Moving Mars (35 page)

I concluded my presentation with, We have agreement from four of the five major Binding Multiples, and twelve smaller BMs, and wed like to set a date now. Only Cailetet has declined.

Cailetet is keeping its options open, Crown Niger said, tapping his index finger on the top of the desk. He offered more tea, and I accepted. Frankly, the plan proposed by Persoff BM seems more attractive. A limited number of BMs participate, to eliminate organizational clutter A central financial authority, allocating district resources, working directly with Earth and the Triple. Very attractive. Not very different from Majumdars position before your visit to Earth.

He seemed curious as to how I might react to that. I smiled wryly and said, That approach is thin on the rights of individuals once the BMs are dissolved. Some districts would have little say.

There are drawbacks, Crown Niger said. But then, there are drawbacks in your proposal.

Were organizing a process, not yet making a specific proposal.

Crown Niger shook his head almost pityingly. Come and go, Miss Majumdar, the bias toward a constitution modeled along the lines of old Terrestrial democracies Thats a kind of proposal.

We hope to avoid the abuses of government without accountability.

Very Federalist. I frankly trust the more powerful institutions on Mars, Crown Niger said. They have no reason to lace up hobnailed boots and grind faces all day.

We prefer direct accountability.

You advocate radical changes. I wonder why so many BMs have agreed to their own deballing.

The vulgarity irritated me. Because theyre tired of Martian indecision and weakness, I said.

And I concur. Mars needs central planning and authority, just as we propose.

No doubt, I said, but

We could talk hours longer, Miss Majumdar. Actually, Im bound by decisions made by my own advocates. I could arrange meetings between you and them, individually.

Id enjoy the opportunity, I said.

Our thinker can arrange the details, Crown Niger said.

Fine. Id like to go off-record now, I said.

I do not conduct interviews in this office off-record, Crown Niger said, unruffled. I owe Cailetets family members that much.

There are accusations you may not wish them to hear.

They hear everything I hear, Crown Niger said, putting me in my place.

Some of the smaller BMs tell us Cailetet withdrew important contracts just after they agreed to send advocates to our assembly.

Its possible, Crown Niger said. We have a lot of contracts.

The numbers are interesting, I said. One hundred percent.

Severance following agreement? He seemed concerned and shook his head wonderingly.

Can you explain the perfect score? I asked.

Not immediately, Crown Niger said, uninterested.

I left the office empty-handed and chilled to the bone.

By the end of the winter of M.Y. 57, seventy-four out of ninety BMs had agreed to send representatives to a constitutional assembly. Twelve out of fourteen district governors planned to attend personally; the thirteenth and fourteenth would send aides. The momentum was with us. The populations opinions flowed like some vast amoeba. Mars was ready, Cailetet or no.

I was at the center, and the center was moving.

The constitutional assembly convened in the debating chamber of the University of Mars Sinai, on the 23rd of Aries, the thirteenth month of the Martian year. The Martian calendar would be used, sanctioning for the first time the formal use of eleven additional months, named after constellations.

The debate room was a large amphitheater, capable of holding a thousand people. In the arena, an adjustable circular table could seat as many as one hundred.

Detailed studies of the constitutional assembly have been published elsewhere. I am bound by oath not to give many more details of the process, but I can say that it was difficult. The BMs were reluctant to give up their powers and authority, even while recognizing they must. We all walked a tortuous path, preserving privileges here, removing them elsewhere, listening patiently to anguished appeals, working compromise after compromise, yet neverwe hoped compromising the core of a workable democratic constitution.

The birth cries of the new age were the voices of dozens of women and men, talking until they were hoarse, late into the night and early in the morning, arguing, cajoling, persuading, taking impassioned positions and then abandoning them to take others, wearing each other down, screaming, almost coming to blows, stopping to eat at the round table, relaxing with arms around the shoulders of what minutes before might have seemed sworn enemies, staring in stone-faced silence as views were voted down, smiling and clenching hands in victory, sitting in stymied exhaustion for days and weeks.

Delegates constantly briefed the members of their BMs about progress, sometimes soliciting input on crucial questions. Ti Sandra sent me to Argyre and Hellas to chair public meetings and answer questions about the assembly. And from all across Mars, suggestions and papers and vid reports poured in, some from individuals, others from ad hoc committees. Mars, once politically moribund, was hardly recognizable.

Above it all, providing a constant sense of urgency, Earth. We knew there were people within the assembly reporting to Earth, even beholden to Earth. We had no illusions that we lay beyond Earths power. If the assembly were scuttled, Earth would not be served; but no government that weakened Mars would be accepted, either.

We hoped for the best.

For two days, delegates examined constitutional models, as analyzed by human scholars and thinkers during the 2050s. The Earth Society of Social and Political Patterns had developed a language called Legal Logic, with three thousand base concepts derived from international and interplanetary laws. This language was specially designed for fixed analysis; interpretation became less an art, and more a science.

Using Legal Logic, the delegates spent a week examining the broad flow of the history of nations, studying three-dimensional slices through five- and six-dimensional charts, searching for the most flexible and enduring governmental structure. The slices resembled body scans, but reflected histories, not anatomy. Not surprisingly, the two systems that fared best were democratic, parliamentaryas with the United Kingdom, now part of Euroconand federal, as with Canada, Australia, the United States, and Switzerland. We traced the legal histories of these countries, studying extreme deviations from stated principlesexpressed as compound statements in Legal Logicthe ensuing crises, and how the systems changed thereafter.

The broad outlines of the proposed Martian constitution were decided next. The most flexible and enduring of our examples was the constitution of the United States of America, but most delegates agreed that major modifications would be necessary to fit Marss peculiar circumstances.

For six days, the assembly roughed out the branches of the central Martian government. There would be four branches: the executive, the legislative, the judicial, and the extraplanetary. The latter two would be subsidiary to the legislative, as would the executive in most cases. The role of the executive would be greatly reduced from eighteenth-century models, with the executive largely serving as an advocate for major issues; that is, a debater and persuader. The President would be backed up by a Vice President, who would serve as Speaker to the House of the People.

The legislature or congress would be bicameral, the House of the People and the House of Governors. The House of the People would take representatives from districts based on population; the governors, two for each district, would convene separately. Acting in tandem, they would decide the laws of Mars.

The extraplanetary branch would represent Mars in dealings with the Triple, and would answer directly to the executive, but would be appointed by the legislature. (This later proved unworkable, and was revised severelybut thats outside the scope of my story)

The judiciary would be divided into the Administrative Court, overseeing court activities as a whole; Civil Health Court, with its jurisdiction over individual and social behavior; Economic Court, which handled civil contracts, business law, and matters of money; and the Court of Government, which convened only to decide cases of a political nature.

Planetary defense would be designed, instituted, and coordinated by the executive and legislative branches. There was debate over whether Mars could afford, or even needed, standing defense force. That question was put off until ratification. Also delayed was the question of intelligence and internal securityprotection for the jurists, legislators, and executives.

The federal government and districts would be empowered to levy taxes on citizens and corporate entities. Districts would be responsible for building, upgrading, and maintaining cities and other infrastructure, but could only apply to the federal government for loans.

All economic transactions from the Triple would pass through a central planetary bank, which would be controlled by the legislature and empowered to regulate the flow of Martian money. All Martian currency would be standardized; BMs would no longer maintain their own credit systems. Financial BMs could apply to convert to branches of the Federal Planetary Bank, but most conform to charters and regulations approved by the legislature.

No district could pass laws contradictory to those of the federal government, nor could any district that ratified the constitution withdraw from the federal union thereafter, for any reason. (I remember Richmond and the statues of dead generals that littered their public places) Non-ratifying districts and BMs would be left with the old laws and arrangements. The federal government could mandate that districts accept as citizens those who wished to dissociate from the dissident BMs.

A Bill of Rights guaranteed that freedom of expression by humans and thinkers would not be hindered or abridged by any body within the government. There was much debate here, but Ti Sandra guided the assembly through these nettles with a steady hand.

It was assumed that all laws, and the constitution itself, would be recorded in Legal Logic, which would be interpreted by specially designed civic thinkers. Each branch would have its own thinkers, one for the executive, two for the legislature, one for the extraplanetary, and three for the judiciary. The opinions of the thinkers would be taken into account by all branches and made publicly available.

For the time being, however, there were no first-class thinkers being made on Marsthough a number of BMs were rushing to change that. Until Martian thinkers of sufficient power and purity could be grown and installed, no thinkers could be entrusted to make crucial decisions, without oversight. Suspicions still existed that they might be Earth-tainted.

Until the constitution was ratified by the delegates and by the people of Mars, an interim government would take office, consisting of a President and Vice President, selected by the delegates; the district governors, and one representative from each BM acting as a legislature; and the present judiciary. This government would exist for a maximum of twenty-three months.

If no constitution had been popularly ratified by then, a new assembly would convene, and the process would begin all over.

In the last week of the assembly, candidates for the interim offices were nominated. Ti Sandra Erzul received the strongest support of the nominees and was voted in by the delegates. She chose me to be her Vice President.

Among the last issues decided was what the new planetary union would be called. United Mars was proposed, but many who had fought the Statists objected. No phrases using union or united could be found that were acceptable to a majority. Finally, the assembly agreed to the Federal Republic of Mars.

Three designs for flags were rejected. A fourth was tentatively agreed to and a sample was sewn together, by hand, and submitted for final approval: red Mars and two moons in blue field above a diagonal, white below, signifying how much we had to grow.

One by one, the delegatessyndics and advocates and governors, assistants and aides, private citizensgathered in the debating chamber, signing the instruments of federation, abolishing the Council of BMs, rule by Charter, and relinquishing the independence of a century. Ti Sandra stood beside me at the lectern, hand on my shoulder, smiling broadly.

As each of the signers placed his or her signature on the papers, I began to believe. The crucial first steps had been taken, the majority of BMs supported us, and there had been no extreme interference.

We heard of Cailetet trying to arrange an alternate assembly, but it never came off. A rumor circulated during the hours before the signing that Achmed Crown Niger would send an advocate to begin talks with the interim government, but no advocate arrived.

Ti Sandras husband, Paul, accompanied Ilya into the chamber as the ceremony was concluded, and we shook hands and hugged all around. LitVid reporters from across the Triple recorded the signatures, and our embrace.

Fossil Mars comes to life again, Ilya whispered in my ear. We followed the crowd to dinner in the same room where I had once been held prisoner by Statist guards. Im proud of you, he added, squeezing my hand.

Youre talking as if its over, I said ruefully.

Oh, no, he said, shaking his head. I know what happens now. I no longer have a wife. Well see each other once a month by appointment.

Not that bad, I hope.

We sat in the middle of a long refectory table with the district governors and accepted the toasts of the delegates and syndics. Ti Sandra made a brief speech, humble and stirring, ringing with just the right note of new patriotism, and we ate.

I looked at the delegates and syndics, the governors, faces weary but relaxed, talking and nodding as they ate, and knew something I had never known before, at least not so intensely.

Time seemed to slow, and all my attentions focused on these singular seconds: on hands carrying forkfuls of food to questing mouths, on glittering eyes watching the faces of others, the sounds of laughter, protests of dismay at some jesting accusation, protests at credit given too liberally, an earnest woman expressing her own emotions at the signing, frowning ever so slightly as she framed her words; all colleagues, the moment having arrived, their time in history, the organic political process having flowed and carried them along