Blue Mars

“Not if we don’t control it,” A

“Control…” Sax said, thinking over the concept as if it were entirely new to him. “Influence? If the elevator can be brought down by anyone who really wants to, then …” He trailed away, lost in his thoughts.

“Then what?” A

“Then it’s controlled by all. Consensual existence. It’s obvious?”

It was as if he were translating from a foreign language. This was not Sax; A

Unfortunately Nadia heard this from the middle of the room, and she shook her head so violently that her cropped gray locks flew out like a clown’s ruff. She was still very angry with A

“But we don’t need a conduit to Terra,” A

It was so obvious. But Nadia shook her head, at what A

Sax cleared his throat, and in his old periodic-table style said, “If we can bring it down, then in effect it is as if it already were down,” blinking and everything. Like a ghost suddenly there at her side, the voice of the terraforming, the enemy she had lost to time and time again — Saxifrage Russell his own self, same as ever. And all she could do was make the same arguments she always had, the losing arguments, feeling the words’ inadequacy right in her mouth.

Still she tried. “People act on what’s there, Sax. The meta-nat directors and the UN and the governments will look up and see what’s there, and act accordingly. If the cable’s gone they just don’t have the resources or the time to mess with us right now. If the cable’s here, then they’ll want us. They’ll think, well, we could do it. And there’ll be people screaming to try.”

“They can always come. The cable is only a fuel saver.”

“A fuel saver which makes mass transfers possible.”

But now Sax was distracted, and turning back into a stranger. No one would pay attention to her for long enough. Nadia was going on about control of orbit and safe-conduct passes and the like.

The strange Sax interrupted Nadia, having never heard her, and said, “We’ve promised to … help them out.”

“By sending them more metals?” A

“We could … take people. It might help.”

A

He frowned. Nadia saw they weren’t listening to her, returned to the table. Sax and A

Always they argued. Neither conceded anything, no compromises were made, nothing was ever accomplished. They argued using the same words to mean different things, and scarcely even spoke to one another. Once it had been different, very long ago, when they had argued in the same language, and understood each other. But that had been so long ago she couldn’t even remember when exactly it was. In Antarctica? Somewhere. But not on Mars.

“You know,” Sax said in a conversational tone, again very un-Sax-like but in a different way, “it wasn’t the Red militia that caused the Transitional Authority to evacuate Burroughs and the rest of the planet. If guerrillas had been the only factor then the Terrans would have gone after us, and they might well have succeeded. But those mass demonstrations in the tents made it clear that almost everyone on the planet was against them. That’s what governments fear the most; mass protests in the cities. Hundreds of thousands of people going into the streets to reject the current system. That’s what Nirgal means when he says political power comes out of the look in people’s eye. And not out of the end of a gun.”

“And so?” A

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

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

A

A

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…

A

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 A