“What choices do we have?” said Alicia.
“That is a very good question for us to consider,” said Sen. “Once we have determined what we can do, it will then be easier to decide what it is that we should do.”
“Kick their asses back to Shalina!” yelled Graves.
“For the sake of simplicity we will refer to that option as ‘Active Resistance’ for the time being, if you don’t have any objections,” said Dr. Sen. “Others?”
“This is madness! I think we have to do what they say,” said Una.
“Let us call that option ‘cooperation,’ if the term is acceptable.”
“Collaboration is more like it,” said Graves.
“And your suggestion should be labeled ‘Suicide,’ ” Una shouted back.
“Please! We are not going to accomplish much of anything if our discussion keeps breaking down into arguments and wrangling. Are there any other proposals that anyone would like to make?”
“What about passive resis tance?” asked Alicia. “It’s probably true they can force us to go, but we don’t have to help them clear the place out. We can’t fight, but we can peacefully refuse to leave.”
“Satyagraha,” said Dr. Sen. “We will refer to this option as ‘passive opposition.’ Are there others?”
“Run away!” called Pierre Adler. A few people laughed, but he shook his head. “I’m serious. We’ve got a whole planet to hide on. They can’t make us leave if they can’t find us.”
“That is tactics, not strategy,” said Josef.
“I think Lieutenant Palashnik is correct,” said Dr. Sen. “Let us decide what we wish to accomplish and then discuss how to go about it.”
“What about Castaverde and the surface crew?” asked Pierre. “They deserve to be part of this.”
“I think that you are quite correct in pointing that out,” said Sen. “Before anyone makes any additional statements let us set up a link with the surface habitat.”
But even while Pierre was establishing the link and setting up a screen the debate went on.
“I want everyone to know that nothing is going to make me fight the Sholen,” said Una. “You can all go along with Dickie’s stupid idea, but I’m not going to be a part of it.”
“Can we at least agree that we will all abide by the decision of the entire group?” asked Dr. Sen.
“No!” Antonio broke in. “What if the majority is wrong?”
“What if you’re wrong?” someone shouted at him.
“This is not getting us anywhere,” said Dr. Sen. The wall screen went live, displaying the common room on the surface, and the crew there holding coffee cups. “Dr. Castaverde, what do your people think about this ultimatum the Sholen have given us?”
Rob was getting bored. He leaned over to whisper in Alicia’s ear. “I bet we could go away and have sex together and come back without anyone noticing.”
“Robert, this is important!”
“I know, but listening to Dickie and Una going back and forth with this did-not, did-too is really boring. Sex is more interesting.”
“Wait until we are finished.”
An hour of argument later, Rob’s patience was used up. He took advantage of a momentary silence after Antonio finished describing the moral hazard of any violent confrontation with the Sholen.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I know everyone thinks they have something really important to say, but I’m pretty sure everyone’s minds are already made up and nobody’s going to change their opinion. So why don’t we just go ahead and vote on what to do?”
“Rob moves that we end debate,” said Pierre. “All in favor?”
Nearly everyone raised a hand. Dr. Sen diplomatically abstained, and both Dickie and Una sat with arms crossed, glaring at each other.
“Motion carries!” said Pierre Adler. “Thank God.”
They voted. Dr. Sen handed out slips of scrap paper and asked everyone to fill in their choices, then collected them and announced the result with Pierre looking over his shoulder.
“Dr. Castaverde? Would you please tell me the votes from the surface facility group? Send it privately to me, please? Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “We have a total of six votes for opposing the Sholen with force. Seven abstentions, including my own. Five votes for full cooperation. Fourteen for passive resis tance. It would appear to me that the passive resis tance plan has won by a clear plurality. We will not cooperate with the Sholen in dismantling this station or closing down the operations here—but we will not engage in any sort of violence. I will inform our Sholen guests of what we have decided, but I want to make it very clear to everyone that I expect you all to abide by this decision we have made.”
Tizhos began to notice an interesting change in the behavior of the humans, though at first she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. She returned to her room after reviewing some of the Terrans’ research findings, and discovered a pool of amber liquid on the floor. It had the distinctive odor of human liquid waste, along with various unfamiliar pheromones.
She first assumed it was the result of a failure in one of the station’s systems, and contacted Dr. Sen to inform him of the incident. Robert Freeman came out to check, and quickly determined there was nothing wrong. “The sanitary lines are all in the center of the hab cluster,” he said. “You’re a good six or eight meters away from the nearest plumbing. I don’t see how a leaky pipe could put stuff over here without getting anything in the other rooms or the landing outside.”
“Tell me how this substance got here, then.”
“Well,” the young human’s face turned pink. “It sure looks like somebody came in here and took a leak on the floor.”
“Explain the phrase ‘took a leak.’ ”
“Urinated. Peed. Um, excreted liquid waste. Don’t you guys do that?”
“Not in the same way. Our bodies conserve water and expel all wastes in solid form.”
“Oh. Well, you know how we’ve got two systems? This is a mix of water and waste chemicals. Nitrogen compounds, mostly. Don’t worry, it’s pretty sterile.”
Tizhos was puzzled. On Shalina, the significance of the gesture would be obvious—marking someone else’s space as a form of challenge. But with humans it might simply be an error. “Tell me if this kind of accident happens frequently.”
“Uh, well, sometimes. Maybe someone was confused about which one was the toilet, or maybe they just couldn’t hold it.”
The next curious incident came later that same day, when Gishora and Tizhos were doing a follow-up interview with Simeon Fouchard. Tizhos brought along her bag containing personal items and her computer. But when she opened it to begin the session, she found everything inside wet. This time it wasn’t liquid waste, but a substance the Terrans identified as stain for microscope specimens. The stuff bonded to cellulose—which meant that the composite materials in the bag fabric and the case of Tizhos’s computer were now bright purple.
At mealtime the two Sholen took their accustomed places in the common room, but found that their seats were coated with adhesive. Peeling themselves off the seats required the use of solvents and was quite painful, not to mention undignified. And when they returned to the room they shared, all the cushions they had piled up for sleeping were gone—they eventually turned up floating in the moon pool in Hab One.
Twice they were informed of important messages, only to discover the source was an unattended terminal in one of the laboratories.
As the humans were finishing their active period and preparing for their nightly hibernation, Tizhos decided to mention her suspicions to Gishora.
“I suspect the humans of performing these acts deliberately.”