Green Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson [186]
By now there were about five hundred visitors in the long sanctuary, representing about fifty groups. The congress was to begin the following morning, so on this night the partying was loud, from Zakros to Falasarna, the timeslip filled with wild shouting and singing, Arab ululations harmonizing with yodels, the strains of “Waltzing Matilda” forming a descant to “The Marseillaise.”
• • •
Nadia got up early the next morning. She found Art already out at the pavilion in the Zakros park, rearranging chairs into a circular formation, in classic Bogdanovist style. Nadia felt a prick of pain and regret, as if Arkady’s ghost had walked through her; he would have loved this meeting, it was just what he had often called for. She went to help Art. “You’re up early.”
“I woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep.” He needed a shave. “I’m nervous!”
She laughed. “This is going to take weeks, Art, you know that.”
“Yes, but starts are important.”
By ten all the seats were filled, and behind the chairs the pavilion was crowded with standing observers. Nadia stood at the back of the Zygote wedge of the circle, watching curiously. There appeared to be slightly more men than women in attendance, and slightly more natives than emigrants. Most people wore standard one-piece jumpers— the Reds’ were rust-colored— but a significant number were dressed in a colorful array of ceremonial styles: robes, dresses, pantaloons, suits, embroidered shirts, bare chests, a lot of necklaces and earrings and other jewelry. All the Bogdanovists wore jewelry containing pieces of phobosite, the black chunks shining where they had been cut flat and polished.
The Swiss stood in the center, somber in gray bankers’ suits, Sibilla and Priska in dark green dresses. Sibilla called the meeting to order, and she and the rest of the Swiss alternated as they explained in excruciating detail the program they had worked out, pausing to answer questions, and asking for comments at every change of speaker. As they did this a group of Sufis in pure white shirts and pantaloons worked their way around the outer perimeter of the circle, passing out jugs of water and bamboo cups, moving with their customary dancelike grace. When everyone had cups, the delegates at the front of each group poured water for the party on their left, and then they all drank. Out in the crowd of spectators the Vanuatuans were at a table filling tiny cups of kava or coffee or tea, and Art was passing these out to those who wanted them. Nadia smiled at the sight of him, shambling through the crowds like a Sufi in slow motion, sipping from the cups of kava he was distributing.
The Swiss’s program was to begin with a series of workshops on specific topics and problems, working in open rooms scattered through Zakros, Gournia, Lato, and Malia. All of the workshops were to be recorded. Conclusions, recommendations, and questions from the workshops were to serve as the basis for a subsequent day’s discussion at one of the two general ongoing meetings. One of these would focus roughly on the problems of achieving independence, the other on what came after— the means and ends meetings, as Art noted when he stopped briefly at Nadia’s side.
When the Swiss were done describing the program, they were ready to start; it had not occurred to them to have any ceremonial opening. Werner, speaking last, reminded people that the first workshops would begin in an hour, and that was that. They were done.
But before the crowd dispersed, Hiroko stood at the back of the Zygote crowd, and walked slowly into the center of the circle. She wore a bamboo-green jumper, and no jewelry— a tall slight figure, white-haired, unprepossessing— and yet every eye there was locked onto her. And when she lifted her hands, everyone seated got to their feet. In the silence that followed, Nadia’s breath caught in her throat. We should stop now, she thought. No meetings— this is it right here, our presence together, our shared reverence for this single person.
“We are children of Earth,” Hiroko said, loud enough for all to hear. “And