THE MARTIAN CAPER
Atalanta departed Ganymede in the usual way, rising from the icy landscape and dropping toward Jupiter for the gravity-assist, looking for all the world as if she was on her way outward toward Saturn, but she changed vector and headed for the Following Trojan Asteroids.
A third of the way round Jupiter’s orbit in both directions lay the Trojan Asteroids, collected by the great planet in a kind of gravitational eddy, where rocks and ships and junk of all kinds tended to collect. In the Preceding Trojans, at the L4 position, was located the Galilean Security Impound Lot, which Atalanta knew well, having hidden there once when pursued by the Quasi-Police. In the Following Trojans, at the L5 position, was located Galilean Security’s Quarter Master General Colony, where the company’s ships went for refit.
All the Trojans were, of course, named after figures in the Trojan War, the Preceding for the heroes on the Greek side and the Following for the heroes of the Trojan side, except for a few of the first satellites discovered before the naming protocol was established. Thus, among the Trojan heroes was one Greek hero, Patroclus, the best friend of the great warrior Achilles. This was called the Greek Spy among the Trojans, and Galilean Security built its most secure safe house there.
As Atalanta slowed to mate with the Quarter Master General colony, Karil and Loris looked down at the irregular double-asteroid Patroclus, surrounded by Island One colonies and dozens of ships of all kinds. The control tower contacted them, checked their codes, and opened the space-doors for them. The ship nosed into a berth in the great hangar, quickly surrounded by repair robots and pressure-suited humans on personal flyers, and then soon by the silent lightning-arc of torches. Karil and Loris crawled through a flexible tunnel to a lock and took an elevator outward to the QMG offices.
QMG006 was the robot in charge at the moment, legless and attached to a computer console.
“Loris and Karil reporting,” the former said, “for Atalanta.”
“Hello, Loris,” the robot said, swiveling its upper body to face them. “I understand you will be going undercover to Earth.”
“That’s right.”
“Work on your ship has already begun, and you should be on your way in a day or two. We are providing a few minor improvements. Your drivers are to be upgraded and you should find the ship’s speed enhanced and improved, and also much quieter.”
“I kind of like the roar of the drivers,” Karil offered.
QMG006 swivelled its head and peered at him with its unblinking eyes. “And I suppose you like the noise of motorcycles and antique automobiles.”
“Well, yes,” Karil laughed.
“You may ask Atalanta to make as much noise as you like, but if you wish to arrive and leave locations in stealth mode, you can do that too.” It turned to Loris, dismissing Karil with a tilt of its head. “Most important, however, are the upgrades in camouflage. Heretofore, you could switch to several standard camouflage patterns at the touch of a button—the green and brown of Earth, the red and gray of Mars, white and black for icy moons, etc. Now, the camouflage will be holographs. I will show you.”
On the screen before them appeared the common gun-metal gray of ship-grade titanium, which changed to a deep black which Karil thought extremely intimidating, and then a pretty sky-blue on which white clouds drifted. Then it cycled through various Martian sky-colors from salmon to butterscotch to sunset blue and then a perfect representation of boulders on a Martian dust-plain. It finished with a pattern of greens that perfectly reproduced the foliage of a Terran forest from above. Karil and Loris were impressed.
“We have also updated the weapons. Atalanta will give you the details. And we have given you a superior coffeemaker. I always finish with that because of its popularity.”
Karil and Loris left the QMG HQ and returned to the hangar. Through the windows, they could see Atty being systematically denuded, an image which they found rather upsetting.
“I thought I would find you here,” said a woman’s voice. They turned to see a woman of Karil’s age, a full-bodied blonde in a short haircut, her blue eyes sparkling.
“Inger!” Karil said and threw his arms around her. Loris embraced her as well, though with rather less enthusiasm.
“Can I buy you lunch in the cafeteria?” Inger asked. “I think we have a lot to talk about.”
They followed her through the maze of corridors to the humming and clattering cafeteria, where they chose food which the robot brought them. Karil glanced about at the other diners, ranging from obvious military types to obvious spacer types to people who seemed quite ordinary, but were probably not. Loris sipped her coffee and smiled. It was delicious.
“That’s from a machine like the one you’re getting,” Inger said. She reached out and put her hand on Loris’s. “I know you’re not thrilled with me acting as Captain.”
“They’re telling me,” Loris said, “you’re the third best pilot in the fleet. I know we need Karil on keyboards and not at the helm. Nobody else has his flying fingers and his intuitive understanding of what Atty is thinking.”
“Actually,” Karil said, “I think Loris is kind of relieved that I’m not going to be at the helm, putting Atty through her paces. Especially now that she’s going to be souped up.”
“Maybe a little,” Loris laughed. She looked into Inger’s big blue eyes. “I do know that you saved his life, twice, and I thank you, but I’m a bit jealous of you handling my baby.” She nodded toward Karil. “Not this baby. Handle him all you like. It’s Atty I don’t relish sharing.”
“I’ll treat both of them with tender, loving care,” Inger laughed. “I’ve known Karil for a long time. I’ve never met Atty.”
“Really?”
“I met Karil on High Africa the very day he ran away to space. I was eighteen and had just been assigned to be concubine to the Sultan, his father. The next time I saw him, his father ordered Armand Solla to kill him, but I managed to talk him out of it without raising any suspicion. The third time I saw him, his father was going to do the deed himself, so I shot him, and Karil and I escaped together. I dropped him off with Baby Snakes and came in from the cold, as they say.”
Karil sat and listened to the women talking about him as if he was not there. He didn’t care a bit. “I’ve been carrying a torch for Inger all this time,” he said.
“I saw that torch,” Inger laughed. “And I almost grabbed it. But I did my duty and the Sultan thought I loved every minute of it. God, I’m good.”
After lunch, Inger gave them a tour of the whole QMG colony, where she was a test-pilot, putting the renovated ships through their paces. Every once in a while, they popped in to check out Atalanta’s progress. Then they had dinner and a little too much wine. Afterward, they retired to Inger’s quarters, where she got the ball rolling by planting a big kiss on Loris. Inger was initiated into the full Karil and Loris club membership. She enjoyed their fine muscular bodies, and they enjoyed her fine, lush one. Work on Atalanta was completed during the night.
***
They gathered in the departure lounge as Loris waited for her shuttle. It would take her and a few other departing agents to Callisto, where she would board the spaceliner Fair-Haired Demeter for the voyage to High Asia. She was wearing modern Indian dress instead of a shipsuit, revealing her well-muscled abdomen to advantage, and she jingled fetchingly. She rather enjoyed wearing gold baubles again, as she had when she was a carefree Free Trader. After hugs for Karil and Inger, she boarded the ship and they saw it release and fall swiftly toward Jupiter.
Then, they boarded Atalanta, pulling themselves through the flexible tunnel to her berth in the hangar.
“Good morning, Atty,” Karil said as he darted down into the Astrogator’s well. “How are you feeling?”
“I feel strong,” she said in her lilting voice. “The Q has upgraded my drivers and my camouflage circuits, and some other systems which I can tell you about. I’m ready for the mission. Welcome aboard, Inger. It’s so nice to meet you after all this time.”
“Thank you, Atty. May I sit in Loris’s place?”
“It is your place until she returns, My Dear. You are only the third person to take my helm and I look forward to the experience. They say you have a light hand on the helm. With Loris, it's more like arm-wrestling.”
“You’re so darling,” Inger laughed, and strapped into the Pilot’s couch. She looked down over Karil’s curly head and watched his fingers darting over the keyboards, saw the figures appear on the screen.
“Next stop, Mars,” he said. “For your coded log, Atty: Data on the business activity of Zhang Shen-Yi is kept at High Asia Headquarters, but with a backup copy at the Pavonis spaceport of Mars. Since the former would be impossible to access, we are going to the latter, where we might have help to break into the spaceport computer.”
“Atty,” said Inger, “please send a coded message to Chi-Chi Li on Mars to request a secret meeting, whenever and wherever she thinks it safe.”
“Understood.”
Inger placed her delicate hands on the helm. The umbilical tunnel dropped away, and the space doors opened behind them. Atty yawed about on verniers, passed out through the open doors into space, and then Inger punched it. The ship seemed to catapult toward Jupiter and Karil and Inger were thrust back into their couches. Karil noticed with satisfaction the full-throated roar of the drivers. The gravity-assist swing about Jupiter, as always, was a thrill, and the ship sped on toward Mars.
***
Even at speed, the trip took some weeks and there was time to pore over the data on Zhang and Suzuki that Security had passed on to Atalanta.
Zhang had become immensely wealthy at a young age, not only in the asteroidal ice and metals trade, and interplanetary shipping, but in spaceship construction. Little of a personal nature was known about him, though it was known that he had a traditional family on High Asia and another in Nueva York, where he regularly travelled on business. They did not know about each other.
His speeches clearly showed that his personal obsession was to restore the power of Terran China, which had collapsed with the end of Terran civilization after the deluge. All the nations of Earth had turned inward and cut off trade with the rest of the world, and China’s fall from world-wide economic giant was as precipitous as that of America. High Asia had abandoned mainland China as the other High Companies had abandoned the rest of Earth, and it was now a backwater nation on a devastated planet, having retired once again behind its walls. Zhang’s dream was to reverse that history and make China an empire again, probably with him as Emperor.
Marjorie Suzuki’s dream was similar. A brilliant scientist, particularly expert in antimatter physics and engineering, she revered the technological powerhouse that had been Japan on Earth and dreamed of establishing a trade hegemony there again. She may have joined forces with Zhang to obtain the asteroid metals and Martian sandglass needed to re-build the Japanese robotics and communications industry that had been wiped out by tsunamis and the collapse of world trade in the previous century.
Galilean Security was nothing if not thorough.
***
The days passed quickly. Karil and Inger studied the files and made their plans by day, and by night they explored each other. Karil missed Loris and thought Inger did too. Eventually, Mars appeared and grew in the screen. Karil pointed out the great rift of the Mariner Valley and the Topless Towers of the Tharsis plains, including Pavonis Mons on the equator, where the spaceport and High Company headquarters were located. Somewhere in there was the backup data for High Asia, including details of Zhang’s activities—at least those known to the Quasi-Police.
A coded message had come in concerning a first edition of A Thousand Nights and a Night, with the banned illustrations of the Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor. Karil knew this was for him—Chi-Chi Li’s little joke. Analysis of the pages mentioned gave him the hour, Martian date, and co-ordinates of the meeting.
“One thing to keep in mind,” Karil told Inger. “Terry is on the council of the provisional government and must not be involved.”
***
Camouflaged for Mars, Atalanta descended upon a narrow canyon in the Labyrinth of Night. Li appeared to have been watching, because her Dust Devil seemed to pop out of nowhere immediately and sped toward them.
“Atty, lower the cargo ramp,” Inger said.
Which she did. The speedy little vehicle nosed up the ramp into the lock and had soon cycled through. Chi-Chi Li stepped out of the Devil, removing her fogged-up helmet, and embraced Karil.
“My God I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “Politics is so goddamn boring I’m about to hang myself. But I’m sure you’ll bring some excitement of some kind.” She removed the shotgun from its holster on her air tanks and wriggled out of her suit. Dressed in the standard brief Martian undergarment, she gave Karil a much better hug than the first, then turned and hugged Inger.
“Hi,” she said. I’m Chi-Chi Li.”
“I’m Inger.”
“Oh, you’re the one who blew Karil’s father’s head off.”
“I just shot him in the head, that’s all, with an antique pistol.”
“Too bad it wasn’t a blunderbuss, like this.” She waved her vicious little sawed-off shotgun, just as deadly in vacuum as in atmosphere. “Where’s Loris?”
“She’s undercover,” Karil said.
“You’re usually under the covers with her. I guess you’re under the covers with Blondie here for a change. Lucky girl. So, what can the Martian Liberation Front do for Galilean Security? You got any coffee?”
“We do indeed,” said Atalanta. “And we have a new Espresso machine. It’s wonderful, I’m told.”
“Oh, Atty.” Li put her hand on the bulkhead beside her to feel it vibrate, as tactile people like Martians often did. “You’re back on Mars. Your camouflage beats hell out of the old paintjob, doesn’t it? If it wasn’t for the dust-cloud, I wouldn’t have seen you land.” She turned to Karil. “You couldn’t get me one of those camouflage units for my Dust Devil, could you?”
“I could ask,” he said. “Wasn’t that Aaron’s?”
“The big lug willed it to me.” Li brushed a lock of hair aside to hide the tear that ran down her cheek. “And I added a few little things. I can do that, you know, because I’m a fucking ambassador, so it’s not all bad. Where’s my damn coffee?”
They sat down at the table and Karil made her an Espresso while Inger explained what the Company wanted.
“First, Karil insists that Terry must not be involved.
“Damn right.”
“All we need to do is get surreptitious entry to the computer archive at Pavonis, copy the files on someone named Zhang Shen-Yi of High China and get out with no-one the wiser. Quasi-Police traffic data from Earth orbit is routinely sent to Pavonis for security backup. What we’re interested in is the movement of Zhang’s ships, which is not considered sensitive data, so it should be there. The plan is for Karil to pose as your driver while I wait with Atty in case you need help.”
“That’s it? This coffee is wonderful. You know anybody that could smuggle in some of this for us?”
“I think so,” Karil laughed. “But listen: no bombs and no shooting.”
“Oh, all right. Sneak in, sneak out. We can do that.”
“Because we don’t want the Quasi-Police to know we’re interested in Zhang. He’s got QP agents in his pocket that will alert him.”
“That makes sense. I know about him, you know. A lot of people in my home commune keep tabs on the Old Planet. He’s richer than God and meaner than the Devil. There are bodies buried somewhere, I can tell you. Jesus, is Loris going up against him?”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” Karil told her.
“Right. If I were you, I’d think up a plan to get her out of wherever the hell she is if the shit hits the fan.”
***
Approaching the kilometer-high escarpment that ringed the base of Pavonis Mons was like approaching a wall at the end of the world. The Dust Devil stopped before the huge hatch, designed for earth-moving equipment and transport rovers, and they waited for the computer to detect the vehicle’s ID code. The hatch opened and they nosed into the lock, then it closed behind them and they were essentially trapped. In a conning-tower above them, they could see riflemen watching. The lock filled with air and when the hissing stopped, they rolled up beside the guard’s station. The man came out to look them over.
What had Loris told Karil? “People are dumb, like babies and cats. You give them something shiny or noisy to look at and they won’t notice anything else.”
Chi-Chi Li was something noisy. She was loud and impressive always, despite her tiny stature.
“Al?” she said. “How are you this morning?”
“Not bad, Miss Li.” Al barely glanced at Karil. A man in a driver’s uniform—that’s all he was. Karil stared straight ahead, the picture of boredom.
“I’m here for the Council meeting at 4:00, Room 282.”
“You’re early.”
“I need to do some research in the library first. Besides, there’s a new baby at the commune and I’ve had enough of cooing and gurgling for the day. How’s your little one?”
“Two years old. He’s a handful.”
“You’d better see if you can take some leave Earthside, Al. Otherwise, he’ll be stuck in Martian gravity forever, like me. If you want a word on your behalf, just tell me. I’ll bug them till they’re sick of me and enjoy every minute.”
He laughed. “Thanks, Miss Li. I appreciate it.”
“Don’t mention it, Al. You always brighten up my day.”
Al waved at the tower and the hatch opened before them. Karil drove into the parking hangar and found Li’s spot.
“Last year, we would have been shooting at each other.” Li said. “Now we‘re bonding over what a pain in the ass the Quasi-Police can be. Funny, that.”
They climbed out of the Dust Devil and headed for the elevator, Karil a few steps behind, pretending that the big briefcase he was toting was heavy. The elevator door opened, and a handful of people stepped out.
“Hurry up,” Li said loudly to Karil. “I’ll be late for my meeting.” They stepped inside and the doors closed. A devilish little smirk was on her face.
“You need a spanking,” Karil mumbled.
“Don’t promise what you can’t deliver, Flyboy.”
The elevator rose several kilometers up the inside of the mountain and came to a stop. They emerged into a corridor and walked a fair distance, past a phalanx of identical doors with room-numbers. Karil guessed they were about five levels below the spaceport. Li stood before a door labelled 542 and pulled out a device, which she placed by the lock. Lights blinked and it beeped. The door unlocked and Li pushed it open.
“Where did you get that?” Karil asked.
“Ancilius Group.”
“They probably got it from Galilean Security.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”
They stepped into a room full of computer consoles. Karil sat down and began punching keys as instructed by Auntie Em. Li locked the door and stood next to it so she would be behind it if it opened. In a few minutes a file popped up on the screen labelled Zhang Shen-Yi. Karil popped in a storage key and copied it. The Quasi-Police were so paranoid that they even spied on their own bosses, and the file was voluminous. It included all the movements of his ships. If he gave this to Atty, she could probably figure out exactly where his installation was located on Earth. When it was downloaded, he searched for Suzuki, whose file was also enormous, though most of that was formula, diagrams, and lectures. Everybody spies on everybody, he thought, and always has.
In a moment, Karil was finished, and Li opened the door for him. After a quick look, they made their way down the corridor to the elevator. Suddenly, an armed squad of Quasi guards emerged from a room behind them and quickly surrounded them.
“What the hell is this?” Li demanded. “Put those cannons away. Jesus Christ!”
“You are not authorized for this section,” the commanding officer said.
Karil’s laser was in a shoulder holster inside his uniform jacket. As Li’s official driver, he would naturally be armed. But a fat lot of good it would do him.
The elevator door opened, and Terry stepped out, followed by her entourage of secretaries and bureaucrats.
“There you are,” she said. “Li, I wish you’d stop wandering around. There’s nothing interesting down here.”
“I was bored,” she said. “I thought I’d take a different route. This place is a maze.”
Terry turned to the squad commander. “Thank you for finding her,” she said. She spoke to her device. “Found her, Chairman. Lost in the archives.”
There was a moment of tense silence, and then the officer saluted. The guards lowered their weapons and Terry stepped back into the elevator with her group. Li and Karil pushed in with them and the doors closed.
“Contact me next time, Karil,” Terry said. She hugged and kissed him.
“We were trying to keep you out of it,” Karil said.
“I appreciate that. But nothing happens on this planet that I don’t know about.”
“I believe it.”
“I won’t ask you what you’re doing here,” Terry went on. “It’s probably a deep, dark secret.”
“I could tell you later,” Li said.
“I don’t want to know, actually. Just get in that hot rod of yours and get the hell out of here before the authorities begin to wonder about you. Karil, I’m sure your wanted picture is on several walls around here.”
Terry hugged Karil again and put her head on his shoulder for an instant. Her long hair cascaded over him, the smell bringing back old memories. Then, the door opened on the conference floor and Terry turned down the hall with her entourage. Li and Karil descended to the hangar, climbed into the Dust Devil, and sped to the exit lock.
“There’s another damn crisis in the commune,” Li said to Al. “I hope I’m back in time for the four o’clock conference.”
Al laughed and buzzed them into the lock. Just as the hatch closed behind them, they heard the comm in the guard’s office buzz insistently and he went in to answer it. There was a moment of horror as the lock was slowly evacuated, and then the outer hatch opened. Karil slammed the accelerator and the Dust Devil shot out across the red Tharsis plains toward the Noctis Labyrinthus. The dust rose in a cloud behind them as they flew over the rock-strewn landscape. Li climbed over the back and into the cargo area behind and strapped into a seat. She touched a sensor and weapons popped out on both sides of the Devil.
“I knew you’d bring excitement,” Li called back.
“Sorry,” Karil said. “It seems I’ve ruined your career as a diplomat.”
“I was sick of it anyway. I’m not cut out to be a diplomat.”
“No! Really?” Karil said.
“That’s all right. The MLF has been asking me to take command of one of the districts. Maybe I will. The Quasi are still harassing us, truce or no truce, and they need to be punished. Here they come now. Let’s see if we can punish them a bit.”
On the rear-view screen, Karil could see sand-rovers behind them. They had little chance of matching the Dust Devil’s speed, but the fast little ship was at a disadvantage on the rock-strewn sand-dunes. The sand-rovers easily rolled over the rocks on their huge balloon tires, while the Devil had to swerve madly to avoid disastrous contact. If Karil had not been such a brilliant driver, they would already be captured or dead.
Something roared over them. Even in the thin air, they could hear it. Karil glanced up through the port to see a helicopter—one of those Mars Copters with the absurdly long, rapidly spinning rotors needed to support two men and a gun-turret in the slight atmosphere, with the help of downward-pointing jets. Just ahead, the canyon walls of Noctis Labyrinthus were approaching. Ch-Chi Li began firing into the dust-clouds behind them and they heard a crash. There was sporadic return fire and a few bullets ricocheted off the Devil’s armor. More worryingly, laser-beams emerged from the dust and flashed by, just missing them. The helicopter was just above them now, its wash creating swirling clouds that obscured Karil’s vision.
They plowed into the darkened canyon. Karil was at home now, in the Labyrinth of Night. The canyon snaked back and forth across the plains, the walls towering over them. He banked and swerved and heard crashes behind them, saw flames erupt and quickly die in the thin air. The helicopter dared not descend into the twisting canyon, lest its long rotors clip the walls and lead to disaster. But bombs rained down and explosions erupted on one side or another, causing the Devil to rock precariously. Suddenly, the canyon opened up and widened and the helicopter came in for the kill.
In the dust-filled thin air, the helicopter blades began to glow with a triboelectric charge, like the Saint Elmo’s Fire that clung to sailing ships and airplanes on Earth. The blue-purple glow gave the helicopter an eerie, ghostly look, which grew more visible as the sky darkened. But suddenly, a great shadow fell over them and the helicopter suddenly rose and backed off, as Atalanta appeared overhead. She yawed about and sped before them, picking up speed and settling close to the ground as the cargo ramp fell open. The Dust Devil roared up into the cargo hold and crashed into the cargo netting and stopped dead as the ramp closed up behind them. Atalanta shot into the sky and soared across the landscape, leaving the helicopter and the rovers far behind.
Karil and Li climbed out of the Devil and joined Inger on the bridge.
“That was good timing,” Karil said, “And some fancy flying.”
“I’m glad I could find a place wide enough to land,” Inger laughed. “Scared the shit out of the helicopter pilot, I imagine. I thought I would have to start blowing the rovers and the copter to bits, which would attract some serious attention from orbit.”
“I’d say that was flying worthy of Loris,” Li said.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Inger said. “In fact, I wouldn’t dare say that.”
“We have to get Atty away from here,” Karil said, “and then we have to get Li somewhere safe before we leave for Earth. I’m afraid we’ve changed her career.”
“Thank God,” Li laughed. “I think I know a place where I’ll be welcome to hide out for a while. Nice commune far from here. They’re kind of off the beaten path and I’ve got plenty of stories to pay for my keep. But we’d better find a place to hide now. Half the Quasi fleet will be out looking for us in minutes.”
“I know a place we can hide out for the night,” Karil said. He climbed down into the well and began tapping keys. “Here it is. Atty, remember that crater with the cave in the rim?”
“Of course I do, Karil.” She crooned.
“We can spend the night there and head out in the morning. There’ll be cruisers with spotlights poking around all night. But they’ll never find us there. We’ll be tucked in, nice and cozy.”
Li and Inger glanced at each other.
The pleasant thing about Mars is that the day is a little more than half an hour longer than it is on Earth. Unlike in space, there is regular daylight and night, and the human metabolism quickly becomes used to the schedule. As the sun went down and the ship was engulfed in darkness in its cave, Karil and Inger set up a sleeping bag in one of the holds for Li and they had dinner. Inger listened to Karil and Li laughing about incidents in the past that at the time were no laughing matter. Eventually, Karil and Inger retired to their quarters. Nearly undressed, they looked up to find that Li had followed them.
“Do you think I’m going to pass this up?” she said.
The contrast between Inger and Li was delightful. Inger was a page-boy blonde beauty and Li’s long, cascading hair was black as night with fire-red highlights. Inger was as plump and sweet as a fine dessert, and Li was all shapely muscle, scar tissue, and bold tattoos. Inger was delicate and harem-sophisticated, Li was bawdy and hungry and enthusiastic. Above all, Li wished to learn, and Inger was a born teacher.
***
In the morning, after the thoroughly Galilean night, Karil was not terribly rested but supremely happy. He had even slept in the middle for a change. They took off and landed at a distant commune in the Southern Hemisphere. Over the comm, the family there welcomed Li enthusiastically, and she prepared to take out the Dust Devil.
“I have something for you,” she said, and handed Karil her shotgun.
“I can’t take that,” he protested.
“Mars is full of them now. I’ve made them popular. Someone will make me a new one. But this is mine and if you find yourself in a tight spot one day, I’d be happy if it saved you. And take this too." She shrugged off her bandolero.
"It looks better on you," Karil said.
She eyed his biceps. "Not sure about that."
“Then, thank you.” Karil embraced her and then she slipped into Inger’s arms. “It was lovely,” she said. “Lovely.” She reached out and touched the bulkhead. “Thank you for your hospitality, Atty.”
She climbed into the Dust Devil, cycled through the lock, and backed down the ramp, then sped off toward her new life. Atalanta rose, shot off across the butterscotch sky, and headed for Earth. On the way, after Atty sent the coded material off to Auntie Em, Karil pored over it, hoping the trip to Mars was worth it. He learned that it was. Routine data on spaceship movements to and from High China proved that Zhang industries had been sending construction material to the Forest Quarter of the Americas for about two years. Atalanta should be able to find the precise location.