Part 40 (1/2)

”I know.”

They flew southward again, past the b.u.mp of Hecates Tholus on the northern end of the Elysium ma.s.sif, to the South Fossa s.p.a.ceport. Their flight had taken twelve hours, but they had gone west through nine time zones, and crossed the date line at 180 longitude, so it was midday Sunday when their airport bus drove to the rim of South Fossa, and through the roof lock.

South Fossa and the other Elysium towns, Hephaestus and Elysium Fossa, had all come out for Free Mars in a big way. They made a kind of geographical unit; a southern arm of the Vast.i.tas ice now ran between the Elysium ma.s.sif and the Great Escarpment, and though the ice had already been spanned by pistes on pontoon bridges, Elysium was in the process of becoming an island continent. In all three of its big towns crowds had poured into the streets, and occupied the city offices and the physical plants. Without the threat of attacks from orbit to back them up, the few Transitional Authority police in the towns had either changed into civilian clothes and melted into the crowds, or else gotten on the train to Burroughs. Elysium was uncontestedly part of Free Mars.

Down at the Mangalavid offices Nadia and Sax found that a large armed group of rebels had taken over the station, and were now busy churning out twenty-four and a half hours a day of video reports on all four channels, all sympathetic to the revolt, with long interviews from people in all the independent towns and stations. The timeslip was going to be devoted to a montage of the previous day's events.

Some outlying mining stations in Elysium's radial cracks, and in the Phlegra Montes, were purely metanat operations, mostly Amexx and Subaras.h.i.+. These were staffed largely by new emigrants who had holed up in their camps, and either gone silent or else started to threaten anyone who tried to bother them; some even declared their intention to retake the planet, or hold out until reinforcements from Earth arrived. ”Ignore them,” Nadia advised. ”Avoid them and ignore them. Jam their communications systems if you can, and leave them alone.”

Reports from elsewhere on Mars were more promising. Senzeni Na was in the hands of people who called themselves Booneans, though they were not a.s.sociated with Jackie- they were issei, nisei, sansei, and yonsei, who had immediately named their mohole John Boone, and declared Thaumasia a ”Dorsa Brevia Peaceful Neutral Place.” Korolyov, now a small mining town only, had revolted almost as violently as in '61, and its citizens, many of them descendants of the old prison population, had renamed the town Sergei Pavlovich Korolyov, and declared it an undoc.u.mented anarchist free zone; the old prison compounds were to be converted into a giant bazaar and communal living s.p.a.ce, with a particular welcome made to refugees from Earth. Nicosia was likewise a free city. Cairo was under the control of Amexx security. Odessa and the rest of the h.e.l.las Basin towns were still holding firm for independence, although the circ.u.mh.e.l.las piste had been cut in some places. The maglev train system was bad that way; the magnetic systems had to be operating for the pistes to function and the trains to move, and these systems were easy to break. For that reason many trains were running empty or were canceled, as people took to rovers or planes to make sure they didn't get stranded in the outback somewhere, in vehicles that didn't even have wheels.

Nadia and Sax spent the rest of Sunday monitoring developments and making suggestions, if asked, about problem situations. In general it seemed to Nadia that things were going well. But on Monday, bad news came in from Sabis.h.i.+. The UNTA expeditionary force had arrived there from the southern highlands, and retaken the surface portion of the city after a bitter all-night fight with the Red guerrillas in control of the city. The Reds and the original Sabis.h.i.+ans had retreated into the mound maze or the outlying shelters, and the prospect of continued b.l.o.o.d.y fighting in the maze was clear. Art predicted that the security force would be unable to penetrate the maze, and so would be forced to abandon Sabis.h.i.+, and train or fly up to Burroughs, to consolidate with the forces already there. But there was no way to be sure; and poor Sabis.h.i.+ was sadly battered by the a.s.sault, and back in security's hands.

Monday evening at dusk Nadia went out with Sax to get something to eat. South Fossa's canyon floor was thick with mature trees, the giant sequoias standing over an understory of pines and junipers and, in the lower stretch of the canyon, aspens and canyon oaks. As they walked down the streamside park, Nadia and Sax were introduced by the Mangalavid people to group after group, most of them natives, all of them unfamiliar faces, but all very happy to meet them, it was clear. It was strange to see so many people obviously, visibly happy; in normal life, Nadia realized, one simply didn't see it- smiles everywhere, strangers talking to each other... there was more than one way for things to go when a social order disappeared. Anarchy and chaos, definitely all too possible; but also communion.

They ate in an outdoor restaurant by the central stream, and then returned to the Mangalavid offices. Nadia got back in front of her screen, and went to work talking to as many organizing committees as she could reach. She felt like Frank in '61, working the phones in frantic overdrive; only now they were in communication with all of Mars, and she had the distinct impression that while she was not by any means in control, she at least had a good sense of what was going on. And that was gold, that was. The iron walnut in her stomach began to s.h.i.+ft to something more like wood.

After a couple of hours, she began to fall asleep in the seconds between one call and the next; it was the middle of the night back in Underhill and Shalbatana, and she hadn't slept much since the call from Sax about Antarctica. That meant four or five days without sleep- no, wait- she figured it out- three days. Though it already felt like two weeks.

She had just lain down on a couch when there was an outcry, and everyone ran into the hall, then out onto the stone-flagged plaza surrounding the Mangalavid offices. Nadia stumbled blearily after Sax, who grabbed her by the arm and helped her keep her balance.

Apparently there was a hole in the roof tent. People pointed, but Nadia couldn't make it out. ”This is where we're better off,” Sax said with a satisfied little purse of the mouth. ”The pressure under the roof is only a hundred and fifty millibars higher than the pressure outside.”

”So roofs don't pop like p.r.i.c.ked balloons,” Nadia said, remembering with a shudder some of the domed craters of '61.

”And even though some outside air is getting in, it's mostly oxygen and nitrogen. Still too much CO2, but not so much that we're all poisoned instantly.”

”But if the hole were bigger,” Nadia said.

”True.”

She shook her head. ”We need to secure the whole planet, to really be safe.”

”True.”

Nadia went back inside, yawning. She sat at her screen again, and began watching the four Mangalavid channels, switching among them rapidly. Most of the big cities were either openly for independence or in various kinds of stalemate, with security in control of the physical plants but nothing happening, and much of the population in the streets, waiting to see what would happen next. There were a number of company towns and camps that were still supporting their metanats, but in the case of Bradbury Point and Huo Hsing Vallis, neighboring towns up on the Great Escarpment, their parent metanats Amexx and Mahjari had been fighting each other on Earth. What effect that would have on these northern towns wasn't clear, but Nadia was sure it did not help them to sort out their situation.

There were several important towns still in the grasp of Subaras.h.i.+ and Amexx, and these were serving as magnets for isolated metanat and UNTA security units. Burroughs was obviously chief among these, but it was true also of Cairo, La.s.switz, Sudbury, and Sheffield. In the south, the sanctuaries that had not been abandoned or destroyed by the expeditionary force were coming out of hiding, and Vishniac Bogdanov was building a surface tent over the old robot vehicle parking complex next to its mohole. So the south would no doubt return to its status as a resistance stronghold, for what that was worth; Nadia didn't think it was worth much. And the northern polar cap was in such environmental disarray that it almost didn't matter who held it- with most of its ice draining down into Vast.i.tas, but the polar plateau covered by new snow every winter, it was the most inhospitable region on Mars, and there were almost no permanent settlements left up there.

So the contested zone was basically the temperate and equatorial lat.i.tudes, the band around the planet bordered by the Vast.i.tas ice to the north, and the two great basins to the south. And orbital s.p.a.ce, of course; but Sax's a.s.sault on metanat orbital objects had apparently been a success, and his removal of Deimos from the vicinity was now looking like a happy stroke indeed. The elevator, however, was still in metanat hands. And reinforcements from Earth were due any time. And Sax's team in Da Vinci had apparently used up most of their weaponry in the initial attack.

As for the soletta and the annular mirror, they were so big and fragile that they were impossible to defend; if someone wanted to wreck them, they probably could. But Nadia did not see the reason for it. If it happened, she would immediately suspect Reds on their own side of doing it. And if they did- well, everyone could get by without that extra light, as they had before. She would have to ask Sax what he thought about that. And talk to Ann about it, see what her position was. Or maybe it was better not to put ideas in her head. She would have to see how it went. Now what else...

She fell asleep with her head on the screen. When she woke again she was on the couch, ravenous, and Sax was reading her screen. ”It's looking bad in Sabis.h.i.+,” he said when he saw her struggling up. She went to the bathroom, and when she came back she looked over his shoulder and read as he talked. ”Security couldn't deal with the maze. So they've left for Burroughs. But look.” He had two images on-screen- on top, one of Sabis.h.i.+, burning as ferociously as Kasei Vallis had; on bottom, troops flooding into the train station in Burroughs, wearing light body armor and carrying automatic weapons, their fists punching the air. Burroughs was filled with groups of these security forces, it seemed, and they had taken over Branch Mesa and Double Decker b.u.t.te for their residential quarters. So along with the UNTA troops in the city, there were now security teams from both Subaras.h.i.+ and Mahjari- in fact all the big metanats were represented, which caused Nadia to wonder about what was really going on between them on Earth- whether they hadn't come to some sort of agreement or alliance, as a result of the crisis. She called up Art in Burroughs, to ask him what he thought.

”Maybe these Martian units are so cut off that they're making their own peace,” he said. ”They might be completely on their own.”

”But if we're still in contact with Praxis...”

”Yeah, but we surprised them. They weren't aware of the extent of sympathy for the resistance, and so we got the drop on them. Maya's strategy of lying low paid off in that sense. No, these teams could very well be on their own right now. In which case we could consider Mars to be independent already, and in the midst of a civil war over who has control here. I mean, if those people in Burroughs call us up and say okay, Mars is a world, it's big enough for more than one kind of government, you have yours, and we have Burroughs, don't try to take ours away from us- what are we going to say?”

”I don't think anyone in metanat security is thinking that big,” Nadia said. ”It's only been three days since things fell apart on them.” She pointed to the TV screen. ”See, look, there's Derek Hastings, head of the Transitional Authority. He was head of Mission Control in Houston when we flew out, and he's dangerous- smart, and very stubborn. He'll just hold on until those reinforcements land.”

”So what do you think we should do?”

”I don't know.”

”Can we just leave Burroughs alone?”

”I don't think so. We'd be much better off if we came out from behind the sun with a completed takeover. If there are beleaguered Terran troops, holding out heroically in Burroughs, they're almost sure to come out and save them. Call it a rescue mission and then go for the whole planet.”

”It won't be easy to take Burroughs, with all those troops in it.”

”I know.”

Sax had been asleep on another couch across the room, and now he opened one eye. ”The Reds are talking about flooding it.”

”What?”

”It's below the level of the Vast.i.tas ice. And there's water under the ice. Without the dike-”

”No,” Nadia said. ”There's two hundred thousand people in Burroughs, and only a few thousand security troops. What are the people supposed to do? You can't evacuate that many people. It's crazy. It's sixty-one all over again.” The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. ”What can they be thinking?”

”Maybe it's just a threat,” Art said over the screen.

”Threats don't work unless the people you're threatening believe you'll carry them out.”

”Maybe they will believe it.”

Nadia shook her head. ”Hasting's not that stupid. h.e.l.l, he could evacuate his troops by way of the s.p.a.ceport, and let the population drown! And then we become monsters, and Earth would be more certain than ever to come after us! No!”

She got up and went looking for some breakfast; then discovered, looking at the row of pastries in the kitchen, that her appet.i.te was gone. She took a cup of coffee and went back to the office, watching her hands shake.

In 2061 Arkady had been faced with a splinter group, which had sent a small asteroid on a collision course with the Earth. It was meant to be a threat only. But the asteroid had been blown apart, in the biggest human-created explosion in history. And after that the war on Mars had suddenly become deadly in a way that it hadn't been before. And Arkady had been helpless to stop it.

And it could happen again.

She walked back into the office. ”We have to go to Burroughs,” she said to Sax.

Revolution suspends habit as well as law. But just as nature abhors a vacuum, people abhor anarchy.

So habits made their first incursions into the new terrain, like bacteria into rock, followed by procedures, protocols, a whole fell-field of social discourse, on its way to the climax forest of law.... Nadia saw that people (some people) were indeed coming to her to resolve arguments, deferring to her judgment. She might not have been in control, but she was as close to control as they had: the universal solvent, as Art called her, or General Nadia, as Maya said nastily over the wrist. Which only made Nadia shudder, as Maya knew it would. Nadia preferred something she had heard Sax say over the wrist to his faithful gang of techs, all young Saxes in the making: ”Nadia is the designated arbitrator, talk to her about it.” Thus the power of names; arbitrator rather than general. In charge of negotiating what Art was calling the ”phase change.” She had heard him use the term in the midst of a long interview on Mangalavid, with that deadpan expression of his that made it very hard to tell if he was joking or not: ”Oh I don't think it's really a revolution we're seeing, no. It's a perfectly natural next step here, so it's more a kind of evolutionary or developmental thing, or what in physics they call a phase change.”