by Greg Bear
"Report," Sean demanded.
"Armed male in full pressure suit. He sees us. Not reacting yet," Gretyl said.
We didn't deviate from our path. We would pass within fifty meters of the picket.
The helmeted head turned, watching us. He held up a hand. "Hey, what is this?" a masculine voice asked. "What in hell are you doing up here? Do you folks have ID?"
"We're from UMS," Gretyl said. We didn't slow our pace.
"What are you doing up here?" the picket repeated.
"Surveying, what's it look like?" Gretyl responded. We carried no instruments. "What are you doing up here?"
"Don't bunny with me," he said. "You know there's been trouble. Just tell me what department you're from and . . . have you been using code?"
"No," Gretyl said.
We had closed another twenty yards. He started to hike down the rise to inspect us.
"What in hell are you wearing?"
"Red suits," Gretyl answered.
"Shit, it's skinseal. It's against the law to wear that stuff except in emergencies. How many of you are there?"
"Forty-five," Gretyl lied.
"I've been told to keep intruders off university property," he said. "I'll need to see IDs. You should have UMS passes to even be up here."
"Is that a gun?" Gretyl asked, faking a lilt of surprise.
"Hey, get over here, all of you."
"Why do you need a gun?"
"Unauthorized intruders. Stop now."
"We're from the Areology Department, and we've only got a few hours up here . . . Didn't you get a waiver from Professor Sunder?"
"No, dammit, stop right now."
"Listen, friend, who do you answer to?"
"UMS is secure property. You'd better give me your student ID numbers now."
"Fap off," Gretyl said.
The picket raised his rifle, a long-barreled, slender automatic flechette. My anger and fear were almost indistinguishable. Dauble and Connor must have lost their minds. No student on Mars had ever been shot by police, not in fifty-three years of settlement. Hadn't they ever heard of Tienanmen or Kent State?
"Use it," Gretyl said. "You'll be all over the Triple for shooting areology students on a field trip. Great for your career. Really spin you in with our families, too. What kind of work you looking for, rabbit?"
Our receivers jabbered with the picket's own coded outgoing message. More jabber returned.
The man lowered his rifle and followed us. "Are you armed?" he asked.
"Where would students get guns?" Gretyl asked. "Who in hell is giving you orders to scare us?"
"Listen, this is serious. I need your IDs now."
"We've got his code," Sean said. "He's been told to block you however he can."
"Great," Gretyl said.
"Who are you talking to? Stop using code," the picket demanded.
"Maybe they're not clueing you, rabbit," Gretyl taunted.
Gretyl's bravado, her talent for delay and confusion, astonished me. Perhaps she and Sean and a few of the others had been training for this. I wished I knew more about revolution.
The word came to me like a small blow on my back. This was a kind of revolution. "Jesus," I said with my transmitter off.
"What's he doing?" Sean asked.
"He's following us," Gretyl said. "He doesn't seem to want to shoot."
"Not with flechettes, sure enough," Sean said. "What a banner that would be!" I filled in the details involuntarily: STUDENTS RIPPED BY BURROWING DARTS.
More code whined in our ears like angry insects.
We marched over another rise, the guard following close behind, and saw the low poke-ups of UMS. The UMS warrens extended to the northeast for perhaps a kilometer, half levels above, ten levels deep. The administration chambers were closest to the surface entrance and the nearby train depot. Train guides hovered on slender poles, arcing gently over another rise to link with the station.
Sean's teams were probably there now.
More guards emerged from the UMS buildings, armed and in full pressure suits.
"All right," came a gruff female voice. "State your business. Then get the hell out of here or you'll be arrested."
Gretyl stepped forward, a scrawny little red devil with a black masked head. "We want an audience with Chancellor Connor. We are students who have been illegally voided and whose contracts have been flagrantly broken. We demand — "
"Who in hell do you think you are? A bunch of tapping rodents?" The woman's voice scared me. She sounded outraged, on the edge of something drastic. I couldn't tell which of the suited figures she was, or if she was outside at all. "You've crossed regional property. Goddamned Gobacks should know what that means."
"I'm not going to argue," Gretyl said. "We demand to speak with — "
"You're talking to her, you ignorant shithead! I'm right here." The foremost figure raised an arm and shook a gloved fist. "And I'm in no mood to negotiate with trespassers and Gobacks."
"We're here to deliver a petition." Gretyl removed a metal cylinder from her belt and extended it. One of the guards started forward, but Connor grabbed his elbow and shook it once, firmly. He backed away and folded his arms.
"Politics of confrontation," Connor said, voice harsh as old razors. "Agitprop and civil disobedience. You'd think you were on Earth. Politics doesn't work that way here. I have a mandate to protect this university and keep order."
"You refuse to meet with us and discuss our demands?"
"I'm meeting with you now. Nobody demands anything of lawful authority except through legal channels. Who's behind you?"
I looked over my shoulder, misunderstanding.
"There's no conspiracy," Gretyl said.
"Lies, my dear. Genuine lies."
"Under Martian contract law, we have the right to meet with you and discuss why we have been voided and our contracts broken."
"State law superseded BM law last month."
"Actually, it doesn't. If you want to check with your lawyers — " Gretyl began. I cringed. We were bickering and time was running out.
"You have one minute to turn around and go back to where you came from, or we'll arrest you," Connor said. "Let the legals sort it out. Do your families know where you are? How about your advocates? Do they know and approve?"
Gretyl's words bristled. "I can't believe you are being so stubborn. I'm asking for the last time — "
"Right. Arrest them, my authority, statute two-five-one, Syria-Sinai district books."
Some of the students began to talk, asking worried questions. "Quiet!" Gretyl shouted. She turned to Connor. "Is this your last answer?"
"You poor dumb rodents," Connor said. She swiveled to enter the open lock door. Connor behaved even more rudely than she had been portrayed to us in the briefings, supremely confident, intractable and ready to provoke an incident. Guards moved forward. I turned and saw three guards behind us, also closing. We had to submit.
Gretyl stepped away from the first guard. Another flanked her on the right, coming between us, and she stepped back. There were twenty of us and ten guards.
"Let them take you," Gretyl said. "Let them arrest you." Then why was she resisting?
A guard took my arm and applied sticky rope to my skinsealed wrist. "You're lucky we're bringing you in," he said, grinning. "You wouldn't last another hour out here."
Two of the guards devoted themselves exclusively to Gretyl. They advanced with hands and sticky ropes held out. She backed away, held up her arm as if waving to them, and touched her mask.
Time got stiff.
Gretyl turned to look at the rest of us. Her eyes looked scared. My heart sank. Don't do anything just to impress Sean, I wanted to shout to her.
"Tell them what you saw here," Gretyl said. "Freedom conquers'" Her fingers plucked at and then slipped beneath the seam of the mask. A guard grabbed at her arm but he wasn't quick enough.
Gretyl ripped away the mask and sprang to one side, sending it flying with a wid
e toss. Her long-nosed face flashed pale and narrow against the pink sky. She squeezed her eyes shut and clamped her mouth instinctively. Her arms reached out, fingers extended, as if she were a tightrope walker and might lose her balance.
Simultaneously, I heard small thumps and felt the ground vibrate.
Connor hadn't had time to enter the poke-up airlock. "Get her inside! Get her inside!" she screeched, pushing through her associates.
The guards stood still as statues for what seemed like minutes, then reached for Gretyl and dragged her as fast as they could to the airlock. She struggled in their arms. I saw her face pinking, blood vessels near the surface rupturing as the plasma boiled. Vacuum rose.
Gretyl opened her eyes and reached up with one hand to grab at her chin. She pulled her own jaw open. The air in her lungs rushed out, moisture freezing in a cloud in the still air.
"They've blown track," someone shouted.
"Get her INSIDE!"
Gretyl looked at the sky through rime-clouded eyes.
The guard in front of me jerked the sticky rope forward and I fell into the dirt. For an instant it seemed he might kick me. I looked up and saw narrow grim eyes behind the helmet visor, mouth open, face slack. He stopped and blinked, waiting for orders.
I twisted my head around to see how my companions were being treated. Several lay in the dirt. The guards systematically pushed us down and planted boots on our backs. When all nineteen lay flat, the guards stood back. The door to the lock opened again and someone stepped out, not Connor.
"They're under arrest," a man's voice said over the radio. "Get them inside. Strip that stuff off and put them in a dorm. Delouse them."
There have never been lice on Mars.
They separated us quickly. Three guards pulled five of us away from the airlock and marched us through chilly tunnels to the old dorms, seldom used now. The new dorms had been equipped with more modern conveniences, but these were maintained for an emergency or future overload of students.
"Can you get this off by yourself?" the tallest of the three asked, gesturing at our skinseal. She removed her helmet beneath the dimmed lights of the hall, lips downturned, eyes miserable.
"What did he mean, delouse?" another guard asked, a young, muscular male with West Indian features and accent.
The guards were all fresh Martians. That made sense. The new United Mars state would be their sponsor, their BM and family.
"You can't just hold us here," I said. "What happened to Gretyl?" My four companions turned on the guards, pointing fingers and shouting. We all demanded our rights — communication, freedom, advocates.
It became an open rebellion until the third guard pulled a flechette from his pack. He was the shortest, a slim man with plain, short-cut brown hair and perfect, saintly features. His eyes narrowed, very cold. I thought, Here's a Statist sympathizer. The others were merely hired hands.
"Blow it down, right now," he demanded.
"You injured Gretyl!" I shouted. "We need to know what happened to her!"
"Sabotage is treason. We could shoot you in self-defense."
He raised the pistol. All of us backed away, including the two other guards.
"That wouldn't be smart," I said.
"Not for you." The slim fellow gave us a cold thin smile and pushed us down the hall.
We entered a stripped-down double room, immediately sprawling on the bare cot and chairs, another small gesture of useless defiance.
"You're going to be here for a while, so get comfortable."
I didn't like him pushing his pistol and didn't want to provoke him any further. We peeled off our skinseal — it was a blessed relief to be free of it, actually. The West Indian tossed the shreds into dust bags. Enough smear floated loose to make us sneeze.
As if meeting for the first time, the five of us nodded and made introductions where necessary. We knew each other only slightly; one had been a classmate of mine, Felicia Overgard, about a year younger and two steps behind. I did not know Oliver Peskin well, a step higher and an agro major, and I had only met Tom Callin and Chao Ming Jung in the trench dome.
The slim fellow averted his eyes. Bizarre, waving a gun at us but ashamed of our bare flesh. He thrust the gun at the vapor sacks in the washroom. "I don't know if you have lice, but you smell pretty rank."
The vapor bags hadn't been refilled or filtered in some time and we didn't smell much better after the showers. Water was inadequate to get rid of smear, and we carried itchy patches of red and orange all over. We'd have welts by tomorrow.
Three hours passed and we learned nothing. The guards stayed in their suits to avoid the dust. They had removed any identifiers and would not tell us their names. The sympathizer grew more and more grim as the hours crawled, and then ramped up to nervous, fidgeting with his gun. He whistled and pantomimed breaking it down and reassembling it. Finally, his slate chimed and he answered.
After a couple of brief acknowledgments, he sent the female guard out of the room. I wondered what they would do next, why they didn't want the woman there.
Surely they weren't that stupid.
Conversation with my companions became thin and quiet. Fear had worn off — we no longer thought we were going to be shot — but the numbing sense of isolation that replaced it was no better. We settled into shivering silence.
The rooms were kept at minimum heat and we still didn't have any clothes. The three men suffered worse than Felicia and I.
"It's cold in here," I said to the sympathizer. He agreed but did nothing.
"It's cold enough to make us sick," said Oliver.
"All right," said the sympathizer.
"We should find them some clothes," said the West Indian.
"No," said the sympathizer.
"Why not?" Chao asked. Felicia had given up covering herself with her hands.
"You caused a hell of a lot of trouble. Why make it any easier on you?"
"They're human, man," the West Indian said. He was not very old, twelve or thirteen, and he had to be a recent immigrant. His West Indies accent was still obvious.
The sympathizer squinted and shook his head dubiously.
We've won, I thought. With fools like this, the Statists don't have a chance. I couldn't quite convince myself, however.
We spent ten hours in that dorm room, cold and naked, skin itching furiously.
I fell asleep and dreamed of trees too tall to fit into any dome, rooted unprotected in the red dirt of Mars: redwoods in red flopsand, lofting a hundred meters, tended by naked children. I had had the dream before and it left me for a moment with an intense feeling of well-being. Then I remembered I was a prisoner.
The West Indian prodded my shoulder. I rolled on the thinly carpeted floor. He averted his eyes from my nakedness and drew his lips tightly together. "I want you to know I am not all in this," he said. "My heart, I mean. I am truly a Martian, and this is my first work here, you know?"
I looked around. The sympathizer was out of the room. "Get us some clothes," I said.
"You blew up the train lines and these people, they are very angry. I just tell you, don't blame me when the shit sprays. People go up and down the halls — the tunnels. I look out, there is so much going on. They are afraid, I think."
What did they have to be afraid of? Had the LitVids grabbed Gretyl's injury or death and put our cause on the sly spin?
"Can you send a message to my parents?"
"The fellow Rick has gone," the West Indian said, shaking his head. "He meets with others, and he leaves me here."
"What happened to Gretyl?"
He shook his head again. "I hear nothing about her. What I saw, it made me sick. Everybody is so crazy. Why did she do it?"
"To make a point," I said.
"Not worth losing your life," the West Indian said, frowning deeply. "This is small history, petty people. On Earth — "
My temper flared. "Look, we've only been here a hundred Earth years, and our history is small stuff by Earth standar
ds, but you're a Martian now, remember? This is corruption and dirty politics — and if you ask me, it's directly connected with Earth, and the hell with all of you!"
You really sound committed, I thought. Abuse could do wonders.
I awakened the others with my outburst. Felicia sat up. "He isn't armed," she observed. Oliver and Chao stood warily and brushed dust off their backsides, muscles tensed as if they were giving thought to jumping the man.
The West Indian looked, if possible, even more abjectly miserable. "Do not try something," he said, standing his ground with arms out, shaking his head.
The door opened and the sympathizer returned. He and the West Indian exchanged glances and the West Indian tilted and shook his head, saying, "Oh, man." Behind the sympathizer came a fellow with short black hair. He wore a tight-fitting, expensive, and fashionable green longsuit.
"We're kept here against our will — " Oliver complained immediately.
"Under arrest," the man in the fashionable green suit said jovially.
"For more than a day, and we demand to be released," Oliver finished, folding his arms. The man in the suit smiled at this literally naked presumption.
"I'm Achmed Crown Niger," he said. His voice was high Mars, imitative of the flat English of Earth, an accent rarely heard in the regional BMs. I presumed he would be from Lal Qila or some other independent station, perhaps a Muslim. "I represent the state interests in the university. I'm going from room to room getting names. I'll need your family names, BM connections, and the names of people you'll want to talk to in the next hour."
"What happened to Gretyl?" I asked.
Achmed Crown Niger raised his eyebrows. "She's alive. She has acute facial rose and her eyes and lungs need to be rebuilt. But we have other things to talk about. Under district book laws, you are all charged with criminal trespass and sabotage — "
"What happened to the others?" I pursued.
He ignored me. "That's serious stuff. You're going to need advocates." He turned to the sympathizer and barked, "Damn it, get these people something to wear." He looked back at us and his ingratiating smile returned. "It's tough being legal in front of naked people."
Thirty armed men and women, as many LitVid agents. Chancellor Connor, and Governor Dauble herself stood in the dining hall, Connor and Dauble and their entourage well away from the offending students. We clustered in bathrobes near the serving gates, the twenty-eight who had gone out with Sean and Gretyl, criminals caught in the act of sabotage. Those left behind in the trench domes had been collected as well. Dauble and Connor were about to celebrate their victory on LitVid across the Triple.