THE MARTAIN meets THE EXPANSE in this page turning debut science-fiction mystery
MARS, 2034 A place of hope, freedom, and the dream of a better future on their new home.
The year of the first human born on the red planet.
MARS, 2103 A place of division, suspicion and fear.
The year when the truth will come about.
****
This is the story of the first human being born on Mars: Rose Fuller, who saw a better future than the one that came to pass.
And Dylan Ward, a woman raised in the vast wilderness of the frontier, who will find her way back to it.
It's a story about a man who went missing, and the man who wants to find out what he knew.
It's a story about what makes us human - and how we might live once we leave our home.
The story of the first murder on Mars.
****
PRAISE FOR THE FIRST MURDER ON MARS:
'A fiercely intelligent, wholly engaging thrill-ride of a novel that sucks you in like a black hole' SARAH LOTZ, author of THE THREE
'Fast and sharp and very of-our-time' LAUREN BEUKES, author of THE SHINING GIRLS
'A wild rover ride across the red planet which is somehow both exhilarating and deeply thoughtful about how societies are built, captured and liberated. It's meticulously researched, vividly imagined and moves faster than a spaceship. I bloody adored this book' SAM BECKBESSINGER, co-author of GIRLS OF LITTLE HOPE
'Fuses inventive sci-fi, Martian secrets and the whodunnit into an ingenious, thought-provoking and heart-pounding page-turner' DALE HALVORSEN, coo-author of GIRLS OF LITTLE HOPE
'A generation-spanning epic, this is science fiction at its best. Wilson knows that human nature will follow us anywhere - even Mars' ALEX CONVERY, screenwriter of AIR 2023
****
PRAISE FOR SAM WILSON'S ZODIAC:
'A bold storyteller with an amazing mind' LAUREN BEUKES, author of The Shining Girls
'A brilliant, original and gripping thriller. I'm struggling to think of a reader who won't love this' SARAH LOTZ, author of THE THREE
'Impeccable storytelling. Undoubtedly a book which works both on the level of its intriguing high concept and sheer narrative nous.' BARRY FORSHAW, author of NORDIC NOIR
Release date:
August 1, 2024
Publisher:
Orion
Print pages:
496
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Rosemary Olivia Fuller and Archimedes Escher Fuller (Birth)
(Marspedia entry created at 15.15 on D 67 Y 2103)
Rosemary Olivia Fuller and Archimedes Escher Fuller were born in Aries Base at 4.15 a.m. and 4.17 a.m. respectively on day (sol) 96 of 2034 to Kelly Anne Fuller, the wife of Alexander Fuller, the founder and CEO of Fuller Aerospace. At birth, Rosemary was 2.2 kilograms (Earth weight) and 32 centimetres from head to toe, and Archimedes was 2.3 kilograms (Earth weight) and 34 centimetres.[1] They were delivered by the base surgeon, Doctor V. S. Narayanan.[2]
CONTROVERSY [edit]
Leading up to the birth, Alex Fuller repeatedly said that it was his intention to deliver Rosemary and Archimedes himself, in his private quarters in Aries Base.[3] On day (sol) 81 of 2034, fifteen days before the birth, he released a video stating how important it was that the birth was natural, saying ‘I need everyone to see that Mars is a healthy and safe place to start a family.’[4] However, during the birth the twins were found to be in a breech position, and, against Alex Fuller’s wishes, Dr Narayanan took Kelly Fuller to the base’s medical bay to deliver the children by Caesarean section.
In the weeks following the birth, Dr Narayanan’s actions became the subject of intense online debate. The controversy began[5] on the Alex Fuller fandom subreddit r/EmperorFuller, where several users strongly contested the necessity of the medical intervention, since Alex Fuller had trained himself to perform the home birth, and could have performed an external cephalic version (ECV) to bring the twins into a headfirst position.[6] The debate was quickly picked up by mainstream news organisations.[7] Opinions were sharply divided along political lines, with pro-science news sources generally praising Doctor Narayanan’s swift action, and alternative health, pro-family and pro-business groups condemning it.[8] An editorial in The International Quarterly Journal of Medical Science called the Caesarean section ‘sensible, considering the difficulty of performing an ECV on twins, the uncertainties around how low gravity effects gestation, and Alex Fuller’s total lack of practical experience in assisting childbirth.’[9]
National Patriot News called it ‘a transparent attempt by a member of the medical establishment to steal credit for one of the greatest achievements of the human species.’[10]
Forty-three days after delivering Rosemary and Archimedes Fuller, Dr Narayanan voluntarily ended his contract with Fuller Aerospace. He claimed that he had received multiple anonymous death threats, and that he no longer felt safe or welcome working for the Company.[11] Rather than returning to Earth as he had originally intended, he relocated to the newly built Mariner Base, where he ran a private practice until his death during the Collapse in 2058.[12]
In an interview conducted in 2055 for the documentary film Mars Natives, Narayanan maintained that he had made the right decision.
‘People were obsessed with Rose and Archie, even back then. Fuller wanted their birth to be a symbol, but they were real human children, facing a real biological risk. Put aside the politics for a moment, and look at the facts. They were in breech, I performed the surgery, and Rose and Archie Fuller both survived. The first two human beings were born on Mars. That’s all that matters.’[13]
Dylan steps around the sleeping bodies in the storage bay. Some of the evacuees have blankets, but most are wrapped up in sheets of cheap orange plastic that are usually used to keep the dust off the floor around the airlocks. They’re resting their heads on backpacks and rolled-up bundles of clothing to keep them from being stolen in the night. Dylan walks carefully, trying not to stand on any stray fingers.
From the far side of the dark chamber she hears a panting, gasping moan. She doesn’t want to interrupt anyone having sex, but it’s her job to keep these people in line, so she grudgingly swings her flashlight to the noise. As the light whips across the bodies, she catches a glimpse of a halo of white hair and a face streaked with blood. She steps closer, picking her way between the sleeping evacuees. An old man is propped up in the hatch leading to the east wing of the base. His cheeks are red, and a rag is shoved into his mouth.
Dylan kneels down at his side, and her sputters as she tugs the gag out.
‘I’ve got to find them,’ he says. ‘They took …’
‘Shhh. It’s okay.’
‘They took my money.’
Dylan sweeps her flashlight over him. He looks to be in his early seventies, with thin white hair and sunken cheeks. His nose is bleeding, and his breathing is short and sharp. He’s dressed for the wrong planet, in a white button-down shirt, jacket, dress pants, socks and heeled shoes. Dylan gets a glimpse of milky blue eyes as he winces in the light.
His hands are behind his back. She leans over him and sees them bound with a thick black cable tie, the same type that she has hooked onto her belt. His fingers are puffy, and turning blue.
‘Who did this to you?’
‘Guards. They jumped me outside the docking bay. They had grey and blue uniforms—’
‘Like this?’
She turns her flashlight onto herself, revealing her base uniform and knife-proof vest.
‘Shit,’ says the man.
One of the sleepers behind Dylan coughs, and a plastic sheet rustles.
‘Relax,’ says Dylan, more quietly. The evacuees around them could become unmanageable if they’re disturbed. ‘I’m here to help you, but I need you calm. Are you calm?’
The old man rests his back against the side of the hatchway.
‘Calm,’ he says.
‘Describe the guards.’
‘An Asian-looking guy with acne, and a vicious little white shit with bad teeth.’
‘Chen and Raul,’ says Dylan. ‘Okay. If I cut you free, are you going to cause trouble?’ she says.
‘Not for you.’
She leans behind him again, and saws through the cable tie with her serrated knife.
‘They followed me from the docking bay,’ he says. ‘Beat me up and took my money. Twenty ingots of titanium.’
The black plastic snaps under Dylan’s blade, and the old man massages life back into his hands. He grits his teeth.
‘Fuck. I think they broke a rib.’
‘Come on then.’
She puts an arm around him, and keeps him steady as he slowly stands. He barely weighs anything in the low gravity, but he still groans as he stumbles onto his feet. Someone mumbles in the darkness.
‘This way,’ says Dylan. ‘Let’s let them sleep.’
She slides the storage bay door open on its rails. The corridor lights outside are dimmed for the evening, except for a single LED bulb that’s bright and flickering. Dylan pulls the door closed behind them and steers the old man down the corridor towards the medical bay. The carpeting below their feet is worn through, with exposed patches of the black rubberised floor. The edges of the corridor are strewn with empty biopolymer coffee cups and food wrappers from the Company canteen.
‘Will you help me get my money back?’ says the man.
‘No, sir, I won’t.’
He gives her a sidelong glare.
‘Why not?’
‘Raul and Chen didn’t do anything illegal. They can confiscate your property if they have reason to think—’
‘I know how asset forfeiture works,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t committing a crime.’
‘Was it after 11 p.m.?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you were breaking curfew and carrying untraceable currency.’
‘Bullshit. It was a mugging, pure and simple.’
‘There’s nothing I can do, sir,’ Dylan says evenly. Five months on the evening shift has given her a lot of practice with handling frustrated civilians.
‘You could arrest them.’
‘Were you born on Earth?’
‘What does that mean?’ the man snaps.
‘I don’t think you’ve learned how to live in a closed system.’
They walk into the central hub of the base. The administrators have their private rooms here, and the carpeting is clean, blue, and new. Three workers in ancient grey and khaki uniforms are picking up litter, and scrubbing graffiti off a mural of a Martian landscape painted back in the tourist days.
‘Hey,’ she mutters to the workers. They ignore her. She knows them all through her dad, and a few years back they had been friendly enough, but they haven’t spoken to her since she signed up to be a guard.
The old man limps alongside her sullenly. He’s giving her the silent treatment too.
‘I know how it must look to you,’ she says. ‘But the base is dealing with an air leak, and we’ve had to close the foundry wing. We’ve got two hundred evacuees without beds or jobs, making Mars-shine in the bathrooms and vandalising the air ducts while they wait for the repairs. They’re getting violent. Raul and Chen aren’t great, but bad guards are better than no guards.’
The old man snorts.
‘Seriously,’ says Dylan. ‘Let it go. Complaining will make you a target, and the security manager will take their side. Just take the loss and be glad you’re still on your feet. Hey, look where we are.’
The corridor ahead is brighter. The regular late-night crop of drunks and addicts are lined up outside the medical bay, moaning and muttering, looking to have wounds stitched and broken teeth pulled. One of Dylan’s shift-mates, a guard called Riyad, is leaning against the wall panels and keeping an eye on them while casually tossing a knife to himself overhand.
As Dylan approaches, he glances at the old man on her shoulder.
‘What have you got there, Freebie? Another stray? You’re a soft touch.’
‘Just doing my job.’
Dylan pushes past him, and leads the old man to the back of the line.
‘The medics have a little production line going in the evenings,’ she says, taking his arm off her shoulder and lowering it carefully at his side. ‘You won’t have to wait too long. Half an hour at most. When you’re done, talk to Riyad there and he’ll escort you to the traveller’s quarters. Don’t go wandering around by yourself again. Will you be okay if I leave you?’
‘I’ll manage, I’m a big boy,’ the old man says flatly. He’s still holding his hand across his ribs with his right arm, but he offers her his free left hand, and she shakes it awkwardly.
‘Thanks for the lift,’ he says. ‘The name’s Clifford.’
‘Dylan Ward.’
She tries to break the handshake, but he keeps his grip and holds her still as his eyes dart around her face.
‘Have we met?’ he asks.
‘I don’t think so,’ she says, pulling her hand free.
‘Well, thanks for your help, Dylan Ward. And for your honesty.’
‘Are you still going to try to report Raul and Chen?’
He smiles tightly. ‘No. It wouldn’t solve anything, would it?’
‘Right,’ say Dylan, relieved. She doesn’t want to see him come to harm. ‘Then goodnight, sir. Stay safe.’
Dylan wakes up the next afternoon, just after 3 p.m. The late night patrol shift is stealing her days, but at least she gets paid extra for working during the slip – the thirty-seven minutes tacked on at the end of the day to make Earth standard time work on Mars. The overtime isn’t much, but the recharge capsules for her dad’s insulin pump aren’t cheap and she needs every extra dollar she can make.
She rolls up the privacy screen of her bunk and drops down onto the rubberised floor. It sucks at the soles of her bare feet as she pads over to the dorm’s desk. She picks up the guards’ shared pad, which is tethered to the wall by a short length of cable, and swipes the screen to scroll through her morning alerts.
WELCOME BACK ONLINE, DYLAN WARD!
Your next shift starts in 57 minutes.
3 new messages from Security Manager Merrick (Read Now)
1 new message from Frank Ward (Read Now)
HEADLINES FOR DAY (SOL) 205, 2103:
MARS
Five dead in Outlier attack near Orange Fortress
Riots quelled in Sinai Base
EARTH
War casualties approach 60 million
Miami sea wall repaired
Russia vows return to space ‘within 30 years’
Exercise Goals:
HIIT 0 / 30 Mins
Steps 0 / 10 000
Dietary goals: 0 / 8600 kJ
You have earned 23,480 exercise reward coins!
Trade them in here.
YOUR DAILY AFFIRMATION
By doing your duty, you make Mars a better place for all!
She taps the exercise tracker icon to begin her daily routine. She starts with star-jumps, and after a minute is greeted by a chime and a message on the pad.
CONGRATULATIONS! You earn 20 Exercise Reward Coins!
Next are squats.
CONGRATULATIONS! You earn 20 Exercise Reward Coins!
Push-ups.
CONGRATULATIONS! You earn 20 Exercise Reward Coins!
Lunges.
CONGRATULATIONS! You earn 20 Exercise Reward Coins!
As she’s doing step-ups on the metal dorm chair, a privacy screen rattles behind her. She looks around to see Ortega from the morning shift lying back in his bunk and watching her. He’s naked, but thankfully the lower half of his body is draped in a yellowing sheet. Behind him, Dylan sees a tangle of blonde hair and a pair of embarrassed eyes peeking out at her.
‘Hey,’ says Ortega. ‘How long is that going to take?’
‘I’m just doing interval training. Seven more minutes?’
He looks her up and down.
‘Fine.’
He slides the screen closed, and Dylan goes back to her step-ups. A minute later, she hears quiet sounds of sex from the bunk behind her: grunts, gasps, moans and wet lips, all in time to the rhythm of her exercise.
With her cheeks burning, she logs out of the pad and grabs her uniform from the shelf under her bunk. She storms out of the dorm and towards the communal washrooms, to shower and change.
CONGRATULATIONS! she thinks. You earn 20 Spineless Reward Coins! But she’s spent two years letting the other guards be assholes to her, and she can’t waste all that effort by snapping now.
She washes herself clean in a gunmetal grey bathroom stall, puts on her uniform, and straightens out her collar in the mirror. Her wild black hair takes a few minutes of combing before she can contain it in a bun at the back of her head.
Some workers from the foundry are playing cards in the base cafeteria. She hears them laughing from down the corridor, but when she enters the room they go silent and watch her guardedly. She picks up a foil container from a stack on the counter, and takes it into a dark corner. When she peels off the lid, she discovers that today’s meal is a grey-green mass of algal curd that tastes faintly like boiled cabbage. The card players resume their game, punctuated with coughs and whispers and glances in her direction.
She finishes as quickly as she can, and drops the container in the trash chute by the door on the way out. Her next stop is the guard office, to catch up on her incident-and-arrest reports before the next shift. The other guards make fun of the time she puts into her paperwork, but the truth is, she gets a zen-like calm from it. Every day she encounters people going through the most traumatic and chaotic moments of their lives – domestic violence, assault, mental breakdown, overdose, loss of family. Even as an outsider it’s hard to deal with, but when Dylan fills in the forms then life’s greatest horrors become small enough to fit in a check-box.
The guard office is filled with frantic activity. At the front desk, Security Manager Merrick is scrabbling through a plastic crate, picking out documents and feeding them into a whining shredder. The afternoon shift guards are shouting at each other by the weapons locker. As Dylan enters, they all fall silent and stare at her.
‘Ward,’ says Merrick. He doesn’t have to raise his voice. ‘What the hell happened last night?’
‘Nothing, sir,’ says Dylan.
‘Really?’
He slides an envelope to her across the desk. It’s made from good-quality paper, not the cheap translucent vat-grown cellulose that the guard forms are printed on. It’s already torn open.
‘They were two of our best, Ward,’ Merrick says. ‘They had families.’
Dylan pulls the letter out of the envelope. The handwriting is neat and orderly, and it’s addressed directly to her.
Strips of thick transparent plastic hang down over the entrance to the base greenhouse. As Dylan pushes her way through them, she’s hit in the face by warm, humid air. This is her first time in the greenhouse, and the sight makes her catch her breath. All around her are vast stacks of transparent trays of gel substrate, held up in racks that tower overhead, rising up to the roof of the dome. Between them, every ten metres or so, are tall white columns with leafy green vegetables growing out of their sides: lettuce, kale, arugula. Through the leaves and the beehive structure of the dome’s frame she can see the sun, and the rusty Martian sky.
She takes a deep breath of faintly chemical air. There’s no sound but the thrum of the water pumps and the beeping of distant electrical systems. White-suited gardeners are dispersed through the dome, pruning leaves and transplanting seedlings in reverent silence. Dylan raises a hand in greeting to a group of gardeners, and one of them acknowledges her with a nod. The greenhouse is off limits to most base inhabitants, but she’s in uniform.
She adjusts the bag over her shoulder and walks through the foliage. The metal walkway clanks under her boots. She runs her hand lightly across the seedlings in a tray next to her, and feels their delicate stems bending under her fingertips. Her dad once told her that people need to be around plants, on a deep and primal level. He says injured people heal quicker when they’re around vegetation. Instinctively, their bodies know that if the nearby plants are green then food will be abundant, and they can put all their energy into healing without holding anything in reserve.
Such wisdom from a man who lives on caffeine and deep-fried crap.
There’s a label on the side of the plant rack, just below eye level. Dylan leans down to read it.
BASE – RICE PLUS (v5.3) BATCH 4465
HYDROPONIC – SQUASH PLUS (v.0.7.1), CUCUMBERS (NAT), MOD. PEPPERS (v3.11)
AEROPONIC – GOLDEN TOMATOES (v1.22)
‘Ward!’
She snaps her head up and sees Clifford beckoning to her through the foliage from the far side of the dome. He’s leaning against a plant rack, with one hand held over his broken rib, and he’s dressed for the heat in light khaki-coloured slacks and a button-down short-sleeve. She winds her way to him through the racks, and he smiles as she approaches.
‘What do you think?’ he says, waving a hand at the surreal scene. ‘One of the advantages of my job. I hold my meetings wherever I like.’
Dylan doesn’t answer. She slings the bag off her shoulder and opens it to show him the twenty bars of titanium, polished and cylindrical, each one the size and thickness of her thumb.
‘Your ingots, sir.’
‘Thanks, but you’d better hold on to them. I shouldn’t carry anything right now. Come. Let’s take a walk.’
He strolls over to a rack of plants, and looks into the lower-level trays, one by one.
‘So,’ he says. ‘According to your file, you were born in the Free Settlements.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He looks back at her. ‘You want to talk about it?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Why not?’ he asks.
‘I’ve got no loyalty to the Settlements,’ she says. ‘They’re just a thousand tiny bases at each other’s throats. I’ve lived here since I was nine years old. I’m a Fuller employee. This is my home.’
Clifford raises an eyebrow.
‘Does anyone give you a hard time for being from the Settlements?’
‘Sometimes. Minor things. The other guards call me Freebie and stick pictures of Red Rose on my bunk. It’s good natured, mostly. They know which side I’m on.’
‘Good to know. I’m not here to question your loyalty, though. I just wanted to know how much you remember about the Free Settlements. Who is Azania at war with?’
Dylan’s brow furrows as she dredges it from her memory.
‘The Orange Fortress.’
‘How do you greet someone in Novvy Mir?’
‘Privet.’
‘Who was the Saturday Accord between?’
‘All the Chinese-speaking settlements.’
‘Good. Who split off from the Enterprise League?’
‘Rand Town and Galt.’
Clifford beams. ‘Excellent! You’re doing better than most of the trainees back in Mariner Base. Could you locate a hidden underground base if you had to?’
‘Probably,’ she says, cautiously. She doesn’t like where this is going, but she knows better than to lie to Internal Affairs.
‘How?’
‘Rover tracks,’ says Dylan. ‘They sweep them away, but they can’t replace the stones they kick up. You can track the indentations that the stones left in the ground. And if there are no tracks, you just have to think like a base-builder. Look for terrain that’s easy to dig in, close to high ground where they can mount a defence, not too near to any major rover routes or shifting dunes. If it’s a good spot, then chances are there’s a base there.’
‘Fantastic,’ says Clifford, and rests a hand on one of the plant trays. ‘I think you can help me. I’m searching for something.’
‘What is it?’
‘Strawberries,’ he says with a grin. ‘I haven’t tasted one for years.’
He looks back down at the trays of growing plants.
‘Nothing here,’ he says. ‘Check those racks behind you.’
Dylan looks in the trays on the other side of the walkway. She isn’t exactly sure what a strawberry plant would look like.
‘One of our census takers in the Free Settlements has gone missing,’ Clifford says over his shoulder. ‘He was last seen in Pavonis Base. I’m going out there to find him, and I need a bodyguard who can convincingly pass as a Free Settlements trader.’
‘I’m not keen to go north again,’ says Dylan.
‘I can tell,’ says Clifford, and goes back to looking in the racks. ‘But I need a bodyguard, especially now that I’m injured. I’ll tell you what. This base is going to need a new security manager. If you come north with me and we find the census taker, there’s a promotion in it for you.’
‘Can I get that in writing?’
‘No.’ He smiles again. ‘I appreciate your paranoia, but if you can’t trust me, I can’t trust you. Aha.’
He pulls one of the transparent trays, and it slides out of the rack like a filing cabinet drawer, revealing dozens of bright red berries nestled in the green leaves. He plucks one, and tosses it to Dylan.
‘Take it,’ he says. ‘How often do you get a chance to taste a strawberry?’
Dylan rolls it between her fingers. It’s plump, and covered in a diagonal grid pattern of tiny seeds.
‘Is it safe?’
‘Of course.’
She bites, and the juice fills her mouth. It’s more sour than she expected, and it doesn’t taste anything like the strawberry flavouring she’s used to.
Clifford plucks a handful of the berries, and puts them in his pocket.
‘How long do you think we’ll be?’ says Dylan.
‘A couple of weeks,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry, we won’t be taking any unnecessary risks. I value my life quite highly.’
Dylan rubs her forehead.
‘Come,’ says Clifford. ‘Let me show you something. It might make you feel a bit better.’
He leads her over to the acrylic-glass composite wall of the dome. Red-brown dust is piled outside it, up to chest height. Beyond it, Dylan can see all the overground structures of Syria Base: a satellite dish with half its panels gone, a radio mast, a rover bay, and processing plants for all the chemicals too dangerous to hold underground. Scattered between the buildings are stripped skeletons of old rovers and piles of trash from the base below. No one bothers cleaning it up. There’s no ecosystem to destroy.
‘There she is,’ says Clifford proudly.
He’s pointing towards the blocky docking bay. Pressurised tubes come out of it like spokes, hooking up to some of Mars’s ugliest rovers. There’s a giant wheeled beetle with a mining drill face, a cargo hauler that looks like a ribcage filled with scrap metal, and a top-heavy crane on caterpillar tracks.
In front of them all is a much smaller rover, only two decks high, with angled outer walls and six ridged wheels at its base. It looks ancient, in a good way.
‘She was built in the twenty-fifties,’ says Clifford. ‘Back when safety was still a thing. She’s got a titanium alloy frame, reserve oxygen, and back-up power. There’s even a layer of radiation shielding. She’s regularly serviced, and built to last.’
Dylan looks it over. The outer surface is covered in red dust, but it’s still cleaner and sleeker than all the monstrous vehicles behind it. The profile of its body is a flattened hexagon. There’s a hatch at the back, and a wide-windowed cockpit jutting out the front. On either side of it, antler-like structures hold up cameras for a self-driving system.
‘That’s my baby,’ says Clifford. ‘The Calliope.’
To Dylan, it looks more like a Rudolf.
Sealgair sees the Company rover from a kilometre away. It’s a small white beetle hooked onto the central hub between the three small greenhouse domes of his private homestead.
He sighs, deep and low. His hunting trip is barely over, and subordinates are already invading his private space. They couldn’t even give him a day to recover. He can see his next week filling up with meetings and negotiations and performance reviews, and all the other little traditions of corporate power. It’s tiresome, but necessary. The Company needs a constant steady hand.
He looks through the side glass of his buggy’s cockpit at the three security rovers riding beside him. All of them are the same dusty red as his buggy, and the afternoon light glints off the barrels of the cannon-mounts bolted to their sides. A body is tied to the front roll-bar of each rover: three smugglers that his patrol caught trying to take a functional gene sequencer out of Company Territory. Hunting them down had been a thrill, the kind that Sealgair rarely gets from running the company.
He flicks on the radio connection.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘That’s close enough. You’re dismissed.’
In the side window of the closest rover, Heron, the head of his security entourage, raises two fingers to the side of his head to salute in acknowledgement.
‘Yes sir.’
Sealgair approves of Heron. He’s a large man with a ginger beard, and he’s too muscular to fit comfortably in the cockpit of a rover. He’s quiet, obedient, and willing to do what’s necessary to protect the Company.
The rovers of the entourage peel away, heading east towards Challenger Base, and Sealgair continues ahead down the track towards his homestead. Five hundred metres from it he passes the metal warning sign.
TRESPASSERS FORBIDDEN PRIVATE RESIDENCE
A quiet chime in his headset and a blue light on his dashboard tell him that his home’s security system has recognised the buggy, and the explosive charges buried under the path ahead are disarmed. He lowers his speed as he approaches the domes of the above-ground greenhouses. Through the polished glass, he see
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