Sean’s teams were probably there now.

More guards emerged from the UMS buildings, armed and in full pressure suits.

“All right,” came a gruff female voice. “State your business. Then get the hell out of here or you’ll be arrested.”

Gretyl stepped forward, a scrawny little red devil with a black masked head. “We want an audience with Chancellor Connor. We are students who have been illegally voided and whose contracts have been flagrantly broken. We demand — ”

“Who in hell do you think you are? A bunch of fapping rodents?” The woman’s voice scared me. She sounded outraged, on the edge of something drastic. I couldn’t tell which of the suited figures she was, or if she was outside at all. “You’ve crossed regional property. Goddamned Gobacks should know what that means.”

“I’m not going to argue,” Gretyl said. “We demand to speak with — ”

“You’re talking to her, you ignorant shithead! I’m right here.” The foremost figure raised an arm and shook a gloved fist. “And I’m in no mood to negotiate with Trespassers and Gobacks.”

“We’re here to deliver a petition.” Gretyl removed a metal cylinder from her belt and extended it. One of the guards started forward, but Connor grabbed his elbow and shook it once, firmly. He backed away and folded his arms.

“Politics of confrontation,” Connor said, voice harsh as old razors. “Agitprop and civil disobedience. You’d think you were on Earth. Politics doesn’t work that way here. I have a mandate to protect this university and keep order.”

“You refuse to meet with us and discuss our demands?”

“I’m meeting with you now. Nobody demands anything of lawful authority except through legal channels. Who’s behind you?”

I looked over my shoulder, misunderstanding.

“There’s no conspiracy,” Gretyl said.

“Lies, my dear. Genuine lies.”

“Under Martian contract law, we have the right to meet with you and discuss why we have been voided and our contracts broken.”

“State law superseded BM law last month.”

“Actually, it doesn’t. If you want to check with your lawyers — ” Gretyl began. I cringed. We were bickering and time was running out.

“You have one minute to turn around and go back to where you came from, or we’ll arrest you,” Connor said. “Let the legals sort it out. Do your families know where you are? How about your advocates? Do they know and approve?”

Gretyl’s words bristled. “I can’t believe you are being so stubborn. I’m asking for the last time — ”

“Right. Arrest them, my authority, statute two-five-one, Syria-Sinai district books.”

Some of the students began to talk, asking worried questions. “Quiet!” Gretyl shouted. She turned to Connor. “Is this your last answer?”

“You poor dumb rodents,” Connor said. She swiveled to enter the open lock door. Connor behaved even more rudely than she had been portrayed to us in the briefings, supremely confident, intractable and ready to provoke an incident. Guards moved forward. I turned and saw three guards behind us, also closing. We had to submit.

Gretyl stepped away from the first guard. Another flanked her on the right, coming between us, and she stepped back. There were twenty of us and ten guards.

“Let them take you,” Gretyl said. “Let them arrest you.” Then why was she resisting?

A guard took my arm and applied sticky rope to my skinsealed wrist. “You’re lucky we’re bringing you in,” he said, grinning. “You wouldn’t last another hour out here.”

Two of the guards devoted themselves exclusively to Gretyl. They advanced with hands and sticky ropes held out. She backed away, held up her arm as if waving to them, and touched her mask.

Time got stiff.

Gretyl turned to look at the rest of us. Her eyes looked scared. My heart sank. Don’t do anything just to impress Sean, I wanted to shout to her.

“Tell them what you saw here,” Gretyl said. “Freedom conquers!” Her fingers plucked at and then slipped beneath the seam of the mask. A guard grabbed at her arm but he wasn’t quick enough.

Gretyl ripped away the mask and sprang to one side, sending it flying with a wide toss. Her long-nosed face flashed pale and narrow against the pink sky. She squeezed her eyes shut and clamped her mouth instinctively. Her arms reached out, fingers extended, as if she were a tightrope walker and might lose her balance.

Simultaneously, I heard small thumps and felt the ground vibrate.

Connor hadn’t had time to enter the poke-up airlock. “Get her inside! Get her inside!” she screeched, pushing through her associates.

The guards stood still as statues for what seemed like minutes, then reached for Gretyl and dragged her as fast as they could to the airlock. She struggled in their arms. I saw her face pinking, blood vessels near the surface rupturing as the plasma boiled. Vacuum rose.

Gretyl opened her eyes and reached up with one hand to grab at her chin. She pulled her own jaw open. The air in her lungs rushed out, moisture freezing in a cloud in the still air.

“They’ve blown track,” someone shouted.

“Get her INSIDE!”

Gretyl looked at the sky through rime-clouded eyes.

The guard in front of me jerked the sticky rope forward and I fell into the dirt. For an instant it seemed he might kick me. I looked up and saw narrow grim eyes behind the helmet visor, mouth open, face slack. He stopped and blinked, waiting for orders.

I twisted my head around to see how my companions were being treated. Several lay in the dirt. The guards systematically pushed us down and planted boots on our backs. When all nineteen lay flat, the guards stood back. The door to the lock opened again and someone stepped out, not Connor.

“They’re under arrest,” a man’s voice said over the radio. “Get them inside. Strip that stuff off and put them in a dorm. Delouse them.”

There have never been lice on Mars.

They separated us quickly. Three guards pulled five of us away from the airlock and marched us through chilly tunnels to the old dorms, seldom used now. The new dorms had been equipped with more modern conveniences, but these were maintained for an emergency or future overload of students.

“Can you get this off by yourself?” the tallest of the three asked, gesturing at our skinseal. She removed her helmet beneath the dimmed lights of the hall, lips downturned, eyes miserable.

“What did he mean, delouse?” another guard asked, a young, muscular male with West Indian features and accent.

The guards were all fresh Martians. That made sense. The new United Mars state would be their sponsor, their BM and family.

“You can’t just hold us here,” I said. “What happened to Gretyl?” My four companions turned on the guards, pointing fingers and shouting. We all demanded our rights — communication, freedom, advocates.

It became an open rebellion until the third guard pulled a flechette from his pack. He was the shortest, a slim man with plain, short-cut brown hair and perfect, saintly features. His eyes narrowed, very cold. I thought, Here’s a Statist sympathizer. The others were merely hired hands.

“Blow it down, right now,” he demanded.

“You injured Gretyl!” I shouted. “We need to know what happened to her!”

“Sabotage is treason. We could shoot you in self-defense.”

He raised the pistol. All of us backed away, including the two other guards.

“That wouldn’t be smart,” I said.

“Not for you.” The slim fellow gave us a cold thin smile and pushed us down the hall.

We entered a stripped-down double room, immediately sprawling on the bare cot and chairs, another small gesture of useless defiance.

“You’re going to be here for a while, so get comfortable.”

I didn’t like him pushing his pistol and didn’t want to provoke him any further. We peeled off our skinseal — it was a blessed relief to be free of it, actually. The West Indian tossed the shreds into dust bags. Enough smear floated loose to make us sneeze.