by Greg Bear
Still, some good news came. Stan had been released by Cailetet. Crown Niger had kept Stan and his wife and child in detention at Kipini Station in Chryse for a total of ten weeks, preventing any communication with the outside. I had two text letters from Stan after his release; there was time only for a brief reply, and of course I could not tell him where I was, or what I was doing.
I made a few quick calls and got him a post at Many Hills, where he could use his experience with Cailetet to work on some diplomatic patchwork. I had heard little from Crown Niger's camp; they were lying low after the Freeze, wisely enough, hoping to weather the storm. Ti Sandra created a special task force to deal with the dissident BMs and regions. Stan, I thought, could join this task force.
Charles and I met frequently, sometimes alone, more often with Stephen Leander and others present. Our discussions revolved around practical aspects of moving large objects with the tweakers.
He spent hours each day immersed in the QL thinker, preparing, exercising for another trip. The effort took its toll. After long sessions connected to the QL, Charles needed several minutes to begin speaking coherently. I feared for him.
Six attended the first conference on Preamble, two weeks after Ilya's death: myself, Charles and Leander, areologist Faoud Abdi of Mariner Valley, architect and engineer Gerard Wachsler from Steinburg-Leschke in Arcadia, and a newly initiated Martian thinker, who had just the day before chosen her name: Aelita. Aelita would act as Preamble's main thinker, coordinating all the station's and project's activities.
The experts convened in the laboratory annex, still unfinished. As we seated ourselves, nano paint crept along the walls, hissing quietly and forming geometric decorations. The ever-present smell of yeast was particularly pungent here. We seemed to live always in a vast bakery.
Faoud Abdi — tall, sharp-featured, with large, languid eyes — was the first to speak. He wore a neat white jallabah, slate and books making prominent lumps in the robe's large pockets.
"I have been told to consider an impossibility," Abdi began, standing before us with his back to a small data display. "I have been told to research the effects on Mars of a brief period without Solar System gravitational pull. I am told this is purely theoretical — and so I must assume that we are all going to do something drastic with Mars, perhaps what happened to Phobos. Unless Phobos is theoretical as well." He regarded us dubiously, received no reaction to his humor — if humor was intended — and sighed. "I must tell you why Mars is stable now, and discuss popular theories of Mars's areological decline. Is this what you wish?"
"That's fine," I said.
"I once worked with your husband, Madam Vice President. He was a fine man and we shall all miss him."
"Thank you."
"He was concerned, as am I, about the death of Mars hundreds of millions of years ago. But in fact death is a misnomer, for Mars is not completely cool inside. There is still areological activity. However, the plumes rising within the mantle have stabilized and no longer produce lateral pressure on the crust of Mars.
"In the past, there were never more than twelve crustal plates, and now those plates have frozen into one. No lateral pressure — no migration of the old plates — no fracture and subduction of plate boundaries — reduces vol-canism. The last volcanoes active on Mars were the shield volcanoes familiar to us all, the Tharsis trio by main example, and Olympus itself. Without plate movement, mountains stopped building, and without volcanism, outgassing ceased, and Mars's thin atmosphere simply evaporated into space, not to be replaced. Mars's biosphere died within a few hundred million years of the end of tectonics. Now, stability ..."
"Balanced flow," Leander said.
"Precisely. Aelita, please bring up Dr. Wegda's deep soundings of the Martian crust and mantle."
Aelita complied. Behind Abdi appeared a diagram familiar to all — a cross-section of Mars, rotating to provide a three-dimensional view of the interior. "You see, there are sixteen cyclic plumes rising and sinking, but they have assumed a dimpled inverted form, rising on the outside and sinking on the inside. The net force conveyed to the crust over these plumes is zero, though local areological effects are evident. The stability is really too delicate . . . That is, Mars should shift at any time. But this has not happened in three hundred million years. There is much we do not understand.
"A shove applied to the entire planet, however slight — as might be given by removing solar tidal forces, for example — could upset the plumes and restart tectonic activity." He stopped for a moment, hands hovering beside the frozen diagram of Mars. "Without a large moon to keep Mars in balance, relatively slight changes may also tilt the axis."
"If we leave, it must be to venture closer to the sun, no?" Abdi asked.
"We haven't decided," I said.
"If that is so, there would be much greater effects than I have calculated. And my results already point to resumption of tectonics."
"What would that mean? For all of us living here?" Wachsler asked.
"More marsquakes. Substantial activity along the old plate boundaries, perhaps. Volcanoes. There is no way to predict the long-term effects."
"Short-term?" Wachsler asked.
"Several major marsquakes, but it would take decades before volcanism became widespread along new arcs of fire."
"Would it be reversible?" Wachsler asked.
"How do you mean?"
"Once we jiggled it, could we expect Mars to become stable again?"
"Not for perhaps tens of millions of years," Abdi said. "Stability is stability. Instability is not."
"Aelita?" Leander asked, patting his new offspring on its arbeiter carriage.
Aelita's voice was smooth and huskily feminine. Its image, a long-faced, classically featured female with black hair cut in a short shag, reminded me of a Disney wicked queen. "Dr. Abdi's conclusions seem reasonable. My libraries do not provide complete information about Mars's interior."
"You have all that's available," Leander said.
"Then I suggest we learn more," Aelita said.
Abdi glanced around the table. He smiled.
"We will," I said. "Dr. Abdi, we'll need more information about Mars's interior within twenty days."
"Yes, Madam Vice President," Abdi said happily. "Am I to understand — I will do a survey, on the quick, larger than that of Dr. Wegda himself?"
"Please," I said. "It's very important. You understand security requirements?"
"I do," said Dr. Abdi solemnly.
"Doctor Wachsler, every station should make a structural report. How well can they withstand quakes? Do any stations lie directly over old plate boundaries?"
"A few." Wachsler frowned and shook his head. "We've never designed stations to withstand heavy areologic activity."
"Can they be strengthened?" I asked.
"Some stations sit on old alluvial soils. If there's a major marsquake, every seam will be torn out, tunnels breached . . . You name it."
"Those we'll have to evacuate, won't we?" I said. "We'll meet with the folks in charge of civil preparations and discuss that tomorrow. Dr. Wachsler, Dr. Abdi, I authorize you to draw funds from government accounting, tagged Black, Preamble. Aelita will monitor your experiments, and you will report every week to this committee."
Wachsler stared at us as if we were all out of our minds. "I understand we're dealing with some spectacular technologies here, but have you thought about the human impact?"
His note of condescension rankled me. "That's almost all I've thought about, Doctor."
"What could Earth possibly do to us that would be worse than what you're contemplating? We've all seen the destruction at Melas Dorsa — but that's nothing compared to hundreds of stations facing quakes."
Charles raised his hand like a student in class. "May I answer?"
"Certainly," I said.
"The locusts are just the beginning. In a few more months, they can turn Mars into a burnt cinder. If that isn't enough, they can drop us into the sun, o
r shoot us out into space."
Wachsler's face went pale, but his dander was up. He obviously could not comprehend what Charles was saying, and was going to treat it as high exaggeration. He crinkled his eyes dubiously. "You truly believe this?"
Abdi said, "My dear doctor, was it trivial that a moon was shifted from its orbit, and moved instantly to the vicinity of Earth?"
"I only know what I was told," Wachsler said stubbornly.
"I was there," Leander said. "So was Charles."
Wachsler shrugged. "All right," he said. "Madam Vice President, I know my duty. But I must express my dismay that so much disruption and even destruction is contemplated, yet nobody is going to ask Martians what they want."
"I wish there were time, and that we had the means," I said.
"No, you don't," Wachsler said. "Not really. If Martians decided to vote this idea down, to stay where we are ... "
"That could be suicide," Charles said.
"Do we have the right to choose our fate?" Wachsler asked heatedly. "Or do you believe you can choose for us, because you are so much better informed?"
To this there was no good answer. Wachsler had expressed the dilemma admirably. "I hope we are judged less harshly, Doctor Wachsler," I said quietly.
"Don't count on it, Madam Vice President," he said.
Charles stayed behind after the meeting ended. Aelita stayed as well. "We haven't talked about Ilya," he said.
"I'd rather not," I said.
"Doctor Abdi reminded me ... I'd like to express my sorrow. He was a wonderful man."
"Please," I said, looking away. It was all the more unbearable coming from Charles.
"Do you blame me for his death?" Charles asked, his voice plaintive.
"No," I said. "How could I?"
"If I had died ten years ago, none of this would have happened . . . Not this way."
"What kind of megalomania is that?" I asked.
"Without my contribution, we wouldn't have built a tweaker for another five or ten years. Earth might have built it first."
I stared at him, wondering whether I could maintain my careful mask of neutral efficiency. "I'm as much to blame as you are."
"I need to know. Because if you blame me for that, I don't think I could stand it. Really."
Tears welled in his eyes. I turned away, absolutely unwilling to join him in a display of emotion. "Get yourself together," I said, a little harshly.
"I've never felt more together and clear-headed in my entire life."
"My head is not clear and I'm not at the top of my form. Please. Please." I pounded the table with my fist. "Just please don't."
"I won't," he said.
"I spoke to Ti Sandra a few hours ago," I said, swallowing and regaining my composure. "We have to choose where we'll take Mars when the time comes. If it comes. And we'll have to make a test run with Phobos."
"I've been planning that," Charles said. "We can take the Mercury and the original tweaker to Phobos within a few days. The larger tweakers should stay here."
"We need to disperse the tweakers and thinkers, in case Earth makes another, more directed attempt to stop us."
Charles looked away. "We could destroy all of our equipment," he said. "Provide proof to Earth."
"I'd do that in an instant," I said, "if Earth could possibly believe us. They can't. The stakes are too high. Politics and survival drive everything now."
"I thought I'd make the suggestion. I would kill myself if I thought it would change the situation. If I thought I could stop your grieving."
I glared at him. "I'd kill all of you, myself, if . . . " The admission startled me, and the last few words came out weakly, with a sudden decrease of breath. Charles did not seem startled or shocked.
"I envied Ilya. I remember you years ago," he said after a pause of many seconds. "I've been with a fair number of women since, and none has had your strength of purpose, your conviction."
"Purpose?" I asked. "Conviction?"
"I said to myself, 'She's as crazy as you are.'"
"Jesus," I said, forcing a laugh.
"I believed I could rock the century-long status quo, discover how the universe worked. And you ... I said you'd become President of Mars. Remember?"
"I'll go back through my diaries and check it out," I said. "Maybe you can read tarot after all this is settled."
"It will never be settled," Charles said. "Events this large never finish. You've never asked about my wife."
"It's none of my business."
"She was a sweet woman, a true Martian. She stood by me for three years. She had a strong sense of duty, and she really tried. But eventually she left. She said she never knew where I was — what I was thinking."
"I'm sorry," I said. "You obviously weren't well-matched."
"No." He turned away, seeming to wilt. I wondered how much the QL links were draining him.
I needed to bring us back to our focus. "Where should Mars go?" I asked.
Charles straightened and linked his slate to the main display. "Aelita, these are rough coordinates and star numbers. Link and update with the astronomy library."
Aelita graphically depicted a scatter of densely-packed stars.
"We can't just move a few light-years away. With present tracking and measuring, Earth could find us anywhere within a few hundred light-years. If we move at all, it's because Earth has proven it will do everything it can to destroy us . . . And will keep on trying."
Bald expression of our dilemma still had power to chill me.
"So I'm suggesting we make a grand leap. I've looked at the new surveys, run them through Aelita for processing, and come up with a candidate. It's the best of all possible places in the near galaxy. About ten thousand light-years away, five thousand light-years closer to galactic center. A narrow, restricted cloud separating from the leading edge of a galactic arm. A thick cluster of stars a few billion years younger than most of the stars near the sun, stable and rich with metals. Beautiful skies, bright nights.
"I searched the Galactic Survey Twenty-Two Catalog and found a yellow dwarf star about nine-tenths the size of the sun, with perturbations suggesting four large planets. Rocky worlds unknown, of course. And there are a dozen similar stars in the same region.
"I give them to you," he concluded. "All the clouds and stars, a new garden of flowers." He watched me closely. "Choose. Become mother to the new Mars."
I remembered the ancient flowers Charles had given me near Tres Haut Medoc, cut from the Glass Sea beds. Now he offered me a bouquet of stars. After the weariness and grief, Charles could still take my breath away.
"I want to apologize," I said. "I've been very rough on you. You've done magnificent work."
"Thank you," he said. His face brightened, and he watched me with gentle intensity. I still had such power to please Charles. I had never had such a hold on Ilya, and perhaps that was why I loved him.
I stared at the stars circled and blinking on the outskirts of the elongated blob. "Will we need reservations?" I asked.
I interrupted an argument the next day, as I walked with Dandy and Lieh to inspect the progress on the big tweakers. The central laboratory had been finished the week before, the equipment had been consolidated in one chamber, and a few simple tests had been run converting small samples of oxygen to anti-oxygen. When we entered the lab, I heard Leander's voice rise above shouting.
"Doesn't anybody understand what we're up against?"
Mitchell Maspero-Gambacorta and Tamara Kwang had squared off against Charles, Leander, and Royce. Kwang saw me enter the lab and fixed her face in a chilly mask. Maspero-Gambacorta shook his head, swearing beneath his breath, and walked to squat on the low bench supporting the larger force disorder pumps. Royce gathered up his slate and a few tools and seemed about ready to leave, but relented, standing awkwardly with his arms full. Leander's face had flushed with emotion; Charles, sitting with hands wrapped on one crossed knee, appeared calm, even a little distanced from the row.
"Disagreements?" I asked.
"Nothing we can't handle," Leander said, a little too quickly.
"Tamara and Mitchell feel we should open our research to public scrutiny," Charles said.
"It's the sanest thing to do," Kwang said.
"None of this is sane," Maspero-Gambacorta murmured, folding his arms.
"Whom would we tell first?"
"Earth, obviously," Kwang said. "I have friends on Earth, people who could help all of us sort these things through — the political problems, the misunderstandings — "
"Misunderstandings?" I asked.
"I'm not a fool," Kwang said defensively. "I know what our situation is, but if only we could talk, find common ground . . . It would make me feel so much better ..." Her words faded and she shook her head.
"We've been over this time and again," Leander said.
"It's a feedback dilemma," Charles said.
"I know!" Kwang shouted, raising her fists. "They might kill us if they think we know how to kill them . . . But they won't kill us if they think we can get to them first. We can't tell them what we know, because we know how to kill them. And if we tell them, they'll know how to kill us. That is not sane!"
"I agree," I said. "The best solution is to let things equalize, cool off."
"By running away?" Maspero-Gambacorta asked. "Doesn't seem very adult."
"Can you think of a better idea?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied. "A dozen better ideas. None of them supported by Charles or Stephen."
"Tell me," I said. "Maybe I'll see their value."
He screwed up his face in frustration. "All right, they're idealistic, screwball risks, not better ideas. But maybe if we tried one of them, we would sleep better nights!"
"The point is not for us to sleep better," I said. "It's for Mars to live, and live free."
"We're all working as hard as we can," Kwang said. "Don't think just because we disagree, we're not doing our work."
"I don't think that," I said. "If you come up with a better idea — idealistic or cynical or whatever — please let me know."