At sunset the ice became a jumble of opaque pinks and oranges and ivories, streaked by long black shadows. Then they flew through the night, under the stars, over a luminous crackled whiteness. Maya slept uneasily on one of the long benches under the windows, and woke before dawn, which was another wonder of coloration, the purples of the sky appearing much darker than the pink ice below, an inversion that made everything look surreal.
Around midmorning of that day they caught sight of land again; over the horizon floated an oval of sienna hills rising out of the ice, about a hundred kilometers long and fifty wide. This rise was Hellas’s equivalent of the central knob found on the floor of medium-sized craters, and it was high enough to remain well above the planned water level, giving the future sea a fairly substantial central island.
At this stage the Minus One settlement, on the northwest point of the high ground, was no more than an array of runways, rocket pads, dirigible masts, and an untidy collection of small buildings— a few under a small station tent, the rest standing isolate and bare, like concrete blocks dumped from the sky. No one lived there but a small technical and scientific staff, although visiting areologists dropped in from time to time.
The Three Diamonds swung around and latched on to one of the poles, and was hauled down to the ground. The passengers left the gondola by a jetway, and were given a short tour of the airport and residential habitat by the stationmaster.
After a forgettable dinner in the dining hall of the habitat, they suited up and took a walk outside, wandering through the scattered utilitarian buildings, downhill to what one of the locals said would eventually be the shoreline. They found when they got there that no ice was yet visible from this elevation; it was a low sandy rubble-strewn plain, all the way out to the nearby horizon, some seven kilometers away.
Maya strolled aimlessly behind Diana and Frantz, who seemed to be commencing a romance. Beside them walked another native couple who were based at the station, both even younger than Diana, arm in arm, very affectionate. They were both well over two meters tall, but not lithe and willowy like most of the young natives— this couple had worked out with weights, bulking up until they had the proportions of Terran weight lifters, despite their great height. They were huge people, and yet still very light on their feet, doing a kind of boulder ballet over the scattered rocks of this empty shore. Maya watched them, marveling again at the new species. Behind her Sax and Spencer were coming along, and she even said something about it over the old First Hundred band. But Spencer only said something about phenotype and genotype, and Sax ignored the remark, and took off down the slope of the plain.
Spencer went with him, and Maya followed them, moving slowly over all the other new species: there were grass tufts dotting the sand between the rocks of the rubble, also low flowering plants, weeds, cacti, shrubs, even some very small gnarled trees, tucked into the sides of rocks. Sax wandered around stepping gingerly, crouching down to inspect plants, standing back up with an unfocused look, as if the blood had left his head while he was crouching. Or perhaps this was the look of Sax surprised, something Maya could not recall seeing before. She stopped to stare around her; it was in fact surprising to discover such profligate life, out here where no one had cultivated anything. Or perhaps the scientists stationed at the airport had done it. And the basin was low, and warm, and humid. . . . The young Martians upslope danced over it all, gracefully avoiding the plants without taking any notice of them.
Sax stopped in front of Spencer and tilted his helmet back so that he was staring up into Spencer’s faceplate. “These plants will all be drowned,” he said querulously, almost as if asking a question.
“That’s right,” Spencer said.
Sax briefly glanced toward Maya. His gloved fingers were clenching in agitation. What, was he accusing her of murdering plants now too?
Spencer said, “But the organic matter will help sustain later aquatic life, isn’t that right?”
Sax merely looked around. As he looked past her, Maya could see he was squinting, as if in distress. Then he took off again across the intricate tapestry of plants and rocks.
Spencer met Maya’s gaze and lifted his gloved hands, as if to apologize for the way Sax was ignoring her. Maya turned and walked back upslope.
Eventually the whole group walked up a spiraling ridge, above the—1 contour to a knoll just north of the station, where they were high enough to get a view of the ice on the western horizon. The airport lay below them, reminding Maya of Underhill or the Antarctic stations— unplanned, unstructured, with no sense at all of the island town that was sure to come. The youngsters as they stepped gracefully over the rocks speculated about what that town would look like— a seaside resort, they were sure, every hectare built up or gardened, with boat harbors in every little indentation of the shoreline, and palm trees, beaches, pavilions. . . . Maya closed her eyes and tried to imagine what the young ones were describing— opened them again, to see rock and sand and scrubby little plants. Nothing had come to her mind. Whatever the future brought would be a surprise to her— she could form no image of it, it was a kind of jamais vu, pressing at the present. A sudden premonition of death washed over her, and she struggled to shrug it off. No one could imagine the future. A blank there in her mind meant nothing; it was normal. It was only the presence of Sax that was disturbing her, reminding her of things she could not afford to think of. No, it was a blessing that the future was blank. The freedom from déjà vu. An extraordinary blessing.