“And Nadia,” Maya said, and her throat tightened; Nadia would have been ashamed of her if she had seen her at that meeting, and that hurt. She needed Nadia, the only person on Mars whose judgment she still trusted.

“There’s something odd going on with the atmosphere,” Spencer complained to Michel as they changed trams. “I really want to hear what Sax has to say about it. Oxygen levels are rising faster than I would have expected, especially on north Tharsis. It’s like some really successful bacteria has been distributed without any suicide genes in it. Sax has basically reassembled his old Echus Overlook team, everyone still alive, and they’ve been working at Acheron and Da Vinci on projects they’re not telling us about. It’s like those damn windmill heaters. So I want to talk to him. We have to get together on this, or else—”

“Or else sixty-one!” Maya insisted.

“I know, I know. You’re right about that, Maya, I mean I agree. I hope enough of the rest of us do.”

“We’re going to have to do more than hope.”

Which meant she was going to have to get out there and do it herself. Go fully underground, move from city to city, from safe house to safe house as Nirgal had been doing for years, without a job or a home, meeting with as many of the revolutionary cells as she could, trying to hold them on board. Or at least keep them from popping off too soon. Working on the Hellas Sea project wasn’t going to be possible anymore.