“It is a harsh place.  We are becoming a harsh people.” I knew and know that this story will likely be my darkest since “Crosses and Doublecrosses.” I just didn’t think I would get there so soon. Saras takes after her grandmother in several ways. I am older in what I’ve written that family loyalty does not map to liking someone or a caring relationship.

I wonder what we’ll learn in this Part 2?

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

From the spaceport just south of where the waters of the Great Valley, the Valles Marineris, poured out in the delta first east then north, into the Chryse Planitia Sea, Saras waved as the small transport ship lifted, taking her father and his wife and son up to Central, the massive orbiting complex where the terraforming project was managed.

Only carefully cleaned and prepared ships are allowed from there to the surface.  No ships directly from Earth are permitted into the atmosphere, she thought.  Aqua forbids it.  That one time, just before our arrival here, when  Belters had lost control of their vessel and requested an emergency landing, he used a small atomic to make sure that there was not any debris.

It is a harsh place.  We are becoming a harsh people.

“It will be a nearly perfect place, someday,” the young woman said next to her, also looking up at the vanishing ship.  “You have seen your grandmother’s memories of the future.”

Saras Hartmann turned to look at the speaker.  Kira Romanov, a daughter of the Russian Emperor, who, after her first trip to Mars, met Aqua and became Midwife of this new world.  Kira’s skinsuit was white with a complex red pattern on it.  Like Saras, she wore no helmet but did have a small, flexible tube leading to her nose to provide oxygen.  A few humans went about like that – the pressure was sufficient – but it was amazingly cold and frostbite came fast.  Only demi-humans were comfortable going out in such a state.

But she is a made demi-human.  Experimented on as an infant.  Lines put into her brain and nanites in her blood.  When I saw the Secret file about her, I was amazed she has lived this long.  Yet, here she is, next to me. 

Kira looked over and just a bit down to the girl who, while just over eight years old, was very tall for her age.  Something of a surprise, given the mix of her genes.  The imperial’s suit was scarlet with a gold eagle on the chest, from Empress Faustina’s personal Standard.

“However, you are correct, Cousin Saras,” she smiled, her bright eyes, the color of the Martian sand, afire.  “Between now and then, we have much to do.  You are nearly at the halfway point of your mother’s exile.  You know I value your help and wish you to stay.”

Able to read her father as easily as any demi, Saras had known since that meeting fifteen months ago that no matter what they told her mother, the primary objective of the assignment was to get Eloise Patel as far from Robert and Nadia as possible.  For at least one child, perhaps two. 

Mom still suspects nothing.  She works so hard, here.  And in an interesting turn about, for these past ten days of father’s visit, it was his wife and infant son, Maksim, who were shuttled about playing tourist while Mom and Dad were physically inseparable.  Too bad it was not her fertile time; I’d like a little sibling and I think Lissa would, too.

Being what she was, her pause after Kira’s question was barely a second.

“I know not, yet, what my calling or fate is to be, Cousin.  Just as you did not until you came here.” A shrug.  “We are all doing what God wills.”

Kira laughed.

“You already said ‘we,’ Saras!” She touched her gloved finger to the girl’s nose.  “You are Martian!  Let’s go back in.  There’s much to learn about the Coriolis force in the Northern Ocean after the Second Inundation.  Come on, do!”

***