“Yes, for a year, a Martian year. The ship has already been built; in fact, it’s en route to Outpost as we speak. ETA is two weeks. It’s an interesting design; I think you’ll like it. It’s an airship.”
I stared at her. “An airship? What, like a dirigible? What did they call them—zeppelins?”
“No, this one’s soft-sided.”
My glass paused in midair. “You mean a balloon?”
“Well, yes. Two actually, one inside the other. The cabin’s a toroid.” Her ephemeral smile came and went. “I know how much you like toroids.”
A balloon. “I see.” I drank. “Mind telling me why you want me to go to Mars in the first place?”
She had a one-word answer ready and waiting. “Cydonia.”
About the Author
Dana Stabenow was born in Anchorage and raised on 75-foot fish tender in the Gulf of Alaska. She knew there was a warmer, drier job out there somewhere and after having a grand old time working in the Prudhoe Bay oilfields on the North Slope of Alaska, making an obscene amount of money and going to Hawaii a lot, found it in writing.
Her first science fiction novel, Second Star, sank without a trace, her first crime fiction novel, A Cold Day for Murder, won an Edgar award, her first thriller, Blindfold Game, hit the New York Times bestseller list, and her twenty-eighth novel and nineteenth Kate Shugak novel, Restless in the Grave, will be released in February 2012.
Find her on the web at stabenow.com.
Also by Dana Stabenow
Star Svensdotter
Second Star
A Handful of Stars
Red Planet Run
Liam Campbell Mysteries
Fire and Ice
So Sure of Death
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Better to Rest
Kate Shugak Mysteries
A Cold Day for Murder
A Fatal Thaw
Dead in the Water
A Cold-Blooded Business
Play with Fire
Blood Will Tell
Breakup
Killing Grounds
Hunter’s Moon
Midnight Come Again
The Singing of the Dead
A Fine and Bitter Snow
A Grave Denied
A Taint in the Blood
A Deeper Sleep
Whisper to the Blood
A Night Too Dark
Though Not Dead
Others
Blindfold Game
Prepared for Rage
Copyright
If you downloaded this book from a filesharing network, either individually or as part of a larger torrent, the author has received no compensation. Please consider purchasing a legitimate copy—they are reasonably priced and available from all major outlets. Your author thanks you.
A Handful of Stars was first published by Ace in 1991. This digital edition (v1.0) was published by Gere Donovan Press in 2011.
Copyright © 1991 by Dana Stabenow.
Grateful acknowledgment is given for permission to reprint materials from the following sources:
The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris, copyright © 1967. by Desmond Morris, published 1967 by McGraw-Hill, Inc.; used by permission of McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein, copyright © 1973 by Robert A. Heinlein; used by permission of the Putnam Publishing Group.
The Soul of the Night by Chet Raymo, copyright © 1985 by Chet Raymo; used by permission of Prentice Hall/A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
The Klondike Fever by Pierre Berton, copyright © 1958 by Pierre Berton; used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Liftoff by Michael Collins, copyright © 1988 by Michael Collins; used by permission of Grove Press, Inc.
Isaac Asimov on Science Fiction by Isaac Asimov, copyright © 1981 by Isaac Asimov, published 1981 by Doubleday, used by permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Errata
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