"My name is Rowany de Vere, and I'm with the Colonial Service."

A graduate of the Crater School and of Oxford, Rowany has newly taken up service on Mars. As a spy. Her first mission requires her to escort a prominent defector, whose backstory encompasses both Russia and the opaque colony of Venus; pursued by Russian agents intent on killing them both, she must see him safely across the hostile surface of Mars. Success will require every ounce of her wits and her training, but if she can't outsmart strangers who know nothing of her people nor her land, she doesn't deserve the title on her calling card: Rowany de Vere. Of the Colonial Office.