"I will raise a subject that is not much discussed, because repeated reminders would provoke widespread indignation—a feeling of having been humiliated—and certain persons might react in horrible ways. Think of that fanatic who murdered your Keiki comrade—yes, we heard of it on Mars—and multiply him by several thousand. But there is no arrogance or contempt behind the policy. The fact is that the field-drive spaceship technology is being withheld from publication while we search for a solution to the problem it poses. It is too hazardous. Bad enough that the Proserpinans have it. They are few in number, distant from us, and thus far not strongly interested in our concerns. Spread through the inner Solar System—Fenn, the field drive makes interplanetary war possible.
"In everything everywhere, the equilibrium is fearsomely precarious. I implore you, do not throw random weights at it."
He sat back and chuckled ruefully. "Forgive me. I have a bad habit of delivering lectures. Our mutual friend Kinna Ronay has often teased me about it."
Fenn ignored the touch of lightness offered him. He hunched his shoulders. His beard bristled at the other. "Tell me," he said, "does the cybercosm—well, the Synesis, the trustees and councillors and committees, advised by machines—does it really want to freeze us into our present shapes forever? Can it?"
Chuan spread his palms. "No, no, absolutely not. That is neither desirable nor practicable. But we need not surrender to chaos either, and indeed it is our duty not to—a duty that I would call sacred." Fenn remembered hearing from Kinna about the religious background from which this man sprang. "Let me be honest, blunt. What you and your associates call progress is actually the opposite. At best, quite apart from the dangers, it would divert us back to an archaic stage of development. Our proper future, our true evolution, lies in the growth of intellect, consciousness, spirit."
"So you say," Fenn grunted. "Seems kind of overblown to me."
"It is a millennial vision, yes. But it makes sense of what would otherwise be a cosmos without rhyme or reason, and is that not the whole purpose of science?''
Chuan paused. "However, let us two stay with immediacies," he then said. "I accept that your intentions are benign, and I know that most Martians are coming to see them as the hope of their world. Already, though, and it is a bare beginning, those troubles that daily worsen in the Threedom, they trace directly to the mere prospect of a Deimos project."
"Maybe. I'll want to learn more about that." Fenn had heard stories of increasing unrest. It might affect his mission, he supposed.
Chuan nodded. "Excellent. Don't take my word. Study the news and the records. Talk with knowledgeable Martians. A great deal has happened since last you were here."
"I intend to talk," Fenn said. "I'll soon get my first chance. Once the work on the moonjumper is in hand and I'm not needed on the spot, I've an invitation to spend my time waiting at David and Helen Ronay's place." At the mention of it, eagerness and happiness damped his vexation.
Chuan seemed likewise ready to loosen. "Good for you."
Conversation wandered, at first peripheral to major issues, later turning into gossip, the sort of dance or mutual grooming that humans do with each other for the simple, supremely important purpose of establishing amicability. Yet Fenn kept wondering why Chuan had, well, summoned him here. Nothing new had been said on either side. Surely no synnoiont, visitor to realms and sharer of thoughts beyond the comprehension of unaided mortals, would waste hours of lifespan on an empty gesture.
With an inward chill, Fenn guessed: He's laying some kind of groundwork. He's preparing me—and through me, in a subtle way he understands and I don't, all the Lahui, maybe all people everywhere—preparing us for something years ahead, maybe decades or even centuries ahead, so that when it comes, we'll take it as the Teramind wants us to take it.
Defiantly: Well, it doesn't have to work according to plan. It's flaming well not going to, whatever the plan is.
The shrunken sun declined westward. Shadows rose in Crommelin Basin like a tide lapping up around the city towers. Fenn took his departure. "Give my kindest regards to the Ronays," Chuan said, "and especially to Kinna." Below his smile, behind his eyes, Fenn sensed that immeasurable sadness of which she had spoken.
A purr and quiver went through the flitter as its fuel-cell engine awoke. Rolling down the runway, it spread huge wings and opened cavernous air intakes. A leap, and it was aloft. At five hundred meters it leveled off and bore west.
David Ronay leaned back in his seat. “We may as well relax," he drawled. "Nigh three hours to Sananton, you probably remember." He was a man of average Martian-Terran build, which made him tall and lean by Earth standards, his features thin and regular beneath gray hair. On the breast of his plain unisuit gleamed a pendant, a star cut from rock crystal. It had no overt meaning, but, unproclaimed and wordlessly, it expressed a spirit—of hope, of defiance—and more and more like it were appearing around the planet, in the mysterious way that symbols do.
"Relax? Not such an easy job," said Fenn, sitting beside him.
"No, you have been going almighty hard, haven't you? Well, we'll get you slacked off and fattened up for your Deimos jaunt. Any idea when that'll be?"
"Looks like about a week."
"Come back to us when you're done, if you aren't too busy."
"Thanks. I'd like to stop by for a day or two, though then I'll have to rush off looking at more places and meeting more people, same as last time. Uh, thanks also for the help you've given me, arranging for supplies and equipment and such."
"Little enough, considering what you're doing for us."
"If it works out."
David cast Fenn a glance before asking, "Don't you expect Deimos will prove suitable?"
"Oh, I'm confident it will. We know already what materials are there, and where and how to get the other materials we'll need. Likewise, pretty well for the Martian surface. What I have to collect is more exact information, the details."
"Beware, I intend to pump you about those. I'm vague on them. Most Martians are." David clicked his tongue. "Ironic, isn't it? For us out here, getting one regular ship a year, space has become more abstract, less real, than it is te the average Earthbound Earthdweller. He at least sees frequent traffic to and from Luna."
"Nevertheless, you po'e—you folk were quick to grasp the idea of converting Deimos. And you do still favor it, don't you?"
“Positively. If anything, sentiment has grown stronger since you were here last."
"But I hear about problems too," Fenn said. "Not technological. Social, economic, political, the sort of garbage I don't know how to recycle into anything useful."
David frowned slightly, but chose not to take umbrage. "Leave that to my colleagues and me. You get your investors and organization together, and tell us you are ready to go to work. I can guarantee you the Republic will then vote approval and support. You know it means our salvaging what we are, this whole society of ours." As the quid pro quo for Martian help and resources: cometary water for Mars. "I admit the longer-range prospect, the transformation of the whole planet, that's still controversial, though more because of questions about practicality than principle. But our grandchildren will decide."
"They may not care any longer."
“Eh? Oh. Because of new technologies from the stars, perhaps changing everything, making our concerns of today irrelevant? It could be." David paused. "What our generation must do is keep that chance open for those who come after us."
Fenn nodded. "Bucking the system."
Again David regarded the big man for a while before replying slowly, "No. Not in the way you seem to think. The Synesis isn't an enemy. We're a part of it. And you recall I'm sure the synnoiont Chuan is a personal friend of our family. He and I've cooperated much oftener than we've been at cross purposes. When we disagree, we're civilized about it."
Fenn reddened. "Of course, of course! I mean his opposition to the Deimos work—to the whole thought of organics getting back into space in earnest,
not to speak of making Mars into a new Demeter. Do you know the reason? He talks and talks about stuff like destabilization, and others do too, but it's as hazy as a comet's tail."
"Which can be bright and clear, seen from afar," David answered. "I admit he's not explained his stance to my satisfaction either. Nobody has. Maybe the cybercosm can't. Maybe the matter is too complex, top deep for human brains. Don't worry; I'm not convinced of that, nor are most of us on Mars. But we do have certain urgent cares, where Chuan and we stand together."
Fenn tensed in his seat. "What are they?"
"You must have heard, in general terms. The Proserpinans. We Terrans are trigger-suspicious of them, and this is dividing us more than ever from our Lunarian neighbors. We know the Proserpinans have been influencing things on Mars for years, and we think that influence is on the increase, but how important it is—how strong, widespread, subversive—we don't know." David raised a clenched fist. "We do not propose to let them make use of us for their own ends, such as the recovery of Luna. We have recent evidence, intelligence, of incitement and conspiracy by them in the Threedora, You remember, the Lunarian towns in Tharsis that have never acknowledged the law of the Republic, but obey it under protest, when they obey it at all. Robotic instruments have shown spacecraft—what must be spacecraft of the new field-drive type—descending on those parts or leaving them. Rarely, but even three or four is too many."
"Has anybody actually seen them?" Fenn demanded.
"Well, no, not anybody I know of. We don't exactly have a space TrafCon system, you realize. Nor have overflights or our few monitor satellites revealed anything. But camouflage while they're on the ground wouldn't be hard to arrange, as ill-equipped as our constabulary is to deal with such things. If nothing else, blow dust over a hull and it'll look like a transient dune.
"Besides, the overt aggressiveness of the Proserpinans, like their attempt to seize a solar lens—''
"Another story handed you by the cybercosm," Fenn interrupted. "How do you know it's true?"
"Because—because why should the cybercosm lie?"
“Who knows? Why should it build that station on Pavonis, not just an observatory node but a database center, and refuse to say what the data are?"
"It doesn't. Astronomers can and do consult the facility. A few have even gone there for special purposes, to work with the instruments."
"But there's a large block of information sealed off from them and everybody, right?"
"True. The cybercosm has the same right to keep silence as a human scientist does till s/he's sure of the observations and what they signify."
"The solar lens data mainly, no? Been a fair number of years now, hasn't it? I thought the Teramind was supposed to be able to interpret anything instantly."
David sighed. "This is getting to be pointless—and quarrelsome, which is worse. Listen, please. The business is highly relevant to you. You can't very well convert Deimos if Mars is exploding beneath it, can you?
"Dare we sit idle in ignorance while matters drift toward bad trouble? I'm among those who've been driven to the conclusion that the Republic can't tolerate the intransigence of the Threedom any more. While it can still be done without bloodshed, we should assert sovereignty, occupy the towns, cut the Inrai outlaws off from their sources of supply, and investigate what else has been going on. That won't be a simple decision to make and enforce, especially given the Lunarian delegates in the House of Ethnoi, but I believe it's a hard necessity. Chuan agrees. We will need his help and the cybercosm's, with the sanction of the Synesis as a whole. No, they are not our enemies."
Fenn fell silent, staring through the canopy. They had reached the dark wasteland of the Margaritifer Sinus. It lay deathly still, unutterably cold. Even at this low latitude of the warmer southern hemisphere, spring took long to ascend out of winter.
"No bloodshed?" he wondered at last. "Are you sure? I've met some of your Lunarians."
"I've met more," David reminded him. "We can hope. The towns won't mobilize to fight us. Oh, they'll be outraged, in their icy fashion. The Inrai may gain a number of new recruits. Clandestine support for them may well continue, though it ought to be less than they now get. Prowling the wilderness, they may try to interdict our regional ground traffic entirely, and that may lead to a few armed clashes, with casualties. But however regrettable, it won't matter much. We'll keep the freedom of the airlanes. I don't expect we'll need to hunt the Inrai down or anything like that. Let them skulk. Eventually, maybe not till their next generation but eventually, they'll see the futility of it and stop." His smile was bleak. "Thank Chuan for providing a long-term view of the situation.''
"While the long term drags on, a lot of unhappiness will too," Fenn said.
"I didn't think you were overburdened with pity."
"I'm not. But some individuals deserve sympathy."
"You mean Kinna, don't you?" David asked slowly.
"Huh?" exclaimed Fenn, startled.
"I know she'll feel torn on account of her Lunarian friends—who, I've gathered, include several in the Threedom itself. And I know you and she have ... a high opinion of one another."
"We've stayed in touch, yes," Fenn mumbled.
"Well, she's a staunch lass, and sensible. When something had to be done, she was always ready to do it. Don't worry unduly about her."
"Uh, will she be, uh, on hand?" She had been on an important field trip and unable to meet Fenn.
David grinned. "Try and stop her! When I called to say we were going to Sananton today, she swore at me for not giving her more advance notice, and I had to explain how neither you nor I knew beforehand when it could be. After you're through at Deimos, she wants to be your guide around the planet again."
The grin faded as the Martian regarded the Moondweller from the seas of Earth. Finally he continued, most carefully: "Please don't misunderstand me. I take you for an honorable man. But please don't misunderstand her either. You're a newcomer to this isolated world. You may not be quite aware of how strongly we feel about certain matters. Among us Terrans, the family's become the basic unit of society. We aren't casual about our relationships. In fact, we're seldom impulsive about them. My daughter can roam freely with anyone she wants to because everybody who knows her knows she's our kind of person."
Fenn bit back an immediate retort. The flitter whirred on over the desert.
"Muy bien," he said. "I'll take that as a friendly piece of advice. But it wasn't necessary."
Maybe it had been. He was so much looking forward.
As often happened around the Martian equinoxes, weather across most of the globe went into a prolonged calm. Dust on the ground lay still, dust aloft sifted down upon it, and the skies cleared. At night, stars gleamed almost as manifold, many-hued, crystalline-sharp, as in space. Heaven by day ranged from peacock-blue along the horizon to indigo-black at the zenith; streamers of ice-cloud cast back the fierceness of the little sun; colors glowed where boulders, dunes, craters, hills lifted out of knife-edged shadow.
Kinna led Fenn through the morning on ways they had not taken before. Once beyond the house, he would have blundered for some time at random before getting it back in view. Here there was no trail, nor a Luna where footprints might last for thousands, or millions, of years. She seemed to know every rock, pit, cleft, and crag. They zigzagged upward northwesterly until they were well above Sananton, although not yet overlooking Eos Chasma. There she ducked around a jutting mass. He followed, and found himself on a semicircular ledge, five meters across, defined by low cliffs. Southward dropped a steep, talus-strewn slope. Below stretched the plantation fields—mostly black and white at this season, slashed by service roads, studded with the bright-burnished shells of control and equipment housings—out to a red rim of desert.
Kinna beamed. "My private garden that I told you about," she said.
"It's nice," he replied awkwardly. What he saw appeared as drab to him as the cultivars beneath. Stalks, interlaces, slender stems and branches
, leathery hemispheres, tight-curled leaves, and the rest would have been more interesting had he had any knowledge of metamorphic botany. However, he could appreciate the neat rows and rather charming miniterraces. "Quite a job, making this. Did you really do it alone, in just your spare time at home this past, uh, year?'' Two Earth-years since last they walked together.
"Well, I borrowed machines for the rough work, naturally." She glanced away. Her voice dropped. "I don't think I mentioned this in our ... correspondence, but the idea came from you. You told me how the Lahui have flowers, vines, arbors everywhere on those shiptowns and seadromes of theirs, and how you enjoy them."
He found no better response than: "It must be pretty when it blooms."
"I think so, but I'm prejudiced. This is a good site. The bluffs give shelter and radiate heat, so I can grow vanadia, the loveliest blue, and it seems as though the fireflower is going to take, and the hardier plants are doing spatter-splendidly, with their own colors—" She laughed. "Never mind the catalogue. Next time come back in summer and see. I should have much more done by then, and fixed what's been neglected, poor things."
Yes, he thought, presently she'd have graduated and returned here to stay. Meanwhile, she was again breaking off her studies to be with him.
"Couldn't you program a robot or two to look after it in your absence?" he asked. Sun-sparks down in the fields showed where the machines went about their tasks.
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