"That's kind of a depressing thought, Gram," Zen said. "I thought you were in favor of Laura Whiting."
"I was and I am," Marjorie said. "My God, what I wouldn't give for a nice glass of Chardonnay right now. Oh well... the price of being free. Anyway, I was just trying to point out the worst-case scenario from this chain of events Laura Whiting has set in motion. I don't think we'll come to that. I can't explain why I feel what I do but I trust our governor. She is different. She actually seems to care about us. If this has all been a power scheme for her, it was an elaborate and far-reaching one. I honestly think that she is exactly what she seems to be."
"That's a relief to hear you say that," Belinda said.
"Well, don't be too relieved," Marjorie said. "Even if Whiting is exactly what she purports to be, we're still in for some rankin times in the next few years."
"What do you mean?" Jeff asked.
"The quest for power and for rule is a very powerful narcotic," Marjorie said. "There is a power vacuum in place on Mars right now. Laura Whiting is the governor of this now free planet. She has twenty-two former legislature members who joined her at the beginning of the revolt. These twenty-three people are all who are running the planet now. Others are going to try to get in on this ruling thing. Many of them will have nothing but their own self-interest in mind. And, if I read my history correctly, those who are the most charismatic will be the ones who are actually the most snake-like. We Martians are going to have to be very careful to avoid letting any of these people obtain positions of high power."
"What can we do to avoid that?" asked Belinda, terrified at the images that Marjorie was invoking.
"You can be diligent, you can use your common sense, and you can speak your mind when you need to," Marjorie replied. "You need to realize that there will be attempts to betray this revolution by small groups of people or individuals who just want to rule. You have to filter through their lies, examine every political person who tries to insert themselves into the power structure in your name. History is full of betrayed revolutions. I hope before all that is holy that you people who won this one for us won't let it be betrayed as well."
Martian Capital Building, New Pittsburgh
September 25, 2146
0900 hours
Governor Laura Whiting — who was technically only the acting Governor — called the meeting of the fledgling Martian government to order. They were in the legislature chambers, which had been designed to seat one hundred members in comfort and had accommodations for up to six hundred visitors in bleacher style seating in the rear. With only twenty-three people present, the large chambers seemed almost empty.
"Good morning," she told everyone from her podium at the front of the room. "The first order of business on the agenda is the reply to our offer to open negotiations for an armistice we received from the WestHem Executive Council early this morning. I'm sure you can all guess what the jest of that reply is."
A chuckle traveled through the seats. Yes, they could all guess. Laura had sent her message to Earth four days ago, offering to open negotiations for a permanent armistice and peace treaty with WestHem. In the request Mars offered to immediately resume food and steel shipments and to begin negotiating a POW exchange. Mars' terms for such actions were public WestHem recognition of Mars as an independent nation and the extradition of General Wrath and General Browning on war crimes charges. Instead of responding right away WestHem had cut and edited the message until it seemed like Laura was taunting the WestHem public, expressing hatred for all things Earthling, and threatening to kill even more hostages. This edited tape had been playing non-stop on all three of the big three for three days now.
"In any case," Laura said, "I'll go ahead and play that reply now for the record. I'll also release a copy to MarsGroup so they can start playing it as well." She tapped a few buttons on her podium screen and the video file opened up, both before her and on the large screen behind her. She pushed the "play" tab.
The face of Loretta Williams appeared, looking years older than it had in the beginning of the conflict. "This is in reply to the offer of negotiation of armistice that was sent to us by the terrorist leader Laura Whiting of Mars. I will make this short and very clear. There will be no armistice of any kind with you thugs that are holding Mars hostage. To even call this conflict a war is insulting to all those brave marines who participated in it. You are illegally holding a WestHem colony against the will of the people who live there and we will not rest until Mars is liberated and its people allowed to live out their lives in democratic peace. All terrorists we captured during Operation Martian Hammer are being returned to Earth where they will be tried for their crimes and executed if found guilty of murder or treason. In addition, when our next task force arrives and liberates that planet Laura Whiting, Kevin Jackson, and any soldier who picked up arms against us will also be tried on charges of murder, treason, and crimes against humanity. You would be well advised to spare your people further bloodshed and surrender yourselves now. Only if you agree to this term and to unconditional surrender of Mars back to WestHem rule will we agree to speak with you in any way."
The screen went blank as the message ended.
"So then," Laura said, sipping from her tea, "the usual WestHem blathering bullshit. I'm afraid that is pretty much what we were expecting all along. It looks like we're going to have to fight them again at some point."
This caused some tittering among the legislature. One of the members, Steve Hotbox of Eden, asked to be recognized. Laura did so.
"Like all of you here, I'm extremely proud of what the MPG did to keep this planet in our hands during the war," he said. "I myself have a son who has been in the MPG for years. He served with the 5th Heavy Artillery Battalion in Eden and was nearly killed when the WestHem air strike took out his gun. We lost a lot of people in this war and we just barely hung in there. As General Jackson said in his briefing, the marines were within thirty minutes of taking Eden from us when they decided to turn back. It was only their loss of morale that saved us."
"That is true, Steve," Laura said. "What is it that you're trying to say here?"
"I'm wondering what's going to happen the next time they send troops after us. We beat them because they underestimated us and because we had some pretty good tricks up our sleeve. I'm not trying to take anything away from the MPG or General Jackson. Both performed brilliantly. But now the WestHems know just how they should estimate our abilities and they know all of our tricks. Won't they send twice as many men and machines next time? Won't they focus on a single city instead of splitting their forces? I'm wondering whether it's wise of us to take such a hard line with WestHem on this armistice."
"I take it that Jack Strough has been visiting your office?" Laura asked.
Hotbox sputtered a little. "Well... yes, but I had my doubts about this long before Mr. Strough entered the picture."
Laura sighed. Jack Strough, the president of the cargo handler's union, the man who had been a constant thorn in the side of the revolution ever since they first took the planet from WestHem, was now expanding his pain-in-the-ass status into Martian politics. In the past two weeks he had organized nearly every labor union on Mars into a loose alliance of laborers and was using this power to project his wishes into the Governor's office and into the offices of the remaining legislature members. "I have listened to Mr. Strough's proposals myself," she said. "He is suggesting that we accept 'de facto' independence from WestHem but that we allow their corporations to retain control of the various industries on the planet."