by Greg Bear
Bithras folded his hands on the table.
"What we have to say is neither polite, diplomatic, nor particularly subtle," Mendoza continued, his own face hardening. "Such words should be reserved for private meetings, not meetings which eventually go into public record."
"Are we constrained from discussing this meeting with our citizens?" Bithras asked.
"That's up to you," Mendoza said, leveling his gaze on Bithras. "You may decide not to. We are issuing what amounts to a threat."
Bithras's eyes grew large, seemed to protrude slightly, and his face turned a brownish-olive where his jaw muscles clenched tight. "I do not appreciate your attitude. You are speaking for GEWA?"
"Right," Wang said. "But not strictly to you, Mr. Majumdar. You can't be a viable representative of Mars's interests, considering — "
Bithras rose from his chair.
"Sit down, please," Wang said, eyes cold, face angelically calm.
Bithras did not sit. Wang shrugged, then nodded to Mendoza. Mendoza removed a small pocket slate and motioned for me to hand him mine. I did, and he transferred documents.
"You'll send these back to Mars as son as possible. You'll discuss them with your BM Council or any other responsible body that might exist at that time, and your appointed group will respond to the Seattle, Kyoto, Karachi, or Beijing offices of GEWA. We require a definitive answer within ninety days."
"We won't respond to pressure," Bithras said, the effort at self-control obvious.
Mendoza and Wang were not impressed. I handed Bithras my slate. He quickly scrolled through the first documents. "What I can't understand is how two Terrie politicians who pride themselves on civility and sophistication can act like petty thugs."
Mendoza tilted his head to one side and drew up the corners of his mouth in a humored grimace. "The Solar System must be unified under a single authority within five years. The best and most balanced authority would be Earth's. We must have agreement with the belts and Mars. GEWA, GSHA, and Eurocon are all agreed on this."
"I have a solid proposal," Bithras said, "if only it will be heard by the right people."
"New arrangements must be made," Mendoza said. "GEWA will negotiate with duly appointed and elected representatives of a united Mars. For several reasons, you are not acceptable."
"I arrive to negotiate and testify before the Congress of the United States — I am treated badly there — "
"You do not have the faith of the forces at odds with each other on Mars. Cailetet and other BMs have indicated through back-channels that they will not support your proposal."
"Cailetet," I said, glancing at Bithras. Bithras shook his head; he didn't need my reminder.
"We can deal with them," Bithras said. "Cailetet currently relies on Majumdar for financing of many of their Martian projects."
Mendoza frowned with distaste at the implied threat. "That's not all, and it's probably not even the most important problem. In a few days, you'll be defending yourself in a civil suit against a charge of improper sexual advances. The charges will be filed in the District of Columbia. I don't think you'll be effective as a negotiator once those charges are made public."
Bithras's expression froze, "I beg your pardon," he said, voice flat.
"Please study the documents," Mendoza said. "There are plans for unification acceptable to Earth, and suggestions for tactics to implement those plans. Your influence on Mars is not at issue . . . yet. There's still much you can do there. Our time is up, Mr. Majumdar."
Wang and Mendoza nodded to Allen and myself. We were too stunned to respond. When we were alone in the meeting room, Bithras lowered himself slowly, cautiously into his chair and stared at the wall.
Allen spoke first. "What is this?" he asked, facing Bithras across the table.
"I don't know," Bithras said. "A lie."
"You must have a clue," Allen pressed. "Obviously, it's not just a sham."
"There was an incident," Bithras said, closing his eyes, cheeks drawing up, making deep crow's feet in the corners of his face. "It was not serious. I approached a woman."
I could not imagine anything Bithras could do that would bring a civil suit on the very open planet Earth.
"She is the daughter of a Memon family, very highly placed, a representative from GEWA in Pakistan. I felt a kinship. I felt very warmly toward her."
"What happened?"
"I approached her. She turned me down."
"That's all?"
"Her family," Bithras said. He coughed and shook his head. "She is Islam Fatima. Married. It may have been a special insult. I am not Muslim. That may be it."
Allen turned to me. I didn't know whether he was going to cry or burst into sudden laughter. He took a deep breath, bit his lower lip, and turned away.
A flush of extraordinary anger rose from my neck to my face. I stood, fists hanging at my sides.
I lay on the bed in my room, sleepless. Through the door I heard Allen and Bithras shouting. Allen demanded details, Bithras said they were of no importance. Allen insisted they bloody well were important. Bithras began to weep. The shouting subsided and I heard only a low murmur that seemed to go on for hours.
Sometime early in the morning, I woke and sat on the edge of the bed. I seemed to be nowhere, nobody. The furnishings in the room meant nothing, mutable as things in a dream. The weight that held me to bed and floor seemed, by an extraordinary synesthesia, political and not physical. Through the translucent blinds on the broad window, I saw gray dawn pick out billows in the carpet of clouds that obscured the river, the tidal basin, everything, washing around the base of the comb.
A message light blinked on my slate. I reached for it automatically, then drew back.
I did not wish to speak with Orianna or read a letter from my parents. It might be days before I silenced the static in my head.
Finally, I acknowledged my inability to let a message go unread. I picked up the slate and scrolled.
It was not from Orianna or my parents.
It was from Senator John Mendoza. He wanted to speak with me alone and in the open, and he did not want me to tell anyone we were meeting.
After a suitable interval, the message blanked, leaving only his office number for a reply.
I brought a bag lunch — sandwich and drink — purchased from an antique vending cart near the Lincoln Memorial. As I approached a marble bench by the reflecting pool, where Mendoza had agreed to meet, I saw he also had a bag lunch. I sat beside him and he greeted me with a cordial smile.
"Sometimes," he said, "I imagine what it must have been like in government before dataflow, back when there were newspapers printed on paper . . . and maybe television and radio. Things were a lot simpler then. Do you know I am the only senator on the Hill who has no enhancements?" His smile broadened. "I have a good staff, good, dedicated people. Some of them have enhancements. So I'm a hypocrite."
I said nothing.
"Miss Majumdar, what happened in Richmond deeply embarrasses me."
"Why did we meet in Richmond?" I blurted. "Because it was the capitol of the Confederacy?"
He seemed puzzled for a moment, then shook his head. "No. Nothing to do with that We wished to get you away from Washington, because what Wang and I had to say didn't really come from the U.S. government."
"It came from GEWA."
"Of course."
"You set up my uncle and destroyed his mission. We were easy marks for you, weren't we?"
"Please," Mendoza said, lifting his hand. "We did nothing to your uncle. He failed all of us — Earth as well as Mars. What happened was inevitable — but I regret it. Your team simply doesn't have GEWA's confidence. Your uncle's collision with the Pakistani woman ... It was nothing we expected or desired. And we can't fix it — Pakistan is only a marginal member of GEWA. She was a diplomat's wife, Miss Majumdar. Your uncle touched her. We'll be lucky to settle the case in a few weeks and get your uncle back to Mars."
"Why talk with me?"
Me
ndoza leaned toward me, arm straight, hand splayed on the bench, as if about to relate some intimacy. "Like me, you have no enhancements and you haven't gone through the secular purification of therapy. You're old-fashioned. I can sympathize with you. I've read your lit papers and student theses. I sense strongly that you belong to the next generation of leadership on Mars."
"I don't think I'll ever get involved with politics again," I said.
"Nonsense," Mendoza said with a flash of anger. "Mars can't afford to lose people like you. And it cannot afford to rely on people like your uncle."
I grimaced.
"Do you realize how important the next few years are going to be?" Mendoza asked.
I did not answer.
"I don't know half what I'd like to know," Mendoza said. "You may eventually know more than I do. You can be at the center of one of the nodes, the teams, in this particular patch of history; I'll always be on the periphery, a messenger boy. But I do know this: people above me are terrified. I've never seen such confusion and disagreement — even the thinkers disagree. Do you see how extraordinary that is?"
I stared at him, the static gone.
"Something frightfully powerful is going to be unleashed. Science does that to us every few generations — drops something in our laps we're simply not prepared for. You'd think today we'd be prepared for almost anything. Well, at least the folks and thinkers on top see clearly enough that we have to get our house in order, and they'd like to do it before the Big One drops — whatever it might be."
The deep realization of what had until now been gamesmanship and speculation made my stomach churn.
"If our house is not in order, and there is a chance of some immature and youthful group of humans discovering and using this new power — whatever it is . . . Leaders above the Beltway, in Seattle and Tokyo and Beijing, believe there is a chance we will destroy ourselves."
Mendoza frowned deeply, as if just informed one of his children was very ill. "You know, I've been an outcast of sorts in Washington for a decade. I'm a Mormon, I'm not therapied. But I've managed to do well. If anybody found out about my talking to you, I could lose everything I've fought for, all status, all power, all influence."
"Why do it, then?" I asked.
"Did you know it's illegal to conduct surveillance — even citizen oversight — within the capital of any nation on Earth?"
I had heard that.
"Some things in government must be done in private. Even in this ultra-rational age, when everybody is educated and plebiscites are huge and immediate, there must be times when the rules are not followed."
"The Peterson non-absolute," I said. Peterson — icon of so many second-form classes in management — said that any system aspiring to total organization and rationalism must leave itself an opportunity to break rules, break protocol, or it will inevitably suffer catastrophic failure.
"Exactly. Go home, Miss Majumdar. Choose your mentors and your leaders carefully. Work for unity. However Mars comes into the fold, come in it must. I have studied enough history to see the terrain ahead. The slopes are very steep, the attractors are strong, the solutions very fast — and none of them are pleasant."
"I'm just an assistant," I replied pathetically.
He looked away, expression grim. "Then find someone who has the strength to become a pilot and guide you through the storm." He pulled back and adjusted his lapels, picked up his lunch bag, and stood. "Goodbye, Miss Majumdar."
"Good-bye," I said. "Thank you for your confidence."
Mendoza shrugged and walked across the grass and east toward the Capitol building.
I sat on the bench, head turned toward the Lincoln Memorial, as cold inside as the curve of marble beneath my fingers.
A month later, Bithras, Allen, and I packed for our return to Mars. The packing itself took little time. I had not seen Bithras for several days — he spent most of his time locked in long-distance communications with Mars, but I think also in deliberate isolation from us.
Allen no longer treated Bithras with the respect due an elder statesman. It cost him dearly to show any respect at all toward our syndic. Bithras did not want to push me into a similar confrontation and be faced with my presumed negative judgment.
But I did not hate him. I barely felt enough to pity him. I simply wanted to go home. Two days before our departure, Bithras came into the suite's living room and stood over me as I sat in a chair, studying my slate.
"The suit against me has been dropped. Cultural differences pleaded. The ruckus is over," he said. "That part of it, anyway."
I looked up. "Good," I said.
"I've filed suit on Alice's behalf," he said. "Majumdar BM seeks a judgment against Mind Design Incorporated of Sorrento Valley, California."
I nodded. He swallowed, staring out the window, and continued as if it were an effort to talk. "I've consulted with Alice One and Alice Two, and with our advocates on Mars, and I'm hiring an advocate here. We're seeking a jury trial, with a minimum of two thinkers impaneled on the jury."
"That's smart," I said.
Bithras sat in the chair opposite and folded his hands in his lap. "All of this has been done in confidence, but before we leave, I am going to release the details. That will force Mind Design to take the case to court rather than settle in secret. It will be scandalous. They will deny all."
"Probably," I agreed.
"It will be very bad for GEWA, as well. Our advocate will voice suspicions that Earth is involved in a conspiracy, using Mind Design, to cripple Mars economically." Bithras sighed deeply. "I have made mistakes. It is only small relief to believe they have done worse. Alice Two will stay here."
"Good plan," I said.
"Someone should stay with her. Allen has volunteered, but I thought to offer the chance to you."
"I should leave Earth," I said without hesitation.
"We have both had enough of Earth," Bithras said. Then, dropping his gaze, "You think I'm a fool."
My lips worked and my eyes filled with tears of anger and betrayal. "Y-yes," I answered, looking away.
"I am not the best Mars has to offer."
"I hope to God not," I said.
"I have given you opportunities, however," he said.
I refused to meet his eyes. "Yes," I agreed.
"But perhaps disgrace, as well. The Council will conduct hearings. You will be asked embarrassing questions."
"That isn't what makes me so angry," I said.
"Then what?"
"A man with your responsibilities," I said. "You should have known. About your problems and the trouble they might cause."
"What, and have myself therapied?" He laughed bitterly. "How Terrestrial! How fitting a Martian should suggest that to me."
"It happens on Mars all the time," I said.
"Not to a man of my heritage," he said. "We are as we are born, and we play those cards, and none other."
"Then we'll lose," I said.
"Perhaps," he said. "But honorably."
I said my farewells to Alice in the suite an hour before we left for the spaceport. For a time, Alice had withdrawn, refusing to answer our questions about her contamination. She would not even talk with the advocate chosen for our lawsuit, or his own thinker. But that changed, and she seemed to accept her new status — a beloved member of the family who could not be employed as she had once been.
"I have been replaying parts of the sim you shared with Orianna," she told me as she tracked on her carriage into my room. My suitcase and slate lay on the field bed, squared with the corners. I am sometimes excessively neat.
"You kept all of it?" I asked.
"Yes. I have observed fragments of created personalities undergoing portions of the sim. It has been interesting."
"Orianna thought you might find it useful," I said. "But you should delete it before the Mind Design thinkers check you over."
"I can delete nothing, I can only condense and store inactively."
"Right. I forgot."
>
Suddenly, Alice laughed in a way I had not heard before. "Yes. Like that. I can temporarily forget."
"I'm going to miss you," I said. "The trip home will seem much longer without you."
"You will have Bithras for company, and fellow passengers to meet."
"I doubt that Bithras and I will talk much," I said, shaking my head.
"Do not judge Bithras too harshly."
"He's done a lot of harm."
"Is it not likely that the harm was prepared for him to do?"
I couldn't take her meaning.
"People and organizations on Earth behave in subtle ways."
"You think Bithras was set up?"
"I believe Earth will not be happy until it has its way. We are obstacles."
I looked at her with fresh respect. "You're a little bitter yourself, aren't you?" I asked. And no longer very naive.
"Call it that, yes. I look forward to joining with my original," Alice said. "I think we may be able to console each other, and find humor in what humans do."
Alice displayed her image for the first time in weeks, and young, longhaired Alice Liddell smiled.
We returned to Mars. News of the suit on behalf of Alice followed us. It did indeed make a ripple overshadowing Bithras's indiscretions. The scandal caused GEWA considerable embarrassment and may have contributed to a general cooling of the nascent confrontation between Earth and Mars.
The suit, however, was quickly swamped in drifts of prevarication and delay. By the time we arrived home — the only home I would ever have — ten months later, there still had been no decision. Nothing had changed for the better.
Nothing had changed at all.
Part Three
2178-2181, M.Y. 57-58
I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
— Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"
After a Martian year away from home, I returned to deep disappointment, the suspension of my apprenticeship, a furor at Majumdar, and Bithras's resignation. The Majumdar suit against Mind Design Incorporated did indeed turn into a scandal, but it wasn't enough to save my third uncle from disgrace. Mind Design passed blame to the Intra-Earth Computer Safety Bureau, which they said was responsible for injecting certain obscure safeguards into neural net designs.