Things moved quickly after Anya quit the USAIF and confirmed the basic plan with Gary and Renn. At least, Gary told her things were progressing. She had been ignoring the flood of messages she was getting except to respond to a few people——Sam, Chell, and Tori——that she was fine and would talk to them in a bit.

Currently she sat on Immonen’s leather sofa, wrapped in a soft, home-made blanket one of the doctor’s patients had given him years ago. She wasn’t cold, but it felt nice. Immonen was in the kitchen cleaning up while Pan was curled into a tight armored ball on the sofa beside Anya, sleeping.

“So, it’s done?” Anya asked Gary, whose face floated in her menu screen several inches away.

“Yup. Called that Vaastukaar guy and said I’d consider joining, but have to wrap up a bunch of experiments and projects here first. Too delicate to move or stop working on. Might take a week or as long as a month. He seemed pretty happy to hear I was even thinking about it. In the meantime, I told them you’d be interested in joining, now that you and the USAIF are kaput. He seemed…less thrilled about that, but I told him if they weren’t even gonna consider letting the savior of Earth join, they could forget me. Changed his tune pretty fast.”

“I bet,” Anya said and rested her hand over one of Pan’s claws. He made a soft murmuring noise and put his other claw over her hand and continued dozing.

“He’s already sent a number of little communicators to Earth. Apparently they did some scouting around while they were here last time, gave several out to some of the independent hosts on Earth that hadn’t joined up with them yet, as well as some other people like you: organized government——or former government——hosts who’re looking for greener pastures. The invitation to join up with Mars is open, but they’ve got some priority hosts they’d like to join sooner rather than later.”

“They mention anything about Renn and his buddies?” Anya asked.

“I brought it up, but Vaas seemed a little reluctant to talk too much about him. Advised me to stay away from Frenchie. I told him it wouldn’t be an issue. Anyway, you’re probably gonna be getting a little care package from him sometime soon. I told him you were at Doc’s place.”

“Thanks, Gary.”

“How’s Doc taking it? He gonna go with you? How much does he know?”

“He’s staying here. Too much work to do on Earth, for now. And yes, he knows. And he’s going to be discrete.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Immonen said and he leaned over the back of the couch behind Anya’s shoulder. “I share some of your concerns and trust Anya can take care of herself. Still, seems like we’re never going to get much time to ourselves, hmm?”

“Hopefully things will start calming down,” Anya said and patted his hand.

“You just remember: if shit hits the fan, you hit the road,” Gary said.

“I second that,” Immonen added as he walked back into the kitchen.

“Yeah, I got it,” Anya said with a sigh.

“How’s Pan taking it?” Gary asked.

“He was pretty mad until I said he could come with me. Then he seemed okay, said he was gonna try to convince Brody to come.”

“All right, well I won’t butt into your evening anymore. Just let me know how things go from here on out,” Gary said and waved as his screen vanished. Immonen finished cleaning and then came to sit next to her. He twirled her bright red hair around his fingers and Anya leaned into his hand.

This was nice. A cozy blanket, a supportive partner, gentle touches, the sound of Pan’s sleepy breathing. She wondered how many moments of quiet like this she would get on Mars, if any. The invasion already felt like it happened ages ago. It was easy to forget how tense she’d been all the time.

“You don’t have to do this,” Immonen said. “You can stay here, in Helsinki, with me.”

Anya gulped. He was asking her to move in with him. The idea wasn’t a bad one. It just seemed like a bit of a big deal, so suddenly. Their courtship during the invasion had been just as frenetic as everything else, and after, they’d only had a few weeks together, to enjoy the time.

“I know I don’t have to. But somebody should. There’s too many questions about all this floating around. Why’d they settle on Mars? Why are they building so much? What were they doing during the invasion? I can’t just wait around for somebody else to do that.”

“One of your many admirable qualities. I can sympathize, but do you really think you’re the best person to do this?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you are courageous, and strong, and determined. But you are not…ah, delicate. And I’m worried about you, and how you’ve been acting since the invasion ended.”

“I’m not going to be doing any precision work up there, just looking around. I’m not even gonna be lying about why I’m up there because most of the reasons are true: I’m sick of the politics here, and I’m curious about the new colony. And what have I been doing? Quitting the USAIF was probably something I would’ve done no matter what.”

“Fair enough about just going up there to look. Maybe I’m just being paranoid about that. But I know I’m not when I say you’ve been very…ah, what is the damn word? Hermostunut.”

“Yeah, I don’t know that one.”

“It’s Finnish for having the twitches, nervous, excitable.”

“Antsy?” Anya asked. Pan’s nose twitched at the mentioned of ants and he cracked one eye open.

“You have ants?” he asked.

“No, buddy, no ants here. You got ‘em all,” Anya said. Pan snorted and went back to sleep.

“Yes, that,” Immonen said. “For months you had targets to use your powers on, especially at the end. And you kept getting stronger and stronger, and now there is nothing and you seem like a tiger in a cage. I’ve seen you pace a lot, snapping your fingers, changing the heat in the apartment with your dominion, that sort of thing. And while I can’t gripe too much, our intimate time together has gotten rather more athletic than usual.”

“I know you’re not complaining about that,” Anya said and smirked. Immonen laughed and nodded.

“It’s been very enjoyable. But it is another sign I’ve noticed that perhaps you need an additional outlet for your pent-up energy. It’s not uncommon. I just want to make sure you’re not rushing into anything.”

“Says the guy that just asked me to move in with him.”

Immonen blushed. “That’s different.”

“Rushing into things is kinda my thing, Garreth.”

“Yes, and I’m worried that one day it may get you into more trouble than you can fight your way out of.”

“You want me to promise you I’ll come back at the first sign of trouble again?”

“No. You told me you would, and I trust you. But I would like to add something to that.”

“Ugh. Fine,” Anya said, with a mixture of amusement and some irritation.

“You listen to Pan. If he wants to stay on Mars then you will know it’s truly safe. But if he starts to become fearful, that is when you listen.”

Anya snorted. “I love Pan, but the little guy curls up at his own shadow sometimes.”

“We both know that isn’t so true anymore. He fought in the last big battle at Antarctica with everyone else. He’s grown a lot. He may still be scared, but he will face it. But if he wants to run, I want you to take him seriously. At least listen to him. If he wants to come back just because he misses Brody or something, then that’s another matter, but if the Martian hosts start to frighten him, don’t wave it away. His animal instincts are still strong.”

Anya looked at Pan’s curled form, still holding her hand between his claws. His thick scales shone a coppery brownish gold in the dim light of the apartment. His tiny mouth twitched as he muttered to himself in his dreams. If he was going with her, he might be in danger too. She wouldn’t——couldn’t——risk him or any of her friends getting hurt just because she wanted to tough it out.

“I promise,” Anya said.

“Thank you,” Immonen said and kissed her gently on the mouth. She deepened the kiss and ran her hand along his thigh.

“Ready to go do some more of that athletic stuff?” she asked. Immonen chuckled and then took her hand as they left for his bedroom.

The communicator from Vaastukaar arrived the next morning. It flew up to Immonen’s window, roughly the size and shape of a chrome hockey puck, and began bumping against the glass. Anya let it in, and it hovered in front of her.

“Is that from the Martians?” Immonen asked. “Lord that sounds strange saying that out loud. The Martians.”

“I’d say it’s a safe bet,” Anya said and plucked the hovering disk out of the air. It flashed with green light, then the light formed above it into a series of coordinates. “Huh. It’s longitude and latitude. Felix, can you punch these into the map?”

“You bet I can!” Anya’s AI said and appeared beside her, along with the menu map. It focused on a point in the middle of the Sahara Desert. The chrome communicator puck then displayed a rotating green hologram of Vaastukaar.

“This is a recorded message. Please arrive at the following coordinates in exactly 13 hours. Other Earth hosts will be there and we will conduct transport. This is to ensure safety of all hosts and discretion while within Earth airspace. Any family or close friends you wish to bring will need to arrive with you. Please limit personal belongings as much as possible, or purchase a pocket dimension from the RAC store. This message will repeat. This is a recorded message…”

“Huh,” Anya said. “That’s a bit weird.”

“Why?” Immonen asked.

“Well why wouldn’t they just let us come by ourselves? I figured I’d just get a ship off the RAC store or take a spare from Gary and head out over the next few days.”

“Well they say it’s for safety and discretion. Safety seems a bit dubious, as pretty much any host will be safe. Discretion I can see. While hosts would be able to buy a secure cheap that would get them to Mars with ease, one that could also get away from Earth without being seen would be more expensive. Some hosts may not have even considered that, and China has enough tech watching the planet to track or maybe even stop lesser ships carrying weaker hosts.”

“Okay, that makes a little more sense,” Anya said. “But still…”

“Yes, it’s a bit controlling. I suspect that may become a theme on Mars. Their response to the aliens at the end of the invasion was remarkably well coordinated, and getting an entire city up in just a matter of weeks, a month or two at most…even with the resources and skills the menu provides, it’s no small feat.

“I think it’s also so they can make sure you’re not bringing anything they don’t already approve of. I doubt they’re foolish enough to throw out the welcome mat without some precautions. This way they can make sure nobody on Earth knows about their extraction of hosts, they get to check everybody boarding their ship, and some of the hosts they’re taking may feel indebted for the ride. It saves them RAC, trouble, and makes a good first impression.”

Anya nodded just as Pan waddled into the room. He had a little knapsack that held a spare change of his clothes——his baggy pants and open, sleeveless robe——his pipe, a sealed bag of honey-covered ants, and another sealed bag of some sort of pipe-weed.

“I’m ready!” Pan said. “Anya! Doc! Guess what? I called Brody to say I was going and he’s coming too! Isn’t that great?”

“It is,” Anya said and smiled. She worried what Mars tempting established hosts away from Earth might do to future relations, but was glad Pan would have another friend. And maybe the huge shark leaving was for the best: she hadn’t spoken to Brody much since the invasion, but he’d seemed bitter and put-out with humans since Cooper had died.

“You sure you don’t wanna come, Doc?” Pan asked.

“I’ll come visit. And it’s not forever. Just a little bit,” Immonen said and patted Pan on the head. The pangolin twitched his nose and sniffled as he hugged Immonen’s leg.

“Pinky promise?” Pan said and offered his littlest claw. Immonen wrapped his pinky around it and shook.

“Promise,” he said. “Now c’mon. We have other people to say good-bye to before you’re off.”

“I don’t like good-byes,” Pan said as all three of them left the apartment for the V-200 on the roof.

“Me neither, buddy,” Anya said, and closed the door behind her.