She shook her head, in a great confusion of spirits. The radicals in Lastflow were not her people, not really, but unless they succeeded, the summit of Pavonis and everywhere else on Mars would become part of the great world city. She tried to concentrate on the view, she tried to feel it, the awe of the symmetrical formation, the love of rock hard under her bottom. Her feet hung over the edge of the bench, she kicked her heels against basalt; she could throw a pebble and it would fall five thousand meters. But she couldn’t concentrate. She couldn’t feel it. Petrification. So numb, for so long. . . . She sniffed, shook her head, pulled her feet in over the edge. Walked back up to her rover.

She dreamed of the long run-out. The landslide was rolling across the floor of Melas Chasma, about to strike her. Everything visible with surreal clarity. Again she remembered Simon, again she groaned and got off the little dike, going through the motions, appeasing a dead man inside her, feeling awful. The ground was vibrating—

She woke, by her own volition she thought— escaping, running away— but there was a hand, pulling hard on her arm.

“Ann, Ann, Ann.”

It was Nadia. Another surprise. Ann struggled up, disoriented. “Where are we?”

“Pavonis, Ann. The revolution. I came over and woke you because a fight has broken out between Kasei’s Reds and the greens in Sheffield.”

The present rolled over her like the landslide in her dream. She jerked out of Nadia’s grasp, groped for her shirt. “Wasn’t my rover locked?”

“I broke in.”

“Ah.” Ann stood up, still foggy, getting more annoyed the more she understood the situation. “Now what happened?”

“They launched missiles at the cable.”

“They did!” Another jolt, further clearing away the fog. “And?”

“It didn’t work. The cable’s defense systems shot them down. They’ve got a lot of hardware up there now, and they’re happy to be able to use it at last. But now the Reds are moving into Sheffield from the west, firing more rockets, and the UN forces on Clarke are bombing the first launch sites, over on Ascraeus, and they’re threatening to bomb every armed force down here. This is just what they wanted. And the Reds think it’s going to be like Burroughs, obviously, they’re trying to force the action. So I came to you. Look, Ann, I know we’ve been fighting a lot, I haven’t been very, you know, patient, but look, this is just too much. Everything could fall apart at the last minute— the UN could decide the situation here is anarchy, and come up from Earth and try to take over again.”

“Where are they?” Ann croaked. She pulled on pants, went to the bathroom. Nadia followed her right in. This too was a surprise; in Underhill it might have been normal between them, but it had been a long long time since Nadia had followed her into a bathroom talking obsessively while Ann washed her face and sat down and peed. “They’re still based in Lastflow, but now they’ve cut the rim piste and the one to Cairo, and they’re fighting in west Sheffield, and around the Socket. Reds fighting greens.”