Green Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson [187]
She spread her hands wide, and her closest associates walked humming into the center of the circle. Others followed suit, until the space around the Swiss was full of a milling horde of friends, acquaintances, strangers.
• • •
The workshops were held in gazebos scattered through the parks, or in three-walled rooms in the public buildings that edged these parks. The Swiss had assigned small groups to run the workshops, and the rest of the conferees attended whichever meetings interested them the most, so that some involved five people, others fifty.
Nadia spent the first day wandering from workshop to workshop, up and down the four southernmost segments of the tunnel. She found that quite a few people were doing the same, none more so than Art, who appeared to be trying to observe all the workshops, so that he caught only a sentence or two at each site.
She dropped in on a workshop discussing the events of 2061. She was interested, although not surprised, to find in attendance Maya, Ann, Sax, Spencer, and even Coyote, as well as Jackie Boone and Nirgal, and many others. The room was packed. First things first, she supposed, and there were so many nagging questions about ‘61: What had happened? What had gone wrong, and why?
Ten minutes’ listening, however, and her heart sank. People were upset, their recriminations heartfelt and bitter. Nadia’s stomach knotted in a way it hadn’t in years, as memories of the failed revolt flooded into her.
She looked around the room, trying to concentrate on the faces, to distract herself from the ghosts within. Sax was watching birdlike as he sat next to Spencer; he nodded as Spencer asserted that 2061 taught them that they needed a complete assessment of all the military forces in the Martian system. “This is a necessary precondition for any successful action,” Spencer said.
But this bit of common sense was shouted down by someone who seemed to consider it an excuse to avoid action— a Marsfirster, apparently, who advocated immediate mass ecotage, and armed assault on the cities.
Quite vividly Nadia recalled an argument with Arkady about this very matter, and suddenly she couldn’t stand it. She walked down to the center of the room.
After a while everyone went silent, stilled by the sight of her. “I’m tired of this matter being discussed in purely military terms,” she said. “The whole model of revolution has to be rethought. This is what Arkady failed to do in sixty-one, and this is why sixty-one was such a bloody mess. Listen to me, now— there can be no such thing as a successful armed revolution on Mars. The life-support systems are too vulnerable.”
Sax croaked, “But if the surface is vivable— is viable— then the support systems not so— so . . .”
Nadia shook her head. “The surface is not viable, and won’t be for many years. And even when it is, revolution has to be rethought. Look, even when revolutions have been successful, they have caused so much destruction and hatred that there is always some kind of horrible backlash. It’s inherent in the method. If you choose violence, then you create enemies who will resist you forever. And ruthless men become your revolutionary leaders, so when the war is over they’re in power, and likely to be as bad as what they replaced.”
“Not in—American,” Sax said, cross-eyed with the effort to force the right words out in a timely manner.
“I don’t know about that. But mostly it’s been true. Violence breeds hatred, and eventually there is a backlash. It’s unavoidable.”
“Yes,” said Nirgal with his usual intent look, not all that different from Sax’s grimace. “But if people are attacking the sanctuaries and destroying them, then we don’t have much choice.”
Nadia said, “The question is, who’s sending those forces out? And who are the people actually in these forces? I doubt that those individuals