Moving Mars

by Greg Bear

  Allen passed by and winked at me. "How fares it?" he asked.

  We were out of hearing of others, in a corner where I had retreated to sip fruit juice. "Boring," I said, very softly. "Where's Bithras?" He had left the room.

  "He's talking old times with the Pakistanis, I think," Allen said. "How can you be bored? There are some very famous people here."

  "I know. I blame myself."

  "Uh huh. You'd rather be hiking the Adirondack, or — "

  "Don't make my mouth water," I said.

  "Duty, honor, planet," he said, and left to attend to another clump.

  Bithras reappeared ten or fifteen minutes later, speaking earnestly with one of the Pakistani women. The woman listened attentively, nodding frequently. His face glowed with enthusiasm, and I felt glad for him. I couldn't understand a word they said, however.

  The party had expanded to fill the available space, and still more people were arriving. Miriam flitted from point to point in the crowd, rearranging conversations, herding people toward food or drink, a social sheep-dog.

  Some of the people arriving now were, to my eye, beyond exotic. A musician from Hawaii and three young women in close-fitting black caps took much of the heat away from Allen and me. I recognized him from news stories. His name was Attu. Gaunt and intense, he dressed in a severe black suit. He had linked his consciousness with the three women, who dressed in filmy white, and whom he referred to as sisters. At intervals of ten minutes, they would rejoin, clasp hands, and exchange all their experiences. The women never spoke, Attu was their conduit. I avoided them. That sort of intimacy (and implied male domination) spooked me. I wondered why Miriam had invited them.

  The evening was winding down, and the crowd beginning to diminish, when I saw one of the Pakistani men approach Miriam. Miriam raised herself on tiptoes and looked around, shook her head, and went off in search. Intuition had little to do with my guess that they were looking for Bithras.

  I disengaged myself from several bankers and made my way down a hall that led to several smaller rooms. I did not want to interrupt anything private, but I had a bad feeling.

  A door slid open suddenly and the Pakistani woman bumped into me. With a quick, angry glance, she rustled past in her long gray dress. Bithras emerged a moment later, biting his lower lip, eyes darting. He sidestepped me and said, "It is nothing, it is nothing."

  The Pakistanis gathered near the main door, talking heatedly. They searched the faces of the remaining party guests, focused on Bithras, and one of the men began to shove through other partygoers in his direction. The women restrained him, however, and the four departed.

  Miriam stood at the door for a moment, uncertain what to do. Bithras sat in a chair, staring blankly, before standing with deliberation and going for a drink. Like me, he was having only juice.

  Nothing more was said. An hour later, we left the party.

  Bithras spent the next ten hours locked in his room with the lights out. He accepted his meals through the half-open door, glared at us owlishly, and shut it. Allen and I spent this time studying Alice's fresh reports on GEWA and GSHA.

  The following morning, Bithras stepped out of his room in his bathrobe, hands on hips, and said, "It is time to take a vacation. You have two days. Do what you will. Be back here, in this room, by seven in the morning of Saturday next."

  "You're taking some time off, as well, Uncle?" Allen asked.

  Bithras smiled and shook his head. "I'll be talking with a lot of people . . . If we were better than children at this sort of thing, we'd have brought an entire negotiating team. Nobody wanted to spend the money." He practically spat the last three words. There were circles under his eyes, his skin had grayed with stress. "I can't make all the decisions myself. I refuse to set policy for an entire world. If this is a new era for relations with Earth ..." He waved his hand in the air as if describing the flight of birds. "It will take days to sort things out with the other syndics and governors. Alice will postpone her kiss with Jill and advise me. But you would only distract me. If I can't come up with a way to turn this to our advantage, I will resign as syndic."

  His smile turned wolfish. "You can play their game. They think we are provincials, suckers for the taking. Maybe we are. You shall certainly act the part. Give interviews if you are asked. Say I am bewildered and disconsolate, and I do not know where to turn next. We are dismayed at the social slight, and find Earth to be incredibly rude." He sat and rested his head in his hands. "May not be too far wrong."

  I called Orianna's private number and left a message. Within two hours, Orianna returned my call and we made plans for a rendezvous in New York. Allen had his own plans, he was flying to Nepal.

  An hour before I left the hotel, I felt dizzy and frightened. I wondered how we would be received on Mars if we failed here, what would our families think? If Bithras tumbled, would my career within Majumdar BM tumble with him?

  By choosing to go with Bithras, I had become part of a monumental war of nerves, and it seemed clear we were losing. I resented being caught between two worlds, I hated power and authority and the very real, sweaty misery of responsibility. I might be part of a failure of historic proportions, I could disgrace my mother and father, my Binding Multiple.

  I longed for the small warrens and cramped tunnels of Mars, for my confined and secure youth.

  I knew there were bigger cities, more crowded cities — but New York's fifty million citizens caused this rabbit a new kind of claustrophobia. My apprehension changed from fear of the unknown to fear that I would simply be sucked up and digested.

  Five hundred and twenty-three years old, New York appeared both ancient and new at once. I emerged from Penn Station surrounded by a rainbow of people, more than I had ever seen crowded together in one place in my life. I stood on a corner as hordes walked in a cold breeze and spatters of sleet.

  In design, New York had kept much of its architectural history intact, yet there was hardly a building that had not been rebuilt or replaced. Architectural nano had worked its way through frames and walls, down through the soil and ancient foundations, redrawing wires and fibers, rerouting water pipes and sewers, leaving behind buildings resculpted in original or better materials, new infrastructures of metal and ceramic and plastic. Nothing seemed designed as a whole, everything had been assembled and even reassembled bits at a time, block by block or building by building.

  And of course many of the buildings a New Yorker considered new were in fact older than any warren on Mars.

  The people also had been rebuilt from the inside. Even in my confusion, they fascinated me. New people in New York the old city: transforms, their skins glistening like polished marble, black or white or rose, their golden or silver or azure eyes glinting as they passed, penetrating glances that seemed both friendly and challenging at once, designer bodies put on for a month or a year, the flesh shaped like clay, designs identifying status and social group, some ugly as protest, some thin and austere, others large and strong and — Earthy.

  Lights flashed over the street, airborne arbeiters like fairies on a trod in one of my children's vids, or, even more fantastic, huge fireflies, arbeiters flowed through the city in narrow channels underground and above. Slaved cabs followed glassy strips pressed into the asphalt and concrete and nano stone of the streets.

  What fascinated me most about New York was that it worked.

  Most submitted to medical nano, body therapy as well as mind. By and large, the city's people were healthy, but medical arbeiters still patrolled the streets, searching for the untherapied few who might even now out of negligence or perverse self-destruction fall ill. Human diseases had been virtually eliminated, replaced by infestations of learning, against which I had chosen to be made immune. New Yorkers, like most people on Earth, lived in a soup of data itself alive.

  Language and history and cultural updates filled the air. Viruses and bacteria poured forth from commercial ventilators in key locations, or could be acquired at infection bo
oms, conveying everything the driven New Yorker might want to know. Immunizations prevented adverse reactions for natural visitors not used to the soup.

  The sun passed behind a broad cubical comb in New Jersey and lights flashed on, pouring golden illumination through the gentle drizzle.

  Advertising images leaped from walls, a flood of insistent icons that meant little to me. Spot marketing had been turned into a perfected science. Consumers were paid to carry transponders which communicated their interests to adwalls. The adwalls showed them only what they might want to purchase: products, proprietary LitVids, new sims, live event schedules. Being a consumer had become a traditional means of gainful employment, some New Yorkers floated careers allowing themselves to be subjected to ads, switching personal IDs as they traveled to different parts of the city, trading purchase credits earned by ad exposure for more ad income.

  Lacking a transponder, all I saw were the icons, projected corporate symbols floating above my head like strange hovering insects.

  According to what I had been taught in govmanagement at UM, Earth's economic systems had become so complicated by the twenty-first century that only thinkers could model them. And as thinkers grew more complicated, economic patterns increased in complexity as well, until all was delicately balanced on less than the head of a pin.

  No wonder cultural psychology could play a key role in economic stability.

  "Casseia!" Orianna stood on a low wall, peering over the crowds. We hugged at the edge of the walkway. "It's great to see you. How was the trip?"

  I laughed and shook my head, drunk with what I had seen. "I feel like a — "

  "Fish out of water?" Orianna said, grinning.

  "More like a bird drowning!"

  She laughed. "Calcutta would kill you!"

  "Let's not go there." I said.

  "Where we're going, my dear, is a quiet place my Mom owns up on East 64th, in an historic neighborhood. A bunch of friends want to meet you."

  "I only have a few days ..."

  "Simplicity! This is so exciting! You're even in the LitVids, did you know that?"

  "Oh, God, yes."

  We took an autocab and she projected the news stories from her slate. She had hooked an Earthwide ex net and scanned for all material related to our visit. The faces of Bithras, Allen and myself floated like little doll heads in the autocab. Condensed texts and icons flashed at reduced speed for my unaccustomed eyes. I picked up about two-thirds of what was being said. GEWA and GSHA had linked with Eurocom to propose a world-wide approach to what was being called the Martian Question: Martian reluctance or inability to join the Push.

  "You're being pre-jammed," Orianna said cheerfully.

  I was horrified.

  The sidebars detailed our personal histories and portrayed us as the best Martian diplomacy had to offer, the last seemed ironic, but I really couldn't fathom the spin.

  "You're famous, dear," Orianna said. "A frontier girl. Little House on the Planum. They love it!"

  I was less interested in what was being said about me than in the backslate details. GEWA, leading the other alliances, would start negotiating with Mars after completion of what the US government was characterizing as "polite dialogues" with members of the standing Congressional committee.

  I had a role to play. True shock would only grace my performance. "It's terrible," I said, frowning deeply. "Completely rude and impolite. I'd never expect it from Earth."

  "Oh, do!" Orianna said, creasing her brow in sympathy. The cab stopped before a stone and steel eight-story building with dazzling crystal-paned glass doors. The first-floor door popped open with a sigh and she danced ahead of me through crowds flowing along the walkway. "By the time my friends and I are done with you, you'll expect anything!"

  "We don't stay here often," Orianna said, emerging from the elevator. Her long legs carried her down the hall like an eager colt. She slowed only to allow me to catch up with her. "Mother's given us the space here for a few days. My hab is just like the one in Paris. I've kept it since I was a kid."

  The door to apartment 43 looked tame enough — paneled wood with brass numbers. Orianna palmed entry and the door swung inward. "We have a guest," she called. Beyond stretched a round gray tunnel with a white strip of walkway. The tunnel ballooned around us, unshaped.

  "Welcome home. What can we do for you, Orianna?" a soft masculine voice asked.

  "Fancy conservative decor — for our guest — and tell Shrug and Kite to rise and meet my friend."

  The tunnel quickly shaped a cream-colored decor with gold details, a rosewood armoire opening its doors to accept my coat and Orianna's shoulder wrap. "English Regency," Orianna said. "Kite's idea of conservatism."

  Shrug, Kite — it all sounded very drive. I wondered if I would regret coming.

  "Don't stick on the names," Orianna said, shaping the living room into more Regency. "All my friends are into Vernoring. They work and play with fake names. I don't know their true ones. Not even their parents know."

  "Why?"

  "It's a game. Two rules — nobody knows what you're doing, and you do nothing illegal."

  "Doesn't that take the fun out of doing crypto?" I asked.

  "Wow — crypto! Hide in the tomb. Sorry. I shy from two-edged words. We call it Vernoring."

  "Doesn't it?" I persisted.

  "No," Orianna said thoughtfully. "Illegal is harm. Harm is stupid. Stupid is its own game, and none of my friends play it. Here's Kite."

  Kite came through a double door dressed in faded denim shirt and pants. He stood two meters high, minus a few centimeters, and carried a green-and-white mottled sun kitten.

  Orianna introduced us. Kite smiled and performed a shallow bow, then offered his free hand. He seemed natural enough — handsome but not excessively so, manner a little shy. He squatted cross-legged on the oriental carpet and the sun kitten played within a Persian garden design. A light switched on overhead and bathed the animal in a spot of brightness. It mewed appreciatively and stretched on its back.

  "We're going out tonight," Orianna said. "Where is Shrug?"

  "Asleep, I think. He's spent the last three days working a commission."

  "Well, wake him up!"

  "You do it," Kite said.

  "Pleasure's mine." Orianna leaped from the chair and returned to the hall. We heard her banging on doors.

  "She could just buzz him," Kite said ruefully, shaking his head. "She pretends she's a storm, sometimes."

  I murmured assent.

  "But she's really sweet. You must know that."

  "I like her a lot," I said.

  "She's an only and that makes a difference," Kite added. "I have a brother and sister. You?"

  "A brother," I said. "And lots of blood relations."

  Kite smiled. The smile rendered his face transcendentally beautiful. I blinked and looked away.

  "Is it rough, having everyone vid you?"

  "I'm getting tired of it."

  "You know, you should watch whom you touch . . . Shake hands with. That sort of thing. Some of the LitVids are casual about privacy. They could plant watchers on you." He held up pinched fingers and peered through a tiny gap. "Some are micro. Hide anywhere."

  "Isn't that against the law?"

  "If you haven't filed for privacy rights, they could argue you're common-law open. Then you'd only be protected in surveillance negative areas. The watchers would turn off . . . Most of the time."

  "That's bolsh," said a deep, lion-like voice. I turned to see Orianna dragging into the room by one hand a very large, blocky man with a very young face. "Nobody's planted a watcher without permission in four years," the young-faced man said. "Not since Wayne vs. LA PubEye."

  "Casseia Majumdar, of Mars, this is Shrug. He's studied law. He has almost as many enhancements as I do."

  Shrug dipped on one knee as I stood. I barely reached his chin when he kneeled.

  "Charmed," he said, kissing my hand.

  "Stop that," Orianna said. "She'
s my partner."

  "You don't curve," Shrug said.

  "We're sisters of sim," Orianna said.

  "Oh, dear, such an arc!" Kite said, smiling.

  I don't think I understand a third of what was said the whole time I spent in New York.

  Back on the streets, holding hands with Shrug and Orianna, and then with Orianna and Kite, I let myself be taken somewhere, anywhere. Kite was really very attractive and did not seem averse to flirting, though more to aggravate Orianna, I thought, than to impress me. My slate recorded streets and directions in case I needed to find my way back to Penn Station; it also contained full-scale maps of the city, all cities on the Earth, in fact. I could hardly get lost unless someone took my slate . . . and Orianna assured me that New York was virtually free of thieves. "Too bad," I said, in a puckish mood.

  "Yeah," Orianna said. "But that doesn't mean there's no risk. It's risk we choose that we should beware."

  "I choose lunch," Kite said. "There's a great old delicatessen here. Total goback."

  My expression of surprise caught his eye. "Goback. Means retro, atavistic, historic. All are good drive words now, no negs."

  "It means something else on Mars," I said.

  "Folks who want to keep BM rule are called Gobacks," Orianna said.

  "Are you a Goback?" Shrug asked me.

  "I'm neutral," I said. "My family has strong links to BM autonomy. I'm still learning."

  Echoing the theme, we passed a family of Chasids dressed in black. The men wore wide-brimmed hats and styled their hair in long thin locks around their temples. The women wore long simple dresses in natural fabrics. The children skipped and danced happily, dressed in black and white.

  "They're lovely, aren't they?" Orianna said, glancing over her shoulder at the family. "Total goback! No enhancements, no therapy, neg the drive."

  "New York is great for that sort of thing," Kite said.