Green Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson [201]
“Praxis is different,” Art declared.
“But the system is the system,” Coyote insisted from the back of the room.
Fort shrugged. “We make the system, I think.”
Coyote only shook his head.
Sax said, “We have to steal it— to deal with it.”
And he started asking Fort questions. “Which is the boggest— the biggest?” They were halting, ragged, croaking questions— but Fort ignored his difficulties, and answered in great detail, so that most of three consecutive Praxis workshops consisted of an interrogation of Fort by Sax, in which everyone learned a great deal about the other metanationals, their leaders, their internal structures, their client countries, their attitudes toward each other, and their history, particularly the roles taken by their predecessor organizations in the chaos surrounding 2061. “Why respond— why crack the eggs— no, I mean the domes?”
Fort was weak on historical detail, and sighed unhappily at the failures of his personal memory of that period; but his account of the current Terran situation was fuller than any they had gotten before, and it helped clarify questions about metanational activity on Mars that all of them had wondered about. The metanets used the Transitional Authority as a way to mediate their own disagreements. They disagreed over territories. They left the demimonde alone because they felt its underground aspects were negligible and easily monitored. And so on. Nadia could have kissed Sax— she did kiss him— and she kissed Spencer and Michel too for their support of Sax during these sessions, because although Sax doggedly pushed through his speech difficulties, he was often red-faced with frustration, and often hit tables with his fist. Near the end he said to Fort, “What does Praxis want from men—” Bam! “— from Mars, then?”
Fort said, “We feel that what happens here will have effects back home. At this point we’ve identified an emerging coalition of progressive elements on Earth, the biggest of which are China, Praxis, and Switzerland. After that there are scores of smaller elements, but they are less powerful. Which way India goes in this situation could be critical. Most of the metanats seem to regard it as a development sink, meaning that no matter how much they pour into it, nothing there will change. We don’t agree with that. And we think Mars is critical as well, in a different way, as an emergent power. So we wanted to find the progressive elements here too, you see, and show you what we’re doing. And see what you think of it.”
“Interesting,” Sax said.
And so it was. But many people remained adamantly opposed to dealing with a Terran metanational. And meanwhile all the other arguments about all the other issues continued unabated, often becoming more polarized the longer they talked about them.
That night at their patio meeting Nadia shook her head, marveling at the capacity people had for ignoring what they had in common, and fighting bitterly over whatever small differences existed between them. She said to Art and Nirgal, “Maybe the world is simply too complex for any one plan to work. Maybe we shouldn’t be trying for a global plan, but just something to suit us. And then hope Mars can get along using several different systems.”
Art said, “I don’t think that will work either.”
“But what will?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know yet.” And he and Nirgal went off to review tapes, pursuing what suddenly seemed to Nadia an ever-receding mirage.
• • •
Nadia went to bed. If it were a construction project, she thought as she lay falling asleep, she would tear it down and start over