Blue Mars(7)

“If they feel like it. But even if they evacuate it and give it to us, it’s still coming down.”

“How? Are those really rocket launchers out there?”

“Yes. But those are there in case they come down and try to retake Sheffield. As for bringing down the cable, breaking it here at the base isn’t the way to do it.”

“The control rockets might be able to adjust to disruptions at the bottom,” Kasei explained. “Hard to say what would happen, really. But a break just above the areosynchronous point would decrease damage to the equator, and keep New Clarke from flying off as fast as the first one did. We want to minimize the drama of this, you know, avoid any martyrs we can. Just the demolition of a building, you know. Like a building past its usefulness.”

“Yes,” Ann said, relieved at this sign of good sense. But it was curious how hearing her idea expressed as someone else’s plan disturbed her. She located the main source of her concern: “What about the others— the greens? What if they object?”

“They won’t,” Dao said.

“They are!” Ann said sharply.

Dao shook his head. “I’ve been talking to Jackie. It may be that some of the greens are truly opposed to it, but her group is just saying that for public consumption, so that they look moderate to the Terrans, and can blame the dangerous stuff on radicals out of their control.”

“On us,” Ann said.

They both nodded. “Just like with Burroughs,” Kasei said with a smile.

Ann considered it. No doubt it was true. “But some of them are genuinely opposed. I’ve been arguing with them about it, and it’s no publicity stunt.”

“Uh-huh,” Kasei said slowly.

Both he and Dao watched her.

“So you’ll do it anyway,” she said at last.

They continued to watch her. She saw all of a sudden that they would no more do what she told them to do than would boys ordered about by a senile grandmother. They were humoring her. Figuring out how they could best put her to use.

“We have to,” Kasei said. “It’s in the best interest of Mars. Not just for Reds, but all of us. We need some distance between us and Terra, and the gravity well reestablishes that distance. Without it we’ll be sucked down into the maelstrom.”

It was Ann’s argument, it was just what she had been saying in the meetings in east Pavonis. “But what if they try to stop you?”

“I don’t think they can,” Kasei said.

“But if they try?”

The two men glanced at each other. Dao shrugged.

So, Ann thought, watching them. They were willing to start a civil war.



• • •

People were still coming up the slopes of Pavonis to the summit, filling up Sheffield, east Pavonis, Lastflow and the other rim tents. Among them were Michel, Spencer, Vlad, Marina, and Ursula; Mikhail and a whole brigade of Bogdanovists; Coyote, on his own; a group from Praxis; a large train of Swiss; rover caravans of Arabs, both Sufi and secular; natives from other towns and settlements on Mars. All coming up for the endgame. Everywhere else on Mars, the natives had consolidated their control; all the physical plants were being operated by local teams, in cooperation with Séparation de l’Atmosphère. There were some small pockets of metanat resistance, of course, and there were some Kakaze out there systematically destroying terraforming projects; but Pavonis was clearly the crux of the remaining problem— either the endgame of the revolution or, as Ann was beginning to fear, the opening moves of a civil war. Or both. It would not be the first time.

So she went to the meetings, and slept poorly at night, waking from troubled sleep, or from naps in the transit between one meeting and the next. The meetings were beginning to blur: all contentious, all pointless. She was getting tired, and the broken sleep did not help. She was nearly 150 years old, after all, and had not had a gerontological treatment in 25 years, and she felt weary all through, all the time. So she watched from a well of growing indifference as the others chewed over the situation. Earth was still in disarray; the great flood caused by the collapse of the west Antarctic ice sheet was indeed proving to be the ideal trigger mechanism for which General Sax had waited. Sax felt no remorse for taking advantage of Earth’s trouble, Ann could see; he never thought once about the many deaths the flood had caused down there. She could read his face thought by thought as he talked about it— what would be the point of remorse? The flood was an accident, a geological catastrophe like an ice age or a meteor impact. No one should waste time feeling remorse for it, not even if they were taking advantage of it for their own purposes. Best to take what good one possibly could from the chaos and disorder, and not worry. All this was right on Sax’s face as he discussed what they should do next vis-à-vis Earth. Send a delegation, he suggested. Diplomatic mission, personal appearance, something about throwing things together; incoherent on the surface, but she could read him like a brother, this old enemy! Well, Sax— the old Sax anyway— was nothing if not rational. Therefore easy to read. Easier than the young fanatics of the Kakaze, now that she thought of it.