Blue Mars(119)

Ariadne’s eyes were like billboards: first shocked, then a moment of pure fear. Then anger. She said, “I never said I wasn’t going to vote for enforcement! What are you going ballistic for?”

Nadia returned to a more ordinary argument mode, although still hard and tense and unrelenting. Finally Ariadne threw up her hands: “It’s what most of the Dorsa Brevia council wants to do, I was going to vote for it anyway. You don’t have to be so frantic about it.” And she hurried out of the room, very upset.

First Nadia felt a surge of triumph. But that look of fear in the young woman’s eyes— it stuck with her, until she began to feel slightly sick to her stomach. She remembered Coyote on Pavonis, saying “Power corrupts.” That was the sick feeling— that first hit of power used, or misused.

Much later that night she was still sick with repulsion, and almost weeping, she told Art about the confrontation. “That sounds bad,” he said gravely. “That sounds like a mistake. You still have to deal with her. When that’s the case, you have to just tweak people.”

“I know I know. God I hate this,” she said. “I want to get away, I want to do something real.”

He nodded heavily, patted her shoulder.

Before the next meeting, Nadia went over to Jackie and told her quietly that she had the council votes to put police down at the dam to stop any further release of water. Then in the meeting itself, she reminded everyone in an offhand remark that Nirgal would be back among them very soon, along with Maya and Sax and Michel. This caused several of the Free Mars group on hand to look thoughtful, though Jackie of course showed no reaction. As they nattered on after that, Nadia rubbed her finger, distracted, still upset with herself about the meeting with Ariadne.

The next day the Cairenes agreed to accept the judgment of the Global Environmental Court. They would cease releasing water from their reservoir, and the settlements downcanyon would have to exist on piped water, which would certainly pinch their growth.

“Good,” Nadia said, still bitter. “All that just to obey the law.”

“They’re going to appeal,” Art pointed out.

“I don’t care. They’re done for. And even if they aren’t, they’ve submitted to the process. Hell, they can win for all I care. It’s the process that counts, so we win no matter what.”

Art smiled to hear this. A step in her political education, no doubt, a step Art and Charlotte seemed to have taken long ago. What mattered to them was not the result of any single disagreement, but the successful use of the process. If Free Mars represented the majority now— and apparently it did, as it had the allegiance of almost all the natives, young fools that they were— then submitting to the constitution meant that they could not simply push around minority groups by force of numbers. So when Free Mars won something, it would have to be on the merits of the case, judged by the full array of court justices, who came from all factions. That was quite satisfying, actually; like seeing a wall made of delicate materials bear more weight than it looked like it could, because of a cleverly built framework.

But she had used threats to shore up one beam, and so the whole thing left a bad taste in her mouth. “I want to do something real.”

“Like plumbing?”

She nodded, not even close to a smile. “Yes. Hydrology.”

“Can I come along?”

“Be a plumber’s helper?”

He laughed. “I’ve done it before.”

Nadia regarded him. He was making her feel better. It was peculiar, old-fashioned: to go somewhere just to be with someone. It didn’t happen much anymore. People went where they needed to go, and hung out with whatever friends they found there, or made new friends. It was the Martian way. Or maybe just the First Hundred’s way. Or her way.

Anyway, it was clear that doing this, traveling together, was more than just a friendship, more even perhaps than an affair. But that was not so bad, she decided. In fact not bad at all. Something to get used to, perhaps. But there was always something to get used to.

A new finger, for instance. Art was holding her hand, lightly massaging the new digit. “Does it hurt? Can you bend it?”

It did hurt, a little; and she could bend it, a little. They had injected some knuckle zone cells, and now it was just longer than the first joint of her other little finger, the skin still baby pink, unmarred by callus or scar. Every day a little bigger.

Art squeezed the tip of it ever so gently, feeling the bone inside. His eyes were round. “You can feel that?”

“Oh yes. It’s like the other fingers, only a bit more sensitive maybe.”