Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson [176]
“Why not? Do you think they can just ignore the people who are living here? They may have continuous shuttles now, but we’re still eighty million kilometers away from them, and we’re here and they’re not. It may not be North America in the 1760s, but we do have some of the same advantages: we’re at a great distance, and we’re in possession. The important thing is not to fall into their way of thinking, into all the same old violent mistakes!”
And so he argued against revolution, nationalism, religion, economics— against every mode of Terran thought that he could think of, all mashed together in his usual style. “Revolution never even worked on Earth, not really. And here it’s all outmoded. We should be inventing a new program, just like Arkady says, including the ways to take control of our fate. With you all living a fantasy of the past you’re leading us right into the repression you’re complaining about! We need a new Martian way, a new Martian philosophy, economics, religion!”
They asked him just what these new Martian modes of thought might be, and he raised his hands. “How can I say? When they’ve never existed it’s hard to talk about them, hard to imagine them, because we don’t have the images. That’s always the problem when you try to make something new, and believe me I know, because I’ve been trying. But I think I can tell you what it will feel like— it will feel like the first years here, when we were a group and we all worked together. When there was no purpose in life except to settle and discover this place, and we all decided together what we should do. That’s how it should feel.”
“But those days are gone,” Marian said, and the others nodded. “That’s just your own fantasy of the past. Nothing but words. It’s like you’re holding a philosophy class in a giant gold mine, with armies bearing down on both sides.”
“No no,” John said. “I’m talking about methods for resistance, methods appropriate to our real situation, and not some revolutionary fantasy out of the history books!”
And around they went, again and again, until they were back at Senzeni Na, and had retired to the workers’ rooms on the lowest residential floor. There they argued passionately, through the timeslip and long into the night, and as they argued a certain elation filled John, because he could see them beginning to think about it— it was clear that they were listening to him, and that what he said, and what he thought of them, mattered to them. This was the best return yet on the old First Man fishbowl; combined with Arkady’s stamp of approval, it gave him an influence over them that was palpable. He could shake their confidence, he could make them think, he could force them to reevaluate, he could change their minds!
And so in the murky purple Great Storm dawn they wandered down the halls to the kitchen and talked on, looking out the windows and bolting down coffee, glowing with a kind of inspiration, with the age-old excitement of honest debate. And when they finally quit to go catch a little sleep before the day got going, even Marian was clearly shaken, and all of them were deep in thought, half-convinced that John was right.
John walked back to his guest suite feeling tired but happy. Whether Arkady had intended to or not, he had made John one of the leaders of his movement. Perhaps he would come to regret it, but there was no going back now. And John was sure it was for the best. He could be a sort of bridge between this underground and the rest of the people on Mars— operating in both worlds, reconciling the two, forging them into a single force that would be more effective than either alone. A force with the mainstream’s resources and the underground’s enthusiasm, perhaps. Arkady considered that an impossible synthesis, but John had powers that Arkady didn’t. So that he could, well, not usurp Arkady’s leadership, but simply change them all.
The door to his room in the guest quarters was open. He rushed in, alarmed, and there in the room’s two chairs sat Sam Houston and Michael Chang. “So,”