Moving Mars (6 page)

It was late morning and a few dozen interim university administrators had come in on the same train we would be taking out. Dressed in formal grays and browns, they stood under the glass skylights shuffling their feet, clutching their small bags and waiting for their security escort, glancing at us suspiciously.

Rail staff didnt know we were part of the group responsible for breaking the UMS line, but they suspected. All credit to the railway that it honored charter and did not refuse service.

The four of us sat in the rearmost car, fastening ourselves into the narrow seats. The rest of the train was empty.

In 2171, five hundred thousand kilometers of maglev train tracks spread over Mars, thousands more being added by arbeiters each year. The trains were the best way to travel: sitting in comfort and silence as the silver millipedes flew centimeters above their thick black rails, rhythmically boosting every three or four hundred meters and reaching speeds of several hundred kiphs. I loved watching vast stretches of boulder-strewn flatlands rush by, seeing fans of dust topped by thin curling puffs as static blowers in the trains nose cleared the tracks ahead.

I did not much enjoy the train ride to Times River Canyon Hospital, however.

We didnt have much to say. We had been elected by the scattered remnants of the protest group to visit Sean and Gretyl.

We accelerated out of the UMS station just before noon, pressed into our seats, absorbing the soothing rumble of the carriage. Within a few minutes, we were up to three hundred kiphs, and the great plain below our ports became an ochre blur. In a window seat, I stared at the land and asked myself where I really was, and who.

Charles had taken the seat beside me, but mercifully, said little. Since my fathers stern lecture, I had felt empty or worse. The days of having nothing to do but sign releases and talk to temp security had worn me down to a negative.

Oliver tried to break the gloom by suggesting we play a word game. Felicia shook her head. Charles glanced at me, read my lack of interest, and said, Maybe later. Oliver shrugged and held up his slate to speck the latest LitVid.

I dozed off for a few minutes. Charles pressed my shoulder gently. We were slowing. You keep waking me up, I said.

You keep napping off in the boring parts, he said.

You are so tapping pleasant, you know? I said.

Sorry. His face fell.

And why are you I was about to say following me but I could hardly support that accusation with much evidence. The train had slowed and was now sliding into Times River Depot. Outside, the sky was deep brown, black at zenith. The Milky Way dropped between high canyon walls as if seeking to fill the ancient flood channel.

I think youre interesting, Charles said, unharnessing and stepping into the aisle.

I shook my head and led the way to the forward lock.

Were stressed, I murmured.

Its okay, Charles said.

Felicia looked at us with a bemused smile.

In the hospital waiting room, an earnest young public defender thrust a slateful of release forms at us. Which government are you sending these to? Oliver asked. The mans uniform had conspicuous outlines of thread where patches had been removed.

Whoever, he answered. Youre from UMS, right? Friends and colleagues of the patients?

Fellow students, Felicia said.

Right. Now listen. I have to say this, in case one of you is going to shoot off to a LitVid. The Times River District neither condones nor condemns the actions taken by these patients. We follow historical Martian charter and treat any and all patients, regardless of legal circumstance or political belief. Any statements they make do not represent

Jesus, Felicia said.

the policy or attitudes of this hospital, nor the policy of Times River District. End of sermon. The public defender stepped back and waved us through.

I was shocked by what we saw when we entered Seans room. He had been tilted into a corner at forty-five degrees, wrapped in white surgical nano and tied to a steel recovery board. Monitors guided his reconstruction through fluid and optic fibers. Only now did we realize how badly he had been injured.

As we entered his room, he turned his head and stared at us impassively through distant green-gray eyes. We made our awkward openings, and he responded with a casual, Hows the outside world?

In an uproar, Oliver said. Sean glanced at me as if I were only there in part, not a fully developed human being, but a ghost of mild interest. I specked the moments of passionate speech when he had riveted the crowded students and compared it to this lackluster shell and was immensely saddened.

Good, Sean said, measuring the word with silent lips before repeating it aloud. He looked at a projected paleoscape of Mars on the wall opposite: soaring aqueduct bridges, long gleaming pipes suspended from tree-like pedestals and fruited with clusters of green globes, some thirty or forty meters across A convincing mural of our world before the planet sucked in its water, shed its atmosphere, and withered.

The Councils taken over everything again, I said. The syndics of all the BMs are meeting to patch things together.

Sean did not react.

Nobodys told us how you were hurt, Felicia said. We looked at her, astonished at this untruth. Ochoa had checked into all the security reports, including those filed by university guards, and pieced together the story.

The charges, Sean said, hesitating not a moment, and I thought, Whatever Felicia is up to, hell tell the truth and why expect him not to?

The charges went off prematurely, before I had a chance to get out of the way. I set the charges alone. Of course.

Of course, Oliver said.

Charles stayed in the rear, hands folded before him like a small boy at a funeral.

Blew me out of my skinseal. I kept my helmet on, oddly enough. Exposed my guts. Everything boiled. I remember quite a lot, strangely. Watching my blood boil. Somebody had the presence of mind to throw a patch over me. It wrapped me up and slowed me down and they pulled me into the infirmary about an hour later. I dont remember much after that.

Jesus, Felicia said, in exactly the same tone she had used for the public defender in the waiting room.

We did it to them, didnt we? Got the ball rolling, Sean said.

Actually Oliver began, but Felicia, with a tender expression, broke in.

We did it, she said. Oliver raised his eyebrows.

Im going to be okay. About half of me will need replacing. I dont know whos paying for it. My family, I suppose. Ive been thinking.

Yeah? Felicia said.

I know what set the charge off, Sean said. Somebody broke the timer before I planted it. Id like one or all of you to find out who.

Nobody spoke for a moment. You think somebody did it deliberately? I asked.

Sean nodded. We checked the equipment a hundred times and everything worked.

Who would have done something like that? Oliver asked, horrified.

Somebody, Sean said. Keep the students together. This isnt over yet. He turned to face me, suddenly focusing. Take a message to Gretyl. Tell her she was a goddamned fool and I love her madly. He bit into the words goddamned fool as if they were a savory cake that gave him great satisfaction. I had never seen such a join of pain and bitter pride.

I nodded.

Tell her she and I will take the reins again and guide this mess home right. Tell her just that.

Guide the mess home right, I repeated, still under his spell.

We have a larger purpose, Sean said. We have to break this planet out of its goddamned business-as-usual, corrupt, bow-down-to-the-Triple, struggle-along mentality. We can do that. We can make our own party. Its a beginning. His eyes fixed on each of us in turn, as if to brand us. Felicia held out her splayed fingers and Sean lifted his free arm to awkwardly press his hand against hers. Oliver did the same. Charles stood back; too much for him. I was about to raise my hand and match Seans. But Sean saw my hesitation, my change of expression when Charles stepped back, and he dropped his hand before I could decide.

Heart and mind, heart and mind, Sean said softly. You are Casseia, right? Casseia Majumdar?

Yes.

How did your family fare in all this?

I dont know, I said.

Theyre fixed to prosper. The Gobacks will do well in the next government. It was funny, Connor thinking we were Gobacks. Are you a Goback, Casseia?

I shook my head, throat tight. His tone was so stiff and distant, so reproving.

Show it to me, Casseia. Heart and mind.

I dont think you have any right to question my loyalty because of my family, I said.

Seans gaze went cold. If youre not dedicated, you could turn on us just like whoever broke the timer.

Gretyl handled the charge, Charles said. Nobody else touched it. Certainly not Casseia.

We all slept, didnt we? Sean said. But its irrelevant, really. That parts over.

He closed his eyes and licked his lips. A cup came up from the wallmount arbeiter and a stream of liquid poured into his mouth. He sucked it up with the expertise of days in the hospital.

What do you mean? Felicia asked in a little voice.

Ill have to pick all over again. Most of you went home, didnt you?

Some did, Felicia said. We stayed.

We needed students to occupy and hold, to take the administration chambers and dictate terms. We could work from the university as a base, claim it as a forfeit for illegal voiding, claim it for damages If I had been there, thats what we would have done.

I felt like crying. The injustice of Seans veiled accusations, mixed with my very real infatuation and guilt at not serving the cause better, turned my stomach.

Go talk to Gretyl. And you two He pointed to Charles and me. Think it over. Who are you? Where do you want to be in ten years?

Gretyl was less severely injured, but looked worse. Her head had been wrapped in a bulky breather, leaving only a gap for her eyes. She had been laid back at forty-five degrees on a steel recovery plate as well, and tubes ran from mazes of nano clumps on her chest and neck. An arbeiter had discreetly draped the rest of her with a white sheet for our visit. She watched us enter, and her silky artificial voice said, Hows Sean? Youve been to see him?

Hes fine, Oliver said. I was too unhappy to talk.

We havent been allowed to visit. This hospital shits protocol. Whats being said outside? Did we get any attention?

Felicia explained as gently as possible that we really hadnt accomplished much. She was ready to be a little harder with Gretyl than with Sean; perhaps she was infatuated with Sean as well. I had a sudden insight into people and revolutions, and did not like what I saw.

Sean has a plan to change that, Gretyl said.

Im sure he does, Oliver said.

Whats on at UMS?

Theyre moving in a new administration. All the Statist appointees have resigned or been put on leave.

Sounds like theyre being punished.

Its routine. All appointments are being reviewed, Oliver said.

Gretyl sighedan artificial note of great beautyand extended her hand. Felicia squeezed it. Charles and I remained in the background. He thinks the charge that blew up was tampered with, Oliver said.

It may have been, Gretyl said. It must have been.

But only you and he handled it, Charles said.

Gretyl sighed again. It was just a standard Excavex two-kilo tube. We didnt pay a lot of money. The people who stole it for us may have tampered with it. They could have done something to make it go off. Thats possible.

We dont know that, Oliver said.

Listen, friends, if we havent attracted any attention yet, its because She stopped and her eyes tracked the room zipzip, then narrowed.

I have new eyes, she said. Do you like the color? Youd better go now. Well talk later, after Im released.

On our way out of the hospital, in the tunnel connecting us to Times River Stations main tube, a hungry-looking, poorly-dressed and very young male LitVid agent tried to interview us. He followed us for thirty meters, glancing at his slate between what he thought were pointed questions. We were too glum and too smart to give any answers, but despite our reticence, we ended up in a ten-second flash on a side channel for Mars Tharsis local.

Sean, on the other hand, was interviewed the next day for an hour by an agent for New Mars Committee Scan, and that was picked up and broadcast by General Solar to the Triple. He told our story to the planets, and by and large, what he told was not what I remembered.

Nobody else was interviewed.

My sadness grew; my fresh young idealism waned rapidly, replaced by no wisdom to speak of, nothing emotionally concrete.

I thought about Seans words to us, his accusations, his pointed suspicion of me, his interview spreading distortions around the Triple. Now, I would say that he lied, but its possible Sean Dickinson even then was too good a rabbler to respect the truth. And Gretyl, I think, was about to pass on some sound advice about political need dictating how we seeand usehistory.

When we returned to our dorms at UMS, we found notices posted and doors locked. Diane met me and explained that UMS had been closed for the foreseeable future due to curriculum revisions. Flashing icons beneath the ID plates told us we could enter our quarters once and remove our belongings. Train fare to our homes or any other destination would not be provided. Our slates received bulletins on when and where the public hearings would be held to determine the universitys future course.

We were arguably worse off than we had been with Dauble and Connor.

Charles helped Diane and me pull our belongings from the room and stack them in the tunnel. There werent manyI had sent most of my effects home after being voided. I helped Charles remove his goods, about ten kilos of equipment and research materials.

We ate a quick lunch in the train station. We didnt have much to say. Diane, Oliver and Felicia departed on the northbound, and Charles saw me to the eastbound.

As I lugged my bag into the airlock, he held out his hand, and we shook firmly. Will I see you again? he asked.