It turned out that Frank Chalmers was traveling with this Arab caravan. But he had not seen or heard of any visitation by Hiroko’s people, and none of the Arabs would admit to being the one who had told the story at Bradbury Point. A false lead, then. Or else one that Frank was helping the Arabs to eliminate; and if so, how would John find that out? Though the Arabs had only recently arrived on Mars, they were already Frank’s allies, no doubt about it; he lived with them, he spoke their language, and now, naturally, he was the constant mediator between them and John. Not a chance of an independent investigation, except what Pauline could do in the records, which she could do as well away from the caravan as in it.

Nevertheless, John traveled with them for a while as they roamed the great dune sea, doing areology and a bit of prospecting. Frank was only there briefly himself, to talk to an Egyptian friend; he was too busy to stay anywhere for long. His job as U.S. Secretary made him as much of a globe-trotter as John, and they crossed paths pretty frequently. Frank had managed to keep his position as the American department head now through three administrations, even though it was a cabinet post—a remarkable feat, even without considering his distance from Washington. And so he was now overseeing the introduction of investment by the American-based transnationals, a responsibility that made him manic with overwork and puffed up with power, what John thought of as the business version of Sax, always moving, always gesturing with his hands as if conducting the music of his speech, which had shifted over the years to full-tilt Chamber of Commerce overdrive, “Got to stake a claim on the Escarpment before the transnats and the Germans snap everything up, lotta work to be done!” which was his constant refrain, often said while pointing for illustration at the little globe he carried with him in his lectern pocket. “Look at your moholes, I just entered them last week, one near the North Pole, three in the sixties north and south, four along the equator, four bracketing the South Pole, all of them nicely placed west of volcanic rises to catch their updrafts, it’s beautiful.” He spun the globe and the blue dots marking the moholes blurred for a moment into blue lines. “It’s good to see you finally doing something useful.”