Green Mars Part 39

"True. But it sure would be nice to seize that thing, and not have the elevator come cras.h.i.+ng down again."

"I know. I heard the Reds have been working with Sax on a plan for seizure."

"Allah preserve us. I must be off, Nadia. Tell Sax that the programs for the plant worked perfectly. And listen, we should come up and join you in the north, I think. If we can secure h.e.l.las and Elysium quickly, it will help our chances with Burroughs and Sheffield."

So h.e.l.las was going as planned. And just as important, or more, they were still in communication with each other. This was critical; among all the nightmare images of '61, scenes illuminated in her memory by lightning bolts of fear or pain, few were worse than the feeling of sheer helplessness that had struck her when their communication system had crashed. After that nothing they did had mattered, they had been like insects with their antennae ripped off, stumbling around ineffectually. So in the last few years Nadia had repeatedly insisted to Sax that he come up with a plan for hardening their communications; and he had built, and now put in orbit, a whole fleet of very small communications satellites, stealthed and hardened as much as possible. So far they were functioning as planned. And the iron walnut within her, while not gone, was at least not pulling in so hard at her ribs. Calm, she told herself. Thisness. This is the moment and the only moment. Concentrate on it.

Their mobile piste reached the big equatorial line, rerouted the year before to avoid the Chryse ice, and they shunted onto the piste for local trains, and headed west. Their train was only three cars long, and Nadia's whole crew, some thirty people, were all gathered in the first car to watch the incoming reports over the car's screen. These were official news reports from Mangalavid in South Fossa, and they were confused and inconsistent, combining regular weather reports and the like with brief accounts of strikes in many cities. Nadia kept her wristpad in contact with either Da Vinci or the Free Mars safe house in Burroughs, and as they slid on she watched both the car screen and her wrist, taking in simultaneous bursts of information as if listening to polyphonic music, finding she could track the two sources at once without any trouble, and was hungry for more. Praxis was sending up continuous reports on the Terran situation, which was confused, but not incoherent or opaque as it had been in '61; for one thing Praxis was keeping them informed, and for another, much of the current activity on Earth was devoted to moving the coastal populations out of the reach of the floods, which so far were like very high tides, as Sax had said they would be. The metanatricide was still being played out in the form of surgical strikes and decapitation coups, commando raids and counterraids on various corporate compounds and headquarters, combined with legal actions and PR of all sorts- including a number of suits and countersuits finally introduced to the World Court, which Nadia considered encouraging. But these strategic raids and maneuvers were much reduced in the face of the global flood. And even at their worst (video of exploding compounds, airplane crash sites, stretches of road craterized by the bombing of pa.s.sing limousines) they were still infinitely better than any kind of escalating war, which in biological form could kill millions. As became clear, unfortunately, with a shocking report from Indonesia that came over the car's screen- a radical liberation group from East Timor, modeled on Peru's s.h.i.+ning Path, had poisoned the island of Java with an as yet unidentified plague, so that along with the travails of the flooding there, they were losing hundreds of thousands to disease. On a continent such a plague could become a terminal disaster, and there was no guarantee it wouldn't happen still. But meanwhile, with that one awful exception, the war down there, if that was what one called the chaos of the metanatricide, was proceeding as a fight at the top. A style similar to what they were attempting on Mars, in fact. This was comforting in a way, although if the metanats became adept at the style, they could presumably wage it on Mars as well- if not in this first moment of surprise, then later when they had reorganized. And there was an ominous item in the flow of reports from Praxis Geneva, indicating they might be responding already: a fast shuttle with a large force of "security experts" had left Earth orbit for Mars three months ago, the report said, and was expected to reach the Martian system "in a few days." The news was being released now to encourage security forces beleaguered by rioting and terrorism, according to the UN press release.

Nadia's concentration on the screens was broken by the appearance of one of the big round-the-world trains on the piste beside them. One second they were gliding smoothly over the b.u.mpy plateau of Ophir Planum, and the next a big fifty-car express was whoos.h.i.+ng by them. But it didn't slow down, and there was no way of telling who, if anyone, sat behind its darkened windows. Then it was past them, and soon after that over the horizon ahead, and gone.

The news shows continued at their manic pace, the reporters obviously astonished by the developments of the day. Riots in Sheffield, work stoppages in South Fossa and Hephaestus- the accounts overlapped each other in such rapid succession that Nadia found it hard to believe they were real.

When they came into Underhill Nadia's feeling of unreality persisted, for the sleepy semiabandoned old settlement was now abuzz with activity, as in M-year 1. Resistance sympathizers had been pouring in all day from small stations around Ganges Catena and Hebes Chasma, and the north wall of Ophir Chasma. The local Bogdanovists had apparently organized them into a march on the little unit of UNTA security personnel at the train station. This had led to a standoff just outside the station itself, under the tent that covered the old arcade and the original quadrant of barrel vaults, now looking very small and quaint.

So when Nadia's train pulled in, there was a loud argument going on between a man with a bullhorn surrounded by about twenty bodyguards, and the unruly crowd facing them. Nadia got off the train as soon as it stopped, and went over to the edge of the group hemming in the stationmaster and his troops. She commandeered a bullhorn from a surprised-looking young woman and began shouting through it. "Stationmaster! Stationmaster! Stationmaster!" She repeated this in English and Russian, until everyone had gone quiet to find out who she was. Her construction team had filtered out through the crowd, and when she saw that they were positioned, she walked right up to the cl.u.s.ter of men and women in their flak jackets. The stationmaster appeared to be a Mars old-timer, his face weathered and scarred across the forehead. His young team wore the Transitional Authority insignia, and looked scared. Nadia let the bullhorn fall to her side and said, "I'm Nadia Cherneshevsky. I built this town. And now we're taking control of it. Who do you work for?"

"The United Nations Transitional Authority," the stationmaster said firmly, staring at her as if she had stepped out of the grave.

"But what unit? Which metanational?"

"We're a Mahjari unit."

"Mahjari unit."

"Mahjari is working with China now, and China with Praxis, and Praxis with us. We're on the same side, and you don't know it yet. And no matter what you think about that, we've got you outgunned here." She shouted out to the crowd, "Everyone armed raise their hand!"

Everyone in the crowd raised their hand, and all of her crew had stun guns or nail guns or soldering-beam guns in hand.

"We don't want bloodshed," Nadia said to the ever-tighter knot of bodyguards before her. "We don't even want to take you prisoner. There's our train right there; you can take it, and go to Sheffield and join the rest of your team. There you'll find out the new status of things. It's that or else we'll all leave the station here, and blow it up. We're taking over one way or another, and it would be stupid for anyone to get killed when this revolt is already a done deal. So take the train. I'd advise going to Sheffield, where you can get a ride out on the elevator if you want. Or if you want to work for a free Mars, you can join us right now."

She stared calmly at the man, feeling more relaxed than she had all day. Action was such a relief. The man ducked his head to confer with his team, and they talked in whispers for most of five minutes.

The man looked at her again. "We'll take your train."

And so Underhill was the first town freed.

That night Nadia went out to the trailer park, which was near the new tent coping wall. The two habitats that had not been turned into labs were still outfitted with the original living quarters equipment, and after inspecting them, and then going back out and walking around the barrel vaults, and the Alchemists' Quarter, she finally returned to the one she had lived in at the very start, and lay down on one of the floor mattresses, feeling exhausted.

It was strange indeed to lie by herself among all the ghosts, trying to feel again the presence of that distant time in her. Too strange; despite her exhaustion she could not sleep, and near dawn she had a hazy vision, of worrying about uncrating goods from freight rockets, and programming robot bricklayers, and taking a call from Arkady on Phobos. She even slept a while in this state, dozing uneasily, until a tingling in her ghost finger woke her up.

And then, rising with a groan, it was just as hard to imagine that she was waking up to a world in turmoil, with millions of people waiting to see what the day would bring. Looking around at the tight confines of her first home on Mars, it suddenly seemed to her that the walls were moving- beating very lightly- a kind of standing wave of double vision, as if she were standing in the low morning light looking through a temporal stereopticon, which revealed all four dimensions at once with a pulsating, hallucinatory light.

They breakfasted in the barrel vaults, in the large hall where Ann and Sax had once argued the merits of terraforming. Sax had won that argument, but Ann was out there fighting it still, as if it had not been decided long since.

Nadia focused on the present, on her AI screen and the flood of news pouring through it this Sat.u.r.day morning: the top of the screen given over to Maya's safe house in Burroughs, the bottom to Praxis reports from Earth. Maya was performing heroically as usual, vibrant with apprehension, hectoring everyone in sight to conform to her vision of how things should happen, haggard and yet buzzing with her internal spin. As Nadia listened to her describe the latest developments she chewed breakfast methodically, scarcely noticing Underhill's delicious bread. It was afternoon already in Burroughs, and the day had been busy. Every town on Mars was in turmoil. On Earth all the coastal areas were now flooded, and the ma.s.s dislocations were causing chaos inland. The new UN had condemned the rioters on Mars as heartless opportunists who were taking advantage of a time of unprecedented suffering to advance their own selfish cause. "True enough," Nadia said to Sax as he walked in the door, fresh from Da Vinci Crater. "They'll hold that against us later, I bet."

"Not if we help them out."

"Hmm." She offered him bread, regarding him closely. Despite his changed features he was looking more like Sax every day, standing there impa.s.sively, blinking as he looked around the old brick chamber. It seemed as though revolution was the last thing on his mind. She said, "Are you ready to fly to Elysium?"

"That's what I was going to ask you."

"Good. Let me go get my bag."

While she was throwing her clothes and AI into her old black backpack, her wrist beeped and there was Kasei, his long gray hair wild around his deeply lined face, which was the strangest mix of John and Hiroko- John's mouth, at the moment stretched into a wide grin; Hiroko's Oriental eyes, now slitted with delight. "h.e.l.lo, Kasei," Nadia said, unable to conceal her surprise. "I don't think I've ever seen you on my wrist before."

"Special circ.u.mstances," he said, unabashed. She was used to thinking of him as a dour man, but the outbreak of the revolution was obviously a great tonic; she understood suddenly by his look that he had been waiting for this all his life. "Look, Coyote and I and a bunch of Reds are up here in Chasma Borealis, and we've secured the reactor and the dam; everyone working here has been cooperative-"

"Encouraging!" someone beside him yelled.

"Yes, there's been a lot of support up here, except for a security team of about a hundred people who are holed up in the reactor. They're threatening to melt it down unless we give them safe pa.s.sage to Burroughs."

"So?" Nadia said.

"So?" Kasei repeated, and laughed. "So Coyote says we should ask you what to do."

Nadia snorted. "Why do I find that hard to believe."

"Hey, no one here believes it either! But that's what Coyote said, and we like to indulge the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d when we can."

"So, well, give them safe pa.s.sage to Burroughs. That's a no-brainer if I've ever seen one. It won't matter if Burroughs has an extra hundred cops, and the fewer reactor meltdowns the better, we're still wading around in the radiation from last time."

Sax came into the room while Kasei was thinking it over. "Okay!" Kasei said. "If you say so! Hey talk to you later, I have to go, ka."

Nadia stared at her blank wrist screen, scowling.

Sax said, "What was that about?"

"You've got me," Nadia said, and described the conversation while trying to call Coyote. She got no answer.

Sax said, "Well, you're the coordinator."

"s.h.i.+t." Nadia pulled her backpack over one shoulder. "Let's go."

They flew in a new 51B, very small and very fast. They took a great circle route, which headed northwest over the Vast.i.tas ice sea, and avoided the metanat strongholds of Ascraeus, and Echus Overlook. Very soon after takeoff they could see the ice filling Chryse to the north, the shattered dirty bergs dotted with pink snow algae and amethyst melt ponds. The old transponder road to Chasma Borealis was of course long gone, that whole system of bringing water south forgotten, a technical footnote for the history books. Looking down at the ice chaos Nadia suddenly remembered what the land had looked like on that first trip, the endless hills and hollows, the funnel-like alases, the great black barchan dunes, the incredible laminated terrain in the last sands before the polar cap... all gone now, overwhelmed by ice. And the polar cap itself was a mess, nothing but a collection of great melt zones and ice streams, slush rivers, ice-covered liquid lakes- every manner of slurry, and all of it cras.h.i.+ng downslope off the high round plateau that the polar cap rested on, down into the world-wrapping northern sea.

Landing was therefore out of the question for much of their flight. Nadia watched the instruments nervously, all too aware of the many things that could go wrong in a new machine during a crisis, when maintenance was down and human error up.

Then billows of white and black smoke appeared on the horizon to the southwest, pouring east in what was clearly a high wind. "What's that?" Nadia asked, moving to the left side of the plane to look.

"Kasei Vallis," Sax said from the pilot's seat.

"What's happened to it?"

"It's burning."

Nadia stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"Heavy vegetation there in the valley. And along the foot of the Great Escarpment. Resinated trees and shrubs, for the most part. Also fireseed trees- you know. Species that require fire to propagate. Engineered at Biotique. Th.o.r.n.y resin manzanita, blackthorn, giant sequoia, some others."

"How do you know this?"

"I planted them."

"And now you've set them on fire?"

Sax nodded. He glanced down at the smoke.

"But Sax, isn't the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere really high now?"

"Forty percent."

She stared at him some more, suddenly suspicious. "You jacked that up too, didn't you! Jesus, Sax- you might have set the whole world on fire!"

She stared down at the bottom of the column of smoke. There in the big trough of Kasei Vallis was a line of flame, the leading edge of the fire, burning brilliant white rather than yellow- it looked like molten magnesium. "Nothing will put that out!" she cried. "You've set the world on fire!"

"The ice," Sax said. "There's nothing downwind but the ice covering Chryse. It should only burn a few thousand square kilometers."

Nadia stared at him, amazed and appalled. Sax was still glancing down at the fire, but most of the time he watched the plane's instruments, his face set in a curious expression: reptilian, stony- utterly inhuman.

The metanat security compounds in the curve of Kasei Vallis came over the horizon. The tents were all burning furiously, like torches of pitch, the craters on the inner bank like beach firepits, spurting white flame into the air. Clearly there was a strong wind pouring down Echus Chasma and funneling through Kasei Vallis, fanning the flames. A firestorm. And Sax stared down at it unblinking, his jaw muscles bunched under the skin.

"Fly north," Nadia ordered him. "Get clear of that."

He banked the plane, and she shook her head. Thousands of square kilometers, burned- all that vegetation, so painstakingly introduced- global oxygen levels raised by a significant percentage.... She regarded the strange creature sitting beside her warily.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"I didn't want you to stop it."

As simple as that.

"So I have that power?" she said.

"Yes."

"Meaning I'm kept ignorant of things?"

"Only of this," Sax said. His jaw muscles were bunching and relaxing, in a rhythm that reminded her suddenly of Frank Chalmers. "The prisoners were all moved out into asteroid mining. This was the training site for all their secret police. The ones who would never give up. The tortures." He turned that lizard gaze on her. "We're better off without them." And he returned to his piloting.

Nadia was still looking back at the fierce white line of the firestorm when the plane's radio beeped her code. This time it was Art, cross-eyed with worry. "I need your help," he said. "Ann's people have retaken Sabis.h.i.+, and a lot of the Sabis.h.i.+ans have come up out of the maze to reoccupy it, and the Reds in control there are telling them to go away."

"What?"

"I know, well, I don't think Ann knows about this yet, and she isn't answering my calls. There are Reds out there that make her look like a Boonean, I swear. But I reached Ivana and Raul, and got them to stop the Reds in Sabis.h.i.+ till they heard from you. That's the best I could do."

"Why me me?"

"I think Ann told them to listen to you."

"s.h.i.+t."

"Well, who else is going to do it? Maya's made too many enemies holding things together the last few years."

"I thought you were the big diplomat here."

"I am! But what I got was everyone agreeing to defer to your judgment. That was the best I could do. Sorry, Nadia. I'll help you anyway you want me to."

"You'd d.a.m.n well better, after setting me up like this!"

He grinned. "It's not my fault everyone trusts you."

Nadia clicked off and tried the various Red radio channels. At first she couldn't find Ann. But while she was running through their channels she heard enough messages to realize that there were young Red radicals whom Ann would certainly condemn, or so she hoped- people who with the revolt still in the balance, were busy blowing up platforms in Vast.i.tas, slas.h.i.+ng tents, breaking pistes, threatening to end their cooperation with the other rebels unless they were joined in their ecotage and all their demands were met, etc., etc.

Finally Ann answered Nadia's call. She looked like an avenging Fury, righteous and slightly mad. "Look," Nadia said to her without preamble, "an independent Mars is the best chance you'll ever have to get what you want. You try holding the revolution hostage to your concerns and people will remember, I'm warning you! You can argue all you want once we've gotten the situation under control, but until then it's just blackmail as far as I'm concerned. It's a stab in the back. You get those Reds in Sabis.h.i.+ to turn the city back over to its residents."

Ann said angrily, "What makes you think I can tell them what to do?"

"Who else if not you?"

"What makes you think I disagree with what they're doing?"

"My impression that you are a sane person, that's what!"

"I don't presume to order people about."

"Reason with them if you can't order them! Tell them stronger revolts than ours have failed because of this kind of stupidity. Tell them to get a grip."

Ann cut the connection without a reply.

"s.h.i.+t," Nadia said.

Her AI continued to pour out news. The UNTA expeditionary force was coming back up from the southern highlands, and appeared to be on its way to h.e.l.las, or Sabis.h.i.+. Sheffield was still in the control of Subaras.h.i.+. Burroughs was an open situation, with security forces seemingly in control; but refugees were pouring into the city from Syrtis and elsewhere, and there was a general strike going on as well. The vids made it look like most of the populace was spending the day out on the boulevards and in the parks, demonstrating against the Transitional Authority, or merely trying to watch what was going on.

"We'll have to do something about Burroughs," Sax said.