But the storm continued to carry them along, and soon they were east of Cydonia, out over the flat plains of Arabia. Now they needed to descend soon, before they were flung out over the North Sea, which might very well be as wild and ice-filled as Chryse had been. Below lay a patchwork of fields, orchards— irrigation canals and curving streams, lined by trees. It had been raining a lot, it looked like, and there was water all over the surface of the land, in ponds, in canals, in little craters, and covering the lower parts of fields. Farmhouses clustered in little villages, only outbuildings in the fields— barns, equipment sheds. Lovely wet countryside, quite flat. Water everywhere. They were descending, but slowly. Ann’s hands were a bluish white in the dim afternoon; and so were his.

He pulled himself together, feeling very weary. The landing would be important. He pushed down the adjustors hard.

Now they were descending more swiftly. They were being blown over a line of trees, then down, rapidly over a broad field. At the far end it was inundated, brown rainwater filling the furrows. Beyond the field stood an orchard, and a water landing would be perfect anyway; but they were moving horizontally quite fast, and still perhaps ten or fifteen meters over the field. He shoved the adjustors full forward and saw the underhulls tilt down like diving dolphins, and the boat tilted as well, and then the land came right up at them, brown water, big splash, white waves winging away to both sides, and they were being dragged through muddy water until the boat skated right into a line of young trees, and stopped hard. Down the line of trees a group of kids and a man were running toward them, their mouths all perfect round O’s in their faces.

Sax and Ann struggled to a sitting position. Sax opened the cockpit shell. Brown water spilled in over the gunwale. A windy hazy day in the Arabian countryside. The water pouring in felt distinctly warm. Ann’s face was wet and her hair stood out in stiff tufts, as if she had been electrocuted. She smiled a crooked smile. “Nicely done,” she said.

Part 14: Phoenix Lake

Part Fourteen

Phoenix Lake

Prologue

A gun shot, a bell rung, a choir singing counterpoint.

The third Martian revolution was so complex and nonviolent that it was hard to see it as a revolution at all, at the time; more like a shift in a ongoing argument, a change in the tide, a punctuation of equilibrium.