The Martian desert was full of wild colour that changed with the rising sun. So many shades of rust and red and brown and black. Shadows under mountains shrank and the light transformed the landscape that seemed to change shape. A long way out, far across a plain of baked sand, the walls of Albany crater rose into the sky. The town nearby was named Albany, too.

Maddy bit into her breakfast roll, dripping sauce down her chin. She scooped it up and sucked her finger. The colour of the sauce was the same colour as the crater wall out there on the horizon. It would be fun to paint the scenery—perhaps even head out of the city on a day off and find a quiet valley somewhere and make a full day of it. There was something attractive about the full, lonely desert with just her solitary figure under the pink sky.

There were few people around at this time, and none of them had any time for desert-gazing. There was a seat here to sit on, facing the transparent ceramic dome that surrounded the city, and every day she would plant herself there and eat breakfast. She'd been on Mars for six months now, living a new life, making some acquaintances—they couldn't be classed a friends yet—and working hard to earn the money to stay here.

Her fone beeped to say it was time to go to work. Maddy tossed the breakfast wrappings into a disposal chute and walked back to the main city streets. The ceramic dome had been drawn back, so that only the titanic metal walls that formed its base protected the city, although the dome could be closed quickly in case of a dust storm. She'd seen one of those already and it was weird to sit under a clear dome while outside all that could be seen was swirling brown dust. It had taken a few days to dig the city out afterwards. Today, however, the dome was retracted and a cool breeze wafted in, bringing a scent of rust.

Maddy felt relaxed as she opened the door to a small electronics repair firm and signed in with her ID at the employee's desk.

'Morning, Linda,' the office girl said with a smile.

'Hello,' said Maddy, and passed through into the main work area of the business.

There were other employees in the firm: a couple of young men who kept pretty much to themselves, bent over AI terminals all day; an older man who knew everything about electronics and cybernetics there was to know and whom Maddy regarded as the oracle of all things; and another younger woman like herself. They were there already and Maddy chatted as she grabbed a cup of coffee and headed for her booth.

It was larger than her workspace back on the old Endeavour. Here it was virtually her own room, with access to a lot more equipment and to updated tools she'd only dreamed of before. The work was fairly straightforward, but it meant most of it could be done without thinking, and that gave her time to drift away in her mind to more pleasant things.

As she settled down for the day her boss walked in. Myra was younger than Maddy by a few years, but her father had started the business and so she was in charge. Myra knew a fair bit about electronics, too, and Maddy didn't mind taking advice.

'You have to work lunch today,' Myra said.

'Sure,' Maddy replied. It was a rule in the place: the last to arrive at work had to man the front counter while the receptionist went to lunch. Maddy didn't mind—while the others were out the back she could grab a few more minutes of solitude.

'How long have you been here now?'

'About five months.'

'That means your review is coming up.'

That was true: she'd been placed on probation for five months to see if she was up to the mark for the business.

'How did I do?' she asked, smiling.

'Fine. Excellent. In fact, I'd like to take you on permanently. With a pay rise.'

'Thank you.'

'Anyway, Linda,' said Myra. 'Well done, and see me this afternoon before you leave so we can go over your review.' She left a faint scent of jasmine in the air.

Maddy opened the file of jobs for that day. The first few were comparatively easy. Fone repair was a big part of the business and she could fix most of them in a few minutes. It was remarkable, even with Elite technology, how so few people understood the simplest things about their fones, and yet felt so panicky when they were deprived of them. After that there was a more interesting repair: someone had dropped their kitchen AI into a swimming pool (Maddy didn't bother to wonder why) and had fried it. Most people would have just bought a new one, but they were expensive.

Maddy took out the first fone of the day and unhooked a diagnostic probe.

***

The noise of the lunch time crowds in the street didn't penetrate the front door of the office. Maddy watched them idly as they shuffled by. Mars was a pleasant enough place: close enough to Earth to benefit from Elite technology, old enough to have earned respect among the colonies, and yet still retaining a frontier charm that reminded her of life on the old Slowboats. It would have been good to know this place existed before now.

The door opened and two Helots walked in.

That wasn't unusual. The Elite who lived on Mars were mostly minor dignitaries, not influential enough to live on Earth but big enough fish in a smaller pond, and that meant they had at least one Helot working for them. The more trustworthy ones could well be given the task of taking an item needing repair to the shop. These two wore no livery, just plain overalls, and one carried a backpack that he placed on the floor.

'What do you want?' She didn't say hello. You didn't have to be polite to Helots.

'We have something for repair,' the one with the backpack said. Maddy noticed that the other went and stood near the far wall, and kept looking at both the door to the street and the one leading to workshop.

The first Helot reached into the backpack and pulled out something wrapped in a red plastic cloth.

'What is it?'

The Helot unrolled the plastic to reveal a small black cube about five centimetres on a side. There were a few contacts on one face, and what Maddy recognised as a communications link on another. A panel was open to reveal circuits inside. She plugged a diagnostic probe into the device and checked the readout of the circuits hidden within. For a few moments she wondered what the thing might be, then a sudden chill ran down her spine.

'Put it away,' she said, glancing at the inner door. The second Helot followed her gaze and went to stand in front of the door. He reached under his robes; Maddy suspected there was a gun hidden there.

'You recognise what this is,' said the first Helot. 'That's good.'

'No it isn't, it's bad. Really bad.'

Her voice sounded thin, frightened. Helots! How she hated them, how they had screwed up her life, how they all deserved to—

'We need it repaired.'

'Go to hell.'

The Helot laughed. Like all his race, it was a high, whining noise. Helots had little to laugh about, and when they did there was no amusement in the sound at all.

'You are Maddy Hawthorn,' he continued. 'Don't attempt to deny it. We know. And we need this device repaired. You will repair it.'

She looked again at the thing on the table. It looked harmless, and indeed was harmless in the sense that it wasn't a weapon, and was not physically dangerous in itself, but its implications were deadly.

Among criminals and terrorists it was known as a 'ghost', because it was something that wasn't supposed to exist. It could pick up secure signals from Message Stick, which was the only means of communicating at super-light speeds. It was highly illegal, and if she repaired it she might well be giving terrorists the means to intercept secure Elite communications. She'd heard about them when working as an electronics engineer on the Endeavour: a whisper of such a device, and what it looked like, was passed among the technicians. It was an attractive idea that there was a way to listen in to what the Elite were doing. A legendary device, but there was no mistaking it now she saw one for real.

She pushed the device towards the Helot and covered it up with the plastic wrapping.

'No.'

The Helot near the door moved his hand slightly. Enough of his gun's barrel was visible to let Maddy know it was there. The first Helot sighed.

'My friend here doesn't like you. He wants to kill you. I'm more patient. I'm going to leave this device here with you. You can repair it, dispose of it or hand it in to the authorities, whatever you wish. But I think you are intelligent enough to know the consequences of all those alternatives, and you'll choose the proper one. We will return in three days.'

Then they were gone, the door closing noiselessly behind them.

She stared at the ghost on the desk. The hand she put out to touch it was trembling. She stopped, breathing harshly in the silence. The others would finish their lunch soon and the bustle of the workshop begin again.

What to do? The Helot was right: whatever course she took would be the wrong one. To repair it and hand it back to them would implicate her in a criminal act, and she was already wanted on a host of charges. To dispose of it risked it being found, and also the terrorists would no doubt torture her to find out what she'd done with it, and eventually kill her for knowing the device existed at all. To turn it in to the authorities meant she had to come clean with who she was, to reveal she was not, in fact, Linda Jones but the wanted terrorist Maddy Hawthorn. That would reveal her ID as being fake, and that would lead back to the Sirians and the Sasha clan being implicated as well.

All choices were doomed.

In the back of her mind there was another thought, a purely technical one. Although she knew she had the skill to fix the device, she'd never actually seen one before. A professional curiosity nagged her to find out what was wrong with it, to open it and check the electronics within, to see if it matched the idea in her head of how it might intercept secure Syndicate messages. Her hand went out again, and again paused. This was wrong, so wrong!

Footsteps outside brought her mind back to the workshop. The receptionist was returning from lunch. Maddy scooped the ghost up and thrust it into her pocket just as the door opened.

'All quiet,' she said.