I moved in to claim my machine while I could.

Hurricane warnings popped up everywhere, but so far, the weather held so the internet was up and not cutting out too often—my chance to do a bit of research. Older databases were still sitting somewhere if, like Jenn, you knew where to look. Could I nose around about the documents without calling attention to myself? Did these computers keep records? Meaning to key in ‘Arkadia,’ my fingers shied away. Something more neutral? Safer if I spelled it differently? To my astonishment, using a ‘c’ in place of the ‘k’ brought up a list of files about Mars, stored right there on the computer. Mars again? Curious, I opened a few at random.

Old stuff mostly, history sites, mission logs and news stories from the first and second expeditions. One rare, clear night, Rubio had pointed out the red planet in the sky, told me there’d once been people up there, and how a spacer would breathe cleaner air on Mars than we were right then. The water was pure, too—melted from subsurface ice. Now my screen filled with gorgeous pics of vermilion rocks, towering cliffs, and ruddy skies backgrounding shiny clusters of domes. Rubio called it a huge waste, trying to colonize a frigid desert where you had to live under cover, mine for water, and manufacture air. Better to use those resources to fix our own failing planet.

Apparently, the world agreed. So there was no third expedition. But it made little difference here at home.

Still, it was hard to stop clicking through these beautiful old images. Like a fantasy game. So huge, so . . . unmanaged, like the wild, clean ocean in my old book. Nothing that wild left on Earth except the weather.

“Whacha lookin’ at?” Peeto poked his rat’s nose over my shoulder. Made me jump a foot. His scruffy ponytail was damp, like he’d just come from the showers. For once, he didn’t smell like the streets.

Too late to blank the screen. Plus, I had no urge for dissing anyone today, not even Peeto. “Nothing much. Passing the time.”

“Dark days, huh?” he offered.

I nodded.

“I do that a lot.”

“What?”

“Come up here an’ look at stuff.”

“You do?”

Peeto dragged a chair noisily across the tiles. “When I can’t sleep, y’know? Give these old machines a tussle.”

Interesting, that something might bother Peter Sweeney enough to keep him awake nights—well, days. But I didn’t ask what his problem was. I wasn’t that interested.

He poked at the screen. “That’s Mars, ain’t it?”

“I guess. Just looking at the pretty pictures.” I closed down the Mars pics. “Listen, any chance you’ve seen my new pack around in all the noise and upset, maybe on some pal of yours’ back?”

His mouth drooped. “Still fingerin’ me, huh?”

“Just want what’s mine back.”