Prologue - Red Silence

Ἐν δὲ μαθεῖν ὁ πάσχων· καὶ πρὸς τοῦ θεοῦ δώροισι βαίη σωφροσύνη.

(“Through suffering comes wisdom; and from the gods, as a gift, comes restraint.” – Aeschylus, Agamemnon)

Wang Lei's eyes were not what they used to be.

He increased the font size on his tablet until the numbers were readable, then studied the drone telemetry. The panel output was within acceptable range. The efficiency graphs said what they always said. Everything was fine.

He set the tablet down and rubbed his eyes.

That was when he noticed the sunlight. A thin ray of it came through the narrow observation window above his workstation, the kind of clear unfiltered Martian morning that happened perhaps a dozen times a year, when the dust settled overnight and the sky lost its usual amber haze. The light settled onto his desk, spreading itself unhurriedly, as if resting at last after the long journey it had made to arrive in this particular room.

Wang Lei sat with it for a moment.

Then he convinced himself that the panels needed a visual inspection.

The drones in sector four had shown a minor calibration drift last week. That was the reason. He activated the airlock system, took his scafander from the wall rack, and locked it onto the collar of his work suit. Thirty seconds through the chamber. Then the outer door opened and the cold arrived first. Then the silence.

He stood for a moment and looked up. The solar array stretched above Tianyuan's gate, the cleaning drones moving in their slow deliberate rows, and beyond them the sky was mauve. Wang Lei let himself look at it properly. A man was allowed that much.

He was still looking when the airlock cycled behind him.

Two figures emerged.

The first was a young woman, her face visible through her visor. Wang Lei recognised the expression immediately. It was the kind of smile that has a man somewhere in it. She moved quickly, purposefully, as if the destination already existed more vividly in her mind than the ground beneath her feet.

Beside her walked one of the tall humanoid robots the Americans had left at Tianyuan a few weeks ago. Wang Lei had not grown used to them yet. It moved with the same easy confidence as the woman, matching her pace without effort, and when they passed him it turned its head and offered a small nod, the way a person would.

He nodded back, because it seemed rude not to.

They spoke to each other in voices he couldn't hear through his visor and were gone.

Wang Lei returned to his drones.

Some minutes later, through the soles of his boots rather than the air above him, he felt something. A vibration with no routine explanation. He turned. He raised his eyes toward the sun. He forced them open against the light.

Something was approaching.

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