Ares: A Sneak Peek--Part One

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:16:41 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

L. Neil Smith at The Libertarian Enterprise - Neil has released two short snippets from his upcoming novel, Ares, the first of three new books in the Pallas universe. Here's Part Two. [tle]

Once it was fully up to speed, the tractor burned a synthetic fuel generated by a "Biomass-to-Petroleum" process capable of converting virtually any organic waste--the Maritan desert was covered with it--into "oil". There was no law to govern it--there were no formal laws of any kind on Mars--but a trucker's failure to burn "B2P" was considered antisocial by many, because it put much needed carbon dioxide into the air and, more importantly, water vapor, helping to maintain the Red Planet's more or less recently-acquired artificial atmosphere.

A tiny minority felt differently, although few of them were native Martians.

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