"You must treat humans like animals created to serve specific purpose," Thierry had said more than once and though he was only so many bytes and silicon chips and sometimes projected light he had much of the amassed knowledge of the original living Thierry Jewel and was a learning intelligence, if artificial.  So it was Thierry who had guided the new strategy of the people he had created with engineered births and whispered phrases in Sadian's young ears.

      All the humans save the few that kept their home in Eden Base and other Areian settlements now lived on the vast bulge of Tharsis amid the volcanoes.  It occurred to Trip that more than once he'd read a fantasy novel in which the evil beings resided in the dark mountainous region where things smelled of sulfur and the air was heat, like Hell, like the surface of Venus.  But the humans were neither completely evil nor in danger of being enveloped by ash or lava.  Very few of the Martian volcanoes were still active. 

      Now the humans labored on preparations for a trip to Earth.  And as they did all of the Areians terraforming efforts had been restarted without fear of discovery.  In fact even those on distant Earth knew of their presence and political position.  Now a vast expanse of reflective Mylar stretched like wings on a skeletal framework telescoped from the body of an artificial satellite in Aresynchronous orbit above the Northern ice cap.  Slowly, reflected sunlight was melting the cap of water ice. 

      In Airy, along the prime meridian which fell in the center of the triangle marked by Areian settlements, enormous machines labored to convert atmospheric gasses into more suitable mixture for plant and animal life and near them an expansive field of colorful windmills, in black, red and gold arranged in sequence unappreciated from ground level, generated electricity which was then turned into heat to warm the ground, in one of Alix's more radical attempts at terreforming. 

      At each Arian settlement repairs had long been underway and new construction was being done.  In Sinai all the six dens were again sealed and filled with breathable air as was the crop field.  The air pressure in each was greater than that of the surface but varied as the flora and fauna did. 

      Midway now was a central subterranean botanical and wildlife reservation shielded from the surface by a wide flat window of plastic panes at ground level which grew all that supported the new surrounding hobbit hole houses that were its suburbs.  Brittany had moved here, and many of the young people who had built up its structures in anticipation of war had returned.  Each small mound with round thick windows and round door that could open directly to the surface hid a larger underground dwelling with separate entrance to the underground streets that led to the central public area. 

      In Hellas the large array of dishes had been completed and easily received all manner of broadcasts that left Earth's atmosphere and the sounds of billions of distant stars.  A semi dome of curved plastic panels in metal framework was fence, wind shield and worked to bend sunlight so that it focused within the natural depression, result of ancient collision and warmed the water at its bottom so that it was at this lowest point of the planet's surface in a liquid state.  Here and within the buried structures that now framed much of the round Hellas Depressio experiments in marine life continued.  Iolanthe and her relations listened for sounds from distant planets as they did the sounds of cetaceans.

      In Eden a skeleton crew lived in replicated ancient splendor, surrounded every day by towering pyramids of styles resembling Sumerian Ziggurats, Egyptian smooth-sided pyramids of various angles and Mayan stepped pyramids.  Each monumental structure was slowly being decorated with carved or painted scenes so that the view from the windows of one was bright and colorful and not so stark and red.  Here and there Alix erected a statue of loved one, god or angel.  Inside everything was kept warm, most rooms small and rectangular but glowing with golden light.  So much gold paint and precious metal had been gathered for these ornaments.  Every person sat on a throne.  Every bedroom seemed to be airy, having fans positioned in the frames of the windows that had shutters made of the very exterior of the pyramid so that when inhabitants wanted a view it seemed from watcher without that the very pyramid was raising thousands of eyelids to watch back. 

      Cydonia, effected by the heat of the orbiting mirror was becoming wetter.  The Mountains now seemed seaside cliffs and the cavernous passages within pirate strongholds.  It was another suggestion Athracht had taken to heart.  Though halfway through a pregnancy she supervised construction of masts and sails of solar collectors so that the peaks of the base at Cydonia and the whole mountain range seemed to sail forever toward the pole without reaching it.  The Aerian flag which Alix had designed flew over their base: a rectangular black field, red globe at it's center with two potato shaped red satellites and a heraldic style golden dragon curled within the globe as if within an egg. 

      Hempshire was booming, had abandoned its artificial sunlight experiments in crop growing and now had converted its fields to let in sunlight through large overhead transparent panes as those at Midway.  Beneath the ground machinery churned away processing the successive crops of hemp into food, textiles and oils, what was left was burnt in furnaces that supplied power.  Its residences were the most traditionally urban, packed close together and within short distance from stations of work and entertainment.   In fact all of the settlements were building more outlying residences in preparation for peaceful visitors from other planets. 

      Still they had the less peaceful humans of Tharsis to deal with.  Taking Thierry's voice to heart the population of Shi Vampires found themselves acting out the roles of ancient deities.  That is they swooped over the area in the stealth aircraft at random intervals and often broadcast from speakers the booming voice of Blath instructing the humans to fear her wrath.  The humans were watched constantly, supplied with any medicines and what food surpluses could be gathered but otherwise they were on their own to construct ship for launch.

      Several of the humans had been singled out.  Natasha who had flown to Eden was one.  There were others: an American boy named William, an older woman from Russia called Anya.  Any of the singled out humans was permitted visits to the Areian settlements and made to witness what over sixty years of peaceful existence alone on the planet and intense work levels could accomplish.  They were told all of this was good, would have been lost if the humans had their way. 

      The chosen humans were picked for their intelligence and being less prone to violent outbursts.  Rachael and Mara proposed that many of these humans hated all those who were different because their own young lives had been marked by disadvantage in proximity to those who had luxury or they had been abused in some manner without reason, for abuse is usually void of reason.  To survive they had developed mental defense mechanisms, which included blaming others for their failure in a set system and hating others not for their happiness or wealth but for some physical difference so far as they were conscious. 

      Some of these people were beyond help, had in their mortal lives been unable to see through to the heart of their pain to its cause or to be satisfied with the knowledge that they would never fit into a system designed to work for the largest percentage of people the largest percentage of the time but never to really include everyone as they were.  But some were within the reach of kindness and education.

      Now given Thierry's theories and the understanding that these particular humans had been the ones to come to Mars with irrational hateful intention their keepers could control them.  They simply controlled them as ages ago their divine creators had controlled all humans: with dazzling superior mental and technological ability and psychological manipulation.  It was cruel, but so their intentions had been more than cruel. 

      Trepidation knew his people were forever changed by this encounter, paradise was lost, like their innocence and ignorance of human cruelty.  But Trepidation saw that he now was part of something better than Eden had been, because he was not the creation wandering ignorant of what evil was like a child in the womb.  He and all his family had a real life for themselves, real homes and recently the admiration and envy from a planet that had once ostracized them.

                      ?                ?                ?

      It was near time for final farewells to some.  In Midway Brittany had taken vacation from running her new coffee shop to give birth to her first child.  In anticipation Caith and Eleria were staying in her house with her, little Lucifer running about after the household cats.  Etan was with them, wanting to and having been instructed to stay with the woman who expected his child and the woman who had born his first child and son.  It was a strange arrangement but the group had gotten used to it. 

      When the day came Eleria helped Brittany into her bed and had Claudia send for Caith, Etan and Rachael as she helped Brittany change into a birthing robe.  Soon the others arrived, traveling through the underground streets which like the main tunnels that led from one of the six settlements to another were filled with enough properly mixed air that suits and breathing apparatus were no longer needed.  Many of the streets also had skylights to allow day or night viewing. 

      It was an easy birth, quick.  Rachael remarked on Brittany's excellent condition afterward.  Her child, a newborn girl they had already decided to call Julia though they had not yet thought of a middle name that would break up the similar J sounds in first and family names. 

      Outside the room of delivery Lucifer wriggled in Eleria's arms.  The small pale boy wanted to see the baby.  "Auntie El, let me see my little half-sister," he cried.

      "Oh, hush, you don't want to see her yet.  Julia's all small and red and gross.  You wait a few days for her color to even out.  You know women don't like to be seen when they first wake up."

      "Unless you sleep with them," Lucifer giggled as Eleria tickled his belly.

      "Precocious little flirt," Eleria scolded, "You are very much a Jewel, aren't you, precious?"

      "I make Sadi and her hologram happy," the little boy grinned.

                      ?                ?                ?

      When Brittany was able to travel with her child a meeting was held in Eden Base.  All the surviving members of the exploration team gathered there, where they had first landed.  Rachael was one of the last to arrive, coming from Sinai where she continued to keep house alone in the small cottage.  She came during the night and rested until she felt the others wake.

      Over breakfast they spoke, no others in the room with them though nearly all of them had some loved ones they usually kept close.  It did not really need to be said for they all knew why they had come at this time, though Kei announced their cause anyway.  "We need to decide who goes back to Earth," he said.  Already they had made many formal reports to Nihon Station One and to the various governments of the Earthen homelands.  But right now it as time they had originally been scheduled to leave and return to their homes, they needed to make decisions.

      "I will be going back," Rachael announced in slow even tone.  The others seemed surprised and so Rachael explained to her friends: "I have friends here and have no wish to abandon them, but I have not admitted how the very difference in gravitational and magnetic fields effects me.  I need to be on Earth.  I also have loved ones there that having been here makes me miss.  And I am still the General, still feel obligated to obey in this matter."

      Some nodded silently.  "I shall miss you," Brittany said.

      "Then you are not leaving?" Martin asked.

      "Not yet.  I would like to go back.  I feel my experience here will enable me to do better work there.  But the timing is bad.  Now that I know that there will be continued travel between worlds and I do have a small child I will postpone return.  I have weighed the fact that the longer I stay the longer it will take to recover from the return.  In any case, I am risking that to stay a while longer."

      "I will return to Earth," Carlo offered.  "It will mean not being with my son but you all know how things have been between Athené and I.  She does a fine job of raising Ramón without me.  Of course I will be able to have video communication with him, maybe sometime in the future I will visit, but right now I have work on Earth.  Of course I have told the others that if I did leave I would be very willing to exchange terreforming data with them, to advise if needed."

      "What about you, Martin?" Brittany asked. 

      Martin tilted his head to one side, curled his lips in grimace.  "I think I will stay."

      "You have to be sure," Rachael said flatly.

      "Then I will stay, at least for now.  There is the option of leaving later.  But I feel I could live here forever.  The terreforming and settlement is hard here, but I really like the challenge.  And there is so much areology to be studied, as opposed to geology.  So, I'll stay."  He smiled warmly, "Besides, I can live here at Eden Base like a god where on Earth I would have to make billions of dollars to afford the same luxury.  The very skewed supply and demand, the availability of materials to those willing to extract them is such that many people can live well.  Someone who can design robot laborers and repair the big miners can trade for anything they ever need."

      "Just one of the reasons I'm going to stay," Etan laughed, "I've got four children here now, I'd be a monster to leave all of them and their mothers when I really don't have so many challenges or talents needed on Earth.  Besides, someone's got to protect the planet from crackerjack humans and exploitationists."

      Brittany and Martin groaned at this but Etan went on.

      "It's just safer for me here and I want to stay where I have friends, even if it is a bit harsh on the surface."

      "Captain?" Rachael prodded.

      "I have actually been assigned to stay," Kei announced.

      "What?" asked Martin.

      "The Union government through their space program or perhaps the other way around has offered me a proper position if I stay.  I will be trusted to be a sort of ambassador, to Mars from Earth.  So, now, if you have problems with visiting humans it will really be my job to make peace again.  And I won't stand for things coming to war.  No killing or executing Earthlings except by my authority.  I will be able to assign deputies, security officers and the like.  Earth's never needed a representative to another planet before, since I'm already here I suppose they thought they'd try me."

      "I didn't think they'd do that," Rachael said. 

      Kei shrugged, "Well now that there's the other return craft my particular expertise is not needed on the voyage.  My craft is here, integrated into the pyramid, though it can be extracted and still launch."

      "That settles the matter," Rachael said, "Carlo and I will accompany the humans to earth.  I don't look forward to the months of consciousness in zero G surrounded by humans supremacists."

      "Perhaps we can have a safe little cage built for you," Etan suggested.

      Rachael shook her head.  "I'd worry that things were not being done right.  I will survive the trip.   I will expect a long vacation afterward of course."

      "Of course," Etan agreed, "You more than deserve it."

      "I will have to get right back to my coffee house, show the locals how one is done properly.  I have been told Trip and Mara used to live close to an excellent coffee house and expect as good service."

      "Yes, I'll have to stop by, but first I will go out on a trek with some of the others to survey Elysium," Martin said, "It may be an excellent place to settle, perhaps for new visitors to experiment with their own building techniques."

      "I will be busy of course," Kei said, "I hope that all of you who are staying will help me as I need.  You especially Etan.  I have received communication from NS1 that in one year a number of explorers from Goth would like to set up a scientific base on Mars."

      "Well, I'm not sure about where you'd like to put them but I think the locals would be smart to add three more settlements of their own.  One in Aeria, another in Lunae and the third down in Argyre."

      "Ah, to make the triangle a six pointed star," Brittany said knowing her Martian map fairly well.

      "Not bad locations.  Two on high ground in the North where the seasons are milder, Argyre an interesting place to try living farther south even than Hellas Station, lots of craters there like there are around Midway, would be interesting."

      Etan smiled, "You can build there.  I think I'll ask my families to go to Aeria and build towering castles and cathedrals."

      "Perhaps I shall leave Eden and go to Lunae.  If we instruct all visitors to land on Tharsis where there are three large volcanoes in a row to sight the landing place I will not be far," Kei said, "Though I would miss Eden."

      "Everyone is going to miss Eden," Rachael said.

                      ?                ?                ?

      It was the day of the launch.  Rachael, Carlo and the many humans who were to leave Mars had already boarded their craft.  Standing on the ground the ship was encased in booster rockets, would shed its outer sections once beyond the atmosphere to its spindly shape, rotating around a fixed axis to provide some small amount of simulated gravity.  The ship would not dock directly with NS1 on arrival above Earth but remain in higher orbit and be unloaded by small shuttles.

      Now the countdown was already begun, Rachael captain of the crew with trustees  in the command cabin with her.  They were in communication with ground control based at Hempshire, responding to the final checklists as read by Kei.  Trepidation had been in the ground control room but left now, suited up for a walk outside and walking with the slightest limp. 

      He crossed over the panes of the large greenhouse, heavy boots pounding softly on the greenhouse windows.   Trip walked East, toward Tharsis, the ground giving way to more heavily cratered terrain.   For a while Trepidation listened to the radio chatter through his helmet earphones, the countdown down to just minutes.  When he looked up and saw the three large mountains spread across the horizon from South to North he stopped. 

      There was a rock that seemed the right height for sitting and so Trip sat and gazed West.  He silenced the radio noise and just sat, warmed only by blood and the insulative layers and tubes of heated liquid of his suit.  He thought over the recent changes while he waited for the launch.  His retirement was cut short and he had a second lifetime of work to look forward to before he could think about living a private life.

      Trip sensed a presence then, something unfamiliar and powerful.  A soundless awe that told him a being farther removed from human creatures than himself approached.  And then the man was there, walking from the North, seeming to breath, wearing white garments that had the look of military uniform and a loose long robe of Mars Red cloth.  He moved but there wasn't the slightest scuffle of rock or crunch of permafrost, in fact Trip was certain his feet didn't touch the ground.

      The man came closer and then just a short but unobtrusive distance from Trip's rock he stopped and said, "Hail, Trepidation, Goth and Sidhe, Father of the Shi Vampires."  He had generally human features without looking more one race or another and had golden highlights in his hair, the sort of face and hands and very manner of standing that Trip had seen on all truly noble and courageous soldiers.

      "Michael," Trip heard himself say, thought he should bow or kneel but just sat still.

      "That will do just as well as Mars or Ares," said Michael, the Angel.

      "Why do you come now?  To me?"

      Michael did not so much smile but looked proud to the fullest extent one can be proud without being at all sinful.  "I have been with you very many times, you just haven't seen me," Michael explained, "You see I do have others to manage certain areas: Strife, violence, Discord, terror, I do not bother with these things.  However I am very much present in all real war and battles.  Where there are soldiers and causes and human conflict I am there watching over, sometimes lending a hand.  I was closer than this to you several times when you were a child."

      The stinking bloody ruined fields of mud in Gaul again, the gunfire and screams.  Fire.  Burning flesh.  "My family was caught in many battles."

      Michael stood slightly more at ease, looked kindly on Trip.  "Trepidation, you like your mother and father are the sort of people I watch and try to guide.  You understand that growing things and family are so much preferable to war, yet when pressed into a fight you are almost supremely noble, brave and mighty.  You survive."

      "We remember."

      Michael nodded.  "I know the faces of all those I have killed.  Though conflict should be resolved peacefully if at all possible, to kill or die for such things as defense of family or preservation of justice are necessary and good, if regrettable."

      "Did you come to tell me not to let it all haunt me?" Trip asked skeptically.

      "No."  Michael stood straight again.  "Only that this planet has been mine to watch over for eons, that I have watched this world and tried to guide it along a course just as I try to guide certain people.  And now it happens that you have come here and that I have also watched you for a long while.  Just recently you fought a battle in defense of your race's existence, right to live, family and home.  I took that as a sign that it was time to make myself known.  I am aware of the lessons you have been taught.  You know that past humans considered me a deity of wars and of fields where crops grow."

      "I see why all this would interest you then."

      Michael smiled.  "I come to assure you of this, so long as you and any of your descendants live on this planet and there are among them people as good as you I promise that you will have a home here.  You may have to fight and suffer some losses but I give my word your people will survive, in fact will persevere."

      Trepidation thought there would have to be a shrine built on this place.  Mara would know the proper way to set up a shrine at a place of visitation.  As Trepidation thought this he realized Michael no longer appeared.  And then a voice filled his mind, "I will be with you, always."

                 ?                ?                ?

        Within the cockpit of the space ship Tasha, Will and Carlo fought the Gs pulling on their bodies, breathed shallow in their helmets during this perilous segment of their voyage.  If an accident were to happen odds were it would happen in take off.  Only Rachael appeared to be at ease, her face taught and without fear, eyes and hands dancing over the controls before her.  No one knew, but Carlo that it was her first time piloting a ship, it was as if Rachael had an angel guiding her.

      Carlo took in a deep breath, felt the force of gravity lessen.  He reached up to remove his helmet.  "Hempshire Control, this is Exodus, we've escaped the planet, commencing orbital slingshot!" Rachael called happily into her headset.

      Kei's familiar voice came clearly from their headphones.  "You're looking good.  We'll be with you until after you break orbit.  Good luck again."

      Rachael eased into her seat.  "Seven hours, fifty-three minutes until activation of secondary rockets.  We'll be at nearly zero Gs until then. I'll flip the dorsal to the planet now."

      Rachael tapped at the series of controls that would automatically spin the ship 180 degrees.  Carlo looked down at his flight notes. "We should have a view of Airy coming up soon, once the window's toward Mars."

      "There it is," Tasha cried.

      "Ever think you'd feel homesick for that color, Carlo?" Rachael asked.

      "Never dreamed..."

      The landscape below seemed to roll slowly from top to bottom of their window as the Exodus orbited at speeds faster than the planet's revolution.  Hempshire was only a small glint if they strained forward and above the vast interior of the Aerian Triangle rolled by. 

      "There's something there," Carlo said somberly. 

      "Alix left some things..." Kei began.

      "Like a big black rectangle," Rachael broke in.

      All their eyes strained toward the coming horizon. They could hear Kei somewhere far away, asking if anyone knew what Alix had been doing out there.

      "Mi Dios," Rachael whispered, "Look what he's done."

      In the center of the Aerian Triangle a rectangular field of black obscured the red rock landscape, three imperfect circles were lined up across it's width and in the large central circle of blood red a long, coiled, golden dragon snapped its jaws and flapped its wings. 

      "What is it?" Kei asked frantically.

      "It's your flag," Rachael said in a hiss, wiped red tears from her eyes then licked her fingertips.  "Alix placed a flag on the planet so large they can probably see it from Earth."

      "There is no denying who this planet belongs to," Carlo whispered.

      Through their headsets there was cheering.