Prologue

“Seeing Patterns”

HAVING DEBRIEFED SIR henry Routledge on the events on Phobos, and their discovery of the not-Heart at the moon’s centre (he refused to call it the Eye, despite Stone’s recommendation), Folkard was the first to return to Esmeralda 2. There was much he left out of his report, of course, since Sir Henry was not cleared for all things, but he needed to be aware of certain pertinent information. The British government would soon be taking a greater interest in Phobos and Sir Henry needed to be prepared for that. The link between the not-Heart of Phobos and the Heart of Luna could not be easily dismissed, and there was no law preventing other interested parties from actively excavating the interior of Phobos. Luna was, at least legally, protected from such activities… Not that it prevented the work being undertaken at Otterbein Base, Folkard considered ruefully.

More and more connections were being made; the further they advanced on their mission to find the minerals needed to propel them beyond the asteroid belt, the more they were discovering the secrets of the Solar System. The moons, for example, judging on their discoveries so far, appeared to all be hollow. Folkard knew it was a bit of a jump to say all, but he would not be surprised to discover some kind of Heart at the centre of every moon in the system. He would be making note of that in his next report.

Something much bigger was going on—a mystery was being revealed to them, a secret so old it pre-dated man. It was as Folkard had considered before, everything seemed to be connected.

Before reaching Mars he had witnessed the most amazing thing, uncovered the biggest secret of them all. He had not thought much about it since, instead focussing his mind on their mission to Phobos, but now, as he sat at the controls of Esmeralda 2, he allowed his mind to drift back several weeks to the events that transpired after they left Earth and set course for Mars…