No. She wouldn’t tell him. The meddler. He had needed a good referee for his submissions to The Metajournal of Martian History, that was what it came down to. Making sure his science was properly peer-reviewed— for that he would crash around in a person’s most inward desires, in her essential freedom to choose life or death, to be a free human being!

At least he hadn’t tried to lie about it.

And— well— here she was. Rage; remorse without cause; inexplicable anguish; a strangely painful exhilaration: all this filled her at once. The limbic system, vibrating madly, spiking every thought with contradictory wild emotions, disconnected from the thoughts’ content: Sax had saved her, she hated him, she felt a fierce joy, Kasei was dead, Peter wasn’t, no bear could kill her, etc.— on and on and on. Oh so strange!

• • •

She spotted a little green rover, perched on a bluff over the ice bay. Impulsively she took over the wheel and drove up to it. A little face peered out at her; she waved through the windshields at it. Black eyes— spectacles— bald. Like her stepfather. She parked her rover next to his. The man gestured for her to come over, holding up a wooden spoon. He looked vague, only half pulled out of his own thoughts.

Ann put on a down jacket and went through the lock doors and walked between the cars, feeling the shock of the frigid air like a dousing in cold water. It was nice to be able to walk between one rover and another without suiting up, or, to get to the crux of the matter, risking death. Amazing that more people hadn’t been killed by carelessness or lock malfunction. Some had been, of course. Scores, probably, if you added them all up. Now it was just a dash of cold air.

The bald man opened his inner-lock door. “Hello,” he said, and offered a hand.

“Hello,” Ann said, and shook it. “I’m Ann.”

“I’m Harry. Harry Whitebook.”

“Ah. I’ve heard of you. You design animals.”

He smiled gently. “Yes.” No shame; no defensiveness.

“I was just chased by one of your polar bears.”

“Were you!” His eyes opened round. “Those are fast!”

“So they are. But they’re not just polar bears, are they.”

“They’ve got some grizzly genes, for altitude. But mostly it’s just Ursus maritimus. They’re very tough creatures.”

“A lot of creatures are.”

“Yes, isn’t it marvelous? Oh excuse me, have you eaten? Would you like some soup? I was just making soup, leek soup, I guess it must be obvious.”

It was. “Sure,” Ann said.

• • •

Over soup and bread she asked him questions about the polar bear. “Surely there can’t be a whole food chain here for something that huge?”