It was morning.

Dutch and Mariah were up early, doing their farm chores together. They were both wearing what most people called "company coveralls," standard issue gray with a Houston dome patch on the right shoulder.

Today they were working in one of the higher tiers, picking newly ripened pawpaw fruit. The trees were trimmed so that most of the fruit hung low, and Dutch was able to reach even the highest ones. Mariah held the basket that Dutch put the fruit in. They would fill two baskets and carry them down to the kitchen.

That would be their only farm chore for the day. If two baskets weren't enough, someone else would come up and pick more later on. There was nothing better than a freshly picked pawpaw. And no one wanted one that had gone by. The trees kept bearing fruit year-round, and there were enough of the little trees to keep everyone in the dome well satisfied.

As they worked, they chatted. It was mostly about their time with Rosita and Ryan, talking about Mars Days and Newt's excitement about exploring links in the Q. Before long Mariah said, "Dutch, when are you going to tell me more about what you do on Hibiru?"

Dutch said, "I think I should show you before I try to tell you."

"Is that an invitation?"

"Definitely. We can go today if you have time for it."

"When?"

"Right after we drop off our baskets and have breakfast. I don't want you out of my sight for more than a minute."

She blushed and said, "That could get awkward, but it works for me."

It was his turn to blush. He hid it by reaching for another pawpaw.

When the baskets were full they took them down to the kitchen, and picked up trays and flatware for their breakfast. They found they had surprisingly similar tastes in breakfast food, although she liked her eggs scrambled and he took his poached or fried. Dutch still couldn't quite believe how comfortable he felt with her.

After they were done they dumped their table scraps into the composter and dropped off their trays on the dishwasher conveyor line. Then they took the elevator up to his apartment level.

"I do all my business right from here," he told her, as he opened the door to his rooms. Inside it looked much like hers, same layout, but he did have an extra recliner. His drone was standing next to the door, but he wouldn't need that. He motioned her to the recliners. She settled herself in the one on the right.

He sat in the other, took his lenses out of the top pocket of his coveralls and put them on. She put hers on as well.

He said, "Good. Let me check for customer queries, then I'll give you a link to a Hibiru drone."

She nodded and relaxed back into her chair. It only took him a minute to make sure there were no urgent customer issues. Then he gave her a QAR link to one of the drones on Hibiru.

"Have you visited any of the lava tubes on Mars?" he asked.

She nodded and said, "I even saw one of the old Annunaki chambers there."

"You won't find anything very exciting in the drone chamber then," he said. And they were there.

She looked around. Dutch was right. It all looked very familiar. Only the row of drones looked out of place to her. They activated their drones and turned on their QAR avatars. Both of them were wearing their Houston coveralls. They walked the drones out of the chamber into a long passage.

She read the plaques on the walls of the passage outside the chambers that told them who the sleeping occupants were. Dutch gave her his standard tour, leading her past the ranks of chambers down to the archives, letting her take her time looking at what they passed.  He had pat answers for most of her questions.

When they came to a staircase he said, "Can you fly the drone? It's way easier than climbing down and up the stairs." In response she floated into the air and out over the steps. Dutch followed her down. He could tell that she was actually a very good flyer.

In the main chamber of the archives there were several inactive drones seated at one of the long stone tables. But one drone was moving. When he noticed them he turned on his avatar, then stood up and introduced himself as John, from the Harvard dome. He looked like a typical researcher, wearing typical crumpled Ivy League shirt and trousers. Dutch figured the avatar was a duplicate of what he was actually wearing.

He knew Dutch, of course, and Dutch introduced Mariah.

John said, "Welcome to the Hibiru archives, Mariah."

She said, "I'm happy we found you here."

"You're lucky then. I won't be here for long."

Then she gestured at the engraved metal tablet he was holding and said, "Can you actually read that?"

He said, "I'm getting better at it. But what I'm doing here is recording images of them. I'll try to decipher them back at the office."

He handed the tablet to her, and she looked it over. Of course she couldn't read it, but she thought it couldn't be all that difficult. She said, "Would you mind if I make my own image of this? As a souvenir?"

"Make all the images you want. There's almost literally a mountain of them in here, and we've barely scratched the surface. We'll take all the help we can get. Just please try to leave things as you found them. That could be important at some point."

Mariah nodded her understanding.

Dutch said, "Thanks for your time, John. We'll let you get back to it."

He led her on down more stairs, deeper into the archives. She was almost overwhelmed by the immensity of it. She couldn't imagine how many histories of times between sleep periods were recorded here. But then, as she stood there and soaked in the ambience, she began to feel like maybe she could imagine it. She wondered if Dutch ever had similar feelings. But she just smiled to herself about it and didn't mention it to him.

She saved images of several interesting inscriptions, a few more of metal tablets and some of engravings on the walls, next to images that caught her eye. She was thinking she would try to figure out what they said later. She realized that many of the ones she had copied could already have been deciphered, but that was okay. It would be an interesting game for her, a challenge.

Meanwhile Dutch stood back and watched her. Watched how absorbed she was in what she was finding here. All he could think about was how lucky he was to have found her. Then his mind seemed to jump to a different level, and he began to think maybe it wasn't luck at all. Maybe it was... but then he just smiled to himself about it and decided not to mention it to her.