Moving Mars (36 page)

I felt for them, in that suspended time, as I had felt before only for family or husband. And for those who stood outside our process, who opposed it, I felt as a mother bird must feel about the egg-stealing snake.

Love and suspicion, mellow accomplishment against gnawing anxiety for what might come

I turned to look at the corner of the dining hall where I had stood years before with Charles and Diane, Sean and Gretyl, and vowed that sort of injustice would never happen again.

The delegates spread across Mars to bring word to their people about the proposed constitution. In district assemblies from pole to pole, Martians closely examined the document, and studied the charts and Legal Logic analyses.

There were incidents. A delegate was stormed by a mob of dissident water miners in Lowell Crater in Aonia. Three delegate aides were exiled from their families. Lawsuits were filed under the old rules of the Council court system, not yet disbanded; and all the while, Cailetet entrenched its district holdings, gathering dissident BMs under its protective wing, and making overtures to Earth that were, for a time, politely ignored.

Earth was patient.

I saw Ilya perhaps one day in five, and when he was in the field, less often than that.

Ilya had been called to head studies of cyst reproduction at Olympia, working with Professor Jordan-Erzul and Dr. Schovinski. During one memorable day away from my duties, he showed me a broad canyon in Cyane Sulci chosen for a major mother cyst experiment. The finest specimen known would be exposed to the Martian atmosphere, showered with ice and mineral dust, heated by infrared lamps, and then covered with a dome and subjected to a tenth of a bar of pressure. After months of preparation, biologists from Rubicon City were optimistic they would see results.

Whenever we met, we slept away from home, in guest suites, inns, subjected to the creativity of regional cuisine All through the long months of traveling to district assemblies, training or shuttling from station to station, persuading, cajoling, browbeating, explaining the elements of Marss future government.

In the early spring of M.Y. 58, the citizens of Mars voted on ratification. Our patient work and preparation had the desired results: the constitution was ratified, sixty-six percent for, thirty against, four abstaining.

Seven Binding Multiples refused to participate, including Cailetet, leaving three large districts and portions of four others in an uncertain condition, outside of the process for the time being.

The interim government would continue for five more months, as candidates for the new offices were nominated and elected. A capital had to be chosen, or a new one built; the districts would have to submit to an official federal census; the flood of volunteers for appointed government positions had to be dealt with, and plans made for folding the structures of the interim government into the forthcoming elected government; the conflicting laws of different districts and BMs had to be reconciled.

The economic alliances of Earth transmitted their congratulations, and promised to send ambassadors to the new Federal Republic. The Moon and Belt BMs did the same.

For a time, it seemed possible we could simply ignore Cailetet and the other dissidents.

Coming full circle, a celebration dinner was held at the University of Mars one week after ratification. All the governors, the former delegates and syndics and advocates and assistants, as well as new appointees and ambassadors, gathered in the old UMS dining hall, five hundred strong, to celebrate the victory.

Ilya sat patiently beside me as vid after congratulatory vid was played. I held his hand, and he surreptitiously passed me his slate showing results from the first cyst experiment. I scrolled through photos and chemical results. Snail slime? I mouthed.

He grinned. Still growing, he wrote on the slate. Ti Sandra glanced at me as Earths new ambassador began his speech, and I devoted my full attentionor at least pretended to. Ilya stroked my thigh, and I was anticipating a long evening alone with himin yet another inn roomafter the dinner.

As the meal ended, an advocate from Yamaguchithe old affiliations and descriptions still lingereddrew Ti Sandra aside in the tunnel outside the dining hall and whispered in her ear. Ti Sandra nodded and spoke to me in an undertone.

Tell Ilya to keep your bed warm, she said. Youll be back in a few hours. They tell me its important.

I kissed Ilya. He grasped my hand, worried that something had gone wrong.

Ti Sandra embraced Paul and they exchanged long-suffering grimaces. The district governor of Syria-Sinai, the advocate from Yamaguchi, and two male armed guards, escorted Ti Sandra and me deep into the sciences complex of UMS.

The guards wore the uniforms of Sinai public defense, with hastily applied patches showing the flag of the Republic. Ti Sandra calmly ignored them.

Along the way, we were introduced to a man I recognized as an advocate from Cailetet, Ira Winkleman. Neither Ti Sandra nor I knew precisely what we were being led into. Vague notions of a coup or some show of force from Cailetet flitted through my head. After our heady celebration dinner, the mystery made me a touch queasy.

Were away from the main body of university labs, Winkleman said with an unsteady smile. This is the first time Ive been down here myself. His face was etched with lines of concern; he looked as if he had not slept for days.

We arrived at a heavy steel sliding door. Friends, beyond this point, only the President, Vice President, and I will pass, Winkleman announced. I apologize, but security is very important.

The governor and the Yamaguchi advocate shook their heads but did not complain. They stood aside as Winkleman palmed the lock face.

Please have the new President and Vice President present their palms for security coding, the door requested. After they have done this, Ira Winkleman will place his palm on the face again to confirm identification.

We did as told and the door opened. The guards also remained outside. Beyond, a short corridor led to a high-ceilinged laboratory filled with research and test benches, heavy insulated pipes, thick bundles of electrical wiring and fiber conduits, liquid gas cylinders. Much of the equipment had an unmistakable air of disuse, covered with packing, sealant, antioxidant. Only a small corner seemed to have seen much recent activity.

This project has been under way for about three years, Winkleman said. You may have heard of it, Miz Majumdar At least, I believe you learned about some aspects of it. The scientists and support teams involved unanimously agreed to break with Cailetet about six months ago. I resigned from Cailetet and went with them to Tharsis Research University. Now, weve made an agreement with UMS, and were moving part of our work here.

What is this? Ti Sandra asked, frowning impatiently.

Winkleman tried not to seem officious. Too nervous, he did not succeed. Wethe Olympians, that isdecided that Cailetet was under too much pressure from Earth. We voted to shut down the project, to pretend to have failed. He shook his head and closed his eyes in an expression of frustration. We didnt want Achmed Crown Niger to have such power.

He escorted us to the far side of the laboratory, in the section that had seen some use. Here, behind a portable screen, three men and two women sat around a table, drinking tea and eating doughnuts. As we came into view, they stood, brushed crumbs from their clothing, and greeted us respectfully.

Charles Franklins face had thinned. His eyes were more intense and searching, and he seemed to have grown in dignity and maturity. His colleagues seemed restless, uneasy in our companybut Charles was calm.

Winkleman introduced us. Charles smiled as we shook hands, and murmured, Weve met.

Are these the famous Olympians? Ti Sandra asked.

There are four more at Tharsis. Besides, were not so famous now, Charles said. I never did like the name. It was more public relations than anything else

For a project that was secret, observed Chinjia Park Amoy, a small dark woman with large eyes. I wondered if she and Charles were lovers. And where was Charless wife?

The advocates brought chairs from around the lab, and we sat in a circle beside the table. Only Charles remained standing, and Winkleman gladly relinquished his role as explainer, backing away from the table to sit half in shadow.

Our slates were supplied with briefs on each of them, and as we got acquainted, I made an effort to memorize the important details. They were mathematicians and theoretical physicists, all specialists in the Bell Continuum, in descriptor theory. The senior scientist was Stephen Leander, with a thick head of silver hair and a friendly though prickly manner. Chinjia Park Amoy was a Belter who had immigrated to Mars; she had the Belters long arms and legs and thick torso; Tamara Kwang, the youngest, with large black eyes, oolong-tea skin, carried several external enhancements as torques around her neck and upper arm; and Nehemiah Royce, of Steinburg-Leschke BM, tall and liquid-eyed, with fine brown hair covered by a silk yarmulke.

I turned my attention to the table. Several rectangular black boxes from twenty centimeters to a meter in height occupied one end. At the other end, a shining white box sat alone, linked to the others by thick optical cables. The white box was obviously a thinker, but it did not bear any marks of origin or affiliation.

Leander motioned for Royce and Kwang to bring us chairs. We sat and Ti Sandra leaned back with a deep sigh.

I dont think Im going to like this, she said.

On the contrary, said Leander, sitting on the edge of the table. Were about to present you with the most extraordinary opportunity perhaps in all history.

Ti Sandra shook her head firmly. Sounds dangerous, she said dubiously. Opportunity being the flip side of disaster. She pinched her lips and said, Its more than communications, if Im not mistaken.

Leander nodded and turned to me. Charles says Miz Majumdar might have some idea what weve discovered.

Not really, I said. Tweaks, I presume.

Charles smiled, eyes level on me. Over the years, he had acquired something I would never have thought possible for him: not just poise, not just self-assurance, but charisma.

Charles once said I began, and stopped, feeling heat rise in my face.

Leander faced Charles.

I once told the Vice President that I hoped to break the long status quo and discover the secrets of the universe, Charles explained.

Leander laughed. Not so far wrong, he said. The status quo is certainly shattered. There hasnt been anything this revolutionary since nanotechand that will pale by comparison. Charles is our pivotal theorist, and he seems to have a knack for explaining things simply. Would you like to inform the heads of our new Republic what were offering?

With an uncharacteristic scowl, Ti Sandra conspicuously turned her large body toward Charles.

Weve discovered how to access the Bell Continuum, how to adjust the nature of the components of energy and matter, he began. Together, weve developed a theory of matter and energy that is comprehensive. A dataflow theory. We know how to reach into the descriptive core of a particle, and change it.

Descriptive core? Ti Sandra asked.

Every particle exists in an information matrix. It carries descriptors of all its relevant characteristics. In fact, the total description is the particle. It passes information on its character and states with other particles through exchange of bosonsphotons, for exampleor through the Bell Continuum. The Bell Continuum is a kind of bookkeeping system that balances certain qualities in the universe.

What kind of matrix? Ti Sandra asked.

A dataflow matrix, Charles said. Otherwise undefined.

Like computer memory?

Thats an occasionally useful metaphor, Leander said.

We do not define the matrix, Charles persisted.

Gods computer? Ti Sandra said, her frown deepening.

Charles smiled apologetically. No gods necessary.

Pity, Ti Sandra said. Please go on.

Most particles that make up matter have a description of two hundred and thirty-one bits of informationincluding mass, charge, spin, quantum state, components of kinetic and potential energy, their position in space and moment in time relative to other particles.

Their portfolios, Leander said.

Credit ratings, Royce offered. The humor fell flat.

Very good, Ti Sandra said. Very interesting. But why not send me a paper on your results?

Leander sobered. This is just background. Much of this theory is accepted in high-level physics now

Its controversial in some circles, Charles said, rubbing his hands together.

Idiots, Royce said, shaking his head in pity.

But were the only ones who have been able to manipulate particle data by accessing the Bell Continuum, Charles said. We can convert particles into their own anti-particles

As long as we conserve charge, Royce added.

Right. We can produce antimatter or mirror matter directly from ordinary matter.

He let that sink in. Ti Sandra looked at the Olympians critically, still dubious. Would that be an energy source? she asked.

Tremendous amounts of energy, Leander said. We havent yet built a large-scale reactor, but there are no theoretical limits to the energy we can release. Harness.

Lead into gold? Winkleman asked.

We cant create mass, Charles said. Not yet.

Ti Sandra seemed genuinely stunned now. Not yet? she repeated. Perhaps someday soon?

We dont know, Charles said. Its not impossible, I think. But a few folks disagree.

Royce and Kwang raised their hands. We keep the others humble, Royce said.

Im open to the possibility, Leander said.

Just as significant, we can do the conversion at a distance, Charles said. That is, we can aim at a specific region and convert matter to mirror matter within that region, at distances up to nine or ten billion kilometers. Effectively, anywhere within the Solar System.

The group fell silent for a moment. The Olympians looked at us, and each other, uncomfortably, like youngsters accused of some misdemeanor.