The hills seemed no closer than they had been an hour ago.

Geranium longed to sit down, take her shoes off and empty them of sand, but she hesitated to suggest it as Linda seemed in such a foul mood.

Her shoes were totally inadequate for tramping across a desert, but then when she'd woken up that morning it hadn't been on the agenda. Fine grit had worked its way down under her soles where it scrunched uncomfortably. A thin breeze whipped orange sand around her legs, dispensing more of it into her shoes with each gust. She hooked a finger into the right leg hole of her knickers and felt grit on her backside. The stuff was everywhere.

It was hard to breathe, too, out here in the open desert when doing any sort of exertion. The air was alpine thin, but breathable, and the cold penetrated sharply. The expensive skirt and jacket combination she'd worn to the slave market wasn't practical for trekking across the Martian desert either.

Each time she raised her gaze from the Linda's footprints, all she could see was a line of low bare hills. At one point they skirted around a hydroponics farm and a weather station, but there seemed to be little else out here.

It occurred to her that she'd seen little of the real Mars. In the first few days she'd visited a few places of interest: Mons Olympus, the Valles Marineris, the North Polar Cap. The tourist traps, crowded, noisy, catering to Elites who thought Martian ways quaint. Visiting those places by hologram would have been just as meaningful. But since she'd settled in Albany not much exploring had been done. The transformation from eager tourist to dull local had happened in a remarkably short time. Perhaps when this present mess was over she should go somewhere else. Venus perhaps.

'Can we stop for a moment?'

Linda glanced back at her almost as if she was surprised to still see her there.

'What's wrong?'

Geranium stood on one foot and pointed at her other shoe. 'I've got a stone.'

'All right.'

The girl sat down and started to remove her shoes. Linda watched for a moment, then also sat down and took out a water bottle from her pack. She had a sip and handed it to Geranium.

'Don't have too much, there's still a way to go. Then you can drink as much as you like.'

Geranium held her shoe upside down and slapped it. There was a lot of sand in them. She did the same to her other shoe. The cold wind blew up her skirt, ballooning the dark blue material out like a tent.

'Where are we going anyway?'

Linda pointed at the line of hills. 'There's a water factory up there where we can hide out.'

Geranium was sick of this whole adventure. Nothing but the clothes she wore and her fone, and now Linda had suggested they tramp across kilometres of desert looking for somewhere to hide. That shouldn't be in anyone's plans. And what about poor Sarti? Was she lying dead somewhere? Her gut tightened at the memory of the look Sarti had given her when ordered into the hotel.

I should have gone myself. I wanted to.

But there had been Helots there, waiting...

She put her shoes back on and hoped Linda didn't suggest they start again immediately. But even the older woman was sucking in as much air as she could. The cold wind showed they were low enough topographically for there to be enough air, but out in the open desert on Mars hypoxia could still a problem, especially when doing hard physical activity. Once, on Earth, the family had visited Mt Everest and stayed at the Base Camp Hotel. The air pressure here, low down on terraformed Mars, was about the same.

Linda watched the girl's face closely. 'You have a headache?'

'No, but I wish I didn't feel so weak.'

'Breathe deeply for a few minutes. It'll pass. You just have make a habit of taking in more air.'

Geranium inhaled a huge gulp of raw Martian atmosphere. It helped, but as soon as she started breathing normally again the breathlessness became apparent once more.

'I never thought going to Mars would entail walking across this wilderness,' she said. 'It's funny—I studied Exogeography at university, even did a paper on Martian earthquakes. But being on the actual planet isn't like I thought.'

'What did you think it'd be like?'

'I don't know...Different.'

'At least it's cool,' said Linda. 'I'd hate to walk across a hot desert on Earth, like the Sahara or some of those they have in Australia. Your mother spent three days walking across...'

Geranium's hands paused in the act of fastening her shoes back on.

'My mother? How did you know she was stranded in a desert?'

Linda stared at the hills ahead. 'I don't know. I heard about it from somewhere. Wasn't there a news report or something?'

'Yes, I guess there was.' She stretched her legs out and trickled sand through her fingers. 'And she never held back from telling the story anyone within earshot. That's how I heard it. Some terrorists stole her space yacht and kidnapped her and then dumped her in the desert. It was a long walk back to civilization. She could have died.'

'The terrorists—they wouldn't have hurt her, you know.'

'Mother said they were planning to kill her. But she convinced them not to. They kept her locked in a cabin for about a month.' Suddenly a grin broke out on her face. 'Actually, I sometimes picture that and laugh. Mother's always hated being indoors.'

'How is she now?'

Geranium paused. 'Now? Do you know her?'

'Well, no. How could I?'

There was something in the woman's face that made Geranium uneasy. Her mother had described the female kidnapper to everyone who heard the story. Red hair. Thin. Intelligent. Moody.

'Hold out your wrist,' she said, calling up the ID reader on her fone.

The result was clear. Linda Jones. Not Maddy Hawthorn.

The woman stood up and dusted herself down. 'How do you feel? We should move on.'

But Geranium stayed seated. She knew hers wasn't the greatest brain in the world, but it was working hard now. Something wasn't quite right: no doubt her mother's story had been exaggerated over the time since, but there were some constants that had been repeated so often they sunk into Geranium's memory indelibly.

Linda shrugged into her pack again and tied her long red hair back as she gazed at the line of hills.

'Come on, up. We need to get there before dark,' she said. 'That's only a couple of hours away.' At this time of year the Martian nights were bitter. There were stories circulated back in town that sometimes people who stayed outdoors at night ended up frozen solid before the next day came.

Geranium stood up slowly. 'Are you sure the terrorists—this Talon as you call them—they won't follow us?'

'They might. But it won't be so easy to find us where we're going.'

'I'm still not sure where that is. And what about Sarti?'

Linda didn't answer, just started walking again. After a few seconds, Geranium fell in behind, once again stepping in the footprints left by the woman.

Whoever she was.

***

It had been several months since Maddy had last been out to the water factory to repair a comlink. Situated about twenty kilometres from the city it served several other centres as well. The factory had only a token staff who visited for maintenance purposes every few weeks; most of the operation was carried out by AI's. But the occasional human presence meant there were basic living quarters and a supply of food. Most of Mars's water supply came from underground, or from the ice caps. But the aquifers weren't always conveniently placed. This facility acted as a reserve.

The place looked deserted as they approached the gate in the twilight. The breeze that had blown all day from the west had veered south a little and brought even colder air up from the pole. She shared out some of her warmer clothes to Geranium, who was still clad for the balmier conditions of the city. The girl now had a sweater on under her designer jacket and her legs were enclosed in black tights beneath her skirt. She looked a lot pinker than a little while ago.

The factory consisted of two buildings, one housing the condensers that extracted water vapour from the Martian atmosphere and the thorium reactor which kept the place running, and the other containing the administration room and the living quarters. Huge tanks were framed by the sky behind. On the gate was a sign for those who were able to read: Gatton Water. Working For You.

'So how do we get in?' They stood outside a mesh fence that contained a stout gate. No doubt they were also under surveillance by hidden cameras.

For about the hundredth time, Maddy missed her fone. It was stupid, of course, not to have a spare, but she'd never bought one. With only a faint hope, she pressed the contact on the gate to alert anyone who might be inside.

Nothing. There were no lights visible in the administration building, just exterior security lights. The factory hummed away minding its own business in the background, but all else was dark.

'Give me your fone,' she said, holding out her hand. 'Please.'

The girl handed it over after a brief pause. Maddy could understand—she wouldn't want to give anyone else something so personal either. It was a sophisticated model, better than Maddy's had been. The keydisc was the latest design, fast and smooth, the whole device almost wafer thin. It was tempting to call up the circuitry and check the workings.

As she worked the keydisc, she explained, 'Of course, I stored the factory's access codes on my fone the last time I was here. But I think I can remember the protocol.' It was ironic that if she'd been here more often, the memory of the code would have faded from her mind as she would have just relied on her fone to send it. But because her only visit had been fairly recent, there was still a chance of recalling the code.

No, obviously she couldn't. The AI continued to deny them access. Maddy thought, changed a couple of the parameters, and tried again.

'I'm freezing,' whined Geranium.

'So am I. Shh.'

Another try. It had to be somewhere in her mind. The manager of the factory had simply downloaded it into her fone, but Maddy being Maddy liked to check such things, and had opened the file up to read it for herself. Engineers did that sort of thing. That's why she was still alive after all this time on the run.

The third attempt was answered by an AI voice coming through the fone.

'The owner of this fone is not an authorised person.'

'Correct,' said Maddy. 'This is...um...an emergency access request. Activate security subsystem...' What were those numbers? There would only be one shot at this. '...RU67889. Request is by Linda Jones.'

'Voice modulation of Linda Jones is identified. Subsystem RU67889 is valid.'

The gate clicked open. Maddy handed the fone back to Geranium. 'Easy.' Her breath frosted as she sighed out.

'It pays to be important, I guess,' said Geranium.

They passed into the compound and almost ran to the administration building. The AI had unlocked it at the same time as the gate. It would now proceed to monitor all their activities and record all their conversations, but there was no way to prevent that happening. They would have to be gone before anyone bothered to check the records.

Inside was neat, but utilitarian. The sleeping quarters at the back were designed for two persons but were basic. Maddy had no problem with the size of the rooms: she had had a lifetime of cramped living on the Slowboat to inure her to such things, but Geranium expressed dismay at the bareness and closeness of the facilities. The walls were slate grey. Only a single holovision offered any sort of recreational opportunities.

'It's better than the open desert,' grated Maddy, and that shut the girl up. 'And we're not staying long.'

The kitchen was as basic as the rest of the place, but a request to the AI established there were some provisions. Maddy left Geranium to find some dinner while she opened her pack and removed the contents onto her bed. There were sheets and blankets in a cupboard and a small bathroom at the back of the building. She decided to shower after something to eat.

When dinner came, which consisted of a pre-cooked meal that was palatable but unimaginative, Geranium also produced two glasses and a bottle of whisky she'd found in one of the kitchen cupboards. She put the bottle down in the middle of the table and smiled at Maddy. 'Best thing to happen all day!'

Maddy felt that the food was the best thing, given she hadn't eaten since breakfast, and had both fought for her life and tramped for twenty kilometres across the desert since. But the scotch burned in a good way in the back of her throat. It was local brew, of course, nothing from any reputable distillery. Across the table, Geranium both ate and drank with the same rapacity. The level in the bottle shrank as the food vanished.

'It's sure not what I'm used to,' the girl declared after her plate was clean. 'But it's good.'

'I guess you've lived well all your life.' Maddy regretted the words as soon as they were said: they could remind Geranium of her mother, and that might not be a good thing.

Geranium drained her glass, poured some more scotch, and walked a little unsteadily to a couch at the other end of the room. A window looked out into the compound, but there was nothing to see outside except the line of the security fence. In the next building, the sound dulled by distance and intervening walls, the water factory hummed on steadily.

'Who are you?' she asked, peering at Maddy over the top of her glass.

'I told you. Linda Jones. I'm a comlink technician.'

'And a terrorist.'

Maddy didn't reply, but took a last mouthful of food and pondered whether she needed another drink. She opted instead for water.

After a minute of silence, Geranium lay down on the sofa, holding the glass on her stomach. 'I'm starting to put things together,' she said. 'I mean it's a big galaxy and it's full of billions of people, but my mother always said that things happen in a particular order, even if you couldn't explain why. And I've been thinking.' She chuckled. 'My friend Danae would say that was something new.'

At the table, Maddy stacked the plates and removed them to the kitchen, where the AI started to clean up. Then she went to the contents of her pack scattered on her bunk, found the ghost, and took it back to the table.

'I think I've worked it out,' Geranium continued. 'You know my mother—that's not such a big thing, thousands of people know my mother and hundreds of thousands know of her. If not millions. But you're not Elite; you're not Martian; you're not even from Earth. You're a colonist.'

It must have been the drawing of the Slowboat in her apartment that clued the girl about that fact. Only a colonist would bother to feel sentimental about the lumbering old starships that carried the first colonists from Earth out into the wide, black galaxy.

Maddy turned her attention back to the ghost. It revealed several contacts when she lifted a panel on the side. She inspected them for a moment. 'I need your fone again,' she said. 'Please.'

The girl removed her fone and held it out, so Maddy had to stand up and walk over to take it and then go back to the table.

'Mother isn't stupid. I tell my friends she is, but she isn't really. She had a harrowing time: being kidnapped, threatened, taken light years away and back again, left to die in the desert. There was a big Sirian and a Helot. I can't quite remember their names. Those barbaric languages are so hard. But the other terrorist was...well, she had red hair and kind of matches your description. That was the one who disguised herself as Mother when they robbed the diamond mine on Procyon IV.'

Maddy connected the fone to the ghost's output circuit and turned the device on. There was a moment of static. Colours swirled across the fone's screen as the two devices met each other and established firm contact. Resting on the table, Maddy's hands started to tremble a little, but whether it was from activating the ghost or listening to Geranium's words she couldn't say.

'Mother said the red-haired woman was all right. Well, she was a criminal, of course, but she at least didn't make any death threats.'

On the fone's screen, a message came up saying the ghost's memory was blank. Maddy used the fone to delve deeper into the device's AI, searching for a pattern that would unlock the supposedly erased data.

'The Sirian and the Helot didn't even speak to her much—in fact the Helot not at all. I never really believed Mother, I thought she was just making the whole thing up. Even if it had been true, served her right I thought for being a stuck-up bitch. But now...'

Success! Images and words appeared on the screen: lists of transcripts, files, copies of documents and transmissions between the Syndicate and Zeus, all intercepted and stored. No wonder the ghost was illegal. It was like a permanent hack into the innermost secrets of the government. In the hands of terrorists, it could be devastating. Maddy used the fone's keydisc to flip through the files stored in the ghost. There had to be petabytes of it, but there was a search program to make finding things easier.

'I was wondering if you were Maddy Hawthorn,' said Geranium.

Maddy glanced up. The girl was looking at her, long dark hair draped over her forehead, dirty shoes planted hard into the sofa.

'Come and have a look at this,' said Maddy.

'Why?'

'A man died today and another man tried to kill you because of it. Is that reason enough?'

The girl sat up and swallowed more of her drink. 'Are you Maddy Hawthorn?'

Their eyes met. Geranium's were bloodshot from both the alcohol and the exertions of the day. Maddy suspected hers were the same. This silly Elite girl was scared, despite her bluff exterior and haughty aristocratic demeanour. She'd almost been killed and had lost her Helot slave, who had obviously meant something to her. Perhaps that was an adequate reason for the fear. Perhaps the truth was what she needed right now.

'Yes, I am.'

'You kidnapped my mother.'

'Yes.'

'You worked for terrorists.'

'If you want to get technical yes, I was a terrorist once. But only because I had to be.'

Geranium walked over to the table and stood beside Maddy, who turned her attention back to the documents scrolling across the fone's screen.

The splash of scotch across her face caught Maddy totally off-guard. Geranium slammed the glass down on the table and punched Maddy's arm.

'You bitch!' Geranium yelled. 'You fucking bitch!'

Maddy rose and stepped back, instantly on guard against further assault. But the girl just stood there, shivering slightly, tears rolling down her cheek. They faced off for a long moment as whisky dripped through Maddy's hair onto the carpet.

'I had no choice. I'd been kidnapped too, sort of. I wasn't doing what I did willingly.'

The girl shook her head, eyes squeezed shut.

'Your mother was brave. As brave as you were today when that man tried to kill you on the roof. Please understand that I admired your mother for standing up to us and enduring what was done to her.'

Geranium's lips moved but Maddy didn't catch the words.

'I'm sorry, what was that?'

'I said I hate you.' Geranium's fists clenched at her sides.