Sometime early in the morning, I woke and sat on the edge of the bed. I seemed to be nowhere, nobody. The furnishings in the room meant nothing, mutable as things in a dream. The weight that held me to bed and floor seemed, by an extraordinary synesthesia, political and not physical. Through the translucent blinds on the broad window, I saw gray dawn pick out billows in the carpet of clouds that obscured the river, the tidal basin, everything, washing around the base of the comb.
A message light blinked on my slate. I reached for it automatically, then drew back.
I did not wish to speak with Orianna or read a letter from my parents. It might be days before I silenced the static in my head.
Finally, I acknowledged my inability to let a message go unread. I picked up the slate and scrolled.
It was not from Orianna or my parents.
It was from Senator John Mendoza. He wanted to speak with me alone and in the open, and he did not want me to tell anyone we were meeting.
After a suitable interval, the message blanked, leaving only his office number for a reply.
I brought a bag lunch — sandwich and drink — purchased from an antique vending cart near the Lincoln Memorial. As I approached a marble bench by the reflecting pool, where Mendoza had agreed to meet, I saw he also had a bag lunch. I sat beside him and he greeted me with a cordial smile.
“Sometimes,” he said, “I imagine what it must have been like in government before dataflow, back when there were newspapers printed on paper… and maybe television and radio. Things were a lot simpler then. Do you know I am the only senator on the Hill who has no enhancements?” His smile broadened. “I have a good staff, good, dedicated people. Some of them have enhancements. So I’m a hypocrite.”
I said nothing.
“Miss Majumdar, what happened in Richmond deeply embarrasses me.”
“Why did we meet in Richmond ?” I blurted. “Because it was the capitol of the Confederacy?”
He seemed puzzled for a moment, then shook his head. “No. Nothing to do with that. We wished to get you away from Washington , because what Wang and I had to say didn’t really come from the U.S. government.”
“It came from GEWA.”
“Of course.”
“You set up my uncle and destroyed his mission. We were easy marks for you, weren’t we?”
“Please,” Mendoza said, lifting his hand. “We did nothing to your uncle. He failed all of us — Earth as well as Mars. What happened was inevitable — but I regret it. Your team simply doesn’t have GEWA’s confidence. Your uncle’s collision with the Pakistani woman… It was nothing we expected or desired. And we can’t fix it — Pakistan is only a marginal member of GEWA. She was a diplomat’s wife, Miss Majumdar. Your uncle touched her. We’ll be lucky to settle the case in a few weeks and get your uncle back to Mars.”
“Why talk with me?”
Mendoza leaned toward me, arm straight, hand splayed on the bench, as if about to relate some intimacy. “Like me, you have no enhancements and you haven’t gone through the secular purification of therapy. You’re old-fashioned. I can sympathize with you. I’ve read your lit papers and student theses. I sense strongly that you belong to the next generation of leadership on Mars.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever get involved with politics again,” I said.
“Nonsense,” Mendoza said with a flash of anger. “Mars can’t afford to lose people like you. And it cannot afford to rely on people like your uncle.”
I grimaced.
“Do you realize how important the next few years are going to be?” Mendoza asked.
I did not answer.
“I don’t know half what I’d like to know,” Mendoza said.
“You may eventually know more than I do. You can be at the center of one of the nodes, the teams, in this particular patch of history; I’ll always be on the periphery, a messenger boy. But I do know this: people above me are terrified. I’ve never seen such confusion and disagreement — even the thinkers disagree. Do you see how extraordinary that is?”
I stared at him, the static gone.
“Something frightfully powerful is going to be unleashed. Science does that to us every few generations — drops something in our laps we’re simply not prepared for. You’d think today we’d be prepared for almost anything. Well, at least the folks and thinkers on top see clearly enough that we have to get our house in order, and they’d like to do it before the Big One drops — whatever it might be.”
The deep realization of what had until now been gamesmanship and speculation made my stomach churn.
“If our house is not in order, and there is a chance of some immature and youthful group of humans discovering and using this new power — whatever it is… Leaders above the Beltway, in Seattle and Tokyo and Beijing , believe there is a chance we will destroy ourselves.”
Mendoza frowned deeply, as if just informed one of his children was very ill. “You know, I’ve been an outcast of sorts in Washington for a decade. I’m a Mormon, I’m not therapied. But I’ve managed to do well. If anybody found out about my talking to you, I could lose everything I’ve fought for, all status, all power, all influence.”
“Why do it, then?” I asked.
“Did you know it’s illegal to conduct surveillance — -even citizen oversight — within the capital of any nation on Earth?”
I had heard that.
“Some things in government must be done in private. Even in this ultra-rational age, when everybody is educated and plebiscites are huge and immediate, there must be times when the rules are not followed.”
“The Peterson non-absolute,” I said. Peterson — icon of so many second-form classes in management — said that any systern aspiring to total organization and rationalism must leave itself an opportunity to break rules, break protocol, or it will inevitably suffer catastrophic failure.
“Exactly. Go home, Miss Majumdar. Choose your mentors and your leaders carefully. Work for unity. However Mars comes into the fold, come in it must. I have studied enough history to see the terrain ahead. The slopes are very steep, the attractors are strong, the solutions very fast — and none of them are pleasant.”
“I’m just an assistant,” I replied pathetically.
He looked away, expression grim. “Then find someone who has the strength to become a pilot and guide you through the storm.” He pulled back and adjusted his lapels, picked up his lunch bag, and stood. “Good-bye, Miss Majumdar.”
“Good-bye,” I said. “Thank you for your confidence.”
Mehdoza shrugged and walked across the grass and east toward the Capitol building.
I sat on the bench, head turned toward the Lincoln Memorial, as cold inside as the curve of marble beneath my fingers.
A month later, Bithras, Allen, and I packed for our return to Mars. The packing itself took little time. I had not seen Bithras for several days — he spent most of his time locked in long-distance communications with Mars, but I think also in deliberate isolation from us.
Allen no longer treated Bithras with the respect due an elder statesman. It cost him dearly to show any respect at all toward our syndic. Bithras did not want to push me into a similar confrontation and be faced with my presumed negative judgment.
But I did not hate him. I barely felt enough to pity him. I simply wanted to go home. Two days before our departure, Bithras came into the suite’s living room and stood over me as I sat in a chair, studying my slate.
“The suit against me has been dropped. Cultural differences pleaded. The ruckus is over,” he said. “That part of it, anyway.”
I looked up. “Good,” I said.
“I’ve filed suit on Alice ’s behalf,” he said. “Majumdar BM seeks a judgment against Mind Design Incorporated of Sorrento Valley , California .”