Referenced frequently but never portrayed, Mars takes on a symbolic meaning for the story’s protagonist. To dull office clerk Quail, Mars represents adventure and escape, a place offering a deliberate contrast to Earth. Quail dreams about Mars and wants to visit the planet because he is not satisfied with his life. He covets Mars not as a destination or a physical place, but an idea that he believes can liberate him from his mundane existence.

As Quail changes when he recovers memories or is in the throes of memory implant delusions, the symbolic meaning of Mars also changes. When Quail is a spy, Mars is no longer a distant dream. Instead, it is the site of an assassination on behalf of Interplan—Quail knows that if he were ever to return to Mars, he would be killed by the locals in revenge. Mars is now a dangerous place for dangerous people like Quail: still a potent vision of romantic adventure, but now one tempered by the newfound violence bubbling around Quail.

Eventually, Mars becomes an afterthought. In Quail’s third transformation, the threat of politics on Mars is dismissed in favor of a villain out of a child’s fantasy: Aliens eager to kill every human kept at bay by Quail’s virtues.