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  “Is there enough light here on Mars? I would think there’d be less than there is on earth, and even though the graphene dome is fairly translucent, it must block some light.”

  “You’re right,” Carol said, “but fortunately we can use parabolic mirrors in near solar orbit to send large quantities of sunlight through small ports suspended at the top of the dome.”

  “That sounds problematic in its own right,” Rupert said. “Since radiation is a major problem here on Mars, won’t those ports be bringing in even more high energy solar particles?”

  “Oh, no. It’s hard to reflect high-energy particles and the parabolic mirrors don’t reflect it at all, so the ports really don’t get any dangerous radiation to transmit, only light.”

  “It sounds like you’ve got a pretty foolproof plan. Do you anticipate any problems?”

  Lindy shrugged, “There are a number of problems that might turn out to be almost insurmountable. Though we think the plan I just outlined would work, it would take an enormous number of ports to move enough carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water to Mars to make a significant change. Essentially, if we used 1 meter diameter ports, we’d need 100,000 of them running full time for about a decade to generate an atmosphere even close to the density of Earth’s. Those ports’d be drawing about six megawatts each, which is enough power to run a locomotive. We’ve all gotten used to electricity being very cheap now that ET Resources’ parabolic mirrors in solar orbit let us generate cheap steam energy. As opposed to on earth where we then use deep space cooling to refrigerate the steam to keep from heating the earth, we’d actually like to heat Mars, so we can bring water from Europa, heat it to steam, generate electricity with it and then just vent the steam into Mars’ atmosphere.” Lindy shook her head again, “Nonetheless, we’re talking an enormous commitment of resources over a very extended period of time to move such huge volumes of material. You can see why we really need to do some experiments to be sure that we can get our cyanobacteria to convert that CO2 and water into oxygen before we start down this path?”

  “Even if you do all that, isn’t Mars still going to be too cold and have too much radiation?”

  “Well, remember that the CO2 that’s going to be a huge component of the atmosphere early on is a greenhouse gas, so it should help warm up the planet. Even after we get the atmosphere up to an earthlike density, it’s going to take a long time for all that carbon dioxide to be converted to oxygen. However, you’re right to be concerned that it might not be sufficient to warm up the planet to a temperature that we’ll be happy with. We’re hoping to get a little data about the heating we might expect from this dome, but we won’t really know for sure until we do the tremendously expensive experiment of actually trying to terraform. You’re also correct that radiation will remain a problem. A thicker atmosphere will absorb a lot of radiation, but on earth we also count on the magnetosphere to deflect a lot of the radiation. Unfortunately, Mars isn’t magnetic. We think we’d still need to live underground most of the time, going up to the surface only occasionally.” Lindy shrugged, “It may be wishful thinking, but we can hope for some future technological advance that’ll let us block the radiation by other means.”

  It didn’t take much longer to finish up. Carol was impressed by how well Alton had managed to lead the interview, getting Carol to answer questions that he’d obviously known the answer to, while giving the listener the impression Alton was learning right along with them.

  ***

  Zage liked his new kindergarten teacher, Ms. Binder. She was plump, so he thought she was less likely to look down on him for being fat. He’d lost a little weight on his diet, but feared he’d never be thin. Besides, Ms. Binder seemed to have a permanently happy smile on her face and was able to control her classroom full of gifted but energetic five-year-olds without getting irritated.

  Nonetheless, even though almost every kid in the room could already read, they were going over the letters right now and Zage was bored out of his mind.

  With a quick sub-vocalization he popped a screen up in the HUD of his left contact. He’d been doing this in preschool and had gotten pretty good at keeping a sliver of concentration on what the teacher was talking about. If Ms. Binder asked him a question he’d still be able to answer it.

  Knowing of Zage’s interest in biologic solutions to big problems, Osprey, his AI, popped up a news story from Mars before Zage actually got around to directing a query. With fascination, Zage watched the description of the test dome they were using to evaluate the possibility of generating an atmosphere on Mars. He wasn’t sure why anyone would want to live underground on Mars, but he thought that just the idea of biologically generating an atmosphere on Mars from the plentitude of unwanted CO2 on Venus seemed pretty cool. He knew a lot of the space radiation on Mars came from the sun, so he wondered whether people on Mars could be out and around at night when the planet itself would be blocking the sun.

  Zage had never heard of a portal a meter in diameter. All the ones he’d seen or heard of had been pretty small, so he looked them up. To his surprise, he learned that the biggest one anyone had manufactured so far was one used to bring an astronaut back from Mars. Even that one wasn’t actually a meter in diameter. This brought him to looking up Portal Technologies, the company that made the ports.

  The hair stood up a little bit on the back of Zage’s neck when he learned from his reading that all the ports in the world were manufactured in North Carolina by Portal Technologies. They were manufactured there because they’d been invented by Ell Donsaii out at D5R! He’d known about her company ET Resources and their waldoes and space ventures, as well as Quantum Biomed and Allosci; he just hadn’t been aware that she also invented ports.

  Idly, Zage asked where Ell Donsaii lived, thinking it couldn’t be too far away. His AI brought up a map and pinpointed her residence on it. Zage hadn’t used maps very often, so it took him a minute to realize that she lived on the little farm immediately north of his home!

  Although his mom had taken Zage to school that morning, she was working that day so Amy picked Zage up from kindergarten and brought him back home. Zage immediately went upstairs and looked out the north window of his bedroom. He couldn’t see a house to the north because of the trees, but his AI diagrammatically projected Donsaii’s house right over the intervening trees in his HUD. At his request, the AI made the trees disappear and let him look at Donsaii’s house as if they weren’t even there.

  He couldn’t believe he lived so close to his hero.

  Zage had an online class so he couldn’t go right away, but he found it a little hard to concentrate on the class while he kept thinking about an excursion to see for himself.

  Amy looked up as Zage came down the stairs with his dog Tanner, “We’re going outside for a while,” he said. “Get some exercise.”

  Zage didn’t spend much time outdoors, which was probably why Amy looked a little surprised. Evidently she thought going out for a little exercise sounded like a good idea. She said, “Great! Playing outside’s really good for you. Do you want me to come along?”

  Zage shook his head, “No, we’re just going out for a little walk around. Chase some squirrels, see what else lives around here.”

  “Okay,” Amy said, watching them go out the kitchen door. She went back to what she’d been doing, but after a little bit she lifted her head thoughtfully and said to her AI, “Get me whoever’s on duty for the security team.”

  A moment later she heard Mary’s voice, “Amy, what’s up?”

  “Zage and Tanner went out for some exercise a few minutes ago. Be good for them, but I thought you guys should be aware.”

  There was a pause, evidently for Mary to check her screens, then she said, “Oh crap! He’s headed north.”

  Amy had expected the security people to be excited that Zage was out getting some exercise. Startled to get this response instead, Amy said, “Is that a problem?”

  “Normally it wouldn’t be,” Mary responded.
“Unfortunately, we’ve had a guy hanging around and watching Ell’s property for the past ten days or so. Today he’s been hanging out on the southern edge of the farm. At this moment he’s sitting in some brush just on your side of the property line. The kid’s headin’ pretty much right for him.”

  A little stab of apprehension shot through Amy. “You guys are just letting him sit there and watch?!”

  “There isn’t really a law against it,” Mary said in an unhappy tone. “We ran him off when he came on to Ell’s property a while back, but since then he’s been careful to stay on the neighbors’ side of the property lines.”

  “But he’s actually on Ell’s property right now too! The property where she actually lives!”

  “And if we go out there and hassle him for being on ‘Shan and Raquel’s’ property, it might tip him off to Ell’s other identity. We’ve just been keeping a close eye on him.” She sighed, “He claims he’s just there watching because he’s a fan and a reporter. If so, he should get bored and leave. We’re worried he might be there scouting for… something that’ll make us unhappy, but we don’t have any proof. Essentially, there’s not much we can do unless we decide we’re going to start taking the law in our own hands.”

  “What if Zage gets too close to this guy? Should I be trying to call him back?”

  Mary didn’t respond for a second and that gave Amy a spike of fear. When she came back on, she said, “Sorry, I’ve been activating the rest of the security team and letting Ell know what’s happening. Don’t call Zage back; we don’t want Zage to know that someone’s tracking his every move on GPS. Let’s just hope he stops before he gets far enough to run into this guy or that he wanders a little bit to one side or the other. If something happens, we’ll be all over it.” A moment later she said unhappily, “It looks like he’s on a straight line path to Ell’s house! I hope he’s not purposefully coming over for a visit.”

  Amy got her AI to tap into the security team’s feed so she could watch what was going on herself. When her HUD displayed a map of the area she initially wondered if she should be upset to realize that the purple “A” icon on the map represented Amy herself. Then she decided she was glad they knew where she was. She could see green icons for the three members of the security team that were stationed in one of the little outbuildings next to Ell’s farmhouse. More green icons were located in the security team’s houses just west of Ell’s farm, presumably the people who were off duty, but on call. A purple “E” icon at the upper right edge of the map indicated Ell was off the edge of the display as were the three green icons of the team following her that day. A purple “Z” icon representing Zage was heading north from the Kinrais’ house on a straight line towards Ell’s farmhouse.

  The glowing red “J” icon representing the intruder lay directly along Zage’s apparent path!

  Bored beyond belief, Jamieson had actually dozed off. He woke up when he heard a young boy’s voice behind him say, “This way Tanner.”

  Jamieson turned slowly so as not to catch anyone’s eye. A fat little blonde kid and a chocolate brown dog were making their way through the woods toward him. The canopy of the trees above had choked out enough light that there wasn’t a whole lot growing on the ground to block the kid’s path. However, the kid and dog were still having to climb over fallen trees and broken limbs as well as making their way around the trunks.

  The dog was panting and their feet made a lot of noise as they went through the deadfall. Jamieson felt a little bit embarrassed that he’d managed to doze through their approach until the kid had called out to the dog. When the boy got close, Jamieson thought, The kid looks kinda familiar. Despite the thought, Jamieson couldn’t think who the kid looked like. Jamieson didn’t know any kids. He wondered if it might have been a kid he knew when he was growing up. Or possibly the kid looked like some adult Jamieson knew?

  The dog rocketed off after a squirrel, barking madly. Now the kid was calling the dog again. They were making enough noise to wake the entire neighborhood! Well, maybe not. Jamieson shifted his eyes around, reminding himself that there weren’t really many houses here on the south side of Donsaii’s farm. Donsaii lived on close to twenty acres and the place just south of it where Jamieson was sitting must have something like 6 to 8 acres. Jamieson had walked along the border of that property to get to where he was set up today, but hadn’t paid much attention to the house on it. The kid was traveling on what looked like a straight line from that house, so Jamieson wondered if he was staked out on the kid’s parents’ place.

  Without noticing Jamieson in his camo, the kid went by close enough that Jamieson almost could’ve reached out and touched him. Jamieson felt disgusted by how chubby the kid was. If I ever have a kid that packs on the pounds like that one, you can bet I’ll put him on a diet and exercise program! The kid kept walking right across the border and onto Donsaii’s property. I’d teach him a little situational awareness too. No kid of mine would walk right past someone, even if they were camouflaged.

  Jamieson hunkered down to watch with interest what Jacob’s security team was going to do about this oblivious kid rambling onto Donsaii’s property.

  Nothing happened until the kid was almost to Donsaii’s house. Then one of the female members of the security team stepped out of the team’s little outbuilding and walked over to the kid and his dog. The kid didn’t shy away. The guard squatted down, presumably so she wouldn’t look threatening, and said something to the kid.

  As Mary squatted down next to Zage she did her best not to look over to where Jamieson was hiding. She positioned her head directly on the opposite side of Zage’s from Jamieson and spoke quietly, “Hi, you live over there?” She made a little chin lift toward the Kinrais’ house to the south.

  Zage glanced back over his shoulder, then said, “Yeah. Is this Ell Donsaii’s house?”

  Mary nodded, “Yeah, she’s not home right now though.”

  “Are you a guard?”

  “Uh-huh, but we’re mostly here to protect against grown-ups who might be here doing something they shouldn’t be. Since Dr. Donsaii’s not here, she wouldn’t mind if I took you inside for a cookie and a glass of milk. Would you like that?”

  Zage nodded. Mary stood, again resisting the strong temptation to look at Jamieson’s little hide. She and Zage walked over to the porch, up the steps, and after Allan had unlocked the door, they went inside. She heard Steve’s voice in her ear over her AI, “Mary! What the hell are you doing?!”

  She walked Zage over to the little breakfast table and seated him, saying, “Just a minute while I go find the cookies.” She headed for the kitchen, leaving the kid sitting there looking around wide-eyed. Mary thought he looked a little disappointed at the ordinary furnishings of the farmhouse. Once she’d put a little distance between herself and Zage, she sub-vocalized to Steve, “Bringing the kid in for milk and cookies. We don’t want him thinking Ell’s a jerk!”

  “We don’t want him stopping by to shoot the shit anytime he feels like it either!”

  “Relax Steve. Before he leaves, I’ll make sure he understands that we can’t have him coming here all the time.”

  “Okay,” Steve said doubtfully.

  Mary’d been rummaging around in the kitchen, hoping to find some home-baked cookies, but not having any luck. She realized the likelihood of a single girl like Bridget making cookies and keeping them in a jar had to be low. Eventually she found some milk in the fridge and an open bag of Pepperidge Farm Mint Milano’s in a cupboard. She headed back out to where Zage was sitting. She poured him a glass of the milk, then looked at the date on the bottom of the bag of cookies. “Oh-oh, these cookies are pretty old. I’m afraid they’re going to be stale.” Great Mary, way to over promise and under deliver! she thought to herself.

  “That’s okay.” Zage said wistfully, “I shouldn’t be eating cookies anyway.” He looked at the glass of milk from which he’d had a few sips. “Really, I shouldn’t drink all of this either. I hope you won�
�t think I’m rude.”

  Mary blinked, startled by the concept of a child turning down a cookie, even if it was stale. She’d known the kid was supposed to be on a diet, but considering that he was still pretty heavy, she’d thought it was something the adults talked about but the kid didn’t follow. In any case, she decided she certainly shouldn’t encourage him to drink more milk or try one of the stale cookies. Instead, she said, “I hope you understand that an awful lot of people try to come see Dr. Donsaii here?”

  Zage nodded, a serious look on his face.

  “We don’t let adults even get onto the property, ‘cause some adults… they don’t mean well.”

  Zage said, “You mean, they might do… bad things?”

  Mary nodded, “So I’m making an exception today ‘cause you’re a kid, and a neighbor, and Dr. Donsaii’s not home. But… well, we really can’t have you coming over or bringing your friends.”

  The kid looked sad, but not belligerent. “I understand,” he said, pushing the glass of milk away. “I probably should go.”

  Once she had Zage and his dog back outside, Mary found herself really wanting to do more. After all, she’d been around Zage since the night he was born. She thought of him as family, even though she’d pretty much stayed out of his sight since a little after he’d turned one. “Would you like me to take you on a little tour of the grounds here?”

  “No thanks,” he said, disappointment evident in his voice. “Tanner and I’ll just head back home, I guess.”

  The kid turned around and started walking back towards Jamieson. Mary watched him go, wishing she could do more for Zage and wondering what Jamieson thought of this whole incident. Hopefully he thought they were just being friendly to the neighbor kid.