Dark started running.
He dropped the marsuits, and ran down the corridor. He leaped up the stairs, two and three at a time. Breathless, his heart pounding, he staggered down the upper corridor and impatiently went through the seemingly interminable process of negotiating the airlock.
He emerged into the big room.
It was empty.
The ceiling was open to the Martian sky. The sunlight poured into the roofless room.
In the sky, a small, teetering object rose and moved away from Ultra Vires, its blades whirring a sparkling circle in the thin air.
Dark reached out to it with his mind, and again he was in the copter. Nuwell sat tensely at the controls, guiding it. Maya was in the other seat, her arms bound down by her sides, her expression agonized.
Nuwell was unaware of Dark's mental presence. Maya sensed it and her mind turned toward him.
Dark, Dark, what can we do? I should have been watching for him. I should have known, after he saw us together, that he would do something.
Dark: It was my fault, Maya. I shouldn't have left you alone. I just didn't consider him a factor to be reckoned with, and I should have known better.