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They stood staring at each other, the ancient white-haired beauty and the young black-haired beauty— and it seemed to Nadia there was something primal in the sight, primal, primeval, primate . . . these are the two witches, she wanted to say to Jackie’s sibs behind her. But then again they no doubt knew that. “No one is like John was,” she said, trying to break the spell. She squeezed Art’s waist. “But it was well done.”

Kasei came splashing up; he had been standing by silently, and Nadia wondered at him a little, the man with the famous father, famous mother, famous daughter. . . . And slowly becoming a power himself, among the Reds and the radical Marsfirsters, out there on the edge in a splinter movement, as the congress had proved. No, it was hard to tell what Kasei thought of his life. He gave Jackie a glance that was too complex to read— pride, jealousy, some sort of rebuke— and said, “We could use John Boone now.” His father— the first man on Mars— her cheery John, who used to love to swim the butterfly in Underhill, in afternoons that had felt like this ceremony, except that it had been their everyday reality, for a year or so there in the beginning. . . .

“And Arkady,” Nadia said, still trying to defuse things. “And Frank.”

“We can do without Frank Chalmers,” Kasei said bitterly.

“Why do you say that?” Maya exclaimed. “We would be lucky to have him here now! He would know how to handle Fort, and Praxis, and the Swiss and you Reds and the greens, all of it. Frank, Arkady, John— we could use all three of them now.” Her mouth was hard and downturned. She glared at Jackie and Kasei as if daring them to speak; then her lip curled, and she looked away.

Nadia said, “This is why we must avoid another sixty-one.”

“We will,” Art said, and gave her another squeeze.

Nadia shook her head sadly. The peak always passed so fast. “It’s not our choice,” she told him. “It’s not something that is entirely in our hands. So we will see.”

“It will be different this time,” Kasei insisted.

“We will see.”

Part Eight

Social Engineering

Prologue

Where were you born?

Denver.

Where did you grow up?

Rock. Boulder.

What were you like as a child?

I don’t know.

Give me your impressions.

I wanted to know why.

You were curious?

Very curious.

Did you play with science kits?

All of them.

And your friends?

I don’t remember.

Try for anything.

I don’t think I had many friends.

Were you ambidextrous as a child?

I don’t remember.

Think about your science experiments. Did you use both hands when you did them?

I believe it was often necessary.

You wrote with your right hand?

I do now. I— I did then as well. Yes. As a child.

And did you do anything with your left hand? Brush your teeth, comb your hair, eat, point at things, throw balls?

I did all those things with my right hand. Would it matter if I hadn’t?

Well, you see, in cases of aphasia, the strong right-handers all conform pretty well to a certain profile. Activities are located, or it is better to say coordinated, at certain places in the brain. When we determine precisely the problems the aphasic is experiencing, we can tell pretty well where the lesions in the brain are located. And vice versa. But with left-handers and ambidextrous people there is no such pattern. One might say that every left-handed and ambidextrous brain is organized differently.

You know most of Hiroko’s ectogene children are left-handed.

Yes, I know. I’ve spoken with her about it, but she claims she doesn’t know why. She says it may be a result of being born on Mars.

Do you find this plausible?

Well, handedness is still poorly understood in any case, and the effects of the lighter gravity . . . we’ll be sorting those out for centuries, won’t we.

I suppose so.

You don’t like the idea of that, do you?

I would rather get answers.

What if all your questions were answered? Would you be happy then?

I find it hard to imagine such a— state. A fairly small percentage of my questions