“Is there any way you can stop that?” Carter asked, nodding toward the blood that dripped profusely from Lamont’s mustache. “This is a company car.”

  “Yeah?” Asked Lamont, holding the inside of his coat against his nose. “What company?”

  “The Company,” Carter answered simply.

  “You still work for them!” Lamont realized.

  “I still work,” Carter acknowledged.

  Moments earlier, Lamont had managed to crawl into the low-slung vehicle with the three agents nearly upon him. As Carter accelerated away, they had watched the men level their weapons in the direction of the car, but thankfully they had not fired. Carter was now guiding them at a faster than advisable speed to the travel lanes on the outside edge of the cavernous settlement.

  “I’m grateful, mate.” Lamont said, sniffing. “What brought you back?”

  “I’ve read enough spy stories to know when someone is being tailed,” Carter replied with the smallest hint of a smile on his wide lips. “When I got home, it occurred to me that I should check on you. Who are those men?”

  “They claimed to be policemen,” Lamont scoffed.

  “Hell,” Carter grunted, flinching.

  “Claimed is the operative word, mate,” Lamont assured him. “It was a ruse to capture me while we were in public. They babbled some nonsense about my wife, but if they’d taken me in for questioning, no one would ever see me again, I bloody guarantee it.”

  “Why is that?” Carter asked.

  Lamont smiled grimly. “Because I’ve already escaped from them once, which no one else has ever done.”

  “Ah,” said Carter, but his expression was inscrutable.

  Lamont felt the need to make his case more strongly. “They’ve been leaving clues that they were coming back for me. Things about my time in the East that weren’t in the book, things only they would know. When they started talking about Liza, I knew for sure it was them. She’s how they like to get to me.” He paused, then added, “I came to Hellas to see if I could flush them out.”

  “You’ll excuse me if I don’t find your certainty infectious,” Carter replied tensely.

  “Easy, mate. It’s a simple matter to prove that their claims were false. All I need to do is make a phone call.”

  “You’d better make it, then,” Carter ordered. He extended a hand to the dashboard of the car, which was aglow with a complex grid of buttons, switches and indicators. By far the most advanced console Lamont had ever seen in a ground car, it looked more like the cockpit of a flying vehicle. Carter flipped a toggle upward, and a red indicator lit up beside a rectangle of copper-colored mesh.

  “Operator,” a calm female voice emitted from the small speaker. “Please state your destination.”

  Carter nodded toward Lamont, who cleared his throat and leaned forward. “Long distance collect to Earth. Chestershire one-three-nine.”

  “That call will take—” There was a momentary pause. “—Thirteen minutes, fifty-eight seconds. Would you like to proceed with a message?”

  “Yes,” Lamont replied. “And then I’d like to make a second call.”

  “Very well,” replied the operator, a hint of skepticism creeping into her formal tone. “Please state your message when ready.”

  Lamont took a deep breath, glancing at Carter, who’s eyes were fixed pointedly on the tunnel through which they were now gliding. “Hello, love, it’s me.” He dictated, his throat dry. “I heard something today that got me a little worried about you. Please let me know that you’re alright. Transmit.”

  “Your message is being transmitted,” answered the operator a moment later. “What is your second destination?”

  “London, five-five-three.”

  “Earth again?” Asked the operator, somewhat incredulously.

  “Yes, the bloody planet Earth!” Lamont snapped. Carter glanced at him, raising a brow.

  There was a brief silence from the speaker before the operator’s voice came through again. “I’m sorry, sir,” She said evenly, “But that address doesn’t register in our system. Can you please check it?”

  “What?” Lamont exclaimed, flustered. “I want to reach Harry Rowan at the Atlantic Free Press, London.”

  Another pause. “We have a connection for that,” The operator confirmed. “You may state your message when ready.”

  Sighing with relief, Lamont said: “Lamont Townsend, high priority for Harry Rowan. Harry, there’s skullduggery afoot. I need you to message back with a status update. Also, please confirm the last time you spoke with Liza. Got that? The last time you saw or spoke to Elizabeth. Thanks, mate. Transmit.”

  “Your message has been transmitted,” The operator confirmed. “Will there be anything else?”

  “No, nothing else,” Lamont exhaled, sitting back.

  “Very well,” the operator replied. “Please remain near your telephone to await responses.”

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Finally, Carter asked: “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine,” Lamont said, glancing straightening his back, which had become increasingly hunched over the course of his task. He looked out through the transparent canopy of the car; they were gliding swiftly and frictionlessly through a long, featureless tunnel, unmarked except for green bands of light. They flickered overhead at regular intervals that suggested a frightening speed. “Say, where are we headed?” He asked.

  “We’ve got some time to kill,” Carter replied evasively. “Why don’t you tell me about Phobos?”

  “Oh, that.” Lamont’s tone was dismissive. “I just wanted to see if it would catch your attention.”

  Carter sighed. “Let’s assume for the sake of argument that it did. Why would it?”

  “There are rumors,” The newspaperman conceded, “Among some of the ‘69ers. To the effect that when you went off by yourself on the first day of the expedition, you didn’t come back alone.”

  “Do you believe them?” Carter asked, looking ahead at the road. The tunnel had opened up; they were now traveling along what looked like a broad highway. Overhead loomed a vaulted canopy of Martian architecture, made up of colossal columns that bloomed at the tops into a network that resembled great interconnected fronds. Every so often, Carter would overtake another private car, passing it easily on the wide road.

  “It ain’t my job to believe anything,” Lamont sniffed, folding his arms. “I just follow the facts. The facts that everybody agrees on are that you disappeared by yourself into the mountains of Mars, for three weeks, with three hours’ worth of air. And that when you did return, you kept largely to yourself for the remainder of the initial expedition, despite being officially in charge of it.”

  “I wasn’t in charge of the colonization,” Carter corrected him. There was an edge in his voice. “I was merely at the head of it. If it had been possible, I would have returned here, at the appointed time, by myself.” The last words were all but hissed. After a pause, he added: “But I—lacked the resources. The only way I could convince the company to bring me back was with a colonization party behind me.”

  “What do you mean by, ‘At the appointed time?’” Lamont asked, straightening.

  Carter’s jaw tightened. “We think of Mars as a graveyard, a corpse. We come here to inhabit the carcass, make our home in it, feed off its resources. Behold, the conqueror worm. But Mars isn’t dead. Look anywhere and you’ll see that she’s still very much alive. Her heart beats, her nerves pulse with energy. And she remembers. She remembers more than we can ever grasp or imagine. She even remembers us.”

  “Go on,” Lamont urged.

  “I was born five years before Epiphany. In ‘47, when the Axis mounted its invasion of the East Coast, my family fled westward. We ended up in Utah. I don’t remember any of that, really, but I remember the sky. My earliest memories are of gazing out at the stars, seeing the brilliant red eye of Mars. The feeling of knowing and being known. When the sky turned red, I knew that my life would be spent finding a way to see her again. And when I did, I knew with absolute certainty that she would welcome me.”

  Lamont listened intently, astonished. Francis Carter was a bachelor and a recluse, portrayed in the media as a cold and scientific mind. Now he was realizing that this enigmatic astronaut was in fact a poet and a romantic. “You speak of Mars like a lover,” he suggested.

  Carter frowned, shaking his head quickly as if he found the thought repulsive. “A mother. Mars is our mother. From the very beginning, she’s watched over us, nursed us, guided us to survive and flourish. Do you want proof of that? Fifty years ago, we all but annihilated ourselves. And when we came to Mars for refuge, she opened her arms to us. She gives us everything we need to keep moving forward. She even gave us--”

  He paused, clamping his lips tightly.

  “Gave us what?” Lamont prodded, staring at the older man intently.

  Carter’s mouth widened into something of a forlorn smile. “I like to think of him as a brother. A big brother.”

  Just then, an electronic beep emanated from the car’s console. Lamont cursed the timing, hardly caring anymore about the precariousness of his situation as Carter blinked and absently toggled the speaker on again.

  “This is the operator,” came the calm, female voice. “Are you still on the line?”

  “I’m still here,” Lamont answered, leaning toward the speaker.

  “I’m sorry,” the operator continued, “But your collect call to Chestershire one-three-nine was not accepted.”

  “Not accepted?” Lamont exclaimed, glancing nervously at Francis. “Why not?”

  “I’m sure I can’t say,” replied the operator evenly.

  “Well, did you give her the message?”

  “He—the party at that address would have had to accept the charges to receive the message. As I’ve said—”

  Lamont interrupted. “Did you say, ‘He?’ Was it a man?”

  There was an audible hesitation as the operator doubtlessly realized her mistake. “I can’t say, sir.”

  “The hell you can’t!” Lamont shouted, ignoring a scornful look from the driver. “Saying things is your bloody job!”

  A sound like a sniffle came from the speaker. Then the operator said, “Sir, your second call was accepted and a response is coming through. Would you like to hear it?”

  Lamont passed a hand over his mouth and then, automatically, into his coat pocket to feel the reassuring comfort of his tape recorder. He switched it on, mentally kicking himself for not having done so earlier. “Yes,” he answered. “Go ahead.”

  There was a clicking sound, and the familiar voice of Harry Rowan piped from the console, but tinged with a slur. “Monty, old bean. It’s been ages. Some ministry men came asking after you. I said, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ I suppose they’re hoping you’ll write a sequel. Anyhow, take care of yourself. Ishkabibble.”

  There was silence.

  “Operator?” Lamont asked. “Is there more?”

  “That’s the message, sir.” The operator replied.

  “Did he mention Elizabeth?” Lamont persisted, a note of desperation creeping into his voice.

  “I played the message, sir,” The operator insisted. “Would you like to hear it again?”

  Lamont sat back, covering his eyes. “No. No, that’s all, thanks.”

  “Very well. Goodbye, and thank you for using Intersol Communications.”

  A flat buzz floated from the speaker until Carter switched the telephone off again. He glanced at his passenger, who appeared to have deflated to half his previous size. “Your editor doesn’t appear to be in possession of his faculties,” he observed.

  Lamont shook his head. “The message was perfectly clear. I’m on my own.”

  “What are you going to do?” Francis asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lamont admitted. Reaching into his pocket again, he switched off his tape recorder, mechanically pulling out his cigarette case at the same time. He flipped it open, thoughtfully examining the neatly rolled paper inside. By habit, his thumb covered the cigarette at the end of the case. His thoughts raced.

  “If you really are wanted by your government, I’m making a serious mistake by helping you,” Carter reflected, gripping the wheel tightly.

  “What if I’m right?” Lamont challenged him. “What if they’re not from my government, or any other in the West?”

  “I find that idea to be fantastic,” Carter persisted.

  Lamont snapped the cigarette case closed, his eyes narrowing with resolve. “Just because something is fantastic doesn’t mean it’s fictional. Take Phobos, for example.”

  Carter looked at him suspiciously. “Even if you manage to get out of this and find a publisher, who’s going to take that seriously? The tabloids?”

  “It might not stand on its own,” Lamont admitted. “But what if I write about Escherspace? Or NOD? What if I write about Westward? Let’s say that the East is after me—do you think they might be interested in those?”

  Visibly startled, Carter jerked the wheel to the side, pulling the car to the edge of the highway and bringing it to a jarring stop. “What the devil are you doing?” He demanded.

  Lamont licked his dry lips. “The only thing I can. I’m going to tell you what I know. And you’re going to realize that it’s a very bad idea to let me out of your sight.”