1
A SINGLE RED HAIR

A single red hair pulled together for Lucca Brezhnaya, Terran Chancellor, a long trail of events. Upon that single strand hung, like beads in a row, happenings as seemingly unrelated as the kidnapping of her nephew Pavel, erratic fluctuations in the world tellurium market, and terrorist attempts to destroy the Terran satellites of the Mars Containment Program. Mars Colonial. After all these decades—after more than a century—to find the Martians were alive and plotting against Earth—against her—it was nothing short of shocking.

But the strand of hair (and smudge of blood) found inside an abandoned escape pod whispered it was all true, too true. The genetic tests were conclusive. The same Martian who had months earlier assaulted Earth’s second-in-command and seduced her nephew had now returned, bringing disastrous quantities of tellurium in the hold of a sunken Mars Class Interplanetary Transport.
The Martians had pinpointed a weakness in Terran economics.

Terrans feared that Earth’s tellurium reserves might run dry. Feared it even more than inciter attacks, if pre-election polls were to be believed. The rare-earth metal was needed for successful consciousness transfer. If it came your turn to rebody in a third or fourth body and there was a shortage? To not be able to leave a decrepit body for the younger one you had earned, had been promised? It was unthinkable.

Lucca had leveraged two tellurium shortages in the past century. During the first shortage, citizens had resorted to very bad behavior indeed. And Lucca had learned from that. She punished perpetrators of violence by denying them any rebody at all. When a second panic struck over the dwindling tellurium supply, Lucca had managed things very differently, instituting a clear carrot-and-stick system. Citizens had rallied this time, outdoing one another in good deeds and acts of civic responsibility that still brought a smile to Lucca’s face.

For decades, Lucca had been troubled that her ministers and economists could offer no explanation as to how either shortage had been resolved. Both crises had simply. . . disappeared. It was as if someone other than herself had been manipulating the supply. And now she had excellent reason to believe someone had.

The discovery of a planet’s ransom of tellurium in the hold of the crashed ship was deeply disturbing. Someone knew. Some Martian had figured out that Lucca maintained strict control over the world reserves of tellurium—and thereby over Earth’s citizenry—and some Martian had determined that flooding the market would effectively destabilize Lucca’s hold upon the planet. Mars knew all this about Earth, while Lucca knew so little about the survivors on the red planet. It was infuriating. It was troubling.

For how long had Mars exercised this sort of interference? For how long had they been planning this overthrow of the careful balance of governmental control? It chilled Lucca to think it could have been going on for a century already.

But perhaps the threat was of recent origin, born of desperation. The Martians had sent a mere child—that red-headed girl, who was wandering free upon Earth even now. With her nephew! Lucca’s face twisted into a grimace.

It could have been the red-haired girl’s contact with Pavel that had suggested to the Mars colonists sending large amounts of tellurium. How many times had Lucca said, in her nephew’s presence: Control the flow of tellurium, and you control the planet.

She cursed bitterly.

She wanted that girl.

Lucca’s head rang with the excuses of her former intelligence officers when she’d demanded they track and capture the escapee from the tiny pod: too large an area; satellite-cams don’t recalibrate targets instantly; escape vessel possibly a decoy.

But Lucca knew the escape pod had not been a decoy.

The Chancellor was glad she’d thought to swab for Jessamyn’s genetic material after their original encounter on the Isle of Skye. The girl may have begun as Pavel’s kidnapper back then, but she’d ended as his seducer, luring him away from a lifetime—or several lifetimes—of service to Lucca.
More than ever, it was essential that Lucca discover the location of her nephew and of the wretched red-haired girl.

“Jessamyn.” Lucca said the name as if it were a curse fouler than any she’d recently uttered. The Chancellor pinged one of her secretaries. It was time to call in someone more suited to the delicate task of locating the Martian.

“Place a call to Major Vladim Wu,” said the Chancellor.

Vladim was thorough. Vladim was patient. Vladim always brought Lucca the things she wanted most.
And right now, she wanted the Martian.

Vladim would find the girl. And when he did? Lucca would uncover Mars’s secret plans.
The grimace on Lucca’s features was replaced by a serene expression that would have suggested her thoughts were peaceful. They were not.