The amphitheater filled quickly, infinity Mendez. passing the team, did a double take.
"What's that?" he said to Stephen Thomas, with a gesture of the chin toward the decorations on his pants. "War paint?"
"In a manner of speaking," Stephen Thomas said. "Any suggestions?''
"Wrong tribe," Infinity said, and found himself a seat.
"Did he mean he's from the wrong tribe to ask, or I picked the wrong tribe to use symbols from?" Stephen Thomas said, bemused.
"You're the cultural expert in this family, my dear," Satoshi said.
STARFARERS 211
Stephen Thomas grinned. "Maybe I should look up some samurai symbols."
"Maybe I should gel you an ostrich feather headdress,"
Victoria said.
"From Africa?"
"Of course not. I wouldn't know which band to choose. I meant from the Queen's Guards."
"Hey," he said, "if you're really going to go ethnic on me, get me—" Without any signal, the amphitheater fell silent around him. Stephen Thomas lowered his voice to a whisper. "Get me a red Mountie jacket."
The lower third of the amphitheater had filled; another hundred or so people sat scattered around the remaining two-thirds of the terraces. It was a less colorful group than usuaclass="underline" people of all shapes and colors would ordinarily have been wearing clothes of all designs and colors. Victoria felt comforted and strengthened by the number of her colleagues who complied with the trivial rule, but broke the important one.
By a couple of minutes after the scheduled beginning of
the original meeting, all the participants sat together silently
in the dusk.
Suddenly a wide patch of bright sunlight illuminated the meeting. The sun tubes spotlighted the amphitheater and left the rest of the campus dark.
Victoria took a deep breath and ignored the warning of the light.
"Victoria Fraser MacKenzie," she said. She remained sitting; though she projected her voice, she spoke in a normal tone. After a pause of a few seconds, she continued. "Today's changes, particularly the impoundment of funds, affect my family and my work just as they affect everyone on the expedition, whether or not they're citizens of the United States. I'm angry, and I'm frightened by what the actions imply. I think we're expected to panic. I think we must not.
I think we must continue as if nothing had happened. And I think it would be polite to send a message to the United States, expressing our regret that they are no longer financially able to participate in the expedition."
Victoria kept her tone serious and solemn, and did not react to the murmur of appreciative laughter.
212 Vonda N. Mcintyre
Other members of the expedition said their names and aired their frustration and anger.
Some of the Americans defended their government and some apologized for it; some of the non-Americans excoriated it; several people explained, unnecessarily, the political situation that had caused the trouble. Some defended the right of any associate to withhold funds, to which the response was that no one questioned the new U.S. president's right to act as he had. It was his good sense they wondered about.
"Infinity Mendez." He paused after saying his name.
"I think it's true that we can't panic. But if we pretend nothing's happened, if we don't fight back, they'll take more and more and more until they leave us nothing."
The intensity of his soft voice left the amphitheater in absolute silence. He raised his head and glanced around.
"I think . . ." Tension grabbed his shoulders; something more than shyness silenced him. He ducked his head. "I have nothing more to say."
"My name is Thanthavong." The geneticist paused. "We have a guest."
Thanthavong drew the attention of the meeting to Griffith, standing in the shadows at the entrance of a tunnel. For a moment he looked as if he might try to fade into the shadows completely. Instead, he moved forward and took a stance both belligerent and defensive.
"I have a right to be here," he said. "More right than you do. I'm a representative of the U.S. government, and this ship was built with U.S. funds."
"Partially," Thanthavong said. "But this starship is a public institution of the world, and by law and custom our meetings are open. No one has suggested that you have no right to attend. But you are not a member of the expedition and I am inviting you to introduce yourself."
"My name is Griffith. I'm from the GAO."
"You are welcome to sit down, Griffith . . . if you wish to observe more closely.''
He sat, reluctantly, on the top terrace, as near to the exit as he could be. He must have heard the soft, irritable mutter that rose when he announced his occupation. Gradually the complaints fell to silence.
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"Satoshi Lono." Satoshi paused. "If we fight—what form of action will we take? Legal battles? Public relations? If we consider physical resistance, where do we set the limits?"
The silence that answered the words "physical resistance" lasted some time. Then, inevitably, people began to look toward Infinity, the first person to mention fighting. Uncomfortable at the focus of the attention, he glanced up the slope toward Griffith.
"I can't say," Infinity said. "I don't know."
"Satoshi, what do you mean when you say 'physical resistance'?" Thanthavong opened her strong, square hands.
"Bare hands against military weapons?"
"I had in mind civil disobedience, nonviolent resistance, like this meeting, but—we do need to consider what we'd do if . . ." He let his sentence trail off, unwilling to complete the comment.
"If we were invaded?" Thanthavong said.
"Gerald Hemminge." Unlike the other speakers, he leaped to his feet, and he barely paused. "You have gone from attending an illegal meeting to a discussion of fighting and invasions' Invasions? You are all conspiring against our own sponsors' Satoshi, who do you believe you're speaking to, revolutionaries and terrorists?"
At that, several people tned to speak at once.
Satoshi rose, folded his arms, and stood quietly looking at Gerald until the commotion died down. Beside him, Victoria prepared herself.
"I see nothing revolutionary," Satoshi said, "about wanting to do the job we were sent up here for."
"Even if a more important job has developed back home?
We're needed. The ship is needed. None of you is willing to admit it, and I'm sick of you all. You forget—'The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.' "
"I'm sick of hearing that quote abused," Satoshi said. "Jefferson wasn't talking about the danger of foreign powers-even King George and the whole British Empire. He was talking about the danger of handing over our freedoms to a despot of our own!"
Gerald picked out Griffith at the top of the amphitheater.
"Did you hear that? He's called your president a despot!"
214 vonda N. Mclntyre
Griffith glanced around uncomfortably. "I'm just an accountant," he said.
Gerald made a noise of disgust. "The chancellor sent me
here in the hopes of talking sense into you all. I see that I've
wasted my time." He stalked out of the amphitheater.
"Nikolai Petrovich Cherenkov," the cosmonaut said in the formal way of the meeting. He was only a few rows away from Griffith, who could not understand how he had missed him till now.
"I am your guest," Cherenkov said. "You have given me your hospitality and asked nothing in return. But now I must behave as a guest should not, and assume privileges that a guest does not possess. Your governments tell you that if you give up your ambitions and turn this starship into a watching and listening post, you will be benefiting the security of your countries and of the worid. They tell you that if you accede to these demands, you will be helping my country return to itself." He paused.