He crouched and watched the little rodents until he got cold. There were greater creatures out on that plain, and they always stopped him short: deer, elk, moose, bighorn sheep, reindeer, caribou, black bear, grizzly bear— even packs of wolves, like swift gray shadows— and all to Sax like citizens out of a dream, so that every time he spotted even a single creature he felt startled, disconnected, even stunned; it did not seem possible; it was certainly not natural. Yet here they were. And now these little snow pika, happy in their oasis. Not nature, not culture: just Mars.

He thought of Ann. He wanted her to see them.

He often thought of her these days. So many of his friends were dead now, but Ann was alive, he could still talk to her, it was at least possible. He had looked into the matter, and found that she now lived in the caldera of Olympus Mons, as part of the small community of red climbers that occupied it. Apparently they took turns in the caldera, to keep the population low despite the big holes’ steep walls and primeval conditions, both so attractive to them. But Ann stayed as long as she liked, Sax had heard, and only left infrequently. This was what Peter had told him, although Peter had only heard it secondhand. Sad how those two were estranged; pointless; but family estrangements seemed to be the most intransigent of all.

Anyway, she was on Olympus Mons. Therefore almost in sight, just over the horizon to the south. And he wanted to talk to her. All his reflections on what happened to Mars, he thought, were framed as an internal conversation with Ann. Not so much as an argument, or so he hoped, but as an endless persuasion. If he could be so changed by the reality of blue Mars, could not Ann as well? Was it not almost inevitable, even necessary? Might it have already happened? Sax felt he had come over the years to love what Ann loved in Mars; and now he wanted her to reciprocate, if possible. She had become for him, in a most uncomfortable way, his measure of the worth of what they had done. The worth, or the acceptability. It was a strange feeling to have settled in him, but there it was.