They’ll do anything, they’ll kill people andįigure they’re just earning their keep or feeding their children or It happens, yes and more than once! You know it’s true! It happened. Killed dissidents and then disappeared the bodies so that no one everįinds out? It happens! Fuck yes it happens, even on your precious Mars You think it never happens? Do you think that secret police haven’t Room and sucked the air or pulled the trigger.

The attack on Sabishii! Those UNTA storm troopers caught her and IwaoĪnd Gene and Rya and all the rest of them, and they took them to some A sure sign.” He made a stop thrust toįorestall Sax’s next remark, shouted “She’s dead! Face it! She died in Anyone else, when they are reported in two places at once, He does this through a high-credibility character (Coyote) who finally comes out with the point everyone else is afraid to voice (from Part Nine, Natural History):Ĭoyote shook his head violently. In the following passage, Robinson is tipping off the reader that 'Mars exceptionalism' doesn't always hold, and sometimes the explanation can be as simple and brutal as any earth-bound banana republic. I would also make the case that Coyote's statement marks a significant development in the book. It is how I would read the same account laid out as non-fiction and see no reason to apply different logic here. I find this ending unsatisfying but realistic. I would add as supporting evidence the fact that she did not even attempt to reconnect over a long series of funerals for the first hundred.

Sax hallucinated her and his later enhanced memory was just an echo of the hallucination. No mystery to solve, just a grim and abrupt end. Hiroko was killed in the initial attack and 'disappeared' the way secret police have done time and again. My own view, sadly, is that Coyote had it exactly right. To be honest, I am not sure where he was going with that, because it was hard to read it and not think of Hiroko (one final tease for the reader perhaps). She might have been a nod to the other false Hirokos like the one on Earth. I don't think the Asian woman referenced at the end could be Hiroko, because she would have been recognized. It is significant that Hiroko had reached mythic status, sometimes being seen in two places at once.

I think it's safe to say Robinson intentionally left it unanswered, though he I believe he had a most likely outcome in mind and tipped it off.

Mars trilogy