“We need to find out,” I said. Through the insulation, through the fog of growing reaction, my enhancement began working the problem of removing a mass the size of Mars abruptly from the vicinity of the sun, putting it elsewhere.

No distance. Thieves stealing from the galactic treasure house.

“Areologists, I think,” Lieh said.

“Right. Structural engineers for the stations. People we can trust, but we’ll have to lower our standards a little. People are going to know soon enough.”

“The meeting will have to be held in the flesh, incommunicado,” Lieh said. “Everybody involved will have to stay sequestered until we’ve moved.”

“Oh?” I asked, still listening to my enhancement.

“The greatest danger is a leak to Earth. They may take action at any hint we’re working on something so drastic.”

“Yes,” I said, letting her think for me, for the time being, letting her stretch to envelop the concept.

“This will take a lot of planning,” she said.

“Twenty experts, no more,” I said. “We’ll need a safe meeting place.”

“This is as safe a place as any,” Lieh said.

“All right.” I suddenly dreaded the thought of staying in this room where I had learned of Ilya’s death. “Ask the Olympians what they’ll need to build several large tweakers. Ask them how soon they can have them ready.”

“I’ll wake you in eight hours,” she said, and she left.

I closed my eyes.

When the grief came, I screwed up my eyes until they hurt, trying to keep back the tears, trying not to lose control. I could not accept I could not believe. Adult sophistication meant nothing against that need spread through to my child-self. I kept seeing my mother’s face, gone before this all began; lost to me, lost to my father. I would not wear my father’s grief, not lose my inner self. I could not recall Ilya’s face with much clarity, not as a picture. I picked up my slate and searched for a good picture and yes, there he was, smiling over a mother cyst at Cyane Sulci, and here on the day of our ceremony, uncomfortable in a formal suit.

It seemed to me that I had never told him enough about my love and need. I cursed myself, so spare with words and revealed emotions to those I loved.

I rubbed my eyes. My insides felt like shredded rubber. For a moment, I considered calling in a medical arbeiter and plucking out this overwhelming pain. I told myself I could not let my emotions get in the way of duty. But I had not done that for my mother, and I would not do it now.

I forced my body to relax. Then, without warning, I fell asleep, as if a small circuit breaker had tripped inside my head, and the eight hours passed instantly.

Preamble

“I’m going to be in the goo for at least three more weeks,” Ti Sandra said, allowing herself to be seen only from the shoulders up. She appeared pale but more animated. She had just come out of intensive reconstruction, three more days unconscious and at the mercy of her doctors. I took her call in my small office at Kaibab, weary from days of conferences. Memory cubes piled high on my desk carried station designs and reports from manufacturers, shippers, and architects.

“I’ve convinced the doctors to move me to Many Hills. They’ll take me over this afternoon by shuttle. I can start seeing visitors and be rolled into committee meetings… I’ll be able to take over that part of the job.”

“That’s a considerable relief,” I said. I moved her image a few centimeters in the projection space to make room for incoming text reports from Point One on project security.

“I can’t come to Kaibab, obviously. You’ll have to build our little project by yourself for the time being.”

“It’s building,” I said.

“You sound flat, Cassie.”

“I’m keeping on keeping on,” I said, never able to hide my feelings from Ti Sandra. In truth, in the past week, since hearing of Ilya’s death, I had become an automaton. It was the best thing that could happen to me. No time to think of my grief, no time to contemplate the future beyond a few brief weeks, lists of jobs to do that took me eighteen or twenty hours a day, and the worst times of all, those few minutes before exhaustion compelled me to sleep…

“What’s your goal, honey?”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“We have to keep goals. Even sacrificial lambs should have something to look forward to.”

Somehow that suggestion seemed obscene. I turned away, shaking my head. “Survival,” I said.

Ti Sandra’s face wrinkled with concern. “We’re going to talk at least once every day. We’ve both lost our rudders, Cassie. I’ll be your rudder if you’ll be mine.”

“Deal,” I said.

“Good,” she said. She took a deep breath and the top of her head rose briefly out of frame. “Tell me about Kaibab.”

I outlined what had happened in the few days since we had last spoken. From around Mars, cargo and passenger shuttles had arrived by the score at the secret station on Kaibab Plateau. Half-finished tunnels had been given quick cosmetic touches. New quarters had been opened and supplied with rudimentary comforts. The main laboratory had been finished and construction of the main tweakers had begun.

Kaibab’s population had expanded quickly: two hundred, three hundred, four. The ice lens could supply water enough for a thousand people. Other Point One people arrived daily. Soon I would have a miniature capital working within the cold tunnels and chambers — a backup to Many Hills.

The tweaker project and the Kaibab laboratory had been given the same code name: Preamble. The ultimate goal of Preamble — to provide the President with an option in case of extreme emergency — was known only to a very few. That the option loomed large as a real possibility was known only to Ti Sandra, Charles, Leander, and myself.

Two more Olympians — Mitchell Maspero-Gambacorta and Tamara Kwang — had flown in to join Charles, Stephen Leander, Nehemiah Royce, and Vico-Persoff. Pincher and Yueh Liu remained at Tharsis Research, working on a backup tweaker and overseeing the growth of more thinkers.

I finished my report. Ti Sandra bit her lower lip, nodding approval. “You’ve done great, Cassie,” she said. “I tell you what. When this is all over, we’ll have a family party. I’ll wear the brightest gown you’ve ever seen, and we’ll celebrate being secure. That’s my goal.”

“It’s a wonderful goal. Welcome back into the loop,” I said, and we signed off.

I stared at the desk for a moment, lost in contemplation.

Mars was still deep in the dangerous woods. We could mount big guns, but that was all — and there was still a question as to whether we had the will to fire our big guns. So long as that question remained, we were far from secure. But our most obvious and insidious danger was internal.

The Republic would not long stand the strain. Martians rebuilt, installed more robust backup systems for life support… And still lived in fear of another Freeze, or worse. Rumors swept the stations as government agents fanned out to old mining claims, searching for evidence of locusts. Even Cyane Sulci was searched from the air. The search was futile. A factory seed no larger than a fist, disguised as a rock, would be almost impossible to uncover. But for the destruction at Melas Dorsa, no signs were found.

The locusts had struck Melas Dorsa with extraordinary cunning and efficiency, first sending small units into the deserted station to reconnoiter and knock out com, then big destructors. Or so the speculations went… for we had no record of what had happened there, other than the mute evidence of breached tunnels, destroyed equipment, and the shattered remains of arbeiters.

We maintained a tentative date for elections, but that date was six months away — and nobody knew what would happen or where we might be by then.