by Greg Bear
Medias and Pressians, my father called them: the hordes of LitVid reporters that seemed rise out of the ground at the merest hint of a stink. On Mars reporters were a hearty breed; they learned early to get around the tight lips of BM families. Ten of the quickest and hardiest — several familiar to me — stood with arbeiter attendants near the Statist cluster, ear loops recording all they saw, images edited hot for transmission to the satcoms.
Diane stood in a group across the hall. She waved to me surreptitiously. I did not see Sean. Charles was five or six meters from me in our pack and did not appear injured. He saw me and nodded. Some from his group had sustained bruises and even broken bones. Blue boneknits graced three.
We said nothing, stood meek and pitiful. This was our time to be victims of the oppressive state.
Dauble came forward flanked by two advisors. A louder curled on her shoulder like a thin snake, "Polks, this has gone much too far. Chancellor Connor has been courteous enough to supply the families of these students — "
"Banned students!" Oliver Peskin shouted next to me. Others took up the cry, and another chorus followed on with, "Contract rights! Obligations!"
Dauble listened, face fixed in gentle disapproval. The cries died down.
"To supply all of their families with information on their whereabouts, and their status as arrested saboteurs," she finished.
"Where's Gretyl?" I shouted, hardly aware I'd opened my mouth.
"Where's Sean?" someone else called. "Where's Gretyl?"
"Family advocates are flying in now. The train service has been cut, thanks to these students, and our ability to up-link on broadband has been severely curtailed. These acts of sabotage — "
"Illegal voiding!" another student shouted.
"Constitute high felonies under the district book and United Martian codes — "
"Where's SEAN? Where's GRETYL?" Oliver shouted, hair awry, flinging up his hand, fingers splayed.
Guards moved in, shoving through us none too gently, and grabbed him. Connor stepped forward and raised her arm. Achmed Crown Niger ordered the guards to release him. Oliver shrugged their arms away and smiled back at us triumphantly.
Dauble seemed unaffected by the confusion. "These acts will be fully prosecuted."
"Where's SEAN? Where's GRETYL?" several students yelled again.
"Sean's dead! Gretyl's dead!" shouted one high, shrill voice. The effect was electric.
"Who says? Who knows?" others called. The students cried out and milled like sheep.
"Nobody has been killed," Dauble said, her composure suddenly less solid.
"Bring SEAN!"
Dauble conferred with her advisors, then turned back to us. "Sean Dickinson is in the university infirmary with self-inflicted wounds. Everything possible is being done to help him. Gretyl Laughton is in the infirmary as well, with injuries from self-exposure."
The reporters hadn't heard this yet; their interest was immediate, and all focused on Dauble.
"How were the students injured?" asked one reporter, her pickup pointed at Dauble.
"There have been several small injuries — "
"Inflicted by the guards?"
"No," Connor said.
"Is it true the guards have been armed all along? Even before the sabotage?" another reporter asked.
"We anticipated trouble from the beginning," Dauble said. "These students have proven us correct."
"But the guards aren't authorized police or regulars — how do you justify that under district charter?"
"Justify all of it!" Diane shouted.
"I don't understand your attitude," Dauble said to us after a few moments of careful consideration in the full gaze of hot LitVid. "You sabotage life-support equipment — "
"That's a lie!" a student shouted.
"Disrupt the lawful conduct of this university, and now you resort to attempted suicide. What kind of Martians are you? Do your parents approve of this treachery?"
Dauble screwed her face into an expression between parental exasperation and deep concern. "What in the hell is wrong with you? Who raised you — thugs?"
The meeting came to an abrupt end. Dauble and her entourage departed, followed by the reporters. When several reporters tried to talk to us, they were unceremoniously ejected from the dining hall.
How very, very stupid, I thought.
I felt a bit faint from hunger; we hadn't eaten in twenty hours. A few university staff, clearly uncomfortable, served us bowls of quick paste from trays. The nutritional nano was tasteless but still seemed heaven-sent. We had been provided with sleeping pads and blankets and were told winds were up and dust was blowing, grounding shuttles. No advocates or parents had yet come in to see us.
While being fed, we had been divided into groups of six, each assigned two guards. The guards actively discouraged talk between the groups, moving us farther and farther apart until we spread out through the hall. Oliver, considered a loudmouth activist, was prodded into a selected group of other loudmouths that included Diane. Charles sat with five others across the hall, about twenty meters away.
When we still tried to talk, the dining hall sound system blared out loud pioneer music, old-fashioned soul-stirring crap I had enjoyed as a kid, but found bitterly inappropriate now.
When I was free to speak with the Medias and Pressians, I thought, what a story I'd tell ... I had seen and done things in the past few days that my entire life had not prepared me for, and I had felt emotions unknown to me: righteous anger, political confraternity and solidarity, deep fear.
I worried for Sean. All our information came through Achmed Crown Niger, who visited every few hours to hand out scraps of generally useless news. I took a real dislike to him: professional, collected, he was every gram the guvvie man. I focused on his pale, fine-featured face for a time, blaming him for all our troubles. He must have advised the chancellor and governor ... He must have outlined their strategy, maybe even planned the banning and voiding of students . . .
I thought dreamily about a possible life with Sean, if he paid any attention to me after his recovery.
Nothing to do. Nothing to think. The lights in the dining hall went out. The music stopped.
I slept on the floor, nestled like a puppy against Felicia's back.
Someone touched my shoulder. I opened my eyes from a light doze. Charles leaned over me, his face thinner and older, but his smile the same: too calm, somehow, like a young Buddha. His cheeks had pinked as if smirched with poorly applied makeup: a mild case of vacuum rose. Most of the students around us still slept.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
I sat up and looked around. The lights were still dim, but it was obvious the guards had gone.
"Tired," I said. I swallowed hard. My throat was parched and I could feel the oxidant welts itching fiercely. "Where's our food and water?"
"I don't think we're going to get any unless we go for it ourselves."
I stood and stretched my arms. "Are you all right?" I asked, squinting at him, reaching up to his cheeks.
"My mask leaked. I'm fine. My eyes are okay. You look strong," Charles said.
"I feel shitty," I said. "Where are the guards?"
"Probably trying to get out of here any way they can."
"Why?"
He lifted his hands. "I don't know. They backed out about an hour ago."
Oliver Peskin and Diane walked over and we squatted on the floor in whispered confab. Felicia stirred and poked Chao in the ribs.
"What happened to Sean?" Diane asked Charles.
"He was planting a charge when it went off," Charles said. "They say he set it off on purpose."
"He wouldn't do that," Felicia said, face screwed up in disgust.
"Gretyl pulled her mask off," I said.
"Insane," Charles said.
"She had her reasons," Chao said.
"Anyway," Diane went on.
"We need leaders."
"We're not going to be here much longer," Oliver sa
id.
"Oliver's right. We're not guarded. Something's changed," Charles said.
"We have to stick together," Diane insisted.
"If something's changed, it has to have changed in our favor," Oliver said. "It couldn't get any worse."
"We still need leaders," I said. "We should wake people up now and see what the group thinks."
"What if we've won?" Felicia asked. "What do we do?"
"Find out how much we've won, and why," Charles said.
We explored the tunnels around the dining hall, venturing back to the old dorms, all quite empty now. We encountered a few arbeiters about their maintenance business, but no humans. After an hour, we begin to worry — the situation was spooky.
Fanning out, we began a systematic exploration of the upper levels of the entire university, reporting to each other on local links. Charles volunteered to join me. We took the north tunnels, closest to emergency external shafts and farthest from the administration chambers. The tunnels were dark but warm; the air smelled stale, but it was breathable. Our feet made hollow scuffing echoes in the deserted halls. The university seemed to be in an emergency power-down.
Charles walked a step ahead. I watched him closely, wondering why he wanted to be so friendly when I had given him so little encouragement.
We didn't say much, simply stating the obvious, signaling to each other with whistles after splitting to try separate tunnels, nodding cordially when we rejoined and moved on. Gradually we moved south again, expecting to meet up with other students.
We explored a dark corridor connecting the old dorm branch with UMS's newer tunnels. A bright light flashed ahead. We stood our ground. A woman in an ill-fitting pressure suit shined her light directly into our faces.
"University staff?" she asked.
"Hell, no. Who are you?" Charles asked.
"I'm an advocate," the woman said. "Pardon the stolen suit. I flew in through the storm about half an hour ago. Landed during a dust lull and found a few of these abandoned near the locks. We were told there was no air in here."
"Who told you that?"
"The last man out, and he went in a hurry, too. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," I said. "Where is everybody?"
The advocate lifted her face plate and sniffed noisily. "Sorry. My nose hates flopsand. The university was evacuated seven hours ago. Bomb threat. They said a bunch of Gobacks had dumped air and planted charges in the administration chambers. Everybody left in ground vehicles. They took them overland by tractor to an intact train line."
"You're brave to come this far," Charles said. "You don't think there is a bomb, do you?"
The woman removed her helmet and smiled wolfishly. "Probably not. They didn't tell us anybody was here. They must not like you. How many are here?"
"Ninety."
"They voided the reporters before they evacuated. I saw you on LitVid. Press conference didn't go well. So where are the rest of you?"
We led her to the dining hall. All the far-flung explorers were called in.
The advocate stood in the middle of the assembly, asking and answering questions. "I presume I'm the first advocate to get here. First off, my name is Maria Sanchez Ochoa. I'm an independent employed by Grigio BM from Tharsis."
Felicia stepped forward. "That's my family," she said. Two others came forward as well.
"Good to see you," Maria Sanchez Ochoa said. "The family's worried. I'd like to get your names and report that you're all safe."
"What's happened?" Diane asked. "I'm very confused." Others joined in.
"What happened to Sean and Gretyl?" I asked, interrupting the babble.
"University security handed them over to Sinai district police early yesterday morning. Both were injured, but I don't know to what extent. The university claimed they were injured by their own hands."
"They're alive?" I continued.
"I presume so. They're at Time's River Canyon Hospital." She started recording names, lifting her slate and letting each speak and be recognized in turn.
I looked to my right and saw Charles standing beside me. He smiled, and I returned his smile and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Will someone take this outside and shoot it up to a satcom? None of the cables or repeaters are working, thanks to you folks." Ochoa gave her slate to a student, who left the dining area to get to the glass roof of the administration upper levels.
"Now, some background, since I doubt you've heard much news recently."
"Nothing useful," Oliver said.
"Right. I hate to tell you this, but you didn't do a thing for your cause by acting like a bunch of Parisian Communards. The Statist government planted its own bombs months ago, political and legal, far away from UMS, and they exploded just two days ago. We have a bad situation here, folks, and that explains some of the delay in getting to you. The constitutional accord is off. The Statists have resigned, and the old BM Charter government has been called back into session."
The battle was over. But we were small potatoes.
Ochoa concluded by saying, "You folks have wrecked university property, you've violated laws in every Martian book I can think of, and you've put yourselves in a great deal of danger. What has it gotten you?
"Fortunately, it probably won't get you any time in jail. I've heard that former Statist politicos are shipping out by dozens — and that probably includes Connor and Dauble. Nobody in their right mind is going to charge you under Statist law."
"What did they do?" Charles asked.
"Nobody's sure about all that they've done, but it looks like the government invited Earth participation in Mars politics, sought kickbacks from Belter BMs to let them mine Hellas —"
Gasps from the assembly. We had thought we were radical.
"And planned to nationalize all BM holdings by year's end."
We met these pronouncements with stunned silence.
We stayed in the old dorms while security crews from Gorrie Mars BM checked out the entire university grounds. New rails were manufactured, trains came in, and most of us went home. I stayed, as did Oliver, Felicia, and Charles. I was beginning to think that Charles wanted to be near me.
I met my family in the station two days after our release, Father and Mother and my older brother Stan. My parents looked pale and shaken by both fear and anger. My father told me, in no uncertain terms, that I had violated his most sacred principles in joining the radicals. I tried to explain my reasons, but didn't get through to him, and no wonder: they weren't entirely clear to me.
Stan, perpetually amused by the attitudes and actions of his younger sister, simply stood back with a calm smile. That smile reminded me of Charles.
Charles, Oliver, Felicia and I bought our tickets at the autobox and walked across the UMS depot platform. We all felt more than a little like outlaws, or at least pariahs.
It was late morning and a few dozen interim university administrators had come in on the same train we would be taking out. Dressed in formal grays and browns, they stood under the glass skylights shuffling their feet, clutching their small bags and waiting for their security escort, glancing at us suspiciously.
Rail staff didn't know we were part of the group responsible for breaking the UMS line, but they suspected. All credit to the railway that it honored charter and did not refuse service.
The four of us sat in the rearmost car, fastening ourselves into the narrow seats. The rest of the train was empty.
In 2171, five hundred thousand kilometers of maglev train tracks spread over Mars, thousands more being added by arbeiters each year. The trains were the best way to travel: sitting in comfort and silence as the silver millipedes flew centimeters above their thick black rails, rhythmically boosting every three or four hundred meters and reaching speeds of several hundred kiphs. I loved watching vast stretches of boulder-strewn flatlands rush by, seeing fans of dust topped by thin curling puffs as static blowers in the train's nose cleared the tracks ahead.
I did not much enjo
y the train ride to Time's River Canyon Hospital, however.
We didn't have much to say. We had been elected by the scattered remnants of the protest group to visit Sean and Gretyl.
We accelerated out of the UMS station just before noon, pressed into our seats, absorbing the soothing rumble of the carriage. Within a few minutes, we were up to three hundred kiphs, and the great plain below our ports became an ochre blur. In a window seat, I stared at the land and asked myself where I really was, and who.
Charles had taken the seat beside me, but mercifully, said little. Since my father's stern lecture, I had felt empty or worse. The days of having nothing to do but sign releases and talk to temp security had worn me down to a negative.
Oliver tried to break the gloom by suggesting we play a word game. Felicia shook her head. Charles glanced at me, read my lack of interest, and said, "Maybe later." Oliver shrugged and held up his slate to speck the latest LitVid.
I dozed off for a few minutes. Charles pressed my shoulder gently. We were slowing. "You keep waking me up," I said.
"You keep napping off in the boring parts," he said.
"You are so fapping pleasant, you know?" I said.
"Sorry." His face fell.
"And why are you . . . " I was about to say following me but I could hardly support that accusation with much evidence. The train had slowed and was now sliding into Time's River Depot. Outside, the sky was deep brown, black at zenith. The Milky Way dropped between high canyon walls as if seeking to fill the ancient flood channel.
"I think you're interesting," Charles said, unharnessing and stepping into the aisle.
I shook my head and led the way to the forward lock. "We're stressed," I murmured.
"It's okay," Charles said.
Felicia looked at us with a bemused smile.
In the hospital waiting room, an earnest young public defender thrust a slate-ful of release forms at us. "Which government are you sending these to?" Oliver asked. The man's uniform had conspicuous outlines of thread where patches had been removed.