Blue Mars(5)

“And so?” Ann said.

Sax gestured at the people in the warehouse. “They’re all greens.”

The others continued debating. Sax watched her like a bird.

Ann got up and walked out of the meeting, into the strangely unbusy streets of east Pavonis. Here and there militia bands held posts on street corners, keeping an eye to the south, toward Sheffield and the cable terminal. Happy, hopeful, serious young natives. There on one corner a group was in an animated discussion, and as Ann passed them a young woman, her face utterly intent, flushed with passionate conviction, cried out “You can’t just do what you want!”

Ann walked on. As she walked she felt more and more uneasy, without knowing why. This is how people change— in little quantum jumps when struck by outer events— no intention, no plan. Someone says “the look in people’s eye,” and the phrase is suddenly conjoined with an image: a face glowing with passionate conviction, another phrase: you can’t just do what you want! And so it occurred to her (the look on that young woman’s face!) that it was not just the cable’s fate they were deciding— not just “should the cable come down,” but “how do we decide things?” That was the critical postrevolutionary question, perhaps more important than any single issue being debated, even the fate of the cable. Up until now, most people in the underground had operated by a working method which said if we don’t agree with you we will fight you. That attitude was what had gotten people into the underground in the first place, Ann included. And once used to that method, it was hard to get away from it. After all, they had just proved that it worked. And so there was the inclination to continue to use it. She felt that herself.

But political power . . . say it did come out of the look in people’s eye. You could fight forever, but if people weren’t behind you. . . .



• • •

Ann continued to think about that as she drove down into Sheffield, having decided to skip the farce of the afternoon strategy session in east Pavonis. She wanted to have a look at the seat of the action.

It was curious how little seemed to have changed in the day-to-day life of Sheffield. People still went to work, ate in restaurants, talked on the grass of the parks, gathered in the public spaces in this most crowded of tent towns. The shops and restaurants were jammed. Most businesses in Sheffield had belonged to the metanats, and now people read on their screens long arguments over what to do— what the employees’ new relationship to their old owners should be— where they should buy their raw materials, where they should sell— whose regulations they ought to obey, whose taxes they ought to pay. All very confusing, as the screen debates and the nightly news vids and the wrist nets indicated.

The plaza devoted to the food market, however, looked as it always had. Most food was grown and distributed by co-ops; ag networks were in place, the greenhouses on Pavonis were still producing, and so in the market things ran as usual, goods paid for with UNTA dollars or with credit. Except once or twice Ann saw sellers in their aprons shouting red-faced at customers, who shouted right back, arguing over some point of government policy. As Ann passed by one of these arguments, which were no different than those going on among the leaders in east Pavonis, the disputants all stopped and stared at her. She had been recognized. The vegetable seller said loudly, “If you Reds would lay off they would just go away!”

“Ah come on,” someone retorted. “It isn’t her doing it.”

So true, Ann thought as she walked on.

A crowd stood waiting for a tram to come. The transport systems were still running, ready for autonomy. The tent itself was functioning, which was not something to be taken for granted, though clearly most people did; but every tent’s operators had their task obvious before them. They mined their raw materials themselves, mostly out of the air; their solar collectors and nuclear reactors were all the power they needed. So the tents were physically fragile, but if left alone, they could very well become politically autonomous; there was no reason for them to be owned, no justification for it.

So the necessities were served. Daily life plodded on, barely perturbed by revolution.

Or so it seemed at first glance. But there in the streets also were armed groups, young natives in threes and fours and fives, standing on street corners. Revolutionary militias around their missile launchers and remote sensing dishes— green or red, it didn’t matter, though they were almost certainly greens. People eyed them as they walked by, or stopped to chat and find out what they were doing. Keeping an eye on the Socket, the armed natives said. Though Ann could see that they were functioning as police as well. Part of the scene, accepted, supported. People grinned as they chatted; these were their police, they were fellow Martians, here to protect them, to guard Sheffield for them. People wanted them there, that was clear. If they hadn’t, then every approaching questioner would have been a threat, every glance of resentment an attack; which eventually would have forced the militias from the street corners into some safer place. People’s faces, staring in concert; this ran the world.