I thought of Cailetet's attempt to expand mining claims. As if Crown Niger had tried to warn us, one last signal flag of honor before handing himself to Earth on a platter, sole political survivor of conquered Mars.
I wondered now if Stan and Jane were even alive. "We could fight the locusts," I offered.
"We don't have anywhere near the means to destroy all the factories," he said. "The locust concept is specifically forbidden by treaty signed by all nations and alliances."
"And we're too young and naive to have thought of a defense."
"Theoretically," Jack said, "in a year or two, all of our scientists could design a response. A nano-level disease. But if the locusts are Earth-designed, we ..." He did not finish.
But we did have defenses, and they were in themselves so frightening as to have provoked the Earth . . . Extremes bringing on extremes. The future seemed not just dangerous, not just bleak; it seemed incomprehensible.
Dandy left the controls briefly to tell us the track ahead was clear for five hundred klicks. Jack and I told him about the locust warning. His face went gray.
I told neither of them about Ti Sandra's impending death.
Jack switched places with Dandy, and the engine pushed on across Mars, skirting the rugged regions a hundred klicks south of Mariner Valley and Eos Chasma.
I had never felt so isolated, so wrapped in silence. The train's faint vibration on a curved trace rose through my feet. Dandy slept fitfully, leaning against the cabin bulkhead behind the stool, feet splayed like a boy's, boots turned out.
In the next few hours, I studied the contingency plans available on my VP slate. They were none of them useful or even suggestive. None of them took into account either locusts or Olympians. Those preparing the plans would not have been in the know about the Olympians, and Martians were too trusting to assume the worst of Mother Earth.
How many Martians would die now, brave and artless?
How many deaths could Ti Sandra and I absorb the blame for?
I stared out the port again. The stars in the sky over nightbound Mars had their echo in the sands — piezoelectric flashes as the sizzle contracted from the day's mild warmth, sparkling like thousands of tiny fireflies. I turned off the cabin light to see them better and pressed my armor-wrapped face against the glass like a little girl. For a moment, the vision seduced me into forgetting my worries, and I felt suspended like a wraith, a child's ghost flying over the sands. I specked through my enhancement pressures building in sizzle baked by ultraviolet across the years, wind removing layers of flopsand and powder, sudden cold night air flowing from nearby scarps, pressure within the desert varnish squeezing tiny crystals of quartz . . .
Then I imagined the flashes were locusts signaling to each other, and pulled away from the port with a small cry. Dandy came awake instantly, straightened his legs, blinked at me. He drew his gun so quickly I only noticed the result, not the action.
"Dreaming?" he asked, pocketing the weapon without apology.
"No," I said. "Thinking the worst, though."
"No good that," he said.
Jack came into the cabin and told us the tracks seemed to be clear through Schiaparelli and into Many Hills. "We've passed two trains that coasted automatically onto spurs," he said. "At least the computers did that much before they locked up."
"People still in the trains?" I asked.
"I assume," he said, face stony.
The engine ascended a graceful, fairy-light series of sloping trestles. We topped the inward-facing scarps of Schiaparelli basin and descended into the great flat plain twenty-five hours after departing UMS. Many Hills stood at the center, in the worn hummocks of ancient central rings. The engine coasted into the new, dazzling white depot.
The white walls and pressure arches stood out against the ochre and red all around, a beacon for assault. The entire town was a target. But that kind of warfare had long since ceased. Now, soldiers could be invisible, and destruction carried out by machines like termites from within, not bombs from without. Warbeiters, Jack had called them. A horribly awkward and unpleasant name.
All seemed deserted, which was expected. During an emergency, red rabbits clustered close to water and oxygen sources. A Martian station seldom looks inhabited from the outside, anyway. And the Republic's new capital had not yet received its full population of bureaucrats, cabinet members, jurists, governors and representatives.
Point One had established its command at Many Hills some weeks before. Overseeing guards for the President and Vice President, assembling the early stages of Martian intelligence and internal security, Point One had taken on a carefully observed life of its own with surprising speed. Now I was grateful to see men and women I recognized at the depot, carrying weapons, wearing pressure suits, waiting for the train with somber but professional faces.
We disembarked in an underground area, away from possible bombardment, and I was immediately taken by armored truck to fresh tunnels east of the capitol construction.
Dandy and Jack met with their superior, Tarekh Firkazzie, in the rear of the truck. A slim blond man from Boreum, Firkazzie had been appointed head of overall security the month before.
Two women stripped my reactive armor and carefully packaged it for disposal. "You're brave, traveling for a day with this stuff, Madam Vice President," one said.
Jack came forward, grinding his teeth audibly, thrusting his lower jaw as it mocking a heroic male. Then I saw that his expression, however absurd, was genuine; he was grieving.
"Madam Vice President, I've been appointed ... we chose by lots . . . to bring you bad news. You have a much heavier burden now. Ti Sandra Erzul and her crew have been involved in a shuttle mishap. It may have been an accident, but we're not sure. We haven't confirmed the location of the crash, and we won't be able to for some time. Emergency beacon reports rescue arbeiters have not located anybody alive in the wreckage. We're bringing in a magistrate from the court tunnels. We'll have you sworn in as President as soon as possible, perhaps in the next few minutes. I'm sorry."
For a moment, I did not know whether this was the faked death Ti Sandra had warned me about, or a real accident. I had to assume it was the former. I would become acting President.
I felt nothing then. I had become an arbeiter working for a political machine with its own rules, inevitable and soulless.
Point One had played its role as protector of the chain of command during my flight by train engine from Sinai. The interim Speaker of the House of Governors had been flown in from Amazonis by shuttle; the speaker for the House of the People had been at Many Hills to begin with. The interim congress had been caught campaigning, scattered across Mars, except for three governors and two candidate representatives. They were in a deep tunnel guarded by what defense arbeiters and personnel the Point One folks could assemble.
Point One had assumed control of all the available links. The ex net was down, but some private nets strung through local optics were up on manual and portable narrowband, keeping us informed about conditions at stations around Schiaparelli Basin. In effect, there were communications, but at less than one-tenth of one percent normal.
We still could not talk with the Olympians. I did not expect any further messages from Ti Sandra for days, perhaps longer.
All rules were being ignored, all bets were off.
Led by Dandy Breaker, five guards and two arbeiters escorted me into the narrow emergency tunnel two hundred meters below the congress, just above the new and expanded wellhead for Many Hills. There, I faced the dismayed band of seven legislators. For a moment, nobody spoke, and then all gathered in a circle around me, shaking my hands, asking questions.
I held up my aims, sidestepped a governor who seemed about to hug me, and called out, as clearly as possible without shouting, "We are the only ones who can act as a lawful government for the Republic! We must have order!"
The Speaker of the House of Governors, Henry Smith of Amazonis, a stocky man with a close-trimmed bear
d and piggish discerning eyes, used his stentorian voice to call the meeting to order. "Obviously," he added, in an aside to me, "we do not have a quorum, but this is an emergency session."
I agreed. "All of our intelligence, assembled by the Point One people — thanks to all of them for their extraordinary work — "
"They did not avert this catastrophe!" shouted the representative from Argyre.
"They are not intended for military defense!" responded Henry Smith, raising a tight-fisted hand, his chin lowered as if he were a bull about to charge. Argyre clapped his mouth shut, eyes wide. They were all very frightened men and women.
"Please let me say what needs to be said," I continued.
"Without interruptions," Henry Smith insisted.
"The President may be dead."
Some of the legislators and even a few of the guards who had not heard seemed to wilt, their faces as blank as those of shocked children. "My God," Henry Smith said.
"I will take the oath of office soon, unless we can establish that Ti Sandra Erzul is still alive. We have heard that her shuttle crashed. I assume it was destroyed by some sort of aggressive action."
"Who? Who, in God's name, has done this to us?" cried Representative Rudia Bly from Icaria.
"I've been told that we will be negotiating with people from Cailetet, representing Earth. Earth seems to have decreed that all our thinkers and computers be shut down by activated evolvons."
"We swept them!" someone shouted. "There were guarantees!"
"Quiet!" Henry Smith yelled.
I asked Lieh Walker, the head of the Point One Com and Surveillance team, to give us a status report. Her words provided no comfort. We knew conditions around most of Schiaparelli, and there were bursts of information from places as far away as Milankovic and Promethei Terra, but no complete picture. "Communications with other parts of Mars are severely restricted," she said. "Even if we had the data, we could not assemble it into anything coherent. Our interpreters are down. Everything's badly polluted except our slates and a few personal computers with CPUs made on Mars."
When she finished, I spoke again. "Our position may be untenable for the time being. Not only is Mars paralyzed, but it seems the Terries have laced parts of the planet with locusts."
Not all the legislators understood the term. Martians have always been known for a tight domestic focus. I explained briefly. "Is that possible?" one asked.
Henry Smith glanced at me as if for moral support. "I've had some briefings on it," he said. "It's a little buried cesspool of tech. Nobody much admits to that sort of thing."
"Then we're dead," said Argyre.
"Don't settle for anything so final," I said sharply. "Some options are still open."
Dandy Breaker entered the chamber and told me that the negotiators from Cailetet had arrived by shuttle at the depot. "They're clean and well-dressed," he said contemptuously. "Their stuff seems to work."
I glanced at Lieh Walker for an explanation. She dropped the edges of her lips, eyes flashing anger. "Cailetet has been removed from our net links," she said. "They may not be affected, but they are lying low. There is nothing from their regions coming through Point One com."
I studied the legislators. I would need a witness and some support for my negotiations. I had to pick wisely from a group I knew only in passing; the interim government had never quite integrated. Ti Sandra had conducted a lot of business personally with these people, but I had met only a few, very briefly.
"Governor Smith, Representative Bly, if you'll come with me ..."
Smith seemed eager to please, but he was smart and tough — Ti Sandra had told me so, and I trusted her judgment implicitly. Candidate Representative Rudia Bly of Eastern Hellas — unopposed — had served with me on a capital architecture committee, several months ago. She was generally quiet and observant and I had felt comfortable around her.
I did not want to think too long about the importance of every decision I made now, of the roles these people would play, of what I would discuss with the traitors from Cailetet.
Someone has said that nobody pays politicians to have emotions. Yet when the magistrate administered the Oath of the Presidency, in a tiny anteroom to the Hall of the Judiciary, surrounded by gray racks of dormant, polluted law library thinkers, I wept quietly.
No one gave it the slightest notice.
Sean Dickinson had changed little in appearance since the days in the trench dome. He stood very straight, knees limber, with hands folded behind him, parade rest. He clenched and unclenched his jaw muscles, regarded me steadily, and blinked only once in the long seconds I examined him.
We were meeting in the half-finished chamber of the governors, scaffolding and architectural slurry above our heads, the air yeasty with active nano. So long as the nutrient vats held out, the capitol would continue building itself. Dickinson stood before the hand-carved pink marble podium where Henry Smith — if he were elected — would gavel the House of Governors to order.
"I have been sworn in as President of the Federal Republic of Mars," I said. "I understand you represent Cailetet?"
"I recognize you," Dickinson said, words clipped but soft. "Casseia Majumdar. Do you remember us?"
His lip twitched as if he might smile, but he turned away and gave a languid look at Gretyl Laughton. She stood at the front of their aides, four men and women from Cailetet. They appeared uneasy, well aware of possible charges of treason even though they belonged to a nonaligned BM. Gretyl had become leaner, like a greyhound or whippet; she wore deliberately dull clothes, her hair had grayed, and she seemed uninterested in appearances.
"I remember," I answered.
"We did some brave things together not that many years ago. You once claimed to despise the Statists."
"And now I am one."
"Worse. You are the state."
Neither of us cared to break through the iciness and unpleasant formality. "Where are your documents? I won't talk with you until I'm convinced you have the powers you claim."
Dickinson said, "We have the proper documents. We represent factions on Earth who have control over much of Mars now. They do not wish to reveal themselves, but they have given us coded identifiers for verification. Our documents have been hand-vetted, since your security thinkers and other machines are not functioning."
"Is this so?" I asked Lieh Walker, who stood beside Henry Smith. Tarekh Firkazzie entered the chamber and sat inconspicuously in one of the gallery seats.
"Their codes match Earth codes shipped to all governments in the Triple," Lieh said.
"Utter cowardice," I said, shaking my head. "Are they afraid of their own plebiscites? This is an atrocity, an illegal act."
Dickinson smiled. "Can we become serious?" he asked.
I glared at him. At that moment, it was all I could do to keep myself from reaching out and striking him.
We chose a table in the witness square and sat.
"I've been authorized to present you with an offer."
I made a gesture to Lieh. The chamber recorders were switched on. "Mars has been attacked without reason," I said. "Is Cailetet cooperating with the aggressors?"
Sean leaned forward slightly. "The Republic, the state to which Mars has decided to give itself, is developing very dangerous weapons. Considering the political situation in the Triple — completely peaceful for nearly sixty years — that seems out of character and very damned stupid."
"No weapons are being developed," I said.
"I've been told that these weapons could be more destructive than any yet made."
I saw no reason to argue the point further. "Present your proposals and let's get this over with."
"The parties involved in this preemptive action will deactivate all blocks on Martian dataflow, if the people listed on this slate . . . " He pushed his own slate forward and I spun it around to view the screen. "Are delivered into my hands within seventy-two hours. I will receive them here in Many Hills and transport them elsewhere. Event
ually they will go to Earth."
I read the list: all of the Olympians, Zenger, Casares, and nineteen others — among them, the finest scientists on Mars.
"What will this accomplish?" I asked.
"Peace," Dickinson said. "Return to normal dataflow. Lives saved."
"No locusts?" I asked.
"Locusts?"
"Warbeiters. Nano armies," I said.
He seemed puzzled.
"Your puppet masters don't tell you everything. Either that or you're willfully ignorant."
Dickinson shrugged.
"What Earth is doing to Mars right now will alter the balance of the Triple," I said, voice cracking. "Nobody will feel safe."
"Please don't lecture me," Dickinson said.
Gretyl stepped forward. "We understand the delicate balances better than you."
"Yes, and your youthful ideals — my God, Sean, you're working with Crown Niger!" I shut myself up, but my body trembled with suppressed rage. Three days. "The Republic has no authority to kidnap citizens."
"What it comes down to, I think, is Earth considers its own safety paramount, and does not trust Martian intentions," Dickinson concluded. "Ninety-eight percent of all humanity still lives on Earth. Knowing what I know about this government, I wouldn't trust you, either."
"We've never shown Earth any hostility. Quite the opposite, in fact."
"Mars should have kept its innocence," Dickinson said. "No world state, stay out of the big leagues, peace and comparative prosperity. I've fought against this all my life. All states resort to force in the end."
"I assume there are other conditions?"
Dickinson referred to his slate. "Return to BM economic structure for a minimum of twenty years. Earth monitors to be installed at all research centers, and regular visits of inspection teams at any facility of any kind on Mars."
They had given up on us. They wanted us weak, locked in our own past, stripped of our new powers. Someone had calculated that the technological situation would get out of hand before any peaceful negotiations could be concluded. "Occupation by Earth," I said. "Absolutely incredible. How can anyone believe that will be workable?"