Taxonomy wasn’t Talina’s concern as she piloted her way west-northwest from Port Authority. Rather, it was Liz Baranski, a wizened and salty forty-year-old miner who’d made a strike at the foot of the Blood Hills. Liz was one of the few Wild Ones—as the free-roaming prospectors were called—who was female. For whatever reason, Liz wanted little to do with people. She preferred the bush with all of its dangers and seemed to revel in the solitude of Donovan’s wild country. A little over six months ago, Liz had barged into Yvette Dushane’s office in the admin dome, slammed a fifteen-hundred-carat uncut diamond onto Yvette’s desk, and declared, “That’s one of the little ones. I’m staking my claim.”

The last anyone had heard from her, Liz had caged a ride into town from Stepan Allenovich, dropped a twenty-kilo canvas sack full of uncut stones for safe keeping with Shig Mosadek, traded for ammunition, tools, and two months’ worth of dried vegetables, and headed back to her claim. That had been three months ago.

Not a word had been heard since.

That morning, Shig had collared Talina over breakfast, asking, “Could you run out to Liz’s claim? Two Spot tried to raise her on the radio and has heard nothing. She’s overdue.”

So here Talina was, cruising along under a partly cloudy sky, wary eyes on the lookout for mobbers, headed for the low headlands where the Blood Mountains thrust up from the crater bottom. The range got its name from ocher-colored mantle rock and ruddy magma released from deep within Donovan. A big metal-rich rock had hit the planet more than a million years ago. The force of the impact had squirted magma and buried strata from the depths; the rich olivine deposits that resulted were rife with diamonds. It was in one of these kimberlite concentrations that Liz had found her jackpot. The wealth was exposed where a drainage had eroded down through uplifted strata.

A herd of chamois broke from beneath Talina’s aircar, the fleet creatures bolting in all directions, racing ahead of her, dodging, leaping, and darting between the trees. In their flight, they spooked a flock of scarlet fliers that rose around her aircar, flitting and whizzing on their agile crimson wings. Talina enjoyed the whistling shrieks as the flying creatures vanished back into the trees as rapidly as they’d appeared. The quetzal part of her went into hunt mode, raising her heart level, pulsing in her blood.

“Easy,” she said. “No hunting today.”

Her phantom, the one called Rocket that rode on her shoulder, whispered, “Yes” just behind her ear. Demon, down behind her stomach, hissed his disappointment. She was surprised to hear from either one. Both were being abnormally quiet. Flying bothered her quetzals. Made them nervous. And, for the most part, left her in peace.