Lamont awoke the next morning and rolled from his cot with a headache and Madison’s question still ringing in his ears. “What’s the point of that?” He asked himself as he shaved three day’s growth of beard from his chin. He imagined the radio station orbiting that distant, frozen world, pointing out into the interstellar void. There were radio relay stations throughout the Solar system, built to capture and boost signals from vessels traveling among the planets. The stations could improve the quality of communications, but not the speed. Here on Mars, a radio signal took five to fifteen minutes to reach Earth, depending on the orbits. Out by Neptune, it had to take several hours, and that was at the speed of light. The fastest fusion rockets would take something like three or four months to get out that far. Lamont found himself unable to think of a reason why humans would venture to the outer edges of the system, where the Sun looked practically like any other star, frequently enough to warrant a relay station. Some scientific purpose, perhaps. After all, it was common knowledge that at least half of United Space’s budget—being, for lack of a better term, astronomical—was devoted to scientific research and development. Nevertheless, there had been a pattern emerging during his time spent turning over rocks on Mars, and this new detail from his neighbor seemed to reinforce it.
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Lamont admonished his reflection in the grimy mirror of his medicine cabinet.
Lamont made careful note of the state of his apartment before leaving. He filed away his loose papers and straightened up his furniture. He washed his dishes and placed them on the drying rack in a specific order. He refilled his cigarette case and counted the number of cigarettes remaining in their package. On his way out, he locked the door slowly and consciously. If anyone tampered with the place during his absence, he would be sure of it.
His plan for the day took him to the shuttle terminal. He would be leaving the relative obscurity of Cerebus for the thriving commercial center that was Hellas. Common knowledge was that Mars contained some 300 million Western occupants as of January of 1997, and nearly a fifth of them resided in Hellas city or its suburbs. There were also a few tourist attractions.
The shuttle system was largely automated and ran like clockwork, connecting every Western settlement with a network of tubes that, like nearly everything else in the planet, were built into the preexisting infrastructure. Comparatively few of the residents of Cerebus 77 had reason to leave the district once they had settled at its bottom, and Lamont boarded the old chrome-detailed connection shuttle with only six other people. During the ride, he carefully memorized each of their features.
The connection shuttle brought him to the much more crowded central terminal of the Cerberus colony. He stepped out of the sliding doors of the car to be met with a bustling crowd of morning commuters. Office workers in black and blue suits traveled in flocks that passed conscientiously around brown and orange-clad packs of industrial workers with lunch boxes and thermoses tucked under their burly arms. While in much better repair than the district from which he had come, the terminal of Cerberus District One still reflected the mixture of bare utilitarianism and stylistic nostalgia peculiar to Mars’ first wave of mass colonization. The domed ceiling high overhead revealed nothing of whatever native structures to which it may have been anchored. Twelve elegant archways of reddish, riveted Martian steel formed a vault in the center of the dome. Between them were set copper-set portraits of scientists and innovators: Sir Isaac Newton, Nichola Tesla, Abraham Schultz and the like.
Lamont purchased a ticket at the automated kiosk and made his way to the Hellas tunnel. The sleek, modern train that waited there to onboard passengers contrasted starkly with the gilded decor of the older terminal. The newspaperman settled into the back of an empty car at the end of the train. He unfolded a newspaper and peered over its edge at the dozens of passengers that filed on after him. His back straightened involuntarily when he observed a man climbing into the nearly full car several minutes later. He was small-framed with high cheekbones, dressed inconspicuously in a neat black suit. Lamont felt certain that the same man had been on the train from District 77. The man bore a neutral expression, and his eyes never made an obvious effort to scan the car before he took his seat and opened his own copy of The Martian Chronicle. After all, why would he? It was now too full of commuters for Lamont to exit without making a scene. He set his jaw and waited patiently as the doors closed with the hiss of a sealing airlock. The train began to move, gliding smoothly into the dark tunnels of Mars. His plan already seemed to be working.
Next: Circles of Hellas