Zoya Boone ("Zo") was the naturally-born daughter of influential Free Mars politician Jackie (Boone) and therefore the great-granddaughter of John Boone, making her a yonsei. Like her mother, she was fiercely proud of her lineage and held the legacy of John in high esteem.

Early life

Zo was conceived while Jackie was serving her first term on the first Martian government's executive council. Jackie was an intentional single mother, withholding the identity of Zo's father, although there was naturally much speculation on the identity of the father (Antar, Dao, Nirgal, even John Boone himself through the use of biotechnology). She was born circa 2129 in Cairo, where Jackie was for political reasons (not stated but approximated from the text). As the daughter of one of Mars's most influential political figures, much of the basic care in Zo's early childhood was offloaded to Jackie's staff.

She grew up at Dorsa Brevia, where she was impregnated with its matriarchal society based on the Minoan civilization.

Free Mars agent

She first worked in a feral co-op in Lunae, traveled to the Jovian moons and also taught at Nilokeras University. She was occasionally part of hunting and gathering groups. She enjoyed a good night of sexual encounters in common baths, but even more so enjoyed flying in a birdsuit (a hawksuit), for which she was very skilled.

She joined co-operatives that apart from their commercial activities served as fronts for Free Mars. As part of a mining co-op in Moreux Crater, she acted as an agent for Free Mars, passing subtle messages from her mother to other planets' and moons' officials. With the Martian delegation she journeyed many times throughout the entire solar system.

Zo believed in a semi-anarchic political structure for the future of the solar system. She despised the issei, whom she saw as too anchored in their archaic values, outdated in her age. Sax Russell was the only exception in her eyes, as she discovered he had no fixed sociohistorical values. Sax had her take Ann Clayborne with her on a trip to the outer solar system.

Death

Upon her return from that last trip with Ann in 2181, Zo traveled to the North Sea, south of Boone's Neck, where she was flying with friends. Going to the aid of a distressed flier, Zo and her companion crashed in the waters near the sea cliffs. Against Zo's expectations of survival, part of the yonsei culture, they were soon overwhelmed by incoming waves and slammed against the coastal cliffs.

Notes

According to the short story Jackie On Zo in The Martians, Jackie admits that Nirgal was indeed Zo's father.

27