Red Mars (Mars Trilogy, #1) - Kim Stanley Robinson Page 0,116

and everyone knew it, and with a quick grimace and a hard glance she agreed.

Once outside he led her up to the same peak he had napped on. The sky was a plum-colored arch over the black serrated ridges surrounding them, and stars were popping into existence in a flood, hundreds per eyeblink. He stood by her side; she stared away from him. The ragged skyline might have been a scene from Earth. She was a bit taller than him, a gaunt, angular silhouette. John liked her, but whatever reciprocal liking she may have had for him—and they had had some good talks in years past—had dissipated when he chose to work with Sax. He could have done anything he liked, her hard looks said, and yet he had chosen terraforming.

Well, it was true. He put his hand before her, forefinger raised. She punched her wristpad and suddenly her breathing sighed in his ear. “What,” she said, without looking his way.

“It’s about the sabotage incidents,” he said.

“I thought so. I suppose Russell thinks I’m behind them.”

“It’s not so much that—”

“Does he think I’m stupid? Does he imagine I think a little bit of vandalism will stop you from your boys’ games?”

“Well, it’s more than little bits. There’ve been six major incidents now, and any of them could have killed people.”

“Knocking mirrors out of orbit can kill people?”

“If they’re doing maintenance on them.”

She hmphed. “What else has happened.”

“A truck was knocked off one of the mohole shaft roads yesterday, and almost landed on me.” He heard her breath catch. “That’s the third truck to go. And that mirror was knocked into a spin with a maintenance worker on it, and she had to do a free solo to a station. It took her more than an hour to get there, and she almost didn’t make it. And then an explosives dump went off by accident at the Elysian mohole, a minute after a whole crew left it. And all the lichen at Underhill were killed by a virus that shut down the whole lab.”

Ann shrugged. “What do you expect from GEMs? It could have been an accident, I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often.”

“It wasn’t an accident.”

“It all adds up to peanuts. Does Russell think I’m stupid?”

“You know he doesn’t. But it’s a matter of tipping the balance. A lot of Terran money is being invested in the project, but it wouldn’t take much bad publicity to get a lot of it to drop out.”

“Maybe so,” Ann said. “But you ought to listen to yourself when you say things like that. You and Arkady are the biggest advocates of some kind of new Martian society, you two plus Hiroko, maybe. But the way Russell and Frank and Phyllis are bringing up Terran capital, the whole thing’s going to be out of your hands. It’ll be business as usual, and all your ideas will disappear.”

“I tend to think we all want something similar here,” John said. “We want to do good work in a good place. We just emphasize different parts of the process of getting there, that’s all. If we only coordinated our efforts, and worked as a team—”

“We don’t want the same things!” Ann said. “You want to change Mars, and I don’t. It’s as simple as that.”

“Well …” John faltered before her bitterness. They were moving slowly around the hill, in a complicated dance that imitated the conversation, sometimes face to face, sometimes back to back; and always her voice was right in his ear, and his in hers. He liked that about walker conversations, and used it, that insidious voice in the ear which could be so persuasive, caressing, hypnotic. “It’s not that simple, even so. I mean, you ought to be helping those of us who are closest to your beliefs, and opposing those furthest away.”

“I do that.”

“Which is why I came to ask you what you know about these saboteurs. It makes sense, right?”

“I know nothing about them. I wish them luck.”

“In person?”

“What?”

“I’ve traced your movements in the last couple of years, and you’ve always been near every incident, within a month or so before it happened. You were in Senzeni Na a few weeks ago on your way here, right?”

He listened to her breathe. She was angry. “Using me as cover,” she muttered, and something more he didn’t catch.

“Who?”

She turned her back on him. “You should ask the coyote about this stuff, John.”

“The coyote?”

She laughed shortly. “Haven’t you heard of him? He wanders around on