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  “You want a bunch of cons to go to Mars? And build a prison? And then stay there?”

  Mark wiped his hands on his suit trousers, a luxury that Frank didn’t have. “It’s not designated as a prison, but as a federal scientific facility. Let me explain, in order. A convict crew will be sent to Mars. Once there, they will construct a base from prefabricated parts and make it habitable. When the facility is finished, the crew will continue to live on Mars and serve out the rest of their sentences, helping to maintain the facility, expanding it as and when required, and assisting visiting civilian scientists in their work. That the facility will also be your prison is, I suppose, a somewhat technical detail. But as I’ve already explained, there’ll be nowhere to escape to.”

  Frank nodded slowly to himself as he digested the information.

  “You haven’t rejected the idea out of hand,” said Mark.

  “Just give me a minute. I’m thinking.”

  Once the insanity had been stripped away, it was actually a straightforward offer: die in prison or live on Mars. He was never getting out of this penitentiary alive: he’d been sentenced to a hundred and twenty years for shooting a man in the face, in broad daylight, in front of a crowd of witnesses. Only the fact that he could prove that the dead man was his son’s dealer saved him from going down for murder in the first, and onto death row.

  He hadn’t contested the charges. He hadn’t spoken in his own defense. He’d taken what was coming, and he was still taking it. By mutual consent, his wife and his son had disappeared after the trial and they’d both moved a very long way away. Bad people, like the associates of the man he’d killed, had long memories, and longer reaches. No one had ever contacted him subsequently, and he’d never tried to contact anyone either. No, tell a lie: he’d had one message, maybe a year into his sentence. Divorce papers, served out of a New Hampshire attorney’s office. He’d signed them without hesitation and handed them back to the notary.

  There was literally nothing for him here on Earth but to die, unremembered and unremarked on.

  But Mars?

  He’d heard the news about the plans for a permanent Mars base, back when he was a free man, but he couldn’t honestly say he’d paid much attention to it: he’d been in the middle of hell by then, trying to do the best thing for his family, and failing. And afterwards? Well, it hadn’t really mattered, had it? Someone was putting a base on Mars. Good for them.

  He hadn’t thought for the smallest fraction of a moment of a second that it might include him.

  Now, that would be a legacy worth leaving. Somewhere, his son was grown up, hopefully living his life, hopefully doing whatever he was doing well. He’d been given a second chance by Frank, who had loved him more than life itself, even if he’d had a strange way of showing it.

  Did the boy think about his father? At all? What would it be like for him to suddenly discover that his old man was an astronaut, and not a jailbird? “This is the big Mars base, right?” Frank asked. “The one they announced a few years back?”

  “Mars Base One. Yes.”

  “That’s … interesting. But why would you pick cons? Why wouldn’t you pick the brightest and the best and let them be the goddamn heroes? Or did you already throw this open to the outside world, and there weren’t enough young, fit, intelligent people with college educations and no rap sheet beating down your doors for an opportunity like this. Is that it? You’re desperate?”

  Mark stroked his top lip. “It’s because, while the company wants to minimize the risks involved, it can’t completely eliminate them. And when a young, fit, intelligent person with a college degree dies, the publicity is terrible. Which is why they’ve offered you this opportunity instead. There’s also the need to prove that this isn’t just for the very brightest. Antarctic bases need plumbers and electricians and cooks. Mars bases will too. The company wants to show the world that, with the right training, anyone can go.”

  Frank hunched forward. “But couldn’t you just hire the right people?”

  “Frank, I’m going to level with you. Arranging a big spaceship, that costs a lot of money and time to build, which will take people out there, and will also bring them home? That isn’t a priority right now. As it stands, the company get something out of this, and you get something out of this. They get their base built, quickly and yes, cheaply. You get to spend the rest of your life doing something worthwhile that’ll benefit the whole human race, rather than rotting to death in here. Quid pro quo. A fair exchange.”

  Frank nodded again. It made some sort of sense. “OK, I get that you don’t want the pretty people dying up there, but just how dangerous is this going to be?”

  “Space is a dangerous place,” said Mark. “People have died in the past. People will die in the future. Accidents happen. Space can, so I’m told, kill you in a very great number of different ways. We don’t know what your life expectancy on Mars will be. We’ve no data. It may well be attenuated by a combination of environmental factors, which you’ll learn about in your training. But you’ll be able to minimize the risks and increase your chances of survival greatly by following some fairly straightforward rules. Whereas the average life expectancy behind bars is fifty-eight. You’re currently fifty-one. You can do the math.”

  “Mars.”

  “Yes, Mars.”

  Frank poised the tip of his tongue between his teeth, and bit lightly. He could feel himself on the threshold of pain, and that was the closest he ever got these days to feeling anything. But to feel pride again? Achievement? To think that his son would be able to look up into the night sky and say, “There he is. That’s where my father is.”

  Were those good enough reasons? He wouldn’t be coming back: then again, he wasn’t really here either. It’d be a second chance for him, too.

  “Where do I sign?”

  2

  From: Bruno Tiller

  To: Xavier Hildestrom

  Date: Fri, April 29 2039 15:35:02 +1000

  Subject: Big news

  Xavier,

  Just a note to say how much of a pleasure it was to meet you and the rest of the gang down at Gold Hill. You’ve got some fantastic facilities to play with down there, and the views are incredible! You’re so lucky to be there, and while I realize that you’ve been plenty busy, I know how much of a wrench it must be for you to be away from Maria.

  As you know, Paul’s now put me personally in charge of all aspects of the project, and we’re moving on to the next exciting phase. You’ve excelled at everything you’ve done so far, and I think it’s high time you got your reward. There’s a position back here in Denver I need someone of your caliber to fill—no one else will do. What’s more, I want you to bring your whole senior team with you.

  That’s right: you’re all coming back to the Mile High City! I’m going to oversee your replacements at Gold Hill, and we can have a smooth transition in, say, end of July? I can’t tell you how jazzed I am at the prospect of having you back here at XO HQ. And you are going to love your new project. Trust me. It’s a doozy.

  Bruno

  It had taken all day. Ten hours in an unadapted minivan, with him sitting in the back seat, handcuffed but otherwise free to move around, just one man in with him to nominally drive—once out of the prison gates, the autopilot had dealt with most of that—and frequent stops for him to use the restroom or just stretch his legs, and be asked what he wanted to eat.

  Tosh, the driver, wasn’t even armed. He was just a guy who punched buttons on the dash and sat behind the wheel in case something happened that the car couldn’t cope with. Most states had done away with that requirement. Not California.

  The men in the other two cars were armed, though. The black SUVs went in front and behind in a linked convoy, always pulling in and driving off in a synchronized ballet of speed and direction. Tosh had warned him that if Frank had it in mind to jump him and try to redirect the car, he’d be rammed off the road, dragged out, a
nd unceremoniously shot in a ditch. Otherwise, Tosh was good enough company. He knew when to speak, and he knew when to shut up.

  Once they’d left the prison behind and crossed the bay on the snaking, uppy-downy Richmond Bridge, they’d headed east, into the mountains, where there was still snow piled up by the sides of the roads from plowing. The blue sky of the coast, with its salt smell and warm breezes, was exchanged for low cloud and a gaspy, blustering wind.

  Frank watched the landscape slip by. The cars, the houses, the side-roads—especially those, because he was left perpetually wondering what lay along them. He’d never know. This was the free world, just outside the tinted windows of the minivan. He could reach up and open the door and throw himself out into it. Or, if the van had central locking, his window was electric and he had the controls; he could probably squeeze through it, though he’d end up head first over the roadway. If he’d wanted to kill himself, there’d been opportunities before, and he hadn’t taken them. No reason to get fixated on it now. Plus, assuming he survived the fall, he’d be shot for his efforts.

  And it was the built environment that held his attention, not the rolls and folds of the land. He was disappointed that not much had changed since he’d gone inside. He supposed it hadn’t been that long, objectively. It had just felt like it: prison had started as a novel experience, then had blurred into an endless rhythm of incarceration. Next to him on the seat was a brown cardboard box, containing the few items he’d salvaged from his former life that time, other prisoners and vindictive guards hadn’t whittled away. He didn’t open it on the journey, not once; he knew everything that was inside it. But he did touch it every so often to make sure it was still there.

  The road had started to rise at Roseville, flattened out briefly at Reno, then wound its way along cold, high river beds between the ridges. The sky cleared once more, and long ribbons of cloud tore themselves out above the gray-brown earth. At some point, trees made a comeback, and the road tilted gently downwards.

  The I-80 was bounded by extraordinary areas of just nothing, punctuated by places that appeared to have little reason to exist, except to serve the travelers along the road and the few people who lived in the hinterland.

  And he was going—hoped to go, intended to go—to a place that, even with his presence, would be essentially uninhabited.

  They stopped for the last time at a tiny rest area placed at the highest point on a pass. It was late in the afternoon, but the air was cold. Frank’s shirt wasn’t enough, and Tosh had simply draped his own coat over Frank’s shoulders before he escorted him to the john. The other two cars in their convoy had pulled over together, a little way away. A man stood by one of them, mirror shades glinting, watching them make their way towards the neat wooden building where the stalls were.

  As before, Tosh didn’t go in with him, didn’t harass him to hurry or denigrate him in any way. While Frank went in and did his business, he just sat down on a white concrete wall outside and took in the scenery. There wasn’t much to look at: the road and its sparse traffic, the communications tower on one of the adjacent peaks. A narrow glimpse into the valley beyond and the valley behind. Drifts of shrinking white snow.

  It wasn’t a taste of freedom. What Mark had told Frank all still held: no reprieve, no parole, no license. His cuffed wrists were an honest reminder of that. But he could get used to being treated like a human being once again. That wouldn’t grow old.

  He washed his hands in the cold water, and splashed some on his face. His skin felt waxy, preserved, like he’d been dipped in chemicals. He scrubbed harder, using his nails, and it took effort to stop before he clawed himself raw. There were a lot of feelings hanging in the air around him. He’d better keep them in check, or he’d find himself heading back this way.

  He dried his hands as best he could, and unlocked the door to the outside. Two of the men from the convoy were talking with Tosh, but the moment he emerged, they separated from him and stood well back.

  Frank walked straight back to the minivan and leaned against it. Tosh, approaching, used his key fob to unlock the doors.

  “Your friends seem to think I’m contagious,” said Frank.

  “It’s SOP,” said Tosh. “Nothing personal. They figure if they’re far enough away, they can draw, aim and shoot in the time it takes for you to rush them.”

  “You could just chain me, or fit me with a shock collar. That’d work too.”

  “It’s also a lot more work for us. You’re a straight-up kind of guy. I trust you, at least as far as this is concerned anyway.” He opened the door for Frank, and lifted his coat off Frank’s back as he got in. He waited for him to be seated. “Less than an hour now.”

  “Thanks, Tosh.”

  “My pleasure.”

  They started off again, the three vehicles falling into line, still on the I-80, but angling south-east. They crossed the flat land, and just as they were approaching the Utah state line, they left the freeway.

  Then it was south, bordering the luminous salt flats, and up into yet another line of hills, going deeper into the wilderness.

  Frank watched the scrubland slide past. The only indication that they were going somewhere was that the road was broad and smooth, freshly tarmacked and well maintained. This wasn’t some dirt track in the wilds, marked out by two tire tracks.

  There was nothing outside but bleakness. That, it had by the spadeful. And just when it didn’t look like anyone but the damn fool roadlayers had ever headed that way before, they rounded a corner on a small town. Identikit prefab housing was stacked up in neat, ordered rows, and there were people out on the slush-colored concrete, walking between buildings. Lights were on in the small, square windows.

  “Is this it?” asked Frank.

  Tosh consulted the satnav. “Zero point two miles to go. So it looks that way. This is where I leave you. Where you end up is a different thing.”

  The convoy drove into the town, and flawlessly came to a halt in front of an anonymous impermanent structure. No one got out.

  Just as the journey had started with a single phone call—Tosh had it on speaker, so that Frank could just hear the word “acknowledged”—so it ended with a repeat. The driver dialed a number, and told the soft breathing at the other end they were at their destination. “Acknowledged,” was all that was said again in response.

  Both SUVs stopped so close they effectively blocked the minivan in. People walked by, close enough to touch, men and women. Frank hadn’t seen that much of women the last few years. It was difficult for him to tell if his perception of them had been recalibrated, but rather than finding them all clichédly beautiful, he discovered from the few minutes he was waiting there that the more feminine they looked, the more alien they were to him.

  Nothing stirred. Not even his emotions. He frowned at himself, and looked out of the other window, across the street. The population could be roughly divided in three: the suits, the casuals and the overalls. Assuming this was a company town, then the casuals would be off-shift. The overalls would, depending on the nature of the work, do one of as many as three shifts. And the suits? They’d have it easy, as those in suits usually did. Get up, go to work, come home, kick back.

  So where did a bunch of astronauts fit into all that?

  Frank was blue collar. Proudly, unashamedly blue collar. He guessed he’d be with the overalls. They were going to work him like a dog, getting him up to speed on all the stuff he needed to know. And all the other things they had to do in order to get that prison pallor off him. Food with actual nutrients in. Sunlight. Exercise other than lifting weights or doing circuits.

  How long did it take to train an astronaut? A year, Mark had said. He didn’t know if that would be enough, even though he wouldn’t be doing any of the flying-the-spaceship heroics. For him, the actual astronaut bit would be, what? Zero gravity? Maintaining the electrical systems and the pipework? A spaceship was just a complicated, compact building, with a big motor at one end, right? Spacesuit
wearing, too. Mars had an atmosphere, though the guys he’d seen on the prison television kicking up the red dust were all wearing spacesuits.

  They wanted him for the skills he already possessed. Using machinery to build buildings. Frank told himself not to overthink it. See what the job was, work out a schedule, assign the team, get the work done. Pretty much what he’d done his entire adult life.

  There was a knock on the window, right next to his head. He didn’t jump, just looked round to see a couple of men standing there, one in a suit, one in overalls.

  “Have a nice life, Frank,” said Tosh. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.” He got out and walked to the car in front.

  He left the door open, and all the warm air stole out. Tosh was replaced in the driver’s seat by the suit, and the other man threw the side door open and joined Frank in the second row. The car in front pulled forward, and driving-suit twisted the wheel so they drove around it and on down the road, fully manual.

  Frank looked sideways at the man sitting next to him. The cardboard box was between them, but suddenly that didn’t seem quite enough distance or quite enough of a barrier. He pushed with his feet so that his back was against the door. This man seemed to trigger all Frank’s fight—flight responses, and he didn’t understand why. He strove to remain calm, despite his skin itching like it was about to slough. The man continued to stare at him.

  “Making you uncomfortable?” he finally said. His accent placed him to the south and east. Texas, maybe.

  Frank was struggling with his comeback. The other cons had mostly left him alone: old guy, nothing to prove. When he had been threatened, he’d usually blown them off and walked away. In the back of a car, he could do neither.

  He had to rethink, work out a strategy. He wasn’t used to that. “Is that what you want?”

  The man blinked. Perhaps he couldn’t work out what that meant. He shifted his position, from ramrod straight to a just-as-threatening lean against the upholstery. “Get used to it. I’m here to make your life hell from now on.”