Moving Mars (46 page)

No weapons are being developed, I said.

Ive been told that these weapons could be more destructive than any yet made.

I saw no reason to argue the point further. Present your proposals and lets get this over with.

The parties involved in this preemptive action will deactivate all blocks on Martian dataflow, if the people listed on this slate He pushed his own slate forward and I spun it around to view the screen. Are delivered into my hands within seventy-two hours. I will receive them here in Many Hills and transport them elsewhere. Eventually they will go to Earth.

I read the list: all of the Olympians, Zenger, Casares, and nineteen othersamong them, the finest scientists on Mars.

What will this accomplish? I asked.

Peace, Dickinson said. Return to normal dataflow. Lives saved.

No locusts? I asked.

Locusts?

Warbeiters. Nano armies, I said.

He seemed puzzled.

Your puppet masters dont tell you everything. Either that or youre willfully ignorant.

Dickinson shrugged.

What Earth is doing to Mars right now will alter the balance of the Triple, I said, voice cracking. Nobody will feel safe.

Please dont lecture me, Dickinson said.

Gretyl stepped forward. We understand the delicate balances better than you.

Yes, and your youthful idealsmy God, Sean, youre working with Crown Niger! I shut myself up, but my body trembled with suppressed rage. Three days. The Republic has no authority to kidnap citizens.

What it comes down to, I think, is Earth considers its own safety paramount, and does not trust Martian intentions, Dickinson concluded. Ninety-eight percent of all humanity still lives on Earth. Knowing what I know about this government, I wouldnt trust you, either.

Weve never shown Earth any hostility. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Mars should have kept its innocence, Dickinson said. No world state, stay out of the big leagues, peace and comparative prosperity. Ive fought against this all my life. All states resort to force in the end.

I assume there are other conditions?

Dickinson referred to his slate. Return to BM economic structure for a minimum of twenty years. Earth monitors to be installed at all research centers, and regular visits of inspection teams at any facility of any kind on Mars.

They had given up on us. They wanted us weak, locked in our own past, stripped of our new powers. Someone had calculated that the technological situation would get out of hand before any peaceful negotiations could be concluded. Occupation by Earth, I said. Absolutely incredible. How can anyone believe that will be workable?

Not my problem, Dickinson said.

And what do you get, personally?

Exile, I suppose, Dickinson said. No Martian will tolerate Gretyl and me now. No doubt well be dead in a few months if we stay here. Well go to Earth.

Youre happy with that?

For the end of a Martian state, Id gladly accept my own death, and Gretyls, Dickinson said. I am true to my ideals. I havent changed, Casseia.

Every history has its traitors, I said.

Dickinson dismissed that with a subtle toss of his head and flicker of his eyelids. Ill need your answer soon.

How soon?

Within one hour.

We dont have a quorum. If you could bring the rest of the government together

Please dont try to stall. Were all here to avert an even greater catastrophe. If we fail, stronger measures will be taken.

Locusts.

I truly dont know. As President, you are allowed, by your constitution, to negotiate foreign treaties.

But not to negotiate surrender during wartime, I said.

This is not war, Dickinson said.

What is it, for Gods sake?

Clever, devastating disruption imposed by a vastly superior power, Dickinson said. Why mince words? I dont think youre stupid. We have one hour. I understand that if Earth does not receive a reply by then, the knot will tighten.

These were not negotiations; they were ultimatums. Mars would strangle if I did not agree to everything. I felt lightheaded, almost giddy with suppressed rage.

Have you any human heart whatsoever? I asked Dickinson. Have you any feelings for what your planet is suffering?

I was not the one who made this situation, he answered briskly.

We are honorable Martians, Gretyl said.

No choice. No way out. Selling out the Republics future, all we had worked for; I would be branded the traitor. A kind of delirium smoothed itself around me with seductive insistence. Die, but do not do this. I could not listen.

Lieh had been monitoring her slate closely for several minutes. Now, she stood up from the gallery and approached me like a delicate crab, eyes full of hatred turned on Dickinson. She bent over and whispered in my ear, Madam President, weve established contact with the Olympians. Im told that you are not to sell the farm, and that you are to leave this meeting and come with me to the surface. Charles says he has to go see a man about a scary dog.

I looked at her, baffled. Lieh straightened and backed away.

Id like to discuss this with the people Ive assembled here, I said to Dickinson. He nodded, appearing faintly bored. Youll have your answer, I said.

I left the table and gestured for Smith and Ely to follow me out of the chamber. We met Firkazzie in the governors cloakroom. Whats going on? I asked Lieh and Firkazzie, my nerves shot, all confidence fled.

Lieh deferred to Firkazzie.

Were to take you Up in the next ten minutes. Theres an observation deck on the top of the main capitol building, but it isnt pressurized yet.

By whose orders?

It was not an order, Maam, Firkazzie said. Charles Franklin requested your presence, and said it was very important.

I started to laugh and caught myself before it turned into a hysterical bray. What in hell is more important than negotiating with Earth?

I only carry the message, Lieh said, stiffening and looking me firmly in the eye. I felt adequately chastened.

Lets go, then, I said.

We dont have much time, Firkazzie said. We have to suit up and climb past the construction barriers.

Dandy, Firkazzie, and Lieh accompanied me; all the others, senators and aides, were left behind, not essential to this task.

We took an elevator to the upper levels, two stories above the surface. I was too numb and confused to be concerned with politics and protocol. I felt the bleak threat of Mars devastated by Terrie power, by armies in the sands; I could not get over the thought that this pollution, this disruption had caused deaths already, and must end soon, or else. Dickinson had given me an unacceptable ultimatumand I had no choice but to accept. What could anyone do or say that would change that?

I stood in a dim cold room while Dandy and Lieh dragged out suits, tested them and found them secure. We put them on and attached cyclers. The seals activated. My suit adjusted to my body automatically.

Lieh, Dandy, and an architect whose name I did not catch took me through a short maze of nutritional vats and construction slurry tanks. Beyond the safety barriers, the dark, silent hall opened onto a short, curved corridor, an open hatch with a blinking red low-pressure light, a glimpse of dark brown sky and scattered clouds reddening in the dawn.

We stood on a parapet overlooking Many Hills, surrounded by Schiaparelli Basin, twenty meters above the reddish-brown surface. Smooth scrubbed lava streaked with pockets of smear stretched for kilometers all around. The air was cold and still, the quiet profound. We had not turned on our suit radios for fear of attracting attention from assassins. Terrie ships could spot us from thousands of klicks and do whatever they wished to us.

I lifted my arms in bafflement, wondering what I was supposed to be witnessing. I was almost by accident that I fixed my gaze west and saw Phobos, one hour into its ascent, four hours from setting in the east. I glanced past it, then felt my neck stiffen and my eyes begin to water. Scary dog.

Charles said he was going to see a man about a scary dog. I did not know what Charles was going to do. But a hopeless wish, a wildest guess within me, pushed forward, fantasy turning to conviction. It fit. The Mercury could take them there, the equipment and the thinkers, and Charles was just the quiet sort of megalomaniac to think of such a thing and secretly offer it to Ti Sandra.

I started to speak but realized nobody would hear me. I pointed to the moon. I pulled Lieh toward me, touching helmets, and practically screamed the phrase from Shakespeare. Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war! Fear! Fear and panic, the dogs of war! Look at Phobos! My God, Lieh! Hes going to do it! Hes going to do it!

She pulled away, her almond eyes squinting in concern, as if I might be insane. I laughed and wept, convinced I knew, convinced that somehow this horrible burden was about to be lifted from my shoulders. Dandy touched his helmet to mine and said, solicitously, Something wrong, Maam?

I grabbed his shoulders and spun him to look west, to face that familiar moon we had seen so often since our births, that dread canine Fear that accompanies the God of War, so innocuous and innocent for such a dreadful name, small and nicked away by meteoroids and early settlement mining, circling Mars every seven hours forty minutes at six thousand kilometers, low and fast, accompanied by its fellow dog Panic.

Lieh, Dandy and I all faced west. The architect stayed in shadow, not caring to expose himself to whatever had made us mad.

Bright and full against the dark star-strewn sky, Phobos climbed behind a low wisp of ice cloud. It turned ghostly in the cloud, shimmered, and then emerged crystalline, as real and sharp as anything I had ever seen. I focused my will on it, as if helping Charles, as if a psychic link had risen between us all in this extremity and we could each of us know what the other was thinking and doing. My will went out and touched the moon and I was half insane with a terrified desire.

Phobos disappeared. There were no clouds between, no obscuring dust. The clarity of deep gray orbiting stone simply vanished.

My desire became epiphany. Dandy and Lieh scanned the sky, not understanding; they did not know what I knew.

Then Lieh turned to me and her eyes widened with fear. She and Dandy touched helmets with me simultaneously. Have they blown it up? Dandy asked.

No, I said, weeping. No! Theyve shown Earth what we can do!

They still did not comprehend. I didnt care. In my relief and ecstasyin my absolute terror for CharlesI loved them as if they had been my own children. I grabbed their arms and shouted, helmets pressed together firmly, Theyve gone to Phobos and theyve moved it. Never forget this! Never! Never forget!

On the parapet of the future observation deck, I did a mad little pirouette, then fetched up against a pillar and stared out over the red and orange vastness of the basin. Phobos had left the skies of Mars, and I did not know when or if it would return.

But I knew, as surely as if Charles and Ti Sandra had told me themselves, where they had sent it. And I knew Charles was riding it Across the Solar System, to Earth, a dreadful warning from her oppressed child.

Phobos now rose in the skies of the Mother of us all.

Dont tread on me.

Dickinson sat where I had left him, Gretyl nearby. They seemed at peace, content to play their roles in this grand comeuppance. It would be almost an hour before a message could be sent from Earth. Until then, he was mine to toy with, and I felt more than wicked.

As ignorant as Dickinson, the legislators resumed their seats after standing at my entrance.

Mr. Dickinson, I said, I refuse your ultimatum. Im placing you under arrest. Under the laws of the Federal Republic of Mars I consulted my slate, leaned over the table, and pointed my finger at him, you are accused of high crimes against the Republic, including treason, espionage, not registering as a foreign agent, and threatening the security of the Republic. I turned to Gretyl. You, too, honey, I said.

Dickinson glanced at the four Cailetet aides. He turned back to rne, blinking. His equanimity impressed me no end. Thats your answer? he said.

No. My answer to you and the groups you represent is that at the duly appointed time and under the proper circumstances, when order has been restored to this Republic and all threats have been rescinded, we will discuss issues of substance with properly identified Earth governments like civilized peoples. There will be a quorum of elected and appointed officials in this chamber, and duly recognized diplomats and negotiators from Earth. Well do it legally and openly.

Gretyl lost some of her bearing; she flicked her eyes around the chamber like a deer in a cage. I remembered intense Gretyl ripping away her mask, willing to martyr herself on the Up. And I remembered, with sad clarity, how I had once thought Sean Dickinson the most noble male figure I had ever seenbrave, quiet and forthright. Had he offered, I would have bedded him instantly. And in bed he would have been quiet and reserved, a little chilly. I would have fallen into destructive love with him. He would have torn me up and discarded me.

I felt blessed for never having had that opportunity.

Are you certain thats what you want me to say? he asked.

Yes, I said. Tell Crown Niger and Earth that your credentials are not acceptable. I turned to Dandy. After hes done, I said, arrange for their arrest. All of them.

Governor Henry Smith of Amazonis seemed close to fainting.

Dickinson stood, face suddenly ashen. I hope you know what youre doing, he said.

For a moment, we stared at each other. Sean blinked, turned away slowly, and said, I never trusted you. Not from the beginning.

I would have given my life for you, I said. But I was young and stupid.

Id like to pull back now and take a moment to rest and rethink my telling. I remember the emotions of that moment so vividly that I am back in that chamber. I wrote the above lines weeping like a young girl. It was the high moment of my life, perhaps because what came after was too sad and immense to be real.

From this time on, events fall in my memory like dead creatures across an old sea floor, flat and compressed, unreal.

I do not say I was not responsible. I was more involved, and therefore more responsible, than most; the blame has fallen squarely on me, and I accept it.

Phobos appeared in the skies over Earth in a broad elliptical orbit inclined at thirty degrees to the equator with a perigee of one thousand kilometers and apogee of seven thousand.

Phoboss bright face, quickly waxing and waning, changed the entire equation as nothing else could. Mars could drop moons on Earth. In the strategic balance, we now tipped the scales.

Earth did not know that on Phobos rode the equipment and the individuals essential to the wielding of this power. What they did not know, weakened them.

And what Earth would soon know or guess could ultimately weaken us.

The evolvons withdrew within six hours, on command from Earths satellites around Mars. Those satellites then self-destructed, leaving tiny streaks of red against the dark sky. We received assurances that locusts had not been planted; confusion and weakness, for the moment, forced us to accept that. Mars began to come alive again; its dataflow blood coursed.

The networks of communication set up by amateurs in the preceding days were charted, formalized, organized, made ready for further duties. We would not be caught so vulnerable again. In stations across Mars, engineers rigged simpler, more secure dataflow systems, setting us back fifty years or more, but guaranteeing that we would breathe, drink clean water, see no more the vivid horror of vacuum rose in blown-out tunnels.

Mars began counting its dead, and every horror was broadcast around the Triple. Earths tactics had backfiredfor the time being.

Alice One and Two were among the casualties. Half of the high-level thinkers could not be reactivated. Their memory stores were salvaged, and portions of personality could be recorded for use in other thinkers, but the essencethe soul of the thinkerwas gone. I could not mourn her; there was too much to mourn. If I began to mourn, it would never stop; and I still waited for word of Ilya and Ti Sandra.

For two days, shuttles and trains coursed into the new capital, bringing legislators, jurists, eager to re-confirm the Republics independence, its very existence; bringing fresh equipment, experts determined to sweep again and clean out the pollution of Earth.

For two days, I coordinated as President, knowing my position was temporarybelieving but not knowing for sure that Ti Sandra was alive somewhere. I worried that she did not present herself now. It wasnt like her not to take the slight risk. Politics demanded that she return, if only to reassure the citizens of Mars.

I did not sleep, barely had time to eat, and I moved from station to station around Arabia Terra by train and shuttle, spending no more than a few hours in one place at any time. We did not trust Earths statements. Once betrayed, a hundred times shy.

Five days after the Phobos transfer, I was invited to observe its return from an observation dome in Paschel Station near Cassini Basin. The governor of Arabia Terra, Lexis Caer Cameron, three of her top aides, Dandy Breaker, and Lieh Walker stood beside me under a broad plastic dome. We lifted glasses of champagne, looking east this time.

I wish to hell I knew what this all means, Governor Cameron said.

So do I, I said.

Lieh ventured a rare opinion. It means we never have to knuckle under again.

I smiled but could not share her optimism. Our triumph would be short-lived.

Thirty seconds, Lieh said.

We waited. I could barely think through my accumulated exhaustion. I needed a full body cleanse; hell, I felt as if I could use a whole new body.