Moving Mars

by Greg Bear

  "We prefer direct accountability."

  "You advocate radical changes. I wonder why so many BMs have agreed to their own deballing."

  The vulgarity irritated me. "Because they're tired of Martian indecision and weakness," I said.

  "And I concur. Mars needs central planning and authority, just as we propose."

  "No doubt," I said, "but — "

  "We could talk hours longer, Miss Majumdar. Actually, I'm bound by decisions made by my own advocates. I could arrange meetings between you and them, individually."

  "I'd enjoy the opportunity," I said.

  "Our thinker can arrange the details," Crown Niger said.

  "Fine. I'd like to go off-record now," I said.

  "I do not conduct interviews in this office off-record," Crown Niger said, unruffled. "I owe Cailetet's family members that much."

  "There are accusations you may not wish them to hear."

  "They hear everything I hear," Crown Niger said, putting me in my place.

  "Some of the smaller BMs tell us Cailetet withdrew important contracts just after they agreed to send advocates to our assembly."

  "It's possible," Crown Niger said. "We have a lot of contracts."

  "The numbers are interesting," I said. "One hundred percent."

  "Severance following agreement?" He seemed concerned and shook his head wonderingly.

  "Can you explain the perfect score?" I asked.

  "Not immediately," Crown Niger said, uninterested. I left the office empty-handed and chilled to the bone.

  By the end of the winter of M.Y. 57, seventy-four out of ninety BMs had agreed to send representatives to a constitutional assembly. Twelve out of fourteen district governors planned to attend personally; the thirteenth and fourteenth would send aides. The momentum was with us. The population's opinions flowed like some vast amoeba. Mars was ready, Cailetet or no.

  I was at the center, and the center was moving.

  The constitutional assembly convened in the debating chamber of the University of Mars Sinai, on the 23rd of Aries, the thirteenth month of the Martian year. The Martian calendar would be used, sanctioning for the first time the formal use of eleven additional months, named after constellations.

  The debate room was a large amphitheater, capable of holding a thousand people. In the arena, an adjustable circular table could seat as many as one hundred.

  Detailed studies of the constitutional assembly have been published elsewhere. I am bound by oath not to give many more details of the process, but I can say that it was difficult. The BMs were reluctant to give up their powers and authority, even while recognizing they must. We all walked a tortuous path, preserving privileges here, removing them elsewhere, listening patiently to anguished appeals, working compromise after compromise, yet never — we hoped — compromising the core of a workable democratic constitution.

  The birth cries of the new age were the voices of dozens of women and men, talking until they were hoarse, late into the night and early in the morning, arguing, cajoling, persuading, taking impassioned positions and then abandoning them to take others, wearing each other down, screaming, almost coming to blows, stopping to eat at the round table, relaxing with arms around the shoulders of what minutes before might have seemed sworn enemies, staring in stone-faced silence as views were voted down, smiling and clenching hands in victory, sitting in stymied exhaustion ... for days and weeks.

  Delegates constantly briefed the members of their BMs about progress, sometimes soliciting input on crucial questions. Ti Sandra sent me to Argyre and Hellas to chair public meetings and answer questions about the assembly. And from all across Mars, suggestions and papers and vid reports poured in, some from individuals, others from ad hoc committees. Mars, once politically moribund, was hardly recognizable.

  Above it all, providing a constant sense of urgency, Earth. We knew there were people within the assembly reporting to Earth, even beholden to Earth. We had no illusions that we lay beyond Earth's power. If the assembly were scuttled, Earth would not be served; but no government that weakened Mars would be accepted, either.

  We hoped for the best.

  For two days, delegates examined constitutional models, as analyzed by human scholars and thinkers during the 2050s. The Earth Society of Social and Political Patterns had developed a language called Legal Logic, with three thousand base concepts derived from international and interplanetary laws. This language was specially designed for fixed analysis; interpretation became less an art, and more a science.

  Using Legal Logic, the delegates spent a week examining the broad flow of the history of nations, studying three-dimensional slices through five- and six-dimensional charts, searching for the most flexible and enduring governmental structure. The slices resembled body scans, but reflected histories, not anatomy. Not surprisingly, the two systems that fared best were democratic, parliamentary — as with the United Kingdom, now part of Eurocon — and federal, as with Canada, Australia, the United States, and Switzerland. We traced the legal histories of these countries, studying extreme deviations from stated principles — expressed as compound statements in Legal Logic — the ensuing crises, and how the systems changed thereafter.

  The broad outlines of the proposed Martian constitution were decided next. The most flexible and enduring of our examples was the constitution of the United States of America, but most delegates agreed that major modifications would be necessary to fit Mars's peculiar circumstances.

  For six days, the assembly roughed out the branches of the central Martian government. There would be four branches: the executive, the legislative, the judicial, and the extraplanetary. The latter two would be subsidiary to the legislative, as would the executive in most cases. The role of the executive would be greatly reduced from eighteenth-century models, with the executive largely serving as an advocate for major issues; that is, a debater and persuader. The President would be backed up by a Vice President, who would serve as Speaker to the House of the People.

  The legislature or congress would be bicameral, the House of the People and the House of Governors. The House of the People would take representatives from districts based on population; the governors, two for each district, would convene separately. Acting in tandem, they would decide the laws of Mars.

  The extraplanetary branch would represent Mars in dealings with the Triple, and would answer directly to the executive, but would be appointed by the legislature. (This later proved unworkable, and was revised severely — but that's outside the scope of my story . . . )

  The judiciary would be divided into the Administrative Court, overseeing court activities as a whole; Civil Health Court, with its jurisdiction over individual and social behavior. Economic Court, which handled civil contracts, business law, and matters of money; and the Court of Government, which convened only to decide cases of a political nature.

  Planetary defense would be designed, instituted, and coordinated by the executive and legislative branches. There was debate over whether Mars could afford, or even needed, standing defense force. That question was put off until ratification. Also delayed was the question of intelligence and internal security — protection for the jurists, legislators, and executives.

  The federal government and districts would be empowered to levy taxes on citizens and corporate entities. Districts would be responsible for building, upgrading, and maintaining cities and other infrastructure, but could only apply to the federal government for loans.

  All economic transactions from the Triple would pass through a central planetary bank, which would be controlled by the legislature and empowered to regulate the flow of Martian money. All Martian currency would be standardized; BMs would no longer maintain their own credit systems. Financial BMs could apply to convert to branches of the Federal Planetary Bank, but most conform to charters and regulations approved by the legislature.

  No district could pass laws contradictory to those of the federal government, nor could any district that
ratified the constitution withdraw from the federal union thereafter, for any reason. (I remember Richmond and the statues of dead generals that littered their public places . . . ) Non-ratifying districts and BMs would be left with the old laws and arrangements. The federal government could mandate that districts accept as citizens those who wished to dissociate from the dissident BMs.

  A Bill of Rights guaranteed that freedom of expression by humans and thinkers would not be hindered or abridged by any body within the government There was much debate here, but Ti Sandra guided the assembly through these nettles with a steady hand.

  It was assumed that all laws, and the constitution itself, would be recorded in Legal Logic, which would be interpreted by specially designed civic thinkers. Each branch would have its own thinkers, one for the executive, two for the legislature, one for the extraplanetary, and three for the judiciary. The opinions of the thinkers would be taken into account by all branches and made publicly available.

  For the time being, however, there were no first-class thinkers being made on Mars — though a number of BMs were rushing to change that. Until Martian thinkers of sufficient power and purity could be grown and installed, no thinkers could be entrusted to make crucial decisions, without oversight. Suspicions still existed that they might be Earth-tainted.

  Until the constitution was ratified by the delegates and by the people of Mars, an interim government would take office, consisting of a President and Vice President, selected by the delegates; the district governors, and one representative from each BM acting as a legislature; and the present judiciary. This government would exist for a maximum of twenty-three months.

  If no constitution had been popularly ratified by then, a new assembly would convene, and the process would begin all over.

  In the last week of the assembly, candidates for the interim offices were nominated. Ti Sandra Erzul received the strongest support of the nominees and was voted in by the delegates. She chose me to be her Vice President.

  Among the last issues decided was what the new planetary union would be called. "United Mars" was proposed, but many who had fought the Statists objected. No phrases using "union" or "united" could be found that were acceptable to a majority. Finally, the assembly agreed to the Federal Republic of Mars.

  Three designs for flags were rejected. A fourth was tentatively agreed to and a sample was sewn together, by hand, and submitted for final approval: red Mars and two moons in blue field above a diagonal, white below, signifying how much we had to grow.

  One by one, the delegates — syndics and advocates and governors, assistants and aides, private citizens — gathered in the debating chamber, signing the instruments of federation, abolishing the Council of BMs, rule by Charter, and relinquishing the independence of a century. Ti Sandra stood beside me at the lectern, hand on my shoulder, smiling broadly.

  As each of the signers placed his or her signature on the papers, I began to believe. The crucial first steps had been taken, the majority of BMs supported us, and there had been no extreme interference.

  We heard of Cailetet trying to arrange an alternate assembly, but it never came off. A rumor circulated during the hours before the signing that Achmed Crown Niger would send an advocate to begin talks with the interim government, but no advocate arrived.

  Ti Sandra's husband, Paul, accompanied Ilya into the chamber as the ceremony was concluded, and we shook hands and hugged all around. LitVid reporters from across the Triple recorded the signatures, and our embrace.

  "Fossil Mars comes to life again," Ilya whispered in my ear. We followed the crowd to dinner in the same room where I had once been held prisoner by Statist guards. "I'm proud of you," he added, squeezing my hand.

  "You're talking as if it's over," I said ruefully.

  "Oh, no," he said, shaking his head. "I know what happens now. I no longer have a wife. We'll see each other once a month ... by appointment."

  "Not that bad, I hope."

  We sat in the middle of a long refectory table with the district governors and accepted the toasts of the delegates and syndics. Ti Sandra made a brief speech, humble and stirring, ringing with just the right note of new patriotism, and we ate.

  I looked at the delegates and syndics, the governors, faces weary but relaxed, talking and nodding as they ate, and knew something I had never known before, at least not so intensely.

  Time seemed to slow, and all my attentions focused on these singular seconds: on hands carrying forkfuls of food to questing mouths, on glittering eyes watching the faces of others, the sounds of laughter, protests of dismay at some jesting accusation, protests at credit given too liberally, an earnest woman expressing her own emotions at the signing, frowning ever so slightly as she framed her words; all colleagues, the moment having arrived, their time in history, the organic political process having flowed and carried them along . . .

  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 Mars's 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 fall 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 Earth's new ambassador began his speech, and I devoted my full attention — or at least pretended to. Ilya stroked my thigh, and I was anticipating a long evening alone with him — in yet another inn room — after the dinner.

  As the meal ended, an advocate from Yamaguchi — the old affiliations and descriptions still lingered — drew 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. "You'll be back in a few hours. They tell me it's 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.