The company said Alpha Centauri was a good place to get experience, and make a good wage. Lots had returned to retire young, and buy their dream home or land at their favourite beach side location, to tell of adventures, and remember the days of exploration on the frontier.

It was international policy to make claim to the new territories, as the nearby stars and dark objects that lay between were considered. Some effort at visiting major coordinates and objects were made. Some of the first expeditions were naturally concerned with survey and discovery, to assess just what was really there. Locating beacons and monitoring devices of all types were laid in orbits and on solid ground, or in galaxal controlled position, relative to the sun and other stars, as apparently motionless observers. A few life ships were positioned, with supplies of air and necessities, but as yet, there were only two permanent populations at any great distance from Mars.

While Earth was still a place to live in our memories, the pollution and danger of crime was the greatest barrier to living there, if you wanted to remain healthy. To do so was expensive. Here on Mars, the conditions were not so different from a modern apartment complex, with shopping, entertainment and recreation facilities all attached and sealed in from the harsh conditions that lay outside. The biggest advantage was security. There were no ferals outside, like on earth, to catch the unwary, or unprotected. That was official policy, anyhow. Stories had come back from isolated regions, of sightings, and some unexplained disappearances had occurred, but these were explained away as being just that, unexplained. Certainly, they didn't prove anything, did they?

It wasn't like one could wander outside here either, and that was usually suicidal on Earth. If you wanted that, you usually joined a tour party, with scanning equipment, and protective personnel to care for the tourists. It was a little like going to the Antarctic last century, in one of the Boeing series jets that were common then. Unless you had a guidance error, and hit a mountain, you stayed warm and safe, with toilets, on-flight video and meals at your service, if you could afford the fare.

We all worked for the company here as a rule. The lucky ones had their way paid by wealthy benefactors from Earth, to research or provide some special service to the geo-cities. You could often pick them by their off-planet style clothing, and by their smaller stature, as a rule. They were also pretty fit, as well, which has led to their being excluded from most competitive sporting events here. When you are local born, with the lower gravity, there is a tendency to grow more than one once would. It has created an entire new branch of medicine, that had its roots in the days of space flight and it's unique effects on the body.

You felt less G's living here. It was comfortable enough, particularly for the Earth arrivals, who felt like supermen for a while, all light in their step, and able to lift more than the ever could in the Gym. By the standard weights, a kilo was still a kilo, even in low gravity. Some things remained the same, as mass was the true measure of things anywhere. Just because your gold ingot felt lighter, it was still an ounce. That unit of measure was one of the last to remain from the last century.

From the faceted viewing level two men looked on in silent contemplation. They had each devoted years of labor to realise this scene that lay below them. Sharp radiant light was diffused through the polarising and radiation shielding. Intermittent communications interuppted the otherwise still chamber, which sat atop emergency power and life support modules. Through the center of this was the elevator shaft, within a pressurised cylinder, that connected this spectacularly isolated place to the rest of Lunar Launch Facility 1.