Green Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson [276]
And then they went back out to dance, the ten of them forming a line of their own, weaving dangerously through the crowds of youngsters. Fifty long Martian years, and still they survived, still they danced! It was a miracle!
But as always in the all-too-predictable fluctuation of Maya’s moods, there came that stall at the top, that sudden downturn— tonight, begun as she noticed the drugged eyes behind the other masks, saw how everyone was on their way out, doing their best to escape into their own private world, where they didn’t have to connect with anyone except that night’s lover. And they were no different. “Let’s go home,” she said to Michel, who was still bouncing along before her in time to the bands, enjoying the sight of all the lean Martian youngsters. “I can’t stand this.”
But he wanted to stay, and so did the others, and in the end she went home by herself, through the gate and the garden and up the stairs to their apartment. The noise of the celebration was loud behind her.
And there on the cabinet over the sink the young Frank smiled at her distress. Of course it goes this way, the youth’s intent look said. I know this story too— I learned it the hard way. Anniversaries, marriages, happy moments— they blow away. They’re gone. They never meant a thing. The smile tight, fierce, determined; and the eyes . . . it was like looking in the windows of an empty house. She knocked a coffee cup off the counter and it broke on the floor; the handle spun there and she cried out loud, sank to the floor and wrapped her arms around her knees and wept.
• • •
Then in the new year came news of heightened security measures in Odessa itself. It seemed that UNTA had learned the lesson of Sabishii, and was going to clamp down on the other cities more subtly: new passports, security checks at every gate and garage, restricted access to the trains. It was rumored they were hunting the First Hundred in particular, accusing them of attempting to overthrow the Transitional Authority.
Nevertheless Maya wanted to keep going to the Free Mars meetings, and Spencer kept agreeing to take her. “As long as we can,” she said. And so one night they walked together up the long stone staircases of the upper town. Michel was with them for the first time since the assault on Sabishii, and it seemed to Maya that he was recovering fairly well from the blow of the news, from that awful night after Marina’s knock on the door.
But they were joined at this meeting by Jackie Boone and the rest of her crowd, Antar and the zygotes, who had arrived in Odessa on the circumHellas train, on the run from the UNTA troops in the south, and rabidly angry at the assault on Sabishii, more militant than ever. The disappearance of Hiroko and her inner group had sent the ectogenes over the edge; Hiroko was mother to many of them, after all, and they all seemed in agreement that it was time to come out from cover and start a full-scale rebellion. Not a minute to lose, Jackie told the meeting, if they wanted to rescue the Sabishiians and the hidden colonists.
“I don’t think they got Hiroko’s people,” Michel said. “I think they went underground with Coyote.”
“You wish,” Jackie told him, and Maya felt her upper lip curl.
Michel said, “They would have signaled us if they were truly in trouble.”
Jackie shook her head. “They wouldn’t go into hiding again, now that things are going critical.” Dao and Rachel nodded. “And besides, what about the Sabishiians, and the lockup of Sheffield? And it’s going to happen here too. No, the Transitional Authority is taking over everywhere. We have to act now!”
“The Sabishiians have sued the Transitional Authority,” Michel said, “and they’re all still in Sabishii, walking around.”
Jackie just look disgusted, as if Michel were a fool, a weak over-optimistic frightened fool. Maya’s pulse jumped, and she could feel her teeth pressing together.
“We can’t act now,” she said sharply. “We’re not ready.”
Jackie glared at her. “We’ll never be ready according