Book excerpt: Arcturus is the name given to the star system some thirty-seven light-years from our own. It includes at least a half dozen planetary bodies and is many times larger and much older than our own star and its system. Arcturian involvement with our system began over three million years ago when a space colony--a galactic space station--was established on Velatropa 24.4, otherwise known as Mars. With its 40,000-year warm cycles, Mars provided the perfect experimental way station. If anything went wrong, at least those on the Arcturus system would not be affected--or so it was thought. Some of those in command of the Martian project had not considered carefully enough the inexorable efficacy of karma, the law of cause and effect. By the time strange events began to transpire on Mars, little did anyone on Mars or Arcturus reckon the strange consequences of forgetting about each other's mutual existence. Thus unfolds the tale of the Arcturian experimental way station, V.24.4, otherwise known as Mars.