Blue Mars(47)

And so after about a week’s jockeying, with many other matters being worked on at the same time, they had enough agreement to call for a vote of approval of the delegate list; and because it had been so inclusive, it passed almost unanimously. And suddenly they had a real congress. It was made up of the following delegations, with anywhere from one to ten people in each delegation:

Towns:



Acheron



Nicosia



Cairo



Odessa



Harmakhis Vallis



Sabishii



Christianopolis



Bogdanov Vishniac



Hiranyagarba



Mauss Hyde



New Clarke



Bradbury Point



Sergei Korolyov



DuMartheray Crater



South Station



Sheffield



Senzeni Na



Echus Overlook



Dorsa Brevia



Dao Vallis



South Fossa



Rumi



New Vanuatu



Prometheus



Gramsci



Mareotis



Burroughs refugees organization



Libya Station



Tharsis Tholus



Overhangs



Reull Vallis



southern caravanserai



Nuova Bologna



Nirgal Vallis



Montepulciano



Margaritifer Plinth



Great Escarpment caravanserai



Da Vinci



The Elysian League



Hell’s Gate



Political Parties and Other Organizations:



Booneans



Reds



Bogdanovists



Schnellingistas



Marsfirst



Free Mars



The Ka



Praxis



Qahiran Mahjari League



Green Mars



United Nations Transitional Authority



Kakaze



Editorial Board of The Journal of Areological Studies



Space Elevator Authority



Christian Democrats



The Metanational Economic Activity Coordination Committee



Bolognan Neomarxists



Friends of the Earth



Biotique



Séparation de l’Atmosphère



General meetings began in the morning around the table of tables, then moved out in many small working groups to offices in the warehouse, or buildings nearby. Every morning Art showed up early and brewed great pots of coffee, kava, and kavajava, his favorite. It perhaps was not much of a job, given the significance of the enterprise, but Art was happy doing it. Every day he was surprised to see a congress convening at all; and observing the size of it, he felt that helping to get it started was probably going to be his principal contribution. He was not a scholar, and he had few ideas about what a Martian constitution ought to include. Getting people together was what he was good at, and he had done that. Or rather he and Nadia had, for Nadia had stepped in and taken the lead just when they had needed her. She was the only one of the First Hundred on hand who had everyones trust; this gave her a bit of genuine natural authority. Now, without any fuss, without seeming to notice she was doing it, she was exerting that power.

And so now it was Art’s great pleasure to become, in effect, Nadia’s personal assistant. He arranged her days, and did everything he could to make sure they ran smoothly. This included making a good pot of kavajava first thing every morning, for Nadia was one of many of them fond of that initial jolt toward alertness and general goodwill. Yes, Art thought, personal assistant and drug dispenser, that was his destiny at this point in history. And he was happy. Just watching people look at Nadia was a pleasure in itself. And the way she looked back: interested, sympathetic, skeptical, an edge developing quickly if she thought someone was wasting her time, a warmth kindling if she was impressed by their contribution. And people knew this, they wanted to please her. They tried to keep to the point, to make a contribution. They wanted that particular warm look in her eye. Very strange eyes they were, really, when you looked close: hazel, basically, but flecked with innumerable tiny patches of other colors, yellow, black, green, blue. A mesmerizing quality to them. Nadia focused her full attention on people— she was willing to believe you, to take your side, to make sure your case didn’t get lost in the shuffle; even the Reds, who knew she had been fighting with Ann, trusted her to make sure they were heard. So the work coalesced around her; and all Art really had to do was watch her at work, and enjoy it, and help where he could.

And so the debates began.

• • •



In the first week many arguments concerned simply what a constitution was, what form it should take, and whether they should have one at all. Charlotte called this the meta-conflict, the argument about what the argument was about— a very important matter, she said when she saw Nadia squint unhappily, “because in settling it, we set the limits on what we can decide. If we decide to include economic and social issues in the constitution, for instance, then this is a very different kind of thing than if we stick to purely political or legal matters, or to a very general statement of principles.”