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wisps of black and white—topography and atmosphere flattened against each other, creating a picture of stark brutality and profound beauty. Craters pocked the surface like reminders of an ancient time, a fulfillment of some grand, celestial prophecy. Up here, it was easy to believe that the planet had been waiting for them.
    “Twelve hundred meters,” Nathan said from the back, measuring the distance between the lander and Almacantar .
    “Confirm that,” said the voice in their headsets. “ Ghostrider, you’re clear to navigate.”
    “Acknowledged,” Pitch radioed back. “Wish us luck.”
    Nathan reached forward and tapped Kellean on the shoulder.
    “Still wish you’d stayed behind?” he asked.
    She smiled back at him. “Not on your life, sir.”
    Pitch lit up the reverse thrusters, laying on full power and filling the cabin with a dull roar. As the ship slowed, Mars reached out and started to pull them down from orbit. Trails of vapor appeared at the lander’s wingtips when they brushed against the atmosphere, which changed from twilight blue to dull gray to rusty red. Alien light flooded the cockpit—sunshine filtered through an otherworldly prism.
    “Magnificent,” Kellean whispered.
    The ship was buffeted slightly from side to side. The wings took loose hold of the outside air, glowing from the friction of entry. Nathan felt his body gain substance as gravity pulled him down into his seat, his arms getting heavy as he worked the interface.
    “Fifty thousand meters,” he said, ticking off their altitude. The ship descended fast, the Tharsis ridge looming large on the navigation screens. “Braking pattern on my mark.”
    “Got it,” Pitch replied. He pulled back on the control yoke, bringing the nose of the craft up and leveling it with the horizon. Kellean peered toward the outer edge and saw the pancaked dome of Olympus Mons rising in the distance.
    “I see it,” she said. “ Damn, that thing is huge.”
    “Forty-five thousand meters,” Nathan called out. “Braking on four…three…two…one… Mark. ”
    Pitch turned the yoke hard to starboard, putting the craft into a steep bank. For the next several minutes, they spiraled down toward the planet’s surface. With each corkscrew turn, their rate of descent slowed dramatically—and so did their airspeed. The details of Settler’s Plain appeared in the distance, the old colony like a ghost town baking under the hazy sun.
    “Thirty thousand meters,” Nathan reported.
    “Leveling off,” the pilot said. He swung the ship around and lined up their course to intersect Olympus Mons. At that altitude, they were a scant three thousand meters higher than the summit. Pitch lowered the flaps a few degrees, the sluggish controls tightening a bit in his hands. “Looks like we’re hitting some convection. We might be in for a little turbulence.”
    Right on cue, the lander bounced as it hit a column of rising air. The shaking gradually subsided as the lander passed over the scarp that marked the end of Settler’s Plain—a craggy series of cliffs that formed a boundary around Olympus Mons. From there on, the smooth, expansive surface of the mountain seemed to stretch out into forever.
    “It’s so flat,” Kellean observed, “you could walk it if you wanted to.”
    “If you had a couple of years,” Nathan added. “That thing is three times as high as Mount Everest back home—and a hundred times wider.”
    “Sounds like a nice long honeymoon.”
    “Tell that to the colonists,” Pitch muttered.
    To the spacing community, this place was synonymous with death. In spite of that, it was easy to see how those people had lost themselves here. Olympus was, if nothing else, a well of secrets. You couldn’t just walk away from that.
    Even when you should run.
    The thought was brief and disconnected, effused by some part of Nathan’s subconscious. But Nathan was distracted by their approach, which he watched in glorious detail on the construct—fed