“You mean Ms. Gatling?”
“I don’t know. Blonde, dark suit.”
“That’s her.” The attendant lowered his voice confidentially. “She’s the managing director of GenCon operations on Mars. I know women are scarce up here, but you’d be better off forgetting you ever saw her.”
“Why?” he demanded, even though if she was working for GenCon, he would have no choice but to avoid her.
“She’s scary. And so cold she could freeze off your balls with one look. They call her the Ice Queen.”
Ice Queen? Some part of him was absolutely certain she was not as cold as she appeared to be. He forced the thought aside. Their paths would not be crossing, no matter how tempted he was by the idea. He had work to do.
But as he started down the ramp, he took one last look in her direction. She had turned to survey the busy area, and he could finally make out her face. Delicately carved features and pale, perfect skin. Her eyes were blue, a pale, almost icy shade, and for a moment they seemed to rest on him. He knew it was impossible—she was only human—but the shock of that contact went through him like a thunderbolt. For an interminable second, the two of them stood frozen, and then she was gone, disappearing behind a big door at the far end.
His instincts urged him to go after her, but he had made a commitment and he would not go back on his word.
Chapter Three
Serena followed her bodyguard away from the main landing field and into the area reserved for GenCon specific traffic, but for once, her mind was not on her job. When she had looked across the hangar and seen the huge figure coming down the ramp from the newly arrived ship, something like a shock of recognition had gone through her. It was ridiculous, of course. It must have been his size that caught her attention. The settlers were often large men and of course, the cyborg rangers tended to be big, but he was the largest man she had seen on Mars. Normally, she disliked oversized men, even though she had trained herself never to reveal that fact, but something about this one had made her feel safe rather than threatened.
Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. She knew better than to believe that any man was safe. When necessary, she used them to further her purposes, but she would never make the mistake of relying on one again.
With the ease of long practice, she forced him out of her mind. Time to greet the latest of GenCon’s experiments. Her heart beat a little faster, the hope that she usually tried to suppress making her unexpectedly anxious, although she kept her face as smooth as always.
GenCon was attempting to reproduce the cyborg technology used by the military for their own use. By doing so, they hoped to circumvent Earth Government’s laws removing all rights from the cyborgs. Success would mean huge profits from wealthy citizens of Earth eager to leave the overcrowded and polluted planet but unwilling to put up with the restrictions of the Martian environment.
But there was another reason behind GenCon’s desire to replicate the technology. The corporation’s long-term goal was complete control of Mars and its barely tapped wealth of minerals. The cyborg rangers had proven to be a formidable wrinkle in their plans, and they were determined to overcome that obstacle. She had little interest in GenCon’s plans for the planet. Although her share in the profits would be quite considerable, her only real interest was in the regenerative possibilities created by the nanites used in the process.
Her hope for that technology took a sharp plummet when the man she had been waiting for emerged from the ship—if she could call him a man. White, almost plastic-looking skin was molded to an expressionless face. He moved quickly down the ramp, but he walked with an unnatural gait. The cyborg rangers, despite their cybernetic components, were still clearly men. This hybrid looked more like a robot than a human. Although no robot would immediately have launched into a litany of complaints about his journey.
“I must say I was unimpressed with the quality of the accommodations on your ship. For the amount of money which I have paid GenCon, I expected nothing but the finest. The bedroom was far too small, the bathing room completely inadequate, and the food…” The disgust in his voice was clearly apparent, but his face didn’t change.
“I’m sorry if you were not satisfied, Mr. Carrington. There are some limitations imposed by space travel that we have not yet been able to overcome.”
She wondered if he could hear the lack of sincerity in her polite words, but in her experience, the very wealthy found it hard to believe that anyone didn’t sympathize with them. “Hopefully you will be pleased by your residence,” she continued calmly. “Although—as you were warned—the city is still under construction.”
“As long as the residence itself is complete, I suppose it will do. For now.”
She turned to lead the way to the waiting rover, ignoring the underlying threat in his voice. He would learn soon enough that he had little to back up his threats. He already appeared to have forgotten that he had agreed to the transformation to avoid a prison sentence back on Earth.
He sneered again at the big six-wheeled rover, and once they were on the surface, he made a disgusted sound. “I thought the terraforming process would be further along. It’s still nothing but sand and rocks.”
“The atmospheric pressure has been stabilized to the point where pressure suits are not required and people can walk on the surface with only a breathing mask.”
“Which I will not require,” he interrupted.
“Correct.” Although she did wonder how thoroughly that had been tested, she found it hard to be too concerned. “The amount of water in the atmosphere is increasing daily,
