elevator cant do much damage if it falls, can it? In that way its not like an earthbound structure, a building. The bulk of the mass, the counterweight, just drifts off into space. So the casualty projections
Zero, with luck, Paxton said reluctantly. Minimal anyhow. Cassie put in, There are no casualties reported from Mars either. Bella blew out her cheeks. Looks like we all got away with it.
Paxton glared at her. Are you somehow equating these assaults? Madam Chair, you represent the legally constituted governments of the planet. The Liberators action was an act of war. This is terrorism. We must respond. I vote we order the Liberator to blast that whole fucking ice cap off the face of Mars, and have done with it.
No, Bella said sharply. Really, Bob, what good would an escalation do?
It would be a response to the attacks on the Elevators. And it would put a stop to this damn security breach.
Bella rubbed tired eyes. I very much doubt that Athena is there. Besideseverything is changing, Bob. I think its going to take you a little time to adjust to that, but its true nevertheless. Send a signal to Liberator. Tell them to hold off until further orders.
Madam Chair, with respectyoure going to go along with this subversion?
We learned more in the last few minutes than in all our running around the solar system in the last months. Maybe we should have been open from the beginning.
Cassie nodded. Yes. Maybe its a mark of a maturing culture, do you think, that secrets arent kept, that truth is told, that things are talked out?
Jesus Christ on a bike, Paxton said. I cant believe I'm hearing this mush. Madam ChairBellapeople will panic. Riots, looting. Youll see. Thats why we keep secrets, Ms. Duflot. Because people cant handle the truth.
Cassie glanced at the softwall. Well, that doesnt seem to be true, Admiral. The first responses are coming in...
Alone over the Martian pole, Edna and John sat fascinated as threads of the system-wide discussion unreeled on the displays of their consoles.
John said, Look at this. People arent just voting on the Q-bomb, theyre collectively brainstorming other solutions. Interconnected democracy at its best. Although I fear there arent any other solutions to hand, this time.
Edna said, Some of the Spacers say, let the Q-bomb take out Earth. Earth is mankinds past, space the future. So discard a worn-out world.
John grunted. And a few billion people with it? Not to mention almost all the cultural treasures of mankind. I think thats a minority view, even among the Spacers. And heres another thread about the viability of mankind if Earth were lost. Theyre still a pretty small community out there. Small, scattered, very vulnerable...Maybe we still need Big Momma for a while yet.
Hey, look at this thread. This discussion followed leads from members of something called the Committee of Patriots. I heard of that, Edna said. It advises my mother. She read, The Firstborn dominate past and future, time and space. Theyre so far advanced that compared to them... She scrolled forward. Yes, yes. The existence of the Firstborn is the organizing pole around which all of future human history must, will be constructed. And therefore we should accept their advanced wisdom.
John grimaced. You mean, if the Firstborn choose to destroy the Earth, we should just submit? Thats the idea. Because they know best. I cant say that strikes a chord with me. What else you got?
In the silence of Wells Station, Athena spoke again. It is time. Yuri looked around the empty air wildly. Youre here? Ive downloaded a fresh avatar, yes. It isnt twelve hours yet.
No more time is needed. A consensus has emergednot unanimity, but overwhelming. I'm very sorry, Athena said evenly. We are about to commit a great and terrible crime. But it is a responsibility that will be borne by all of us, mankind and its allies.
It had to be this way, Yuri, Myra said. You know it
Well, I wont fucking leave whatever you do, Yuri said, and he stamped out of the room.
Alexei said, Look at this discussion thread. We are a lesser power. The situation is asymmetric. So we must prepare to fight asymmetrically, as lesser powers have always faced off greater ones, drawing on a history of fighting empires back to Alexander the Great. We must be prepared to make sacrifices to strike against them. We must be prepared to die...
A future as a species of suicide bombers, Grendel said. But if those Martians