YEAR: 25

Braheton City, Central Tharsis, Mars

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Trial work kept Gwen so busy over the next weeks that she nearly forgot her promise to Matthew. If she hadn't arrived at a full understanding of the status of the Mendez name years before, the willingness with which the Republic court system moved up dates to accommodate her certainly put things into perspective. The frantic pace of this rearranging meant that she had compressed three months' worth of trial preparation into one. Thus, when Matthew loked her with an appointment time to meet her new clients, she found herself wondering for a few moments what he was talking about.

She met Matthew in his office in Little Spain at six o'clock sharp. Everyone who was anyone did business Downtown—except Matthew, who refused to move from the first suite he'd been able to afford. "They'll come here if they really want me," he'd proclaimed to her years ago when she had questioned the wisdom of serving an upscale clientele out of a faded faux brick building nestled between a Spanish grocery and a daycare. From another man such a statement might be based on delusional egoism, but for Matthew it boiled down to practicality. Ever the Creche orphan, he could stretch credit until it begged for mercy. Paying ten times the rent for a downtown office just wasn't in his nature, even though he'd long passed the point in his career where the cost of it would be a burden. And, as it turned out, he'd been right—the clients who refused to step foot in Little Spain were far outnumbered by the ones who gladly made the trip for his unmatched expertise.

Matthew greeted her with a smile as his assistant showed her into his office. The room was small, and at one time had been claustrophobic, until Matthew had knocked down a wall to combine it with an adjoining storage area. The decor was minimalist but cozy, with a real wooden desk on one side and colorful pillows propped on a window settee opposite. Matthew's certifications, framed antique-style, were scattered across the copper-colored walls. Off to the side of the room, under a shelf that held souvenirs from his rock climbing adventures, stood a small round table with three chairs huddled around it. It was here he conducted most of his meetings. Gwen sat down next to him and he surprised her by taking her hand and squeezing it briefly.

"Everything okay?" he said.

"I'm fine. Why?"

"You look tired."

"Thank you. You always know just what to say." Frowning, she took out her loke and set it to share with his. Cray's efforts to disentangle Trident's main operations from Braheton while still satisfying Republic law had stalled out for the time being, testing his normally endless patience. He'd gotten snappy with her that morning, and, exhausted from her own work, she had responded in kind. For the first time ever, he'd walked away from her without attempting to talk things out. She hadn't thought she cared that much, not until Matthew had offered sympathy. Now she felt annoyed when it wasn't convenient, which in turn produced more irritation.

"You know what I mean, Wendy. Are you working too much?"

"I always work too much. Let's just focus on the case, okay?"

Matthew gave her one of his maddening zen-like looks and shrugged. "All right, then. Here's what we're dealing with. The Republic wants to rezone this private land for a terraforming plant. My clients are the permanent leaseholders, so I'll need three sets of contracts—one between the Republic and the clients, one between the clients and the absentee landowner, and one between the Republic and the landowner."

Gwen nodded. Aryabhata was a sparsely populated planet that had been sold off by its original owner, Caedmon Industries, after they failed to scratch a profit off the dusty land. More than a century of relative neglect had left it forgotten by everyone but largescale ranchers, terraformers, and real estate speculators. Because of the piecemeal manner in which Caedmon had unloaded their asset so long ago, complicated contracts were not unusual. While Matthew was as good as she was at writing contracts, she could see why he'd called for her backup in this case, especially with VIPs involved. Which brought her to her next question. "Who are these clients that they need Mendez coddling?"

"One is Marc Shane, a minor real estate tycoon. This is one of the first parcels he ever acquired a lease on, for a bargain price even by today's standards, I may add. The other is Greg Jordan Chen."

Gwen laughed. "The Feed star? Really?" Laken would be jealous, she thought.

"Yes. Word of warning, he's the impatient sort. He inherited the lease from his grandparents and knows next to nothing about it. Apparently he and Shane have been having trouble getting in touch with the absentee owner. That's not strange in itself, but…" At that moment, Matthew's assistant poked her dark head around the door and informed them Chen and Shane had arrived. Matthew shot Gwen an apologetic look. "Well, you'll see. Show them in, Isabel."

Chen presented as a parody of his own public image: unnaturally handsome, dressed in designer clothing the price of which could feed a family on Praetoria for a year, and a bratty attitude despite being on the wrong side of thirty. Gwen, having met countless celebrities, wasn't shocked by his behavior, but Shane appeared nonplussed as he surveyed his partner for what seemed to be the first time. If Chen had an opposite, Shane was it; sporting classic blue denim, a button-down shirt, and tall boots, he resembled a ranch hand more than a businessman. Matthew shook their hands, introduced them to Gwen, and sat the two men at the table with her while he leaned against his desk.

"Gentlemen, to begin, I'll need your signatures on the amended contract I sent you this morning. I've added some wording saying that Ms. Mendez will be privy to all aspects of the case."

Shane nodded. "I already loked you mine." He sounded like a ranch hand, too.

Chen extracted his locator from a pocket that looked too small to contain it and heaved a dramatic sigh. "I told my people to let me know if anything came in, but I guess they forgot."

Shane raised his eyebrows. "Your people? You famous, son? You didn't tell me that." The delivery was so deadpan that Gwen couldn't tell if he was serious. Chen turned slightly purple as he stared at Shane.

"All I want is this thing over with so I can concentrate on my next project instead of land leases on some godforsaken planet."

"Your people don't do that for you?"

Chen rolled his eyes and ignored the question, focusing instead on his loke. After a minute, he found Matthew's message. "Is this it?"

"That's it," agreed Matthew. "Just sign it and send it back."

Chen did as he was told and then heaved himself back in his seat as though he had just run a marathon. Shane looked at Matthew. "Okay. Now what? You're going to get an answer out of these folks, right?"

"That's the plan. You said you received a message from them this morning?"

"Yeah. If you want to call it that." He dug his loke out of his pocket and set it on the table so they could all view the letter from the landowner.

Gwen read it, repressing an unprofessional urge to laugh. "You can't be serious." But Shane betrayed no trace of humor.

Dear Sir:

Pertaining to the lands in question, Unincorporated Plots 88910 and 88911, Aryabhata, under section 8Bii of the Republic Land Lease Agreement signed and certified by the original lessees, your request for re-lease to the Republic of Settled Space is denied.

There was no signature, not even a closing. The particulars of the form letter were filled out in blue, in a different font, as though to emphasize the lack of human consideration.

"They can't deny a Republic terraforming plant request. That falls under eminent domain."

"I'm aware of that," said Shane, scratching at his white, day-old beard. Unlike Chen, he seemed to sport a stoic acceptance of the snail's pace of bureaucracy. "But over the last six months, ain't no one been answering my appeals beyond what you've just seen. Not the Republic and not Subsidiaries, Limited. And frankly, ma'am, neither I nor Chen here want to pass this deal over. That's where you and Mr. Ward come in."

Gwen frowned. Subsidiaries, Ltd. The name seemed designed to obfuscate. Maybe this wouldn't be as easy as she supposed. Still, no reason to trouble the clients with that thought yet.

"Well, it should be a simple matter," she said, already drafting in her head the letters she would write. "This company has no legal ground to stand on, and with the Republic it's just a matter of the right connections."

Shane looked skeptical. "Subsidiaries must have connections too. Otherwise this wouldn't have been held up so long."

"Not necessarily," said Matthew. He was the picture of cool, calm, and collected. The perfect negotiator. "There's a decent chance it's a clerical error, a database mistake, or simply nobody home at Subsidiaries, Limited. I've seen it before where these entities are run by a ghost crew, or even no one at all, depending on how long ago they acquired the land. Let me do some research and then we'll see where we stand." He threw a purposeful look at Chen. "Thank you for forwarding the last half of the fee this morning."

Chen turned on a magnanimous smile, too bright to be real. "Hey, whatever, as long as you get the job done. This guy tells me you know your stuff." He looked at Gwen. "By the way, I saw Natalie on the Feed the other day. Is she still single?"

Matthew cleared his throat. "I believe I promised you all a dinner at Oshiro's. Why don't we go finish up there?"

In contrast to Cartouche, Oshiro's was the see-and-be-seen of the upper echelon restaurant world. The first few times Gwen had come here with Cray, she had hated the loud, red and gold pageantry of the place, but it had grown on her over the years. The vast menu, an eclectic mix of Japanese, Chinese, Martian Spanish, and French, pleased almost everyone.

They had concluded their business and were just finishing their meal when Cray strolled in, Laken on his arm. Any hopes her family wouldn't spot her across the sizable dining room were dashed when the hostess pointed her table out to Cray. She put on a smile when Laken waved, not surprised to see them, just wishing Matthew wasn't here. Matthew appeared to be having much the same misgivings, shooting her a quick "What now?" glance as the other two approached. She gave him an answering look that she knew he'd understand: strictly business.

After introductions and the requisite amount of deference and compliments showered upon Cray by Chen and Shane, Matthew rose. "I should get going," he said, displaying a regret that might look genuine to strangers but that Gwen recognized as forced. "I've got an early meeting in the morning."

"It was nice to see you again." Cray briefly shook his hand, then shifted his attention back to the clients. For Cray, this was cold behavior, and not for the first time she wondered if he had guessed at the extent of her relationship with Matthew. As usual, however, she dismissed the notion. She suspected Cray would run hot rather than cold if he knew the truth.

Laken took time out of goggling at Chen to bid Matthew goodbye in a much warmer tone. She had been fairly close to Matthew as a child, when Gwen used to drop her off with him to watch while she had important meetings at odd hours. She had never convinced Cray of the need for a nanny. He had been adamant their child would not be raised with the sort of benign parental neglect Natalie had endured until Gwen moved to Mars and more or less took over as her mother. "Sometimes I think that child would have been better off staying in Creche," he'd mutter in the early days of their relationship, as his brother and sister-in-law struggled with the emotionally damaged child they had adopted. But Gwen knew that wasn't true—no one was better off in Creche, no matter what others might think. If she hadn't had Matthew, her eleven years in the Republic's orphanage system would have been devoid of any sort of love at all.

After a bit of small talk and name dropping with Cray, Chen and Shane also departed, citing a desire to hit the town before they went back to their respective planets tomorrow. Laken asked Gwen to stay, but she begged off, genuinely tired. She knew she'd get a lecture for this from Cray later, but in front of Laken he showed no disapproval, simply leaning down to whisper something in her ear. She giggled and the wistful look disappeared from her eyes. Daddy saves the day again, thought Gwen as she wended her way out of the restaurant, ignoring the gawkers who had spotted her and her family.

Matthew was waiting for her beside the outdoors entrance, leaning casually against one of the pretentious columns of the red stone facade. The night was still warm, summer clinging on longer than usual this cycle, and in response he had undone the top buttons of his dress shirt and rolled up the sleeves. As always, he seemed oblivious to his own sex appeal.

"I thought you had an early meeting," she said.

"I do. With you."

She tried to look behind his eyes, suss out anything hiding there. Had seeing Cray kicked him back into jealous mode? But his manner held no hint of romance, and she shook her head. "I can't. I promised Cray and Laken I'd spend the weekend at the Ridge with them. If I don't show up on time, Cray will have a fit."

"I can't imagine Creighton Mendez throwing a tantrum about anything."

"You know what I mean."

Matthew sighed. "Yes, I know what you mean. How about first thing Monday morning then? We can both do some preliminary work on the case and then compare notes."

"We can do that over the loke."

"Yes, but I can't give you your birthday gift over the loke."

"Oh." Gwen preferred to ignore her birthday, largely because it was a random date foisted upon her by Creche and in all likelihood wasn't the actual day she was born. Her parents, the ultimate Radical Sovereigntists, had managed to keep her completely out of the Republic's system until, of course, the day they died. It suddenly occurred to her that Cray probably had something special planned for her as well. "I wish you would stop doing that."

Matthew grinned. "I know. You tell me that every year. I'll see you Monday, then?"

"Okay. Monday." If I make it through a whole weekend of birthday celebration, she thought, and reluctantly hailed a cab to the Ridge to take care of family duty.