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AUTHOR’S AFTERWORD

The story you have read is fiction, based as solidly as possible on the known facts about conditions on Mars. I have extrapolated from those facts, of course; that is the prerogative—and responsibility—of the novelist.

At this moment, no one knows if life once existed on Mars, or if life exists there now. No one knows, and we will not find out for certain until we explore our red-robed neighboring world much more thoroughly.

The idea that Mars once harbored an intelligent civilization may strike the reader as a fanciful speculation. Yet as of this writing, it is a speculation that cannot be disproved.

Not until we travel to Mars to search out its marvels for ourselves will we know for certain. Probably intelligent Martians never existed. Possibly there has never been life of any kind on the red planet. But we will find surprises on Mars, of that you can be sure. An entire world is there to be explored. A new age of discovery is soon to begin.

Mars waits for us.

Ben Bova
Naples, Florida
1998

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