In fact these people seemed to think they knew a lot about Nadia. “She was against the war,” Claire told him confidently, “and she did everything she could to stop it and then to repair the damage, even while it was happening. People who saw her on Elysium say she never slept at all, just took stimulants to keep going. They say she saved ten thousand lives in the week she was active around South Fossa.”

“What happened to her?” Sax asked.

“No one knows. She disappeared from South Fossa.”

“She was headed for Low Point,” Berkina said. “If she got there in time for that flood, she was probably killed.”

“Ah.” Sax nodded solemnly. “That was a bad time.”

“Very bad,” Claire said vehemently. “So destructive. It set the terraforming back decades, I’m sure.”

“Although the aquifer outbreaks have been useful,” Sax murmured.

“Yes, but those could have been done anyway, in a controlled manner.”

“True.” Sax shrugged and let the conversation go on without him. After the encounter with Phyllis it was a bit much to get into a discussion of ‘61.

He still couldn’t quite believe she hadn’t recognized him. The passenger compartment they were in had shiny magnesium panels over the windows, and there, among the faces of his new colleagues, was the little face of Stephen Lindholm. A bald old man with a slightly hooked nose, which made the eyes somewhat hawkish rather than just birdlike. Visible lips, strong jaw, a chin— no, it didn’t look like him at all. No reason why she should have recognized him.

But looks weren’t everything.

He tried not to think about that as they hummed north over the road. He concentrated on the view. The passenger compartment had a domed skylight, as well as windows on all four sides, so he could see a lot. They were driving up the slope of west Isidis, a section of the Great Escarpment that was like a great shaved berm. The jagged dark hills of Syrtis Major rose over the northwest horizon, sharp as the edge of a saw. The air was clearer than it had been in the old days, even though it was fifteen times thicker. But there was less dust in it, as snowstorms were knocking the fines down and then fixing them on the surface in a crust. Of course this crust was often broken by strong winds, and the trapped fines reintroduced to the air. But these breaks were localized, and the sky-cleaning storms were slowly getting the upper hand.