e might meet before leaving Ultra Vires--or, for that matter,
on his way back to the Canfell Hydroponic Farm. So he donned a marsuit
himself, leaving off the helmet.

Carrying the other three marsuits, he went down the corridor to the
motor pool.

Dark remembered that Goat had always kept four groundcars on hand. There
were three here now, all in advanced stages of dismantlement.

At one of them, a small figure in black tunic and loose trousers was
bending over, head and arms plunged into the bowels of the engine.

Dark hesitated. He had found his intruder, perhaps a traveler who had
run into engine trouble in the desert and had fortuitously been near
enough to take shelter here while making repairs. But, again, there was
no reason to anticipate unfriendliness.

Carrying his marsuits, Dark walked up to the groundcar, overhearing a
muffled bit of profanity as he approached. The unfortunate mechanic
evidently heard his footsteps, because he was greeted with:

"I wish to Phobos you'd stay down here and _try_ to help me, instead of
spending all your time snooping around this deserted shack!"

The voice was muffled, but it was definitely feminine and definitely
irritated. Dark grinned and replied drolly:

"I'm sorry, but this is the first time you've asked me to help you."

With an audible gasp, the woman disentangled herself, in dangerous
haste, from the groundcar engine and faced Dark.

They stared at each other, in mutual shocked recognition.

There was Dark Kensington, bearded, his arms full of marsuits, and there
was Maya Cara Nome, sleeves rolled up, her lovely face streaked with
grease.

Dark's jaw dropped. Maya's lips formed a round, astonished O.

Then, with a squeal, she hurled herself on him, throwing her arms around
his neck. Dark staggered back, overwhelmed by marsuits, an abundance of
wriggling femininity and a babble of happy and-completely unintelligible
words gushed against his bearded cheek.

He managed to disentangle himself by the dual process of dropping the
marsuits and holding Maya forcibly at arm's length. She gazed up into
his face, her own awed and radiant, and was able to reduce her own words
to connected sentences.

"You're not here," she said positively. "You can't be here. You're dead.
I saw you killed. You must be one of the ghosts of Ultra Vires."

She wriggled free and threw her arms around his neck again, announcing
happily, "But you're a solid, _comfortable_ ghost, and I l