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were, actually alone on the open surface. Wild!
    'And we painted a lovely luminous Mars dragon, flying up to the stars. We worked till nightfall, just using red, green and gold colours. To finish off, we had to turn on the buggy headlights. There was a sort of - well, I almost said religious feeling about what we were doing. It was like we were aborigines, making a sacred kind of hieroglyph.
    'When we got back to base, we showed photos of the dragon around and nearly started a panic. Some people thought it was the work of autochthonous Martians! Quite impossible, of course, but some folk are incurably superstitious.
    'No, I lapped up my time on Mars. It was a life apart. A formative experience. I longed to be out there alone, or alone with Renato, but that wasn't considered safe until my last month there. Just to be out in the desert at night, in a breather-tent, it's beyond description. You're alone in the cosmos. The stars come down and practically touch you. You just feel they should come right in and penetrate your flesh...
    'It's contradictory. You're entirely isolated - you could be the only person who ever lived, ever - and yet you are an intense part of everything. You know you're - what's the word? - well, somehow you're an integral part of the universe. You are its consciousness.
    'Like being the seeing eye of this incalculably vast thingme out there...
    'I say it's contradictory. What I mean is the perception feels contradictory, because you've never experienced it before. You'll never forget it, either. It's a tattoo on your soul, sort of...
    'Oh, sure, there were things I missed out there. Things I did without but didn't miss, and things I missed. What things? Oh, I missed trees. I missed trees quite badly at first.
    'But my life has changed since I was there. I can never goagain but I'll never ever forget it. I try to live a better life because of it.
    That's no joke in the muddle we're in here, downstairs on Earth.'
    END TAPE.
     
     
    The 'fancy-shaped domes' to which Maria Gaia Augusta refers are the linked spicules, constructed from a small number of repetitive sections, which formed the basis of what was eventually to become Mars City or Areopolis. The monotony of this structure was relieved by conjoined tetrahedral structures, rather similar to those erected in the north of Siberia a few years previously.
    From orbit, this sprawling structure, white-painted against the tawny Martian regolith, made a striking pattern.

 
     
    4
     
     
    Broken Deals, Broken Legs
     
    Looking back, I see how silly I was in my early days - silly and shy. I worked in the biogas chamber unit, and practically took refuge there. Everyone else seemed so clever. Kathi was clever. Why did she seek out my company?
    Her interest at this time was in politics, about which she talked endlessly. Placements within the YEA and DOP brackets were systematically arranged through the Mars Department, under Secretary Thomas Gunther. Kathi had a particular dislike of Gunther, saying he was radically corrupt.
    Whether that was true or not - many people praised Gunther - there was always bad feeling over the placements. Who was accepted or not as a YEA was open to local manipulation. I thought the system worked pretty well, enabling as many people as possible to visit the Red Planet. The United States insisted that matrix travel (the term 'space travel' had become old-fashioned) was a democratic right.
    Kathi's main complaint concerned the whole business of selection as a YEA. To qualify within the 16-28 years age bracket we had to undergo a rigorous Genetic and Superficial Health Test as well as a GIQ Exam. The General Intelligence was supposedly free from cultural and sexual bias and intended to establish the emotional stability of the examinee. Kathi was one-eighth Aborigine, and swore this was held against her at the Sydney board.
    'I came up against a filthy little man who gave me the final interview. Do you know what he said? Only my granting