harpreet’s clear voice rang out. “With all due respect, I believe it might be better to ask why Lucca Brezhnaya would send her highly-recognizable nephew to trap dissenters when an unknown face would surely garner more trust. Not to mention the fact that had her government been made aware of your existence, Red Squadron might have put an end to all of us by now.”

The woman with the pipe nodded. “Yet here we be.”

The Shirff cleared his throat and addressed the five strangers. “We need time to discuss this situation. I’m sure you’ll understand if we place your party under protective custody for the remainder of the day.”

Harpreet spoke for the group. “Of course you must be allowed to consider what you have learned. It changes nothing for us, however. We remain grateful for your hospitality and hopeful that it will continue.”

But the discussion continued long into the night, and the party of five were told to expect word the following morning. Harpreet graciously accepted the information, passing it along to her companions.

Pavel felt restless.

“I’m going outside,” he said.

“Are we allowed?” asked Dr. Zaifa.

“Guess I’ll find out,” replied Pavel.

He wandered up the set of stairs leading outside. The old woman sat just outside the entrance, chewing a pipe and blowing smoke rings to the night sky.

“Is it okay if I take a bit of a walk?” asked Pavel.

She gazed at him. “I’m to notify the Shirff if you don’t return,” was all she had to say.

Pavel nodded and strode out and away from the small streaks of light leaking from the dwellings. He raised his eyes to the heavens, searching the east-west arc of sun and planets until he found Mars. The red planet glowed a faint yellow, approaching the months when the two worlds would be farthest apart. Pavel had told himself not to hope for Jessamyn’s return when the planets drew near once again. He had repeated it often. But he hoped and ached and dreamed anyway.

He squatted, lowering himself onto the desert floor, still slightly warm, a memory of the day’s heat. Running his hands through the sand—cooler on top, warmer below—he remembered the night he’d spent at Jessamyn’s side. She would understand Yucca better than he did, fit in better. His weeks in the desert had fed a small flame inside him, a twinkling of an idea, half-glimpsed. He’d learned that another sort of community was possible. Camaraderie existed among these people who lived each day uncertain whether or not their most basic needs would be met. They needed one another. And they knew it.

It made him sad, in a way he didn’t understand. Now that he knew he might be expelled from Yucca, he admitted he’d felt more at home living here in a hole in the ground than he’d ever felt with his aunt, in her well-appointed mansion. Of all the treasures and trinkets in his aunt’s palace, Zussman’s smile was the only thing he wished he could see again, a black cup of kávé the only luxury he missed.

He stretched out along the sand, looking up. The moon had not yet risen. Overhead, the stars glimmered, small fires hung in the sky, multitudinous in this land so far from city lights. He wondered if the Marsian sky looked more like this one. Would Mars’s shallower atmosphere make the stars glow brighter? Seem nearer? He hoped so. And then he hoped Jessamyn might be looking to the faintly blue twinkle of Earth in her sky, thinking of him.

“Fool,” he murmured, rising to go to back inside.

The old woman with the pipe greeted him as he returned. “Shirff says as you can stay, boy.” With that she stood and left.

Slipping into his borrowed bed, Pavel felt almost content. He knew he should have been content. An hour ago, all he’d wanted was permission to stay. To help, in some small way, the home world of the girl with red hair. But now all he could think of was the whisper of the silk she’d worn, the warmth of her breath as his mouth found hers, the curve of her smile as she pulled away.

33

CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH

Just minutes after she’d sunk into low-oxygen-induced sleep, a loud noise blared from the ship’s system.

Not the Cratercoustics, Jessamyn decided as she sat up.

But it was a noise she recognized. Something she’d been trained to respond to since her earliest school years. Without thinking, she smashed the share mask over her nose and mouth and pulled the suit’s cylinder pin. Oxygen began flowing and Jess realized she had a massive headache.

Which the siren wasn’t helping. The warning from the Red Galleon that oxygen levels had tapered below human tolerances was designed to be attention-grabbing as well as (apparently) loud enough to wake the dead.

“I get it, I get it!” she moaned.

Jess struggled into Cavanaugh’s suit, challenging because her limbs felt uncooperative. She sat, simply breathing, for a full minute before she stood to address the irritating noise.

As Jess shuffled to the bridge, ship’s wafers upon multiple surfaces flashed the deadly warning, instructing her to seek emergency oxygen immediately.

It took her several agonizing minutes to pass herself off as the ship’s commanding officer and first officer in order to turn the alarm off.

Only now, as she turned into the rations room, did she realize she’d missed the opportunity to dine one last time upon regular ration bars prior to suiting up. Sighing, she reached into a cupboard from which she collected one of the squashy packets that combined wet and dry ration into a single … slimy concoction.

When she’d been younger she’d begged her granddad for one of the special interplanetary pilot’s emergency rations. He’d mussed her hair and muttered, “Be careful what you wish for, Jessie.” He’d also refused her request. As she slurped the concoction down, Jess realized he’d done her a favor.

“Vile,” she mumbled to the empty ship.

Her vile morning rations consumed, Jessamyn made her way down to the ship’s belly, eager to investigate the escape pods in search of fuel. The pods rested upon their emergency hatch exits. She tapped the wafer embedded on the outer wall of one small craft. It informed her that the pod was functioning nominally and held a full reserve of rocket fuel.

She smiled. “Brilliant, Pilot Jaarda,” she said aloud. “Brilliant!”

Brilliance aside, she wasn’t sure how to pull fuel from the pods. She spent a frustrating two hours skimming wafer manuals. The portion of the guide devoted to fueling the pods from the ship was painstakingly detailed. It called to mind the launch and landing checklists compiled for her by MCC, which in turn reminded her that creating her own entry, descent, and landing checklist would be wise. At last, she landed upon a discussion of the procedure in question and began to move fuel into the Galleon’s tanks.

After the first transfer, she journeyed up to the bridge, hopeful that the fuel transfer had rid her of the “insufficient fuel” warning.

It hadn’t.

And the activity of stairs made oxygen rush to her helmet. “Just great,” she said, closing her eyes tight and slowing her breathing. “It’s not like I really need the suit to last a full day or anything.” She left the bridge vowing to move at a more sedate pace and to stay below-decks until all the transfers were complete.

When she came to empty the fifth pod, she paused. If she had to actually use the pod in an emergency, it would be easier to maneuver with working thrust rockets. Cursing Cavanaugh and his fuel-wasting tellurium, she scowled at the final pod, hands on her hips.

And then she shook her head and addressed the Red Galleon. “If I can’t land you safely, my beauty, what’s the point?” She gave the orders to evacuate fuel from the final pod.

Making her way back to the bridge, Jess was frustrated to see no change to the “insufficient fuel” message. A chill ran along her spine. Perhaps she shouldn’t have pulled fuel from the final pod. She thought about it for a long hard minute but decided in the end that she’d made a choice she could live with. Not giving the Galleon every possible chance? That was something she couldn’t live with.

She searched the ship’s database for the entry, descent, and landing plan she’d used on her first trip to Earth. She had nowhere near enough fuel to follow those protocols, but she planned out a few variations to a conventional landing that might just get her and her ship down safely.

She’d just completed her EDL list when the Galleon’s “low oxygen” warnings began to blare once more. This time hacking in as the ship’s commander didn’t seem to help. Frustrated and tired, Jessamyn tried the dubious course of reasoning aloud with her ship.

“Yes, my beauty, I understand that you are worried about the air quality right now,” she said. “But see? I’m wearing a suit. I’m good. Really.”

In what struck Jessamyn as either remarkably friendly on the Galleon’s part or else very eerie indeed, the alarm abruptly ceased. She waited for several minutes to see if it was really done, and decided, eyes drooping, that she could risk going to bed.

The next morning, Jessamyn woke early and simply lay curled in her sleep nest in Ethan’s room. Breathing in the oxygen-rich air of the suit, she realized she ought to make provision for making certain she would always awaken before and not after each suit’s oxygen supply ran out. A few scheduled alarms later, she made her first transfer suit-to-suit. She could use her old suit’s emergency share-mask to maintain a steady flow of clean oxygen. However, the procedure seemed clumsy and she decided to simply take off her helmet and suit, risking a minute without oxygen.

The stench of putrefying organisms was overpowering.

Next time she’d use the share mask.

Three more days passed with three more suit transfers. Smith turned out to have narrower shoulders than Jessamyn and wearing her suit made Jess feel as if someone were squeezing her shoulders all day.

Another day and another suit and at last it was day sixty-five—her touchdown day. Her EDL was ready. The blue planet hurtled toward her at a terrifying speed. Would the Galleon deliver her safely or become her coffin? A shiver ran through her. Then she threw her shoulders back and made her way to the ship’s helm.

Somewhere upon that planet traced with green and gold, blue and white, her brother sheltered with Pavel.

“Come on, then,” she shouted. “I’m here and I’m coming in fast!”

34

IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE

Lucca Brezhnaya did not appreciate interruptions. Or being awoken in the middle of the night. Or unwelcome news.

As Vladim, the bearer of an urgent piece of intelligence, was all too aware.

Fortunately, the Chancellor was in Mexico City at present and could not assault him over a vid-channel. At least, he’d never heard of such an assault having occurred. Also, he knew that to withhold this information would result in something much worse than whatever would result from delivering it.

“Madam Chancellor,” he said in greeting. He kept his voice soft in a way he imagined might be less offensive to one shaken from slumber by her butler. That had been fun, convincing the butler to wake the Chancellor.

“Speak up,” said Lucca. “If it’s important enough to justify waking me, I’d better be able to hear it!”

“It would appear your orders to monitor the skies for illegal traffic were well-advised,” replied Vladim.

Lucca scowled. Of course her orders were well-advised. What sort of dolt was she speaking with? “What are you telling me? Has there been a breach of the three hundred kilometer ban? Is there a ship on its way to Mars?”

“No, Madam Chancellor. It would appear a ship is coming our way from Mars.”

A moment’s stunned silence.

Then Lucca’s eyes flew wide. “From Mars?” This was impossible. Never, never, never, had she imagined anyone coming from the Martian colony. It was overwhelming news. Shocking news. It was impossible. “How many ships?”

“A single vessel only.”

That was something, at least. A ship on its own was less likely to wage war. But it could still do significant damage, she had no doubt. “What is its heading?”

“Well …” Vladim hesitated. “It is headed to Earth. We will not know where on Earth until the ship makes its final descent or settles into orbit.”

Lucca had already flown from her bed and was halfway dressed as she gave her orders. “I want excessive force flying cover over the capitol at once.” She heard the order delivered. “What is the soonest this ship could touch down based on present trajectory?”

“We have less than an hour, Madam Chancellor.”

She pulled on a pair of heeled boots. “What location would their current path indicate?” She was certain it would be Budapest. Perhaps it was fortunate her campaigning had called her away to Mexico City.

“North America, the far west, probably above the 45th parallel,” replied Vladim.

North America? That was … unexpected. That could hardly be the ship’s true destination.

“Are special ops airborne yet?” asked Lucca.

There was a brief pause, murmurs Lucca couldn’t make out.

“Yes, Madam Chancellor. They will begin flying cover patterns momentarily.”

“What do we have in the Pacific, just in case?” Lucca asked.

“There’s a regular hoverbase in Seattle,” said Vladim. “Or for special ops, there’s Pearl Harbor.”

Lucca frowned. “Ready the hovercraft, but I want special forces from Pearl Harbor as well. Excessive force. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Madam Chancellor. Right away, Madam Chancellor.”

She heard the barked commands in the background this time.

“I want the Martian ship shot down,” she continued. “I want any Martians shot on sight. Anyone who appears to be expecting them or offering assistance, I want kept alive. Is that clear?”

“Aye-aye, Madam Chancellor.”

“Has the Viceroy been told of this situation?” asked Lucca.

“No, Madam Chancellor. We knew you would wish to be informed first.”

She smiled. Technically the Viceroy was her superior, but she’d always run the show. In any case, the Viceroy’s influence had been slipping, slipping, slipping of late. Time on the campaign trail had made that evident. Perhaps it was time for her to take the reins of power in name as well as in fact. She’d waited long enough, finding it more convenient to run things behind the scenes as the second-in-command. But perhaps it was time. Perhaps.

“This information is to be kept classified for the present,” said Lucca.

Her all-hours chauffeur was drinking kávé and watching a vid feed.

“Charles, the closest military base at once,” she called.

How could it have happened like this? Lucca had been wrong. Very wrong. She’d been so certain the activity regarding Mars had been initiated by her own citizenry. To find out Martians were coming here? It was shocking. Would they tell Earth’s citizens what they knew about irregularities in the Re-body Program? That would require an enormous media-spin on her part. But, no, Lucca decided. The Martians must have kept silent on that count thus far. Rumors would be spreading like wildfire if the colonists had divulged her secret.

She pounded a fist against the side of her vehicle.

“Madam Chancellor?” asked her driver.

“Nothing, Charles,” she said. It was nothing to her, surely. A single ship. A laughable threat. She would be laughing as soon as the vessel attempted to make land. The Martians would find Earth prepared, armed, and deadly.

35

NO CLAIM

The desert sunrise was still hours away when Ethan roused Pavel, Harpreet, Kazuko, and Wallace with an unusual level of agitation in his voice.

Pavel stumbled out into their common room, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Wallace complained that he couldn’t be expected to handle any bad news without a cup of coffee inside him.

“You will wish to hear this news,” said Ethan. “I have located pulses from several wafers of Marsian origin headed for Earth.”

“What?” demanded Pavel, snapping to full alertness. “That’s impossible. How did you do that?”

“I placed a program into play two months ago, set to search daily,” explained Ethan, “Which means the ship carrying these computational systems has come into range within the past twenty-four hours.”

“Gracious,” murmured Harpreet. “And you’re certain the signal isn’t coming from something Kipper might have cobbled together?”

Ethan shook his head. “Besides the fact that she remains in a coma, I am reading several distinct instances of signals originating from a single moving location. It can only be a Marsian ship.”

“A Marsian ship?” asked Pavel. “From, like, Mars?”

Ethan nodded. “I do not foresee how it could be anything other than the Red Galleon.”

“They would’ve had to drop the rations and head straight out again,” said Harpreet, her voice a whisper.

“I have accessed Terran astronomical facilities to determine if there is a vessel approaching Earth from the correct direction,” said Ethan. “I have found one of size and trajectory consistent with the Galleon en route from Mars. Further, the duration of days required for a Mars-to-Earth flight at this time would be satisfied if the Galleon had remained upon Mars five days prior to her re-launch.”

“Time to scrub her fit for a return,” murmured Harpreet.

“Can we contact the ship?” asked Pavel.

“The first of the communication dishes is operational. It could be used for this purpose,” said Ethan.

“If it is the Galleon, we must proceed cautiously,” said Brian Wallace. “My clan has never made the attempt to communicate until a Mars ship was within Earth’s atmosphere.”

“We’ve got to try,” said Pavel. He swallowed against the tightening in his throat.

Could Jessamyn be on that ship?

~ ~ ~

With only hours remaining before her final EDL, Jessamyn made the rounds, checking that the ship’s surfaces were as clean as she could make them, that the general appearance of the Galleon was tidy and ship-shape. She gathered her sling-pack from where it rested in the aft quarters and carried it with her before deciding it would annoy her on the bridge. She left the pack upon the rations table where she could pick it up on her way off the ship.

A rush of adrenaline surged through her as she imagined taking those first steps once more under the pull of Earth’s heavier gravity.

“Assuming I don’t die first,” she said aloud. But she felt optimistic.

After two months with minimal opportunities for anything that could be called piloting, Jessamyn felt giddy sitting at the helm in a meaningful capacity. Having checked her calculations over and over, she made a final burn in preparation to enter Earth’s atmosphere.

Besides her lack of fuel for braking, only one thing troubled her. During takeoff and landing, she was supposed to wear her partial-pressure breathing suit. Although it came with a helmet, the suit was designed to draw the air it regulated from the ship’s cabin. Jess was going to face this landing without the protection the suit offered for intense g’s. She’d experienced sixteen Earth g’s once back home and had survived to tell the tale, but she knew she might be facing much worse on this EDL. Well, she thought, humans had survived g’s nearly triple that. And some of them didn’t even go blind.

“What do you think my chances are, huh?” she asked the ship.

When an actual voice responded over her comm the next moment, Jess’s first thought was that she had finally lost her mind.

~ ~ ~

Ethan, Pavel, and Brian Wallace were aboard the dirt-brown ship on an intercept course Ethan had plotted with the Galleon. Harpreet insisted upon remaining with the satellite project should none of them return from their intended rendezvous. Pavel had pointed out that no one aboard the Red Galleon would recognize Ethan’s new altered voice. With half a desperate dream of speaking to the girl with red hair, he’d volunteered to be the one to initiate contact with the Marsian crew aboard the ship.

“Red Galleon, this is a friendly hail. Do you receive?”

The call was met with extended silence. Pavel’s shoulders slumped forward and his eyes flickered briefly to Ethan. “Keep flying an intercept course based on their trajectory, then?” Pavel asked.

“Aye, lad,” replied Brian Wallace.

“We have no other recourse,” agreed Ethan.

And then the response came.

“Pavel? Is that … you?”

Impossibly, wondrously, it was Jessamyn’s voice.

Pavel had heard an expression regarding the leaping of hearts into throats. He had assumed it wasn’t literal. This changed his mind.

“Jessamyn!” He couldn’t say anything more. His throat was too full. Even when he could speak, full sentences eluded him. “How?”

There was a moment’s silence followed by the last sound Pavel expected—Jessamyn’s throaty laughter bubbling across the airwaves.

“Trust me, you don’t want to know how,” she said. “Is Ethan … okay?”

Pavel heard the anguish in the question, guessed at what it cost to ask.

“Yes,” he said immediately. “He’s fine. And you’re wrong—I want to know everything,” he said, his voice functioning properly again. “Are all of you okay?”

He heard an answering sigh.

“It’s just me,” said Jess. “And I’m okay. Well, at the moment. Please—can I talk to my brother?”

Pavel turned to Ethan, gesturing to him to speak, speak.

“Jessamyn,” said Ethan.

Again, the sound of her laughter.

“What, Eth? This doesn’t merit more than just my name?”

Not waiting for his response, she continued. “Listen, I don’t have much time. I’m hitting the atmosphere in less than an hour and it might not be pretty.”

Hastily, she told Pavel and Ethan of her circumstances and her planned EDL.

“Your plan is an excellent one considering the limitations by which you are constrained,” said Ethan, when she’d finished.

Pavel heard Jess grunt a small laugh.

“We have obtained a swift vessel,” continued Ethan. “We are flying on an intercept course to you even now.”

“I’m so glad,” she said. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear that. Listen, there’s something else. In case I don’t make it. I’m sending you a message … using the same method you employed, Eth. You can translate without your wafer, right?”

“I can,” replied Ethan.

“Okay,” said Jess. “It’s really important information. If anything should happen to me, you need to have it. Only Mei Lo knows back home, okay?”

“Very well,” replied her brother.

“Your voice sounds different, but I can tell you haven’t changed a bit, Eth,” said Jess.

“I have adapted,” replied her brother.

“I can’t tell you how good it is to hear your voice, Jessamyn,” said Pavel. Something funny was happening again between his heart and his throat.

“You, too,” she said.

“I wanted to call you, or write you, or send smoke signals,” said Pavel. “Something.”

“I wrote you letters,” said Jess.

“You did?”

“Yup. Just couldn’t send them.”

Pavel cleared his throat, blinked at a prickly feeling behind his eyes. “Would you … would you send them now?” he asked. “Just in case?”

There were several seconds of silence between the ships.

“Just in case,” she said. “I’ll send them. But you’re not allowed to read them unless … unless … If I don’t make it, you can read them.”

Pavel heard a hitch in her voice that scraped at his soul.

“You’re going to be fine,” he said. “Right, Eth? Your sister’s got this thing figured out.”

“The possibility of her successful completion of a safe landing,” replied Ethan, “If expressed in percentages, would be—”

“Don’t want to know,” said Jess, interrupting him. “Listen, Eth, I love you, okay? No matter what happens, don’t forget that.”

“I am unlikely to forget,” he said. A moment passed and he added, “I love you, too, Jessie.”

Pavel wanted to repeat Ethan’s I love you, but the words stuck in his mouth, burning white-hot upon his tongue, like a star in miniature. He had no claim on this girl from Mars, and saying he loved her at a time like this would be selfish.

“Listen, guys,” said Jess. “I’ve got to land this thing. I’ll leave the comm open, but you’ll probably lose me once things heat up.”

“We’ll find you, Jess,” said Pavel. “We’ll find you.”

~ ~ ~

Jessamyn sat in the pilot’s hot seat.

Pavel had Ethan; Ethan was okay.

She felt a warmth in her belly that threatened to draw tears.

No you don’t, she warned herself. She was going to have enough trouble seeing straight without throwing tears into the mix. She practiced a couple of abdominal clenches, remembering how her peripheral vision had hazed over the last time she’d felt high g’s. No crying, she ordered herself again.

Earth dominated her view screen, chill and blue as she remembered it. To one side of the Pacific Ocean she identified an edge of Asia; to the other she saw her own destination—a small deserted corner of the North American continental mass. The ship approached atmospheric entry within a kilometer of Jessamyn’s chosen point. She smiled to herself, her fingers itching to work the nav-screen once more.

As she descended into the atmosphere, the Galleon’s speed would depend upon the combination of two forces acting upon the ship. First, there would be Earth’s massive gravity, pulling upon the craft, inviting acceleration. But just as important would be the force of atmospheric drag, slowing her down. The Galleon was constructed with her center of mass in a different location than the center of pressure, which would give the ship a small amount of lift as she flared Earthward. Jessamyn was grateful for this. Without the slight lift, the g’s would be even higher.

With her point of entry rapidly approaching, Jess’s hands hovered over her instrument panel. She was about to initiate the burn that would nudge the Galleon into a perfectly angled descent—neither too shallow nor too straight a shot—when flashing red lights lit up the comm screen at her brother’s station.

“Hermes!” she swore, ignoring the distraction.

“Sorry, Jess, but this is important,” said Pavel’s voice. “Ethan says my aunt has just launched an entire fleet of ships and they’re heading your way.”

In the moment it took to listen, she lost her perfectly angled entry.

“Shizer!” she shouted.

She had to enter upon a different trajectory now. Cursing, she hammered in a series of calculations.

“Uh, Jessamyn?” asked Pavel’s voice.

“Can’t talk,” she screamed at the communications array. “This is going to be a very rough landing.” Hastily, she determined a new angle of descent. This angle was steeper than her desired one, but it would only get worse if she hesitated.

“Ares and Aphrodite,” she murmured, “This is going to be one hot ride!”

“Jess!”

She registered his anguish, but she could spare no tender words.

“We talk if I land this thing!” she shouted. This was no time for sentiment. She settled into the cool and calm space in her head where she became one with her ship. She was tough as Mars ice. And just as cold, cold, cold. This was no time for distraction.

“Galleon out!” She cut the comm.

~ ~ ~

“Ethan,” said Pavel, trying to steady his voice, “Tell me you know where she’s coming in.”

Ethan’s hands flew across his holoscreen. “I have her new touchdown coordinates. I have a lock on her craft.” He frowned. “She is slowing insufficiently.”

“She has no fuel,” muttered Pavel. “No air. She’s not even wearing a g-suit, for the love of—”

“Calm yourself,” Ethan said, interrupting him. “My sister has been a remarkable pilot all her life. If the Galleon can be landed safely under these conditions, Jessamyn will do it.”

Pavel nodded. Look who was talking. Was Ethan freaking out in the claustrophobic confines of the ship? No. He was doing his job. Pavel would do his. But in his mind rang out, like a ceaseless prayer, please please please please.

~ ~ ~

Jess keyed in the order for the forward thrust burns to slow her the moment she hit seven and one half kilometers above Earth’s surface. She scheduled two to maximize efficiency: first she would slow herself to two hundred kilometers per hour, then, as she reached three kilometers above her landing target, she would do another burn, slowing her craft to just under thirty kilometers per hour.

“Then we land vertical using hover boosters,” she whispered to herself. Although that was assuming she had fuel left. The Galleon was rated to land at speeds of up to fifty kilometers per hour on Mars, but landing at such a speed on Earth would be dangerous—the ship weighed more here than on Mars.

“Never mind,” she muttered, her fingers dancing upon the nav-screen, inputting the command sequence.

But something very, very unwelcome showed up as she ordered the second fuel burn. The Galleon returned a message—a grim fact that wouldn’t go away no matter how many times Jess repeated “never mind.”

The Galleon requires additional fuel to follow this command.

Jessamyn’s heart froze.

Additional fuel? She had none.

~ ~ ~

Pavel had never been more glad he’d insisted upon a fast ship. The trio sped toward the coordinates Jess sent after cutting vocal communication. He’d angled the ship slightly north, flying over a peninsula off the Puget Sound and out over the Pacific. Wallace was muttering, either to himself or to a Divine Being; Pavel couldn’t tell. Pavel had tried to hail Jessamyn one last time, but she gave no response.

He didn’t think he could bear finding her on Earth but no longer among the living.

And he began to pray too.

36

AN INFINITY OF MOMENTS

“What do you have?” Jessamyn asked herself as she sat before the nav-screen, staring at its unwelcome message. “Come on, Jaarda. What do you have?”

Not enough fuel for braking, that was for certain. Jess could see the ship decelerating as she descended, but she wasn’t losing speed fast enough. The heat shield was complaining, operating at levels over its intended tolerances—not unexpected considering she’d had to use a steeper angle of descent than was advisable. In six minutes, her first—and perhaps her only—burn order would commence, slowing the Galleon to two hundred kilometers per hour. But she couldn’t land at that speed—she could only crash at that speed.

Trying a few other requests for more modest thrust burns, she quickly found that the best the Galleon could do was to reduce her speed to one hundred eighty kilometers per hour prior to impact. “Splat,” she muttered.

Fear threatened to break through her cool responses, panic hovering just behind. “Phobos and Deimos,” she said—the moons named for Mars’s companions, Fear and Panic. But if she was going down, then by Hades she would go down like Ares—like the warrior-god for whom her world had been named.

“You have to eject,” she whispered.

The Galleon’s landing would not be something she could survive, and that crystallized her only course of action. In a pod, she might stand a chance. The escape pods had parachutes to slow them.

She had only minutes before impact. And now she wished she’d left fuel in one of the pods. Without the fuel, the Galleon, falling at the same rate as a pod, would be in the way of parachute deployment. She didn’t have time to refuel the pod in order to steer it away.

Before her mind even had a chance to catch up, she’d given navigation two final commands. The ship accepted them. Then she ran, careening to the rations room, barely cognizant of the moment’s pause to snatch her sling-pack. Into the airlock—agonizingly slow—down the first set of stairs, then the second, and finally she could see the row of escape pods.

She threw herself at the first in the row, pounding upon its hatch, hurling herself inside, one hand attaching the harnessing restraint over her shoulders while the other pre-authorized launch. She paused, waiting for the slight change in angle that would tell her the Galleon had obeyed her first order. There it was—she launched the pod.

“Launch” was a deceptive term. The pod was given only a slight assist to place it outside the Galleon. Jessamyn was supposed to burn fuel to get farther away. She hovered just beside the great ship, much too close for comfort. And then Mars’s last great raiding ship followed Jessamyn’s second order, pulling off to the side, giving Jess a better chance for her parachute to deploy without smashing, useless, against the ship’s underbelly. A small window allowed Jessamyn to watch the Galleon as it drifted inexorably away from her.

Pressing one hand to the porthole, she uttered her farewell: “Godspeed.”

~ ~ ~

“She’s coming in too fast,” Pavel said, slamming a fist on his navigation panel. Shizer! Why couldn’t it be him at the helm of the Galleon, Jess aboard this craft? He turned his eyes over to Ethan. “Eth? What d’you got?”

“I concur with your assessment,” replied Jessamyn’s brother. “Her speed is not consistent with a safe landing.”

“Bloody hell,” muttered Brian Wallace. “Why does it have to be the lass?”

“I have obtained a visual from a satellite relay,” said Ethan. “I do not know how long I can maintain visualization, however.”

Pavel and Wallace leaned over to gaze at the picture upon Ethan’s screen. Clouds and blue sky and more clouds, and then, there it was: the Red Galleon.

“It looks so small on that wee screen,” said Wallace.

“The Galleon is an M-class vessel,” said Ethan. “The last Mars-class ship upon our planet. It is not small.”

“Aye, lad, aye. I know it’s a grand ship,” replied Wallace.

Pavel squinted to see the ship better. It did look tiny upon the screen. Miniature and vulnerable.

When it burst into flame seconds later, Pavel couldn’t stop his heart pounding. He’d known it was coming. The ship was heat-shielded. The flames weren’t dangerous. At least not yet. But knowing these things it didn’t help his visceral response.

“She is attempting a water-landing,” said Ethan.

Pavel nodded. That would take care of any residual heat, wouldn’t it? He’d flown an M-class, but not at this speed. He loved Jess at that moment more than he’d ever loved anyone.

And then the screen went dark.

“No!” Pavel cried.

“I am attempting to construct a visual animation via instrumentation,” said Ethan. “There. The moving object represents the Galleon.”

She was coming in at over one hundred fifty kilometers per hour.

No, no, no, said Pavel’s mind.

Time seemed to slow to an agonizing crawl as the Galleon continued its descent. To Pavel’s thinking, the animation lent an unreal quality to the event. When finally the ship collided with the ocean, the impact shown upon the screen revealed nothing. Was Jessamyn okay? Pavel checked his heading against the numbers on Ethan’s screen. They would arrive in less than five minutes.

Another speck moved onto the screen at Ethan’s station.

“Is that us?” asked Wallace, tapping the new craft.

“No,” replied Pavel, his voice flat. “That’s one of my aunt’s ships. They got there first.”

~ ~ ~

Lucca replayed the vid she’d just received. Watched as the enemy ship—first flame-engulfed, then cooling—crashed into the Pacific.

“Well done,” she said to the leader of her Seattle squadron, as if he had personally brought the intruding ship to ground. “New orders. I want the crew alive. If they have expired, prep their minds for immediate transfer. I don’t care who you have to kill to do it. I want those consciousnesses re-bodied while there’s time.”

“Yes, Madam Chancellor,” replied the squadron leader. “Understood, Madam Chancellor. However …”

“Yes? Spit it out, man,” said Lucca.

“It is our opinion that this was not a survivable landing,” he replied.

“Your opinion?” barked Lucca. “Did I ask for your opinion? Find those bodies!”

“We have divers on their way.”

“Contact me the moment you know anything,” said Lucca.

~ ~ ~

Jessamyn watched her altimeter: Ten kilometers. Nine. Eight. At seven point three kilometers above Earth’s surface, she deployed the pod’s drogue chute. Built to withstand the higher speeds which could shred her final descent chutes, the drogue slowed her in a whiplash-inducing handful of seconds. Nauseous and blurry-eyed, she was still falling toward the Pacific Ocean at just under two hundred kilometers per hour.

Her eyes on the altimeter again, she waited. The numbers ticked down more slowly now. That would be the drogue’s work. From seven kilometers to four kilometers, she worked at regulating her breathing, clenching her abdominals. The g’s disoriented her, but she clung to an innate resistance to failure. At three and one-half kilometers, she placed her hand, shaking uncontrollably, over the instrument panel to jettison the drogue and launch the pilot parachutes.

As she descended at bone-rattling speeds, she thought of Pavel, of his idolization of Earth’s first astropilots. This was an old-school landing, all right. She remembered Lobster’s saying, “La plus ça change,” which meant, “The more things change, the more they don’t.” She thought of Ethan, her mother, her father, Mei Lo. Was this what it meant to see your life flash before your eyes? Jessamyn saw not her life, but those she had loved.

“Pavel,” she whispered.

She sped past the three-kilometer mark and deployed her remaining chutes. Despite the crushing pressure, she felt relief at the increased g’s because they informed her more certainly than her instrument panel (shaking unreadably) that she was slowing.

The last thousand meters stretched into a quiet infinity of moments during which Jessamyn repeated the names of those she loved: Ethan, Mom, Dad, Lobster, Crusty, Harpreet, Mei Lo, Pavel.

Pavel. She admitted it at last.

I love him.

Falling in love and falling to Earth melted into a single experience as Jessamyn plunged hurly-burly toward the ocean. The pod smacked water, as unforgiving as a solid surface. Jess lost all sense of up or down as the pod thrashed one direction and then another, tumbling wildly. Was this what Mars rock felt like as it was crushed into gravel for building projects? Consciousness became a thing separate from her, an entity bidding her farewell. This was dying, this was the end. Her stomach felt like she’d taken a blow to the gut. She couldn’t catch her breath; her lungs ached. Spots blurred her vision and then she saw nothing.

37

FOUND SOMETHING UNEXPECTED

Pavel soared just above the water, causing Wallace to utter odd expletives denoting terror.

“It is necessary in order to avoid detection,” explained Ethan to the cursing Scotsman.

“Aye, I’ve no doubt it’s necessary,” replied Wallace. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Flying low to the water was dangerous and demanding work and it matched the feelings inside of Pavel— tumultuous, jagged, desperate.

But when they began to pass bits of the broken ship spread upon the waters, Pavel felt the cruel bite of despair. They pulled up as close as they dared, just to where Ethan could grab visual contact with Lucca’s Red Squadron Forces.

Pavel hovered the ship as the three assessed the situation.

“Only the one enemy ship, then,” said Wallace.

“More are on their way,” replied Ethan.

“Have they seen us yet?” asked Pavel.

“When they’ve seen us, I’m sure we’ll know,” said Wallace.

Ethan indicated a length of material descending from the ship. “A towing device?” he asked.

“No,” said Pavel. “That’s Davy Jones’s ladder. They’re sending divers down to search for—” He broke off, unable to finish.

“We have been detected,” cried Ethan. “We must depart, immediately.”

“We can’t just leave,” said Pavel. “That’s your sister, man!”

“Lad, we’re no good to Jessamyn once your aunt’s boys get ahold of us,” said Wallace.

“They are preparing to fire upon us,” warned Ethan.

Pavel nodded, curt, and turned the ship about, shots peppering the water as they fled. Pavel recreated in reverse the pell-mell journey along the white-flecked waves of sapphire.

“That’s odd,” muttered Wallace. “They’re not pursuing us.”

“My aunt must consider the wreck a priority,” said Pavel, trying to convince himself this was a good thing. “More ships are on the way,” he added, pointing to his screen. “Where are we heading?”

“I have found something unexpected,” said Ethan. “I detect no live signals from Marsian wafer-computers aboard the wreckage. However, I have located a signal some hundred kilometers south-southwest.”

“Marsian?” asked Pavel.

“It is an escape pod,” said Ethan.

“What?” demanded Pavel. “The Galleon had escape pods and you didn’t think to mention this until just now?”

“Steady, now, lad,” murmured Brian Wallace.

“It did not occur to me,” admitted Ethan.

“Well then, give me the shizin’ coordinates already!” shouted Pavel.

~ ~ ~

Lucca hated inaction at times such as this. She’d been at the point of ordering her cruiser several times. She was close. So close. But there was no point leaving her military hub in Mexico City until they recovered the crew for her interrogation. On the other hand, she might like to try interrogating prisoners aboard the cruiser. They could fly circles over the wreckage of the enemy vessel. It was good to wear down prisoner morale with compelling visuals when possible. She smiled as she lost herself in imagining the possibilities.

Her secretary scurried in. “Madam Chancellor,” she panted, “A call from the Pacific. You weren’t answering, so I thought—”

“Yes, yes,” said Lucca. “Put the call through.” She was annoyed at herself for having been pre-occupied. Seconds counted at times like these.

“Madam Chancellor, we are continuing our search for any signs of life aboard the vessel,” said the officer. “However, we show signs of a craft separation.”

“Another ship?” asked the Chancellor.

“An emergency escape vehicle, we believe,” replied the officer. “Large enough for one or at most two people. It crashed several minutes after the larger vessel just off the coast.”

“Send me the coordinates at once!” demanded Lucca.

Then she called for her cruiser.

38

NO MORE

Jessamyn’s tiny craft bobbed, a small cork in a giant ocean. She took a deep breath as her eyes fluttered open and then she clawed at her helmet with one hand, punching at pod air-intake valves with the other. Several hairs were removed by the root in Jessamyn’s eagerness to get her helmet off and breathe freely. She felt like one very large bruise, but she was alive!

Deeply, she inhaled her first breath. Her nose remembered the metal-tang of Earth’s oceans. The moisture, the salt, even the cold of the air struck her as tiny miracles of delight.

She laughed aloud and then groaned, her abdominal muscles cramping into a charley horse. But what did pain matter? Pain meant she was alive. She leaned back to ease her stomach muscles. The pod, already tossing on the waves, bobbed in response to the shifting of her weight. It was a strange sensation, such motion when she knew she’d landed.

“I made it,” she shouted, cackling gleefully. “It was impossible, but I did it! I made it!”

She stood, abruptly curious to observe the ocean outside. Pressing her face against the pod’s porthole window, she saw kilometer after kilometer of water. Water as far as the eye could see. She had a strong notion it wasn’t drinkable, but the wonder of it struck her mute. So much, so much. How could there be so much water?

She felt her unnatural heaviness as another wave struck the tiny craft, and she sank back down to rest. Her craft tipped again and she floundered forward into the wall before her. She ought to have adjusted the Galleon’s artificial gravity with more regularity.

The Galleon.

A wave of utter horror passed over her, more incapacitating, more powerful than the ocean swells. Her brave, beautiful ship was no more. The Red Galleon lay in pieces, scattered over the waves, and Jessamyn felt her heart squeeze tight in anguish.

Why could she never save what she cared for most?

This, she thought, was why the captain always went down with her ship. Because it hurt too much to live on when your bonny ship was no more. Tears welled up in her eyes.

She heard Harpreet’s gentle voice in her mind, telling her, “Tears are a gift from the Divine, child.” But these tears did not feel like a gift. They felt like failure.

What did it matter that she’d survived her landing if she’d destroyed her ship? She’d stolen Mars’s last raiding ship and then obliterated it. She could never make up for what she’d done, for what she’d taken from her world. She deserved to die, miserable and alone on the waves.

And die alone, she would. She’d cut communication to Pavel and her brother before choosing to eject. They would never know she’d left the Galleon. And the thought of her brother’s grief wove itself together with the thought that she would never, ever tell Pavel she loved him, and Jessamyn felt as though the weight of her sorrow would surely press down upon her and destroy her, millibars of woe to crush her heart.

She wept and wept, gulping for air as heaving sobs stole her breath away. And when at last she could cry no more, she did not open her eyes to gaze upon the wondrous ocean. She did not see the shadow over the water growing closer and closer. She did not register the ship as it approached at all.

39

AMONG THE WRECKAGE

Lucca Brezhnaya’s military cruisers were custom built for her comfort and to enable her to remain at all times in communication with her network of minions. She left the flying to others; her own time was too valuable for such mean labor.

“How much farther?” she asked her driver, red nails tapping upon a mahogany desk.

“Less than eight minutes, Chancellor.”

She scowled, but then saw a call coming through from the crash site of the main Martian ship.

“Yes?” she demanded.

“A small airborne vessel approached the wreckage and then fled,” said the caller. “Shall we pursue? The vessel is Hercules class. Small and fast.”

Lucca hesitated. What was more valuable to her? The crew among the wreckage or possible collaborators?

“What is the status of your search for crew?” she asked.

“The debris is widely scattered,” came the response. “We anticipate several hours—”

“Stay with the wreckage,” Lucca said, cutting off the dull response. “Chancellor out.”

She placed another call to Ops at Pearl Harbor. “Status update? When will you reach the crash site?”

“Seventeen minutes, Madam Chancellor.”

“There’s nothing for you to do there,” said Lucca. “I want all forces re-routed in pursuit of a Hercules class vessel that attempted to rendezvous with the downed vessel.”

“Heading?” asked the crisp voice on the other end.

“That’s your job to figure out,” barked Lucca. “Examine the data from the recovery team on site. I want that ship found immediately!”

“With all due respect, Chancellor, the Pacific is very … large.”

Lucca slammed her palm against her desk. “We’ve got satellites watching the Pacific. Use them. Re-aim them. Find me that ship!”

“Yes, Chancellor. At once.”

“Chancellor out.” She turned to her pilot. “How much longer now?”

“Four minutes, Ma’am.”

Lucca smiled.

40

BETTER SUITED

Pavel’s ship screamed to a halt beside the bobbing escape pod. Passing the ship’s helm to Wallace, Pavel extended the stairs leading out the back hatch, his heart pounding with cold fear. As they’d fled the wreckage, Pavel had realized that if Ethan could track Marsian ships, so could his aunt. She’d made it to the Galleon ahead of them.

It all came down to these next moments. Would the pod be empty? And if it was empty, would there be any sign to show whether the emergency craft had been Jessamyn’s means of surviving?

Testing the single safety rope that secured him to his vessel, Pavel reached one foot across the gap between the bottom stair and the roof of the pod.

“You mind holding it still?” he hollered to Wallace, now at the helm.

Wallace did not respond.

“He is attempting to hold a steady position,” called Ethan, “But the surge of the waves makes this very difficult.”

Pavel nodded. Ethan hovered his chair toward the aft exit, eyeing Pavel’s tenuous grip upon both stair and pod roof. And then it happened—a mighty swell spread the gap wider than Pavel’s legs could stretch. The would-be rescuer was plunged under the waves. He came up coughing and choking a moment later.

“Haul me up?” shouted Pavel.

Ethan pulled the drenched Terran back inside the ship.

“Okay,” said Pavel, shivering with cold, “That didn’t go as well as I would have liked.”

“Were you able to establish visual contact inside the pod?” asked Ethan.

Pavel shook his head, scattering salty drops. “Not possible. Window on wrong side. Give me a minute. I’ll try again.”

Ethan reached for the blanket Elsa normally used for bedding. “Take this.”

Pavel nodded thanks, shivering convulsively. “Unbelievably … cold,” he said.

“I believe I might be better suited to undertake this rescue,” said Ethan. “Using my hoverchair, I can get much closer to the roof-seal than can our ship. Also, I am familiar with the procedure of disengaging the seal and you are not.”

Pavel frowned. He would learn the truth more quickly if Ethan went instead of him.

“Go,” Pavel said to Ethan.

~ ~ ~

When Jessamyn heard the low thrumming of a craft outside, some instinctual desire to survive kicked in, sending her grief scurrying for cover. She looked out the porthole and saw the craft hovering beside her. She had no idea if she was looking at friend or foe.

“Weapons,” she muttered aloud, adding to the list of things escape pods Really Ought to Have Inside.

She heard something upon the roof. Someone was definitely removing the outer hatch. Awash in adrenaline, Jess looked about the craft for anything she might use to defend herself. She had a suit and a helmet. And a seat harness. She kicked at the suit, toppling herself in the process. She landed hard on the canister that had provided oxygen to her suit. It was made of metal, which she supposed might be used as a sort of weapon.

“The most pathetic weapon in the entire history of combat,” she muttered, digging frantically to remove the metal cylinder from the suit.

Gazing fiercely at the hatch, she gripped the canister and assumed a loose, ready stance.

The outer hatch seal was definitely open now. Was it friend or foe? Jessamyn felt her heart skipping beats, careening wildly to a rhythm born of fear and hope that collided like smashed atoms. She watched as the inner hull-seal shifted off center and rose. A man she’d never seen before gazed inside, his eyes locking upon hers.

“Jessamyn,” he said.

Nothing more.

Just, “Jessamyn.”

And she knew. Even before he reached a hand down to take hers. Even before she saw the stumps where his body had once had legs. She knew it was Ethan.

“Eth—” Her voice betrayed her, catching on his name. And she just smiled, shaking her head in joy and disbelief. When at last she could speak again, she said simply, “You found me.”

41

PROMISE

The citizens of Yucca held another bonfire to welcome Jessamyn Jaarda, rogue pilot and deserter of Mars Colonial. The cellist declined to bring his instrument out from its climate-controlled case, but the fiddler played merrily and Pavel got his wish to dance with the young men and women of Yucca, and most especially, with Jessamyn. In twos and threes, the people of the small enclave bid their newest guest welcome and then goodnight until only a handful swayed by the embers of the fire to fiddle melodies that grew sadder and sadder as the stars wheeled across the night sky.

Ethan and Kazuko had said their goodnights early, with Brian and Harpreet not far behind. But Pavel remained with Jessamyn, never too far away. He was a favorite with several of the village’s children, Jess noted. At last, even the fiddler packed up his instrument and the remaining dancers shifted off in pairs under the watchful moon.

Jessamyn settled by the flames, thinking sometimes of the Rations Storage fire, other times only of the beauty of the glowing embers. And then Pavel came to sit beside her and she told him of her days upon Mars and her sixty-four and one-half days upon the Galleon.

She didn’t tell him what she’d written to him or how often she’d thought of him, how often she’d dwelt on her half-memories of the very real boy beside her. They were gathered here before her now, all the things she recalled about the Terran boy: Pavel’s long fingers, one just touching hers; his eyes so dark and solemn; his lips.

His lips.

Something inside her sighed. She felt her skin warming in spite of the near-dawn chill. It started at her heart and crept slowly up her chest, past her neck, along her jaw and up to her cheeks until she was a thing of flame and desire.

“Where will you live?” Pavel asked.

She pulled her gaze from the lips that had spoken those words. What had he asked? Where she planned to live?

“Um,” she said, trying to find her way back to her rational self.

“Because Yucca’s amazing,” he said. “Your brother’s happier here than I’ve ever seen him.”

Jess smiled. “He is.” And then, more quietly, she asked, “Where are you going next?”

“Me?” Pavel’s mouth curved to half a smile and he grabbed a stone from the sand, turning it over and over with his beautiful hands. “Aw, Jess … I don’t know. I don’t have a home anymore.”

“Me neither,” she said, placing one of her hands upon his.

Their fingers interlaced as naturally as helmet and suit, and latched just as securely.

Jessamyn leaned back upon the desert floor and Pavel followed, sighing.

“We missed seeing Mars set,” he said.

Jess’s eyes scanned the heavens. “Mars is patently missing,” she agreed.

“I’m glad you’re not,” whispered Pavel, turning his head to hers.

Her skin suffused once more with warmth, and she turned as well, smiling. Their foreheads bumped softly.

“Me, too,” said Jess.

She could feel the warmth of his breath, sense its moisture.

She inched her face toward his so that their noses touched. And then Jess murmured softly, “I’m going to kiss you.”

Stars sparked overhead and the sky to the east glowed as Pavel laughed softly. A moment’s hesitation, a rearrangement of noses, and Jess felt his lips upon hers once more.

Salt, wet, longing, home.

Home.

Pavel’s mouth on hers felt like home.

She felt a single tear sliding across the bridge of her nose.

“What?” asked Pavel.

She closed her eyes. “I’ll never see Mars again.”

“You’ve lost your home,” he said, a sadness in his voice that mirrored hers. “But I promise you won’t be alone. Whatever your plans, wherever you go, I’ll stand by you, Jessamyn.”

Jessamyn smiled, thinking of the vows people took back home in the Crystal Pavilion. “Where I come from, that’s a big promise,” she said. And then she kissed him again.

End of Book Two

Continue the adventure in Book Three, found below

Acknowledgements - Book Two

I am filled with gratitude when I think of my readers. And whether you spell it verklempt or verklemmt, please know that overcome is exactly what I feel when I consider how readers have made it possible for me to do what I love. All day. For a living. Thank you.

I couldn’t make it without the help of beta readers and ARC readers. Thank you! Errors would abound were it not for the assistance of the divine Alexis Arendt of wordvagabond.com editing services. Rachael, Kate, Isabel, and Toby: thanks for asking and/or hinting about the next book!

My dear husband has faithfully answered questions involving the constantly changing distances from Earth to Mars and why exactly Mars’s low atmospheric pressure would kill me even if the lack of oxygen or cold temperatures didn’t happen to get me first.
However, any errors in representing the good information he provided are my errors, and mine alone.

To members of the various research teams at NASA Ames who showed up for the public event on the breezy evening of August 5, 2012 and answered my myriad questions, I am especially indebted. I have a geek-crush on all of you. Especially after the heat shield and parachute deployment operated in so very, wonderfully, nominal a fashion.

LOSING MARS

Book Three in the Saving Mars Series

Cidney Swanson

Summary: Jessamyn survives a terrifying crash but loses her ship, joining Pavel, and Ethan in a dissenter village. The Terran Chancellor believes Jess is out to destroy her government and will stop at nothing to find Jess. When Lucca places a spy in their midst, secrets are spilled that could mean the loss of everything—and everyone—Jess holds dear.

For my parents,

Bill and Adele,
who first showed me Mars
set against an inky sky

1

A SINGLE RED HAIR

A single red hair pulled together for Lucca Brezhnaya, Terran Chancellor, a long trail of events. Upon that single strand hung, like beads in a row, happenings as seemingly unrelated as the kidnapping of her nephew Pavel, erratic fluctuations in the world tellurium market, and terrorist attempts to destroy the Terran satellites of the Mars Containment Program. Mars Colonial. After all these decades—after more than a century—to find the Martians were alive and plotting against Earth—against her—it was nothing short of shocking.

But the strand of hair (and smudge of blood) found inside an abandoned escape pod whispered it was all true, too true. The genetic tests were conclusive. The same Martian who had months earlier assaulted Earth’s second-in-command and seduced her nephew had now returned, bringing disastrous quantities of tellurium in the hold of a sunken Mars Class Interplanetary Transport.

The Martians had pinpointed a weakness in Terran economics.

Terrans feared that Earth’s tellurium reserves might run dry. Feared it even more than inciter attacks, if pre-election polls were to be believed. The rare-earth metal was needed for successful consciousness transfer. If it came your turn to rebody in a third or fourth body and there was a shortage? To not be able to leave a decrepit body for the younger one you had earned, had been promised? It was unthinkable.

Lucca had leveraged two tellurium shortages in the past century. During the first shortage, citizens had resorted to very bad behavior indeed. And Lucca had learned from that. She punished perpetrators of violence by denying them any rebody at all. When a second panic struck over the dwindling tellurium supply, Lucca had managed things very differently, instituting a clear carrot-and-stick system. Citizens had rallied this time, outdoing one another in good deeds and acts of civic responsibility that still brought a smile to Lucca’s face.

For decades, Lucca had been troubled that her ministers and economists could offer no explanation as to how either shortage had been resolved. Both crises had simply. . . disappeared. It was as if someone other than herself had been manipulating the supply. And now she had excellent reason to believe someone had.

The discovery of a planet’s ransom of tellurium in the hold of the crashed ship was deeply disturbing. Someone knew. Some Martian had figured out that Lucca maintained strict control over the world reserves of tellurium—and thereby over Earth’s citizenry—and some Martian had determined that flooding the market would effectively destabilize Lucca’s hold upon the planet. Mars knew all this about Earth, while Lucca knew so little about the survivors on the red planet. It was infuriating. It was troubling.

For how long had Mars exercised this sort of interference? For how long had they been planning this overthrow of the careful balance of governmental control? It chilled Lucca to think it could have been going on for a century already.

But perhaps the threat was of recent origin, born of desperation. The Martians had sent a mere child—that red-headed girl, who was wandering free upon Earth even now. With her nephew! Lucca’s face twisted into a grimace.

It could have been the red-haired girl’s contact with Pavel that had suggested to the Mars colonists sending large amounts of tellurium. How many times had Lucca said, in her nephew’s presence: Control the flow of tellurium, and you control the planet.

She cursed bitterly.

She wanted that girl.

Lucca’s head rang with the excuses of her former intelligence officers when she’d demanded they track and capture the escapee from the tiny pod: too large an area; satellite-cams don’t recalibrate targets instantly; escape vessel possibly a decoy.

But Lucca knew the escape pod had not been a decoy.

The Chancellor was glad she’d thought to swab for Jessamyn’s genetic material after their original encounter on the Isle of Skye. The girl may have begun as Pavel’s kidnapper back then, but she’d ended as his seducer, luring him away from a lifetime—or several lifetimes—of service to Lucca.

More than ever, it was essential that Lucca discover the location of her nephew and of the wretched red-haired girl.

“Jessamyn.” Lucca said the name as if it were a curse fouler than any she’d recently uttered. The Chancellor pinged one of her secretaries. It was time to call in someone more suited to the delicate task of locating the Martian.

“Place a call to Major Vladim Wu,” said the Chancellor.

Vladim was thorough. Vladim was patient. Vladim always brought Lucca the things she wanted most.

And right now, she wanted the Martian.

Vladim would find the girl. And when he did? Lucca would uncover Mars’s secret plans.

The grimace on Lucca’s features was replaced by a serene expression that would have suggested her thoughts were peaceful.

They were not.

2

MERRY MORN

It was the third morning in a row Jessamyn’s solitude had been disturbed by the old woman chewing her clay pipe. Jess had never been an early riser, but something about the desert mornings in Yucca called to her, and she found herself day after day waking in time to take in sunrise. It was a quiet time, the hour or so stolen from productive activities. The light—softened, golden-brown—reminded her of home. She knew the light on Mars was less bright than this, even at midday during Marsian summer. It troubled her that she was growing so quickly accustomed to this light, to Earth.

Still, if there was no stirring of air upon her face, she could close her eyes and imagine herself inside a walk-out suit somewhere in the Bradbury Canyon region of her home world. It was an exercise she treasured; it was also deeply private.

When she heard the old woman’s shuffling step from behind her, she sighed in frustration.

“Merry morn,” said the old woman, as she had for three successive days.

It was nearly time to report for work anyway, thought Jess. Uncertain as to the etymology of the greeting, but certain as to its meaning, Jessamyn decided today to return the salutation with more than just a nod and a quick departure. “Merry morn back at you,” she said.

The old woman smiled, revealing gaps that must have held teeth once. It was the first time Jess had seen that expression on the solemn old face. It changed her appearance utterly. She looked … well, she looked merry with the smile in place.

Jess made a decision and held her hand out. “We weren’t officially introduced when I arrived last week. I’m Jessamyn Jaarda, Ethan’s sister.”

The old woman extended a leathery hand, clasped Jessamyn’s, and then placed her other hand upon Jess’s extended hand, holding it there for a moment. The action echoed Harpreet’s warm way of taking an offered hand with both of hers.

“I know who you be. I’m called Odessa,” said the old woman. “There are few in Yucca as know my name. Most call me Gran and leave it at that. But you, dearie, well, you ought to know how my folks called me.”

Jessamyn had no idea why she ought to know this. Further, she was now confused as to how she should address the aged woman before her. As Odessa? As Gran?

“It’s time. Come with Gran, then,” commanded the old woman, turning and trudging slowly away.

“Time for what?”

The old woman ignored the question.

Jessamyn hesitated. Who knew where the aged wanderer was heading off to now? “I’ve got chores.”

“Course you do,” Gran replied, continuing her labored progress across a stretch of hardpan.

Jessamyn took a quick look at her chrono-tattoo. She would be late in seven minutes. What did the old woman have in mind? Jess followed her.

“Just over here,” Gran called, passing behind a cluster of rocks, pink in the morning light. “Rattlers like to sun themselves here, so best to come early, before their circulation’s had a chance to get going.”

Jessamyn shivered at the mention of rattlesnakes. She was still getting used to the idea that she now lived in a place where sentient creatures were capable of ending her life. Following the path the old woman had chosen, Jess found Gran pausing beside a grouping of boulders.

“I was just your age when I lost my home,” said Gran. “You ever heard of the great apocalypse that destroyed the City of Angels?”

Jess, who thought she’d heard of it in history, nodded.

“A lovely home I had as a girl. Just on the beach. Seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit all the year round. But that’s long gone, now.” She looked off into the distance as if remembering. Then she looked to Jessamyn. “It don’t do to be without a place to call home.” Saying this, she bent over one of the lower boulders, scraping a knife along a darkish portion of the rock.

“What is that?” Jessamyn asked.

“Lichen,” said the old woman. “Avoid the yellow kind.” Here she tapped her knife on a yellowed patch of a neighboring rock’s surface. “Gray’s good, yellow’s yucky,” she murmured, in a kind of sing-song.

The sound of the knife upon the stone raised tiny hairs along Jessamyn’s arm and the back of her neck. It reminded her of the time a schoolmate had brought shards of glass from his father’s factory and dragged the sharpened corner of one bit along the smooth surface of another.

Don’t think of home, she reminded herself.

“Now you try,” Gran said, interrupting Jessamyn’s recollections.

Jess accepted the proffered knife and tiny bag.

“Careful not to spill any,” Gran warned. “Takes a century to grow a patch like this. Lasts less than three months in a village the size of ours. Go on then, girl. You scared of knives or somethin’?”

Jess felt her neck heating with embarrassment. “I’m going to be late,” she said.

Gran continued as though Jessamyn hadn’t spoken. “Pass the tip of the knife under the edge. Whole thing’ll peel right off if you get it right.”

Jess grasped the blade more securely and looked for a peeling edge. She considered one, then another, before finally settling upon a third.

“Good. Good,” muttered the old woman at her side. “You may fly fast, but you’re a patient one when the situation calls for it. You’ll do well. Old Odessa know how to pick ’em.”

A section of the grayish-black lichen lifted free and Jess deposited it inside the leather pouch.

“Yessiree,” said the old woman. “You’ll do, girl.”

“Do for what?” asked Jess, knife point under a new section.

“Didn’t I say already? Mind plays tricks on you, you get to be my age.”

“You didn’t say,” replied Jess.

“Got a feeling,” said Gran. “Old Odessa’s not long for these parts. Hey!” she cried out. “That’s enough. We leave the rest for whoever needs it next year.”

Jess passed the knife back to the old woman’s waiting hand, gnarled and browned.

“Won’t be me, I don’t ‘spect,” Gran muttered. “Once you got it in the bag, you want to grind it up a bit, by pinching your fingers over the bag like this.” She demonstrated a method that Jess was certain reduced the lichen to crumbles. “Then, when you take it to the Shirff, it don’t look like nothing but a pinch of dirt. Shirff’ll have it ground finer, of course. And distributed.”

“What is it?” asked Jess, still fairly certain her earlier question as to what she was doing had been skipped entirely.

The old woman looked at Jessamyn as though she’d asked a question with an obvious answer. An extremely obvious answer.

“I don’t know what the lichen is for,” said Jessamyn, attempting to clarify.

“Oh,” said Gran. “Thought I said already. It’s the secret ingredient.”

When this failed to elicit a response from Jess, the old woman added, “You do know it’s the tea that keeps you from getting radiation poisoning? You are drinking your tea?”

“Yes, of course.”

Pavel had stressed the importance of consuming the hot beverage twice daily to stave off sickness.

Gran continued. “This is the one ingredient as no one but Gran knows. Gran’s kept the secret nigh on ten decades. And now you’ll keep it.”

Jessamyn stared at the old woman, trying to think of a polite way to refuse.

“Figure that ought to give folks here an iron-clad reason to accept you and offer you a permanent home. Seein’ as they’ll die unless you tell ‘em how to keep from gettin’ sick.” Gran cackled for a minute, but then seemed to sober. “It ain’t right, girl. It ain’t any kind of right, losing your folks and your home and everything at your age.”

Jess felt a lump swelling her throat uncomfortably. She’d vowed to shed no more tears for Mars, lost to her now.

“Come on then,” said Gran. “What are you waitin’ for? Ain’t you got chores?” The old woman moved swiftly—more swiftly than Jess thought she should be able to—passing from the outcrop of rocks and back toward the hummocks of Yucca’s below-ground homes.

The pair arrived before a dwelling known as “The Gopher Hole,” the place Jess had called home for the past week on Earth.

“I’ll tell the Shirff he’s got hisself a new Guardian of the Herb,” Gran hollered, by way of a farewell.

“Wait,” called Jess, standing atop the stairs that led to the dwelling under the earth.

Her brother Ethan hovered at the base of the stairs as though about to ascend in his chair.

“You need to pick someone else,” Jess called to Gran. “Someone planning on staying here.”

The old woman, whose hearing Jess knew to be good for her age, had become obdurately deaf.

“Is your statement addressed to a particular individual?” Ethan asked, foregoing any sort of salutation. Jessamyn’s brother considered greetings to be wasted words.

Jess turned to her brother, seated in his hoverchair, and experienced again the odd moment between seeing Ethan and recognizing him as her brother in his newbody.

“It was nothing,” she said. She ran a hand across the back of her neck, hot from the mass of red hair hanging down.

Her brother, apparently having decided that his sister’s statement was another form of throwaway language, changed the subject abruptly. “You are late.”

“I know,” Jess said as she descended the stairs to enter. Yucca’s underground dwellings had doors, but they were rarely closed. “The old lady who’s always wandering around—Gran—made me go scrape some kind of … growth off some rocks with her this morning. It’s some big secret and she wanted me to know about it.” Jess kept to herself what Gran had said about finding a new place to call home.

From behind the kitchen pantry peered the narrow face of Renard, eighteen and newly accepted to full Yuccan citizenship. He was also a close friend of Pavel’s. Renard asked a question. “Gran told you the name of her secret plant?”

Jess shrugged her shoulders. Was she supposed to keep it secret?

Stepping into the main room, Renard repeated his query. “The secret ingredient in the tea? The one only she knows where to find? She told you?”

“I guess,” replied Jess. “She showed me some form of plant life—a lichen, I think she said—and told me the Shirff would be informed.”

Renard whistled, a low and drawn-out sound. “Well, that just beats everything.”

“Listen, I’m late—” began Jess.

“You’re not flying today,” said Renard. “None of us are. Shirff says we’re laying low for the week.”

Ethan added, “I informed the Shirff of an anomalous reading. There is a minute possibility that the ship with which we rescued you, Jessamyn, was traced all the way to this location.”

“Oh,” said Jessamyn. “That doesn’t sound good.” Secretly, she was more disappointed than afraid. She’d been looking forward to the flight to a North American city to acquire parts needed by the community of Yucca.

“Back to the lichen,” said Renard. “Gran showed it to you? Told you its name? How to identify it?”

Jessamyn’s brow furrowed. “She didn’t give it a name, now that you mention it. She’s been watching me outside the past three mornings and today she said it was time, and she took me to help collect this grey stuff off a pile of rocks where snakes hang out.”

“She trusts you,” said Renard, winking at Jess. “People have been speculating about who she’d choose for years. Decades, even. It’s kind of amazing she picked you, though.”

Jessamyn frowned. “Maybe she wants me to tell the rest of you. She seemed a little obsessed with death. Like she was afraid she’d pass on before she told anyone else. Maybe she grabbed me because I was handy?”

“Maybe,” replied Renard. “But if she told you, that would mean you are the Guardian of the Herb.”

“That’s what she called me,” said Jessamyn.

“I would’ve thought she’d pick a citizen of Yucca, but I guess this makes you one de facto, as it were,” said Renard.

A citizen of Yucca.

Jessamyn didn’t want to be a citizen of Yucca. She was a citizen of Mars Colonial. Even if she’d stolen a spacecraft from MCC to travel here. Even if they’d arrested her in absentia for the deed. Even if she’d crashed the ship—the last one capable of taking her back home.

“I’ll tell the Shirff there’s been a mistake,” said Jessamyn, rubbing her eyes. She felt suddenly tired. “After I get a couple hours of sleep.”

“Jessamyn,” Ethan called after her. “You will not wish to sleep at the moment.”

“No, I think I do,” replied Jess, irritated.

“I spoke inaccurately,” said Ethan. “Although you may wish to sleep at the moment, you will prefer to remain awake when you hear what has transpired this morning.”

“Besides me being made a citizen without my permission?” snapped Jess.

“Harpreet reports that the current Head of Consciousness Transfer has placed white lilies upon the grave of his wife,” said Ethan.

“White lilies?” Jess stared at her brother blankly. “So what?”

Ethan frowned and looked to Harpreet for assistance.

“Perhaps,” said Harpreet, “Your sister’s mind grew weary last night as we discussed the affairs of a world she has not yet learned to care for.”

That was likely enough, thought Jessamyn, flushing. The meeting had been completely Earth-centric. Only her respect for Harpreet had kept Jess from screaming out, What about Mars? What about going home?

“As I believe you are aware,” continued Harpreet, “Earth’s Chancellor appoints the Global Head of Consciousness Transfer. This position has been held for twelve Terran years by Malcolm Bonhoeffer. Or by someone inhabiting his body.”

“Oh,” said Jessamyn, catching at a detail she remembered. “And you met two individuals while you were in prison who claimed to have held that position. In the same body, right? But at different times.”

Harpreet nodded. “Only to find themselves upon separate occasions waking up in New Timbuktu prison one morning, incarcerated and in the wrong body. One of them, whose moral values appeared to have been most … Marsian, spoke of regrets regarding his wife’s funeral arrangements. She died whilst he was in prison. The person inhabiting his body—appearing to be him—placed upon her grave red roses, a flower she disliked.

“He told me that should he ever find himself released and reinstated, his first act would be to place white lilies upon his wife’s grave. His second would be to call for planet-wide reform of the Rebody Program by exposing what he knew about irregularities in the program, up to and including his own defrauding of the system.”

“Has he made good on the second promise?” Jessamyn asked, interested in spite of herself.

“He’s called for a live press conference which airs in twenty minutes,” replied Harpreet.

3

TRAIL OF TELLURIUM

Lucca Brezhnaya smiled at her newly-restored Head of Consciousness Transfer. “It would seem,” she said, “that in sending you to New Timbuktu, I did myself and the world a grave disservice. Your successor—that is, the man you are replacing—had certain hesitations in carrying out his duties. I am so glad that you seem to have moved past your … hesitations. It gives me great pleasure to welcome you back to your position.”

Malcolm Bonhoeffer, happily returned to his familiar body, smiled softly. “I am eager to serve, as I indicated.”

“Good,” said Lucca, her dark red lips drawing back to reveal perfect rows of white teeth in an approximation of a smile. “I anticipate the need of your finely honed skills and your … discretion.”

Bonhoeffer gave a slight nod of acquiescence.

“In addition, you will, on tonight’s newsfeed, present a plan encompassing changes to the Rebody Program based on our current global shortage of tellurium.”

Bonhoeffer’s raised eyebrows indicated the shortage was a surprise to him. Lucca smiled. The manufactured shortage, suggested by Vladim Wu, was a surprise to everyone. Also, it did her good to see her subjects kept off-balance. “We want to avoid creating panic, naturally,” Lucca said.

“Naturally,” agreed Bonhoeffer.

“I’ve taken the liberty of drafting your proposal for parliament,” said Lucca. She passed him a small, coiled strip of plastic. “Look it over. You will exude confidence. You will assuage fears. You will encourage conformity. Understood?”

“Of course, Madam Chancellor,” Bonhoeffer said softly, in a tone that indicated his absolute compliance.

“Dismissed,” said Lucca, rising.

Bonhoeffer bowed.

“One thing more,” Lucca called after him. “Your wife’s grave—I understand you visited it?”

Bonhoeffer felt a flush of color rising to his skin. He cursed his inability to hide his emotions in this, his own threebody.

“It was commendable of you to remember the past,” Lucca said softly. “But see you give no cause for others to murmur as to any personality … alterations. Such as a sudden obsession with the dear departed. It might make people wonder if you are who you appear to be. You understand the need for a seamless transition, I’m sure.”

As the restored Head of Consciousness Transfer gave a curt nod and departed, Lucca’s thoughts returned to the vanished red-haired inciter. Unlike the Martian girl, Lucca had unlimited funds. She had an entire shipload of tellurium, in fact. Whatever the red-haired girl had been ordered to accomplish, she’d have a hard time doing it without tellurium. And an even harder time doing it without a ship to fly home. Like Pavel, the girl was trapped on Earth now. She could not hide forever.

Lucca smiled. The intelligence Wu’s operatives had gathered all pointed to the Martian hiding somewhere in the Americas. There were cities large enough to swallow shipfuls of Martians in North America alone. But Lucca suspected the girl would go to ground somewhere less populous. Somewhere more like home. Vladim Wu had concurred.

Lucca had long allowed certain factions and enclaves to exist outside her government’s direct control. Wu’s attentions were focused upon these fringe settlements. The Chancellor had discovered two centuries earlier that overzealous restrictions on petty dissenters tended to breed revolutionaries. But leave them alone, or let them think they were being left alone, and most of these dissenting elements did little harm.

The only inciter attacks in the past fifty years had been of Lucca’s own manufacture, to encourage the citizenry to call for greater government controls. Or, most recently, to encourage Pavel to come out of hiding. Lucca scowled. The attack on the hospital in Hong Kong had not achieved her objective of flushing out her nephew. Although she imagined it had made him miserable enough. Which was something.

Her thoughts returned to the present. Wu had additionally instituted a tighter observation of the ebb and flow of tellurium on the open market. Since the Martians had sent tellurium in the second ship, it was almost certain they had brought it in the first. It would explain something else as well—there had been an influx of tellurium into the world market several months back. The timing corresponded well with Lucca’s first encounter with the red-haired girl. It was time to find out with whom the girl had been associating. It was time to follow the tellurium and see where it pointed. Major Wu and Lucca both felt certain it would point the way to any Martian sympathizers.

As for finding the Martian, Lucca decided she would monitor four of the largest closed societies in North America: one in Alaska, one in the Idaho wilderness, one outside of the tiny nation of Vermont, and one beside former Los Angeles. She held out little hope for the one rumored to exist beside the ruined City of Angels—the radioactivity would have done in any residents decades ago. But Wu had insisted and satellites had shown some minimal activity. Someone scratched out a living there.

Lucca pinged her secretary. “I want the Head of Global Solvency.”

She brought her fingertips together, forming a sort of tent with her hands. “We follow the flow of tellurium,” she whispered. And then she smiled as she prepared to roll out Wu’s latest suggestion.

When Mr. Casale, Head of Global Solvency, appeared holographically, Lucca had her story well-prepared.

“I have just uncovered most unwelcome news,” said the Chancellor. “It would seem we have inciters to thank for the current shortage of tellurium. They’ve accessed reserves that ought to have supplied us well into the next century.” The lie slipped out easily.

“I’ve heard nothing of this,” replied Mr. Casale, clearly suspicious.

“No, you wouldn’t have,” said Lucca. “I don’t make a habit of including just anyone in my top-secret investigations of inciter activity.”

Casale’s holographic image flushed. “Well, this is most unwelcome news, Madam Chancellor. Inciters! I had no idea.”

“Indeed. I shall require your attendance upon me here in Budapest so that we can discuss how you will follow the trail of tellurium leading back to the thieves. Make the arrangements with my secretary. Chancellor out.”

Casale’s horror at the idea of a global inciter plot had been clearly written upon his face, thought Lucca. How much nicer to make certain everyone was properly motivated to do the research she needed them to do.

Now, of course, anyone who did have an extra bit of the rare-earth metal lying about would be reluctant to part with it for fear of being accused of associating with terrorists. Only those who had no other choice would use the metal. That should unearth the rogue Martian and her business associates quickly enough.

Lucca smiled.

4

IRREGULARITIES

Brian Wallace rose to turn off the newsfeed following the announcements made by Malcolm Bonhoeffer, the Head of Global Consciousness Transfer. Bonhoeffer had said nothing of any irregularities in the Rebody Program, addressing only rumors of tellurium shortages.

If Harpreet suffered disappointment when the man she’d known in New Timbuktu failed to keep the second of his promises, she did not allow it to show.

“Perhaps Dr. Bonhoeffer will yet turn toward the path of balance and harmony,” she said quietly.

Jessamyn angled her face away from Harpreet to deliver a spectacular eyeroll to Pavel. He looked down quickly. Jess could tell he admired Harpreet. But then, who didn’t? And who was Jess to judge the soul of another? If anyone knew how to read people, it was Harpreet.

“He has evidently determined not to make such a turning at this juncture,” said Ethan.

Jessamyn smiled to hear how her brother had taken in Harpreet’s very non-concrete language and followed it perfectly. Instead of confusing Ethan, it seemed to Jess as if constant exposure to those who made no allowance for his preferences must be helping him. It made her heart swell with pride. Ethan had overcome so much to function in a world that ran counter to his internal wiring. She’d been dead wrong about the rebody setting him back. She shook her head, certain she would have done much worse in the body of another than her brother was doing. He had strengths she would never understand.

“I wonder what angle the Head of Consciousness Transfer is playing with the so-called shortage of tellurium?” asked Dr. Kazuko Zaifa. Kazuko, a former employee at the Mars Containment Programs facility, spoke rarely—and usually only to Ethan. She now assisted Ethan in his efforts to access and control the deadly satellites circling Mars. “Does he believe the shortage is real?” she asked.

“My aunt is behind the shortage,” replied Pavel. “That announcement has Lucca’s fingerprints all over it. Only my aunt would announce a shortage when she’s just taken in enough to pay a king’s ransom.”

Jessamyn felt her face flushing bright red: that Pavel’s aunt now had access to a surplus of tellurium was her fault. She’d crashed the Galleon thanks to the weight of the tellurium sequestered in its hold by those who wanted Mars Colonial to begin trade relations with Earth again.

“Perhaps the Chancellor wishes to tighten her ability to control her citizens,” said Harpreet. “If some were to be denied the opportunity to rebody because of a tellurium shortage, whom do you think would be the first to be denied?”

“Dissenters and those who have lost rebody credits for undesirable behaviors,” said Pavel.

“Me own self, certainly,” said Brian Wallace.

“Look on the bright side, Brian: your body’s worth something at an off-grid facility, at least, now you’ve lost so much weight,” said Pavel.

Wallace patted his shrunken belly sadly. A life on the run followed by life in a desert had not been kind to him. “Aye. I’m but two-thirds the man I used to be.”

“So Lucca’s hoarding tellurium and trying to control people,” said Jess, yawning. “Wake me up when something interesting happens.” She rose and began to shuffle toward the sleep chamber she shared with Kazuko Zaifa and Harpreet.

She knew her attitude was selfish. But she couldn’t help it. While she felt gratitude to the denizens of Yucca for accepting her so readily, Jessamyn could not find it in her heart to care deeply for Earth or its inhabitants. She yearned to return to Mars. To help Mei Lo ensure for once and for all that relations with the miserable Terran world were severed completely. Only, she was stuck on said miserable Terran world. And even the people she cared for most here in Yucca seemed to be urging her to think of Earth as home.

She didn’t want to settle down and accept that Mars was lost to her. Earth would never be home. And she certainly didn’t want to be Yucca’s guardian of secret-tea-ingredients. She flopped onto the bed she’d been given and kicked at her boots, sending them sailing across the room. She knew she ought to get up and retrieve the footgear, to stow it neatly away. Both Kazuko and Harpreet were tidy. But she just couldn’t make herself care.

The chance to fly a special supply run had been the one thing toward which Jessamyn had looked with anything like eagerness. And that had been canceled for today—the entire settlement was grounded. She missed flying as though it were a physical part of her that had been excised. Jessamyn was not finding life on Earth to be an improvement over life on Mars.

5

ANOMALOUS PATTERNS

Chancellor Brezhnaya was not having a good morning. Johnston, the agent she had appointed through the recommendation of the Head of Global Solvency, was a dullard. But more to the point, he was an unsuccessful dullard.

“As I have attempted to explain, Madam Chancellor, there is no difference between tellurium processed on the long-ago Mars Colony and tellurium processed here on Earth,” said the slow-wit before her.

“Yes, yes,” said the Chancellor, tapping her nails on her glass-topped desk. She’d kept the secret of Mars’s recent visit to herself, asking Johnston the question about tellurium in hopes Mars’s tellurium would be … different somehow—identifiable.

“Well, what headway have you made, then? Surely, Johnston, with the resources I’ve placed at your disposal in the past week …” The Chancellor’s brows rose in an unspoken question.

“Yes, Madam Chancellor,” replied Johnston. “We have indeed noted anomalous patterns in the usage of tellurium as we’ve analyzed circulation for the past several months. But we are having difficulty pin-pointing the origin. Whoever has been spending the metal, or trading it, rather, has done an excellent job of covering their tracks.”

Lucca scowled. “Well, then, we must do a better job of uncovering those tracks.”

“I have all my best people on it,” replied Johnston. “Rest assured, we will find something sooner or later.”

“I want sooner!” The Chancellor rose and paced out the length of her office. “The current shortage ought to be bringing the rats out of hiding. They can get more credits for the metal, surely, at this point in time?”

“Your own recent legislation has made that … dangerous, Madam Chancellor.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Her heels clicked in rapid succession as she retraced her steps back to her desk and Johnston. “Perhaps we should attempt to draw out those with large surfeits by offering a better rate of exchange.” Lucca frowned.

“We could make the attempt,” admitted Johnston. “Greed can drive a certain sort of person to exercise less caution.”

“No, no. I have something better in mind.” The Chancellor smiled. “I will make the suggestion that it would be patriotic to turn in sheltered amounts of the metal in question. We’ll offer rebody credits to those who empty their coffers—create a civic duty to turn in whatever is lying about. If we offer rebody credits, we can avoid changing the actual exchange rate while increasing the perceived value.”

“Yes, Madam Chancellor,” said Johnston. “Those holding unusual quantities of tellurium might be motivated by such an offer, if they are operating in the open market. And those operating in the black market would be able to command favorable rates of exchange with this incentive in place as well.”

“And once the tellurium begins to flow more freely—”

The dullard interrupted the Chancellor. “The trail will be easier to follow.”

Perhaps he wasn’t so dim-witted after all, thought Lucca, a smile forming upon her visage.

6

UNDER THE RADAR

The enforced week on the ground had passed and Jessamyn was once more allowed at the helm of a ship, flying Pavel, Harpreet, and Brian Wallace to the Republic of Chicago.

Brian Wallace told Jessamyn she would need to keep low to the ground to avoid detection.

“I love a challenge,” she said, grinning.

“It’s a flying technique used extensively by those engaged in black market activities,” Brian explained.

“Is it really?” asked Pavel. “Last year, I took off a lot without telling my aunt. I figured out by accident that so long as I hugged the ground, I never got stopped or reported.”

“Aye,” replied Brian. “But Lucca probably knew where ye were, lad. Ye’re only truly safe if ye remove the tracker that communicates with Air Safety.”

“Which you did on this ship, right?” asked Jessamyn.

“Which we did,” replied Pavel.

Jess nodded happily. She didn’t want a repeat of her encounter with the Central African Air Control, exciting as that had been.

“You look happy,” said Pavel, seating himself beside her.

She was happy. Sitting in the cockpit of Pavel’s Hercules-class ship transformed life on Earth from drudgery into something with promise and hope and joy.

Firing up the ship, she grinned at Pavel. “I got called out for hazardous attitudes for flying low to the ground back home,” she said. “This should be fun!”

She circled the ship just meters above the ground, doing a quick fly-by of the Gopher Hole. Jess noted that Harpreet, though perpetually calm, was gripping both the armrests at her side.

“I’ll exercise caution,” Jessamyn said, for Harpreet’s sake. “Earth’s gravity makes everything here trickier. But a lot more fun, too.”

“How very comforting, indeed,” said Brian Wallace. He had placed a sort of sleeping mask over his eyes, perhaps sleepy, perhaps preferring not to watch Jessamyn’s under-the-radar flying.

Jessamyn laughed and winked at Pavel. “We’re fine,” she said. “No dust-storms, no snow-storms. And the ship is in really excellent condition. Having access to replacement parts like you do here on Earth—well, Crusty would gladly sacrifice an arm or a leg to have what you take for granted here.”

“Aye,” replied Brian. “There are compensations to life on Earth, lass.”

The merriment drained from Jess’s eyes at his comment.

Pavel saw this and reached over to place his hand on hers, murmuring, “We’ll get you home, somehow. Someday.”

Jess nodded. But would it be soon enough? She feared for Mars’s future if Mei Lo couldn’t maintain control of Mars Colonial.

Jessamyn felt anxious as she thought of hearing news from Mars, something they hoped to be able to do by taking this trip. They were on their way to purchase parts the Marsians needed for deep-space communication with MCC. With the high-power radio transmitters in Chicago, the group of Marsians and sympathizers would at last be able to speak with MCC.

Jessamyn gathered her thoughts back to the navigation panel, her fingers flying across it. “It’s going to get rough,” she said. “We’ve got mountains ahead.”

Brian uttered a resigned sort of groan.

Harpreet murmured to him that perhaps she would take the sleep-patch he’d offered earlier. “If you truly don’t mind giving up your last one?”

Brian sorted through his satchel for the med-patch. Finding it, he passed it over. “It’s the least I can do,” he said.

“My friend,” said Harpreet, “You have done much already.”

From her peripheral vision, Jessamyn saw the Scotsman shrug.

“Well, if I’m to get yer CEO to accept me as ambassador,” said Wallace, “I should think no kindness would be too great or too small, eh?”

Jess didn’t entirely approve of Brian Wallace’s latest wish: to be a liaison between the two worlds. But she definitely approved of his interest in bankrolling the Marsians’ activities on Earth. Equipment was expensive. Travel was expensive. Brian was wealthy. Hoping as she did for an independent Mars, Jess felt reluctant to promote Earth-Mars relations in the future. However, she kept this as much to herself as possible while depleting Brian Wallace’s stores of tellurium.

As they neared Chicago, Brian placed a call and discovered the party which had previously agreed to trade transmitters for tellurium now insisted upon cold hard credits. He wheedled and joked, but the supplier stood firm.

“Well,” said Brian to the merchant, “I hope ye don’t mind waiting an extra day, in that event. I’m not carrying credits in that quantity.”

The Chicago supplier did not mind waiting, and the upshot was that Jessamyn had to fly onward, past where she’d planned to bring her craft down.

“There’s an off-grid consciousness transfer hospital outside of Toronto,” said Brian Wallace. “We can convert tellurium to ready cash there.”

It was night when the small craft touched down in a gritty suburb of Toronto. Pavel was eager to visit the hospital, out of curiosity about anything off-grid and medical, but Brian insisted the three remain safe in the ship while he make the transaction himself.

“They know me and trust me,” said Wallace. “It’s best I give them no reason for suspicion. And if ye go sniffing about the hospital asking questions, well, lad, I think ye can see that would be unappreciated.”

So Pavel, Jess, and Harpreet ate a dull meal of ration bars awaiting the conclusion of Brian Wallace’s business transaction. When he returned, he wore a broad grin.

“Price has gone right through the ceiling,” he said, flashing a small coil of plastic. “This could buy an island or two,” he added, tucking the coil into a pocket which he zipped shut and patted twice. “Off to Chicago, then!”

7

WHISTLE-WORTHY

Lucca Brezhnaya was smiling. A breakthrough at last! Vladim Wu had sent her a communiqué to the effect that tellurium had shown up in unusual quantities near Toronto. Which was in the Americas. The Chancellor wished she knew how to whistle a happy tune. This was a whistle-worthy occasion.

“We’ve traced the source to a hospital doing illegal rebodies,” Wu informed the Chancellor. “If they’d simply stored the tellurium, we’d have been none the wiser, but apparently the quantity was more than such a place would use in two years, in the ordinary course of business, and they converted it to credits.”

“They were greedy,” said Lucca.

“As you predicted,” said Major Wu. “They were greedy and they offloaded enough to catch our attention. I will personally follow this up and report back to you.”

Lucca smiled as she ended her conversation with Wu. The major was leading her straight to the Martian.

Oh, yes, it was a very whistle-worthy occasion.

8

FOND OF PIZZA

When they left Toronto, Jessamyn had allowed Pavel to pilot so that she could catch a few hours’ rest. They flew toward Chicago, hugging the edge of a large lake, avoiding traffic lanes and systems designed to “welcome” visitors to the small independent nation.

Brian began describing what they could expect at the facility they were heading to.

“I’ll need this one’s muscle,” he said, tapping Pavel on the shoulders.

Jessamyn frowned. While she’d grown stronger on Earth than she’d ever been on Mars, she was all too aware of her own relative weakness compared to most anyone who’d grown up subject to Earth’s more taxing gravitational field.

“Never mind, lass,” said Brian Wallace, noting Jessamyn’s discontent. “Ye have a pretty face, and that’ll ease our transaction in other ways. Offer a smile or two and we’ll get a better price.”

Jess scowled. “I’ll do no such thing. I’m only accompanying you for one reason: to make sure the part matches my brother’s specifications.”

Brian shrugged. “It’s your money. Or, rather, it’s mine. But you’re to regard it as yours. As it were.”

With Harpreet to negotiate, Jess had no concerns as to whether or not they would get a good deal on what they needed.

After Pavel brought the craft down, the four walked together to the parts manufacturer. But there was nothing for Pavel to carry, as it turned out. When Jessamyn examined the transmitters in stock, she felt certain they weren’t correctly configured.

She sighed and sent images of the part to her brother via a small holo-transmitter.

“Your assessment is accurate,” said her brother. “Inquire as to whether they are able to make alterations to the specifications I am transmitting now,” he said, fingers dancing on a screen.

“We can do the work,” said the supplier, in response to Ethan’s queries. “But it will take two, maybe three days. And it’s going to cost you.”

Harpreet negotiated and Jess scowled and Brian Wallace haggled, reminding the parts purveyor of their long-standing history with Clan Wallace, and at last an acceptable price was agreed upon.

As the group of four returned to their ship, Brian received confirmation that the transmitter would be ready no later than the second morning from now.

“So what do we do in the meantime?” asked Jessamyn, disappointed. “Go home?”

“If we go home, it’s a sure thing they’ll finish the modifications early,” said Pavel.

“We’ve got food, drink, and a place to stay aboard the ship,” said Harpreet. “I believe we should stay.”

Jessamyn thought it sounded less boring to fly everyone home and then return on her own later, but no one else approved of that plan. In the end, they decided to stay in case the part should be ready early.

“I’m hungry,” said Pavel.

“I’m starving,” said Jess, still grumpy she wouldn’t be flying back and forth the next few days.

“Have ye ever encountered an Earth-food known as ‘pizza’?” asked Brian Wallace.

A small smile formed upon Jess’s face.

“She’s a pizza fanatic,” said Pavel.

“I had it once and loved it,” she admitted. “At the banquet where Pavel and I met.”

“Oh, well, Budapesti pizza,” said Brian, dismissive. “Ye’ve never had pizza like this, then, lass. Chicago-style, deep-dish pizza is worth the trip, no matter how far away home might be.”

“I’m sorry to bring it up,” said Harpreet, “but I believe we ought not to be seen wandering about, the four of us together, excepting when it is unavoidable.”

“You’re right,” said Pavel, a look of disappointment crossing his face. “It would be safer to stay on the ship.”

Brian Wallace shrugged. “The Republic of Chicago’s probably one of the safer places on Earth. They’ve a long history of looking the other direction.”

“For a price,” said Pavel. He shook his head. “Not worth the risk. Sorry, Wallace.”

“We have ration bars,” said Harpreet, brightly.

But Brian Wallace put his foot down and said he’d rather be arrested and sent to New Timbuktu than eat ration bars when they were this close to world-class pizza. In the end, he set off on foot, alone.

Half an hour later, Jessamyn was sinking her teeth into her third slice of a delectably soft crust, with just a bit of crispiness to its outer edge. She had to admit Brian was right about one thing: life on Earth offered certain compensations.

~ ~ ~

“I have good news for you, Madam Chancellor,” reported Major Vladim Wu. “We’ve encouraged the illegally operating transfer hospital to cooperate.”

“Yes?” said the Chancellor, breathless in her eagerness.

“And we’ve managed to put a trace on the credits disbursed by the hospital,” continued Wu. “So, in a day or so, we should have some hard answers.”

“A day?” Lucca dug her nails into her palms.

“Or so. I’m sorry, Madam Chancellor. The encryptions utilized by these sorts of banking operations are sophisticated.” Wu hesitated before adding, “I thought you would wish to be kept apprised of our progress. In the future, I could wait until we have—”

“No, no,” replied the Chancellor, cutting him off. “You were right. I want to know what you discover as soon you learn of it. Contact me immediately when you have something more. Chancellor out.”

She could wait a day. She’d waited months already. What was a day?

~ ~ ~

The group of four had spent a dull day aboard the ship, which was beginning to feel cramped. Jessamyn had read all three of the books on the ship’s wafer and was now itching to fly. Wallace had acquired more of the Chicago delicacy for lunch and again for dinner, which the group was now eating in silence.

“I visited Chicago as a kid,” remarked Pavel, breaking the hush. “But we didn’t eat pizza. I wouldn’t have forgotten pizza this good.”

“Did your aunt bring you?” asked Harpreet.

“No, my parents. There’s a big museum. With all kinds of art. Stuff the Republic of Chicago had to fight hard to keep.” Pavel took another large bite of pizza. “Literally,” he added.

“I studied your wars as a school child,” said Harpreet.

“We all did,” said Jess. “So we wouldn’t make the same mistakes all over again.”

Pavel finished the last slice in the pan before him. “You say it like it’s so easy. ‘Read some history. Don’t repeat it.’ Keeping the peace with a large and diverse population is a lot more complicated than just teaching history to kids and expecting them to learn from it.”

Harpreet laughed lightly. “We will doubtless make our own mistakes.”

Jessamyn could feel her face coloring and agreed. “Harpreet’s right. Mars will make its own mistakes.” She took a long sip of the beverage called ‘sarsaparilla.’ “Or in my case, I personally make Mars’s mistakes,” she muttered.

“Hey,” said Pavel, reaching for Jessamyn’s hand. “Whatever’s going down back on Mars Colonial, it’s not all your fault.”

Jessamyn shoved her pan of pizza toward Brian Wallace. He looked eagerly at the remaining three slices. “Go ahead,” she said. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Child,” said Harpreet, her voice soft. “Do not dwell too much in the past. You cannot escape the burden you have shouldered. But you can learn from it. And if you are very fortunate, you may have the chance to make reparations.”

Jess nodded, sighed heavily, and crawled back to her bunk to sleep.

The second day passed, with Brian making repeat visits to the pizza restaurant.

“I don’t mind playing pizza delivery boy,” said Brian. “We’ll not see the like once we’re home in Yucca, will we?”

“Home,” Jess repeated in contempt. She felt surprised that Brian thought of the desert community as “home.” She did not. She would not, she vowed. Home would always be Mars, whether she could return or not.

“We’ll find a way back, child,” murmured Harpreet, softly.

“I flew an M-class just a few years back,” said Pavel. “There’s got to be a dozen of them, at least, still in working condition.”

“And they are likely under careful surveillance,” replied Harpreet, eyeing Jessamyn.

“Don’t worry,” said Jess, her voice flat. “I’m not going to steal a ship.”

“We could always build one, though,” said Pavel. “Not from scratch, maybe, but there are parts suppliers all over the world. If you picked up a piece here, a module there, you could have a ship in a year or two and no one the wiser.”

Jess cheered considerably at the thought and was smiling by the time Brian arrived with dinner and turned the conversation to other channels.

That night, when she lay down to sleep, Jessamyn dreamed of rockets a-building, and of starry fields to cross.

~ ~ ~

Lucca Brezhnaya’s secretary pinged again. “Madam Chancellor? I have Major Wu for you.”

“Put him through immediately,” said the Chancellor.

“I believe we may have traced the credits to a high tech manufacturer of radio parts,” said Wu, “located in the Republic of Chicago.”

“Chicago?” Lucca ran a manicured finger back and forth across her chin. “Chicago is rife with malcontents,” she mused aloud.

“Exactly,” said Wu. “However, I do not believe the Martian is living amongst them. I’ve uncovered another string of clues pointing somewhere else entirely.”

“Do go on.”

The major continued. “I have reason to believe the girl may be dwelling in a desert to the east of what was once Los Angeles. What is more, it’s possible your nephew is there as well.”

“Pavel?” Lucca’s voice rose in both octave and volume. “My nephew?”

It made such perfect sense. Pavel loved the desert. How many times had he begged her to take him camping (of all things) in the Great Southwestern Desert of North America?

“I want you to personally investigate the desert,” said Lucca.

“With all due respect, Madam Chancellor, I think my skills would be best put to use in Chicago at the moment.”

“No,” said the Chancellor, pacing in and out of view of the holograph’s imager. “No, I want you to find my nephew. Johnston can manage tracking the credit flow. It’s his purview, after all.”

“I have concerns about Johnston’s abilities—”

“And I have concerns about locating my nephew,” barked Lucca, cutting Wu off. She took a cleansing breath. “Forgive me, my dear Vladim,” she said. “I’m sure Johnston will do the job. You’re all but handing it to him on a silver platter. How soon can we have someone in Chicago to ask the right sort of questions?”

“I’ve already dispatched two field agents with experience in international banking and money laundering,” said Wu. “There are quite a few in the republic, Madam Chancellor.”

“Yes, there would be, given that nation’s history,” Lucca said, nodding. “See that Johnston is fully briefed. I want you in the desert.”

“As you wish, Madam Chancellor,” replied Wu. “Oh, and there is one other lead, although it’s hardly on a comparable scale. Credits originating from the same source have been repeatedly disbursed to a Chicago restaurant. A ‘pizza joint,’ I’m told.”

Lucca’s eyebrows shot up. “Pizza?”

“Yes, Madam Chancellor.”

Lucca hesitated for a moment, troubled as to whether she ought after all to send Wu to Chicago. She believed her nephew liked pizza. But so did many people. On the other hand, she knew her nephew loved the desert. And the Martian would find it familiar. Home-like.

“You are to investigate any leads in the desert and report back to me,” she said, decisive. “Good work, Major Wu. Chancellor out.”

She placed an immediate call to her butler. “Zussman?”

“Madam? How may I assist you?”

“Is it your recollection my nephew was fond of pizza?”

“Pizza, Madam? Yes, Madam, I believe he was extremely fond of it.”

Lucca frowned. Had she made the right decision?

“That will be all, Zussman. Chancellor out.”

She’d made a decision she could live with. That would have to be good enough.

9

ENTREPRENEURIAL SOULS

When the morning for the parts pick-up arrived, Brian Wallace declared that Pavel would be staying aboard the ship.

“You can’t lift the transmitter yourself,” said Pavel. “You told me.”

Brian smiled. “Ye’ll never guess what me industrious nephew’s been up to. Do ye recall those hover-carts scattered about me property on the Isle of Skye?”

“Yes,” said Jessamyn aloud, as Pavel and Harpreet nodded.

“He’s set up a rental system, placing hovercarts all about the globe,” said Brian, beaming. “Including the Republic of Chicago!”

“How very industrious,” said Harpreet.

“Well, the clan’s full of entrepreneurial souls,” replied Brian. “Guess me brother’s lad figured there wasn’t much future in the tellurium-for-ration-bars-trade, for him, anyway. The Clan Chief’s being at present none too friendly with anyone closely related to Brian of Clan Wallace.”

“She’ll forgive you eventually, won’t she?” asked Pavel.

Brian Wallace shrugged. “I violated the Clan Wallace’s most sacred principle: draw no governmental attention to the clan.” Wallace sighed. “But that’s neither here nor there.” Turning to Jessamyn, he said, “Do say as ye’ll accompany me to the manufacturer, won’t ye, me dear?”

Jessamyn rolled her eyes. “Harpreet’s the negotiator, not me.”

“In the Republic of Chicago, a pretty face will get us farther,” said Brian.

“Fine,” said Jess. “I’ll go. But I’m not winking or smiling.”

“Wherever did ye get the idea I’d ask such a thing of ye, me dear?” asked Brian, attempting to look surprised by the suggestion.

They pulled the ship closer to the facility, and Jessamyn and Brian made their way back to the office where half the agreed-upon amount had been paid three days earlier.

“Ah, yes,” said the man behind the counter. “Your part will just be another twenty minutes, thirty minutes. So sorry for the delay. Tricky, those modifications you asked for. We’re just testing one or two last things.”

“Hmm,” intoned Brian Wallace, a grim expression on his face. “Yer delays are costing us, ye know. And I’m not made of money, much as yer lot seem to think. It’s not cheap, marryin’ off a passel of daughters, I’ll have ye know.”

Brian continued on in this vein until he’d shaved off several hundred credits from the originally agreed-upon price.

“You do realize how heavy your equipment will be?” asked the man behind the counter, frowning at Jessamyn’s thin frame.

“Aye,” said Brian Wallace. “I’ve rented one of these.” He patted the hovercart beside him. “Have ye seen one before? Clever gadgets. Ye might contact the manufacturer and see about stocking them for internal transportation.”

Jessamyn swallowed her laughter as Brian Wallace convinced the office manager to further investigate the hovercarts.

“And how can I help you?” the manager asked a new arrival into the office.

Jessamyn turned to observe a well-dressed threebody.

“I’m here to inquire as to certain irregularities in payments processed by this facility,” said the threebody. “I contacted your head of operations earlier this morning. I believe I am expected.”

Brian turned to stare at the new arrival, as well.

“Right,” said the clerk behind the counter. “I’ll just see to you in a minute, once we get these customers on their way.”

“My time is valuable,” said the well-dressed gentleman, attempting to attract the clerk’s attention with a flashy badge.

Jessamyn felt a tingle running along her spine as she glanced at the man’s badge.

“Here we are, then,” said the clerk to Brian, “If I can just obtain your authorization mark here and … here and … here.”

A pair of burly threebodies brought the part out and Jessamyn indicated they should deposit it on the hovercart.

“Excuse me,” said the well-dressed man. “My business is urgent. I really must insist—”

“Yes, yes,” replied the clerk. “Just give me a minute.”

Brian thanked the men who had carried the transmitter out to him, thanked the clerk behind the desk.

“Enough already,” muttered Jessamyn. “Let’s go.”

“Play it calmly, now,” replied Brian, his voice so soft only Jess could hear. “I saw the badge, too. But we don’t run until we clear the corner.”

With the hovercart in tow, the two rounded the corner and then took off, flat out running toward the waiting ship. Jess could hear Brian speaking to Pavel over his earpiece, telling him to open the hatch now!

“Do you have our course laid in?” Jess panted as she dashed aboard.

“Yeah,” Pavel replied. “Nothing better to do here.”

“Good,” said Jess. “Strap in and hold on.” She pulled the ship out along the narrow streets at speeds that made Pavel uneasy.

“You do realize there are rules about how fast you can travel in the city?” he asked.

“We’re in a hurry,” snapped Jess.

“Then keep your speed down,” replied Pavel, his own voice raised. “Or you’ll get us all arrested.”

Flying slowly went against everything Jess wanted at the moment, but she kept her speed legal, pulling the craft gradually west and then southwest toward home. As densely populated areas gave way to suburbs and then prairie, Jessamyn concentrated on the changing terrain and keeping the ship low to the ground.

“What happened back there?” asked Pavel as they cleared the boundaries of the Republic of Chicago.

Brian was uncharacteristically silent.

“Someone showed up asking questions,” replied Jess. “What does an RSF badge mean to you?”

“Red Squadron Forces,” replied Pavel, voice grim. “Did you see someone flashing an RSF badge?”

“At the manufacturing facility,” she said. “In the same office where Brian and I picked up that part.”

Pavel turned to Brian Wallace. “I thought you said you could keep your transactions untraceable. What gives?”

“We’ve no way of knowing if that had anything to do with us,” said Brian, morose.

“Could my aunt have traced your payments?” asked Pavel.

“Well, anything’s possible, now isn’t it, lad?” the Scot replied grumpily. “I suppose ye can ask her yerself, if ye’re so sure the fault’s mine, then.”

Pavel took a slow breath. “Sorry, Wallace. I’m sure you did everything you could to … lessen the possibility.” Turning to Jessamyn, he said, “I strongly suggest you fly low and slow all the way back. If my aunt was tracking the movement of tellurium, we might have just made a very lucky escape. No sense giving anyone watching the sky something to track.”

Jessamyn nodded. “Low and slow it is, then.”

~ ~ ~

“Imbecile!” shouted Lucca, loudly enough that she saw Johnston wince and step back from the holo-transmitter. “How is it that your ground personnel failed to recognize these persons?”

Johnston swallowed as he looked at the images of the Chancellor’s nephew and five others, one of whom bore a scowl and striking red hair.

“My operative did say one of the persons in the facility had red hair. The girl, I believe.”

“Yes, of course it was the girl. Whom you should have made certain any ground personnel would recognize on sight. You fool! You’ve cost me—” Lucca cut herself off. There was no reason to go into further detail with this idiot.

“We’re finished. Chancellor out.”

Lucca swore loudly as she cut communication. She had no doubt that if Wu had been in charge, the plainclothes Red Squadron Forces official would have been properly briefed so as to identify the girl before visiting the manufacturer. Even if the girl had bothered to disguise herself, which apparently she hadn’t.

Once again, Lucca had nothing. After several days on a very promising trail, this was agonizing.

“Idiots!” she shouted to her empty office.

But she did have something. She knew that the Martian had acquired a very powerful radio transmitter. The Martian must be planning to communicate with home. Lucca scowled. Transmissions from Earth to Mars would be nearly impossible to identify. Still, it was better to know what your enemy was planning than not to know.

So, the girl was stuck here and wanted to contact home. Only home was a very long way away at the moment. And Lucca would find Jessamyn long before Mars could send anyone to rescue her. Or there would be hell to pay.

Lucca gazed out her window at the night sky and the two or three heavenly bodies bright enough to be seen from downtown Budapest. She took several calming breaths. Then she made the call to terminate Johnston’s employment.

Vladim Wu would sort out what to do next.

10

ALL THE DIFFERENCE

Miroslav Ruchenko had known he would be a doctor from age five. His parents were doctors. His grandparents had been doctors. And all his greats back as far as anyone had bothered to search out. What was more, his progenitors had all been Budapesti physicians. But Miroslav had besmirched the family name, having in his youth committed indiscretions which resulted in a lesser rebodying than what was required to practice medicine in the world’s capital city. Still, Dunakeszi was within easy reach of Budapest. It was almost a good position.

Almost.

Miroslav sighed, rubbing his hand back and forth along his forehead. The Dunakeszi Hospital and Clinic for Brain Injury had been passed over again this year for needed funding. It was almost, he thought, as though the Ministry of Medicine didn’t want positive patient outcomes from the Clinic.

Miroslav glanced about him as though fearful the Ministry might have overheard his thoughts. Of course the Ministry wanted positive outcomes. Funding was tight everywhere. The destructive acts of inciters meant the needs of his tiny hospital were bumped down several pegs on the scale.

The doctor sighed again. It was past ten at night. He’d missed the last hover back to the city. Again. His wife would be angry. She might leave this time.

“I need staff!” he shouted to the empty room. No one replied. Which was fortunate. He did not need to add mental instability to his own problems.

“Never mind,” he muttered, rubbing a hand along the beard stubble he’d not found time to remove all day.

After sending a message of apology to his wife, Dr. Ruchenko tugged at a handle set at knee height into the wall. A narrow bed extruded from the wall. He thought it had been designed to be less comfortable than the hospital beds, if that were possible. “Never mind,” he said again, sinking into the bed, dimming his office lights.

The shouting began moments later. As it did most nights. There were simply too many children in the Clinic. He needed another nurse. Just one additional nurse would have made all the difference. He sighed, rolled over, and kicked off the bed.

“Never mind,” he said to himself, slipping into the corridor to offer what assistance he could to his understaffed hospital.

11

ADDED TO THE STRAND

Days had passed since the Chicago incident, and the Martian eluded Lucca Brezhnaya still. Which meant the Chancellor was as much in the dark as ever as to Mars’s plans. It was so unfair.

Lucca should have destroyed the petty rat colony upon the ice planet when she’d had the chance.

It made her wonder if it would be possible to destroy them now. Perhaps, she thought. Just perhaps …

She pinged one of her secretaries. “I want the Head of Global Satellite Operations.”

Perhaps the Martian satellites could be coaxed into producing deadly force capable of reaching the surface of the red planet. The little rats had few enough nests in which to hide. Their cities were paltry affairs cobbled of mud and ice and glass. All fragile. They couldn’t even survive out on the surface unassisted.

Yes. Adapt the lasers to target the planet’s surface. Was it still possible? It might be costly. But less so than sending an armada. Few would ever know. And few were easily disposed of. Lucca smiled.

But disappointment met her here as it had with the tellurium tracing.

“What do you mean there’s only one scientist with this field of expertise? It’s a satellite system. We operate thousands of satellite systems,” shouted Lucca.

In spite of her raised voice, the Chancellor was unable to convince the woman on the other end of the call that there must be more than one expert able to communicate with the outmoded satellites. Lucca cut the call short. Well, one expert wasn’t as good as two or ten, but one expert could train ten others. Lucca pinged her secretary again.

“I want Dr. Kazuko Zaifa brought to me from New Timbuktu,” she said. “Immediately.”

Here, the result was even less palatable. Dr. Zaifa, it would appear, had been kidnapped during the little affair that had lost her the other inciter: Harpreet. Lucca berated herself for not having paid better attention at the time. But she had been deeply wounded by her nephew’s actions. It was further proof that she ought not to engage in relationships. People always disappointed you, in the end—even if you called them family.

The fact that her relationship to her nephew was manufactured, owing nothing to either blood or marriage, did little to lessen the sting of the blow. As far as Pavel knew, she was truly his aunt.

A few more beads were added to the strand telling the tale of Martian plot to bring down Earth’s government. It now appeared that the inciter named Jessamyn had lured Pavel to her side following the attack on the Scottish Isle. From thence, the Martian girl had convinced Pavel to kidnap the last scientist on Earth capable of writing in the programming language spoken by the Mars Containment Program satellites. Although, it seemed likely the girl had been off-world at the time of the kidnapping. Lucca frowned.

It made no material difference. The satellite specialist was lost to the Chancellor.

Which was maddening, thought Lucca, pacing. It would slow her considerably. But programming languages had manuals and files that could be studied by others. These, she would locate. The destroyed facility, she would rebuild.

And as for the problem of Mars? Its destruction was a necessary step toward stability and control on Earth. Lucca would figure something out. There was more than one way to poison a colony of rats.

Her secretary pinged her again.

“What is it?” demanded Lucca.

“Madam Chancellor, it’s Major Wu for you.”

“Put him through at once!”

“Good news, Chancellor Brezhnaya. I believe we’ve located a colony of dissenters harboring both your nephew and the Martian. I have a few ideas as to how we ought to proceed next.”

“As have I,” said Lucca, smiling.

12

OUGHT TO HAVE LISTENED

During the days following their return from the Republic of Chicago, Ethan worked long hours with the assistance of Kazuko Zaifa and the Yuccan, Renard, installing the powerful new transmitter. The task of composing an initial message to send to MCC was shared by Harpreet and Jessamyn.

The communication they hoped to establish with Mars would be one-directional. There was no practical way to hold two-way conversations. Depending upon how far apart the planets traveled, the signals transmitted would take anywhere from three to twenty minutes to reach from one planet to the other. Essentially, communication involved the sending back and forth of vid-mails. That had not changed since the first colonists had arrived on the red planet hundreds of years earlier. You recorded what you wanted to say and sent it. Then you waited for it to arrive. Your recipient recorded a response, perhaps throwing in a few questions for you to answer.

Jessamyn sighed, suspecting there would indeed be questions she would be required to answer. Uncomfortable questions.

Pavel attempted to provide encouragement regarding Jess’s fears. “I’m sure they’ve forgiven you, now that they’ve had a chance to think things over. Now they know Ethan and Harpreet are safe.”

“Uh-huh,” grunted Jess. She didn’t feel certain of anything except the anger she remembered in Mei Lo’s voice when last they’d spoken. Possibly, the Secretary General would refuse to speak with her at all. Jess didn’t find that idea comforting, either.

“So,” said Pavel, “Your brother said there will be a twelve-minute delay?”

“Twenty-four minutes, given Mars’s current distance from Earth,” replied Jess. “The signal goes to Mars in twelve minutes, but it takes just as long for an answer to come back. Plus the time it takes them to record an answer,” explained Jess.

Jessamyn thought back to the content of the vid-mail she’d helped compose two days earlier. There had been a full disclosure of the crash of the Galleon, of course. (Mei Lo would kill her for that.) A full disclosure of the fact that neither Crusty nor Jessamyn had noticed the ship’s hold full of tellurium. (Mei Lo would also kill her for that.) And of course a secretly-coded disclosure to the effect that even without any assistance from Jessamyn, Ethan was well on his way to gaining control of the Terran satellites. So Jess needn’t have come after all. (Mei Lo would kill her for that.)

Although Jess had only guesses as to the Secretary’s responses, Jess felt certain there would be lots of killing-of-Pilot-Jaarda involved. Maybe she should slink off to her bed and cover her head with all the pillows in the room.

“We have sent the initial transmission to MCC using the deep space satellites,” Ethan announced, breaking Jessamyn’s reverie. “We should receive their reply within half an hour.”

“Oh, boy,” said Jess.

“Hey,” said Pavel, picking up on her thoughts from the deep furrows forming between her brows. “You did what you thought was best for the sake of everyone on Mars. Chin up, pilot.”

Jessamyn tried to smile, but her mouth stopped at half a smile—the best she could manage.

“Don’t forget I put in a good word for you, too,” said Pavel. “And I’m a very important person. Nephew to Earth’s Chancellor and all.”

Jess snorted with laughter. “Thanks,” she said. “I feel confident that will make all the difference.”

The minutes ticked down. When all twenty-four had passed, the crew from Mars and their friends from Earth began counting minutes elapsed and placing bets as to the length of the reply transmission.

Pavel, who’d guessed a seven-minute-long wait, won an extra twenty milliliters of water from the others’ allotments.

Jess sat straighter as she heard the familiar voice of the Secretary General.

“Greetings, Mars Raiders. Perhaps in contradiction to your expectations, I still retain the title of CEO and Secretary General of Mars Colonial Command. As Secretary, I commend your efforts to remain hidden and to seek the rescue of your fellows and to carry out, to the best of your ability, the mission with which you have been entrusted. As for you, Former First Officer Jessamyn Jaarda, it is my duty to place you under arrest in absentia.”

The Secretary paused. She looked up at the ceiling again as if hoping for inspiration. She shook her head.

“No. By Hades, I’m not sticking to a script, elections or no.” She took a deep breath and walked several feet closer to the camera. “Jaarda, do you have any idea what you’ve done? What you’ve cost Mars Colonial? Crusty’s incarcerated. Cavanaugh was acquitted. Do not ask me how that happened. He’s now campaigning for public office in New Tokyo, where he made some very interesting accusations against you, young lady.”

Mei Lo paused to close her eyes and pinch the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger.

“Most of which I have chosen to disregard. Which might mean I am a fool, but that’s hardly news to anyone, least of all myself. You ought to know as well, Mars Raiders, that the good citizens of Mars Colonial will be voting in two months as to whether or not I ought to remain at the helm. Which means that if you are serious about getting me the, ah, birthday present I want, you’d better get it delivered before the election. Won’t do me much good after.”

Mei Lo’s eyes drifted down and to one side this time. She took a deep breath. “Raider Mombasu, as ranking officer of record of the Galleon, I must ask you to assume responsibility for the detainment of Ms. Jaarda. That is all I have to say. MCC will be happy to entertain further communications should you have anything of note to communicate. Secretary Mei Lo out.”

The room felt suddenly small, stuffy, and hot to Jessamyn.

“Well, daughter, it would seem you are to consider yourself as being under my jurisdiction,” said Harpreet, smiling at Jessamyn. “I would ask you to carry on as you have been doing. Will that be satisfactory?”

Jessamyn nodded, her face flushed with embarrassment. She hadn’t expected to be cuffed or placed behind bars, but Harpreet’s calm smile could not entirely do away with Jessamyn’s remembrance of Mei Lo’s tight-lipped accusations.

“Don’t dwell on it,” Pavel murmured. “Do what you came here to do.”

Ethan cleared his throat. “It would appear there is an additional message encrypted within the one we viewed.”

“From whom?” asked Jessamyn.

“It purports to be a communication from Mei Lo,” replied Ethan. “It is addressed to Jessamyn. I shall attempt to decrypt the message.”

Moments later, Ethan invited his sister to sit before his wafer screen.

My dear Jessamyn,

I regret to inform you that Mars stands in great peril. My own reelection I do not consider likely. I’ve been forced to issue a directive to construct a new interplanetary vessel which is diverting considerable resources away from terraforming activities.

Jessamyn frowned and read on.

I am sorry I had to place you under arrest. Please consider yourself at liberty to reveal to whomever you see fit the secret which I shared with you in Gale Crater.

Jess’s mouth formed a tiny “O.” She’d been itching to tell Harpreet and her brother what Mei Lo had revealed to her: that a century earlier, the Marsian government had traded silence on Terran mismanagement of the Rebody Program for guarantees of Marsian safety.

I still believe I must keep silent on this topic unless your brother is able to complete his mission. I do not trust what someone like Cavanaugh would do with the information should he obtain an official position, as it seems he is trying for. I ought to have listened to Kipper. She warned me to lock up her brother before you all left for Earth. How I wish she’d been at the trial, to speak out against him. He’s a slippery fish, Jessamyn, and I do not hold it against you that he fooled you and Crusty. He’ll fool all of Mars before he’s done, I fear.

Please, please divert all your attention to the incomplete mission. Without a way to protect ourselves, I fear we will be destroyed. I am sorry I have no happier news to deliver. No, I do have one final thing to say—I forgive you. I am only sorry I could not do so publicly. I believe you understand why that would not be politically expedient.

Goodbye, Jessamyn, and Godspeed on your mission.

Mei Lo

Jessamyn wiped at several tears that clung to her lower lids. “Harpreet, Ethan? I need to speak with you privately.” A half-second passed and she added, “Pavel, you should hear this, too.”

13

FLY ON THE WALL

The capable Vladim Wu had traced the Martian to a small community clinging to life in the desert. The Chancellor’s initial impulse had been to send a detachment of Red Squadron Forces to kill every last miserable wretch. Before her nephew’s watching eyes, if possible.

But satisfying such petty urges was beneath her, she reminded herself. She had a planet’s safety to preserve.

In any case, Vladim Wu had provided Lucca with a better strategy. Less personally satisfying, certainly, but better in terms of Lucca’s ultimate goals. If they went in with guns blazing, they might destroy not only those who could answer questions, but sensitive records as well.

“Something I believe we can agree would prove regrettable,” Wu said.

“Yes,” admitted Lucca. “I suppose I would regret such an approach.” Much as I would enjoy it, she added silently. “What of your efforts to gather intelligence?”

Wu paused, stroking a beard-in-miniature of which Lucca knew him to be inordinately proud. “The community is unusually tight-knit. I can tell you a handful of names—some of the members who’ve gained notoriety outside the enclave—but we’ve been unable to gain entrance in a way that would not betray us.”

“Hmm,” intoned Lucca, thoughtful as well. “I wonder … perhaps I know of an approach that might prove successful. Have you worked with Gaspar Bonaparte?”

“I have the greatest respect for Bonaparte’s work,” replied Wu. “But I understood him to be … unavailable at present.”

“I threw him in prison,” Lucca said, a scowl upon her face.

“I don’t pretend to know if it would suit your purposes to release him,” hinted Wu, “but I will remind you that there are limits to the usefulness of information gathered through, ah, interrogation.”

“Indeed,” agreed the Chancellor. “Whereas there are no limits to the intelligence one can gain if one becomes a fly on the wall in enemy headquarters.”

“Precisely,” said Wu.

The enemy could not move quickly, this much Lucca knew. There would be no ships coming from Mars for over a year due to the current distance between the two worlds. Lucca had the luxury of time: time to learn how best to strike the Mars colony and any sympathizers who might exist upon Earth.

And she had the perfect “fly.”

It was time to recall Gaspar Bonaparte.

“My dear Vladim,” said the Chancellor, “would you be so good as to pay a visit to New Timbuktu?”

14

STUCK ON EARTH

Following the delivery of the secret message from Secretary Mei Lo, Jessamyn gathered Harpreet, Ethan, and Pavel where they could not be overheard. There, Jessamyn explained how, over a hundred years earlier, officials at MCC had agreed to secret away information that proved the Terran government was abusing the Rebody Program such that many ordinary citizens died while highly-placed officials were given extended lives. Pavel’s face grew darker and darker during Jessamyn’s retelling of Mei Lo’s secret, one passed from CEO to CEO upon Mars.

Harpreet was predictably philosophical. “It matches with things I heard in New Timbuktu. And I confess I had often wondered why Earth did not simply destroy us when they had the opportunity. The enmity between the worlds was most bitter. The ceasefire, resting upon such an arrangement, makes more sense now.”

Pavel spoke up. “There would have been severe political backlash if our Terran government had blown Mars to bits. The people here saw you as underdogs.”

“Under dogs?” asked Ethan.

“It means the ones you cheer for even though you know they can’t win,” explained Jessamyn.

“So why isn’t your leader telling everyone on your world about this now?” demanded Pavel. “And on my world, too?”

Jessamyn bit her lower lip. “I’m sorry, Pavel. I know it looks very unfair. But if the Secretary General makes this public knowledge on Mars, there’s a very strong possibility someone—some idiot like Cavanaugh—would attempt to use the information to bribe your government into exchanging supplies for our silence. What do you think your aunt would do if we threatened to tell?”

Pavel glowered darkly. “She’d never bargain. No, I take that back. She would pretend to, but all along, she’d be working on a way to send every last M-class ship to Mars loaded with nukes and not with supplies. There’s no way she’d let word get out about … irregularities in the Program.”

“It would appear,” said Harpreet, “the sooner we can transfer complete control of the satellites to MCC, the better.”

“Exactly,” said Jess.

“Kazuko and I are finding the establishing of communication with the satellites to be far more difficult than the establishing of communication between our worlds,” said Ethan.

“I thought Dr. Zaifa spoke ‘old-Terran-satellite,’ or whatever,” said Jess.

“She does, in a manner of speaking,” replied Ethan. “But getting the satellites to obey a new series of commands is proving … challenging.”

“You’ve got to get the job done, Eth,” said Jess. “If Mei Lo can safely reveal to Mars what Earth did—or still does—then I think it will put a damper on the fever to cozy up with Earth. And even if someone does try to use the information to bribe Terran officials into sending orbital mirrors in exchange for silence or something crazy like that, at least the Terran government won’t be able to send a fleet to blast Mars out of existence.”

“The secret must remain a secret until such time as Mars can defend itself,” agreed Harpreet.

“I think my aunt’s still messing with rebodying,” said Pavel. “That would explain why she wanted me to head the program.”

Harpreet sighed softly. “I was told as much in New Timbuktu prison by the two Malcolm Bonhoeffer’s—the Heads of Global Consciousness Transfer—who spoke with me.”

Ethan cleared his throat. “I believe we are only weeks away from completing the task of re-directing the Terran satellites. Our success in transmitting vid-mail to MCC indicates that several systems are functioning nominally.”

“Excellent,” said Harpreet. “Well, let us not delay you and the good Dr. Zaifa any further.”

The four concluded their meeting, and Jess found herself reading and re-reading Mei Lo’s private communication.

I ought to have listened to Kipper. She warned me to lock up her brother before you all left for Earth. How I wish she’d been at the trial, to speak out against him.

Jess called after her brother. When the others had departed, she asked him quietly, “Are you still monitoring what’s going on with Kipper at that hospital outside the capitol?”

“There has been no change to her condition, according to the records I have hacked. I receive updates several times daily.”

“Okay,” said Jess. “The minute anything changes, would you let me know?”

“Certainly,” said Ethan.

Jess strolled out into the heat of the afternoon, surprised again at how the air seemed to suck all moisture from her lungs. She needed to think. She needed to plan.

Mei Lo’s words about Kipper repeated in her mind: How I wish she’d been at the trial, to speak out against him.

Jess kicked at a stone before her, watching it sail across the cracked earth. She still found wonder in the way gravity immediately pulled things back to the ground. To her Mars-born eyes, it was as if she were watching a visual that had been altered. “Get used to it,” she muttered. “You’re stuck on Earth now.”

There was a great relief in knowing they could communicate with Mars, of course, but knowing how badly things were going back home made Jess ache inside. She kicked at a smaller rock at her feet and then began to walk. The sun beat upon her neck like a blast from a firing thruster.

Was Mei Lo right about Kipper? If Kipper had been at Cavanaugh’s trial, could she have supplied information leading to his incarceration? Of course she could have.

“Hades,” Jess swore as she strode forward. She was going to have to get Kipper. It was plain as day, if you thought about it. Her brother’s problems communicating with the satellites might be solved tomorrow. Or they might never be solved. But if Kip could be brought back to consciousness … if Jessamyn’s former captain could send a message to MCC, to Mars …

“Hades and Aphrodite!” said Jess.

She’d never liked how everyone seemed to feel Kip was safest where she was right now. Jess was sure no one within Lucca’s easy grasp could be called “safe,” for the love of Ares.

Jessamyn felt the searing heat cooking her lungs with each breath. She shouldn’t be wandering outside at this time of day. She felt the urge to climb inside Pavel’s dirt brown ship and fly, fly, fly until she reached Kipper’s side. Could her former captain be awakened? The doctor in Lucca’s employ didn’t seem to think so, according to the information Ethan had hacked. But wasn’t it worth trying?

Jess squatted and chose a handful of small rocks from the sandy soil. One turned out to be a clod of earth. She crushed it between her fingers, watching the fine soil fall to the ground. The remaining three stones she hurled as far away as she could.

“Holy Ares,” she said aloud, placing her now-empty hands on her hips. “I can’t just stand here and do nothing.”

She turned back toward her temporary home, and over evening rations, explained her reasons for wanting to retrieve Kipper.

The outcry against Jessamyn’s idea surprised her.

“There’s no way of knowing if she can be revived,” said Brian.

Pavel nodded agreement, adding, “Lucca doesn’t waste time on things that aren’t going somewhere, which means your friend is safest where she is.”

“It would be too dangerous,” said Kazuko Zaifa.

Jessamyn was completely outnumbered.

“It is commendable of you to seek to help, though, daughter,” said Harpreet.

Ethan, who had remained silent throughout, spoke last. “I have noticed something curious at the hospital in Dunakeszi.”

The others turned their attention to Jessamyn’s brother.

“The chief physician has repeatedly applied for additional staffing for his facility, and been continually denied. There are no records to indicate a new member has joined the hospital. However, he now regularly refers to a ‘Nurse Cassondra’ about whom I can discover absolutely nothing.”

“Cassondra?” asked Harpreet, in tones of surprise. “But that’s Kipper’s name.”

“Indeed,” replied Ethan.

“What do you mean, you can’t discover anything about her? As in, you can find stuff out about other employees?” asked Jessamyn.

“Of course,” replied Ethan. “I am able to access considerable data about any of the employees at Dunakeszi, which is what makes the appearance of an undocumented laborer so puzzling.”

“Undocumented labor’s nothing new in the larger metropolitan areas,” said Kazuko. “There exists any number of reasons for such.”

“It does appear to be the single instance of such at this particular hospital,” said Ethan.

“Aye, it’s bloody illegal, then, isn’t it?” said Brian Wallace.

“Can you acquire imagery?” asked Jess. “To see if it’s her?”

“That’s illegal, too,” said Pavel. “A hospital’s one of the last places you can guarantee a measure of privacy. Although my aunt would like to see that changed.”

“I am unable to obtain video of any part of the hospital in question,” confirmed Ethan. “In addition, I ought to have pointed out that Cassondra Kipling’s body is still listed among the patient roster for the hospital. Her vital signs, which I can access, have undergone no change since I began monitoring her.”

“It’s got to be a coincidence,” said Pavel, after the group sat in silence for several minutes. “Brian’s right about employees being hired off-record. It happens. And if her read-out says she’s still comatose, I don’t see any reason to believe otherwise. Sorry, Jess.”

Jessamyn’s heart squeezed. She’d hoped Pavel might back her in this. But he trusted the readings from the hospital.

“I am sorry as well, daughter,” said Harpreet. “But this does not appear to change anything, much as we might wish it would. I do not feel it would be wise to venture to the capitol at present. Perhaps once your brother has things settled with the satellites, we might reexamine the situation.”

Everyone seemed to regard Harpreet’s opinion as closing the discussion, and they rose to their various duties and evening occupations.

But Jessamyn sat still and alone, thinking about Mars and about the upcoming elections. A vote of no-confidence. That was what was happening on Mars in two months’ time. It was worse than a regular election. When a CEO on Mars died in office, an election was held. But this was a vote being held to decide whether Mei Lo or someone else should govern Mars. If there was any possible way to bring Kipper back to consciousness, to have her tell the citizens of Mars the truth about her brother …

Jessamyn rose and began pacing. If there was any chance that Nurse Cassondra and Kipper were the same person … Jess had to do something.

15

THERE’S THE RUB

Cassondra Kipling marched steadily in the direction of the Danube River with only the Terran moon to light her way. Of her destination, she was certain. Of her intentions, less so. The ache pulsing through her right temple and eye hampered her decision-making less than it had initially, but there were still moments of such pain that she doubted the reliability of her brain’s executive functions. Especially during the rare times she found herself alone.

Nearly three Terran months had passed since the fateful night she’d told Communications Specialist Ethan Jaarda to continue hacking—that she would draw the attention of the secures who’d discovered them at the satellite communications facility. She had drawn the secures’ attention and their fire. She didn’t know what had become of Ethan or the others.

Her temple throbbed painfully. Remembering the event seemed to make her pain worsen. To remind her of the blinding heat of the shot which had felled her. The shot that had saved her, if her doctor was to be believed.

“Your body, unharmed, would have been placed into a lottery with those valuable extra years,” he’d remarked upon her first day back to full consciousness. “But a body riddled with inoperable pain? Not worth anything to anyone. Except, apparently the Chancellor. She wants you for questioning. Or we can discuss an alternative you might prefer.”

Cassondra shuffled forward, noting the way moonlight dimmed Dunakeszi’s pinks and ochres, coloring the buildings gray. She felt gray herself tonight—as though all the color had seeped away from her life until the only shades that remained were pewters and blacks, charcoals and ghostly whites. Perhaps it was time.

Time to admit defeat. To admit mission failure. To admit that she no longer lived a life that resembled in any way one that was worth living. Lines from Shakespeare’s Hamlet drifted through her mind:

To die, to sleep; to sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come …

She did not fear death. She did not even fear the process of dying. The pain inside which she lived out each day was surely a cause of greater suffering than such deaths as she might procure. No, she did not fear death. Rather, she feared departing life while any hope remained that she might complete her mission.

So, then, was there any hope that she might yet carry out Mei Lo’s instructions? How far had Ethan progressed in his attempt to disable the lasers pointed at anyone trying to leave Mars? Had he escaped with Harpreet? Brought rations to her home world? Or was Mars even now caught in the spiral toward slow starvation?

She knew what those like her uncles and her brother would do back home—hoard rations and steal rations and attempt to contact Earth. She knew all too well that there were those on Mars who would bargain Marsian independence in exchange for Terran aid. If things grew desperate on Mars, Cavanaugh would surely sell out MCC for the assistance tellurium could buy. Terrans needed the rare metal to complete the consciousness transfers that kept peace on Earth.

Kipper laughed bitterly as she walked toward the river’s edge. Her own transfer seemed every day less likely. And for that she ought to be glad. Dr. Ruchenko had not officially given up hope of finding a way to remove the small bullet that caused Kipper’s pain and rendered her first-body unsuitable for being given in transfer.

But Kipper knew he was content that she should remain in perpetual servitude to the small hospital he oversaw on the outskirts of Budapest. Ruchenko was not a bad man. She even liked the work, such as it was. If she’d had no fears for her planet’s safety, she might have been content to live out her days tending to the hospital’s assortment of children with brain injuries.

She stood upon the river’s edge now, gazing at the dark water, her eyes catching now and then on something which bobbed along the Danube. The pain struck her again and she crumpled to the ground, simply focused on breathing. In and out. Breathe. Just breathe. The worst passed and it was like a small sunrise in the darkened regions of her mind.

Who would choose to continue such a life? She was a fool. A fool who believed that impossible things could be done by those whose will was strong enough. She shook her head. Impossible things were just that: not possible. She’d captained a crew of the foolhardy.

Crusty, did you make it back? she found herself wondering once more.

In Crusty’s shoes, she’d have used Brian Wallace’s contacts to pay someone to pilot the ship back to Mars. She felt certain Crusty would have done the same. Perhaps none of the four crew members who’d traveled to Budapest had made it back to Skye where Crusty waited. But there were billions of Terrans. Surely one pilot could have been found who would have made the one-way trip for some reason or another. The tellurium in the final hold would have spelled untold wealth for the family of anyone who left Earth to take the ship back to Mars.

She allowed herself the hope that her world continued because of the sacrifice the Mars Raiders had made.

Another nauseating wave of pain. Focus on your breath. She heard the words she’d spoken to so many at the clinic. Focus. The pain always passed, now. When she’d first awakened from her coma, the pain had been nearly constant. She’d lain in a trauma-induced sleep from which it was nightmarish to wake. Not that waking had lasted long—she simply passed out as the pain grew too great. Ruchenko had found a way to reduce the severity of her pain—to make intermittent what had been constant. She did not think he was motivated to do more.

He’d given her a decision to make when she’d awoken from her coma: Work secretly for me as a member of the nursing staff or I’ll follow my orders to hand you over for interrogation by the Terran Chancellor.

That decision had been simple. She touched her face, still becoming accustomed to the surgical alterations the physician had made at Kipper’s insistence. Her eyes were the same, her hair color unaltered. She’d even kept her own name, reasoning that no one on Earth knew her true name and that “Nurse Cassondra” would be easier to answer to than an invented name.

But what use was a disguise if she was in too much pain to attempt to complete a dangerous mission? The pain kept her dependent upon the hospital and its ready drugs. Drugs she would have no access to if she ran away. No, she was trapped. Death alone could bring an end to her agony.

Which was what had set her upon this midnight stroll. The Danube flowed silently before her, inviting her, calling her. Perhaps it was time. How she wished she knew whether or not either of the Galleon’s two missions had succeeded. She thought back to that night watching Ethan as he hacked into the satellite controls. Busy at work, Ethan had entered a state of being entirely different from what she’d seen aboard the Galleon. That anyone so hindered by the body holding his intelligence could accomplish so much—it boggled her mind.

Kipper paused, wondering how Ethan, back on Mars prior to the mission, had found the will to keep living. If anyone was not meant for life on Mars, it was Ethan Jaarda. Marsian life was lived in confinement of one type or another, and by his own admission, this left him in a state of discomfort that most would have called painful. She regretted that she had not been kinder to Ethan aboard the Galleon. Suffering had changed her. She wondered, if she had been trapped inside a body like Ethan’s on Mars, would she have persevered? Or would she have ended her life?

As she gazed into the black water, deep and swift, she felt cowardly. Ethan had not turned away from life because it was painful. Ethan had voluntarily undertaken a mission which he knew would heighten his discomfort. The rocking, moaning young man curled into the fetal position had not chosen to end his life. He’d chosen to endure.

What would she choose?

16

OBSEQUIOUS

The latest of the prisoners to be released from New Timbuktu and restored to sunlight of Lucca’s favor, Gaspar Bonaparte was an impersonator of considerable skill. Lucca had plucked him from a life of crime where he had, for large fees, rebodied and pretended to be someone he was not. Of course, even in her employ, he’d eventually gone too far, demanding too great a sum for the last assignment Lucca had given him. Hence his imprisonment. But as Gaspar had confessed to Harpreet when they’d met, he would do anything to leave New Timbuktu. Anything.

A knock upon her door brought Lucca back to the present.

“Mr. Bonaparte is here to see you, Madam Chancellor.”

A small, fair-haired man entered the room and made an obsequious bow.

“Let us dispense with niceties,” said Lucca. “You disappointed me the last time we met.”

“I’ve had time to consider the error of my ways,” replied Gaspar. “I will not make the mistake a second time.”

“You will not make any mistake this time,” said Lucca dryly, “Or it will be your last.”

“I understand.”

Lucca brought up pictures. “I want you close to these two persons,” she said, indicating Jessamyn and Pavel. “I need to know everything about their plans.” Which required of Lucca that she share the secret that Mars Colonial had survived—had, in fact, sent the girl to Earth with a large amount of tellurium. There was no sense in holding anything back from Gaspar—not when Lucca hoped the red-haired girl would tell him all this and more.

And Lucca knew how to make certain her spy would be motivated to keep the information to himself. Gaspar had no record of disappointing her in this way. It was the chief reason she had kept him imprisoned instead of un-bodying him. He was, quite simply, the best operative she’d run across in hundreds of years.

Gaspar spent several minutes consulting the information Lucca’s spies had gathered. He frowned. “The data is quite incomplete. You are asking me to infiltrate a community with no prior knowledge as to its inhabitants?”

“It is a cluster of renegades without scan chips. We know considerably less about them than we would like. That is why I’m sending you.”

“If I might make a suggestion?” queried Gaspar.

“Yes?”

“A two-step investigation is often more successful in a case such as this one,” replied Gaspar. “First, I become someone on the periphery—someone who can observe for a period of several days without drawing undue attention. Someone elderly usually works well.” Gaspar did not say aloud that if he made mistakes as an elderly person, he would be considered confused rather than suspicious. Better to not bring up mistakes with the Chancellor, although they were a natural part of his work.

“As a peripheral member of a community,” continued Gaspar, “I can ascertain who has the best access to the individuals in question.” He tapped a narrow forefinger upon the images of Pavel and Jessamyn.

“That’s an excellent suggestion,” admitted Lucca. “Major Vladim Wu will brief you on what we know of the community thus far. He may be in a position to suggest an appropriate personage as well.”

“A challenge!” Gaspar Bonaparte rubbed his hands together. “At last, a challenge. You have given me a great gift, Madam Chancellor.”

“See you do not disappoint me, Bonaparte,” said Lucca, fixing her ice-blue eyes upon the grinning man before her. “You know how I dislike disappointment.”

17

ACTING THE PART

Gaspar Bonaparte realized, as he walked in the direction of the desert village that would be his home for the next few days, that he had never actually indwelled a body this old before. Bodies weren’t allowed to age this far in the ordinary course of rebodies. Well, he was on his way to an enclave that didn’t follow the rules.

He held a withered hand out before him. The hand curled with what had to be arthritis, a condition he’d never experienced before. It hurt. He ought to have gathered a better supply of medicinals than the handful of sleep enhancers he’d stuffed in the old woman’s pockets.

Well, if he felt her pain, he could play the role better. You know this, Gaspar, he told himself. He remembered the old woman’s last words: “Gran’s not afraid of death. Go on, then, you great coward. Set me free from these aching bones.” She’d surprised him. Gaspar was used to outrageous promises and rather a lot of groveling when those whose bodies he required realized their deaths were imminent.

The old woman had neither groveled nor bargained. Accustomed to acting the part of a brave person, it rather startled Gaspar to encounter a brave person in the wild. He had filed it away, though, and would be able to incorporate this important character trait as he pretended to be Gran Odessa.

The old woman had been the perfect target: given to solitary walks at hours when others were safely abed. Gaspar had sent compliments to Major Wu for singling her out and suggesting her as Gaspar’s initial mark.

Gaspar supposed he ought to get used to gripping her pipe between his lips as well. It was the small things that could give you away, he knew. And the old woman had not removed the pipe to speak. Gaspar reached into the pocket where the pipe rested. Placing it between his teeth (or gums with stubs of teeth, really), he began to practice speaking whilst keeping the pipe properly in place. It was difficult. He had to catch at the pipe repeatedly as his grip loosened during some of the broader vowels. Of course, his reflexes were appalling in this aged body. He failed to catch the pipe twice and had to squat in the dirt to find it, his vision requiring a closer look to locate the tan clay pipe on the tan soil.

Speaking aloud had made him thirsty. How could he have forgotten to pack water? He patted the old woman’s clothing, smiling when he located a water-skin—she hadn’t forgotten. This time, he didn’t drop the pipe from her mouth when he smiled. But he couldn’t figure out how to drink while holding the pipe in her mouth, so he placed the pipe in an upper pocket and drank slowly. He had a recollection from his research of desert life that it was best to take small sips.

Gaspar felt very proud of himself for having a bit left still in the skin, when at last he came upon the edges of Yucca and could spot the first of the hummocks that he supposed must indicate underground dwellings. Intel on the area had been sparse, but he knew they all lived underground. Like ferrets or badgers or ground hogs. How very odd a way to live. Another wondrous experience to be savored.

Gaspar smiled. He had the best job in the world.

18

SOMEONE WHO GETS ME

Jessamyn was awakened the next morning by a loud discussion outside her bunk room. She pulled her hair into an approximation of the bun she’d seen Kazuko wear and wandered into the central room.

“Oh,” she said upon seeing Gran conversing with Pavel. “Merry morn.”

“Merry morn,” repeated the old woman. Her clay pipe was wedged as usual between her remaining teeth.

“Good to see you, Gran. I’ve been meaning to talk to you, actually,” said Jessamyn. She struggled to find the right words. “I know you meant to do me a great honor by picking me for your mystery-ingredient gatherer, and I’m, um, honored. A lot. But I don’t want the job.”

“You don’t want the job?” asked the old woman.

Jess shook her head. “Nope.”

“Remind an old woman: what job was that, pretty?” asked the old woman.

Jess frowned. “The lichen. I don’t want to be in charge of it.”

“Hmm,” responded the old woman. “And what would you suggest?”

Jess looked to Pavel for help. He shrugged. “Well, how about you pick someone else and teach them instead?”

The old woman nodded, removed the pipe, and chewed her gums for a moment. “How about you pick someone else and teach them instead?”

Jess hesitated, uncertain if the old woman was mocking her or actually making a suggestion. It didn’t sound like mockery. Jess nodded. “Okay, then. How about I pick Renard? He’s a citizen already.”

The old woman nodded. “Very well. Let’s find Renard together, shall we?” She rose and swayed a bit as she stood. “Let me lean on you, pretty.”

Jessamyn didn’t appreciate being called what she felt was a demeaning name, but she decided she’d offered enough offense for one day and held her tongue.

The two found Renard, who was very pleased indeed at Gran’s decision to make him Guardian of the Herb in Jessamyn’s stead.

Gran shrugged. “She said she didn’t want the job.” The old woman demanded next that Jessamyn show Renard the location of the lichen. As they approached the rocky outcropping, Renard spoke out.

“Gran, it’s getting pretty warm already. Are you sure this is a good time?”

“A good time?” asked Gran, chewing her gums.

“I mean, there’s bound to be snakes by now,” said Renard. “I know your circulation’s bad, but believe me, it’s hot enough for rattlers to be active.”

“Right,” said Gran. “Nasty critters. Perhaps we ought to return later.”

“Tomorrow morning, early, Gran,” said Renard, winking at the old woman.

“Tomorrow morning, early,” repeated the old woman, turning and shuffling back the way they’d come. “I’m bored, pretty. Why don’t you take me to see that young man of yours?”

Jessamyn looked at Renard who shrugged innocently. “She knows everything about everyone,” he murmured quietly.

Jess frowned, but she took Gran to see Pavel, joining him on a series of patient visits. Gran observed, nodded, and chewed her pipe.

“I believe I’m tired,” she said at last. “Would the two of you take me home?”

It was nearly time for evening rations by the time Jess and Pavel got Gran settled in her dwelling.

That night over dinner, Jessamyn was quiet and distant. She couldn’t stop thinking about Kipper. What was she doing here in Yucca shepherding old women around town when Kip might be able to save Mars from making a terrible mistake?

After evening rations had concluded, Pavel took Jessamyn’s hand in his own.

“Let’s go outside,” he said softly.

Jess nodded and the two ascended the stairs together. The heat had died back from midday, and Jessamyn pulled her hair up off her neck to catch at the bit of breeze streaming across the desert floor.

“You want to go get your captain, don’t you?” said Pavel, his voice matter-of-fact.

Jessamyn twisted a corner of her shirt round and round her index finger and didn’t answer.

“Even though no one else thinks it’s smart,” added Pavel. “Am I right?”

“Is it that obvious to everyone?” asked Jessamyn.

Pavel shrugged. “Most of them know you as well as or better than I do.”

A breeze ruffled Jessamyn’s hair and she sighed.

“There’s next to no chance it’s her, you know,” said Pavel.

“It’s this feeling I have,” said Jessamyn, dropping the shirt corner so that she could hold her hand over her belly. “Right here. I just feel so sure, somehow. An undocumented worker who happens to have the same first name as my captain?”

“I don’t think anyone but me suspects you’re planning something,” said Pavel, shifting his hand so that the backs of his fingers met the backs of Jessamyn’s.

She felt a warm shiver run through her and pressed the back of her hand more closely against his. Whereas her fingers were warm, his skin was cool, comforting.

“They’re all so sure it’s not your captain that it doesn’t occur to them you might think differently,” said Pavel.

“It occurred to you, though.”

Pavel tipped his head up to watch the night sky. “Going after her is what I’d do in your place.”

Jessamyn twined her fingers through Pavel’s.

“I’m not used to this,” she said. “Having someone who … gets me.”

Pavel’s hand tightened around hers. “Me neither.”

Jessamyn’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Back home, I never had close friends. Not my own age, anyway. I’m not … I don’t know if I know how …” She broke off, uncertain what she was trying to say.

“It’s okay,” said Pavel. “I get it. Try growing up in the household of the world’s most powerful woman and see how many friends you collect.” His voice was soft, hardly more than a whisper. “Renard’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a friend my own age, and half the time I’m around him, I’m jealous he might like you or something.”

“That’s just silly,” said Jess.

“Well, I notice he’s not the one out here talking to you under the stars.”

“That’s right,” said Jessamyn as she wound an arm around Pavel’s waist. “Hey, Pavel? I’ve been thinking. You didn’t turn me in, the morning after we first met. Even though you’d seen me blow up a transport. Maybe Kip woke up and she found someone who decided against turning her in as well.”

Pavel took a moment before responding. “I’m not going to say that couldn’t happen. The idea of life on Mars … it would intoxicate just about anyone I’ve ever met, if they could just believe in it. And your captain’s physician would have the same means of corroborating her story I had. Her blood, oh-two levels, mineralization of her bones, and so on. It could happen. But you know it isn’t likely, don’t you?”

“I know I can’t go on without finding out the truth,” said Jessamyn.

“Let me go with you, then,” said Pavel.

Jessamyn turned to Pavel, resting her forehead against his and then brushing her lips softly against his mouth. A shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with the evening breeze. She pulled away.

“I can’t let you do that, Pavel.”

“Why not?”

Jess ran her thumb along his cheek, across his eyebrow. “Because you look like you. How many people in a suburb of the capitol city wouldn’t know the Chancellor’s nephew on sight? What’s the reward for your return up to now?”

Pavel scowled. “I need surgery.”

Jess shook her head. “We’ve been through this. There’s more credit to be gained by turning Pavel Brezhnaya-Bouchard in to the authorities than there is to be made disguising him through surgical transformation.”

“I thought I’d lost you once,” said Pavel, his voice a bare whisper. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

“I’ll go, I’ll have a look, I’ll come back,” said Jess. “And you’ll tell me how to keep from being noticed.”

Pavel gazed at her, nodded his agreement at last, and began to tell her as many things as he could think of to keep her safe. The moon was setting by the time Pavel finished.

As they stood in silence, watching the moon pass behind Mount San Gorgonio, Pavel pulled Jessamyn close.

She could feel his heart beating through the layers of clothing between them. He stared at her, his brows drawn together, his eyes settling on hers, one at a time, back and forth, as if he were willing himself to read her thoughts. The intensity of his gaze made Jess smile and drop her eyes.

“Pavel,” she murmured his name.

He pulled her head towards his and kissed her, his lips warm, crushing against hers.

Her arms slid around his shoulders, and she held him so tightly there was no gap for the breeze to pass between them anymore. It murmured around them as though they were a single object.

“I have to go,” she said at last, when they pulled apart for breath. “I have to. The future of Mars Colonial could be changed forever if Kip’s brother has his way. This is a chance to stop him. To give Mars a good future.”

“I want Mars to have a future,” said Pavel. “The kind of future you dream of. And I mean to stand there at your side, Jessamyn Jaarda.”

She smiled and kissed him softly, quickly. “Don’t tell anyone until tomorrow, when it’s too late for them to stop me.”

“Take Renard’s ship,” said Pavel. “It’s less likely to draw notice than mine. And remember about flying low and slow.”

Jessamyn nodded. “I won’t forget. And I’ll be back before you miss me.”

Pavel pulled her close, not kissing her this time, just holding her against himself. Jess felt the heave and sigh of things he couldn’t put into words.

“I miss you already, girl from Mars.”

“I know,” she whispered back. “Me, too.”

“Do you need credits? I’ve got a small coil somewhere …”

“No,” said Jess. “My emergency pack has tellurium. And rations. I don’t think I’ll need to buy anything unless it’s really Kip and the physician in charge wants compensation.”

Pavel grunted his agreement. “If you could wait a few days, a week maybe, we could get you a proper scan chip.”

Jess shook her head. “It’s got to be now. I can feel it, Pavel.”

Pavel accompanied her as she retrieved her pack. Then he reached inside one of his pockets and withdrew a small packet of dried fruit.

“Dates,” he said. “Renard found them when he was tooling around one valley over. They’re delicious and they’ll break up the monotony of the bars.” He slipped the packet into her bag beside several cool strips of metal. “Hey, that’s a lot of tellurium to be carrying around.”

Jessamyn shrugged. “I broke it into ten gram fingers. It’s standard issue for Mars Raiders. One pressed kilo.”

“Just see you keep it hidden unless you need it. That kind of wealth can get you into a lot of trouble. Here,” Pavel said, fishing in another pocket. “Take this credit strip. There’s enough on here for anything small.”

Jessamyn began to protest, but Pavel shook his head. “I insist. It’s safer.”

Jess smiled and tucked the strip into her pack.

“Oh, and there’s one thing you have to do for me,” said Pavel. “Get a good cup of kávé—it’s Budapesti coffee and it’s like no other coffee in the world.” Pavel grinned ear to ear.

“I’m more of a tea girl,” protested Jess.

“Trust me on this. Kávé. At least once.”

Jessamyn tipped her head in a way that could be taken as assent.

They found Renard’s ship and Jessamyn settled into the driver’s seat and laid in a course for central Europe. Pavel knelt beside her still-open door.

“Come back to me,” he murmured, his hands holding onto her as though he meant to keep her from leaving.

Jessamyn wove her fingers through his.

“I’ll always come back to you,” she said, her eyes gleaming with tears.

Then she dropped his hand and blinked the tears away.

Pavel stood and backed up, pushing the hatch until it sealed tight, cutting them off from one another.

19

LAST WISH

Pavel decided to leave the Gopher Hole early the next morning, to avoid answering difficult questions about Jessamyn’s whereabouts. But as he made his way outside, Renard came barreling toward him.

“Did you know about this?” Renard asked, waving a sheet of paper with a scrawled message.

Pavel read the brief note from Gran several times, and a look of puzzlement grew on his face. At last he looked up and addressed Renard. “Is this a … normal custom in your village?”

Renard stared at Pavel. “Are you kidding, man? Of course not.”

Pavel read the note once more.

I have outlived my usefulness. Do not follow me. I neither wish nor intend to be found. I leave my cloak and pipe for Renard who will know what to do with them. Gran.

“Let’s go,” said Pavel, reaching to grab a pair of solar glasses.

“Go?” asked Renard.

“She’ll dehydrate quickly out there in her condition,” replied Pavel. “Shizer! What I wouldn’t give for twenty ccs of hospital-grade rehydrant.”

Renard grabbed Pavel’s arm. “Don’t go. You can’t. She said so in the message.”

Pavel’s mouth opened, closed, and opened again. “You said her behavior is not a normal custom in your village. Are you saying it is normal to not go after someone to save their life?”

“Hey, forget normal, man. This isn’t your home. I don’t expect you to understand,” said Renard, his tone heated. “But these are her last wishes right here on paper. ‘Don’t follow me.’ I just wanted to see if she said anything to you yesterday when she was with you on your rounds.”

Pavel shook his head. “I’m taking this up with the Shirff,” he said, heading for the Shirff’s office.

But the Shirff agreed with Renard.

“We can’t act in defiance of her clearly stated wishes.” He frowned. “I’ve heard of folks doing this sort of thing, back in my grandpappy’s day. We give her three days. If she don’t turn up by the end of the fourth day, we’ll have to declare her deceased,” said the Shirff.

Pavel felt his pulse hammering in his skull. Every impulse in him said they should go look for her, should help her. But these weren’t his people, this wasn’t his home.

“We may not like it, son,” said the Shirff. “And it ain’t what I’d call normal behavior. But Gran’s always been about as unconventional as they come. I’m sorry. I can’t disregard her last wish.”

20

FOURBODY

This rescue would not be like last time. Jessamyn repeated the words again and again as she flew north, crossing Hudson Bay and the tip of Greenland, then hugging the coast of Northern Europe on her way to the Terran capitol of Budapest. She’d had months to rethink what had gone well and what had not when she’d attempted rescuing her brother from New Kelen Hospital.

In some ways, her circumstances were similar: Ethan had been unconscious; Kipper might be in a coma. In other ways, the ways that she hoped mattered most, things were very different from that occasion. For one thing, Jess had the luxury of time. She had no ship of rations to which she must flee immediately back.

In addition, New Kelen had been a high-security facility. Jess had ascertained that the Dunakeszi Clinic was not. It did not even retain security guards. From something Pavel had said, Jess believed this was an oversight on Lucca’s part. “When it comes to people, my aunt’s only interested in whoever can serve her immediate needs. Sure, she’d like to interrogate your captain. But if she’s been told that’s impossible, she’ll just move on to whoever’s next.”

Jessamyn was counting on this.

She had time, she had funding, she had a getaway vehicle. She brought her borrowed ship to rest in an abandoned quarry on the outskirts of Dunakeszi.

The sky overhead was heavy with afternoon commuters when Jessamyn stepped out of the ship and into the quarry. She’d kept low to the ground, and even without the instruction and guidance of local air control, she’d managed to keep out of everyone’s way without drawing unwanted attention, which had involved some last-minute ducks and dives. She tried not to worry about how she would manage to keep Kipper comfortable on the flight back. Marsians were small—both of them would fit, certainly. But Jessamyn would have to avoid the sort of fancy flying she’d engaged in, which she could probably manage if she departed when the skies were less crowded.

Doubts as to the wisdom of what she was attempting assailed her once more. She knew, in theory, how she was to keep Kipper on portable life-support, should the “Nurse Cassondra” theory prove nothing more than wishful thinking. Still, Jess wished she could have brought Pavel. His experience would have been so much better than her theory.

But then she shook her head. Jess was done involving others in her rescue operations. Look what had happened to Crusty: shot and incarcerated. No. Jess could manage this alone. She would manage it alone.

She threw a tarpaulin over the small vehicle. The tarp, which had effectively camouflaged the vehicle in Yucca, did not blend in well in the quarry. The rock was evidently of different composition. Jessamyn frowned. She reasoned, however, that a tarp would still prevent the sun from glinting off parts of the vehicle (which Renard kept polished to within an inch of its life) and left the tarp in place.

The sun would be down here in a few hours time. She ought perhaps to have landed in darkness, but that would have meant spending a comfortless night aboard the ship or prowling the streets beside the hospital. No, she wanted to see things by the light of day first.

She calculated the time back in Yucca. Her friends would be waking shortly. She wondered who would first discover her absence. And what they would make of it. What Pavel would say. But really, it didn’t matter. She was doing what she knew she had to do.

Jessamyn passed quietly south on foot toward central Dunakeszi, which lay almost directly above the capitol city, along the Danube. As she walked, she tried to remember the tune of a song—something about the beautiful blue Danube. The river one street to her left was neither blue nor any color that might have been mistaken for blue. It was not particularly beautiful either. Although Jessamyn supposed that if the river could have been transported to New Houston, it would have seemed lovely enough.

Her mind kept doing this—bringing forth small images and thoughts of home. They only recalled to her how far home was from her, how impossible to recover. She had lost Mars for good. And so she was learning to look away when the sun set upon Earth, casting the sky into familiar golds and reds; any noticed similarities between Earth and Mars were too painful and had to be avoided.

She gave herself a mental shake: this was the time to focus on what she might regain, not on what was lost to her. Pushing her body, Jessamyn found she could walk faster. As fast, in fact, as any pedestrian upon the broad boulevard now spreading before her. The realization brought a small smile to one side of her face. She was adapting. She would continue to adapt.

Dunakeszi Hospital and Clinic for Brain Injury. That was her destination. As she drew closer, consulting a palm-sized guidance device she’d taken from Renard’s ship, her heart beat more insistently. Surely, she thought, her heart was so loud that passersby would begin to stare. She tried to regulate her breathing but it was no use. Her heart hammered away.

Never thought you’d be this excited to catch a glimpse of your captain, eh, Jaarda?

Rounding the final corner between her and her destination, she saw the hospital. The building was painted salmon pink and adorned with baskets of red flowers. A battlement edge ran the width of the front of the structure, but the sides and back were plain. Jessamyn found it hard to imagine archers lurking behind the rooftop crenellations as they might have centuries ago. But even without archers, the building appeared to Jessamyn a place foreboding.

As much as she wanted to rush the building like an ancient knight to free the captured damsel, she stuck to her original plan: buy a tea and a ration and sit on the sidewalk and observe.

It was not a complicated plan. However, the absence of one of Budapest’s ubiquitous coffee shops made it more challenging. Jessamyn doubled back to a shop she’d passed before turning the corner and ordered a tea. She pointed to a crescent-shaped item dredged in what looked like carbon-snow.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“You want kifli?” asked the girl behind the pastry case.

“Yes,” said Jessamyn. “And tea.”

“No tea. Just coffee. You want coffee?”

Jess hesitated. “I drink tea,” she said at last.

“I make you coffee so delicious you will never drink tea again,” declared the girl.

Jessamyn smiled, remembering Pavel’s request that she try kávé, and held out her credit strip. Watching as the girl scanned it sent Jess’s heart racing again. She had no way of knowing whether her credits would send security screeching around a corner to haul her away for questioning. But apparently the credits Pavel had given her were safe to use.

She took the coffee and kifli and departed. The kávé smelled much better than tea, Jess noted. It smelled intoxicatingly good, in fact. She held the small cup just below her nose, inhaling the scent as she searched for a place to sit. Finding a small opening in the long wall opposite the hospital, Jessamyn settled herself on a stair tread after brushing away a few pebbles. She balanced the kifli upon her knees and held the coffee with both hands, breathing the rich aroma.

Unfortunately, its taste did not exactly match with its wondrous smell, at least in Jessamyn’s estimation. She took a few swallows of the bitter brew before abandoning it in favor of the dry ration. The crescent was still warm, she noted as she tore a small piece of kifli. Powdered sugar (she’d had to ask what it was) spilled like snow across her pant-legs. Annoyed, she swiped at the mess. Just then, the door of the hospital swung aside.

Jess watched as a man and woman exited the building. One of them seemed to remember something—Jess couldn’t quite hear their words from across the street. The woman returned to the building while the man waited. She didn’t scan in. Jessamyn felt relieved. The building wasn’t secured against visitors, then.

For the next hour, no one else came to the door or exited the building. Beside Jessamyn, a sort of evening ration café opened as the sun set. She wished it had opened earlier. Her backside had gone all pins-and-needles several times from sitting on the hard stairs. She grabbed a table along the sidewalk and continued her surveillance of the hospital building. But there was nothing to be seen. The sky faded into a purply color and then grew dark, and no one came to or went from the clinic in all that time.

At last a threebody exited the building. He hesitated before the door for several seconds before turning and walking briskly away. She caught enough of a glimpse to be sure she’d just seen Dr. Ruchenko, the head of the clinic’s hospital staff. Pavel had shown her his picture before she’d left Yucca. Ruchenko kept late hours. He might have been placing some kind of lock in effect as he’d paused at the door.

The café waitress was circling in a way that suggested to Jess she was no longer welcome to remain at the table without making further purchases. Jess had seen this sort of hovering behavior at the New Houston Fountain during peak hours, and she rose to depart. But as she paused to slip her hands inside a pair of light gloves, Jessamyn saw the clinic door push open again. A fourbody, dashing out, ran toward the entrance of a nearby park.

As Jessamyn looked on, the fourbody came dashing back carrying what looked like a child’s stuffed animal. It was the woman’s gait that made Jessamyn lean forward, her breath held tight. There was no mistaking the soldierly fashion in which the woman moved. Oncoming headlights caught the fourbody’s face. Jessamyn gasped. Those eyes! Jess knew those eyes just as she knew the long-legged stride, the military bearing. The door latched shut, closing off from the street the sound of a wailing child or two.

Could it be her captain? Or was this merely someone in Kipper’s body?

21

CANDY TO CHILDREN

Gaspar Bonaparte was no fool. He’d waited ‘til the cool of three o’clock in the morning to depart Yucca. Inside the old woman’s body, he wandered far from the enclave of dissenter-Terrans before calling for a ship to retrieve him. The ship brought not only a means of escape but also Gaspar’s own body and a competent transfer surgeon so that Gaspar would be able to present himself to the Chancellor from within his own skin. The transfer went well. When the physician asked what ought to be done with the old woman’s body, Gaspar shrugged and thought for a moment.

“Locate a pack of jackals and return the body to the desert. It’s what she would have wanted.”

Within six hours of his transfer, the skilled impersonator was received once again into the Chancellor’s office.

“Please keep in mind,” began Gaspar, “that this initial visit was only to locate a person who has excellent access to both the persons in whom you have such an interest.”

“And have you located such a person?” asked the Chancellor.

Gaspar beamed. “I have. Oh, yes, I have! A young man who has not only befriended the Martian, but who spends large portions of each day with your, ah, nephew.”

Lucca felt a scowl forming upon her face. Everything inside her ached to bring Pavel in now and interrogate him—to make him suffer as he’d made her suffer. How could he abandon her so easily, after all she’d done for him? The Chancellor took a calming breath. She would have all the time in the world to deal with her nephew, presently. But right now, she needed accurate information from the Martian interloper. And Gaspar could provide this. She felt herself calming and turned once more to her operative.

“This is most welcome news,” said the Chancellor. “I would like you to focus upon three main avenues of inquiry.” She outlined for Gaspar those things she was most eager to learn about Mars and its condition, its plans for the future.

“Simple as offering candy to children,” he said, winking at the Chancellor.

She considered him for a long, silent moment. “We are not friends, Mr. Bonaparte. I am your employer. I am the person who holds your petty life in the palm of her hand. You will refrain from such familiarities as winks. Am I understood?”

Gaspar’s face drained of all color as he stammered out a request for forgiveness. “In preparing for an anticipated role, I sometimes begin too early. The young man I am going to impersonate winks and grins frequently.”

Lucca chose to forgive the useful man before her. “Very well. You’ve chosen your identity. May I assume you have a plausible means of luring the young man away for unbodying?”

Gaspar Bonaparte smiled, stopping himself before reaching a grin. “Everything has been set in motion already.”

22

LOVELIEST NAME

Jessamyn spent the night restless. Her mind told stories as to why Kipper might have awakened from a coma or been abandoned by Lucca or have altered her features or have died and had someone else placed in her body. The rationalizations, the fears, the possibilities rolled in one after the other, like ocean breakers. Sleep was an impossibility, even though she’d stayed awake through her body’s “night” to get here. When the first stars began to wink out in the east, Jessamyn gave up trying to fall asleep and rose, walking to the same café, hoping it would open early.

It did open early. And Jessamyn was not the only one seeking Budapesti kávé and kifli to start the day. She shuffled forward through the line, half of a mind to simply stalk the building around the corner on an empty stomach. But in addition to feeling hungry, she was also perilously tired. She’d heard Brian Wallace sing the praises of coffee in relation to alertness. She needed to be alert today. She stayed in the line.

“You see?” remarked the girl at the check out. “You are converted from tea drinker to kávé drinker, yes?”

Jess felt exposed: the girl recognized her. Reflexively, Jess tugged her hood forward to conceal her visage. She didn’t respond to the cashier who had already moved on to assist the next customer.

Shoving past the still-growing line outside, Jess made her way to the stairs where she’d rested yesterday. But as she was about to seat herself, it occurred to her that someone from yesterday might recognize her as had the girl at the café. She moved farther down the street, seeking a different location from which she could observe the clinic.

The door of the hospital pushed open, disgorging an elderly man—no, Jessamyn reminded herself—a twobody man. He emerged from the structure with a group of ten children trailing behind him. All clutched a rope attached to the twobody’s waist. He carried one small child. A fourbody trailed behind him, carrying another child whose head lolled precariously to one side. Was it the same fourbody from yesterday? The woman adjusted the child upon her hip. The fourbody was rail-thin. Marsian-thin. Even the wiry citizens of Yucca had bodies more substantial than those from Mars.

It had to be Kipper! Jessamyn felt certain of it as she watched the fourbody from behind. Many things could be disguised, Jessamyn knew, but the way a person walked was not one of them. That fourbody walked like Captain Kipling. Well, like Kip with a toddler on one hip. Jess swallowed a snorting sound that tried to escape and shoved the rest of the kifli into her mouth. It was too sweet and she almost gagged. She took a swift drink of coffee, noting that the drink’s true virtue was its ability to combat the effect of a too-sweet ration.

Rising, Jess followed the chain of two adults and ten children from the opposite side of the street. How long would it take for Kipper to recognize Jess if she approached? Jess knew her clothing would make her appear just another Budapesti Terran. She would need to make eye contact in order to be recognized.

It was Kipper, wasn’t it? Jessamyn tried to come up with scenarios whereby the woman inside Kipper’s body, who walked just like the captain, was not in fact the captain. She couldn’t come up with any such scenarios. Of course, she was sleep-deprived and full of caffeine. And she wanted it to be true so badly.

Watch and wait, she told herself.

The small party trundled around a corner and Jess crossed the street to keep them in view. They were heading to an area of green grass enclosed all about by an ornamental fence made of a dark metal. Wrought iron. Jessamyn’s mind supplied the phrase from some book she must’ve read.

Taking another sip from her coffee cup, she decided it improved upon acquaintance. Jess entered the grassed-in area—a park—and strolled past the group of children, now seating themselves in an uneven approximation of a circle. Finding an ancient tree whose girth was many times her own, Jess leaned against it, seating herself on the soft cushion of grass.

Watch and wait, Jaarda, she repeated.

The children played a game which involved tossing a small red ball from person to person. Occasionally a child would throw the ball too far and Kipper—Jess grew more and more certain it was her—would rise to retrieve it. When this game concluded, the children’s circle tightened and Jess saw Kipper reaching for a sort of wafer. She was going to read a story, it appeared.

“We want Something Wicked This Way Comes,” called one of the older children, a boy of perhaps six annums.

Eleven or twelve years, Jess corrected herself.

“Hush,” said the twobody.

“That one gave you all dreadful nightmares,” said the fourbody woman. “Dr. Ruchenko was very upset with me, and I promised him I would not read any more scary stories.”

“I didn’t have nightmares,” declared the boy who’d asked for the tale.

A chorus of, “I did!” followed his statement, although several of those who’d been scared added that it had been worth it.

Jess smiled from behind her tree. The Ray Bradbury novel had terrified her as a child as well, and she’d read it again and again to enjoy the shivers of horror late at night.

The children continued to insist upon another scary story and the woman finally shushed them all with a promise to read something by the same author. Jessamyn’s ears pricked as she heard the opening lines of one of her favorite short stories, The Rocket. It held no terror, as Jess recollected, but it painted perfectly the deep longing for stars and space travel which nestled in the human heart—or at least in her very human heart.

She had to wipe away several tears as Kipper (Jess couldn’t help but think of her as Kipper) read the final lines, and it might have been her imagination, but she thought her captain’s voice shook just a bit when she read the eloquent section that described the rocket’s journey.

The children clapped and began to play another game where they threw a disc shaped like a flat ring instead of the red ball. The disc hovered across greater distances when the children threw it, and their circle had been enlarged accordingly. Once again, if a child threw the disc outside the circle, the children had to wait for the adults to retrieve it.

And then it happened. The boy who’d begged for Something Wicked threw the disc so hard that it sailed to a spot just beyond Jessamyn’s tree. Jess’s breath caught as she saw Kipper striding toward the tree to retrieve the lost disc.

When Cassondra Kiplinger’s body stood only two arm-lengths from Jessamyn’s, Jess cleared her throat and spoke.

“The story was lovely,” she said, hoping to attract Kip’s attention.

Kipper, intent upon the object, aware of the children urging her to hurry, merely grunted in agreement. But something made her glance up as she walked past Jessamyn on her return.

And then Kipper’s eyes flew wide.

Jess nodded very slightly. It could have been a nod of greeting. It could have been a confirmation of her identity: Yes, I am who you think I am.

A child who’d grown impatient broke from the circle and ran to snatch the disc from Kipper’s trembling hand.

“You’re a skinny-bones,” said the child to Jessamyn. “Just like her.” The child pointed to Kipper. “Your hair matches your eyebrows. I think your eyebrows are ugly. You’re as old as my grandmother and she’s oldy-moldy-as-dirt.”

Jess giggled. Kipper scolded. The child continued talking to Jess.

“I’m Mischka. Who are you?”

Jessamyn knelt beside the dark-haired little boy. “I’m Jessamyn,” she said softly. “Jessamyn Harpreet Jaarda.”

“That’s a stupid name,” said the boy, seizing the disc from Kipper’s hand and dashing back to the circle with much victorious crowing.

“It’s not a stupid name,” stuttered Kipper. She put a hand to her temple and seemed to lose her balance momentarily. “It’s the loveliest name I’ve heard in a very long while, in fact.” She held Jessamyn’s eyes in a brief and fierce glance before turning her eyes back to the waiting circle of children. “I have to get back … please, wait here,” she broke off uncertainly. “Please wait. I’m thinking—I’ll think of something.”

A howl rose from the circle of children. Kipper looked over her shoulder and then back at Jessamyn. “Don’t leave!” she whispered. Then she dashed back to the howling child who had crumpled to the ground.

“I’m here, I’m here,” said Kipper. She reached for one of the child’s small hands and with her own hands traced soft circles along the tiny palm. The child’s howl subsided to a squeal and then a moan. Kipper continued running a thumb round and round the child’s palm. At last the little girl seemed to fall asleep.

“Take her back,” Kipper said to the twobody beside her. “She just needs to sleep it off. Get her hydrated.”

Jessamyn saw the furrow in her former captain’s brow. Was Kipper worried about the child? Was it for show? Or was the worry on Kip’s face because she didn’t know how to arrange the chance to speak with her first officer?

Jess stepped forward. “Looks like you could use some help,” she said, gazing at the milling children.

The boy who’d called Jessamyn names now stuck out his lower lip and glared at her.

“It’s time for giving back,” said Kipper to the children.

Jessamyn raised an eyebrow. Giving what back?

Several of Kipper’s small charges groaned but two dashed off to where Jessamyn’s coffee cup lay forgotten beside the tree.

“It’s mine!” cried one child.

“I saw it first!” shouted the other one.

As they argued and tugged at the cup, the covering lid detached and drifted toward the ground. A third child dashed forward and snatched the lid, causing the first two to give chase.

“Seven,” murmured a small girl as she squatted to gather a crumpled bit of paper from the grass. This, she shoved inside a small satchel strung over her shoulder. “Eight.”

“They’ll be at it a few more minutes,” said Kipper, who now stood beside Jessamyn. “Some of them have figured out they can extend park-time if they pretend they can’t find a tenth bit of trash to clean up.”

Jess nodded. She wanted to ask, “Is it really you?” She wanted to demand tangible proof that Cassondra Kiplinger stood before her. But all she said was, “Oh.”

“Why haven’t you left? Hades, Jaarda, do you know how long it will take to get home now? People could be starving while you and I stand here.”

Jessamyn’s face flamed red. There was a chance she wasn’t speaking to Kipper, but it sure sounded like the Kip she knew.

Jess snapped back, “No one’s starving. I did my job.” Then she glared at Kipper and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Skinny-bones!” called Mischka as he ran past the two.

“You did?” asked Jess’s captain. “Oh.” Jessamyn saw a flicker of hope behind Kipper’s tired eyes. “You came back.” Moisture gathered in Kipper’s eyes and she blinked it back. “The Secretary—she sent you back for me.”

Jessamyn didn’t see the point in disabusing Kipper of this belief at the moment.

“Are you alone?” asked Kip.

“Harpreet and Ethan are here. On Earth, I mean. We’re hiding out in a dissenting community along with Brian Wallace and some others.”

Several of the children now stood in a line grasping the rope that had led them to the park chanting, “Ten, ten, ten, ten.”

“They want their ice cream,” murmured Kipper. “I have to take them back now.”

“Wait,” said Jessamyn. “You’re leaving me here? We have plans to make.”

The captain frowned, pressed two fingers to her temple, massaging it in slow circles. “Here,” she said, slipping off a back pack. “There’s a child’s blankie inside. Come to the hospital at seven this evening. Say you found the blanket in the park. Ask for me.”

“Ask for you, how?”

“Just ask for Cass,” replied Kipper. “I’m known as Nurse Cassondra now.”

With that, Jessamyn’s captain turned to jog back to gather the stragglers and lead the group back to the hospital. Jess shook her head. “What kind of plan is ‘bring a blanket’?” Was this the behavior of her former captain? Kip seemed so … lost.

Of course, the captain had been living on Earth for almost three months with no idea whether any of the Raiders were alive or dead, or if the Galleon had made it back to Mars. Jess knew that she’d have been changed by such circumstances. In fact, it was wonderful Kipper had believed Jess was, well, Jess. She could have assumed any number of things upon seeing Jessamyn’s body once again. But Kipper had assumed she was Jessamyn. And Jess was going with her gut feeling that Kipper was Kipper as well.

The hours from mid-morning to seven in the evening passed slowly and involved repeated visits to the coffee shop around the corner from the hospital. In a spectacular display of waste, Jess chose not to finish her fourth cup of coffee. She suspected the Terran beverage was contributing to the uncomfortable jitters tickling up and down her spine. She watched as a pair of twobodies and the threebody doctor left the hospital, the threebody pausing to secure the door before he left. It was seven o’clock. Jess waited until the man had turned a corner. Shouldering the back pack Kipper had given her, Jessamyn stood, crossed the street, and sounded a door-alert at the hospital’s entrance.

“This is it,” she muttered.

23

WORST JOB IN THE WORLD

Lucca Brezhnaya did not have a temper that managed idleness well. Now that she had set things in motion with Gaspar, her fly-on-the-wall, her mind grew restless. The Head of Global Solvency had long-since been instructed to keep a weather-eye to the flow of tellurium, and the Chancellor had checked in with him several times in the past two days, eventually admitting that there was nothing new to be learned or gained. No one, it appeared, was moving tellurium at all right now.

This brought her thoughts to her own lovely store of the precious metal. Its location, which she’d at first thought unfortunate, now seemed rather fortuitous after all. If the Martian ship had crashed on land, there would have been prying eyes on its hold, even with the erection of barriers to keep the curious away.

It was easier to keep the inquisitive away from the sunken vessel, however. Lucca had simply circulated a story that ancient undersea mines had been discovered along the coast by farmers of sea urchin beds. A healthy aversion to being blown to bits had effectively cleared the coast to the west of the Puget Sound.

She glanced through her latest reports, noting that Red Squadron Forces were being trained in methods of undersea diving and the use of submersible vehicles. Last month, she’d had a handful of operatives adept in low-depth reconnaissance. They had, however, all met with unfortunate deaths at the site of the M-class accident. Lucca had been very angry that day. She regretted it now.

She placed a call to her Pacific operations inquiring as to how much longer it would be before the trainees would be ready to dive and begin the process of hauling up the massive find. What she was told did not please her.

“Two weeks?” she asked the official on the holoscreen. “What are you teaching them? How to tie their shoes underwater?”

“Madam Chancellor, we have established protocols to minimize the loss of life due to inadequate knowledge and—”

Lucca cut the speaker off. “Two weeks is unacceptable. I want them diving in two days.”

There was an extended silence as the figure upon the holoscreen glanced over to others in his office to consult.

“We must stress that we cannot send the new divers this soon,” came the response at last. “Conditions underwater at these depths are simply—”

The Chancellor interrupted again. “Then find me someone who can dive safely at these depths. Do I have to do everything myself?”

The official at the Puget Sound station nodded, then shook his head, then cleared his throat. “Certainly we can bring in experienced divers. We thought that you wished to keep the investigation of the crashed vehicle top-secret, so—”

“There is more than one way to keep information from circulating. Find me some divers. I want intelligence on the status of that ship’s hold in two days’ time. Do I make myself clear?”

“Absolutely, Madam Chancellor,” said the official.

“Brezhnaya out.”

Lucca pressed her forefinger and thumb on either side of the bridge of her nose and rubbed gently until she felt calm again. She always felt better after she’d done a bit of shouting, but it did tend to increase her headaches. Why couldn’t people simply anticipate what needed doing? Lucca allowed herself a rare moment of self-pity. She had the worst job in the world.

But she was committed to seeing her vision through, committed to leaving Earth better than she had found it. No matter how many headaches it cost her. She reached for a med-patch to send the headache packing. It was a difficult and lonely calling, to keep peace on Earth, but she would do it, no matter the personal cost.

24

PROTOCOL

The door of the Dunakeszi Hospital and Clinic for Brain Injury swung open and Jessamyn gazed inside. From behind a counter, Kipper gestured for her to come in. Jess could hear a child crying in the distance. Running toward Jess, Kipper seized the bag she’d given Jess earlier and dug inside.

“What I was thinking?” she asked. “Dunya’s blankie, for the love of mittens!” She shook her head as she fished out the blanket. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

And with that, Kipper strode off in the direction of the crying child, calling out, “I’m coming, I’m coming!”

Jess would have chased Kipper up the stairs except that it was plain to see her former captain was much faster than Jessamyn on this gravity-heavy world. That, and Jess felt a bit unsteady, like rogue electrons were buzzing around in her brain and stomach.

“I will never drink coffee again,” she murmured to the empty foyer.

Kipper came swiftly down the stairs and grasped Jessamyn’s hand in hers. “This way,” she said. As they strode along a narrow hall, Kipper released Jess’s hand, murmuring an apology. “Sorry. I’m used to taking children’s hands.”

Using her wrist chip, Kipper scanned the two of them inside a room that reminded Jessamyn of the one she’d been stuck inside at New Kelen Hospital.

“We’ve both been sloppy as regards protocol. You ought to have demanded proof that I am who you believe me to be.”

“I don’t need you to prove anything,” said Jessamyn.

“That’s extremely unwise. Prove to me you are Jessamyn Jaarda,” said Kipper as soon as the door latched behind them.

Jess’s eyebrows raised. “Seriously? Fine. After you prove you’re Kipper,” she retorted.

The former captain stood arrow-straight. “I tendered my resignation when I heard you would be my first officer. I’m from Squyres Station where we mine the best tellurium on the planet. I sent you to your quarters for insubordinate behavior on our first day out from Mars even though your actions saved our lives. I was shot in the head and captured while trying to help your brother on our mission. Your turn.”

“Oh, Kipper,” Jess said softly.

“Don’t feel sorry for me,” snapped the captain. “I want proof you are who you appear to be. How do I know it’s you?”

Jess took a deep breath. “You and I haven’t had the best working relationship. I called you ‘Sir’ when I knew you preferred ‘Ma’am.’ You gave up your quarters so my brother would feel less discomfort. Oh, and everyone knows you want to be the next Secretary General. Your brother’s trying to beat you to it, though. Is that enough proof for you?”

“My brother?” Kipper’s eyes drew almost closed as she frowned at Jessamyn.

“Yeah. We’ve got a lot to talk about. But not here,” said Jess, looking around nervously.

“This room is Dr. Ruchenko’s office. He’s disabled any kind of monitoring. Had me do it, actually, when he heard I was good with high tech.”

“I didn’t know you were good with high tech,” said Jess.

“Why else do you think I was assigned to assist Ethan?”

Jess felt stupid. She’d been too busy keeping track of what Kipper didn’t do well to be aware of her strengths. “I’m sorry I was so … insubordinate, Captain.”

Kipper’s face softened. “I—You—” and then she broke off, her face crumpling with evident pain. “Ahh,” she sighed, clutching at the side of her face.

Jessamyn stood awkwardly, then glanced around the room. “Can I get you something? An analgesic?” She opened and closed several panels, eager to help her captain.

Kipper made no response, but after several seconds, she grunted out a few words. “Nothing helps. It always passes.” She seemed to recover and explained, “The bullet causes me to experience high levels of pain twenty-four-seven. But they can’t take the bullet out without risking ruining this body. Meaning this body is useless to the Rebody program. Dr. Ruchenko was supposed to turn me over for questioning when I awoke from the coma, but he thinks I’m too valuable as a nurse.”

Jessamyn’s brows pulled down and together. It disturbed her to hear Kipper referring to her body as if it were only a part—a dispensable part—of who she was.

“Surely there’s something medicinal you could take,” said Jessamyn, her voice soft.

Kipper stretched her neck to one side. “I’ve already taken it. Anything else will knock me unconscious.”

“Okay,” said Jessamyn, gazing nervously at her suffering captain. “Well, we should get you out of here, then.”

“I can’t leave,” said Kipper.

“What do you mean, you can’t leave? You do realize I’m here to rescue you, don’t you?” Jess felt her face flush with color. It sounded silly when she said it aloud.

“Jessamyn, I’m chipped. If I go anywhere, Ruchenko will know. Secures will be on me in no time.”

Jess stared at her captain. “So we take your chip out. Obviously.”

“Oh. Of course.” She frowned, touching the side of her head. “I think the bullet must be making me stupid.”

“You’ve had no reason to leave up until now.”

“Oh, I’ve thought plenty about …” Kipper shook her head. “Never mind. You’re right, of course. I need to remove the chip.” She opened a drawer and pulled out a scalpel.

“Hey,” cried Jess. “Not so fast. There should be something—some green gooey stuff—to stop you from feeling pain.”

“Right,” murmured Kipper. She opened another panel and removed a small med-patch, smearing it back and forth over her wrist. “That should do it.” She frowned as she examined her right wrist. “I’m right-handed. Would you do it?”

Jess nodded and swiftly located the bump of the scan chip. She took a deep breath and made a slice across Kipper’s wrist. “Whoa,” she said. “It shouldn’t bleed that much, should it?”

“You haven’t done this before?” asked Kipper.

Jess bit her lower lip and mopped up the pooling red with a cloth. Carefully, she inserted a pair of tweezers. She tried to be as steady-handed as Pavel, but her hand shook with nerves or from the coffee or from the sight of so much blood.

“Got it,” Jess said as she removed the chip.

Kipper winced briefly as Jess dabbed at the blood.

“Did I hurt you?” Jess asked.

The captain grunted a small laugh. “I’ve come a long way in my tolerance for pain, I can tell you.”

Jess sponged up as much blood as she could before reaching for a heat-healer.

“I wouldn’t mind a scar,” said Kipper, softly.

“Not smart,” said Jess, trying to remember how Pavel had passed the heat-healer over her own wrist. “You don’t want anyone wondering what you’ve done to get that scar. We have to get you out of here without anyone noticing.”

Kipper nodded but then her face folded into an uncertain frown. “I suppose … I don’t know Jessamyn. The children … someone wakes up most nights. If I’m gone …”

Jess wanted to say that they didn’t matter as much as real children. They were Terran. But she didn’t think that would go over well with Kipper.

“Contact someone who can cover for you,” Jess suggested. “Say you’re having so much pain you need to knock yourself unconscious.”

Kipper nodded and placed a call.

When she’d finished, she reached for the scan chip lying upon the steel tray. “This will transmit from my room. If I seal the door, it should give us ten hours lead time. They won’t come knocking until tomorrow morning. Later, if we’re lucky.”

Jess nodded. “Let’s do it.”

“Where is your transport?” asked Kipper. “You didn’t land the Galleon at the municipal hoverport, I take it?”

Jessamyn swallowed. She was going to have to explain that part sooner or later. “No,” she said, opting for later. “Let’s go.”

“I need to grab a few things,” said Kipper.

The captain (Jess couldn’t help thinking of her that way) retrieved a handful of items from her room, stuffing Jess’s pack with one set of med-patches, her own pack with another set. Kipper stared long and hard at a portable wafer, but left it behind in the end, reasoning that it could be used as a means of locating her whereabouts.

“You should go,” said Kipper. “Wait for me at the park until the relief nurse shows up.”

Jess, agreeing no good could come of her being spotted by a hospital employee, left the building. She hugged a thin coat tightly around her as a breath of wind murmured through the park, scattering leaves in its wake. The wind wasn’t cold, exactly, but it felt a lonely thing, brushing through the quiet town, and it chilled Jess. Half an hour passed and Jess remained alone with the breeze-tossed limbs of trees that towered above her, whispering their secrets to one another.

“Hurry up, Kip,” she mumbled into the darkness.

At last Jess descried a tiny figure running toward her. She prepared to flee or hide in case it wasn’t Kipper. The figure paused, lifted a hand to her temple. Kipper. In pain. Jess ran to her captain. The attack seemed to be lasting longer than the other one Jessamyn had observed.

“Try counting backwards,” Jessamyn whispered. “Or try to map out the route at the Academy from Astrometrics to the dean’s office.” These were the sorts of things that helped Ethan when panic struck him.

Kipper remained silent, but Jess could see from the deep furrows in her brow, the pale color of her face, that her captain suffered great pain.

“Try focusing on your—”

“Shut it!” Kipper gasped, cutting Jessamyn off mid-suggestion.

A few more seconds passed and Kipper raised herself from her hunched position. “Which way to the transport?” she asked.

“This way,” said Jessamyn. “I left it in an old quarry.”

Kipper’s brows drew together in a look Jess recognized, even though the facial features were altered. “The quarry?” asked the captain, disapproval in her tone. “You left the Galleon in the quarry?”

“No. Another ship. Smaller. With a tarp. Not exactly the right color—”

Kipper interrupted her. “But you’re saying you left our escape vehicle in the quarry?”

“What’s the big deal about the quarry?”

Kipper’s eyes rolled briefly heavenward. “Putting something in the quarry is the same as saying, ‘Hey, I don’t want this anymore.’ In fact, you’re supposed to pay a fee to the Family Vanyashin prior to disposing of items there.”

“How was I supposed to know that?” demanded Jessamyn.

The two stood, toe to toe, looking into one another’s eyes.

Kipper broke off first. “Oh, for the love of fuzzy slippers,” she muttered. “Let’s go check the quarry. Maybe the Family Vanyashin took the day off.”

But when they arrived, there was no sign of Renard’s tiny ship.

“They took the tarp, too, looks like,” said the captain. “So you show up to rescue me without a rescue vehicle.”

“I had a perfectly good rescue vehicle—”

“Well you don’t have one now.” The captain clutched her head once more in pain, but it passed swiftly this time. Jess stood to one side, fuming, thinking of what she’d like to do to whoever had stolen Renard’s ship.

When Kipper recovered, she spoke. “Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to the home of a member of the Family Vanyashin—someone whose child I’ve cared for—and we’re apologizing for leaving your ship there without paying, and we’re explaining that we’re ready to pay the disposal fee and any other charges we might have incurred for our inconsiderate behavior.”

Jessamyn stared at the captain, her mouth falling slightly open.

“Yes, Jaarda, our inconsiderate behavior. And then we’ll offer to buy the ship back. Hades and Aphrodite, you brought credits, didn’t you?”

“I have a few fingers of tel—”

Kipper’s hand flew to Jessamyn’s mouth. For a moment, Jess thought the captain was slapping her. Then she realized Kipper was stopping her from speaking the word tellurium aloud.

“Shizer! Are you trying to get us mugged?” Kipper’s whisper came out in an angry hiss.

“I’m trying to get you safely out of here,” snapped Jess.

“You don’t know the first thing about life on this world,” murmured Kipper.

“I got all the way here, didn’t I?” demanded Jess. “And if you know so much, why haven’t you tried to escape?”

“What was the point?” Kipper shot back.

Jessamyn’s breath hitched and she felt her fists clench. What was the point? Where should she begin? “Find the rest of us, thwart the Terran government, contact Clan Wallace, go back and mess with the satellite controls some more—”

“I thought you were all dead,” Kipper said, cutting Jess off. “I thought all kinds of things. None of them included any of you still being here.”

The two walked in silence, Jessamyn trying to comprehend the enormity of the difference between how her mind and her captain’s mind worked.

“Every single day has been like … like …” Kipper paused, searching for the words. “Have you ever taken your helmet off inside an airlock that wasn’t functioning properly?”

Jess shook her head. It was an emergency every Marsian child trained for—noticing the signs that the air pressure or oxygen levels were deadly, responding quickly to survive the situation.

“I have,” said Kipper. “It happened a lot where I grew up. You end up with an incapacitating headache. This,” she said, tapping her skull, “Is a hundred times worse. Every day since they shot me—every waking day, at least—I’ve struggled with whether I should continue or … just give up.”

“I’m sorry,” murmured Jessamyn.

“Don’t be,” said Kipper, sounding irritated. Then she inhaled and breathed out slowly. “Forgive me. That was rude.”

Jessamyn remembered something about Squyres Station residents—how they suffered neither fools nor pity.

“Enough about my … challenges,” said Kipper, her voice softer. “Tell me about Mars. You said no one was starving. But if you’re here, who delivered the rations? Tell me everything.”

Jessamyn felt the demand for “everything” settle upon her shoulders like a heavy yoke. “There’s a lot to tell,” she said. “Harpreet and my brother were captured after you were shot. I tried to rescue them, but I failed. In the end, I followed my primary directive and took the food back with Crusty’s help.”

“Mars Colonial is safe,” murmured Kipper.

“For now,” agreed Jessamyn.

“And they sent you back for me and the others?”

“I … volunteered,” said Jess. That was going to be a very big conversation—one she didn’t feel like having now.

“I don’t know how you managed it, Jessamyn. Any of it. Escaping those security officers, flying home with only Crusty. Flying back here.”

“I had help escaping security,” said Jessamyn. “I wouldn’t have stood a chance if it weren’t for a Terran. Pavel Bouchard.” She wasn’t sure why she left off part of his name. No, that wasn’t right. She knew exactly why. He was nothing like his aunt.

“Friend of Brian Wallace’s?” asked Kipper.

“Friend of mine,” Jessamyn said.

The captain shook her head. “I’m taking bullets to the brain and you’re making friends with Terrans.”

“Oh, come on,” said Jess, her face flaming red.

“I was trying to make a joke,” Kipper replied quickly. “I’m … not skilled with humor. I apologize.”

Jess grunted her acceptance.

“Hold on,” said Kipper. “That name. Did you say Bouchard? Pavel Bouchard? A first-body?” asked Kipper. She pressed fingers to her head, but Jess couldn’t tell if she was in pain or trying to recall something.

“Yes,” replied Jessamyn. “Actually, his full name is—”

“Brezhnaya-Bouchard.” The captain spoke his name in a whisper. “The Chancellor’s missing nephew. Why would he help you? Ares, Jess—what did you promise in return?”

“Nothing,” replied Jessamyn, a scowl forming on her face. “He hates his aunt.”

“Oh,” said Kipper. “I see. And I apologize. Please continue.”

Swiftly, Jessamyn relayed the story she’d told to the Secretary General—how Pavel had helped her, how she’d attacked the Terran Chancellor. How she’d fled without Ethan. As she retold the story, it felt to her as if years and not months had passed since her first visit to Earth. Jess recounted her brief stay on Mars and explained that she’d soloed her return flight, but she kept back the essential facts of having stolen and crashed the Galleon. She would explain later, she told herself.

“And Harpreet and your brother are safe?” asked Kipper.

“Yes.” Jess explained the addition of Kazuko Zaifa and Brian Wallace to their coterie as they sought to carry out Mei Lo’s directive to give MCC control of the satellites.

“You mentioned my brother, Cavanaugh. Don’t think I didn’t notice,” said Kip, scowling as they approached the front door of a dwelling. “But that conversation will have to wait. We’re here. Be very careful what you say. In fact, don’t say anything, okay? Let me do the negotiating. I’ll say you’re my fourbodied grandmother who’s not mentally all there. We should be fine. This family trusts me. At least, I hope they do.”

25

NOTHING PERSONAL

Jessamyn followed behind Kipper when they were invited into the small home. Jess looked around and counted four children, all in their first-bodies. Two adults sat at a table barely large enough to hold what Jess took for wet rations. One of the two stood.

“Nurse Cassondra,” he said, holding his arms wide.

The two exchanged kisses—two upon either side of the face—and then Kipper turned to introduce Jessamyn.

“Ferenc, Maria, this is my grandmother.”

Jessamyn smiled and tried to look old and not-all-there.

“Her husband has left her, taking everything she had, and she’s come to Dunakeszi to find me.” Kipper scooted closer to the adults and dropped her voice lower. “Grandmother has made a terrible mistake. She left her transport in Direktor Vanya’s quarry, not understanding the nature of that location. ” She dropped her eyes. “I didn’t know who else to turn to.”

Jess felt genuine admiration: her captain could lie with the best of them.

“Well,” said Maria. “So your grandmother has lost her transport? Was it valuable?”

Kipper nodded. “I’ll have to quit my work at the Clinic in order to care for Grandmother. The vehicle would have provided us enough to live upon for the duration of her years.”

Maria nodded.

Kipper continued. “I intend to pay the fees and any fines, of course. But I’ll need help negotiating to buy the vehicle back at an … affordable price, so that I can resell it.” Her eyes pleaded, mournfully. “Will you help me?”

Maria shrugged. “What did you bring?”

The two negotiated briefly over the small pharmacopoeia in Kipper’s bag, eventually agreeing that Maria would speak to the Direktor’s men in exchange for the meds. Jess hoped the additional pain killers in her pack would be enough for Kipper’s personal needs.

Maria spoke again. “So you’re abandoning the children, just like that?”

“My grandmother has no one else to care for her now,” said Kipper.

“Little Mischka will miss you,” said the man who’d risen to greet her.

“I know, Ferenc,” said Kipper. “And I’m sorry. It’s nothing personal.”

“Mischka will take it personally,” Maria muttered darkly. “You’re the only one he likes.”

“Leave her be, Maria,” said Ferenc. “She’s made it worth our while.” He tapped the table, indicating the stolen medicines.

“What are these?” asked a small someone from behind where Jessamyn stood waiting.

Jess turned and saw with horror that the child was playing with pieces of tellurium. “How did you—” Jessamyn felt for her pack. It was still secure on her shoulders.

Kipper brushed past her, murmuring, “Sancho slit the bottom of your pack. It’s a trick all the children know around here.”

“I was just practicing,” said Sancho.

Ferenc and Maria hurried to the side of the small child, Maria congratulating him while Ferenc scolded.

“What is that?” asked Maria, gazing with curiosity at a finger of tellurium.

“It’s shiny,” said the child.

One of his playfellows snatched up a piece and ran it around the room.

“Well, well, well,” said Maria. “Is this real?”

Jessamyn scowled and demanded Maria return her property.

Maria did not acknowledge the demand.

“Call Uncle Vanya,” she said to Ferenc. “Now. Tell him to bring his special goggles.”

After directing Sancho to take the other children to a neighbor’s apartment, Maria gestured to Ferenc to allow her to speak with Vanya.

“Vanya’s very dangerous,” Kipper whispered to Jessamyn.

Maria finished the call and began arguing with Ferenc about what should be done with the metal. Ferenc was for returning it, but Maria shouted that is was too late for that, now that she’d called Uncle Vanya.

Ferenc scowled and told her she could handle everything herself in that case. He sat back down at the table, muttering under his breath.

Jess saw movement outside a window facing the front of the dwelling. It was Sancho. The child ducked down to hide from view just as a loud rap sounded upon the door.

Kipper shot a look to Jessamyn. “Let them have it,” she whispered. “It’s not worth it.”

Jess’s eyes narrowed. She had no intention of simply walking away from ten fingers of tellurium.

At the door, Maria welcomed Vanya in tones of great deference.

“Maria, my dear.” He kissed her, twice on each cheek. “Our dear Sancho has eluded you,” said Vanya. “The boy sits just outside, watching and learning.” Vanya pointed to where little Sancho crouched beside the window outside. “You know, I’m deeply proud of my little namesake.”

Saying this, Vanya settled at the small table beside Ferenc and withdrew a pair of goggles. Jess thought they looked like something her mother might have used in planetary agriculture.

“Well, my dear ones,” said Vanya. “Let me see it, then.”

As Maria lifted a cloth she’d draped over the tellurium, Vanya inhaled as if in surprise.

“Well, well, well,” whispered Vanya, gazing through the strange spectacles at the metal.

At her side, Jess saw Kipper’s face turn a shade paler, saw her captain lick her lips as if in pain.

“Well, well, well,” repeated Vanya. This time he directed the remark to Jessamyn. “So, grandmother, this is quite a tidy sum.” He frowned, tilting his head to one side as he examined her face. “Have we engaged in business transactions before, you and I? Or met socially, perhaps?”

Jess shook her head.

“Hmm. You look familiar.” He smiled. It was not a smile to put others at their ease. “Never mind. We’re here to talk business.” He turned to Ferenc, murmuring softly, “Ferenc, my dear, if you would be so good as to make certain my dear namesake outside comes to no harm?”

Ferenc bowed, walked to the door, and left the dwelling. Uncle Vanya turned his attention to Jessamyn. “How did you come to possess so great a fortune?” he asked, indicating the tellurium.

“I have powerful allies,” said Jessamyn, crossing her arms over her chest.

The man gazing at her didn’t look terribly strong. Jess considered taking a swing at him. Perhaps her pack might do a better job. She dropped one shoulder in preparation.

“I wouldn’t,” Maria said to Jessamyn. “He’s armed. And he’s very fast.”

Jess felt her face turning color and felt angry at herself for it.

“And where are these … powerful allies?” asked Vanya. “You appear to be alone. Except for the Nurse, of course.”

“I’m a friend of Clan Wallace,” Jess said.

Beside her, Kipper moaned softly, her eyes closed, and rubbed small circles on her left temple.

“Call them, my dear,” said Vanya to Jessamyn. “We’ll sort it out.”

She scowled. He was calling her bluff. She had no idea how to contact Clan Wallace. Hades! She hadn’t thought of that.

“I can’t,” admitted Jess.

Vanya shrugged. Scratched a day-old beard and rose. Passing a weapon to Maria, he murmured, “Kill them both.”

“It’s nothing personal,” said Maria to Kipper, a cold smile upon her visage.

Jessamyn’s blood turned to ice. What could she say? What could she offer?

Keeping her tone calm and respectful, Jess spoke to Vanya. “The tellurium is yours already. Clearly you value family. Will you not allow my granddaughter and me to go in peace?”

Maria, leveling the gun at Jessamyn, said, “That one’s pretty. She could fetch a price, perhaps?”

“Yes,” agreed Vanya. “There is something about her…”

Maria gasped. “Vanya, it’s that maid—the runner! The one who stole from the Chancellor.”

“I—what?” asked Jess, trying to make sense of the odd accusation. Then it clicked: this was Lucca’s way of trying to find her.

“Silence,” commanded Maria, moving the gun back and forth between Jess and Kipper.

“I’ve seen her image on the most wanted gallery,” continued Maria. “She’s definitely the maid who stole from the Chancellor. There’s quite a price on her head.”

Had Lucca circulated such a story about her? A story in which she, Jessamyn, was a supposed former employee of Lucca’s?

Vanya had pulled a pocket wafer from his jacket and nodded as he found the information he was searching for. “Yes, Maria, very good. Very good. It’s definitely her.”

As Vanya looked from a picture on his wafer to Jessamyn and back again, his teeth bared in an approximation of joy. “What a price the Chancellor’s placed upon your head, my dear. Goodness, she seems most anxious for your return.” Then he frowned. “Ah. I see she will only pay if we deliver you alive. Doesn’t want to risk receiving an empty husk while you’ve jumped bodies, I suppose. Well, that makes tonight’s business less messy.”

He turned to Maria. “Would you be so kind as to kill the nurse?”

“No!” called Jessamyn. “Let her go. She’s done nothing to harm you. If you don’t let her go right now, I’ll tell Lucca Brezhnaya to arrest you all as inciters. I have your names. I know about Mischka’s brain injury—I know things only an intimate of your family could know,” she lied. “And Lucca will believe me.”

“It will be our word against yours,” said Vanya, shrugging.

“No,” said Maria. “I know how the wealthy think. This runner may have stolen from the Chancellor, but Brezhnaya will believe her maid’s word over ours.”

“That’s right. She may hate me, but she’ll believe me,” said Jessamyn, attempting to wedge herself between Maria’s gun and Kipper’s body.

“Stand still,” barked Vanya.

Jessamyn froze, cursing herself for not having moved far enough to shield her captain.

“So,” said Vanya, stroking his whiskered chin, “That means we’re back to killing you both, I suppose.”

“You have my word I will not implicate you so long as Ki—Nurse Cass goes free. Now.”

“Jess,” hissed Kipper.

“It has to be you, Kip,” murmured Jess. Pavel would tell Kipper to create a statement discrediting her brother Cavanaugh. It had to be Kipper who survived this encounter.

Maria and Vanya conversed in quiet tones.

“Please,” said Jessamyn. “She was good to Mischka. She loved him like a son.” She hoped there was some evidence to support the statement.

Maria frowned as she spoke to Vanya. “The reward money is a substantial fortune, Vanya.” She lowered her voice, “And Nurse Cass was very good to Mischka. And Sancho.”

“Very well, my dear,” said Vanya. “For the sake of my little Sancho. Tell Ferenc to take the nurse and fetch a good price for her.”

Jessamyn shot a quick glance to Kipper as Maria took Kipper outside.

“Good night, my dear Maria.” Saying this, Vanya placed a call. “Get me Red Squadron Forces. I have something of value.”

Jessamyn looked around the room for anything that could be used as a weapon. Vanya, observing this, pulled a gun from his jacket and gestured for her to stand still.

Speaking into a small communication device, he roared, “Fool! How can the entire North Budapest Red Squadron be ‘otherwise occupied’?” He listened for another minute, his finger twitching on the gun directed at Jessamyn. “Dunakeszi’s finest? Oh, I have no doubt.” He paused again. “Just send them. Along with a Recording Agent. Things will go very badly for anyone trying to cross my claim.”

Vanya strolled to Jessamyn’s side and spoke quietly. “You know, my dear, should you break your word and spread lies about the Family Vanyashin, not only will Nurse Cass be killed, I will make certain the good nurse lingers over her death most unpleasantly. Do we have an understanding?”

Jessamyn nodded.

“Well, then, all we need do for the time being is await the arrival of the idiots keeping the peace in our fair village,” said Vanya.

At that moment, the door flew open. Jessamyn’s mouth dropped open as she stared at the intruders. At the door stood Sancho, with a gun held to his small head. And Kipper held the weapon.

Vanya, standing beside Jessamyn, took in a sharp breath.

“Drop your weapon,” Kipper ordered Vanya. “Now!” she said, raising her voice so that the small child jumped in fear.

“You won’t do it” said Vanya. “He’s an innocent child.”

“Try me,” growled Kip.

Vanya looked from Sancho to Kipper and back again.

“Uncle, please!” whimpered Sancho.

A look of anguish flickered briefly in Vanya’s eyes. Defeated, he exhaled and slowly held the gun out, dropping it to the floor. Jess sprang to retrieve it at once.

“Let the child go, Kip,” Jessamyn said softly.

Kipper ignored her. “Tie Vanya’s hands together, Jessamyn. There are cable-fasts in my sling-pack.”

Jessamyn shot a worried look to the child, who seemed about to cry, but she followed Kipper’s orders.

“On your knees,” Kipper ordered Vanya. “Face to the ground.”

“Kip,” Jess whispered in horror, “He’s just a child.” All her distinctions between “real” children and Terran children melted away in the reality of the small boy’s distress.

“There’s a patch in Sancho’s front pocket,” said Kipper to Jess. “Take it out.”

Jessamyn approached the pair and found a med-patch in the child’s pocket. Inexplicably, the boy winked at her before resuming his look of terror.

“Vanya is going to take a nap, Sancho,” said Kipper. “And when he wakes up, you will be here to take care of him. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said the small child, voice filled with terror.

Jessamyn placed the med-patch on Vanya’s exposed skin.

Kipper counted backwards from twenty. Then she lowered her gun and ran a hand playfully through Sancho’s hair. He glared at her, swatting her hand away. Then he ran to his Uncle.

“Uncle Vanya!” Sancho shouted directly into Vanya’s ear. “The quarry’s been blown to pieces!” When his uncle didn’t respond, Sancho turned to Kipper, grinning. “It worked—he’s sleeping!” He then rose and placed his small hand upon Jessamyn’s arm. “I’m sorry I cut your pack. I brought you a new one.” Saying this, he slipped a pack from his back, shoved the tellurium inside, and handed it to Jessamyn.

Jess’s mind whirled with unasked questions.

Kipper, joining Sancho beside Jess and the sleeping Vanya, looked at the young boy solemnly. “You are to tell Mischka I love him very, very much. Tell him I’m sorry I had to leave. And Sancho? Be good.”

“I know, I know. I won’t grow up to be like him,” replied Sancho, giving his uncle a nudge with his small foot.

“Local police are on their way,” said Jessamyn, deciding her several questions could wait.

“She wasn’t really going to shoot me, you know,” said Sancho, leaning conspiratorially to Jessamyn.

Jess nodded, her brows pulled together in wonder at the turn of events.

“Did you really steal the Chancellor’s diamond earrings like they said?” asked Sancho, his voice full of reverence.

“Of course she didn’t,” snapped Kipper. “And it would be very wrong of you to admire anyone who did such a thing.”

“I know,” said Sancho, hanging his head. “I only wanted to see the earrings if she still had them. I’ll remember what you taught me, Nurse Cassie. I’ll never forget you.” Having said this, the small boy threw his arms around Kipper’s waist.

“We’ve got to leave, Sancho,” said Kipper. “Before the secures get here and arrest us.”

Sancho grabbed Kipper’s jacket sleeve and tugged her to the door. “You need a transport,” he said.

“Do you know what happened to the one left in the quarry?” asked Kipper as Sancho dragged her out the front door and down a side alley.

“No,” said Sancho. “But you can take Uncle Vanya’s. Only don’t keep it. He’ll find you.”

“It’s probably tracking-enabled,” said Jess, shaking her head. “Too risky.”

“I’m not seeing a whole lot of other options, Jaarda,” replied Kipper.

“My uncle’s car is fast and untrackable,” said Sancho, his wide eyes gleaming as they rounded a corner. Sancho pointed to his uncle’s vehicle.

Jessamyn gasped. “It flies,” she murmured in tones of reverence.

“Oh, Sancho,” whispered Kipper. Then she turned to Jessamyn. “We’ll take it as far as Madeira. We can use what’s in your pack to buy something else and send Vanya’s ship back here.”

Jess shrugged. “I guess we don’t have a choice.”

Kipper turned to Sancho. “Thank you. For everything.”

She bent to kiss the top of his head, but the boy, sensing what was coming, wriggled free and ran off, calling, “Yuck!”

26

NO ONE SPEAKS MARSPERANTO

Kipper spoke to Jessamyn as the two boarded Vanya’s craft, “I apologize for how I handled things in Dunakeszi. I should have foreseen the danger of approaching the Vanyashin family for assistance.”

“It’s okay,” Jess replied. “It’s over.” She pulled the ship up and out of the narrow street, punching in orders for a course to Madeira.

“You were very brave,” said Kipper.

“So were you,” replied Jessamyn. “And if it hadn’t been for Sancho slicing my pack, it might have worked out fine.”

“If it hadn’t been for Sancho,” replied Kipper, “we wouldn’t be here now.”

Jess nodded. “Fair enough.”

“But I ought to have thought ahead and secured that tellurium,” Kipper continued. “With the tellurium crisis on everyone’s mind these past few days, it’s not wise to have it so … accessible.”

“I should have thought of that, too,” said Jess.

“The crisis is all the newfeeds talk about, because they use tellurium for rebodying.”

“Yeah, I know what it’s used for.”

“And there you were, with ten fingers—a whole kilo.” Kipper sighed, shook her head. “Well, we’re safe now, and in possession of a good vehicle,” said Kipper, “So it all worked out in the end. But I should have known better than to take both of us into that kind of situation. Ugh. I have an uncle of my own just like Vanya.”

Jess’s eyes flicked to where Kipper sat at her side.

“What I wouldn’t give to know what the worthless sand toad is up to now,” murmured Kipper.

“I think I might know,” said Jess. “Is your uncle on friendly terms with your brother?”

“My brother Cavanaugh? Yes. The two are thick as thieves.”

Jessamyn took several minutes to describe the Terran fever that had gripped Mars Colonial, and its likely origin in Cavanaugh’s political faction.

Kipper scowled, shaking her head. “How someone like my brother came out of Squyres Station, I will never understand. He’s been after me to join his little cabal for years.”

“You don’t agree with his beliefs, I take it?” asked Jess.

“Of course not. Holy Ares, Jaarda—he hasn’t taken you in, has he?”

“No! I think he should be locked up and the lock-code erased.”

Kipper grunted a short laugh. “Unfortunately, he’s a skilled orator. He knows how hard to push depending on what crowd he’s addressing.”

“Kip, he set that fire to Rations Storage,” said Jess. Carefully, she explained how she’d come to know this darkest of Cavanaugh’s secrets.

Kipper let out a long slow breath. “I warned the Secretary General about him. He finally crossed the line. The dirty water-grubber. I cannot fathom how we came from the same gene pool!”

“I was hoping you could make a broadcast back to Mars,” said Jess. “Mars regards you as a … a … planetary treasure, Kipper. If you tell them your brother can’t be trusted, I think they might listen. He got off completely free when he was tried.”

“The worthless ice-clod,” muttered Kip. “Of course I’ll do whatever I can. Although, there’s the chance the Terran government could intercept the message. That wouldn’t be good.”

“It wouldn’t,” agreed Jess. “But my brother encrypts any messages we send, and he’ll have you read it out in Marsperanto, which we feel is safe.”

“How did you know I spoke Marsperanto?” asked Kipper.

“I didn’t,” said Jess, her eyes widening. “I was talking about my brother giving you a translation. No one speaks Marsperanto.”

“I speak Marsperanto, thank you very much,” said Kipper. “I learned it back when Cavanaugh started in with Uncle Anthony. I learned the language as a way to demonstrate proper … patriotic feeling. As opposed to what my idiot brother was up to.”

“Oh,” said Jessamyn. “Well, then you won’t need Eth to get a translation ready for you.”

“I might appreciate a little help. It’s not like I get lots of chances to speak it. No one speaks Marsperanto,” she admitted gloomily.

Jess glanced down at the nav panel. Less than an hour ‘til they reached Madeira. And Jess had several confessions to make. She decided to start with the easiest one.

“So, Kipper, I should let you know we’re not on good terms with Clan Wallace at the moment.”

Kipper turned and stared at Jess like she’d sprouted antlers. “Since when is Mars Colonial not on good terms with Clan Wallace?”

Jess flushed. “I didn’t mean ‘We, Mars Colonial.’ I meant that Brian Wallace, who’s been helping me and Ethan and Pavel and Harp—well, helping all of us stuck here on Earth—had a falling out with his cousin Cameron. So none of us Raiders are on good terms with Clan Wallace.”

Kipper shrugged. “I don’t see why that should prevent our paying a visit. Cameron is my cousin, you know.”

It was Jessamyn’s turn to stare. “Cameron’s your cousin?”

“We’re third cousins four times removed,” said Kipper. “Or maybe it’s fourth cousins thrice removed. I can never remember.”

Jessamyn wasn’t sure she knew what either degree of relationship meant.

“There—” Kipper pointed ahead at an island just appearing. “That’s Madeira. Or one of the chain of islands Clan Wallace controls.”

“So you’re related to Clan Wallace?”

“That’s what I just said. Lots of people from Squyres Station are Wallace descendants. How do you think Mars set up trade relations with them?” Kipper turned her attention to the mass of land growing larger in their view screen.

Jessamyn had never considered how Clan Wallace had come to supply ration bars to the Mars Raiders. She’d probably been daydreaming about flying when that section of history was covered in school.

She thought about what Kipper had said—that the Kiplings and the Wallaces were related. Did Cavanaugh see himself as continuing the fine tradition of his Terran ancestors in opposing the governmental status-quo? She shook her head. Drawing parallels which blurred the lines of good and bad was only going to unsettle her. Cavanaugh was the Ungrateful Wretch. Clan Wallace were trustworthy allies, however shaky the alliance just now.

“Besides, even if I didn’t need assistance appeasing Vanya’s family, I would still want to consult Cameron.” Kip sighed heavily. “I’m afraid that in rescuing me, you are bringing a very dangerous person into your midst.”

Jess’s brows rose slightly. “We’re all pretty dangerous to consort with, these days. What makes you so risky to have around?”

Jessamyn eased the ship to the island’s north side, heavily wooded.

Kipper replied. “Lucca Brezhnaya wants me for interrogation.” Kipper laughed dryly. “But she forgot to provide my physician with an adequate incentive to follow her orders.”

“Oh, that,” said Jessamyn, shrugging. She supposed this would be a good time to explain her own status on the Most Wanted list. She was about to speak when Kipper continued.

“So the problem is, the Chancellor might show up looking for me some day. If Cameron feels I can avoid detection by the Chancellor while staying with you, I will do so. If Cameron believes the Chancellor is likely to discover me, I’ll … do something else.”

The stolen ship hovered over a hillside covered in trees. Jess found a space suitable for landing and brought the craft to rest.

“Listen, Kipper,” began Jessamyn. “About Chancellor Brezhnaya—”

“No,” said Kipper. “I won’t be talked out of this. We ask Cameron first. She knows this world. She knows the Chancellor.”

“I’m not disagreeing. But there are a few important things I haven’t told you yet,” said Jessamyn. Like, if Lucca wants you for interrogation, she wants my head on a platter. She swallowed and was preparing for a fuller confession when the ship began to shudder.

“What on Ares?” muttered Kipper, glancing at the navigation panel.

“Kip—it’s not the ship!” cried Jessamyn. “It’s them!”

Upon the rear and side view screens could be seen multiple crafts. Small. Maneuverable. And armed. One set down directly before their stolen vehicle and disclosed four figures carrying weapons. Wearing red armor.

“I thought you said Madeira was a Wallace stronghold,” said Jessamyn. “What are Lucca’s best friends doing here?”

Kipper, disregarding Jessamyn’s rising panic, was zooming in on images of the soldiers outside.

“Come out, unarmed, hands on your heads,” called the leader of the squadron.

“Kip, what are we doing?” demanded Jess. “Does this thing have weaponry?”

“I don’t think these are Red Squadron Forces,” replied Kip.

“Kipper, they’re wearing red armor!”

“I’m brain-injured, not color-blind,” snapped Jess’s former captain. “But look at those helmets. They’re using an older version that was linked to brain trauma. Dr. Ruchenko filed a patent for an improved seal which went into production a year ago. No one wears the old-style helmets. I don’t think, anyway.”

Jessamyn shook her head as a blast shook the ship’s exterior.

“We’re going out,” said Kipper. “We’re surrendering.”

Jess shook her head and ran her hands across the helm. “Oh, no we’re not!”

There was another loud blast outside. “Hades and Aphrodite!” cursed Jess. They’ve disabled the—”

One final blast blew the hatch door off its hinges.

Cursing, Jess raised her hands above her head as Kipper sank to the ground, moaning.

“She’s not armed!” Jess shouted. “Neither am I—don’t shoot her! She’s in pain.”

Two soldiers in red appeared to consult with one another while another two examined the interior, looking, perhaps, for stowaways.

“It’s just the two of us,” said Jess.

Kip moaned and placed her hands on her head, attempted to rise. Two weapons were instantly trained on her.

“Hades!” Jess called out. “She’s in no state to harm anyone.”

“Silence,” called the leader in red. “You will come with us. You will not speak.”

“Who are you?” demanded Kipper, now somewhat recovered.

“The detainees will remain silent,” shouted a deep-voiced woman.

Jess and Kipper had their hands bound—in front—and were marched silently down a steep, wooded hillside. Several missteps made it clear why their hands hadn’t been bound from behind—they needed their arms for balance. Jess caught a glimpse of the ocean at one point, white breakers crashing into dark rock far, far below. She smelled something pungent and medicinal as her feet crunched through the detritus of leaves and twigs upon the forest floor.

“Eucalyptus,” murmured Kipper, inhaling deeply.

“Silence!” ordered a secure.

At last they came to a paved drive and a brief hike toward what appeared to be, of all things, a castle. Jess shot a wondering look at Kipper and then frowned, noticing her captain’s unhealthy color.

“She’s going to need help,” Jess called out, receiving a weapon in her face for her efforts. “Aphrodite’s hair curlers,” she mumbled to herself.

But as Kipper slumped forward in pain once more, the low-voiced woman asked one of the soldiers in red to pick her up. The captain was carried up a set of stairs, Jessamyn following. They arrived at a forecourt, the castle towering above them. At the entrance, the secure in front removed his helmet for a retinal scan and passed his wrist along another scanner. A portcullis-like gate swung forward to admit the group.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” muttered Jessamyn, eyeing the gate. It was like something out of another age. She took one last glimpse in the open air, noticing a yellow flag flapping on a turret, a red lion emblazoned upon the background hanging beside a blue flag crossed diagonally with white. If either was supposed to signify something, the meanings were lost on her.

The pair were marched down a narrow, circular staircase and enclosed in what Jess supposed was meant to be a dungeon cell. The whole setting made her feel as though she’d left Earth and stepped into the pages of one of the stories she used to read.

As Kip recovered from her latest attack, Jessamyn spoke softly. “I told them you needed medical care. Do you always get those attacks so often?”

“It depends,” replied Kipper. “Strenuous activity or stress can bring them on more than once an hour. Otherwise, about every hour or two.”

“So we’re locked in a … dungeon on an island in the middle of the Atlantic,” said Jessamyn. “Great. Just great.”

“I wouldn’t call it the middle of the Atlantic,” said Kipper. “Africa’s less than a thousand kilometers to the east.”

“Oh, good. Nice to know which way to swim once we gnaw our way out of here.” Jess hurled a kick at the rough, dark stone of the cell wall.

“Volcanic,” remarked Kipper.

Jess sighed and sank down upon a sort of bench carved from the same kind of rock. It had been somewhat polished, though, such that sitting on it didn’t tear at the fabric of her clothing. Considerate, she thought.

“You were about to tell me something,” said Kipper.

Jess looked at her former captain blankly. “I was?”

“Yes. Just before our ship was surrounded.”

“Oh. That.” Jess frowned and balled her hands into fists. “Okay, so you know how you said Lucca wants you for questioning? Well, she wants me for a whole lot more.”

Kipper raised one eyebrow. Jess recalled the look, so familiar from the time the two had spent aboard the Galleon.

Jess sighed. There was the other secret as well, but she didn’t feel up to revealing the loss of Mars’s last great raiding ship. Not in a dungeon that offered her no escape from her captain’s wrath.

“Please tell me the thing about stealing the Chancellor’s diamond earrings wasn’t real,” said Kipper.

“Of course not,” snapped Jess. “But I did, well, drug and stab the Chancellor. I don’t know if she’s clear it was me doing the drugging, but she knows who stabbed her.”

“You … what?” asked Kipper, her face turning pale. “Jessamyn, you had no right to interfere in Earth’s politics—”

“I wasn’t interfering!” Jess shouted.

“Jessamyn—”

Jess interrupted. “Just give me a minute to explain.”

Kipper nodded and Jess relayed the story of how, in order to get the rations back to Mars, she’d had to escape the Chancellor’s clutches with the aid of the Chancellor’s disillusioned nephew.

“Well,” said Kipper, staring down at her feet. “Aphrodite’s fuzzy slippers. That took gumption. I suppose that must make you one of the most notorious criminals on Earth.”

Jessamyn wondered if this was the time to mention she’d also garnered top billing as a notorious criminal on Mars. She decided against it, simply adding, “Lucca’s not exactly motivated to broadcast what I did.”

“I should think not. No wonder she manufactured that other story.”

The two heard approaching feet, echoing down one of the long corridors through which they’d entered. The door sealing them inside burst open, and a very tall and stout woman surrounded by red-armored soldiers confronted the two, hands on her wide hips.

“I don’t believe me eyes,” said the woman, appearing to recognize one or the other of them.

Kipper rose and made a neat little nod with her head. “Cameron Wallace, I presume?”

“Aye,” replied the clan leader. “But Captain Kipling? First Officer Jaarda? What are the two of ye doing here?”

In short order, Cameron reconvened the group in a room more congenial to friendly welcomes. A roaring fire burned inside an oversized hearth, making Jess’s heart pang a bit for Yucca’s bonfire gatherings.

Cameron poured out small glasses of a golden-colored liquid for the three of them, murmuring happy little phrases such as, “So delightful,” and, “Quite unexpected,” and, finally, “Please forgive the, well, the unconventional welcoming party.”

“That was quite the welcome,” muttered Jessamyn.

“Do you mind my asking what you’re playing at with fake Red Squadron Forces?” asked Kipper.

Cameron was just holding out a tray of the tiny wet rations with a large smile on her square features. As soon as Kipper uttered her question, however, Cameron’s face took on an expression Jess had seen when children lost balloons in the high-ceilinged Crystal Pavilion.

“I paid an armor manufacturer quite handsomely for all that.” She waved one hand toward the suited guards. “What makes you assume they’re fake?” she asked Kipper. “Well, apart from the Chancellor and I not being on friendly terms?”

Jessamyn snorted derisively.

“The helmets,” replied the captain, ignoring Jess. “The join along the base of the neck is wrong. It’s vulnerable to projectile penetration. Your armor supplier sold you goods that were made redundant over a year ago.”

“I see,” said Cameron, nodding slowly. “Well, no wonder the price seemed too good to be true. And, would anyone with connections to actual Red Squadron Forces recognize the difference, do ye believe?”

“Well, I don’t know about anyone, but I certainly did,” replied Kipper.

“Aye, well, it’s a good thing I didn’t try to snatch ye out of hospital using these lads and lasses in red,” said Cameron, smiling affably. “Don’t know as I’d have actually got round to it for awhile, mind, but it was on me to-do list.”

“Rescuing Kip—ah, Cassondra Kipling—was on your list of things to do?” asked Jessamyn.

“Aye, lass, we’re cousins, she and I,” replied Cameron. “Fourth cousins four times removed. She’s me own blood-kin. I had a duty, didn’t I?”

Jess stared at the odd woman.

“Drink up, then, lasses,” exclaimed Cameron, “And then tell me yer tales fantastical!”

Jess took one sip and promptly choked on the burning liquid, her eyes watering as she gasped for breath.

“We’re not used to spirits, thanks very much,” said Kipper. “Some water, perhaps?”

Cameron shook her head sadly. “It’s why I could never live on Mars, meself,” she said. “A world without whiskey, well, I ask ye, what’s the point?” Saying this, she downed her own glass and reached for the one that had been placed before Kipper. She did not, however, swallow it down, preferring to hold it and slowly swirl the amber liquid while staring at Jessamyn.

“So, if me cousin Brian’s to be believed, you’re the girl who went there and back again,” Cameron said, her voice low, with a hint of admiration. “You’re a bold one, and that’s for certain.”

Jess colored. She was many things, and most of them were not as flattering as “bold.” She did not respond.

“And now ye’ve saved me cousin from her terrible imprisonment. Not to mention brought her back from a coma.”

“Oh, I didn’t do that,” said Jess.

“Were ye not in a coma, then?” Cameron asked Kipper, puzzled.

“I woke from the coma several weeks ago,” added Kipper. She explained the offer Ruchenko had made and then described Jessamyn’s bold rescue, leaving out a few things that would have made Jess’s foolhardiness more apparent.

“Well,” said Cameron, still swirling the golden liquid within the small glass. “And now I suppose ye’re here about a replacement ship to get ye back to that frozen red planet ye call home.”

Kipper frowned. “We do need assistance returning a ship to the Family Vanyashin. And we need to acquire a new vehicle to replace one Jessamyn … misplaced. But we’re not looking to upgrade from the Red Galleon, if that’s what you’re asking.

Cameron looked momentarily puzzled.

Jessamyn felt her skin catch fire, the heat radiating out from her beating heart upwards, along her chest and neck and face. She considered swigging the remainder of her tiny glass. She’d heard alcohol made some people bold. It would probably make her stupid, though. And she did stupid just fine on her own.

“It was a great loss, nonetheless,” Cameron continued, “And I mourn her passing along with you. Still, I suppose they’ve other ships they can send for ye? Was it Red Sunset? No, Dawn, perhaps?”

“We lost the Red Dawn during the mission that stranded me in the clinic,” Kipper said, soberly. “She was a brave ship, and her crew composed of the finest.”

Cameron raised her glass in salute. “The Red Dawn,” she said solemnly. After holding the glass high for a moment, she drained the contents. “So that leaves ye with nothing, then.” She considered her empty glass but did not refill it.

Kipper looked at Jessamyn. Jessamyn did not look at Kipper.

“Just the Galleon,” replied Kipper. “She’s all we need, though.”

Cameron looked confusedly from one Marsian to the other. “Ye’ve not … Ye didn’t … “

Jess interrupted the clanswoman. “Kip doesn’t know.”

“Well, Brian did tell me that at least,” murmured Cameron to herself.

Kipper turned to face Jessamyn again. “What don’t I know, First Officer?”

Using as few words as possible, Jessamyn described the disastrous loss of the Galleon. With Cameron present, Jess thought it unwise to mention that she’d taken the ship without permission. That would have to come out soon enough, though, and perhaps in the clan chief’s hearing.

Kipper snatched up the tiny glass of spirits and hurled it into the fire, where it made a minor explosion. Then she rose, paced, and swore for the space of a full minute, using terms and phrases with which Jessamyn was largely unfamiliar. But before long, the pain from Kipper’s head wound staggered the captain.

With Cameron’s help, Jess brought Kipper back to the couch.

When she had recovered, Kipper’s words were far more collected than what Jessamyn had expected, the captain’s anger apparently spent.

“The journey ought not to have been attempted while the two worlds were moving so swiftly apart,” Kipper said. “How could you hope to carry enough fuel? And if you couldn’t, a crash was inevitable.”

“There was sufficient fuel,” said Jess. “Until your wretch of a brother secretly stuffed the hold so he could trade.”

During Jessamyn’s explanation, Cameron had risen and begun pacing.

“Ye’re speaking of the great load of tellurium that went down with the ship?” asked the clan leader.

“How did you know about that?” asked Jessamyn.

“She seems to know everything,” snapped Kipper. “Unlike some of us.”

“I make it my business to know such things,” replied Cameron. “Especially when the Chancellor’s declared a world-wide shortage, thus placing Clan Wallace in about as bad a position as we’ve been in for over a century.” The Scotswoman shook her head.

“I’m sorry, but how, exactly, does any of this affect you?” asked Jessamyn.

Cameron Wallace, instead of answering, laughed humorlessly.

Kipper explained. “Shipments of tellurium in forty-year intervals have formed the basis for Clan Wallace’s wealth, infusing all their operations with working capital.”

“I know that,” said Jess. “But if Lucca’s declared a shortage, Cameron should be doing better than ever, given our first delivery and current prices on the stuff.”

Kipper rolled her eyes heavenward. “Your grasp of what is transpiring on Earth is appalling, Jaarda. Lucca has declared that the tellurium supplies are low because inciters stole them.”

Jessamyn felt her face heating once more. It was true, she paid next to no heed to anything having to do with Earth and her politics or economics. Why should she? She just wanted to finish Ethan’s mission and get everyone safely home.

“All of which means,” said Cameron softly, “I daren’t shift even very small amounts at the moment. So, me dears, what I’d like to know is, how much of this did MCC place in motion? And what, exactly, is your government planning in its future relations with Earth and with Clan Wallace?”

The suggestion that MCC might have engineered any of Cameron’s current problems was ludicrous to Jessamyn. She felt flustered and snapped in response. “We just want to be left alone,” she said. “Well, except for a handful of crazies who think we should buddy-up with Earth and her government.” She shot an angry glance at Kipper.

“And those are the crazies who loaded yer crashed transport with tellurium?” demanded Cameron. “Because, if they want to establish trade, they’ve picked a very bad way to go about it. Unless they wish to avoid transacting any business with Clan Wallace after all these years.” The clan leader crossed her substantial arms over her broad chest.

Kipper stood. “No one in a position of authority on Mars right now wishes to end friendly relations with Clan Wallace. And if my idiot brother Cavanaugh wanted to deal with Lucca instead of you, well, no one is going to trust him with so much as a spare pressure suit by the time I’ve aired his dirty laundry for all of Mars to inspect.”

“Is that so?” asked Cameron, her voice considerably cooler. “I take it my fourth cousin Cavanaugh is a bit of a renegade?”

Kipper laughed bitterly. “And a liar. And very nearly a murderer: he tried to destroy the rations’ supply of all Mars Colonial. And he somehow got off the hook for attempting to fill the Red Galleon’s hold with tellurium, which means he must’ve been planning to steal her away,” mused Kipper.

“Aye, well, the fact that the girl here beat him to it would tend to exonerate him. On that last count, anyway,” said Cameron.

Kipper’s face turned pale. “First Officer, please tell me you did not take the ship without permission.”

Jessamyn stared in shock at Cameron. “How did you know about me stealing the ship?”

“Brian tells me things,” said Cameron. “We’re not officially on speaking terms, of course. But we still talk.”

The captain crumpled as if from another of her attacks.

Jess rushed to her side.

“It’s not my head this time,” moaned Kipper.

“I was going to tell you,” Jess said. “But the conversation got hijacked into a discussion of whether or not Mars had it in for Clan Wallace.”

Kipper groaned.

“Mei Lo’s forgiven me,” Jess added. “For what it’s worth.”

“Right then,” said the clan chief. “Gloves are off, as it were. I suggest you tell me what exactly that Secretary of yours has in mind so I can evaluate how it might impact me clan.”

“Hold on,” said Jessamyn. “A few minutes ago you were happy to see your long-lost cousin and offering me whiskey and now we’re, what, adversaries?”

“I wouldn’t put it in those terms,” replied Cameron. “I haven’t popped ye back in the dungeon, now, have I?”

“Are you planning to?” asked Jessamyn, hands on her hips.

Cameron smiled. “Nae, lassie. Settle yerself a bit. I admire ye. I do. For all the reasons I enumerated earlier. And it is my dearest wish to remain upon good terms with Mars Colonial Command. And yer own two selves, naturally. But I’ll be needing a few missing pieces to sort out the puzzle ye’ve presented.”

Jessamyn sighed heavily and seated herself before Cameron’s substantial fire. “Things are bad on Mars just now.”

Cameron laughed softly. “Well, we start on common ground, then, do we not?”

“From what I can tell,” said Jessamyn, “you know pretty much everything already.”

“I don’t know what ye’re doing here,” said Cameron, leaning forward. “Marsians. Here on Earth. Between our agreed-upon intervals of trade.”

Kipper spoke up. “She came back to rescue the Raiders.” Under her breath she muttered, “Impulsive rule-breaker that she is.”

Jess flushed.

“And that’s all?” asked Cameron.

Jessamyn considered her father’s oft-repeated phrase: the truth is the most eloquent persuader of all. But Jess couldn’t be sure Cameron was someone Mei Lo would entrust with her secrets. “It’s all I’m authorized to tell,” said Jess at last.

“Jaarda!” hissed Kipper.

“Nae, cousin,” said Cameron. “Don’t reprimand her.” The clan chief turned to regard Jessamyn. “I’ve a sense just here,” she pointed to her gut, “that ye are no teller of lies. So I’ll ask ye directly, does your world mean to cause harm to me clan with whatever else ye’re up to out there in the desert with Brian?”

“No,” said Jessamyn. “It’s like I said already. We just want to be left to ourselves. Well, most of us, I think. And once Kip has her say about Cavanaugh, I think it will be all of us wanting to be left alone.”

“And coming here twice in the space of two months accomplishes that, how, exactly?” demanded Cameron.

Jess frowned. “I did what I felt I had to do.”

“I see,” said Cameron. “Allow me to voice the clan’s true concern. I thought it odd three months back when none of the Mars Raiders spoke of the next time ye’d be coming to collect rations. Odd and disturbing. Are we finished then, Clan Wallace and MCC?”

“Well,” said Jessamyn, “Given that the goal of the current government is independence, I’d say we might not be back come forty years’ time. We hope to be self-sufficient by then, certainly. But I don’t think anyone on Mars knows for sure when that will happen.”

“I see,” said Cameron, rising. “It would seem I have much to consider. And the two of ye might prefer to be alone as well. Shall we meet again in three hours?”

“Yes,” said Kipper. “A chance to confer with my crew member would be most welcome.”

Jess didn’t think it would be all that nice, but she nodded her agreement as well.

“Jamie, if ye’d see the young ladies to the Rose Suite, please?” said Cameron, exiting the great hall.

“Jessamyn,” said Kipper, as the two followed Jamie down a long, curving hallway, “when they build a cell to hold my brother, they ought to build another one for you. Without a key.”

27

SCOTLAND THE BRAVE

Jessamyn and her former captain found several things to argue about, chief of which was that none of the Mars Raiders had any right to expect to see home again.

“We knew this was a possibility,” said Kipper. “All of us agreed to risk our own lives for the sake of Mars. You should never have come back for us, and you will not bargain on behalf of MCC in order to obtain transport back to Mars.”

“I don’t intend to bargain on behalf of anyone other than myself,” snapped Jessamyn.

“You’re mighty free with your ‘Mars-wants-this’ and ‘Mars-will-do-that’ then, aren’t you? Jessamyn, you are a Mars Raider, not an ambassador representing Mei Lo or the citizens of Mars.”

Jessamyn held her silence, wishing she’d never rescued Kipper.

No, that wasn’t how she felt. She admired Kip and was glad to have her free. Jess just didn’t like hanging around her former captain. And while Jessamyn didn’t believe she’d overstepped any boundaries yet, she couldn’t say she wouldn’t be willing to do so in the future in order to secure a Mars-class transport capable of making the return journey.

Kipper sighed in exasperation. “You will confine your remarks to those you can make as an individual and not as a self-appointed representative of our home world. That’s an order, First Officer.”

A sudden screeching noise outside the deeply set windows of the suite forestalled any answer.

“What in the name of Ares is that?” demanded Kipper, clutching her head in pain.

Jessamyn moved to the window. Outside, in the castle forecourt, she saw a man wearing a plaid skirt and carrying what looked like a pillow with sticks poking out of it. The noise was emanating from the pillow. Removing a mini-wafer from her jacket, Jess held the device outward to face the strange noise and the individual making it. Then she pulled the wafer back to where she could ask a question.

“What is that?”

The wafer returned several answers.

1. An individual PIPER performing upon an instrument known as a bagpipe, traditionally associated with ancient Scotland.

2. The instrument known as a BAGPIPE.

3. A DIRGE, or song played in times of mourning, whether for the loss of an individual or the mourning of a larger disaster.

Once Kip had recovered from her attack, Jessamyn offered a mash-up explanation to her captain’s question. “It’s a piper playing the bagpipes. It’s a Scottish tradition.”

“It sounds like someone’s being murdered,” muttered Kip as she rubbed a spot on her temple.

Jess shrugged. “Someone may have been. The song’s a dirge, my wafer claims. I think it’s rather a nice sound. In a mournful sort of way.”

“Ugh,” called Kipper.

A series of light raps sounded upon the door, followed by the appearance of the person who’d shown them to their rooms earlier.

“If you’ll follow me, the chieftain would like to entertain you for the evening meal,” said Jamie.

“No unauthorized bargaining, Jaarda,” murmured Kip as she rose and exited the suite.

Jessamyn threw her shoulders back and tilted her chin up, but she also made a silent promise to ask herself the question, “What would Harpreet do?” prior to making any requests or deals.

“Well,” said Cameron, as the pair entered the great hall once more, “It’s a sad day for all of us in Madeira, as ye’ll doubtless have noted from the peeps.”

“The, er, bagpipes?” asked Jessamyn. “Is the music a … dirge?”

“Aye. Juan Bautista Flores de Santiago has been reported dead, following decompression sickness.” Cameron snorted in disdain. “Decompression sickness, my grandmother’s knickers. Boy was born with a dive table tattooed on his brain. Seventh-generation diver, mind, lasses. Ah, well.” Cameron took a moment to compose herself. “Thanks for joining me for supper.”

Jessamyn looked about in hopes of pizza, but seeing none, she took a small portion of fish.

“I’m not saying it’s your fault, now,” Cameron said, looking at Jessamyn. “Boy made up his own mind in spite of me warnings. But it stings nonetheless. If that boy died of the bends, then I don’t know my head from my—” The clan chief stopped herself. “Forgive me. I’m that upset about it.”

“In my experience,” said Jess, “when someone says ‘it’s not your fault,’ it’s because something is my fault.”

Cameron sighed heavily. “Well, the Chancellor has laid claim to that broken ship of yers and all its contents. The problem being, the contents are located some five hundred to a thousand feet—er, that’ll be two to three hundred meters—underwater at present. So she’s had to gather a crew of experienced divers, hasn’t she?”

“Who know how to keep secrets, one would presume,” added Jessamyn.

“Aye, lass. Juan signed on to remove or disable underwater mines in the area. The Chancellor’ll not risk the word getting out about the largest find of tellurium in history.”

“Underwater mines?” asked Kipper.

“It’s a reasonable lie,” said Cameron. “The area could easily have been mined against invasion by the nation of Japan a few hundred years back. And neighboring sea beds are farmed for sea urchins. Brezhnaya just had to claim government assistance was needed to make the area safe for farming. I warned Juan it was likely to be the tellurium. And he went anyway.”

Cameron looked close to tears, and the three ate quietly for the space of several minutes. The baleful strains of the piper floated into the castle alongside the clicking of forks on plates.

Cameron spoke again. “The truth is that while I warned Juan, I was also very eager for intelligence from the operation. And now he’s dead. I’ll never know if he died because his reports to me were intercepted or if Lucca just decided he’d seen too much. But I know he didn’t die of decompression sickness.”

“We’re so sorry,” said Kipper, making Jessamyn wish she’d said it first.

Jess had never once worried about the impact of abandoning a ship full of tellurium. But it was her fault, this death. Would others follow?

“I’m beholden to you, then,” said Jessamyn to Cameron. “You’ve lost a friend and your own wealth has been decimated, both because of choices I made.”

Kip looked at her first officer with her brows drawn sharply together, but she said nothing.

“What’s done is done,” said Cameron. She dabbed at her lips and then eyes with a large square of fabric. “If we’re to chase the trail of blame back we must include Cavanaugh and probably some Wallace somewhere who married someone, producing Cavanaugh’s great-great-grandmother. We’re in this together, lass, however much I might like to shift blame.”

“So Lucca is bringing the tellurium up from … the bottom of the ocean?” asked Jess.

“Aye. Unfortunately not quite the ocean bottom. That, even she would find nigh impossible. But there’s an extended underwater plain off the coast where the Galleon landed. It’s called the continental shelf, and the water’s relatively shallow there. A pity the ship didn’t land a few knots further out to sea.”

“I see,” said Jessamyn. “And once Lucca brings up this tellurium, your own holdings—which you can’t trade now—will be worth next to nothing.”

“Obviously,” murmured Kipper.

“Well,” said Cameron, “me own reserves, spread out fine amongst us, might keep the clan afloat, but I don’t like to risk any of them being hauled in as inciters. Lucca’s got me by the short and—hmm, pardon me. My extensive conversations with nautical persons has somewhat roughened a few of my expressions. What I mean to say is the Chancellor’s got me well in her grip and she likely knows it.”

“So why not steal the tellurium yourself?” asked Jessamyn.

Kipper made a choking sort of noise. “Theft is not the answer to every problem, Jaarda.”

“Don’t be angry with her,” Cameron said softly. “I’d considered such a theft, of course. And poor Juan’s paid the price for gathering the intelligence I needed.” Cameron turned to Jessamyn. “The problem is that the Chancellor’s got the proper equipment to haul things up, and I, alas, do not. She’ll have that wreckage hauled up within the next week or so, if Juan had things right.”

“I wonder if Lucca plans to tell the world of her great find or keep it secret?” asked Jessamyn.

“It won’t make a difference to Cameron’s plight,” replied Kipper. “The government won’t need Clan Wallace’s tellurium in either case.”

“It may not matter to Clan Wallace as a whole, but it will matter a great deal to individual divers like Juan,” countered Jess. “If they see something Lucca wants to keep hidden, they’ll all suffer his fate.”

“Too likely,” said Cameron, gloomily.

“The Chancellor won’t want anyone who can spread stories left alive,” agreed Kipper. “I think that much is clear. Her own Red Squadron will be safe, but if she’s hired divers like your friend to do the actual dirty work, it’s a safe bet they’ll all expire from accidents once the Galleon’s been raised.”

“That’s horrible,” murmured Jessamyn, pushing her plate back. She felt a wave of nausea for the chain of events she’d set in motion. “They should be warned,” she said at last.

Cameron shrugged. “The workers are on a barge out at sea. And Red Squadron Forces patrol the barge round the clock. The workers can’t likely swim to safety, not one in ten of ‘em.”

“You have Red Squadron uniforms,” said Jessamyn.

“Lass, I agree it is terrible to consider the probable loss of life in the next weeks, but I dare not send me own military up against Lucca’s Red Squadron for a handful of persons,” said Cameron softly. “I’ve the entire clan to think of. Nearly a million persons look to me for safety, for employment, for steady leadership. The risk isn’t worth the reward.”

“Not even for all that tellurium? If you could get it?”

Cameron shook her head. “If ye’re thinking I could simply abscond with the tellurium, think again. Lucca would declare an all-out war against the clan. Or simply pin us as the inciters who’ve taken the world’s tellurium. That way, she’d not need to do the work of destroying us herself. Ordinary folk would do it for her, like as not.”

Jessamyn frowned. “What if you didn’t steal the tellurium? What if you took control of the barge and towed it out to the deep, dropped it to sink, and then got out of there?”

“Like what the Rasmussen family did with their supposed recycling service,” said Kipper, nodding.

“Exactly!” said Jess, grinning at her captain. “And you could take as many divers with you to freedom as possible.”

“Beg pardon,” said Cameron. “But I’m not familiar with the, em, Rasmussens.”

Jessamyn explained. “There was a family charging exorbitant rates to haul off recyclables, but people paid because recycling is the Marsian way. Then it turned out this family simply shoved the trash off the edge of the Valles Marineris—a very deep canyon—making it impossible to recover the items as well as polluting a beloved landmark.”

“Oh?” said Cameron. “How very … interesting.”

“Exactly! There’s your solution!” exclaimed Jessamyn. “You said the tellurium couldn’t have been salvaged if the Galleon had landed a bit farther out. So, you push the stuff off into the Valles Marineris. As it were.”

Cameron rose and began pacing the length of the great hall, muttering to herself as she measured the length of the great hall in long-legged strides. “Jamie?” she called after a minute. “Would ye ask the piper to play something a bit brighter? ‘Scotland the Brave,’ perhaps?”

Jamie nodded and left the room.

Cameron turned back to the two sitting at the table and reseated herself, placing both elbows on the table. “Right. So ye say me red armor’s flawed?” she asked of Kipper.

The captain nodded.

“And ye can assist me in the conversion of the, eh, helmet-seals, was it?”

Kipper nodded once more. “I can provide you with the corrected design. It’s not a difficult fix at all.”

“Excellent,” replied the clan chief. “And speaking of fixing things, I’d like to propose ye allow me personal physician to look at that head of yours.”

Kipper’s brows drew together. “Ruchenko told me it was inoperable—”

“The good doctor wasn’t exactly motivated to make ye free to live an ordinary life, was he?”

A smile had appeared on Kip’s pale face. “I was about to add that he used to make jokes about my condition and what good luck it was for him. I’d welcome a second opinion.”

Jessamyn stood, and, hands on her hips, addressed Cameron. “It seems to me that providing a bit of surgery is hardly fair compensation for what Kip and I have just offered. Between the two of us, we’ve just suggested how you can effectively destroy Lucca’s access to that tellurium. Your clan will be safe; you’ll be an immensely wealthy leader once more.”

“Aye, lass, if all goes well. What sort of reward did ye have in mind?”

“An M-class ship would be acceptable,” said Jessamyn, crossing her arms.

“Would it now?” Cameron laughed aloud. “Oh, ye’re a feisty one. I like that, I do.”

Jessamyn’s hands returned to her hips—the equivalent of a skinny cat puffing out its fur to look larger. “So, will you throw in an M-class ship?”

Cameron’s visage sobered. “Not for this, lass. I’ll give ye a ship upon one condition and one condition only.”

“Name it,” demanded Jessamyn.

“Ye spoke of the cessation of trade between our worlds. I’m not going to say I like that. Not at all. Our clan has been a good and true friend to MCC for nearly two hundred years. We’ve supplied ye right through the war, when it might have cost us all our lives. Every last member of the clan stands at risk for what we’ve done upon the Isle of Skye.” Cameron paused, allowing the sound of the piper’s brave song to swell and fill the hall.

As the last notes died out, the clan chief spoke again. “I’ll not part with a ship for anything less than a promise that ye’ll make two more visits to our world, trading tellurium for ration bars or whatever it is ye may need in yer independent future.”

Kipper spoke up. “Jess, you are absolutely not authorized to make this sort of bargain.”

Jessamyn turned upon her captain. “I’ll mine the tellurium myself, if I have to. And I’ll pilot alone as well. And manufacture the fuel by myself if MCC won’t supply it. It’s my choice to make, by Hades!”

“And how are you going to do all of this from prison?” demanded Kipper. “Because the moment you set foot on Mars again, you’ll be locked up.”

Jessamyn paled and seemed to deflate.

“There, now, ladies,” interjected Cameron. “There, now. Let’s all calm ourselves, shall we?” She looked from Jess to Kipper and back again.

Jessamyn sank once more into her seat at the table. “Kip’s right,” she said to Cameron. “I can’t promise I’ll be free to carry out what you are asking for. I’m under arrest in absentia.” She placed her elbows on the table and cradled her face. She had nothing more to offer. She was stuck on Earth. She would not return the Raiders to Mars. And it was all her fault.

“Well, lass,” said Cameron, softly. “I can see ye’d like to help me if ye are able. And ye have the CEO’s ear. Will ye swear to do all in yer power to further trade between Clan Wallace and yer world so long as ye have breath in ye?”

Jessamyn turned her gaze to her captain.

“There’s nothing objectionable in that,” admitted Kipper.

But was there? Was Jess willing to commit herself to trade with Earth? That was what Cavanaugh wanted, wasn’t it? She hesitated. No, what Cavanaugh wanted was a prosperous Mars that had long-term ties to the Terran government. This was different. It was only lengthening the status quo by two more raids.

Jessamyn had made a promise to return the Mars Raiders to their home world. She couldn’t do that without a ship. And if getting a ship meant entering into a promise to speak up about Clan Wallace’s reliance on tellurium, well, that was very different from trying to set up ongoing trade with the Terran government.

“Two more deliveries, you say?” Jessamyn asked.

Cameron nodded. “To give me time to transition to where we need no longer rely upon the influx of tellurium. If MCC were to cut us off cold, lass, well, does it not seem a bit harsh to ye?”

Jessamyn nodded. “It does. I don’t think anyone of Mars thought of what the consequences would be to your clan. And you have saved us from starvation many times over. We owe you this much, and I will make it my sworn duty to persuade the powers that be of the truth of your claim upon us.”

Jessamyn felt it in her gut. It was what Harpreet would do.

28

HOPE

But when it came time to make the acquaintance of the M-class ship, Jessamyn discovered news most unwelcome.

“The engines will have been altered, naturally,” said Cameron Wallace. “In order to prevent interplanetary travel.”

Jessamyn stared at the Chieftain in dismay. “You’re giving me a ship that won’t get me home?”

“I’m giving ye a ship in need of some alterations,” said Cameron. “And I’ll load the parts ye’ll be needing in the hold. Anyone with a remotely mechanical bone in their body can do the work required. But I suggest holding off until the time comes to launch. The deep space engines leave a signature in their wake that would set off alarms and get ye shot out of the sky. Or worse.”

Hope and frustration competed inside Jess, and she stuffed her hands deep into her pockets. It wasn’t a perfect, functional ship, but with some work, it would get the Raiders home.

“So I’m leaving the engines be for now,” continued Cameron. “Don’t want to bring Lucca’s pets sniffing around to see what Clan Wallace is up to, now do I?” Darkly, she added, “I leave that to me cousin Brian.”

“Cameron’s absolutely right,” said Kipper. “The Chancellor’s been pushing new legislation to bring the ban on flying down to one hundred kilometers. Sending an M-class with interplanetary capabilities into airspace in the current political climate would be foolish.”

Jess had no choice but to agree. She couldn’t risk drawing the attention of the Terran government again.

“She mostly leaves us be, those of us with actual power outside her control,” continued Cameron. “So long as we play by certain rules. One of which is, don’t attempt space travel. She’s no fool. She knows where tellurium’s to be found, and she’ll suffer no one but her own self to go after it once she truly runs out.”

“But MCC’s sent how many missions here in the last century?” asked Jess. “Without bringing ruin to your clan—”

“That remains to be seen,” said Cameron, glowering. “Thanks to me fool cousin, Clan Wallace is very prominently on the Chancellor’s radar.”

Jess felt color rushing to her face. “Cameron, there’s something you should know. That wasn’t your cousin’s fault. It was mine. The Chancellor’s only after Brian Wallace because she wants me.”

“Jessamyn drugged and stabbed the Chancellor in the course of completing the mission,” added Kipper, drily.

“Did ye really?” asked Cameron. “Well, well, lass. That’s something Brian left out. Ye’re a bold one. But I beg to differ a wee bit: no matter what ye might have done to her, the Chancellor wants more than just some red-haired inciter. She wants her nephew back as well. Her nephew last seen in the company of me cousin, Brian.”

Cameron crossed her arms as if to begin anew her rant against him, but then she sighed and shook her head. “This has gone on long enough. I’m behaving like a child. Would ye tell Brian from me that I’m willing to let bygones be bygones if he is?”

“Of course,” replied Jessamyn.

“Is he well, then?” asked Cameron. “It’s hard for me to imagine me cousin without his wee goats and his orchids. I don’t suppose he raises them in the desert, does he?”

Jess shook her head, No. “But he has friends,” said Jessamyn, thinking of Brian laughing with Renard and Pavel. “Oh, that reminds me. I’m going to need to buy a small craft. I, er, misplaced one in Budapest.”

Jess then offered the kilo of tellurium she’d carried with her, but Cameron wouldn’t take it.

“Don’t be silly, lass. Yer metal’s worthless here.”

Later that afternoon, Cameron Wallace’s physician examined Kipper. A surgeon as well, Dr. Campbell was easily Ruchenko’s superior. But like Ruchenko, Dr. Campbell agreed Kipper’s outcome would be difficult to predict. Surgery might provide relief, or it might not.

But upon one point, Dr. Campbell stood firm.

“She needs four weeks to recover. And not in some forsaken desert. I must insist she be allowed to recuperate here, where her every need can be anticipated.”

“She needs to rejoin her crew,” insisted Jessamyn.

Here the doctor turned to Jess. “Can your community provide ‘round-the-clock care in a state-of-the-art facility?”

“No,” said Jessamyn. “But we have a … person who has hospital training among us.”

“Oh, well, hospital training,” said Cameron’s physician, shrugging. “It’s your funeral, I suppose.”

“Thank you, Dr. Campbell,” said Kipper, intervening. “You’ve given me a great deal to think about. We’ll need some time to talk things through.”

The surgeon nodded and departed.

“Kip, we can’t sit around here for a month doing nothing. There’s work to do back home. Back in Yucca, I mean. I can’t just sit here watching you recover.”

"I don’t think that would be good, either.”

“You’re giving up on the surgery then?” Now Jessamyn felt a pinch of guilt.

“No, but I think you should go back to Yucca without me.”

Jessamyn considered the idea. And then it struck her that her reasons for wanting to bring Kipper back were rather unattractive. Her first impulse was to keep this realization to herself. But after several moments of silence, she decided to admit aloud what she'd been thinking.

“I wanted to bring you back like a … like a prize or something,” said Jess, her voice quiet with embarrassment. “Guess I just wish I could break my streak of trying to do the right thing and screwing it up. And bringing you back to Yucca would've felt like proof I'm capable of getting things right for a change.”

“Hmm,” said Kipper.

“I'm sure you can’t relate to anything that petty,” said Jess, keeping her voice low.

“You’d be wrong to think so,” Kip said, her own voice soft, her cheeks flushing. “When you told me the other day that Mars regards me as a ‘planetary treasure,’ I shrugged like it was no big deal. But to be honest, it's everything I ever wanted: Cassondra Kipling, planetary treasure. I used to dream about it.”

Jess looked up, half a smile on her face. “We all thought you dreamed of being Secretary General.”

“Oh, sure,” said Kipper. “But only because it would give me that same status—that certainty of having become someone important. Someone who mattered to Mars.”

“It’s not the same once it’s actually happened, though, is it?” asked Jessamyn.

Kipper shook her head. “The past weeks, working with those who suffer—and knowing suffering myself—everything’s changed. I don’t know if it would have changed without the pain, though. Honestly, I think I would’ve been as eager as you to get back to Mars with all of you in tow like some sort of trophies I could parade around.”

Jess laughed softly. “Who’d have thought we were so alike, underneath it all?”

Kipper smiled. “I’m honored to be like you in any small way.”

“Oh, Kipper,” said Jess. “You can’t mean that.” And then she started crying, because she knew, without her captain having to say it again, that Kipper meant it.

It was a watershed moment for the two, and as they sat, Jess felt her heart swell with a new appreciation for her captain.

“Things have changed so much,” said Jess at last.

“And so fast,” added Kipper.

“Kip, I’d like to ask you to make that video … denouncing your brother … before you undergo surgery. Just in case—”

“Of course,” replied Kipper. “I’ll get that done and you can take it to your brother.”

“Thank you.” Jessamyn felt a weight lift from her shoulders.

“You know, you’re very lucky, having a brother like Ethan.”

Jess frowned. “I thought you didn’t like Ethan.”

Kipper shrugged. “Guess you’re not the only one who had some growing up to do.”

The two finished their tête-à-tête agreeing that Kipper should undergo surgery, and they relayed their plans to Cameron.

Within the hour, Jess stood beside her new ship, ready to depart, Kipper’s message to Mars safely recorded in Marsperanto.

“Well, I suppose this is farewell, then,” said Cameron. “To you, anyway, Pilot Jaarda. Cassondra must, of course, remain with me until we’ve got her patched up and sorted.”

Cameron turned to Kipper. “I can keep ye safe here. We must authenticate yer death back at the hospital, of course, and offer compensation to that doctor of yours. Fortunately, he’ll be motivated to cooperate and call it death and not disappearance, won’t he?”

Cameron smiled brightly and Kip nodded in agreement.

Jess looked solemnly at Cameron. “Do the best you can to get her well again.”

“I’ll do all that can be done,” replied Cameron.

As she climbed aboard the M-class, Jessamyn’s heart lifted. The clean lines of the ship were so familiar—so like the Galleon and the Dawn. But that was nothing compared to how she felt seated in the pilot’s hot seat. There was a great deal of hollering and shouting heard in the cockpit, which the ship kept to herself. Jessamyn flew back over Greenland, Hudson Bay, and Canada, heading into sunset.

“Red Hope,” said Jessamyn as the sun flared blood-red, sinking in the west. “That’s what I’m calling you, my beauty. Red Hope.”

29

I DON’T CRASH EVERYTHING I FLY

An hour later, Jessamyn descended silently to one side of the settlement, lodging her new craft in an old blast crater. Night had fallen hours ago and the desert was still as she made land. Walking back to the Gopher Hole, Jess wondered if her brother might still be awake. But as she took in deep breaths of the clean desert smell, she admitted it was Pavel she most wanted to see right now.

Perhaps this was becoming home, she thought, wherever Pavel was. Aphrodite, but she’d missed him.

Moments later, she awoke Pavel with a warm kiss. “Come outside,” she whispered. She could hear her brother’s even breath on the bunk above Pavel’s.

The two moved quietly outside, hands held. Pavel’s grip was tight, as though to keep Jess from ever again leaving.

“I’ve missed you,” she said once they’d paced several meters from the stairs.

“Where’s Kipper? What happened?”

“I left her in Madeira—”

“Madeira?” asked Pavel.

“Yes,” she answered. “I paid a visit to Cameron Wallace. Who wants to be friends with Brian again, by the way.”

“Good news,” said Pavel, chuckling. “But how’s the patient doing? The transportation went without mishap?”

“Kipper’s fine,” Jess replied. “She wasn’t in a coma anymore. She was Nurse Cassondra, like I thought. Oh, Pavel, I’m so glad I went.”

“I’m a whole lot gladder you came back,” murmured Pavel.

Jess felt her skin warming with delight.

“She’s injured, though,” said Jess. “Her physician gave her the choice of working at his hospital or paying a visit to Lucca for interrogation.”

Pavel whistled softly. “That was a bold move on his part.”

“Apparently, he was badly understaffed.” Jess frowned. “Well, he is badly understaffed again, now. But Cameron Wallace promised to compensate him and assist in ‘authenticating death,’ if that phrase means anything to you.”

“It means Aunt Lucca will believe the patient died before coming out of her coma,” said Pavel. “That was terrific thinking on Cameron’s part. So Kipper’s not dead and she’s safe from Lucca. Why didn’t she come back with you?”

Jess explained about Kipper’s choice to seek relief from her attacks.

Pavel shook his head. “She made the right decision. All I could have offered would’ve been pain meds. I’m no brain surgeon.”

“I have something else to tell you about, too,” she said as they approached the blast crater. “Something I think you’ll really, really like.” Her voice had risen in pitch and now she sounded like a child about to open a birthday present.

“Let me guess: you wrecked Renard’s ship and had to find him something new,” said Pavel.

“Pavel,” said Jess, punching his shoulder. “I don’t crash everything I fly. But, yes, there was an … incident. Renard’s ship was stolen. And yes, as it happens, I did get him something nicer than what he had. But his new ship is, well, it’s sort of hiding inside the thing I want to show you.”

“You want to show me the blast crater?” asked Pavel.

“Nope,” said Jessamyn. “Guess again.”

“Should I be jealous you brought Renard a present and not me?”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Jessamyn. “What I’m showing you is for you, sort of, if you’re still interested in going to Mars with me.”

“That hasn’t changed,” said Pavel.

As he spoke, they reached a point where the tip of the M-class ship could be identified in the moon’s light.

Pavel inhaled sharply. “Shizer, Jessamyn. Is that what it looks like to me?”

Jess squeezed his hand. “You can see why I’m not giving this one to Renard.”

Pavel’s head shook slowly back and forth as they approached the crater.

“Careful,” said Jess. “The floor’s uneven.”

Pavel stepped forward and began making his way down inside the crater. “She’s huge … I don’t believe it. This is impossible. Jess, she’s beautiful.”

“I’m calling her Red Hope. Do you like it?”

“The name? Perfect. The ship? Beyond amazing.” Pavel’s hands flew to his head and he ran his hands back and forth through his hair several times rapidly. “What body part did you have to sell to get this ship?”

“Disgusting!” Jess said, punching his shoulder again. “I promised Cameron Wallace that I’d make a pitch to MCC to keep the tellurium coming for at least two more runs. Mars Colonial hasn’t really considered the impact it will have on Clan Wallace when we stop coming back for ration bars.”

“Jessamyn,” said Pavel, his voice suddenly urgent, “please tell me this doesn’t have operational interplanetary engines—my aunt’s government looks for signatures from that kind of engine. We could be an hour away from Armageddon!”

“Relax,” said Jessamyn. “No interplanetary drives. Well, there are some in the hold next to Renard’s replacement ship so that we can install them someday.”

“Good.” Pavel’s shoulders dropped down from where they’d crept up to his ears. “Sorry for the freak out. Of course Cameron Wallace would’ve known about the engines. I just … I worried a lot while you were gone. About my aunt, and what she knows or guesses. I mean, there’s no way she hasn’t figured out Mars is still alive and kicking what with the Galleon crashing in the Pacific.”

Jessamyn nodded. “Ethan said as much. He’s got programs monitoring the airspace within fifteen-hundred kilometers of here so we get a warning if she figures out where I went.”

“It wouldn’t be much of a warning,” said Pavel.

His dark eyes met hers, the moon casting light upon his face. Jess found his hands at her side and wound her fingers with his.

“I was scared,” said Pavel. “While you were gone. I was scared I wouldn’t ever see you again.”

He leaned forward until their foreheads just touched.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he said.

Her face cast a shadow upon his now and she couldn’t make out his expression. She let out a heavy sigh and placed her arms around Pavel’s waist. His hands slid gently down her spine and rested in the small of her back. Like they belonged there. Jess felt the warmth from each digit, the more solid warmth from the flat of his palm. She wondered if she could make out his pulse if they stood still like this long enough. She wanted this moment, a girl from Mars embracing a boy from Earth beneath the Terran moon, to stretch into an infinity of moments, without an ending, without a parting.

“I can’t promise I won’t do something like that again,” said Jessamyn at last. “It’s who I am, Pavel.”

“Next time take me with you,” said Pavel.

Jessamyn smiled. “We’ll talk,” she agreed, her face tilted up to the great ship.

“So show me your ship, Captain Jess.”

“I’m not a captain,” she replied, flushing. “And this might sound weird, but can we just sit out here a few minutes? I want … I just want …”

“Of course,” said Pavel. “I want to take it all in, too. She’s so beautiful with the moon on her like that.”

By unspoken consent, they sank to the desert floor to admire the great ship.

Pavel’s hand felt warm as he traced his fingers along the curve of Jessamyn’s cheek, brushing stray hairs behind her ear.

“Now tell me everything about your trip while we look at your beautiful M-class,” said Pavel. “I want the long version, this time.”

And so she told him all she could recall, as the moon moved steadily west until it sank from sight behind Mount San Gorgonio.

“It’s dark,” she said at last, when she’d finished her tale.

“It’s late,” Pavel replied, lacing his fingers through hers.

“So tell me what I missed in Yucca.”

Pavel grunted a small laugh. “You mean other than everyone who cares about you freaking out over your departure?”

Jessamyn smiled.

“Well, you missed an evacuation drill,” he added. “That was obnoxious, waking up to sirens in the wee hours, clambering I-have-no-idea-how-far underground.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Oh, and there’s a bit of sad news, too. Gran Odessa disappeared and she’s been declared deceased. There will be a memorial for her tomorrow—well, tonight,” Pavel said, gesturing to the east where dawn painted faded greys over the inky black of night.

“Oh, no,” said Jessamyn. She thought of Gran’s attempt to make certain Jess would always have a home. “She was kind to me even though she barely knew me.” Jess let out a soft sigh of regret. “I guess I’ll have to make sure I show Renard how to find that lichen, now. Seeing as I’m not staying here once Mars gets close.” Jess felt an odd mixture of regret and anticipation within her. “It’s too good to be true, you know. The ship, I mean. Mars, Pavel. This means I can go home.”

“I told you, remember? No way you’re stuck here the rest of your life.”

“I know. But this makes it so much more real. She flies like a dream, Pavel, even keeping her down low like you said.”

“I can get those deep-space engines installed easy, when it’s time,” said Pavel. “If Renard loans me some tools, I can help you give the ship a proper once-over, right now.” Pavel’s words trailed off as he looked up at the ship.

Jessamyn, rising, tugged at Pavel’s hand. “We’ve got plans to make!” she said, her face split wide in a grin. “Come have a look inside.”

Jess gave Pavel a swift tour through the habitation level and the hold, pausing to run her fingers over the five escape pods locked in place.

“Don’t think about it,” murmured Pavel. “Everything worked out in the end.”

She nodded, her eyes solemn. “Everything worked out.”

“We should get back,” said Pavel at last.

Together, they worked to open the large hatch that would allow Jess to drive Renard’s replacement craft out of the Red Hope’s belly. The sun had risen by the time they hovered out of the blast crater together.

“Time for breakfast?” asked Jess.

“Time for morning rations,” Pavel replied, grinning.

30

MELANCHOLY

Pavel and Jessamyn’s plans for a shared morning meal were interrupted before they could step inside the Gopher Hole.

A young woman jogged toward them, a tool belt jangling noisily at her waist. “Doc Pavel? Pearl would like you to come by and see after her new girl-baby if you can.”

Pavel squeezed Jessamyn’s hand and whispered to her, “I’m everyone’s first choice with Gran gone. It’s keeping me busy.”

Pavel followed the woman, leaving Jess to make her own way back to their dwelling. The sun blared down and Jessamyn raised a hand to shield her eyes. Everything was brown, brown, brown as far as she could see. But it didn’t look like home. There were too many growing things. The odd Joshua trees punctuated the view almost as if each knew exactly how far it ought to be spaced from its nearest neighbor. Like housing outside New Houston, she mused. You didn’t want to be too far from your nearest neighbor in the event of an emergency, but Marsians didn’t like packing in close as a rule either. How she missed the homely site of round dwellings scattered about her own.

Sighing, she made her way down the stairs and into her adopted home.

“Hello?” she called.

When no one answered, a wave of exhaustion rolled over her. She didn’t want to think about how long she’d been awake. With no assigned task to complete, Jess fell into her bunk and slept away most of the day, rising at last just as the sun was setting outside.

“Hades, it’s hot here,” she said to Harpreet as she shuffled into the common room. “I thought deserts were cold.”

Harpreet laughed softly. “Not upon this world, daughter.” She held out a cup of the tea that kept Yuccans from suffering radiation sickness. “Welcome home.”

Jess took the cup. “Ugh. Hot. Gets any hotter here and I’m shaving my head,” she muttered as she blew on the tea.

Harpreet laughed softly, a gentle sound in the harsh land. “I will not dissuade you, but I can teach you to arrange your hair to keep it off your neck. I believe your young friend Pavel is rather fond of that red mane of yours.”

Jess flushed.

“He’s a good man, that one,” said Harpreet. “You could do much worse, even upon Mars Colonial.”

“I know,” said Jessamyn, a tiny smile playing upon her features.

“Let us go outside, daughter. It is no cooler, but there is a breeze.”

The two took their cups of tea and ascended the stairs, crossing out onto the desert floor. It felt several degrees warmer, but when the breeze passed over them, Jessamyn smiled.

“Oh, that’s lovely,” she said.

Harpreet nodded in agreement. “I don’t know that I’ll ever grow tired of the sensation of air moving across my skin. I once hoped to live long enough to enjoy a breeze upon Mars.”

“Pavel told everyone about the ship, right?” asked Jessamyn.

“Yes, daughter,” said the old woman. “I shall have to make a difficult decision some seventeen or eighteen months from now.”

Jess ran her boot through the sand at her feet. “Surely not that difficult.” She felt very homesick as soon as she’d spoken the words and had to blink back a few tears.

Harpreet turned her gentle eyes to look at Jessamyn. “Daughter?” she said softly.

“I don’t like living here,” said Jess. “I don’t want to be a citizen of Yucca. I’m a citizen of Mars.” She laughed harshly. “I don’t want to keep secret recipes for people. I don’t want any of this.”

Harpreet sipped her tea.

An evening starred twinkled into visibility. Followed by another and another and another.

“The stars aren’t even right here,” Jessamyn said, sighing. “Why do they wriggle like that?”

“It is called ‘twinkling,’” replied Harpreet. “I rather enjoy it. You will have to ask your brother as to the ‘why’ of it, however. He explained it to me once but I’ve forgotten.”

“Twinkling stars are wrong,” Jessamyn insisted, remembering the stillness of the beacons of the Marsian night sky.

“Tell me, daughter, what is it that makes you melancholy this evening?”

Jessamyn felt a wash of homesickness. Tears collected behind her eyes and she tried to blink them back.

Harpreet’s question hung in the still of the evening air.

Jessamyn whispered, “It seems like such a long time to wait.”

Harpreet nodded. “The time will pass, daughter. It is a little nothing. It only seems to you a long while because your annums are so few in number.”

For once in her life, Jess didn’t feel angry for having been called young. When she considered her own store of experience and wisdom against that of the woman beside her, she found herself lacking.

“This last trip to get Kipper—” Tears brimmed in Jessamyn’s eyes and she choked out a confession. “I nearly ruined everything, Harpreet. Like I always do. It doesn’t matter how good my intentions are, I just keep flying right into the next storm.”

“Child, there are people back home, sitting down to evening rations tonight, who would beg to differ with your assessment that you bring only ruin. Mars Colonial has enough food to last until the first rains fall, if all goes well. That was your doing, daughter.”

“I just want to quit making mistakes. If I could maybe see them coming, even, that would be a nice change. I just wish I could be more like you.” The tears spilled out. “Oh, Harpreet, why couldn’t I just leave well enough alone. What have I done? What will it cost Mei Lo? Or Mars?”

Harpreet placed a gentle arm around Jessamyn’s shoulder as she looked up at Mars, newly come to view. “That remains to be seen, dear one.”

31

WOULD KNOW THE DIFFERENCE

It was Jessamyn’s second bonfire in Yucca in as many weeks as a resident. She wondered where they found so much material to burn.

“Best not to inquire too carefully,” said Harpreet in response. “Although it is a remarkable accomplishment to render the substance completely odor-free.”

Jessamyn blinked, turned her head away, and dropped the subject.

Renard sat with his foster parents and foster brother about a quarter of the circle away from where Jess sat with Pavel and her Marsian crew. Among the adults, the mood was more somber than at the previous gathering. Children ran as before, willy-nilly about the blaze. When the small ones were called for and gathered together, Jess thought at first they were being reprimanded. Instead they began to sing.

With a sharp pang, Jess remembered the groups of singing schoolchildren at the Festival of Singing Ice upon Mars. The children of Yucca chanted a roundel, the eldest girls leading off in clear soprano tones that seemed to Jessamyn what the stars would sound like if they had voices. A group of boys followed the girls, voices nearly as high, some singing an octave above their fellows. The final group comprised the youngest, a blend of boys and girls whose earnest faces and missing teeth made Jessamyn want to laugh and clap hands.

The voices ascended with sparks from the fire, leading and following, echoing and repeating, until finally the oldest girls dropped out, and then the oldest boys, and finally only the youngest voices remained. One very small boy didn’t notice the signal to finish the round with his peers and sang a final verse alone, trailing off and then giggling in embarrassment when two other small boys poked him repeatedly.

It was sweet and innocent and made Jessamyn’s heavy heart lighten. As the children resumed dancing about the fire or returned to the warm embrace of parents, Jess heard a new sound. And if the sound of the children’s voices had been the murmur stars should sing, then these notes, drawn and low and edged with longing, would be the sound galaxies made as they spun through the eons.

“The cellist does not often perform,” Ethan said to his sister. “He is gifted.”

Along her arms, along her neck, Jessamyn felt every hair rise in response to the beauty of the music. A chill ran from her extremities toward her heart in a swift rush. She recognized the piece—some Earth music had survived the anti-Terran sentiment of the last century because it was simply too good to remain under a ban.

“Bach,” murmured her brother. “The Cello Suite Number One.”

Jessamyn lost herself in the soothing notes and her eyes drifted shut. She could be anywhere. On Earth or Mars or on a ship wandering between them. She felt like a thread spun fine and thin—as though she floated upon and among infinitudes of space. Gliding upon the music recalled to her the sense of limitlessness she’d known standing on the observation deck, watching the ponderous dance of the galaxy as it coiled about her.

And then a breeze gentled past, causing her to notice sudden wetness upon her face. Her eyes opened and the moment fled. She was simply Jessamyn sitting beside a fire in a place that was not home.

The cellist finished playing, and in ones and twos, citizens of Yucca stood to honor the remembrance of their missing friend. Jessamyn had been to memorials and funerals and life-celebrations on Mars: death crouched, ever-hungry, on her home world. There, as here, people felt their way through loss along differing paths. Some spent tears, some told jokes, some honored the departed in silence and some in speech.

Upon recognizing the voice of Renard, she looked up from the glowing fire.

“I spoke with Gran just five days ago,” he was saying. “She seemed confused at times and then angry with herself when she couldn’t answer a question I posed. She seemed to know her time on Earth was drawing to a close. I think what I’ll miss most is seeing her, outlined against the night sky, puffing away on that pipe, telling me to get back in the house.”

He smiled and looked down, scuffing a foot along the ground. “Some of you will remember I was quite a trouble-maker after I lost my parents. Well, Gran never lost hope that I’d outgrow some of those anti-social behaviors, and I guess I have her to thank that I did.”

Soft laughter made its way around the fire. Renard watched the fire for a moment where it flickered red and green and gold before continuing.

“Gran made an odd request that last time I saw her. She said she didn’t care what became of her flesh after she’d departed, but she wanted me to carry her cloak and her pipe to Mount San Jacinto where I was to burn them and scatter the ashes.” He held the items aloft and a sigh passed through the crowd.

“I’ll take the journey with you,” offered a voice.

Renard looked up, shaking his head. “No, no,” he said. “She insisted I travel alone. On foot. I just wanted to say I’ll be off soon to carry out her last wishes.”

A low murmur rustled through the gathering as Renard took his seat once more. He ruffled the hair of young Samuel, his foster-sibling, winking at him. A few more people stood to make remarks, and one read a bit of poetry, and then the gathering was concluded.

Renard walked over to Pavel and Jess and the others.

“So, Jess, you’ll need to keep Pavel racing-ready for when I get back, okay?” asked Renard. “I’ll be on foot, so feel free to borrow my vehicle. Oh, wait, you already feel free, don’t you?”

Jess felt her cheeks flushing with color. “I’m sorry about—”

“Just kidding!” Renard said, cutting her off. “No hard feelings. I love the new ride. Folks around here have been known to forget to ask when they borrow something. It’s the Yuccan way of life.”

“Hey,” said Pavel, “Jess and I were wondering if we could borrow a few tools for the big ship.”

“Big ship?” Renard asked, puzzled.

“Oh, no,” said Jess, remembering. “You can’t leave yet. You haven’t seen what I flew back in.”

Renard frowned. “I’m sorry. It’ll have to wait. I need to make fifteen kilometers tonight.”

“You’re sure you have to do this on foot?” asked Jess. “It’s not like Gran will know the difference.”

Renard smiled softly. “I would know the difference.”

“You take care out there, man,” said Pavel, offering a handshake. “We’ll see you in what, a week-ish?”

“Yup,” said Renard. “Assuming nothing wild eats me for lunch along the way.”

His easy laughter fluttered behind him in the night air as he strode into darkness.

32

NOT MY PROBLEM

Renard hummed as he walked east toward the mountains. Forty kilometers there and forty back. During his three days sojourn in the desert prior to becoming a full citizen of Yucca, he’d managed the same distance. He knew better than to attempt much during daylight. Fifteen kilometers between 2:00 AM and 7:00AM, then a two hours nap, then five kilometers more if he could manage it. That would get him to Mount San Jacinto in two days. He could move more swiftly when it was light enough to see clearly, but he would run out of water if he tried. Best to move at a slow pace during the cool hours and sleep during the hot days.

He didn’t expect to see anyone. Certainly he’d met nothing more interesting than a pair of amorous roadrunners on his previous visits to the mountain. So he was very surprised to awaken from his early morning nap to find a ship—a quite flashy ship—nestled at the base of some rising ground not far from where he’d lain down to sleep.

A smallish light-haired man stood to one side of the ship, hurling stones and insults at the hulking thing. Renard’s first impulse was to remain hidden, and he did so. But after an hour of listening to the man—clearly city-born—shouting at the ship, the sky, the hawks, and snakes, Renard began to feel a twinge of guilt. And he certainly wasn’t getting any rest with all the noise. The city-bred fool didn’t know to stay out of the mid-morning sun. He might die if no one came for him soon. Or if he didn’t have water.

“Not my problem,” muttered Renard, rolling over and placing an arm over his exposed ear. But then he thought of his own parents. Had someone said not my problem and passed them by all those years ago? And they’d had desert-smarts. They’d had a fighting chance. Groaning inwardly, Renard sat upright. Someone really ought to tell the little man that shouting while standing in the desert sun would make you severely dehydrated. Renard stared at his water skin. He had enough to share. Enough to give away the entire amount so long as he was willing to hike up and in to one of the small lakes he knew of.

He sighed, rose, and approached the stranger.

“Howdy,” said Renard, one hand loose at his side, the other offering his water skin. “You thirsty?”

The small man extended an elegant hand, grasped the offered water with long, narrow fingers. “Gaspar Bonaparte,” he said. “Most grateful.” He took several swallows from the skin.

“I’m Renard,” said Renard. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

Gaspar smiled. “Oh, no. No, no, no. But I’m thinking of making an extended visit to the area.” His smile grew to a grin as he removed a weapon from his pocket.

33

MAKE A LOUSY MARSIAN

The next morning, Pavel, armed with Renard’s tools, set out with Jessamyn to assess the state of the Mars-class ship Red Hope. Jess pulled up a system’s check manual from the ops station, her mind touching briefly upon memories of Crusty as she did so. Pavel sounded confident, but Jess wondered how much he could actually do. And what, exactly, needed to be done.

“It flies, obviously,” said Jess, scanning through the headings and sub-headings of ship’s systems in the manual. “But there are a lot of moving parts here …” Her voice trailed off. How she wished Crusty were here to give the ship a proper once-over.

“Relax,” said Pavel. “I used to build ships from scrap before my volunteer hours in hospitals started piling up. It’ll be fun. And we’ve got, what, over a year, right?”

“Yup.” Jessamyn’s mouth pinched a bit.

“Is that a … pout?” Pavel laughed.

“It’s just, I never trained to do anything but a preflight check. Even on Mars, we have people who specialize in what you’re talking about doing. I’m … ignorant.”

Pavel shrugged. “I’ll get you up to speed. Think of all the fun we’ll have. I can teach you how to evaluate the simpler systems, and you’re obviously good at running through preflight.”

Jess felt color rising to her cheeks. She’d been reprimanded—often—for “hazardous attitudes” during preflight planning dispatches back home.

“We ran through all the obvious things back on Madeira,” she said.

“The ship looks great,” admitted Pavel, seated at ops.

“I think we should make a list of systems that won’t have been in use on Earth,” said Jessamyn. “Things that will be critical on an interplanetary run.” She could think of three without blinking. “Like oxygen supply, air filtration systems, and fuel tank capacity.”

Pavel shrugged. “Those sound pretty critical. You want to suggest where we start?”

“They’re all important. But I think we’re good on fuel capacity, now that I think about it. Cameron’s flight personnel said to me the fuel tanks for long-distance hauls were oversized and that they were surprised no one had tried to remove them. They said the ship must’ve been intended for carrying heavy loads off-world.”

“So we should be good on fuel capacity, then,” said Pavel.

“Yeah,” replied Jess. “We can skip the tanks for now. Let’s start with a look at air filtration. You wouldn’t believe what can grow aboard a ship on a long trip.” She shuddered. “And I imagine death by lung-rot would be quite a bit more painful than drifting off to sleep without oxygen.”

But when they went to investigate the state of the air filtration unit, it was missing.

“Gone,” said Pavel, pointing to the empty space behind the overhead panels Jess had removed. “How stupid is that?”

“It’s more important for longer journeys,” said Jess. “Cameron said this ship had been grounded for years.”

“Hmmph,” said Pavel. “Well, I’ve still got connections and contacts for parts.”

“No,” said Jess. “No way are you showing your face where someone could recognize you as Brezhnaya’s-nephew-who-fixes-ships-for-fun.”

“I don’t have to go anywhere in person. I’ll have Kazuko place the order if you’re so worried about it.”

Jessamyn crossed her arms. “I just don’t want anything to go wrong. I’m trying to …” she paused and sighed. “I’m trying to get better at thinking ahead. At seeing problems before they arise.”

Pavel took her hand in one of his. “You worry too much.” He leaned toward her.

Jessamyn felt his warm breath on her face. “No, I really, really don’t,” she murmured. “I do not worry nearly enough—”

Pavel placed his lips over hers, cutting off her response. He smelled clean and fresh, like the desert at dawn. Jessamyn felt her eyes closing as she leaned into the kiss, warm and tender and—“No,” she said, pulling away. “Fix things now. Kiss later.”

Pavel chuckled and ran the backside of his hand over his mouth. “Fair enough.”

They assessed the oxygen tanks next. Finding everything in working order, they began going down a list of Pavel’s creation, system by system. By day’s end, Pavel and Jessamyn had a very long list of parts that ought to be cleaned or retooled or replaced.

“So, lots to do before Earth catches back up to Mars, eh?” asked Pavel.

“Mmm-hmm,” agreed Jessamyn. “We’d better get back for rations—I mean, for dinner.”

“Look at you, learning to speak like a proper Terran,” joked Pavel.

Jess scowled. “The ‘proper’ in your sentence is disputable. I’m only doing it so I don’t confuse people here.”

“We’re late anyway,” said Pavel. “What do you say to kissing now, rations later?”

A smile returned to Jessamyn’s face. “I could be talked into that. Possibly.”

“I didn’t plan to talk you into anything,” said Pavel, closing the space between them.

The demands of the stomach, however, soon trumped the demands of the flesh, and Pavel murmured that they should probably head back to the Gopher Hole.

“Wimp,” Jess whispered. “You have no idea how to go hungry.”

“Guilty,” admitted Pavel, stealing another kiss.

“There’s something you could learn from your friend Renard.”

“What?” asked Pavel, a flicker of something uneasy in his gaze.

“How to go hungry, that’s all.” Jess kissed him again. “You’d make a lousy Marsian.”

Pavel pulled back several inches, a look of concern on his face. “Don’t say that, Jess.”

“You would,” she said, laughing lightly.

Pavel’s dark eyes looked into hers. “You know I want to go to Mars.”

Jessamyn felt a warmth spreading outward from her belly. “I hoped you still did,” she said softly.

“When you go back, I’m going too.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want? It’s a hard life. You can’t even go outside without a helmet—”

“So take me and I’ll do whatever I can to move terraforming along a little quicker.”

Jess laughed. “Oh, Pavel … I am trying … trying to be happy here,” she said softly.

“It’s not your world,” said Pavel. “You’d never be truly happy here. We go and we go together.”

“Deal,” she said.

The two began their walk back home.

He smiled. “You can put in a good word for me. I hear you’re tight with the Secretary General.”

A cloud passed across Jessamyn’s mind. “I hadn’t thought about what MCC might say about you showing up. But they can hardly tell you to get back in the ship and go home once you’re there. Plus, you’re a doctor.”

“Well, not officially.”

“Your abilities to treat patients will still count in your favor.”

Pavel’s capacity as a doctor was much under discussion when the two returned. Brian, Harpreet, and Ethan sat around the rations table enjoying easy conversation.

“Pavel,” said Harpreet. “Jessamyn. Welcome back. Your name has been upon our lips, young man. It seems the pregnant women of Yucca regards you as Gran’s successor when it comes to the delivery of babies,” Harpreet said to Pavel.

Pavel frowned as he drank his medicinal tea for the evening. “Yeah,” he said. “I can’t tell that she ever did much in the way of midwifery, but the women here don’t like giving birth without her. Rather, they won’t like it, now that she’s gone.”

Jessamyn shook her head. “Women have been delivering babies on their own for a bazillion annums.”

“I hope I didn’t speak out of turn, Pavel,” said Harpreet, “But when I offered to take Gran’s place, Margareth and Zoe both said they’d prefer you, and I said I thought you’d be honored.”

“Oh,” said Pavel. “Sure.”

“What is with all the women of Yucca having their babies in the same month?” asked Jessamyn.

“That is easily explained,” said Ethan. “The enclave of Yucca placed a ban upon new births for several years. That ban was lifted some nine and one-half months ago.”

“A ban?” asked Jess.

“Yuccans keep careful accounting as to how many mouths can be fed and watered,” explained her brother. “It is truly extraordinary that we have been allowed to live here for this length of time.”

“Not so extraordinary when you look at how many water-creds you earned by those alterations to water reclamation,” said Pavel. “They didn’t so much as blink when Jess joined us. And I don’t think Kip would’ve tipped the scales either. You picked up, what, ten years of water rights for five? That’s still, like, nine years for six of us.”

“Eight years and four months,” Ethan said, correcting Pavel.

“I’m not staying here eight years,” mumbled Jessamyn.

“How are things going with that bonnie new ship?” asked Brian Wallace as he moved from the table to a corner of the couch where he liked to drowse in the evenings. “If I may ask, that is.”

Jessamyn shrugged. “Your cousin gave me a ship that’s going to cost a fortune to get space-worthy.”

Brian straightened himself, chuckling softly. “Ye want to have all the details gone through with a very fine-toothed comb when it comes to me cousin Cam,” he said.

“Apparently,” said Jess. Then, more brightly, she added, “But she’s a beauty, Brian. A real beauty.”

“Well, if ye’ll allow it,” said Brian, “I’d like to apply to finance the repairs and such to the Red Hope.”

“Brian Wallace has declared his wish to join us upon a return mission,” said Ethan. “Well, those of us choosing to return. He wishes to offer his services as an ambassador to Mars, representing the interests of Clan Wallace.”

“You do?” asked Jess in surprise. “You want to go to Mars?”

Brian shrugged. “I’d like to get away from Lucca Brezhnaya. I’ve no objection to traveling a hundred million kilometers in pursuit of that goal. And Harpreet’s made me half in love with the place already, with her tales of harmonious living and such.”

Jessamyn grunted. “Things aren’t exactly harmonious at the moment,” she said.

“All the more reason for me to make sure there’s a proper representative on hand, then, to see the interests of Clan Wallace are upheld,” said Brian.

“Cameron put you up to this, didn’t she?” asked Jessamyn, her brows pulling together.

“She might have provided some motivation for me to join yer next voyage, aye,” replied Brian. “But I’d half a mind already to ask for a lift before she said anything to me.”

Jessamyn shrugged. “I’m not objecting.” She felt relieved that she would be able to share the burden of bargaining for Clan Wallace’s interests. Of course, Cameron may have simply taken to heart the odds of her success if Jess had to plead from prison.

Kazuko Zaifa came running down the stairs and into the dwelling. “Oh, good, you’re both back,” she said. Addressing Jessamyn, she said, “The Shirff wants to know if you can fly the Thursday supply run to Baja California because Renard is still on his … journey or whatever it’s called.”

Jess turned to Pavel, mouthing the words, “Come with me?”

Pavel smiled back at her, nodding yes.

But Kazuko had a message for Pavel as well. “You’re wanted at Margareth’s—she’s not certain if she’s in labor or not.”

“How can she not know?” asked Jessamyn, frowning in disappointment.

Harpreet laughed.

“Of course,” said Pavel. “If you’ll all excuse me?”

Jess trailed him to his room and up the stairs. “I could pick up some parts for the Red Hope while I’m out,” she said.

“I was thinking about that,” said Pavel. “But we’re in no real hurry, and we got lots done today. Maybe it would be better if we waited for the situation with tellurium to settle. I’m still worried our transactions were being traced back in Chicago.”

“Oh,” said Jessamyn. She felt several arguments rising to the surface but reasoned that if she were truly turning a new, more cautious leaf, she should probably consider what Pavel suggested.

They had reached the top of the stairs.

“You could come with me now,” said Pavel. “Birth is amazing.”

Jess blanched. “No, thanks. I’m good. Besides, I’ll be getting up to fly in just a few hours if I’m going to stick to Renard’s schedule.”

“Goodbye, then,” said Pavel, grabbing a quick kiss.

Jess hollered after Pavel, “I suppose permission to use Renard’s vehicle is implied in this job?”

“I’d say it is,” answered Pavel. “Just bring it back in one piece.”

Jess flushed as Pavel’s laughter echoed across the desert.

“I’m perfectly capable of doing a quick supply run without incident,” she muttered as she walked back to grab a few hours’ rest.

34

INTELLIGENCE

Gaspar had an uneasy feeling as he walked toward the desert settlement in Renard’s body. It was a feeling he’d tried to talk himself out of several times already. He wasn’t worried about his ability to portray Renard. He’d had ample opportunities to view the young man both in person and on recordings he’d captured. And the body not only fit him well, it felt excellent.

He needn’t have requested a drop-off so close to town after all, he admitted to himself. But after the strain of walking across the desert last time in the old woman’s body, Gaspar had located a nearer place from which to make his walk back to Yucca.

No, his concerns had nothing to do with his portrayal of Renard. What was it then, that sent butterflies fluttering in his stomach and made him clench his hands and press his fingers against his palms—a habit of Gaspar’s which he needed to drop in moments—what was it?

Gaspar had learned through the years to listen when his sixth sense told him to beware. Very well, he would be extremely wary. He would complain of heat exhaustion, to start with. That ought to keep anyone from worrying about odd behavior should he portray Renard less than perfectly.

He felt his lips draw thin in reaction to the thought of imperfection. “You are Gaspar Bonaparte,” he told himself. “You will not slip up.” The words came out a perfect match to Renard’s own vocal rhythms. Everything would be fine. It was probably something left over in Renard’s digestive tract that was upsetting him now.

He saw the first dwelling-hummock which informed him Yucca was near. Recalling his last conversation with Lucca, he listed out his priorities, eager to make good on the trust she’d bestowed. Eager to prove that, as she believed, intelligence of the highest quality was gathered without force ever being applied. He arranged his features into a smile, squinting as sunlight reflected off something to his left, nearly blinding him. He glanced over, unable to remember anything that ought to be throwing back sunlight on that side of Yucca.

What he saw made him stop in his tracks and then turn, running toward the source of the reflected brightness. What he saw ought to have been impossible. How did anyone in Yucca manage to source an interplanetary vehicle in the handful of days since he’d left and returned?

35

NEVER REALLY KNOW

Pavel was awakened by a very excited Renard.

“Wake up! Wake up!” Renard pulled the thin coverlet off of Pavel. “Now! Wake up!”

Pavel, accustomed to middle-of-the-night wake up calls for small emergencies, was on his feet in seconds. “What’s the nature of the emergency?” He words slurred slightly as groped for his med kit, slipped feet into shoes.

Renard replied, “There’s no emergency, but there’s something you’ve got to see!”

Pavel sank back down onto the bed. “Later.” He snatched the bed cover from off the floor and grunted at Renard: “You. Out of my room. Now.” Pavel had been up until three in the morning before deciding Margareth’s baby was not coming any time soon.

Renard sighed loudly. “Fine. I’ll ask Jessamyn, then.”

That got Pavel’s attention. He unburied his face from his pillow. “Ask Jessamyn what?”

“There’s an M-class ship hidden in a crater at the edge of town,” said Renard. “Don’t you think that’s worth getting up for?”

“Didn’t you see it before?” Pavel ran his hands through his hair, trying to remember. “Oh, no. You didn’t. You took off.”

“And I’m back now. So do you mind telling me what that ship is doing here?” asked Renard, sharply.

Pavel shoved his hair out of his eyes. “I need a haircut.”

“I’m not a barber,” snapped Renard. “Come on. Let’s get Jess up. I want you guys to tell me everything.”

Pavel shrugged. “Jess is gone. You forget what day it is today?”

Renard looked puzzled for a moment. “I might’ve gotten a bit overheated out there,” he said at last. “What day is it?”

“Thursday,” said Pavel. “Jess is doing your Baja run. For supplies.”

“Huh,” said Renard. “Thursday already? Maybe I got more sun than I thought. Yeah, I guess someone had to do that run for me, didn’t they?”

“Don’t worry,” said Pavel. “She’ll bring your ship back safe and sound.” Rising, he crossed to the living area and downed a morning cup of tea, wiping the sides of his mouth with his shirtsleeve.

“Let’s check your hydration levels, okay?” asked Pavel. “Just to be safe.”

“Yeah, sure.” Renard extended his arm and Pavel took a few quick measurements.

“You’re down half a liter, man,” he reported back.

Renard gave a characteristic grunt.

“You know better, Renard. See you get over to the Shirff about an extra ration. You need to sip slowly—”

“I know, I know,” said Renard. “City-boy.”

Pavel grinned at the nickname Renard never grew tired of applying. “I’ll take you out to see Jess’s new ride after you’ve had a rest and downed at least a liter. Fair enough?”

Renard seemed about to protest, but then he shrugged and turned to go. At the foot of the stairs, he looked back to Pavel. “You’re sure she’s coming right back?”

Pavel’s lips tightened and thinned. “Well, I guess you never really know with Jess, do you?”

Renard looked worried for a split-second but then covered it with a laugh and a response. “Guess not, city-boy.” A quick wink and he shot up the stairs and outside.

“Hey, take it easy today,” Pavel called after him.

Renard’s laughter filtered down into the underground dwelling. Pavel turned, shaking his head.

36

IF YOU MUST EAT WORMS

Inside Renard’s body, Gaspar walked toward the Shirff’s office. He knew it would do him no good to function in a body that was dehydrated. Why hadn’t they taken care of that during his consciousness transfer? As he asked the question, it occurred to him that he might’ve suffered water-loss during his brief walk into town. He needed to be more careful here—he needed his full faculties at all times.

And just now, he needed a place from which to place a call to Lucca Brezhnaya. He dreaded giving her the news that one of the two persons he was to question had fled. But even more, he dreaded Lucca finding out from someone besides himself.

No, he would have to relay the information. He calculated the hour in Budapest. The Chancellor would be preparing for dinner, perhaps, by now. He’d half-hoped she might be sleeping so that he could leave a message rather than endure one of her famous rages.

“Still,” he murmured to himself, “If you must eat worms, best get them down quickly and without an excess of anticipation.”

He acquired the extra water-ration—and a back-slapping welcome hug—from the Shirff and then turned to find a remote location from which he could communicate with the Chancellor.

The blast crater seemed a promising location—the large ship almost certainly had a holo-projector and lines of communication secured against any listening ears. Broadcasting from the ship would allow him to provide evidence of its existence as well. He smiled. Although he supposed Lucca had satellites that could confirm the presence of the M-class ship. He found himself hoping again she hadn’t already heard the news from someone else.

The Chancellor made him wait over two hours.

“What have you to report? Be quick about it. I’ve no time to waste with the election coming,” Lucca said.

Gaspar jumped to his feet before the nearly perfect image of the Chancellor. He enjoyed noticing that from inside his present body, he was taller than Lucca Brezhnaya. He’d found that height mattered in negotiations, whatever people claimed to the contrary.

“I will need more time,” he began, “due to unforeseen—”

“I am not granting more time,” said the Chancellor, cutting him off. “What part of ‘there’s an election this week’ did you miss?”

“Yes. Well, we have a setback, as it turns out,” said Gaspar. “It would seem the girl has fled, that is, she’s—”

“Fled?” roared the Chancellor. “What do you mean fled?”

Gaspar allowed himself a moment’s amusement. He’d had two hours to consider how he would present his information. He’d chosen the word “fled” to provoke just such a flash of anger. How interesting it would be to impersonate the Chancellor, he thought to himself.

“Forgive me, Chancellor. I misspoke. It would seem the girl has undertaken a re-supplying mission normally carried out by myself, that is, by Renard of Yucca.”

“So she’s coming back? When?”

Gaspar raised and lowered his shoulders ever so slightly. “Soon, I am told.”

Lucca focused her pale blue eyes upon Gaspar. The holographic image was frighteningly life-like. “Why did you not anticipate this and arrive in time to prevent her departure?”

Gaspar took umbrage with the remark. “If you will recall, Madam Chancellor, my departure from Budapest to this fair enclave was delayed when you were unfortunately unable to meet with me as originally scheduled.” Gaspar did not allow himself to smile, but oh, he felt himself glowing inside.

“How dare you insinuate your tardiness is my fault?” The Chancellor whispered the question, which made it sound far more threatening.

Best not to goad her too far. “Of course not, Madam Chancellor. I alone bear the blame.” He bowed apologetically.

Lucca scowled. Gaspar knew she was capable of holding her emotions in check and wondered if it was better or worse that he could see how unhappy she was with the current turn of events.

“I suppose I could simply destroy the enclave,” she said at last. “That would bring the girl running back.”

The remark provoked a fear-induced chortle from Gaspar, which he instantly regretted.

“For all I know, it’s your fault the Martian bolted,” continued Lucca. “You might have made her skittish with an inferior performance as the old woman.”

Gaspar snorted. Professional pride getting in the way of his better judgment, he retorted, “I assure you neither the girl nor anyone else suspected anything was amiss whilst I impersonated the elderly person.”

After another icy stare, Lucca smiled. “No, I don’t suppose it is your fault. But I expect you to use every means available to persuade her to return swiftly. Invent something. Isn’t that what you’re good at?”

Gaspar nodded. “It is what I am very good at. I will not disappoint you, Madam Chancellor.”

“Do, and ten seconds warning is all you’ll get. Enough time to observe the missiles as they approach.” She smiled again, evidently enchanted by the idea of destroying the village and Gaspar with it. Then her gaze shifted and she seemed to look to either side of Gaspar.

“Where on Earth are you standing?” she demanded of the impersonator.

“Ah, yes, I have other news as well. As you can see, I am inside a ship. An interplanetary vessel, in fact. I believe the designation is M-class.”

“I know an M-class when I see one,” snapped Lucca. “Are you telling me the Martian has obtained a ship?”

“Apparently she has,” replied Gaspar.

“That would require a substantial sum to purchase,” murmured the Chancellor.

“Madam Chancellor? Do you wish me to find out—”

“Add to your existing questions one more: from whom was the ship obtained?”

“I will discover what use she will put it to, as well, Madam Chancellor.”

“Mmmm,” intoned Lucca, losing herself in thought for a moment. “I wonder if I shouldn’t simply destroy ship and village at once …”

Gaspar felt the opportunity to prove his worth slipping away. “Please allow me to demonstrate that you made the right choice in sending me here.”

“Yes, yes,” said the Chancellor, waving her hand dismissively. “Of course I made the right choice. Just see to it you find out what Mars is planning. Or I might grow frustrated with this little operation and forget to tell you to get clear in time.”

Gaspar swallowed thickly. “I will lay bare all their plans to you within days, Madam Chancellor.”

“See that you do,” replied Lucca. “Chancellor out.”

Her image vanished.

His pulse throbbed; his heart was beating far too swiftly. Gaspar took several slow breaths and shook out his hands, which had become balled fists crossed behind his back where the Chancellor couldn’t see them. It took him longer than usual to become “Renard” again.

With Jessamyn missing and Pavel busy, Gaspar decided to pay a visit to the dwelling that was his present “home.” Once inside, he encountered a very angry foster-brother.

“You promised you’d come wake me up first when you got back,” wailed Samuel.

Gaspar arranged his face into one of Renard’s easy, relaxed expressions. “What can I say, Samuel? It slipped my mind.”

Samuel glowered at his foster-brother. “My real brother wouldn’t have forgotten.”

“Samuel!” said his mother. “Foster-brothers are as real as any other kind of brother.”

“That’s not what I meant,” said the little boy, kicking at one leg of the table and causing it to shudder.

Within his cup, Renard’s bitter tea ration made circular patterns of repeating ripples.

“Stop kicking the table,” growled Roy. “You think wooden tables grow out of the ground?”

“And apologize to your brother,” added his mother.

“I’m sorry,” said Samuel.

The lie on the boy’s face was easy for Gaspar to read; it was a byproduct of studying people carefully in order to impersonate them. He was glad his line of work rarely involved him with children.

“Well, I’m off,” said Gaspar. “I’ll be over with the newcomers if you need me.”

“See it don’t interfere with your chores, boy,” said Roy.

“He’s not a boy any longer, Roy,” murmured Mary.

“All the more reason he oughta do a man’s work,” replied Roy.

“Don’t worry,” said Gaspar. “I can do both.”

And he could, having located certain individuals more than happy to do his chores in exchange for candy, game-chips, and zine-files he offered, something Renard had done upon occasion to free up time for racing.

Giving his kindliest smile to Samuel, Gaspar winked at him once, and departed, his eyes flickering uncomfortably to the sky as he strolled back to the newcomers’ dwelling—the Gopher Hole, he reminded himself.

He skipped down the steps and into the domicile, enjoying the strength and flexibility of the wiry body he inhabited. He tried never to judge a body in poor condition—he prided himself upon needing neither health nor beauty to accomplish his deceits. But this body was very pleasant to indwell.

“Is Ethan home?” he asked, seeing Harpreet sitting alone.

“I believe so,” she replied.

At the same time, Ethan called from his room, “I am here.”

Gaspar winked at Harpreet and entered Ethan’s workroom. “Thought you didn’t care for small, enclosed spaces?”

“I am working,” replied Ethan. “I am less affected when I am occupied than when I am not.” From beside him, Elsa gave a low growl directed at Gaspar. “Also, I have actions I can take should I become distressed.” He ran a hand through Elsa’s fur and addressed the dog. “It is Renard, Elsa. Calm yourself.”

“Can we talk for a minute?” asked Gaspar.

“Very well,” said Ethan. “May I assume you meant to inquire as to whether we could talk for more than only one minute?”

The impersonator grinned. “Yeah. More than one.”

Ethan turned and made several modifications to various screens at his work station. “Might we walk out of doors?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s a nice day.”

The two ascended the stairs, Ethan in his chair.

“So,” Gaspar began, “Do you have any idea where your sister is right now and when she’ll be back?”

“Would you prefer I answer the questions in the order in which you posed them?” countered Ethan.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Jessamyn has gone where you were scheduled to go. I do not know when she will return,” said her brother.

“Okay.” Gaspar nodded, shoved his hands in his pockets—a gesture he’d perfected in the style of Renard. “So she’s not making any unscheduled stops?”

“Not so far as I am aware,” said Ethan. “But she often neglects to fully disclose her intentions to me.”

The two walked in silence, Elsa bolting ahead and then circling back to chase circles around the pair.

“So,” said Gaspar, “Can you contact her and, uh, tell her to hurry back?”

Ethan’s brows drew together slightly. “No, I do not think it would be effective for me to ask my sister to return more swiftly than she is willing. Such a demand is likely to promote an opposite action.”

Gaspar chuckled with Renard’s light laughter. He was not to be so easily deterred, however. “Aren’t you worried about her?”

“I attempt at all times to regulate my levels of concern about my sister.”

“It’s just that if she were to take it in her head to go somewhere unexpected,” said Gaspar, shrugging both shoulders, “That could be dangerous for the whole village.”

“I see,” said Ethan. “You are concerned that my sister may, if she strays from her task, meet others to whom she might inadvertently divulge information, thus endangering Yucca.”

“Something like that,” replied Gaspar.

“Your fears are groundless. However, if she attempts communication, I shall let her know your concerns,” replied Ethan. “Do you have other topics upon which you wish to converse with me?”

Gaspar grinned. “No, man, that was it. You are one funny duck.”

“Duck?” asked Ethan.

“You’re different from anyone I’ve ever met.”

“So I am frequently told,” replied Ethan.

Gaspar did not, unfortunately, have any better luck with Pavel, whom he once more approached on the topic of Jessamyn’s return. He began to consider whether it might be in his best interests simply to run if the girl didn’t show up in the next day or so. But Lucca would find him swiftly. She knew all of his contacts. He could not, like the girl from Mars, simply disappear.

“Shizer!” he cursed, watching the skies for signs of missiles.

37

NO HUGS IN HIS EYES

Gaspar was still throwing nervous glances to the sky the following afternoon. It was a habit he needed to get rid of. Staring at the sky was not part of Renard’s natural behavior and so it had no place in Gaspar’s actions. Impersonating the young man was proving to be more challenging than Gaspar had anticipated. Of course, he reminded himself, the greater the challenge, the greater the triumph. And success in this endeavor would lead to greater opportunities in the future. Gaspar chose not to consider what failure would bring.

He told himself, no more glancing up.

As for the other annoyance, the one that came in a meter-tall package, he had decided that avoidance would be the surest course of action. Gaspar berated himself for not having observed more closely the relation between the two foster siblings. Still, adults snubbed children the world over when it suited them. Let the boy dislike “Renard” as much as he liked. No one paid serious heed to the whinings of a child.

~ ~ ~

Pavel was feeling the beginnings of concern for Jessamyn. She’d been gone a day and a half now without sending word of her location or intentions. Pavel had checked in with the Shirff only this morning to find out if delays were common for the supply run she’d been asked to fly. The answer had been a shrug, a friendly smile, and an, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another, Doc.”

Where was she?

At his feet lay a jagged clump of dirt, which Pavel considered. It had probably formed when one of the spring flash-floods had roared through the desert. He reached for the piece of earth and then hurled it as far as he could. It smashed against a boulder, breaking into a satisfyingly large number of pieces upon impact.

Pavel turned back to the Gopher Hole. He’d finished both his chores and his volunteer doctoring quickly today, having risen early to see if Jess had returned. He was tired now. And grumpy. What he most wanted was to get in a ship and fly at dangerous speeds. He’d have settled for racing Renard, but Jess had taken Renard’s ship. No one else in Yucca had anything that could match the speed of Pavel’s Hercules-class ship. Well, except for the M-class. But Pavel wasn’t taking that out without asking Jess first. Besides, if he left, he’d risk being gone when Jess returned.

He shuffled downstairs into the cooler temperatures of the underground dwelling, where Harpreet greeted him with a warm smile.

“Hear anything yet from Jess?” he asked.

“No, son,” she replied calmly. “Do not worry yourself about what cannot be altered. She will return when she is ready to return.”

“You think she just needed to get away?” asked Pavel.

“Hers is an independent spirit,” replied Harpreet. She lowered her voice and spoke again. “But I see also the question you have not voiced: Do you think she needed to get away from me?”

That was, in fact, a question he hadn’t admitted to himself, but as soon as Harpreet spoke the words, he knew they were true. Pavel sighed. He and Jessamyn had spent so little actual time together. Was Jess having second thoughts about him now that he’d declared his intention to accompany her to Mars? Thoughts that she needed to process far from him?

Harpreet smiled, placing a warm brown hand upon Pavel’s forearm. “I would not worry if I were you. She will return soon enough, my young friend.”

Pavel voiced his other concern. “I might not be the only one waiting for her to get back.”

Harpreet’s dark eyes widened, inviting Pavel to continue.

“Anytime I’m out with Renard, seems like all he does is watch the sky. Like he’s waiting for something to come swooping down,” said Pavel.

“Perhaps he misses his ship.”

Pavel grunted. “Maybe. Better be all he misses.”

Harpreet patted his arm gently. “She’ll be back soon. You’ll see.”

Both turned at the sound of feet descending the stairs. Pavel felt a smile forming—the footsteps were light like Jessamyn’s. But it wasn’t her. It was Renard’s foster-brother Samuel.

“I think my brother is sick,” Samuel announced. “You need to fix him.”

Pavel smiled. “Sick, huh? What are his symptoms?” Pavel had heard something from Samuel’s mother about a disagreement between the brothers. Not surprising, given the difference in their ages.

“Well,” began Samuel, “first I thought he’d been body-snatched. You know, like someone re-bodied inside him. But Ma and Pa say that’s impossible. So now I think there’s just something wrong with his brain.”

“His brain?” Pavel asked, trying to keep his expression sober.

“Yeah. And his eyes.”

“Hmm,” said Pavel. “Well, brains are complicated things. Let’s say we start with the eyes. What seems to be wrong with your brother’s eyes?”

Samuel frowned and crossed his arms. Pavel suspected Samuel would have preferred to start with brains. But the young boy spoke after giving it a moment’s thought.

“For one, his wink is funny since he got back from burying Gran’s stuff. It’s like there’s no …” The small boy drifted off and his brows drew together in a deep furrow. “There’s no hugs in his eyes when he winks at me now.”

“Hmm,” said Pavel. “That could be serious.”

“I know. I’ve been telling Ma and Pa and they said it was nothing but I know it’s something. Is it bad, Doc?”

“Tell you what, Samuel. Next time I see Renard, I’ll do a thorough eye exam. Just to make sure everything’s okay.”

Samuel smiled. “I knew you could fix him.”

Pavel laughed. “Let’s find out if there’s anything wrong first, okay?”

“Oh, there is,” said Samuel, eyes large and solemn. “And I’m glad you’re going to fix it.”

Yet another pair of feet descended into the cool depths below.

“Ethan, Kazuko,” said Harpreet. “Welcome home.”

Renard trailed behind them and Pavel had to remind himself Renard was a friend, not a rival.

Kazuko spoke. “Good news!”

Pavel’s heart beat faster. Was Jessamyn back?

Ethan spoke. “Kazuko and I have completed coding the transmission to be delivered to the Terran satellites.”

“Boring,” said Samuel, scampering up the stairs and out of sight without so much as a word of greeting for his brother.

“Fascinating,” said Renard.

“We thought you’d like to watch,” added Kazuko. “Well, there’s not much to watch, really, just code on a screen. But we thought everyone should gather as we send the first transmission.”

“Of course, daughter,” said Harpreet.

“You’re turning satellite control over to Mars?” asked Pavel.

“This is only the first step,” replied Kazuko. “This is our attempt to ‘talk’ with the satellites. If they respond in kind, then, yes, eventually this will lead to Mars obtaining control.”

Well, thought Pavel, at least Jess will have good news to come home to.

~ ~ ~

Gaspar was more than usually eager to make his report to the Chancellor that evening, the second since his “return” to Yucca. He awaited her appearance before the holo-projector, rocking back and forth on his heels. It was an action he’d borrowed from Renard, but it also suited the occasion.

“Yes?” boomed the Chancellor’s cold voice. “You have news? The girl has returned?”

“The girl, ah, has yet to return. However, I have other news. It appears there is a transmission to a group of satellites circling Mars—”

“Tell me what you know at once,” said the Chancellor, ice-blue eyes flashing fire.

38

A SLIGHT MODIFICATION

Jess arrived back to the Gopher Hole during morning rations. Harpreet welcomed her with a warm hug, Pavel with a warmer kiss. Ethan, as was his preference, spoke only her name, Jessamyn, in acknowledgement of her return.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” she said. “But the right thrust engine blew out on Renard’s ship.”

“You have not allowed such a failure to impede you before,” Ethan remarked.

“It wouldn’t have stopped me,” retorted Jess. “But I knew Renard would have a hard time fixing it here. So I found the parts and got everything taken care of.” She smiled happily.

“Jess,” said Pavel, “tell me you didn’t—”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I never left Baja. I took everything you said under advisement and I did not visit any of the suppliers on your list. I asked around until I found someone connected to normal Yuccan preferred providers. They took care of everything. So nothing to worry about.” She beamed, very proud that she had behaved in so circumspect a fashion.

But while Jessamyn’s arrival was welcome news, it wasn’t the only news. Her brother brought her up to date on his efforts to communicate with the Terran laser satellites the night before.

“The satellites are not responding as they should,” he said before launching into a detailed explanation that Jessamyn found impossible to follow. Kazuko Zaifa was the only one present who could understand the finer details of why the satellite communication between Earth and Mars was problematic. After listening for ten minutes to things she didn’t understand, Jessamyn couldn’t stop the serial yawns.

“I’m sure you’ll manage to solve things,” she said to her brother after an especially large yawn.

“I cannot,” said Ethan, “find solutions that do not exist.”

His sister smiled and squeezed his hand.

“You’ll figure something out,” she said. “You always do.”

“Indeed, you do,” agreed Harpreet.

Renard bounded into view, taking the stairs into the dwelling two at a time. “You’re back,” he said, beaming at Jessamyn. “I can’t say how happy I am to see you! There’s been no one to race with since you left.”

Pavel said, “Hey! You had me.”

“Not the same,” said Renard. “You’re not an interplanetary pilot.”

“Maybe not, but I can beat you to Jacinto and back any day,” said Pavel.

Jess smiled. “You did notice I took your ship again, right?”

“I noticed what you left behind,” said Renard.

“That,” said Jessamyn, “is not for you.”

Renard pouted. “Pavel’s been busy coming up with excuses to keep me away from the ship. In spite of borrowing my tools whenever it suits him.”

“Oh, that’s right,” said Jess. “You took off on your, um, burial trip without looking at her. You want to tour the Red Hope now?”

“Me?” asked Renard. With a small wink, he added, “You mean, just me? In private?”

Ignoring his attempt to flirt, Jess continued. “Pavel and I put your tools to good use while you were gone.”

“I made a slight modification while you were away,” said Pavel to Jess. “She’s looking beautiful.”

“Let’s all go see,” said Jess, clapping her hands together in delight.

Harpreet declared her wish to accompany the trio, and the four departed in Renard’s ship, leaving Ethan to his work.

On the short drive to the Red Hope, Pavel conversed with Renard about a solar power-box that didn’t seem to serve any purpose aboard the M-class.

“At least, none that I can find,” Pavel admitted. “I know you use that sort of technology out here a lot more than we do in, well, more ‘citified’ regions.”

“I’ll give it a look,” said Renard.

But when they boarded the ship, Renard couldn’t make anything of the power-supply either.

“They’re valuable, though,” he said. “Whoever owned the ship before would have removed it for resale if it didn’t serve some purpose. Who did you say you got the ship from?”

Jess exchanged a quick glance with Pavel and Harpreet. The Marsians and their companions had agreed no one was to know of Clan Wallace’s involvement.

“Sorry,” Jessamyn said. “A good trader doesn’t reveal her sources.” She kept her voice light, hoping to put off further questions.

Renard frowned, but to Jessamyn’s relief, he quickly turned the subject.

“So, tell me, Jessamyn,” said Renard. “You’re suddenly in possession of a ship capable of interplanetary travel—what will you do with it?”

Jess flushed and mumbled, “I would think that would be pretty obvious.”

Pavel chuckled and stood. “Come on, Renard. Let’s allow Jess the chance to show this thing off properly.”

Jessamyn provided a lengthy tour, leaving the mysterious solar supply for another day. Renard had something to say about nearly every part of the ship, chattering away, throwing out suggestions as to what purpose the great ship should be put to. In addition, he kept up a steady stream of questions directed to Jessamyn.

“How many people make up an ideal crew? If you wanted to plan a successful attack on, say, the capitol city, how would you crew the vessel?”

Jess snorted in reply.

“With a ship like this, you could conquer the world, don’t you think?” Renard grinned. “Or at least attack a target or two. Who would you take out first?”

“Boys,” she said to Harpreet, with a dismissive eyeroll. “Always trying to blow things up.”

“I’m not trying to blow anything up,” said Pavel.

“I’m just saying you could,” insisted Renard. “Not that I would. How about you, Jess? What will you do?”

“Why do you keep asking?” she replied. “I’ll use it to go home, obviously.”

“A superior choice to destruction,” said Harpreet. “I’d think anyone who grew up this close to the ruins of the City of Angels would be less eager to ponder destruction.”

Renard shrugged and let the topic drop as they left the habitation level to explore the lower levels. But he had plenty of other questions—a limitless supply, it seemed to Jessamyn.

“How valuable would a ship like this be on Mars? What use would Martians—sorry, Marsians—put it to?”

Jessamyn tried not to become irritated by Renard’s persistent questioning. Pavel seemed to find it amusing, laughing and tossing out occasional humorous suggestions.

“Don’t encourage him,” Jess murmured to Pavel at one point.

Pavel shrugged. “I figure if he annoys you, it makes me look better to you.”

Jessamyn snorted a tiny laugh.

Harpreet, meanwhile, grew more silent and observant. An hour passed and Jessamyn suggested, reluctantly, that is was time to return, so she could deliver the supplies she’d collected. The party of four descended through the Red Hope’s hatch and onto the floor of the blast crater.

The ship loomed large from this close, sheltering, like the presence of a parent beside a small child. As Jessamyn glanced upward, each shape was so familiar, so beloved, so almost perfectly right—a fraternal twin with its similarities and differences inside and out. Running her hand along the stabilizing struts, extended while the ship rested, Jess let out a long sigh.

Renard was at her side in an instant. “I’ll bet this ship could tell tales, huh?”

“We should check the log,” said Jess, a small smile on her face. She ran her hands along the cool metal, fingering a small bit of scarring along one fin. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

Renard nodded. “What’s she called again?”

“Red Hope,” replied Pavel.

“The original name’s been removed,” said Jess, pointing to where the ship’s designation and name should have been. “You can see where they sanded the surface down and—”

She broke off suddenly. “Ares and Aphrodite!”

Pavel grinned. “I was wondering when you’d notice.”

Upon the ship’s leading edge, where before the surface had been empty, it now read: Red Hope.

“You did this?” asked Jess, her tone reverent. Pavel nodded.

“It had no name before, I take it?” asked Renard.

“That’s typical on former interplanetary vessels,” said Pavel. “The M-class I flew for certification didn’t have a name anymore either. The school called her The Shaky Lady, but that was just a nickname. All the original names were removed when the bans against space travel went into effect.”

“You cannot simply erase a part of human history like that,” remarked Harpreet.

“You can try,” said Pavel.

“Red Hope,” said Renard patting the side of the ship where the hold lay. “Just think about all that space in there. What will you fill it with, Jess?”

She ignored the question, with its unwelcome reminders of Cavanaugh, of how his greed had cost Mars its last great raiding ship.

“It’s time to go,” Jess said. “I need to check in with the Shirff and see if I’m in any kind of trouble or owe back-chores or something.”

“You’ll be fine,” said Renard as the four left the blast crater and climbed aboard his smaller transport.

“Ethan told me you said the villagers don’t like it when someone goes off unannounced,” said Pavel, seating himself in back with Jess. “Renard, if you’ve got a way for Jess to plead her case and come off looking like a loyal Yuccan, now would be the time for tips.”

Renard looked thoughtful for a moment. “I did say something like that, but I spoke in haste. Out of my own concern for your safety, Jessamyn.”

“Um, thanks?” she replied.

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt if you explained the delays to the Shirff,” Renard added. “They’ll never let me marry you if you don’t behave like a proper citizen.”

Jessamyn laughed and Pavel frowned at the same time.

“What?” demanded Renard, grinning. “She could do a lot worse than me.” He winked at Pavel, and then Pavel seemed to see the humor in the claim, and Renard and Pavel dissolved into laughter, friends once more.

“I would only marry you for this fast little ship of yours,” said Jess as Renard brought them to a halt before his dwelling. “And then I would run away to Mars with Pavel when the time came, anyway.”

As the four exited the vehicle, Harpreet slipped an arm through Jessamyn’s. “Let us go to see the Shirff together. I will vouchsafe you’ve done the community no harm. The Shirff listens to me.”

The two women left Renard and Pavel and strode toward the Shirff’s underground office.

“Renard admires you, daughter,” said Harpreet.

“No,” said Jess. “I don’t think that’s what’s going on. I think … this will sound incredibly vain …”

“Go on.”

“Well, back on Mars, I used to attract a lot of attention from the younger levels in pilot training. They wanted to be me, I think. They would ask me a million questions, like Renard did back there, and lavish attention on me.”

“So you believe Renard does not wish to court you but that he wishes instead to be you?”

Jessamyn shrugged. “It makes at least as much sense as trying to get anywhere with me romantically. Pavel and I don’t exactly keep our feelings for each other hidden.”

Harpreet nodded slowly. “Perhaps, daughter. But be cautious. Do not break the poor boy’s heart. He’s never met anyone like you before.”

39

THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT

Lucca Brezhnaya basked in the joy of another victorious campaign. It had been a long six months leading up to this conclusion. She both loved and hated the necessity of campaigning. One learned interesting things about one’s subservients, whilst running for re-election. Occasionally she found a useful person or two along the way. But it was such a relief to have it all over and decided. And gratifying to win, as well.

Of course, had she not been declared the winner, there would have been alternatives. She’d explored them all through the decades. But she liked this body quite well and was glad she wouldn’t be forced to hijack that of the other candidate in order to remain in power.

She had one last task before retiring. One she’d been looking forward to all through the congratulatory toasts and speeches, the requisite photos and sound bites. Gaspar would contact her this evening.

She made him wait, of course, as she always made underlings wait. It kept their sense of importance appropriately low.

“Well?” she demanded lazily when she appeared before Gaspar.

“She came back,” said Gaspar. “As, you will recall, I assured you she would do.”

“Yes, I recall. Do you recall the things of which I assured you should you fail to provide me the answers I want?”

Gaspar paled and continued. “The girl insists she wants to go to Mars. To go home. And that is all. I’ve half a mind to believe her, honestly.”

“You are not being paid to believe or not believe,” decreed Lucca. “You are employed to find out the truth and report it to me.”

Gaspar bowed deeply, murmuring, “Of course, Madam Chancellor.”

“So it is your … opinion that the girl wishes only to return home?”

“It is. And may I just offer my congratulations upon your—”

“Silence!” Lucca paced, feline in her grace.

Gaspar felt a shudder run along his spine and hoped his employer would never consider rebodying as a large cat. She would enjoy that far more than would be good for any in her employ. Fortunately he’d never heard of such a rebody being attempted.

“She is fooling you,” said Lucca at last. “She is more cunning than I gave her credit for. I underestimated her. Her refusal to confide in you is simply more proof that she thinks like a soldier and not like a civilian.”

Gaspar cleared his throat softly, wishing to clarify something. “Am I in very bad trouble for this failure?”

Lucca stopped pacing and stared at him blankly for a moment. “Trouble? No, my dear Gaspar. I’m sure you have done everything within your … abilities, such as they are.” Lucca was feeling generous. And Gaspar was likely to prove useful in the future. “You are not in trouble. Not yet. I have a new assignment for you. Let me see, is it just daybreak where you are?”

Gaspar nodded.

“Very well. I’ll make this easy for you by giving you the cover of night. I want you to bring the Martian in so that I may question her as one questions a soldier. And my nephew. Bring the boy as well. Be sure to leave the charming enclave of … what is it called? Yuc?”

“Yucca, Madam Chancellor.”

“Yes, well, be certain to depart before the stroke of midnight, your time. Things will get very … explosive after that.”

“Midnight, Madam Chancellor. Very well, Madam Chancellor.”

“And Gaspar? One more thing. Do be sure you have the girl and boy with you when you return. Fail to bring them to me, and you may as well fly straight to New Timbuktu and check yourself in for an extended stay.”

“I will not fail you, Madam Chancellor.”

“No,” she replied. “I daresay you won’t. I might become angry enough to visit you in New Timbuktu if you were to fail this simple task.”

Her image flickered and disappeared from where Gaspar stood watching aboard the M-class ship. He allowed himself a few moments of shivering as Gaspar before taking on the persona of Renard once more. Renard had work to do today. He had to win the trust of a maiden fair and steal her away before the fireworks began at midnight. Along with the boy, of course.

Gaspar had work to do as well. Repair work. He’d disappointed the Chancellor, although she’d been in too good of a mood to punish him. There had to be something he could do to demonstrate the value of his services. What if he were to bring in one of the others, Harpreet or Brian or Kazuko or Ethan? If he brought all of them in, surely Lucca would be pleased. And if not, Gaspar knew how to turn a profit on an extra body, didn’t he?

~ ~ ~

But twelve hours later, Gaspar had reluctantly given up the hope of bringing anyone but the boy and the girl with him. And he felt flickers of concern about even that simple task at this point. From where he stood inside the M-class ship, Gaspar frowned. He’d laid careful plans earlier in the day, and he didn’t like waiting until the last minute. Midnight was less than two hours away. It had been one more thing and one more thing and one more thing. The good citizens of Yucca had little leisure, so occupied were they with the business of survival. He cursed as he examined the time.

A voice echoed from the ship’s lower levels.

“Hello?”

It was Jessamyn.

“Up here,” said Renard. “Ready to go! I told my ma I wouldn’t be up too late. Let’s get out of here.”

But when Jessamyn turned the corner onto the bridge, it became apparent she was alone. Gaspar cursed silently. He must not let his disappointment show. Not yet.

“You have no idea how excited I am,” he said, voice ebullient.

“It’ll be fun,” she said. “There’s nothing like flying a ship this size low to the ground under a full moon or two.” She looked around, puzzled. “Where’s Pavel? He said he’d meet me here.”

Gaspar frowned in perfect imitation of Renard. “I haven’t heard anything from him. I thought he’d be with you.”

“I’ll call him,” said Jess, sighing. “He probably got caught up examining some fascinating rash.”

Renard, glancing anxiously at the ship’s chronometer, listened to Jessamyn’s half of the conversation.

Jess related the other half after she’d said goodbye to Pavel.

“He’s treating a family for head lice. Which apparently survived the Los Angeles apocalypse.”

Renard nodded. “Anyone stupid enough to trade salvage in the City of Angels is going to regret it a week or so later when the itching gets unbearable.” This was something he’d heard since arriving.

“Well, Pavel thinks he can finish it up in another ten minutes. Do you mind waiting? It’s late. I suppose we could take the ship up tomorrow night instead.”

“No, no, no,” said Gaspar, smiling. “Tonight. We can wait.”

Looking around, Jessamyn seated herself at the helm and sighed.

“What?” asked Gaspar.

“It’s nothing,” she said, slipping both hands under her thighs as she stretched her long legs in front of her.

Gaspar pulled back just a bit. He knew that most people would talk about the most amazingly private things if you were silent and gave them room.

As he expected, Jess spoke. “Okay, it’s just, the thought of Pavel, here, on this ship …”

She looked over to Gaspar as if considering whether to complete her thought. He raised his eyebrows. Just a bit. Just enough to invite confidence.

“I don’t know if he’s got what it takes for the life I’ve lived.”

“How long have you been together?” asked Gaspar. Women loved to talk about their amours. Maybe he could get something good out of her after all. His eyes flicked to check the time.

Jessamyn laughed. “I fell in love with him somewhere between Earth and Mars. I wrote him almost every day on the return trip. But actual together time? You’ve seen most of it, right here in Yucca.”

“So you don’t really know him that well,” offered Gaspar. Maybe this was the tack he should have tried all along.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, I know how he acts under pressure. He’s fearless. And passionate. And he has a hyper-developed sense of right and wrong. He’s exactly who you want at your side in a really bad situation.”

Gaspar leaned in a few millimeters. “But?”

Jessamyn’s features rearranged themselves in furrows. “But what about everyday life? Does he have what it takes to live, day in and day out, in a harsh environment? What do you think? Hades, you’ve seen more of him than I have. How do you think he fits in here?”

“Well,” said Gaspar, thinking ahead to the next rivulet into which he might divert the conversation. He could see just how to manage it. He also saw a rare opportunity to speak with complete transparency. He liked these moments. They came to an impersonator rarely—the opportunity to speak frankly as both oneself and one’s assumed self. “I see a boy who was not raised to a life of deprivation,” he answered at last, speaking as both Gaspar and Renard.

Jess’s chin dropped several inches. “That’s what I’m afraid of. That, and, well … how well do I really know him?”

“About as well as you know me?” suggested Gaspar. He loved these moments, too: the times where he could say one thing with one apparent meaning while knowing he was actually saying something very amusing.

“You know that you-and-me is not going to happen, right?” said Jess, looking suddenly alert to that possibility.

Gaspar flashed one of Renard’s brilliant smiles. “You’re a girl in love. You’re completely smitten. I understand. Think of me as your … confessor: someone in whom you can confide without fear of it being repeated.” Gaspar loved flat-out lying as well. He had the best job in the world.

Jess leaned in toward Gaspar.

“So here’s the thing: Pavel does great in a pinch, but how can I know what he’ll be like after an annum—sorry, that’s about two Earth years—or after two annums? Or ten? Will he be sorry if he goes to Mars? Have I just fallen in love with the idea of Pavel? A Pavel who doesn’t even exist?”

It was time to turn the conversation. “Would you consider taking me to Mars?” asked Gaspar. He glanced at his chronometer. He was playing a dangerous game.

“You?” Jessamyn frowned.

“Yes.”

“Maybe,” she said. “It’s a harsh life. More so than here, in some ways.”

“Surely there would be ways for someone like me to contribute,” murmured Gaspar, bending the current of her thought toward plans, schemes, wars, plots. “I’m a good pilot. And a good marksman as well.”

“Oh,” replied Jess.

She seemed to be considering what he’d asked. He felt his heart beating a bit faster. Yes, tell me all your schemes!

The sound of heavy footfalls echoed in the empty hold. It sounded like more than just Pavel.

Shizer! thought Gaspar. “Hold that thought,” he said, walking to investigate who was coming. It turned out to not be Pavel at all. It was the Shirff and several of the older citizens.

“What is it?” Jess asked the visitors.

Gaspar assumed another of Renard’s bright smiles while internally cursing. He had less than an hour to get out of this rat-hole.

“Council meeting ran later than we expected,” said the Shirff, frowning slightly. “We’re here for the evaluation of the new ship?”

“Oh,” said Jess, apparently remembering. “Right. For use in the event of an evacuation. Right. So all of us, um, newcomers really appreciate the offer to allow us to shelter in your bunkers in the event of an emergency and all.” She paused to draw breath.

It sounded to Gaspar as if she was rehearsing a memorized speech.

“But we’d rather use this ship if it came down to an actual emergency, so we’ll be doing drills here. And you are all welcome to join us. If you’d like.”

“Communication looks to be secured,” he said, tapping the comm panel beside Renard.

“Yes,” said Jess. “It’s secure. And the ship can accommodate everyone in the village. I’m sure you saw that much already, on the way up.”

“Yes,” replied a graying woman. “But I don’t like that, Shirff. Putting all our eggs in one basket is foolishness, plain and simple. The bunkers have served us well in the past.”

The village elders conferred and Gaspar grimaced—internally only, of course. He needed these people off the ship now. Jessamyn, meanwhile, seemed intent on pointing out every safety feature.

“I think that will be all,” said the Shirff, just as Gaspar was beginning to contemplate using force to get rid of the unwanted guests. “Thanks for letting us have a look around. I haven’t been on one of these big ships before.”

“Who has?” asked the gray-haired woman.

Gaspar saw Jessamyn frown, turn, and press one hand to one ear to block the sound of the others. She must be using that earpiece of hers again.

“Yes,” she was saying. “Okay. I’ll be right over.”

She turned to Gaspar. “Sorry, Renard. It’s my brother. Something’s come up.”

She turned, dashing for the stairs.

Shizer!

Gaspar tried to follow her, but the Shirff and the others were blocking his exit. “If you don’t mind?” he said, rather rudely.

The others stepped aside.

But by the time he’d reached the hatch exit, Jessamyn had fired up his small ship and was speeding back to her home.

“This is a farce!” he shouted to the empty desert around him. He looked about for the Shirff’s vehicle, but there were no other vehicles. The three must have walked to get to the blast crater.

It was time to make more desperate plans, then. Plans involving his skills as a marksman.

He cursed once again. He’d hidden his weapons in the ship Jessamyn had just taken. He began running, as fast as Renard’s body would allow, back to the Gopher Hole.

40

REPEATED PATTERN

“This is the echo,” Ethan was saying as Jessamyn entered the Gopher Hole.

Jess saw Kazuko Zaifa beside him, the others gathered round. A moment later Pavel came bounding down the stairs as well.

“Got here as fast as I could,” he said to the gathered company. “Hey, Jess. Guess we’re not flying tonight after all,” he murmured.

Jessamyn shrugged her frustration and then looked with the others at the series of numbers and characters on his screen. “Sorry, Eth,” she said. “This doesn’t mean anything to me. You’re going to have to explain it.”

Kazuko spoke instead. “Your brother is showing us a repeated pattern of transmission from the M-class vessel to a deep space satellite. From there, the transmission could be going literally anywhere on Earth.”

“Is that … normal?” asked Jess. “Maybe it’s some old, automated thing that all ships do here. I mean, we should make it stop, obviously.”

“I am of the opinion we should monitor any future transmissions,” said Ethan. “For now. If it happens again tomorrow, I believe we should assume that someone here is intentionally communicating with someone elsewhere.”

“Ask the Shirff,” said Jess, shrugging. It didn’t seem like that big of a deal to her. “Yuccans share things. It could’ve been Renard. I gave him quite the tour of the ship. Why didn’t you ask him to come here?”

Kazuko answered. “We thought we’d keep this just amongst ourselves, for now. Your brother felt that would be best.”

“Okay,” Jess replied. “Is that everything?”

Ethan nodded curtly.

Jess was used to her brother assuming she’d be interested in his little projects and findings, but this seemed like a lot of fuss over nothing. She nudged Pavel with her shoulder. “You still up for a flight? Or you want to wait?”

“I’d love to get out of here,” he said. He sounded troubled. Or unhappy.

Jessamyn hesitated. Did Pavel hate Yucca after all, then? She shook off the thought. This was Pavel. He loved Yucca. And flying. And you, she reminded herself.

Ethan spoke. “Kazuko and I will continue to examine the transmissions. She is adept at decoding.”

Kazuko nodded in farewell as Pavel and Jess left together.

“Hey, Jess?” began Pavel. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about Renard. And with this transmission business now …”

He was cut off mid-thought, however, by a low wailing sound.

“A drill? Now?” Pavel kicked at the sand.

“Unbelievable,” said Jess.

Kazuko, white-faced, appeared at the top of the stairs. “We’re being attacked,” she shouted. “Ethan says we’ve got fifteen minutes. This is not a drill! Ethan feels we should transport using Brian Wallace’s ship—”

“I’m taking the Red Hope,” said Jessamyn.

“Then I’m going with you,” said Pavel.

Jessamyn nodded her approval. “Don’t forget Elsa,” she called to Kazuko. Turning to Pavel, she said, “Renard’s still waiting at the ship. He’ll hear the warning sirens there, won’t he?”

“Of course,” said Pavel. “But you took his craft. He’ll have to run on foot.”

“Hades!” shouted Jess.

“We’ll take his craft back,” said Pavel. “We can keep an eye out for him on the ground.”

But as they dashed for the small craft, they nearly collided with Renard, who was also running to his small get-about. He was breathing as though he’d run all the way from the crater. Upon his face was a look of dark determination such as Jess had never seen before.

41

JUST LIKE YOUR AUNT

Pavel startled as he barreled into Renard, who was leaning over, attempting to open the passenger side of his vehicle.

“Guess you heard the evac signal?” shouted Pavel, eyeing Renard carefully.

“Yeah,” replied Renard, reaching for passenger hatch door.

“What about the others?” asked Jess. “The Shirff and council members?”

“They had a transport,” said Renard. “I’m sure they’ll make it to the bunkers in time.”

“You drive, Renard,” said Jess. “It’s your ship. We’re going to the big ship. We can take you.”

Pavel frowned. He didn’t want to bring the Yuccan along. Pavel saw a look of surprise flash across Renard’s face, followed by a look of satisfaction.

Renard nodded and dashed to the driver’s side of the craft. “Let’s go, then,” was all he said.

Pavel placed himself directly behind Renard, keeping a close eye on his friend. Pavel’s mind was racing, and he didn’t like any of the thoughts passing through right now. Who would rain mass destruction upon Yucca? He could think of only one person.

His aunt.

But how had they been discovered? And for how long had she known? He was missing something—something obvious. He closed his eyes to tighten his ability to focus, to think things through. It had to be his aunt. It had to be that she’d decided to cease her attempts to lure him back to her side. This felt too much like vengeance. Somehow, she’d traced his movements back to Yucca. Or someone had betrayed them.

Shizer!

Did Lucca know Jessamyn was here, too?

~ ~ ~

Gaspar had to work hard to keep a smile from forming on Renard’s face. You’re supposed to be alarmed, he reminded himself, terrified.

Sometimes one had to take a moment to admire one’s work, though. That slight shudder he’d placed in Renard’s voice just now? Brilliant. As a matter of fact, if he had to find one word to describe himself and his abilities, brilliant would do quite well. The things to which he set his mind had an almost … magical quality to them. He’d wanted to get Pavel and Jess on the ship with him. Poof! It was as if the universe was conspiring alongside him. But this went beyond mere luck, he thought, as they sped across the desert floor. These things had a way of working themselves out in the end because he, Gaspar, worked so hard to ensure they would.

It was very challenging to keep the smile off Renard’s face. Missiles being on their way certainly helped, though. He allowed Renard a worried sigh as he pulled the craft to a halt beside the crater. He was not in truth thinking of missiles, however. He was thinking of the Chancellor, and how to further ingratiate himself with her.

Gaspar made a living from reading people well, and he knew Lucca Brezhnaya would be worrying right now as to whether he would, in fact, retrieve her prizes. As to whether or not she’d made a mistake to push her spy so hard.

A simple communication of his victory before the missiles struck would earn him her gratitude. If he called to report success after the missiles struck, she’d be in a much darker mood, doubting herself and taking it out on others.

He would make the call before.

But how to keep the listening ears beside him occupied? He glanced at the two in the vehicle with him. Were there, perhaps, hatches that needed battening? What was battening, anyway?

“How long do we have?” Gaspar asked aloud.

“Seven minutes, worst case,” replied Pavel, terse.

“I want the solar battery removed from my vehicle and brought aboard,” said Gaspar as he brought the small ship down beside the large one. “It’s extremely valuable, and impossible to replace.”

“Got it,” said Pavel. “Jess, I’ll need your help.”

Things had such a way of working out exactly as Gaspar wished. He smiled.

And then he dashed ahead of the other two to send a quick transmission from inside the great ship.

~ ~ ~

Jessamyn waited until she thought Renard was out of earshot. “Pavel, this is a waste of effort. The M-class has redundant parts worth ten times this solar battery.”

Pavel cut her off abruptly. “Jess, listen carefully. I don’t know who that man is, but he’s not my friend Renard. No, listen! Why is Yucca suddenly a target of attack? It’s Lucca. Has to be. The communications from this ship?” He indicated the large transport beside them. “It’s him. Lucca’s rebodied someone to pretend to be Renard. I am sure of it.”

Jessamyn stared at her friend. “That’s crazy.” She slid the panel covering the engine to one side.

Pavel slammed the engine cover back into place. “No!” he said. “It’s not crazy.”

The hover boosters of the great ship roared to life beside them.

“We have six minutes,” said Jess. “Are you going to help me get this stupid battery out or not?”

“Absolutely not! We’re leaving in this vehicle,” he paused to slam a palm upon the small craft, “right now! Don’t you see? Whoever is up there starting the transport—it’s not Renard. My aunt hired a body-jacker. I can’t believe I didn’t see it until now.”

“Hired a what?” Jessamyn stared at Pavel. It was like he’d lost his mind. Like he’d made up his mind not to like Renard anymore. Was this because of a little harmless flirtation on Renard’s part? Jessamyn closed her eyes and shook her head slowly.

“The facts are all there, Jess,” continued Pavel. “Renard’s little brother, Samuel, he’s been trying to tell me for days that there’s something wrong with Renard. Something that started when he came back from his little sojourn. I can’t believe I didn’t see it earlier. But it all makes sense. He disappears. He comes back acting odd.” Pavel gestured at the ship beside them. “He transmits secret messages to my aunt—”

Jess interrupted him. “That’s crazy. Siblings will say anything when they’re upset with one another. You wouldn’t understand. You never had a brother. You think Samuel’s the first kid to say his brother’s body was taken over by an alien? Come on, Pavel.”

Pavel took a step toward Jessamyn. “Do not get on that transport.”

The steely tone of his voice made hairs rise along Jess’s arms. But it also made her angry. Pavel was crazed. Crazed with jealousy, or crazed because he’d been raised by a madwoman.

“Or what, Pavel?”

“I swear I will stop you, Jess.”

She placed her fists on her hips, anger building. They had minutes to get away. “Okay, just stop this. Stop it right now. Forget the stupid battery. We’re getting on that ship because if we don’t, we’ll be incinerated.”

Pavel shook his head. “That ship’s a one-way ticket to Lucca.”

Jessamyn felt anger flare within her. “That ship is my ship! My ticket home, Pavel! Is that what you can’t stand? That I want to go home? You know what? Renard’s right about you.”

Jess turned toward the ship’s hatch door. She was furious with Pavel. She was furious with herself for having imagined that he was someone she wanted to spend her life with. She’d made up an entire person who existed only in her imagination. She wiped angry tears from her cheeks and looked over her shoulder at him. He was rummaging in the small vehicle for something.

Fine, she thought. He could get in his own escape vehicle.

Only he wasn’t getting in Renard’s ship. He was getting out. He had a pea-shooter in his hands—one of the small weapons useful for taking down a roadrunner or a rattler. Was he going to threaten to shoot her? She shook her head and kept walking.

And then she heard a noise that made her stop in her tracks. He wasn’t using the weapon on her. He was doing something much, much worse. She heard the whine of the first hover booster as it shuddered itself to pieces. Pavel had known exactly where to aim.

She turned, running madly toward the second booster. If he destroyed it as well, the ship wouldn’t fly.

“Pavel, no!” Her voice echoed in the blast crater. “Are you crazy?”

Pavel’s eyes met hers briefly. His finger tapped the trigger. He blew out the second hover booster, firing several extra shots to make certain.

Jessamyn screamed in anguish, her, “No!” trailing across the desert sands. He’d crippled the Red Hope. The ship would be a sitting rock out here when the missiles arrived. Yet again, Jess felt her world being torn from her. She was losing Mars once more, but this time, it was Pavel’s doing.

Inside her, the fury and agony behind each of her losses gathered to this moment in the blast crater. “What have you done?” she cried.

“Saved your life,” shouted Pavel. “Come on. Let’s go. Now!”

Jess felt herself shaking. She couldn’t tell if it was from rage or despair. But of one thing she felt completely certain. “I never want to see you again, do you understand? I hate you! Get away from me!”

“Jess, come on, my aunt’s destroying this place!”

“You’re the destroyer!” Jessamyn screamed out the worst insult she could think of. “You’re just like your aunt!”

She sank to her knees just as Renard came running out of the ship.

“What’s going on?” Renard’s voice sounded odd.

She stared at him. She couldn’t find the words to explain what Pavel had done. She heard Pavel shouting again. At the two of them. It didn’t matter. What did anything matter? Her beautiful ship was lost. Like the Dawn. The Galleon. And now the Red Hope. She rocked back on her heels, keening her pain to the stars.

“Jess, get over here,” shouted Pavel. “Not you, Renard. Or whoever you are. Back away.”

Jessamyn felt something prod her between the shoulders.

“Stand up,” said Renard, grabbing her by one arm and jerking her to her feet.

~ ~ ~

Gaspar was furious. But this was not the time to indulge in fury. He had three minutes, give or take, until annihilation rained down from above.

“The battery,” he shouted at the girl. “Did you remove it?”

She didn’t respond. Was she crying?

“Let her go!”

It was the boy’s voice. The boy had a small weapon, pointed at him, of all things. Gaspar barked out a short laugh.

“Drop your toy gun,” shouted Gaspar. He waved the far more deadly weapon in his own hand so that Pavel would understand who wielded the power in this little scenario. “Now!” snapped Gaspar, taking deadly aim at the girl’s head.

That made the boy act quickly. The pea-shooter clattered across the crater floor.

“Inside the small craft,” shouted Gaspar to the boy. “Now!” He grasped the girl by the hair. She didn’t even squeal in protest. He would have preferred a little squeal, but that could wait. Right now he needed to get aboard the only remaining means of escape along with the boy and the girl. He took long strides to the get-about, forcing the girl to come with him.

“Get over here or I shoot the girl,” shouted Gaspar. “I want you at the helm, boy. Now!” He roared, wishing Renard had a more threatening voice.

The boy shook his head. “My aunt wants her alive. You won’t shoot her.” Saying this, the boy dashed away, taking cover behind the M-class ship.

Renard could hear him scrabbling along the backside of the transport between boulders.

“Shizer!” said Gaspar. He had a quick decision to make. He could shoot the girl—knee or foot would prevent her from running—but he wasn’t sure he could find the boy, disable him, and still make it back to the ship before the Chancellor’s apocalypse hit. “Shizer!” he repeated.

Better the girl than nothing at all.

He forced her into the small craft—she was remarkably docile—and set a course for Budapest. “Fly this thing,” he demanded. “You’re supposed to be a pilot, aren’t you? Flew all the way from Mars? So, fly!”

She sat still.

“Fly this thing or I run out there and shoot the boy!”

He ought to have taken the helm. The girl at his side sobbed and gasped and tears ran down either side of her face as though she’d not heard a word he’d said.

“Are you a pilot or not?” he roared.

Something in the girl seemed to click. She turned and gave him a look that would have melted icebergs with its fiery heat.

“And don’t try anything stupid—the ship has a CCMS.”

Jessamyn took the craft hard into the sky, causing Gaspar to curse and grab at his seat as they rocketed into the dark of night.

42

HARBINGER

Jessamyn did not speak during the first four hours of the journey. She flew, providing for her hands and mind an occupation, a safeguard against facing the enormity of her losses. She flew and flew and flew.

Her ship, the Red Hope was surely in pieces now, destroyed by missiles.

Don’t think about it. Just fly.

Jessamyn would never see Mars again. Or anyone for whom she cared.

Fly, pilot. Don’t think.

And Pavel. Pavel, who had tried to save her. He must be dead. A choked wail escaped her. If death awaited her in Budapest—and she felt certain it did—she would welcome it.

Fly toward death. Fly to it.

But gradually she began to see that her own death was anything but certain. She would face not execution, but interrogation. And if she laid bare to Lucca the things she knew, the secrets she carried, then Mars would stand no chance at all.

She had to prevent that from happening. She had to find strength. And thinking about the losses she’d suffered was not going to keep her strong. And so, carefully, Jessamyn walled each of her losses within an imaginary fortress.

She placed her regrets for the accusations she’d hurled at Pavel inside one room and sealed the door shut. She placed her terror that he lived no more into another room and closed it off. She placed her fears for Harpreet and for Ethan in another room, securing them within. Her regret that she would never see Mars again required several doors, each heavier than the last. And when she had sealed the fortress, she dropped the keys into a very deep, very dark well.

Once her griefs were inaccessible, she found that one emotion remained: rage. And her rage against all Lucca had taken felt to Jessamyn both powerful and grand. It gave her strength to face what lay before her. It reminded her that only the present moment was real. So she flew. And as she flew, she steeled herself for a confrontation with the Terran Chancellor.

What would the Chancellor suspect already—what would she have deduced from the wreckage of the Galleon? Or from the destruction of the facility governing the Terran satellites circling Mars? If Jess sent the ship hurtling into the Arctic Ocean right now, would Mars have a better chance of surviving? Would there remain a chance for Ethan to complete his mission at Cameron Wallace’s? Jess didn’t even know if Cameron had deep space satellites.

And what if the Chancellor knew everything already?

Lucca couldn’t know everything, Jess decided, Or else she wouldn’t want me alive. She wants me alive because she thinks I have information. So it would be interrogation. Jess took a deep breath. She wanted to believe she would never betray her world or its secrets. But she’d read enough stories to be unfortunately well-informed as to the likely outcome of the combination of questioning and torture.

The man at her side examined her with narrowed eyes upon seeing her sitting up a bit straighter.

She determined she would crash the ship and end both their lives.

Quickly, pilot. Don’t think about it. She pointed the nose down hard.

Gaspar, at her side, did something unexpected. He laughed.

At the same moment, the ship corrected itself, preventing the attempted crash.

“I told you,” he said. “CCMS.”

Jessamyn would not give him the satisfaction of asking what “CCMS” stood for.

Her heart racing, she realized she would be facing Lucca after all. Which was a dreadful thing to contemplate and should have left her shaking in fear. But deep inside, a small part of her whispered, Where there’s life, there’s hope.

To what use could she put her life, then?

Jessamyn wondered if this man knew something of what the Chancellor suspected about Mars and the raiding crew. It was time for Jess to begin her career as a liar.

Renard, or whoever he was, had attempted to engage her in conversation several times. He’d cajoled and he’d threatened. Most recently, he’d tried sympathizing with her. It was time to pick his mind for answers.

He was vain; she’d determined that much. And an admirer of the Chancellor.

Jess interrupted the silence as they flew south along the coast of Europe.

“Is she a reasonable employer, the Chancellor?”

Not-Renard snapped to attention, murmuring, “It speaks,” in an undertone.

“I want to know what she can offer me that Mars cannot.”

The man smirked. “How good is the rebody program on Mars?”

Jess snorted in derision. “We live twice your pathetic lifespans.” Having said this, she realized her knee-jerk tendency to disparage all things Terran wasn’t going to serve her well. Perhaps she would turn out to be a very bad liar on Earth as opposed to on Mars.

The man angled his body so that he could look her directly in the eyes. “Why did you come here? It’s the first thing she’ll want to know. That, and, how far behind you is the Martian invasion?”

“Why would I tell you anything?”

“Because old Gaspar won’t damage your flesh to get the truth out of you.”

“That’s your real name? Gaspar?”

“What’s in a name? I’ve worn many.” He smiled. “So why not tell me everything? In the end she’ll make you wish you had, you know.”

Jessamyn frowned. She wanted to say she was done talking. But Budapest was less than an hour distant, and this man could provide her with insights she lacked.

“So the Chancellor believes I’m the forerunner to an invasion?”

Gaspar looked at her sharply. “You won’t find us unprepared, girl. We’ve done the math. Even if you’ve been cloning and forcing all your women to give birth to multiple sets of twins, your army can’t number more than twenty-thousand. Thirty if you make the very old and the very young fight as well.”

This surprised Jessamyn. Someone had been thinking about this. So the Chancellor thought Jessamyn came as a harbinger of war.

Gaspar’s voice softened. “Of course, if you’re serious about changing loyalties and asking the Chancellor to harbor you, the rewards could be great. Very great.”

Jessamyn nodded as though considering what he said carefully.

“You asked what kind of employer she is? The kind who appreciates a show of strength. There’s a reason I chose the name of Gaspar Bonaparte.” His eyes narrowed. “You do know Bonaparte, you Martians? Great Emperor?”

Who died imprisoned, stripped of everything, thought Jessamyn. Her only response was a curt nod.

“You really ought to consider telling me everything,” said Gaspar.

But Jessamyn was too busy considering what she ought to tell the Chancellor—how to play upon or against her fears of a Marsian invasion.

“Have it your own way,” said Gaspar at last. “The angrier she is with you, the less I’ll suffer her wrath.”

43

EQUIDIMA

Jessamyn was shoved onto her knees in a room that appeared to be a very luxurious sleeproom, of all things. She’d been blindfolded as soon as she’d landed the craft under Gaspar’s direction. After that, she’d been left in a drafty room for what felt like an hour. Her eyes adjusted with difficulty to the very bright lighting in the new room. Reflective surfaces—polished chrome, mirrors, glass—increased the sense of pervasive illumination.

At the focal point of all that light stood Lucca Brezhnaya. Jessamyn was relieved to find she would not have to wait untold days to learn her fate. The Chancellor struck Jess as someone who would enjoy making people wait.

“Ah, there you are,” said Lucca, as she might have said to a misplaced stylus or pair of reading lenses.

As Jessamyn’s eyes adjusted, she saw the Chancellor was being sewn into an elegant gown by a woman in a simple grey uniform. Jess couldn’t tell if the dress was shimmering in the light or creating luminosity on its own. It appeared to be made of flame, blood red. Jessamyn thought of Yucca all-ablaze and then tried not to think of Yucca. She especially tried not to think of Pavel. This was a time to be hard, not yielding. She imagined once more the fortress within which sheltered all that was soft or tender or vulnerable about her.

“I don’t have time to question you properly right now, as I have an investiture to attend,” continued the Chancellor. “And I really can’t risk soiling the lovely confection Zabrina’s created for me.”

The woman in grey shuddered as the Chancellor spoke her name.

“Careful with that needle, girl!” warned Lucca.

Zabrina murmured an apology.

The Chancellor took in a slow, deep breath as if to calm herself.

She’s nervous, thought Jessamyn. The realization brought a small measure of strength. On the other hand, the Chancellor wasn’t the one on her knees with her hands secured behind her back.

“I thought we’d get started using Equidima,” said Lucca. “Seeing as I’m stuck here for … however long it takes Zabrina to finish up.”

Jessamyn remained silent.

“It’s just there on the table beside you, dear,” said the Chancellor. “The med-patch. I believe you are familiar with their application?”

Jess stared at the woman before her, flushing. Lucca was referring, of course, to the time Jess had slapped a narcotic onto the Chancellor.

“Oh,” said Lucca. “I forgot you’re still shackled. Release,” she said in a tone of authority.

The bindings on Jessamyn’s wrists fell separated, although on each wrist the manacle remained, reminding Jess of the genie in the story.

“Hurry up, girl,” said Lucca. “I haven’t all evening.”

Angry words exploded from Jessamyn at last. “Are you insane? Do you seriously think I’m going to inject myself with Equidima?”

“Yes,” said the Chancellor, as if explaining something to a wayward child. “I think you are going to do as I request.”

“Or you’ll kill me, I suppose? Go ahead. What are you waiting for?”

The Chancellor laughed. It was a light laugh, but there was nothing merry or soft about it. “No, my dear. Should you refuse me, I will find it necessary to kill Zabrina, I’m afraid.”

“You …What?” sputtered Jess.

Zabrina sewed more swiftly, her lips pulling into a thin line, a furrow forming between her eyes.

“Apply the medpatch or watch me end Zabrina’s life,” said the Chancellor. The fingers of her right hand flexed slightly. “Beg.” The order was directed not to Jessamyn but to the woman sewing faster than ever now.

“Please, miss,” said the dressmaker. “It’s not my life that matters. But I have a sister. She’s not … normal. She requires special care. My position here makes the special care possible. Please, miss, please—”

From the pleading girl’s work basket, Lucca procured a wicked-looking pair of dressmaking shears.

“Stop it!” shouted Jess, peeling back the wrapping from the medpatch. She slapped it violently to her inner wrist. “Your dress is done. Get the girl out of here!”

Lucca’s red lips pulled back to reveal white teeth. “You may go, Zabrina. I’ll see you for tomorrow’s fitting.”

The young woman in grey scuttled from the room, not even taking a moment to gather her sewing kit.

“Now, then,” said the Chancellor. “Let’s talk, you and I.”

Jessamyn remembered how words had tumbled from her when Pavel had used the truth-telling drug on her months ago. She recalled as well his admission that he was worthless under its influence. Would she prove worthless under Equidima as well, knowing ahead of time it was flowing through her veins? Was she now, for the sake of sparing a woman she didn’t know, about to betray the world she loved?

“Secure wrists,” said the Chancellor as she approached Jess.

Jessamyn felt the manacles drawing her hands together once more—they must have been magnetically charged.

The Chancellor circumscribed a narrow arc around Jessamyn. “Why are you here?”

Jess sat back on her heels. “Gaspar tricked me into coming with him.” As before with Pavel, the answer seemed to come out of her without her volition.

Lucca let out a heavy sigh. “Why are you here on Earth?”

“I wanted things to be normal at home, and I thought I was in love.” Jessamyn heard the answer and was stunned by the solemn truth. As much as she’d justified everything she’d done in the name of saving her world, the truth was that she’d returned for Ethan and for Pavel.

“So you’re resistant to Equidima,” said Lucca, as if musing to herself. “Is it training or is it genetic alteration?”

An answer of sorts tumbled out: “We don’t practice genetic mods on Mars.” Jess realized she had a moment—just a split-second, really—where she could exercise choice as to what she said. The Chancellor had asked her two questions. She had chosen which one to answer.

“Of course you don’t,” said Lucca.

The Chancellor drew very near to Jessamyn until she stood just behind her and touched her hair. It seemed to Jess as if Lucca was stroking her hair, but in an instant Jess realized that wasn’t what she was doing at all.

Lucca, gripping a handful of Jess’s long, red hair, tugged hard, forcing Jessamyn’s head back until she faced the Chancellor behind her, upside down. Tears sprang to Jess’s eyes from the sharp pain of hairs parting company with her scalp. It was humiliating.

“How do you survive on that wretched ball of cold dirt?” murmured the Chancellor.

Jessamyn could tell it wasn’t really a question. But an answer tripped its way out regardless. “We trade tellurium for ration bars.” She was able to keep herself from saying with what frequency raids were carried out. It was evident she could exercise some measure of control over what she said.

But the Chancellor seemed to continue in her belief that Jess was lying—was Equidima-resistant.

“That’s ridiculous, child. At least form your lies with better care than that. An entire civilization surviving upon ration bars? Impossible.”

“It isn’t,” Jess replied.

The Chancellor threw Jessamyn’s head forward. Thanks to the Equidima, Jess felt the impulse to express relief, but she suppressed it.

“Well, I can see you’re not going to do this the easy way. They do you no favors in the long run, child, providing training in resisting the drug. You’ll find the traditional method of interrogation far less pleasant than this. And either way, I’ll get the truth. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather tell me everything about your mission right now?”

“I’m certain,” said Jessamyn, honestly.

“Well, then, I’ll see you in three hours’ time for a conventional interrogation.”

The Chancellor called out, “Security!” Then she turned back to Jessamyn. “I’m going to enjoy our next meeting. Probably more than I ought to.” She smiled.

“What will you do to me?” asked Jess, instantly ashamed for asking, but the inclination to speak had proved irresistible.

Lucca smiled. “I’ll apply pain and after a while you will supply answers.”

“That’s inhuman,” said Jessamyn, her voice fierce.

“What do you know of humanity? You abandoned Earth for your planet of ice, to scratch and claw out a worthless existence, hoarding resources, plotting to destroy Earth and steal what’s ours.” She spit the last words out in Jessamyn’s face.

Vituperative, thought Jessamyn. That was the accurate description of the woman before her. She kept the thought unexpressed this time.

The Chancellor leaned forward to wipe the spittle from Jessamyn’s face. The gesture seemed tender, almost, but it was also deeply invasive and Jess felt a shiver run along her spine.

44

ONCE CALLED HOME

Pavel Brezhnaya-Bouchard turned his face to the sky, watching the craft that carried Jessamyn and someone who was no longer Renard away from him. The stars overhead appeared ice-cold and infinitely distant. His own heart felt as cold as the sky above, as heavy as the boulder beside which he’d sheltered.

“How could I have been so stupid?” He slammed his fists into the side of the great ship that would fly no more and then tore off at a run toward Yucca. He might not make it to the bunkers, but even the Gopher Hole would provide a measure of protection beyond what he had now.

As he ran, he berated himself. He should have seen it sooner. The signs, so clear now, ought to have sang out to him: This is your aunt’s work: beware! But he’d seen nothing more than a friend vying for Jessamyn’s attention.

His lungs began to burn with his exertion. The desert flew past under his feet.

The look on Jessamyn’s face as he’d destroyed the Red Hope—rage and hatred and despair—he would remember that look until he died. He checked the time. Annihilation in two minutes, give or take.

He had to get underground or his escape from Lucca’s body-jumping spy would be worthless. And now the self-doubts came in hard and fast. Did he do the right thing? What kind of plan was “stay behind in a town about to get blitzed,” anyway?

Stay alive, he told himself as he ran on. Stay alive and save Jessamyn’s life.

He saw something streaking toward Yucca. The something looked the wrong shape for what he imagined an explosive should look like. In fact, the something resembled a Hercules-class ship.

Seconds before the dirt-brown ship touched down beside him, Pavel recognized her. He dashed up the hatch as soon as it extended before him. The ship tore into the sky, and this time as he watched the heavens, he knew that the bright streaks approaching Yucca brought death and not rescue.

As Pavel caught his breath, Ethan explained. “Elsa would not settle. She whined at your seat aboard ship.”

Brian Wallace added, “And then she ran circles in here like a mad thing until Harpreet suggested we double check that the three of ye got off safely. Now do ye mind explaining what ye’re doing running out here alone?”

Pavel told the tale, steeling himself against the pain of losing Jessamyn. And he felt forming within a cold resolve to face his aunt directly. There would be no more hiding. No more subterfuge. Just him and his aunt and Jessamyn’s fate hanging in the balance. This had been the course he’d chosen the moment he’d refused to board the ship with Jessamyn.

“I need to meet with Lucca. She’ll be preparing for her investiture, which means I can find her at home,” Pavel said.

To the others, he outlined a simple plan: he would offer to exchange his life for Jessamyn’s. His aunt could have his loyalty as a surgeon or simply throw him in a dungeon so long as she agreed to free Jessamyn.

Brian Wallace argued loudly against the idea. “What’s to make ye think she’ll keep any promise she makes to ye, lad?”

“I can’t know what she’ll do,” said Pavel. “I can only control what I do.” It was foolhardy of him, he knew. It was irrational. But it was the only thing he could do, if he wanted to live with himself.

Ethan attempted to persuade Pavel with logic. But it was Harpreet who, in the end, sided with Pavel.

“If you feel this is what you are called to do, then we must not stand in your way. To do so would be unconscionable.”

It was also Harpreet who came up with a back-up plan should Pavel’s powers in the art of persuasive speech prove ineffective.

“Do you recall the coil of information I passed to you when I still thought I would remain behind in the prison at New Timbuktu?” she asked.

“Of course,” said Pavel. “We transferred the information to this ship and also to Eth’s hoverchair wafer.”

And then he understood why Harpreet had asked.

“Oh, wow,” he said. “It just might work, if we set things up carefully.”

And so, on the heels of his aunt’s third-term investiture as Chancellor, Pavel arrived back in Budapest and, using a hidden service entrance, he snuck into the palace he had once called home.

45

NO LONGER A BOY

Among the many emotions assaulting Pavel as he returned to his aunt’s palatial dwelling, one surprised him: Pavel was genuinely happy to see Zussman. The delight was evidently mutual—his aunt’s butler fussed over him and insisted upon preparing a dark mug of Budapesti kávé for Pavel.

“I could use the caffeine,” Pavel admitted. “I’m here to see my aunt.”

“Yes, sir, I assumed as much, sir.”

“So she’s won another election?”

“Yes, sir. We’re all very relieved around here. It’s the investiture tonight, sir.”

“Hmm.” Pavel took a sip of kávé, staring into its dark depths. “I remember asking to be allowed to stay up and watch the feed last time.” He recalled, too, how he’d thought his aunt beautiful in her gown of midnight-blue. How he’d looked forward to being old enough to escort her to the ceremony the next time she was elected. “Things have changed since then.”

“Yes, sir.” Zussman raised his eyes from the deferential half-meter above ground where he habitually rested his gaze. “You are a grown man, now, sir. Even without rebodying."

Pavel held his fingers out before him. It had been months since he’d thought about how his body remained in his possession so long after he ought to have left it. Other things had crowded out all his past until that life seemed to him a thing as insubstantial as the smoke that rose from the bonfires of Yucca.

The recollection of the desert community brought a rush of fear, and Pavel wondered what had become of the residents sheltering deep under the explosions.

"If I might be permitted, sir, I hope you will allow me to say how very good it is to see you again."

Pavel smiled. "You and I may be seeing a lot more of each other, Zuss,” said Pavel. “It’s late. You should rest.”

Zussman hesitated. “It’s just, well, sir … I must ask. Can you assure me you intend no harm to the Chancellor?”

Pavel stood and looked his aunt’s butler solemnly in the eyes. “I promise, Zuss. You know I don’t break promises. Go to bed.”

“Yes, sir. Good night, sir.” The butler turned to go.

Pavel smiled at the sound of Zussman’s shoes on the marble floors of the palace. The sound was familiar. Comforting. The opposite of anything else in his aunt’s expansive bastion, thought Pavel.

The kávé had brought his mind to full alertness. He had an hour, more or less, until he could expect his aunt’s click-click-click across the entryway floor. He hoped she would accept his offer. It was all he had kept, this one hope. His others he had released as he flew toward Budapest. The hope of a life with Jessamyn was gone. She might forgive his destruction of the M-class transport someday, but by the time that happened, he would no longer be free to share in her life. Not if his aunt agreed to what he proposed. And probably not if she refused, either. One way or another, Pavel's dreams of a life among the stars, shared with the girl he loved, ended here, ended tonight.

Pavel fumbled in the outer pocket of his jacket and removed a wafer. One by one, he watched all his favorite vid clips of space exploration: the first lunar landing, the first remote video transmission from Mars, the first steps taken upon Mars by humans. He especially loved that one for the astronaut’s inability to speak the speech that had no doubt been composed for the broadcast. Instead of speaking as she took her first steps upon the red planet, she had laughed uncontrollably, unabashedly, overwhelmed by the greatness of the experience of setting foot on another world.

The speech had come later, but no one remembered that vid. No one had been inspired to sign on for future missions based on the speech. But her laughter—that had launched a generation of Mars settlers to seek the stars.

Pavel sighed and flicked his wafer off. He would not follow those pioneers. Mars was lost to him now. But if he negotiated well with his aunt, it would not be lost to Jessamyn.

The more Pavel thought of it, the more it seemed he had made the right choice. At his aunt’s side, he could influence her, persuade her. He could stand as an advocate for the world he’d come to love because of Jessamyn. These thoughts filled him with a sense of noble purpose. He was where he was supposed to be.

Nevertheless, his heartbeat sped as he heard the arrival outside of his aunt’s vehicle. Strange how the sounds he hadn’t heard for months were all so easily recognizable. Felt so immediately familiar.

He stood in the foyer as he knew Zussman would have stood to welcome Lucca home from an exhausting evening.

“Hello, Aunt.” His voice, though soft, echoed in the vast and imposing entry.

For a moment, her posture reminded him of that of a Yuccan citizen upon encountering a rattlesnake. The same frozen alertness to danger, the same instant assessment of its immediacy. Her bodyguards trained weapons on him. He’d expected this and raised his hands in a slow arc, wide to either side of his body.

“I’m not here to make trouble,” he said.

Lucca gave a swift and silent sign to the men at her side. They relaxed their weapons but not their watchfulness.

“But how lovely to see you, dear boy,” drawled the Chancellor. “I was expecting you, originally, to arrive with your little friend and the impersonator. I was very disappointed when Gaspar arrived without you.” She removed a pair of white gloves, long and immaculate, holding them out for a moment before she seemed to take note of Zussman’s absence.

“I told Zussman to go to bed,” said Pavel. “Allow me to help you with your wrap.”

The weapons instantly snapped back to tracking Pavel’s head as he approached his aunt.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said the Chancellor to her guards. “It’s my nephew. I’m certain he promises to be good. Leave us.”

The guards hesitated a split-second.

“I said, leave us!” Lucca’s voice echoed magnificently in the foyer. She passed Pavel her gloves and wrap as she ascended the tall flight of stairs leading to the first floor. “Come with me, nephew. We have much to discuss.”

As Pavel expected, she led him to her office.

“I had other plans for the remainder of this evening,” said Lucca as she seated herself behind an expansive desk made of tempered glass. “But they will have to wait, I think.” She smiled and Pavel remembered how little smiles became her. She indicated a seat opposite her desk.

Pavel kept his hands locked behind his back and refused the seat she indicated.

“I have an offer to make you, Aunt.”

Her smile faded. “How charming. An offer.” She extended a hand, waved it airily. “Pray, continue.”

“I know you have my … my friend Jessamyn Jaarda,” said Pavel. “I want to offer my life in exchange for hers. Let her go free and I will serve you, exactly as you asked of me the day I turned eighteen. For the rest of my life.”

She leveled her eyes to catch his. When he was young, they’d done this as a game. He’d never been able to win the little competition of who-will-blink-first. But now he was grown. He was no longer a boy she could torment with games she’d perfected long ago. This time, after a long minute where neither blinked, neither looked aside, his aunt released his gaze to direct her eyes to the ceiling.

“Oh, Pavel,” she said, adding nothing to the utterance for several moments. “Do you know, you’re very like my father.” Her brows dropped and drew slightly closer.

She looked wistful. Pavel had anticipated several possible responses to his offer on the part of his aunt. This was not one of them.

“I never met my grandfather,” he replied. “I’m told I’m like my father.”

“Oh, yes, yes, of course,” said Lucca, waving her hands as if to sweep the conversation or her own nostalgia aside. Then she brushed a manicured finger over a call button. “Zussman? You’re needed in my office.”

The butler’s voice answered, drowsily deferential, “At once, Madam.”

Pavel scowled, irritated by his aunt’s assumption that her butler should be at her beck and call at all hours. Of course, Pavel was placing himself in exactly the same position. Voluntarily. Perhaps Zussman had his reasons for doing so as well.

“What of my offer?” asked Pavel.

“I can’t say I’m inclined to accept it, dear boy.”

Pavel felt a low level of anger rising in his belly. He suppressed it. He needed to keep an even temper with his volatile aunt.

“I think you ought to accept,” he said calmly. “As you’ve told me, and as those observing my volunteer hours noted, I will make a fine physician. I can serve you in ways you haven’t even imagined. You and I are one another’s only living relations—”

“Enough, boy,” said his aunt.

Pavel felt himself flushing. He wished she wouldn’t make a point of calling him boy. It was done to irritate him, of course. He must not let himself become irritated.

His aunt spoke again. “All of your talents and skills are at my disposal already.”

Pavel shook his head. “I will only serve you if you let her go.”

“No, dear boy, I rather think you will serve me in any case.”

Upon hearing Zussman’s familiar tread, Pavel kept himself from responding. The butler might be old, but he was capable of defending Lucca, and Pavel did not intend to create a scene where the old man would have to choose between the two of them.

“You called, Madam?” asked the butler.

“Zussman,” replied the Chancellor. “I believe you are looking forward to retirement. What is it—less than a year now until I lose you?”

“Yes, Madam. Seven months until I fourbody, Madam.”

Lucca smiled. “You have plans, I assume. Will you advertise for a companion? Set up yourself up in a cozy cottage in Crete? Ibiza?”

“I had thought to try the Azores, Madam. A bit more off the beaten path, as they say.”

Pavel noted the man’s discomfort as the Chancellor questioned him upon matters personal.

“An excellent choice,” said Lucca. “I hear the Azores are lovely for most months of the year.”

“Yes, Madam.”

The Chancellor turned her gaze upon her nephew. She spoke slowly, enunciating each word with unusual care. “It would be a pity, would it not, nephew, if our dear Zussman were unable to enjoy his retirement?”

Pavel had expected something like this, but he found it difficult to contain the rage his aunt’s threats induced. It was even more intolerable to hear her make them in Zussman’s presence. Pushing past the sensation of anger, he found himself clenching his hands into tight fists and crossing to his aunt’s desk.

“What do you want, Aunt?”

Zussman stepped protectively toward his employer, but he did not move to threaten Pavel.

She fixed her eyes upon her nephew’s. “To begin with, I want you to assist at a transfer tomorrow morning. The Head of Global Transfer will be performing the rebody. It is important to me that nothing goes amiss.” She turned to her butler. “That will be all, Zussman. I wish you the best with all your plans, of course.”

Pavel’s eyes flickered briefly to where the butler stood. He watched as Zussman executed a neat bow. The old man’s face had taken on a tinge of sickly gray.

Waiting until the door closed behind Zussman, Pavel spoke in calm tones to his aunt. “I’ve already promised you my loyalty and my service. There was no need to threaten the old man.”

“Ah, but there was, my dear boy,” replied his aunt. “You promised your loyalty conditionally, requesting from me something I am not inclined to give. I am merely demonstrating that, despite your protestations, you will do what I request without my acquiescence to your offer.”

Pavel prepared to play his trump card.

46

COLD FIRE

An hour passed while Jessamyn waited under heavy guard. She’d been removed from the Chancellor’s sleeproom, or whatever that place had been, to something that resembled a prison cell. The second hour raced by, and the third seemed to pass in seconds and not minutes.

As the minutes following the third hour passed, Jess fell into a shivering that she was unable to stop. It was humiliating. She vowed she would not shake when the Chancellor came for her, but she knew it was a hollow promise. Her body would do what it wanted, regardless of her wishes. A fourth hour passed and Jessamyn no longer shook.

Instead, she felt once more the cold fire of the resolve that had filled her as she’d flown with Gaspar from Yucca. She asked herself what Mei Lo would do in this situation. It was a sobering question: Mei Lo would never allow Marsian security to be breached. The Secretary would find a way to end her life rather than allow truths to be tortured from her.

The thought provided Jessamyn with a resolution to act as Mei Lo would act. Her tiny room was bare of anything that might be put to self-destructive purposes. If Lucca meant to torture her for truths, however, Jess supposed that would mean sharp objects. And Lucca was overly confident in a way that led to carelessness. In Brian Wallace’s small cottage on the Isle of Skye, that carelessness had led to Jess plunging a scalpel into the Chancellor’s hand. Another opportunity such as that might yet arrive. Already this evening, Lucca had spent time in a room with Jess unshackled, however temporarily.

The next time the Chancellor made an error of judgment like that, Jess would be ready to act. You’ve lost your own freedom, she told herself grimly. You will not, by prolonging your own life, be the cause of the loss of Marsian independence.

47

CARROT OR STICK

Pavel cleared his throat. "Let us return to my initial offer," he said to his aunt. "You must know I would not have come here unless I could provide you with additional incentives to set Jessamyn free."

Something flickered in Lucca's eyes, snake-like.

Pavel continued. "I was concerned you might make things difficult, so I have ensured that, should Jessamyn not arrive among friends within twenty-four hours, certain sensitive information about you will be disseminated to the news feeds. Information gathered from over thirty of your current and former employees. Taken together, it is rather damning, I'm afraid."

"I see," said Lucca. His aunt's expression had hardened into one that many might mistake for calm.

Pavel did not make that mistake.

"Would you like to reconsider and allow Jessamyn to go free?"

"My dear Pavel, do you think this is the first such storm I've had to weather? The first time my name has been dragged through the media mud?"

"I think this would be a scandal even your public relations team would find challenging. I think there would be an inquest into your recent election at the very least."

"It all sounds highly inconvenient, nephew."

"And it can all be avoided if you release the girl."

Lucca rose and activated a holographic image of Earth. She returned to her seat and gazed at the green and blue globe. "There are more important things at stake than your infatuation with a girl from another world, Pavel. The very safety of Earth is at risk. The two billion people in my care stand to face hunger, war, and poverty because of the actions of a handful eking out an existence millions of kilometers away."

"Jessamyn is not here to wage a war."

"Pavel," said Lucca, half a smile upon her face. "Oh, Pavel." She shook her head.

"I'm telling the truth. Grab the Equidima and ask me again. Jess just wants to get home."

"There’s no point in interrogating you. The girl has told you nothing of any true value. She's played you, Pavel. But make no mistake: she won't play me."

"Then you will be exposed, Aunt. By this time tomorrow, your name will be reviled around the world."

"Do you really think a setback like expulsion from office can stop me?"

"It will take years for you to regain the credibility you'll lose."

Lucca nodded. "It might. If I had a sentimental attachment to this body, to this identity."

Pavel reeled from the revelation; his aunt was claiming she would jump bodies. Why hadn’t he thought of this? It was so obvious a solution, for someone as amoral as his aunt. And what good would it do to accuse whoever Lucca became? Who would win that battle? His aunt would beat him, as assuredly as she was doing right now. Pavel’s shoulders sagged forward.

His aunt was not going to release Jessamyn.

Lucca interrupted his thoughts. "Do you remember how I used to explain my job to you, when you were young?"

Pavel’s voice was flat as he repeated the words she'd fed to him as a boy. "You said the world was like a vast garden and that you were the head gardener, directing others to keep out the weeds and the weevils." He sank into the seat he had refused earlier.

"It was a very good analogy,” said his aunt. “I stand prepared to give up anything, to make any sacrifice, in order to preserve the beauty and order of this garden we call Earth."

Revulsion kept Pavel from responding.

"My dear boy, I always have an exit strategy for contingencies like the one you think you can threaten me with. I will not release the girl.” She paused for a moment to let the words sink in. “You have, however, shown yourself more resourceful than I gave you credit for. There will always be a place for resourceful thinkers within my inner circle."

At that moment, a red light pulsed on the surface of Lucca's desk.

"Ah," said Lucca. "Major Vladim Wu wishes to speak with me."

Pavel knew Wu by reputation. He rose, expecting to be escorted from the room.

"No, no," said Lucca. "You may remain. If I am not mistaken, you may find this conversation of interest."

She tapped the flashing panel on her desk and a miniature Vladim Wu appeared, his back to Pavel.

"My dear Vladim," said Pavel's aunt.

Pavel clenched his fists tight. He had a few moments where his aunt's attention would be diverted. He had time to plan his next move. Think, he told himself. Focus on what you came here to do. How could he best help the girl he loved?

Not by running away.

He needed to stay close to his aunt, to await whatever opportunity arose. His first plan, negotiate, had failed. It was time to execute his second: cooperate.

His aunt's conversation with Major Wu intruded upon his thoughts—he'd just heard the word "Yucca."

"We are confident we have gathered the last of the dissenters,” Wu was saying. “Do you have instructions regarding their fate?"

"Do you know, Vladim," said Lucca, making careful eye contact with Pavel. "With everything that today has brought, I haven't had the chance to decide just yet. I will contact you presently, when I've had a chance to think things through."

"Very good, Chancellor. There are a few who suffered minor injuries—"

"Treat them," said Lucca, interrupting him. "By all means, treat the injured, feed the hungry, and so forth. I will contact you as to their eventual destiny, once it has been decided. Chancellor out."

Wu's image disappeared.

Lucca smiled at her nephew. The expression caused a chill to run from the base of his spine up to the top of his head. "My dear boy. As I was saying, I admire your resourceful behavior. However, I cannot grant the request you have made. Cooperate with me, though, and I can, perhaps, grant other requests."

"Such as allowing the villagers of Yucca to go free?"

Pavel's aunt inclined her head in acquiescence. "We understand one another well. Let us be clear on a few other points, Pavel. I will treat you no differently than I would treat any other person in my service. I will, for example, make the assumption that your interests and my interests will only infrequently align. That you will, like others tending my garden, require regular motivations by either carrot or stick."

Pavel sniffed indignantly.

"My application of reward and punishment is not meant to demean. I have simply found it expedient. Do as I request and you'll enjoy the carrot. One or two times making the acquaintance of the stick is usually sufficient to persuade the intelligent that it lies in their best interest not to cross me."

Pavel turned and strode to the far end of the room where an artificial fire blazed in a marble fireplace. As he placed his hands on the mantle, he fought the urge to shout that he would never, ever, serve her. To run to the hall and call to Zussman to flee. But more than he wanted these things, he wanted the opportunity to free Jessamyn.

He took in several slow breaths before he turned back to face his aunt.

“Call Major Wu right now and tell him to release the citizens of Yucca,” he said.

Lucca smiled and placed the call.

Pavel hoped they would know to flee as far as possible from the home now discovered and destroyed by the Chancellor.

After his aunt finished the call to Wu, Pavel cleared his throat and made a second demand. “I want to be trained to take over as Head of Global Consciousness Transfer,” he said, his voice cold and hard.

“You have some ambition after all,” said his aunt. She crossed the room to stand beside him. “You are young. There will be other girls, dear boy.”

“I’ve lost her anyway.” He laughed harshly. “Didn’t your impersonator tell you? I destroyed her M-class transport. She didn’t like that.”

“No, I don’t suppose she did.”

His aunt stood quite close now. Close enough that his hands itched to strike or throttle her. It was with an effort that he resisted both impulses.

“Pavel, you will find I can be quite reasonable so long as you are cooperative. Thwart me and I will find a way to hurt you, every time. You are soft. Too soft. It is a weakness in you to care for Zussman.”

“Leave Zussman out of this,” said Pavel. “I’ll assist at the transfer.”

“You will accompany me to New Kelen Hospital in the morning. As will Zussman, to ensure you remain motivated.”

“I said I’d do it,” snapped Pavel. “Stop threatening me.”

Lucca grabbed Pavel by the chin. “I will treat you as I see fit. Do not set your will against mine, boy.” She released him. “You will always lose,” she said coolly, turning to walk away. “I have other business to attend to. Until tomorrow, nephew.”

Pavel stood for a long while contemplating the fire in his aunt’s office. He’d never minded fake fire before when he’d lived here, but now that he’d spent evenings beside real fires underneath a sky shot with stars, he saw the blaze in his aunt’s fireplace for what it was: a forgery.

48

WHAT A WASTE IT WOULD BE

Inside a small cell two floors below Lucca’s palace, Jessamyn waited as a fifth hour dragged by. Then, at last, she heard once more the voice she associated with her imminent and probably painful demise.

Lucca had returned.

“Well, girl, I’ve had a visit from my dear nephew,” said the Chancellor. “Most unexpected. Imagine, my nephew returned thinking to trade his life for yours. Is that not charming? Is that not noble?”

Jess felt giddy—overwhelmed—at the miracle of his survival. And then a thought flashed through her like a warning: You must not let Lucca know he means anything to you. Jessamyn kept silent.

“You seem less than grateful,” drawled the Chancellor. “Well, I had to refuse his offer, well-intended as it was.”

“But he’s alive?” The question tumbled out, and Jessamyn cursed herself for her weakness.

“Oh, did I say he was still alive?” asked Lucca.

Jessamyn could not draw breath. She should not have spoken. She would not allow the Chancellor to have power over her, not again.

“He thought you very pretty, you know.”

Jessamyn gave no outward response. But she heard Lucca’s damning use of the past tense. He was gone then. Jess’s rage against Lucca doubled, trebled, a fiery heat roiling in her belly beside the ice-cold certainty of Pavel’s death.

“However,” continued the Chancellor, “His admiration of you made me consider what a waste it would be if I were to interrogate you in your own body. I’m surprised it didn’t occur to me earlier.” Lucca leaned toward Jess in a way that suggested intimacy or camaraderie. “We’ll rebody you first, my dear. It would be a shame to inflict damage upon such a lovely first-body.” Lucca gazed into Jessamyn’s eyes with her own ice-blue ones. “Yes, it would be a shame. Perhaps I’ll save your flesh and wear it myself someday.”

Jessamyn spat at the Chancellor.

Lucca frowned and appeared about to strike Jessamyn, but then she seemed to think better of it. “Mustn’t mark that lovely form,” she murmured. “Until we meet again.”

The Chancellor gave parting orders to transfer Jessamyn to a different location. Jess heard the words New Kelen: the same hospital where she’d failed to save her brother. She felt despair settling upon her like a dusting of carbon snow, freezing her internal landscape with the dread of what was to come.

49

A SMOOTH TRANSITION

As she sat in the hovercraft, Jessamyn found herself mentally critiquing the sloppy flying of the pilot delivering her to New Kelen Hospital for her rebodying. Finding fault with the pilot was an anchor for her—a way to avoid thinking about what was coming. Her heart beat too swiftly and her pulse pounded in her ears, her adrenals sending messages of imminent threat.

Think about the approach you would have chosen for this descent, she ordered herself. She watched the pilot’s clumsy fingers shift across his nav panel. Were those even his original hands? He was threebody age, so there was her answer. No wonder he couldn’t fly worth a ration bar.

You won’t, either, once you’ve been re-bodied.

A flare of rage washed through her.

That’s right—be angry.

Anger would serve to sharpen her eyes for escape far better than would despair. A hospital was a place full of things that could be used to end one’s life. Things that could be broken, leaving jagged edges exposed, things that could be swallowed, poisoning the system.

She needed a plan. She’d been given the luxury of time out of Lucca’s hands. How could she use it to defend the world she loved?

Her eyes darted, taking in her surroundings as she was led from the hovercraft. They had not restrained her feet, forcing her instead to march with only her hands secured.

Looking up, she saw the remembered glass surface of the hospital. Someone was replacing a fourth floor window. From the fourth floor, she counted up eight more. The twelfth floor—that was where she would be taken to transfer bodies. They entered the building and approached the bay of elevators inside. Panic flashed in Jess for a moment as a pair of physicians joined them in the elevator. Were these the ones sent to rebody her today? They ignored her, though, lost in their own concerns.

“I disagree,” said one of the doctors.

“Tell that to the patient’s children,” came the retort. “Or their lawyers.”

“He would have found another way to end his life. The ability to guide your own hoverchair is a basic human dignity for non-ambulatory patients.”

The other physician remained silent.

Jessamyn tried to puzzle out how a person could use a hoverchair to end their own life. How would you do it? Drive yourself in front of an oncoming vehicle? She remembered the broken window on the fourth floor, and then it occurred to her what must have happened. Someone must have rammed a chair through the window at high speed. Could she fly right through an upper level window? She didn’t have a hoverchair, but she had her legs.

She squared her shoulders and added run through window on twelfth floor to her inventory of ways to end her life.

The elevator emptied when they reached the eighth floor, leaving only Jess and her complement of two guards. As soon as the elevator doors opened, she would run at the first window she saw.

But when the doors slid apart, a host of hospital and security personnel stood ready to receive her.

“Jessamyn,” said a man whose face looked familiar, “I’ve been asked to accord you very special care.” His voice was low and soft and so like her father’s voice that it hurt to listen.

As armored guards seized her and lifted her to strap her to a gurney, the doctor spoke in his calm and soothing tones. “I’m truly sorry for the additions to security. It’s not the way we like to operate under regular circumstances.”

Jessamyn remembered where she’d seen him before. “You’re the Head of Global Consciousness Transfer,” she blurted out.

The physician cocked his head to one side and gave a slight nod.

Jess recalled, too, Harpreet’s disappointment the night the physician had failed to make a full confession of wrongdoings in the Rebody Program. Was this the same person who’d promised to lay white lilies on his wife’s grave? Perhaps Jess wasn’t even speaking to that person. Lucca might have replaced him again.

“I’ll be handling your transfer personally,” said the physician. “I understand this is your first transfer?”

Jessamyn felt a wave of revulsion pass through her and did not respond.

“The Chancellor’s given orders to rush you through, but there are protocols to be observed on a first transfer, and I intend to follow them properly.” He offered a kind smile. “Please rest assured we will do our utmost to provide a smooth transition for you.”

Jessamyn felt the familiar tingle of a med-patch on her forearm. She glanced at her arm.

“Just a small dosage of a relaxant,” said the doctor. “To help keep you comfortable while we take measurements.”

A flood of warmth seemed to flow just under her skin, radiating from her heart out along her arms and through her belly, her legs, down to her toes. It was like being warmed by the sun’s light on Earth. She sighed happily.

No, she told herself. That’s wrong. This isn’t happy. They’re going to ground you, take away your license to fly anything more than the family get-about. She felt confused. This wasn’t about her having disobeyed Lobster’s orders. She was being grounded for something worse. Across her mind’s eye passed an image of the Galleon shifting out of sight as an escape pod carried Jessamyn to safety.

Oh, yes, she thought, That would get me grounded for life, crashing the last raiding ship. Then she saw another vision, a different M-class transport. There was something wrong with the hover boosters.

“No, no, no,” she murmured aloud.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” said the Head of Global Consciousness Transfer at her side.

She jolted suddenly back to the present. She was about to be rebodied. Followed by torture. She tried to speak. Her tongue felt thick and heavy in her mouth.

“You have to bring me a scalpel when it’s done. Or poison. Don’t forget,” said Jessamyn. Speaking aloud was so … exhausting, but it was important. Knife. Poison.

“There, there,” said the physician. “Try to relax. Don’t speak.”

And so for a moment, or an hour—she couldn’t be sure about time just now—she did as the doctor ordered and lay still and quiet.

But then she heard something. Something that made her happy. No, someone who made her happy. She knew that voice very well.

“Pavel,” she murmured, too soft for anyone to hear but herself.

Of course, Pavel was dead, wasn’t he? Jess couldn’t feel as sad as she knew she ought to. Even her feelings were sleepy.

Pavel was speaking and it was very, very, very important that she listen. She couldn’t remember why it was important, but she could do the listening without the remembering-why. Even though Pavel was dead. Wasn’t he?

“You didn’t say it would be her,” Pavel was saying.

A woman responded.

“No, I didn’t,” said the woman. “But I told you the consequences of disregarding my instructions, did I not?”

It was someone Jessamyn didn’t like. Ms. Smith, she thought. Cavanaugh’s cohort. But that didn’t feel quite right. Was it the Secretary’s obnoxious event planner, perhaps? She didn’t think so.

Pavel spoke again. “I’ll do it. Clear the room. That includes you, Aunt Lucca.”

Oh, thought Jessamyn. Her. I don’t like her. I don’t trust her. Someone should warn Pavel she’s not trustworthy. Even if he’s dead.

Jess fought against the weights holding her eyes shut. It wasn’t enough they’d strapped her down—they’d placed something heavy on her lids as well. She gathered her strength and fought to lift the weighty objects. Her eyes fluttered, attempting to open.

“Pavel?” she murmured. But it was too hard to speak. They must’ve weighted her tongue as well. Or given her something that made it swell to fill her mouth. So she fell back to focusing on opening her eyes instead. When they opened, she saw two doctors, masked for surgery. Her eyes drifted to the tall one. That looks like a balaclava he’s wearing, she thought drowsily. But even with most of his face hidden, her eyes caught his, dark and familiar, and she felt as though she wanted to smile. She wasn’t sure she succeeded. Her eyelids fell heavily. She wanted to tell him something. Pavel, she thought. You were right. I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you.

And then she found it was too difficult even to think and she sank down, down, down, into an induced slumber.

50

WHITE LILIES

Pavel focused on doing his job. In a moment, the doctor would ask him to call the nurses. In two hours, give or take, the transfer would be complete. By the time six hours had passed, he would no longer be able to supply good reasons as to why his aunt should not have access to Jessamyn.

And Pavel knew what access meant.

He had six hours to come up with a plan that would save Jessamyn’s life.

He glanced at Dr. Bonhoeffer. Or whoever was currently occupying Bonhoeffer’s body. Pavel recognized him from his previous volunteer work at New Kelen. But Bonhoeffer was now more than just an elite surgeon at the top of his game: Bonhoeffer was a friend of Harpreet’s—one who had once promised to make a full disclosure of wrongdoings at the highest levels of the Rebody Program.

Of course, Pavel knew how that had turned out. Harpreet had taken the disappointment with a dose of philosophy, and Pavel remembered she’d been saddest for the condition of the man’s soul. “He might have done a great goodness,” she had said that night.

Which gave Pavel an idea.

“What sort of flowers did you place upon your wife’s grave?” he asked. If Pavel had hoped the suddenness of the question would induce the doctor to answer automatically, he was mistaken.

Dr. Bonhoeffer continued his analysis of Jessamyn’s blood work without looking up. “That’s an odd question.”

“I want an answer,” said Pavel. If the doctor asked, he would provide a fuller explanation of why. “It matters to me,” he added.

“Did you know Annaliese?” Bonhoeffer turned to face Pavel.

“Let’s say I did,” said Pavel. “And let’s say I visited her grave after the funeral, and let’s say I was disappointed at what I saw there.”

“For the sake of argument,” replied the doctor, “Let’s say I was not myself at her burial.”

Pavel’s eyes flickered over to see if there was any irony in the doctor’s expression. But the surgical hood made it impossible to tell.

Bonhoeffer took a slow breath. “I was unaware you were acquainted with Annaliese. If you want to know whether or not I fulfilled her dying request for a groundcover of white lilies over her grave, then the answer is, yes. Once I … recovered myself, I corrected the error. You can see for yourself if you pay a visit to her remains.”

Pavel relaxed his grip on the side of the exam table. “In that case, there is something I need to ask of you.”

The doctor, running fingers along the wafer beside the body, grew irritated. “Yes, well, we have a schedule to keep. Your morbid interest in my personal affairs will have to wait, I’m afraid.”

“This isn’t really about your wife,” replied Pavel. “I needed to know that you were the man who befriended Harpreet Mombasu in prison.”

Pavel had Dr. Bonhoeffer’s full attention now. “How do you know I was in prison? Did your aunt tell you?”

“No,” replied Pavel. “It was Harpreet who told me. She’s my friend as well. There are important things we need to discuss, you and I.”

The doctor frowned. “If you know I was imprisoned, then you also know—”

“I know all kinds of things. Including my aunt’s fiddling with the Rebody Program. We need to talk. To buy time for that, I need you to call my aunt. Tell her there’s an incompatibility on a nuclear level with the body she’s chosen for the patient’s transfer. That will slow things down.”

Bonhoeffer examined Pavel for a space of several seconds. Then he removed his examination hood and gloves and placed a call.

Pavel gripped the side of the table holding Jessamyn’s sleeping form. Bonhoeffer’s conversation with Lucca was not going well; he could hear his aunt’s enraged response. But the doctor kept a cool head.

“Yes, Madam Chancellor,” he was saying, “And this is exactly why we have a system in place to match consciousnesses. You wished to skirt the system and this is the consequence. I believe you have been warned of this possibility upon similar occasions.”

Push hard, thought Pavel. She’ll hate it, but she’ll concede.

Bonhoeffer finished the conversation, frowning, and looked up at Pavel.

“She won’t bother to investigate,” said Pavel. “You needn’t worry.”

“Yes, I am well acquainted with the Chancellor’s single-minded focus,” replied Bonhoeffer. “I’ve bought us maybe an hour. Now tell me what’s going on.”

Pavel took a deep breath and began to tell the story of the red-haired girl sleeping before them.

When he had finished, Bonhoeffer sank onto a tall stool meant for use during pauses in surgical procedures. “I can’t tell you how many times I told Harpreet in jest that she was not of this world. I had no idea it was true. Mars. After all this time.” He brought a hand to his mouth, covering it in a gesture that spoke awe, or possibly just regret. “I’ve failed Harpreet. I made … certain promises regarding what I would do if the Chancellor brought me back to Budapest.”

“I know,” said Pavel, softly. “But it’s not too late to make amends. Harpreet sent me here with her blessing, in the hope I could rescue Jessamyn.”

Bonhoeffer sighed heavily. “If there is one person on Earth I would trust to do the right thing, it would be Harpreet. We’ve got to get the girl away from here. Do you know how to contact Harpreet?”

Pavel smiled soberly. “Yes.”

51

WE HAVE A SITUATION

Jessamyn felt consciousness returning. Her mind felt clear once more even though her arms and legs felt heavy. She kept her eyes closed, wondering if she could buy a few precious minutes before hospital personnel noticed she’d awakened—minutes she might use to find an escape from life.

“She’s coming around,” said a male voice.

Hades! So much for having time alone.

Jess lifted her lids just enough to make out a table of surgical instruments to her right. Just enough to see the sharp, bright scalpel she needed.

She might not be alone, but perhaps those watching her could be distracted.

Jess hoped the arms of her new body would respond to her commands swiftly. Was there a time of transition, where you had to re-learn how to use your new body? She couldn’t recall what Ethan had said about it.

“Water,” she murmured.

She heard someone moving away to fulfill her request and in that instant, she made a grab for the scalpel—her hand was remarkably responsive—and brought it swiftly toward her throat.

“Here you go, Jess.”

It was the sound of Pavel’s voice that stopped her dragging the blade across her carotid artery. Pavel was alive?

Pavel was alive?

And in that moment she realized a bitter, bitter truth. She couldn’t do it in front of him. She might have lacked the courage even if they’d had a chance to share a loving farewell. But she definitely couldn’t do it now—not when the last words he’d heard her speak were cruel and unforgiving. You’re just like your aunt!

Pavel was nothing like his aunt.

Jessamyn let slip the blade, cursing the weakness of her heart.

“Heat-healer, doctor,” Pavel shouted, passing the device quickly over her throat. “We didn’t do the transfer, Jess.”

She adjusted her gaze to take in her hands—her own hands—still a part of her. “I’m still … me,” she said in wonder.

The other doctor wiped a tickling, warm substance from beside where the heat-healer was doing its work.

“You are,” said the other doctor. “And from what I’ve heard, you have quite a few reasons to live, young woman.”

“I told him who you are,” said Pavel. “This is Bonhoeffer—he’s a friend of Harpreet’s. He’s going to help us. We’re going to figure out a way to get you safely back to Harpreet and the others,” said Pavel.

Jessamyn nodded, confused, happy. “What are our options for getting out of this room alive?”

“Jess,” said Pavel, his face solemn, “we’re going to focus on getting you out of here. You’re our priority.”

“We go together,” said Jess, sitting upright. Her head spun briefly.

“Here,” said Bonhoeffer. “A mild stimulant.” Injecting Jessamyn, he turned next to Pavel, passing him a small plastic strip. “This will give you access to my vehicle. Should I not make it—” here he glanced from Pavel to Jessamyn and back, “I want you to access a video I’ve stored on the ship’s wafer. It’s a recording of the full confession I told Harpreet I would make. I want to know the video will get out there even if I don’t.”

“I said, we go together,” repeated Jess.

“That might not be possible,” said Pavel, licking his lips. “If it comes down to it, Jess, you’ve got to promise me you’ll get away.” His eyes dropped to the floor and his voice grew soft. “I can’t face seeing my aunt getting her hands on you again, Jess. I can’t let it happen.”

“I’m not a fan of the idea, either,” Jess replied. “But do you think I want to make it out if you don’t?” Her brows drew together and she felt tears forming. She blinked them back.

“I’ll be okay so long as I know you’re safe,” said Pavel. “Do you love me, Jess?”

And now the tears spilled over her lids, onto her cheek. She nodded in reply.

“Then you’ve got to promise me you’ll do whatever you have to in order to make it out of here alive. Even if I can’t. Because I cannot let Lucca get her hands on you, Jess.” His voice dropped even lower. “It would kill me. I see that now. Do you understand?”

Tears streaked freely down Jessamyn’s face. “I understand.”

~ ~ ~

Five minutes later, Major Vladim Wu received an urgent call from hospital security on the twelfth floor.

“Sir, the Head of Consciousness Transfer is saying there is a medical emergency—”

The speaker was interrupted by the physician himself. “The patient requires immediate surgical intervention! Her blood pressure is plummeting. We suspect internal hemorrhaging. My God, what do you people do in your interrogations? I’m moving the patient to Theatre C for emergency surgery!”

The security guard spoke to Wu again. “Orders, sir?”

“Allow them to pass, but follow them!” called Wu, at the same time placing a call to the Chancellor. “You are to keep the patient and attending physicians in view at all times, is that clear?”

Vladim Wu ended the communication, turning to the Chancellor’s holographic image to take her call.

“Madam Chancellor, we have a situation. Dr. Bonhoeffer has moved the patient, stating that she requires urgent medical care.” Wu paused. “With all respect, it is possible your interrogation methods may have, er, stressed the prisoner’s internal organs.”

“I haven’t interrogated the prisoner yet,” snapped the Chancellor.

Wu watched Lucca’s holographic mouth draw to a tight frown.

She continued. “I suppose injuries could have been inflicted by our friend Bonaparte …”

“Might I suggest adding back-up personnel to monitor the situation?” asked Wu.

“Yes,” replied Lucca. “I’ll send my personal detail. Tell security to expect three persons from floor six. Only two of them will be security personnel. Chancellor out.”

~ ~ ~

Lucca turned to her butler, who was patiently attending her at New Kelen Hospital.

“Zussman, we may have a situation involving my nephew and an inciter. I want you to go with my personal detail to floor twelve.”

“Of course, Madam,” replied Zussman. “But if I might remind Madam, it has been some time since I functioned as a security officer. Perhaps Madam would prefer a third individual with more experience in defensive protocols?”

Lucca smiled. “No, Zussman. You’re exactly who I need for this job in the event my nephew should require a … reminder as to why he wants to cooperate with his dear Aunt Lucca.”

Zussman bowed curtly. “Of course, Madam.”

“Now, go-go-go.” said Lucca, rising from her seat.

Zussman retreated hastily, in the company of Lucca’s personal guards.

~ ~ ~

Pavel raced along the corridor behind a hover-gurney. Jessamyn’s coloring appeared appropriately sickly, in keeping with her supposed condition. Bonhoeffer was shouting for nursing personnel as Pavel guided the gurney toward the new room, which sat beside the exit to the parking spaces of the hospital’s twelfth-floor elite surgeons.

Pavel heard heated words exchanged between the guards and the Head of Consciousness Transfer.

Turning, Pavel shouted at the guards. “You can’t come back here. Do you know how important this patient is? You cannot be allowed to contaminate the room! Stay back!”

But the guards pushed forward. “We’re under orders from Major Wu to keep the prisoner in visual range.”

Pavel’s stomach dropped as he heard Wu’s name. Now more than ever, he had to keep it together. He, Bonhoeffer, and Jess weren’t going to make it to the exit this go-round. What could they do instead? Words tumbled from his mouth.

“Visual range?” Pavel demanded. “You can’t possibly be serious. We can’t risk microbial contaminants—”

Bonhoeffer cut Pavel short. “The surgery has a decontamination chamber,” he said to the guards. “Inside, both of you! Immediately! I will not operate with you in the room under any other conditions. Do you understand?”

As the guards appeared to debate the doctor’s demands, Pavel added, “It’s your heads will roll if we lose the patient, not ours.” He added a small shrug.

“Nurse!” called Bonhoeffer, “assist the guards with a level seven decontamination at once!”

A nurse came running around the corner and into the room. “Gentlemen, in here, one at a time.”

“No,” cried Bonhoeffer. “Together. There’s no time to waste.”

The guards filed inside the decon room. As the nurse assisted with the guards, Pavel slid a dermal patch onto her wrist. She dropped to the ground just as another nurse entered.

“Nurse!” called Pavel to the second nurse. “See what’s wrong with your colleague!”

As the second nurse knelt, Bonhoeffer administered an injection to her, and she promptly fell alongside the first nurse.

“Secure that decon door,” Bonhoeffer ordered Pavel.

“Already done.” The guards inside met his eyes with fiercely blazing anger. They pounded upon the chamber door, but it held.

Pavel’s eyes ran across the room, landing on a small cylinder of gas, which he grabbed. He jammed the gas nozzle into a port beside the decon door. Both guards slumped forward, asleep within seconds.

Pavel helped Jess off the gurney.

“Come on,” Pavel said, turning to Bonhoeffer.

Bonhoeffer swung the surgery door open and the three emerged into the corridor, the exit door once more in their sights.

A voice rang out from behind them.

“Halt!”

Bonhoeffer pushed Jess and Pavel forward as a single shot rang out. Bonhoeffer crumpled, his body keeping the door out to the parking pad opened.

“For the transport,” Pavel said, handing a plastic strip to Jess.

~ ~ ~

Jess grasped the strip automatically. Beside her she heard Pavel cry out, “Zussman?” as if he recognized someone.

Jess knew the name. Zussman was Lucca’s butler.

The guards shouted once more for the remaining pair to halt. Jessamyn reached for Pavel, to pull him alongside her, but he was already running toward the three men pursuing them.

“Halt or we open fire,” called one of the red-armored guards.

Jess located Bonhoeffer’s Atlas-class flyer.

Zussman, holding his arms wide to either side, stepped slowly forward into the space between Pavel and the guards.

“It would be advisable to do as they request,” said the plainly dressed butler.

“Or what, Zuss? They shoot you? They shoot me? They shoot her?” Pavel kept himself between Jessamyn and the others. “Go!” he whispered to Jess. “Now, while there’s a chance!”

Jessamyn shifted forward on one foot and then back again, caught in an agonizing moment of indecision.

“I am uncertain as to these gentlemen’s orders,” admitted Zussman. “I don’t suppose you can disclose them?” he asked one of the guards.

The one closest to Zussman aimed a weapon at the butler. The other aimed a weapon at Pavel.

“I’m sorry, Zuss,” said Pavel. “But if it’s between her and you, she goes free.”

Pavel turned an agonized glance at her. Go, his eyes pleaded.

Jessamyn inched toward the transport, her heart beating at frantic speeds.

“You promised,” Pavel said to her, his voice barely audible.

Jessamyn choked back a cry and leapt into the transport.

52

ZUSSMAN

“I’m sorry, Zuss,” Pavel said, one eye on Jess as she fled.

But before the words were out of his mouth, Zussman dropped low, spun toward the guard taking aim at Pavel, and leapt up, bringing his foot up into an arc before it landed solidly against the guard’s torso, just below the ribcage. The guard was caught unawares and crumpled, his weapon skittering across the smooth floor of the parking pad.

“Watch out!” Pavel cried as the remaining guard took aim at Zussman’s still-moving form.

In a blur, the butler swung his foot so that it impacted the guard’s hand, causing him to lose his weapon. Before the guard could retrieve it, Pavel saw Zussman strike at the guard, preventing him from reaching it. Circling slowly, the two feinted and sparred, neither making any solid connection.

Pavel ran for the nearest weapon. As he ran, Zussman took a blow to one side of his head, but he appeared to roll with it, recovering quickly. As the butler rose, he kicked out against his opponent’s foot, causing him to lose balance for just a moment. And in that instant, Zussman delivered a knock-out kick to the groin. The guard gasped for air.

Before Pavel could form questions aloud, Zussman grabbed the weapon beside him and used the back end of it to rain a blow to the head of the first guard, who was stirring once more.

Both lay still and Pavel gazed in wonder at the man who used to bring him hot chocolate with extra whipped cream.

~ ~ ~

Seated in a cockpit once more, Jessamyn’s hands did the work her mind could not turn itself toward. She knew she had minutes—or maybe seconds—to get clear of New Kelen. But her heart cried out for the boy left behind, and instead of lifting up and away, she found herself pulling the Atlas-class ship in a tight circle for one last glimpse of Pavel. What she saw made no sense.

Pavel and his aunt’s butler were standing, each holding a weapon. Weapons Jess knew ought to have been in the hands of the two guards sprawled on the pavement.

Jess brought the craft back to ground, beside the two. Even before she touched down, she extended the hatch.

Zussman shouted over the noise of the engines, “Now would be an excellent time to depart, sir.”

And with that, the butler took Pavel by the elbow and leapt aboard Jessamyn’s waiting craft.

“What gives, Zuss? I don’t understand at all,” Pavel was saying.

“Good morning, Miss,” the butler said in tones reverential.

“Zussman?” asked Pavel.

“Ah,” replied the butler. “I believe I have significantly increased my chances of surviving to a ripe old age by choosing you over the Chancellor. Life is all about choices, sir, and you appear to me eminently suited to making the better sort of choices.”

“Strap in,” called Jess.

But as Jess pushed the craft hard into the sky, Pavel threw his arms around his friend, laughing when the angle of the ship toppled them both.

~ ~ ~

Jessamyn had no time to inhale the twin miracles of escape and the fact that her escape had been accomplished with Pavel. She would have to save her regrets for Bonhoeffer for later. For now, she was all pilot, dodging other vehicles, pedestrians, and buildings as she wove her way from New Kelen Hospital.

“If I might ask, sir, miss, whither we are going?” asked Zussman, his tone one of impeccable restraint.

Pavel laughed. “Madeira. So, next best thing to the Azores, huh, man?”

“Indeed, sir,” replied the butler. “If I might recommend heading north by northwest to the Baltic Sea in order to confuse our inevitable followers?”

“Already on it,” said Jessamyn.

“Very good, miss. I would estimate our head start at approximately three and one half minutes, based upon my prior experiences with my former employer.”

“The tracker—does this ship have one?” asked Jess.

“You can count on it,” replied Pavel. “This baby is state of the art. No expenses spared.” He ran an approving hand along the dash.

“So shut the tracker down, already!” demanded Jessamyn. “You can admire her all you want once there’s no one on our tail.”

“I’m looking,” said Pavel, his hands jumping rapidly through pages of ship’s specs. “Shizer. They’re not making it easy. It’s connected to the CCMS, as well. I can’t promise I can pull one without the other.”

“What’s a CCMS?”

“The Central Collision Mitigation System, Miss Jessamyn,” replied Zussman. “You might also wish to know we have approximately two minutes of unaccompanied flight remaining.”

“Two minutes, Pavel. Enough of this flying low-and-slow,” said Jess. “I need high-and-fast! Get me invisible now!”

“Okay, okay, I found it.” Pavel ducked under the nav panel and began tugging at a metal sheet. “They’ve got it sealed up good and tight.”

“If I might suggest Archimedes, sir,” said the butler.

“Arc-of-what?” muttered Pavel, still tugging at the panel.

“The lever, sir.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” Pavel snapped his head up. “That would work.”

“Here you are, sir,” said Zussman.

Pavel grabbed the metal strip the butler had removed from who-knew-what part of the ship.

“Miss Jessamyn, once your friend has succeeded in disabling the tracking device, it is extremely likely the CCMS will no longer function. You will be far more vulnerable to collision, as others will have no warning of your approach. In addition, you will no longer receive information pertaining to the distance between your ship and other surfaces.”

“So I eyeball it,” replied Jess. “That’s fine by me.” She pulled the ship hard to port along a broad boulevard.

“Approximately one minute remaining,” said Lucca’s former butler, his calm voice at complete odds with the situation.

“The Baltic’s at least an hour from here,” said Pavel, his voice muffled from under the dash. “We can make the Alps in less than twenty minutes if you punch it.”

“We’ll be dead in less than a minute if you don’t get that—”

Pavel cut Jessamyn off mid-sentence. “Got it!”

The ship tilted off to the right. Jess countered.

“That would be the CCMS gone, I take it?” she said aloud.

“Yeah,” replied Pavel. “It tends to do a bit of auto-stabilizing for a smoother ride.”

“This ride’s about to get bumpy fast,” said Jess. “Strap in, city-boy.”

“I beg to apologize for the interruption,” said Zussman, “but it would appear our, ah, escorts have joined us.”

“Hold on tight!” said Jess. “There’s going to be some broken glass down below, because we are breaking the sound barrier in three-two-one, mark!”

“Punch it!” shouted Pavel.

The ship shot forward, slamming all three passengers into their seats. Jess wished she could enjoy it.

“We can make those foothills in forty-five seconds,” she said, pulling the ship up and over a last row of multi-storied buildings.

“I regret to point out we may not have forty-five seconds,” said Zussman. “It appears we’ve been fired upon.”

Jess let her eyes drift to the nav panel for just long enough to identify a pair of pursuing missiles.

“Holy Ares!” she shouted.

“There’s another valley to your right, coming up fast,” said Pavel.

“Got it!” Jess burned a forward thruster at the same time that she directed the ship hard to starboard. The spoilers whined.

“Shizer, Jess!”

“You wanted to get up-and-close with explosives instead?”

“I’m good,” said Pavel, throwing his arms up in surrender.

The ship hugged the valley, just missing the wall to the right. Twin explosions rocked the craft from the left side.

“Oh, yeah!” shouted Pavel. “Those bad boys are last night’s news!”

“You can bet they’ve got more,” said Jess, hopping up and over a row of hills and sinking down into a neighboring valley.

“We’re coming in range of an area with lots of tourists,” said Pavel. “That will mean hover-cruisers and people not paying attention to their airspace.”

“Do you have a better suggestion?” asked Jessamyn. They wove up and down the narrow valleys, encountering ships more and more frequently.

“Perhaps we might do a bit of sight-seeing ourselves?” asked Zussman. “You seem a very capable pilot, Miss Jessamyn. I wonder if you could bring us down into the traffic? The Atlas-class is a very popular style vessel among the wealthy.”

“And the Dolomites ahead are a prime destination this time of year,” added Pavel. “Good idea, Zuss.”

“Whoa,” called Jess, “Red Squadron Forces ships. I count two. No. Three. Hold tight!”

She careened into the next valley, dropping the ship down to mix among the tourist vessels and sight-seeing transports.

“Pavel, I’m keeping my eyes on what’s outside. Do you see the RSF ships?”

Pavel shook his head. “I think they’re still behind the last ridge.”

“Good,” murmured Jess.

“No! Shizer! There they are again.”

Jess pulled hard toward the valley wall on her port side and then doubled back. She dropped a swift glance to the nav panel: 4 g’s.

“Sorry,” she said, forming the word with great difficulty. “Gonna—get—worse!” And then it did, the panel reporting a nauseating 5.5 g’s.

“Uh, we lost Zuss,” said Pavel as the ship returned along the same valley, now headed in the opposing direction.

Jess spared a quick glance for the butler, who had, indeed, passed out.

“Take this valley,” said Pavel. “I’ve got an idea.”

The next valley was crawling with transports.

“You trying to get me to crash this thing?” hollered Jess.

“There,” said Pavel, pointing ahead. “That group of ships—they’re dinner cruise-liners. You want to take a hover-cruise?”

“Are you insane?”

“Bring us down atop one of the large ones,” said Pavel. “You can manage it, easy.”

Jessamyn frowned. “Easy” wasn’t the word she’d have chosen.

“Wake Zussman up,” she said. “I’m setting the ship to pause for thirty seconds and then continue on—with or without us aboard.”

“Perfect,” said Pavel, offering a nasal stimulant to wake his old friend.

“We have to get off the ship fast,” said Jess.

Zussman woke and begged leave to apologize for having passed out.

“Wait,” said Jessamyn. “Bonhoeffer’s last confession or whatever.”

“Oh, man,” said Pavel. His fingers danced across the ship’s wafer and then he placed his handheld wafer over the surface. “Got it,” he said. “Let’s go!”

Jessamyn brought the Atlas-class ship just above the hover-cruiser, over a surface that appeared to be intended as a landing for emergency vehicles. The hatch of Bonhoeffer’s ship opened, allowing an icy wind to blow into their craft. The trio spilled from their ship, landing with three distinct thuds upon the top of the hover-cruiser.

Bonhoeffer’s ship took off up the valley ahead.

“I thought you said thirty seconds,” said Pavel.

“I figured it would be safer if we could do it faster,” replied Jess, shrugging. “We made it, so no problem.”

The three felt the whoosh of a trio of RSF ships in hot pursuit of the Atlas-class vessel. The Atlas ship was moving rapidly away from the tourist ships when two more missiles tore ahead and slammed into Bonhoeffer’s ship, creating an explosive fire-ball that brought tourists up on deck.

Several recorded the exploding ship amid cries of wonder and fear.

“Is it for a vid, do you think?”

“It must’ve been.”

Zussman cleared his throat. “How terribly exciting.”

Jess felt her legs turning to jelly. “Let’s get below-decks,” she murmured to Pavel.

The three, anonymous, made their way among the unsuspecting gawkers to an elevator.

“I believe I can safely declare us out of danger,” said Zussman as they stepped inside the enclosure. “Thanks to your, ah, extremely enervating piloting, Miss Jessamyn.”

“Thanks to you, too, Zuss,” said Pavel.

Jessamyn watched, smiling, as Pavel embarrassed his aunt’s former butler with another very large, very extended hug. And then, while the elevator descended, Pavel turned to Jessamyn and held her as though afraid she would fly away, transformed into a winged thing.

It was Zussman's gentle, "Ahem," that caught Pavel's attention, as it had countless times in Pavel's childhood.

"I beg pardon, sir, miss, but we ought perhaps to consider disguising the pair of you as I believe the Chancellor will shortly be addressing your disappearance in such a way as to encourage your capture.”

Having said this (all the while averting his gaze from the embracing pair,) Zussman produced from a pocket what looked like a small furry creature. This he handed to Pavel.

“To be implemented as a disguise, sir,” said the butler.

Pavel nodded and took it, placing it upon his head. Jess realized it was artificial hair, worn as one might wear a hat.

“Thanks, man,” said Pavel, now sporting a long black ponytail and looking very not-Pavel.

His friend then handed a large square of cloth to Jessamyn. “Use it to cover your head, as some of the Budapesti women do.”

Jess nodded. “I’ve seen them.” She wrapped the fabric around her head.

“After you, Miss Jessamyn,” said Zussman.

Moments later, when three passengers descended from the hover-cruise ship at a scheduled port of call but did not return for the dinner portion of the cruise, no one remarked upon it.

The three, having disembarked, began to feel the enormity of their distance from Madeira and safety.

"So now I guess we … walk?" asked Pavel. "Unless either of you has a good idea of how to steal a ship?" He glanced quickly to Jessamyn. "No offense meant."

"With all due respect, sir, I would not recommend such a course of action," replied Zussman.

"I would," muttered Jessamyn.

Zussman cleared his throat softly.

"You have a better idea, Zuss?" asked Pavel.

"I do, sir. One does not work in the employ of a personage such as the Chancellor without having formed an exit strategy, as it were."

Pavel laughed. "You have an 'exit strategy'? As in, a vehicle?"

"No, sir, I have preferred to keep my assets liquid, as one never knows to what use one may need to put one's assets."

"Spell it out, Zuss."

"If I might suggest we pay a visit to a banking institution, sir, I believe I can obtain unmarked credits sufficient for the purchase of a very fast, very untraceable transport."

"A Swiss bank account, huh, Zuss?"

"They have proven remarkably efficacious for centuries, now, sir."

Pavel and Jessamyn accompanied the butler to a venerable institution of credit where a rather large sum was withdrawn by Zussman and then traded for a Spartan-class vessel.

"I wonder, Miss Jessamyn," said the butler, "if you would be so good as to take us to the islands of Madeira? You seem to possess a certain affinity for piloting."

Pavel grinned. "You think, Zuss?"

The craft was less flashy than either Pavel's old Hercules-class or Bonhoeffer's recently incinerated ship, but Jessamyn didn't mind.

"You sure you don't want to fly her?" she asked Pavel, trying to be polite.

Pavel shook his head. "You need this, Jess."

"You have no idea how badly I need this," she murmured.

53

SHELTER

The trip was uneventful and swift and as they pulled over the island, the sun was sinking into the west, bathing everything in a golden light. Jess swung the ship to the north, towards the castle beyond Funchal. Climbing slowly, she reached the highlands of Madeira—a mountainous region deeply folded in vertical channels, covered in velvety greens and golds. She saw a lone spur, impossibly thin and tall. That such a thing could push heavenward on this heavy planet was astonishing. It reminded her of something, this lone guard over the heart of the island.

“I wonder if it has a name?” Jessamyn murmured as they passed the spur.

Zussman replied, “The formation has any number of names, most of which are unfortunately lewd, and one unobjectionable name: The Old Woman of Storr, for an outcrop on the Isle of Skye known as the Old Man of Storr.”

Jessamyn nodded. That was where she’d seen something similar: on Brian Wallace’s lonely island. Perhaps these mountains were what had drawn the Wallace family to make a new home here. Jess felt a shiver as she realized she was, once more, a person without a home, seeking shelter with strangers.

"I didn't know you'd been here, Zuss," said Pavel.

"With respect, sir, there are likely a great number of things you do not know about me."

Pavel grinned.

"I'm taking us down to the forecourt of the castle," said Jess. "Unless there are any objections."

"Sounds perfect," replied Pavel. "Hope they've got something to eat. When I made contact, I told them we’d be hungry."

A few minutes later, the travelers, weary both physically and emotionally, arrived at the castle built of blackened lava.

They were met by a guard of honor. Cameron Wallace stood at the head of one aisle formed of a dozen persons, including Brian Wallace. At the head of the other aisle, Jessamyn could see Harpreet beside her brother and Dr. Zaifa. Upon Harpreet’s other side stood Cassondra Kipling, who pressed a hand to one side of her head. At first Jessamyn thought the gesture was the result of intolerable pain, but as the gesture was repeated by others up and down both aisles, Jess realized it was a sort of salute.

She flushed again and considered re-boarding the Spartan-class vessel, flying anywhere but here. Then, taking a deep breath, she returned the salute and fumbled for something befittingly formal to mark the occasion.

“I hereby request permission to enter the protection of Clan Wallace for the foreseeable future, along with my companions Pavel Brezhnaya-Bouchard and, um, Mr. Zussman,” she said, her voice clear in the breezy courtyard.

“Oh, aye,” replied Cameron, dropping her saluting hand to lumber toward Jess and engulf her in a bear-hug. “No need for all that,” she murmured to Jessamyn. “Ye’re to stay as long as ye like.”

Cameron turned to greet Pavel and Zussman.

Pavel undertook a more complete introduction, explaining Zussman’s urgent need of protection from the Chancellor.

Cameron frowned at Zussman for several minutes, crossing her large arms and looking him over carefully.

“Ye say ye were a butler, then?” asked the clan head.

“I was, formerly, Madam,” replied Zussman.

Cameron guffawed and then regained her composure. “What, with white gloves and silver trays and the rest of it?”

“Something like that, Madam,” replied the butler.

“Well then, ye’re hired,” said Cameron.

Pavel’s eyebrows shot up sharply and he glanced at his friend. “I’m not sure Zuss is looking for work at the moment.”

“No, sir,” Zussman said to Pavel. “It would be perfectly acceptable to me to be properly interviewed for the position.”

“A proper interview?” asked Cameron. She shuffled from one foot to the other. “Well, I’ll see what I can manage.” She leaned in towards Zussman. “Never had a butler before, mind. Always thought I’d like one, though. Someone to bring a bit of order in the wake of me chaos, don’t ye see? Do ye know a good whiskey from a middling one?”

Jessamyn smiled as the pair of them preceded everyone else into the great hall. An impromptu feast had been organized, and Jess found her appetite had grown enormous somewhere in the airspace above the Madeira highlands.

Cameron apologized repeatedly to Zussman, hollering out such things as, “I suppose ye’re used to grander affairs in the capitol, then?” and, “With a proper butler, I’d manage rather better, do ye not think?”

After much feasting and a handful of toasts to friendships between the worlds, Cameron dismissed all but the Marsians, Dr. Zaifa, and Pavel.

“Ye’re safe here. As safe as ye can be so far from home, that is.” Cameron’s voice softened. “Please, consider this home, for as long as ye stand in need of one.”

As Cameron called for an aide to sort everyone into rooms, Jessamyn hung back. She knew she couldn’t sleep right now. There were too many things inside her, all clamoring for her attention. From within the imaginary fortress which held her fears and her losses, Jess now heard rumblings and rustlings. It was time for her to open the chambers where all that was softest and most vulnerable about her lay hidden.

So Jess stood to one side and waited for a quiet moment to make a request of the Clan Chieftain. At last Cameron seemed to be alone, and Jess approached with her question. “Would it be a problem if I took my flier out?”

“What, are ye thinking of leaving so soon?”

“No,” Jess replied. “I just need … I just want …”

“You’re a pilot,” said Cameron, placing a large hand gently on Jessamyn’s shoulder. “I understand. Mind ye keep within two kilometers of the island’s surfaces. Ye’ll be protected that far out by our defenses. Can I trust ye to venture no farther?”

Jessamyn smiled. “You could ask me to fly circles over the castle right now and I’d agree to it.”

“Porto Moniz will be lovely tonight,” Cameron said thoughtfully. “The moon’s near full. Ye can even stop for a swim if ye’re not afraid of a wee bit of cold. There’s a large vehicle park beside the volcanic pools. Ye cannot miss it. No one will trouble ye this time of night.”

Jessamyn nodded her thanks and stepped quietly along one side of the great hall toward the front entrance to the castle. Moonlight spilled into the courtyard, lighting the polished surfaces of the vessel. It was a lovely night to fly.

Hearing quiet steps behind her, Jess turned. She hoped Cameron hadn’t changed her mind. But it was Pavel.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Mind if I come along?”

She looked at the long shadow falling behind him. The Terran moon, so much brighter than her world’s moons combined, cast part of Pavel’s face in darkness, part of it in light.

“I don’t mind,” said Jess, smiling softly.

54

COMING HOME

The two settled into the flier, side by side.

Jessamyn pulled the ship swiftly upward, reveling in the sense of weight that told her she was in ascent. The castle and then the island fell behind them, and two kilometers came far too quickly.

Reluctantly, Jess brought the ship back around, skimming the outline of the island instead. The moon had risen sufficiently to be visible from most parts of the island. The bright orb reflecting on the water, the shimmer and gleam of it: it was a beauty no one now alive on Mars would ever know, Jessamyn thought sadly.

At her side, Pavel kept silent.

Several times Jess had to remind herself to stay low to the island. She felt as though she might as well be creeping upon the planet’s surface, as though her ability to see the place had been taken from her. She yearned for outlines, edges, the surging lines of mountains or craters seen from on high. She felt as if she were groping forward as a blind soul, insect-like in her inability to discover the shape of the horizon.

She felt the same way about Pavel, she realized, as though her ability to read the prospect of the boy beside her had been swallowed up by the grind of run, hide, flee. She needed altitude; she needed to push out to where she could find the shape of Pavel again and see if it fit the shape of her or if she’d only imagined their love, taken a false reading with inaccurate instruments.

Pavel interrupted the long silence at last. “I hear there’s a place you can swim in these pools made by volcanic rock.”

“Porto Moniz,” Jess replied. “Cameron told me to stop there.”

“You game?” asked Pavel, white teeth flashing in the dark of the cockpit.

“Sure,” said Jessamyn. She brought the craft down in a large parking lot. It was, as Cameron had promised, empty.

“Place is awfully quiet,” said Pavel as he swung out the hatch and jumped outside. “On such a nice night, too.” Hands on his hips, he gazed about and then held out a hand to Jessamyn.

She looked at his hand and took it firmly in her own, releasing it once she’d hopped from the craft.

The two walked side by side toward the sea.

“It looks so violent,” she said as waves collided above the hollows of exposed volcanic rock.

“The ocean?” asked Pavel. “We don’t have to go in.”

But as they neared the pools, they were able to determine that while some of the volcanic hollows took the brunt of the ocean’s attack, others remained calm.

Their hands brushing together, the two descended sets of stairs to a series of pools outlined in the dark rock that had once been molten lava. Ocean waves crashed violently beside the pools, sending white spray into the dark of night. It seemed to Jessamyn yet another and different ocean from the one she had known aboard the escape pod. She shivered.

“A bit of a change from the desert,” murmured Pavel, shifting closer to Jessamyn.

Where his frame sheltered hers, she felt a whisper of warmth.

He shifted until his head faced hers. “I’m so sorry for what I did back in Yucca. For destroying your ship.” He paused and turned his eyes away from hers. “I know words aren’t enough. What I did was unforgivable.”

Jessamyn felt a tingle run along her spine. One part of her wanted to reply that it was okay. But was it? She was alive. She was safe. She was with Pavel. Was that okay? Perhaps. But if Pavel hadn’t shot out the hover boosters, they might have been laying plans to leave for Mars within the year.

Swallowing against the sorrow constricting her throat, Jess turned away from Pavel. It was his fault. She wanted it to be his fault. Once again, she was homeless and without a craft to steer through the stars. She needed it to be someone else’s fault and not her own.

But she knew better.

And you can admit it, she told herself.

“It’s not your fault,” she found herself saying. “I ought to have trusted you.”

Tears squeezed through her tight-shut eyes. She took one of his hands in one of hers and held tight.

“I owe you an apology,” said Jessamyn, when she was able to speak. “For not trusting you when you saw through your aunt’s spy.”

Pavel stared off into the distant horizon. “I guess he’s probably dead, the real Renard.”

Jessamyn nodded. “That’s what I figured.”

“I’m glad he didn’t see the destruction of Yucca. He loved that place like I can’t begin to imagine loving any place.” He shook his head in sorrow.

Jessamyn swallowed back the ache of another loss, and the two stood quietly again.

At last, Jess spoke, acknowledging the wild beauty before them. “This is amazing,” she said.

“I’ve never seen pools that looked anything like this before,” Pavel said, pulling his shirt over his head.

“Really?” asked Jessamyn. “I’d have thought …” She turned to face him and saw the moonlight striking his face and chest. Whatever she’d been about to say disappeared. Marsians did not often see one another without thick layers of clothing, and the sight of Pavel’s bare chest took words from her entirely. He was so … beautiful.

His own gaze still fixed on the water, Pavel slipped a hand into hers.

A breeze blew past, cool with night air and the tang of the ocean. Pavel’s hand against hers felt warm, comforting. Jessamyn wondered what his chest would feel like, if she placed her palm over his beating heart. The thought brought a flush of warmth to her face, and she warned herself sternly: you’re too impulsive, Jaarda—show some restraint.

But then she glanced back at Pavel, shirtless and vulnerable, and suddenly, she wasn’t thinking about restraint any more.

“I came back for you,” she whispered. “To Earth, I mean.” The words tumbled out. “It was wrong, and I knew it, and I did it anyway.”

A confession. An admission.

She couldn’t meet his gaze, but she felt his grip tighten upon her hand. She continued.

“I tried to make it about Mars Colonial, about setting things straight for Mei Lo, and it’s true I wanted to do something for my home world, but mostly I came back because I wanted to see you again. It was selfish and wrong-headed.” She paused to take a shallow breath.

“Jess,” whispered Pavel.

She placed two fingers on his mouth, shaking her head. She had to say it all now or she would never find the courage. “And you and I don’t even know one another. Not really. I’d known you for, what, a day, when I left for Mars? So what does that make me, for flying all the way back here to find you? The biggest fool in the history of Mars Colonial?”

Pavel took her hand from where it rested on his lips. He kissed her fingertips, and then murmured, “You might qualify for ‘Most Determined Girl’ in the history of Mars Colonial.” He smiled. “And as far as knowing each other? Of course we don’t know each other very well. Not yet. But I know this, girl from Mars—” Here his voice dropped to a whisper. “I can’t bear the thought of a life without you.”

And then he took her face in his hands, tracing the outline of her jaw, running a thumb across her First Wrinkle.

“Every time I see that worry line on your forehead, I want to say how sorry I am.”

Jessamyn smiled. “That’s my First Wrinkle. It’s a sign of distinction, Earth-boy.”

“I would’ve ended up with a lot more than one lousy wrinkle if I’d been stuck in a transport alone for two months,” he murmured.

Heat hummed between them, and Jess leaned in, placing her palm just over his heart. She felt the double-thump of it as it beat under her hand. Strong. Steady. Unswerving. For better or worse, this, she felt with certainty, this was what had called her back to Earth.

“It belongs to you,” Pavel murmured. “Ever since the first night when I saw you in that orange sari.”

Jessamyn closed the gap between their bodies. And then, slowly, tentatively, between their lips. In the warmth of that kiss, it didn’t feel so wrong to have crossed a sea of stars to find Pavel.

They pulled apart at last, standing in quiet awe of the moonlight washing over them, the ocean thundering just beyond them.

“We’ll find a way,” he whispered. “A way to get you home.”

To Jessamyn, it felt as if the chambers of her imagined fortress were slowly dissolving. She felt the heaviness of each of her griefs, but as she turned her gaze from the churning water to the still pools and at last to the boy beside her, she found her sorrows no longer overwhelmed her. Sighing, Jess released her grip upon all she had lost. She allowed her losses to drift out to sea, borne away upon the tide.

Pavel took her hand and brought it to his lips once more, his breath warm upon her fingers, her palm, her wrist. “So what do you say we get to know one another? Seeing as you came a hundred million kilometers or whatever it was.”

Jessamyn smiled, flushing once more.

“Come on,” said Pavel. “You up for a swim?”

“I don’t know how,” she admitted. “But the one thing all Marsian kids dream of? It’s definitely swimming.”

The water felt cold, bracing, and tasted of salt tears, but Jess laughed as she pushed off from the bottom of one of the pools. “Under the water, it feels like Mars,” she said. “The gravity’s not Earth-gravity at all!”

Pavel tilted his head to one side. “Huh. Yeah. This is probably as close as you can get to your Mars-weight.”

“We’re coming here every day,” declared Jess. “Until I learn to swim.”

Pavel smiled. “Coming here every night would be more fun.”

Jess splashed him and then pushed through the water to kiss the boy she’d journeyed so far to find again.

And kissing Pavel felt like coming home.

THE END

Continue the Adventure in Book Four

MARS BURNING

Buy it Now

Acknowledgements - Book Three

What is it about Mars that calls to some of us so loudly? I don’t know, and when I try to explain it to others, I trip all over myself, usually ending in some blushy–faced version of NVM. Which, I suppose, is why I write these stories about Mars: because I need a way to explain why the images sent back from Curiosity have the power to reduce me to teary speechlessness.

So, for those of you who enjoy these stories, thank you. I am so humbled by the thought that someone else is reading and enjoying what I cobble together for the love of Mars.

Special thanks are due to those who make my books better: editor Alexis at Word Vagabond, Danielle for the concept for the series cover art, Jacob for this book’s cover, and Chris for pulling it all together so that it can sit on a shelf (or inside an e–reader!) Thanks, as well, to my writer buddies who push me to sprint, and to my agent Michael Carr, who reminds me it’s a marathon. (Or was that a sprint?)

Author’s Note

I am no astrophysicist. I’m just a writer who talks with her imaginary friends all day. I’ve done my best to keep the (meager) science in SAVING MARS at least somewhat accurate, but there are many points where I felt free to get quite speculative, and I’m sure there are numerous out-and-out errors as well. These errors are wholly my own.

If you are curious whether humans could live on Mars someday, or whether “terraforming” is real, I suggest Robert Zubrin’s fascinating book The Case for Mars. (He has another title, fictional and hilarious, called How to Live On Mars, which I highly recommend as well, although we might disagree on how we feel toward NASA.)

Would you like to see humans on Mars? Or journey there yourself? You many find the following organizations helpful as you explore the possibilities!

www.planetary.org
www.nss.org
www.spacefrontier.org
www.marssociety.org
www.spacex.com
www.nasa.gov
www.exploremars.org

Table of Contents

SAVING MARS
THE SAVING MARS SERIES
NOT BIG ON PROTOCOL
FOR THE LOVE OF MARS
NOT DYING LIKE THIS
BOTH KINDS OF WISDOM
I’LL DO MY BEST
THE PLANETARY DOG
SENSATION OF WEIGHT
WE ARE SMALL CREATURES
ANOMALOUS READING
CALIBRATED TO SHATTER
SKY TOO BLUE
WHAT IT FELT LIKE
COLLECTING
GUMPTION
REAL SILK
A ROPE TUG OF SADNESS
THE YOU I MET LAST NIGHT
NO LANGUAGE TO EXPRESS
JOB TO DO
THE MOST ELOQUENT PERSUADER
LIFE ON MARS
FLOOR TWELVE
IT WAS MADNESS
CHIP SCAN
DEFERENTIAL TREATMENT
CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY
AN EXPERIENCED PHYSICIAN
THE WORLD SEEMED TO SHRINK
KILIMANJARO
A STORM
FOLLOWING ORDERS
AWAKENINGS, RUDE AND PLEASANT
EPILOGUE
DEFYING MARS
HAUNTED
I’LL STAND BY YOU
THAT LIFE IS OVER
GENERALLY A MECHANIC
LIKE A SPIDER
A PLANETARY TREASURE
TERRAN FEVER
A PREDILECTION
LOOKS LIKE DIRT
BUNCH OF BLAMED FOOLS
VULNERABLE
A SNEEZING FIT
HE WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME
A TINY O
INCALCULABLE DEBT
TRYING VERY HARD
WHERE YOU SEE FENCES
SAND IN A RAW WOUND

IT HURTS OR IT SCARES YOU OR IT’S INCONVENIENT

ACCEPTABLE ALTERNATIVE
AIN’T NO SKILLED POLITICIAN
IDEALLY SUITED
DEFYING MARS
FOR HARPREET
NEVER GET AHEAD
THE PROSPECT OF DEATH
WATER-WEIGHT
FATE OF A LONE GIRL
THE PERFECT ECOSYSTEM
BETTER THAN THAT
SEAT OF YOUR PANTS
YET HERE WE BE
CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE
NO CLAIM
AN INFINITY OF MOMENTS
FOUND SOMETHING UNEXPECTED
NO MORE
AMONG THE WRECKAGE
BETTER SUITED
PROMISE
LOSING MARS
A SINGLE RED HAIR
MERRY MORN
TRAIL OF TELLURIUM
IRREGULARITIES
ANOMALOUS PATTERNS
UNDER THE RADAR
WHISTLE-WORTHY
FOND OF PIZZA
ENTREPRENEURIAL SOULS
ALL THE DIFFERENCE
ADDED TO THE STRAND
OUGHT TO HAVE LISTENED
FLY ON THE WALL
STUCK ON EARTH
THERE’S THE RUB
OBSEQUIOUS
ACTING THE PART
SOMEONE WHO GETS ME
LAST WISH
FOURBODY
CANDY TO CHILDREN
LOVELIEST NAME
WORST JOB IN THE WORLD
PROTOCOL
NOTHING PERSONAL
NO ONE SPEAKS MARSPERANTO
SCOTLAND THE BRAVE
HOPE
I DON’T CRASH EVERYTHING I FLY
MELANCHOLY
WOULD KNOW THE DIFFERENCE
NOT MY PROBLEM
MAKE A LOUSY MARSIAN
INTELLIGENCE
NEVER REALLY KNOW
IF YOU MUST EAT WORMS
NO HUGS IN HIS EYES
A SLIGHT MODIFICATION
THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT
REPEATED PATTERN
JUST LIKE YOUR AUNT
HARBINGER
EQUIDIMA
ONCE CALLED HOME
NO LONGER A BOY
COLD FIRE
CARROT OR STICK
WHAT A WASTE IT WOULD BE
A SMOOTH TRANSITION
WHITE LILIES
WE HAVE A SITUATION
ZUSSMAN
SHELTER
COMING HOME