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  “But...I thought we were planning on going to Tharsis as soon as I landed.”

  “I decided that a better course of action would be for me to tour a few of the smaller mines alone, so that I can get a clear, unbiased view of the company. I’m leaving Pavonis in a few hours.”

  “What! Where are you going?”

  “Two or three different mines, I think,” she said. “Now, please excuse me.” She moved to cut the com.

  “Wait, please Bianca. I need to talk to you.” He cast about desperately for something he could use to make her stay. The incident. Dangling the information about what happened ten years ago might be enough of a lure. But it was a risk, a big one.

  He stared hard at her, his heart pounding. Was that wounded purity darkening her eyes and curving down her red lips, or was it angry pride? How much of the muck was on her hands? He wished he could guess, but her expression gave him no clues. He had to make the gamble. No matter how much she knew about StarLine’s slave dealing, she just might think that he knew more.

  He took a deep breath. “I have information about StarLine that you might not know about. Some details about your company’s dealings with Arescorp and Qin.”

  That made her pause. “What could you possibly mean by that cryptic statement?” she said in a neutral tone.

  “I have data. Names, money transfers. Listen, we can’t discuss this now. Wait for me to land, and then we can talk.” He held his breath, praying she would take the bait.

  She studied him for a moment, almond eyes narrowed. Finally, she said, “Why don’t you tap over any pertinent data to my message cache. We can discuss it next week when I get back from my tour. Have a safe landing.”

  “No, wait!” he said. But she was already gone.

  Chapter Four

  Noctis Labyrinthus

  RedIce Mining Camp, Noctis Labyrinthus

  Bianca was willing to concede that she may have overreacted. So a business rival said mean things about her and had some wild, mistaken notions about her company. Big deal. She had only spoken with the bloke a handful of times, only even registered his existence for a few days. There was no reason to let a virtual stranger chase her out of Pavonis and into the Martian hinterland.

  But here she was—sitting in the cab of big, new-model rover, on her way to an obscure mining camp in Noctis Labyrinthus. She was almost there, in fact. The rover autopilot had just started driving down the glaze road to the mine’s hab. She let it do its thing, so that she could look out the front viewports and brood.

  During the journey, she had tried to distract herself from her restless thoughts by watching the vast, rocky surface of Mars roll past. Sometimes, the distraction even worked. There certainly was a lot to look at. She was surprised at how much the Martian Outback had changed, even since the last time she had been out there some five years ago. Three centuries of climate engineering had finally begun to affect the landscape. The planet’s thin, cold atmosphere was thickening and warming. The bacteria, lichens and lower plant life introduced by the first settlers had begun to flourish, spreading a subtle green flush across the red rock and soil of Mars.

  She hadn’t seen any animal life, of course. The air was still frigid and poisonous with CO2. All cities still had to be tented or dug underground to maintain a livable habitat for people and their food crops. But someday that would change. Someday, Martians would be able to walk the surface of their planet without mars-suits and airminers, as free as their ancestors had been on Earth. Bianca found the notion strange, and yet fascinating.

  Her rover began winding along the face of a long slope, just skirting the edges of one of the main rifts. It was her first sight of the Noctis Labyrinthus system—a maze of cracks in the bedrock of the planet so narrow and deep that in places sunlight never reached the canyon floor. She looked down the chasm into a jumbled wilderness of jagged spikes and bottomless crevasses, clogged with ice and shattered rock. A well-named region, she thought—the Labyrinth of Night.

  Eventually a chime warned her that she was approaching the mining camp. She scanned the glaze road with interest. She could see a series of sheds, six rover ports and a walktube leading into the face of the canyon wall.

  Her uncertainty about this entire project suddenly returned full force. Was coming out here really such a good idea?

  Well, there was no turning back now. It had taken her two days of nonstop travel by train and rover to get here. Besides, the answers to her questions about RedIce were there in that hab. She was almost sure of it.

  It was one of the smaller, older mine complexes, but it had caught her attention early on in her research. All of the miners who worked there had the same kind of shady backgrounds, and a lot of money had gotten lost in this mine’s operations. She had decided to go there almost as soon as her plan had formed.

  Of course, she hadn’t told Cesare that during their last, brief conversation. Only her team in Pavonis knew where she was going. She was trying to catch the miners at Noctis by surprise if possible, and she didn’t want anyone to warn them that she was coming.

  The rover drove up to one of the docking locks and coupled. She tapped on the command to seal the lock and the rover door slid open, revealing the walktube leading to the hab entrance. She stood, secured her travelpac on her back and then bent down and hoisted up the crate that had been sitting on the floor next to her

  With all the traveling, she had only gotten a few hours of sleep in the last two days, and right now she was definitely feeling it as she hauled the crate out of the rover and down the walk tube. At the hab’s front entrance she happily set the crate down and tapped the door chime.

  Remember, she told herself as she waited, friendly, yet firm.

  Minutes crept by, and no one answered the chime. She tapped it again, and waited some more. Still nothing.

  The hab sensors should have alerted the residents to her arrival before she even docked the rover. If they still weren’t answering the door chime, it had to mean there was no one home. She let out a breath of disappointment. Or maybe relief.

  She hesitated for a moment, debating with herself. She had gotten the entry codes to the hab at RedIce headquarters, just in case. She could let herself in. Perhaps it wouldn’t be the most polite thing to do, but she had been invited to tour the mines, sort of, and this was a perfect opportunity to snoop around.

  She wouldn’t invade anyone’s private quarters, she told herself. She would just get a candid look at a RedIce mining hab without the RedIcers around to gloss over any problems.

  Mind made up, she brought up the entry codes on her cuff and tapped them in. The door slid open. She hoisted up her crate again and stepped inside.

  She found herself in a spacious, high-ceilinged great room. The hab had been carved into the face of the cliff, and the walls, ceiling and floor were all polished stone overlaid with a delicate carbon reinforcement matrix. Slightly worn but comfortable looking furniture filled the chamber. Workstations and vid nooks were scattered here and there. One wall was given over to a large kitchen unit with a built-in hydroponic grower, while the opposite wall was a floor-to-ceiling viewport looking out over the canyons. At the far end of the chamber, a series of doors led off to what she assumed were workrooms and the private quarters of the miners.

  Bianca dropped her crate and travelpac near the front door and wandered slowly through the space. She had been expecting...well, she didn’t know what, precisely, but not this. This was no cramped dungeon in which to warehouse abused workers. This was homey. Someone had kicked off a pair of slippers near one of the couches. A half-empty cup of tea sat forgotten on a small table. There were several strange looking objects and knickknacks scattered about, little statuettes and boxes and bowls made of ceramic and what appeared to be actual wood. They looked like they must have come all the way from Earth.

  The large col
lection of Earther objects puzzled her for a moment. But of course, she thought, all of the miners here at Noctis are Earthers. They would keep familiar things around them to make them feel more at home.

  RedIce employed a great number of Earthers, she had noticed. More than a company its size normally would. And nearly all of them had been hired by Cesare. Yet another mystery that surrounded the bloke. What exactly was his relationship with these people?

  Bianca’s own interaction with Earthers had been pretty limited, as it was with most Martians. After the first wave of colonists from Earth had settled Mars three centuries ago, the home planet had entered a long period of upheaval, and traffic between the worlds thinned to a trickle. Not a whole lot of Earthers made it across the gulf of space these days.

  But that wouldn’t be the case for much longer. When the new Earth elevator came online, she and the rest of Mars would begin seeing a lot more of the Earthers.

  Looking around, she suddenly began to feel a bit foreign in this place. As if she had stepped off of Mars and ventured into an alien world. And it wasn’t just the unfamiliar decorations. All the furniture seemed just a little too small in scale, built for shorter, broader beings than she.

  She eyed one of the chairs. It might be short, but it did look nice and soft. She eased herself down. Ay. It was nice and soft, made with some exotic Earther material. Cotton, maybe.

  Heaven, it felt good to sit down without the rumble of machinery all around her. She leaned back and let her eyes drift closed for a minute.

  Her soon-to-be hosts would surely be back any time now. Idly, she wondered if she would like them as much as Cesare seemed to. She wondered if they would like her.

  People generally didn’t like her, she knew. They respected her, admired her even. But they didn’t like her. Except for Cesare. Cesare had liked her, for a bit. She yawned and rubbed her cheek against the soft chair, drifting.

  * * *

  Walking into the hab locker room, Mehmet Nazif snapped off his faceplate and peeled his hood back with a small groan. He had been in his m-suit for nearly twenty-four hours, working flat out to get one of the mining towers back online. Taking off his gear was going to be a little piece of heaven.

  I’m getting too old for this, he thought as he undid the micron seals at his collar. Of course, the other team members were all in just as bad a shape as he was, and they were all decades younger. He listened to the six of them mumble grouchily at each other as they plodded down the walktube to their lockers. At least they had enough energy to complain about the situation, he thought with a little smile. Eh, everyone was fine. They had all been through worse.

  Asif and Han walked into the locker room, arguing and peeling off their hoods. “I’m telling you, that tower’s GenIe is fecked,” Asif growled in his rough voice. “Just dust it and install a new one. We can afford to put one tower out of commission for a few days. We’re not that far behind on our quota.”

  “The patches are holding fine,” Han said, more irritably than usual. He was the team programmer, and was a bit touchy about his field. Plus, the long day’s exposure to the fine Martian dust had activated his allergies, and he was sniffling uncomfortably. He continued, “We haven’t finished running the mechanical tests yet. It might not be the GenIe at all.”

  “True,” Mehmet broke in. “We can finish running the tests tomorrow, then see about the GenIe.” He looked over the squabbling pair, and the four other miners who had trooped into the room behind them, peeling their hoods away from their weary, dusty faces. Asif’s brother Hussein trailed in last, his eyecam curled over one ear and under his eyes, as usual. He was already lost in a daze, scanning the DataCloud.

  Mehmet went on, “The tower is going along well enough for us all to take the night off. That includes you, Iqbal.” He nodded at the woman who was usually on the night shift, monitoring the mining towers and taking care of any emergencies. She especially needed a decent rest. She had been working longer hours than any of them.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” she said, and yawned hugely.

  Mehmet turned to Milla, the camp quartermaster, and said, “I hope you have something quick and easy lined up for dinner tonight.”

  Milla said nothing, as usual, just smiled and nodded slightly. Her husband Bo curled his arm around her neck and grinned with his habitual cheerfulness. “Milla will whip up something delicious for us, like always.”

  Everyone had to struggle not to roll their eyes at this. Milla was a sweet person and she tried her best, but only Bo could imagine that she was a good cook.

  They all got busy stripping off their surface gear. Mehmet finished stowing his m-suit in its locker and walked down the tube to the hab door, leaving the others to their grousing in the locker room. Food, cleanser, bed, he thought as he touched open the door and stepped inside. The day was winding down...

  He stopped short, just inside the door. There was someone sitting in a chair halfway across the room. A stranger. An instant flash of fear rushed over him, and he took half a step back before he got a grip on himself. He looked quickly around the hab, checking for other invaders, but the seated figure was the only one he could see. It was a woman, curled up in a boneless pose with her face turned away. She wasn’t moving, so she was either fast asleep or dead. Heaven, please, not another dead one, he thought. He had seen too much death already. He slowly moved closer, until he could make out the slight movement of the woman’s breathing. Asleep, then.

  Behind him, the others started to pile in through the doorway. They all stopped, their conversations cutting off midsentence as they saw their unexpected visitor. For a moment, all seven of them just stood there, staring.

  “Who the hell is that?” Asif finally said. He spoke loudly, but the woman didn’t move. Must be dead tired, or possibly drugged.

  Mehmet cleared his throat. “I don’t know. I guess we’d better wake her up and ask her.” He walked over and shook the woman lightly by the shoulder. “Excuse me,” he said firmly.

  The woman jerked upright with a little gasp, and her eyes flew open. She looked around a little blurrily. “Oh. Ni hao,” she said. She unfolded herself from the chair and stood, giving them their first good look at her.

  Mehmet noticed several things right away. First, she was a Martian, towering over all of them by at least a head. Second, she was extremely beautiful. Finally, and most alarmingly, her momentary confusion had faded, and she had assumed a look of cool, natural confidence, which told him that she was someone important.

  All of this added up to trouble, Mehmet thought with a sinking feeling.

  “My apologies,” the woman said. “I wasn’t sure when anyone would be back, so I let myself in, and I must have drifted off.” She smiled a little and shrugged. “It’s a very comfortable chair.” She spoke Qwert, the common language of the Sol, with an elegant, clipped Martian accent.

  No one said anything. The woman looked around at the circle of faces showing various degrees of curiosity and hostility, and smoothed her hand down the front of her blue-gray carbonsuit in a nervous little gesture. Not quite as confident as she wanted to appear, Mehmet thought.

  She stuck her hand out toward Mehmet, palm down, in the Martian style of greeting. “I’m Bianca Ross, from StarLine.”

  He stared at her for a moment, trying to suppress a jolt at the sound of her name. Around him, he felt the others stiffen. Ross. A member of one of the most powerful and dangerous families he had ever had the misfortune to know about was here, in their home. His heart racing, Mehmet slowly reached out to clasp the long, slender hand she held out.

  He had been warned that old Shen Chan was trying to sell the company to StarLine, but that worrisome possibility had just become a frightening reality. Every one of them knew what the future held if StarLine or the other slavers got hold of them again. A drugged stupor, a tiny cell and hard labor until they droppe
d dead. The girl’s very presence was like a blade at their throats. Even if she didn’t seem to acknowledge it. “I’ve just come from the RedIce offices in Pavonis,” she was saying, with a cordial, impersonal smile. “As I’m sure you know, StarLine and RedIce will be joining forces soon. We thought it would be a good idea to come out and get a first-hand view of the operations, so that we can integrate as seamlessly as possible.”

  “We?” Mehmet echoed in a low voice.

  “Well, just me, right now,” she said. “The rest of the StarLine team is working in Pavonis.”

  “I see.” What could this possibly mean? Assuming this Bianca Ross was telling the truth about being alone, why would she come here without a security team? His mind swarmed with fears and half-formed plans.

  She was looking around at the rest of them, an expectant smile on her face. Reluctantly, Mehmet made the introductions, keeping one eye on their visitor all the while. She nodded at them all, never once giving any sign that she recognized their faces or names. That was hardly surprising, though. Remembering such details about Earther slaves was surely beneath a Martian princess.

  The others reacted much as he thought they would. They were all tense and wary, except for Hussein, who was bemused, and Asif, who was furious.

  To stave off a damaging scene, Mehmet quickly offered their visitor tea, which she politely accepted. Milla and Bo practically ran to the galley to get it. Everyone else gingerly took seats on the chairs and sofas, the five Earthers facing the beautiful, potentially deadly alien in their midst.

  For several moments, no one said a word. Han and Iqbal stared uneasily at their feet. Hussein kept one eye on his cam, and the other on their visitor. Asif glared hotly from the corner. Bianca Ross’s face remained placid, though Mehmet thought he saw her fair skin grow a shade paler as the tension wound tighter. Mehmet himself wanted to leap up and shout, “Why are you here?” but he folded his knotted brown fingers in his lap, and let the silence stretch. He had some decisions to make and for all their sakes he had to be careful.