“War footing?” Charles asked.

“Probably not,” Lieh said. “Just confusion. Whoever okayed the Freeze — probably high syndics in GEWA — has stirred up a cyclone. It keeps getting worse. We’ve received millions of messages from Terries offering their support. But we’ve received even more messages expressing sheer terror.”

“Is anybody able to govern?” Ti Sandra asked.

“In national politics, the paralysis is complete. We don’t know about the alliances. They operate at a higher level — plebiscite of the legislatures of the national governments, effectively. All our flies have gone quiet. There are searchers out on all nets, public and private. Somebody in GEWA has authorized central thinker net dumps of all data seeks for certain patterns of subjects. They’ll learn who some of our flies are. Except for public nets, we’ll be almost blind.”

“They’re violating their own laws,” I said. “That tells us a lot in itself.”

“They’re not completely paralyzed,” Charles said. “Somebody is funding the scientists. They’re working around the clock at the Ice Pit.“

“Talk to them as soon as you can, however you can,” Ti Sandra said. “Direct link or regular channels.”

“I wish to clarify one thing,” Charles said. “Our options are not reduced. I have complete confidence that we could do everything we’ve planned to do, without repeating the mistake of our last trip.”

“Would you wager five million lives on your success, Mr. Franklin?” Ti Sandra asked grimly.

“I can’t,” he said.

“Would you?” she demanded, her voice rising.

Charles did not flinch or even blink. “I would,” he said. “But Casseia might disqualify me.”

“Why?”

“My proximity to the QL,” he said.

“It was the thinker — the QL thinker — that made the mistake, wasn’t it?” Ti Sandra asked.

“It wasn’t a mistake,” Charles said.

“Poor Galena Cameron might not agree,” Ti Sandra said. She gestured for a chair to be brought forward, and reclined in it slowly, never taking her eyes from Charles’s face. I had seen her assume this attitude of concentration before, but never with such intensity.

“The QL saw an opportunity to serve its purpose more deeply,” Charles said. “It could not know the effect on human observers. It can’t even model us effectively.”

“What would keep it from doing something even more foolish?” Ti Sandra said. Charles winced but did not challenge the adjective.

“It realized immediately that it would never search for truths again, any truths of any kind, if it ceased to exist,” he said.

“I don’t know what that means,” Ti Sandra said.

“It learned fear,” Charles said.

Ti Sandra leaned back, still frowning, and rubbed her hands on her knees. Then she stood and put her arm on my shoulders. “I understand so little,” she murmured. “King Arthur never understood Merlin, did he?”

“I doubt it,” I said.

“We’ve accomplished so much,” Charles said plaintively. “Everyone has worked their fingers to the bone on this. I think the idea should be kept open — against the chance that Earth does something drastic.”

“Everything’s in place,” I said. “There’s no reason to dismantle it. But it won’t be our main emphasis.”

“What about the areological reports?” Leander asked. “What about all the other balls we’ve started rolling?”

“We won’t shut them down. They’re all useful as general knowledge,” I said.

“And us?” Charles asked, holding his hand out to his colleagues.

“Keep track of the Ice Pit,” I said. “I think Lieh should work with you.”

“We’re reduced to spies, then,” Charles said.

We stared at the image of a place hundreds of millions of kilometers away, at men and women and arbeiters moving purposefully before their own mystery. On the Moon, a woman in protective clothing — black, thick on her body, wrinkled like elephant hide, perhaps to protect against radiation and cold — approached our locus of observation. Her image suddenly skewed and smeared — too close for whatever descriptor “optics” the Olympians had devised. “How much do they understand?” I asked.

“A lot,” Charles said. “Or they wouldn’t be there.”

“What can they do, if they harness the Ice Pit properly?” I asked Charles.

“Everything we can do,” he replied. “Unless they’ve learned more than we have. In which case, they can do more.”

I walked alone across a flat, sandy, unspoiled area half a kilometer outside of the station, on the Up. I was supposed to be sleeping, but it was early morning and my head buzzed with too many problems. I did not want to induce sleep again. I had been doing that too much lately.

I had put on a guard pressure suit and sneaked outside through a newly-finished maintenance corridor frequented only by construction arbeiters. Once outside, I walked across the pebbly hard ground, in the only area free of nasty glassy lava shards, kicking my boots lightly against the brown and orange varnish. High crystal clouds crossed the dawn and refracted rainbow glints. It was cold now — about eighty below at Kaibab’s altitude — but the suit provided ample insulation, and I really did not give a damn about the danger.

We had actually contemplated moving our entire planet, changing the lives of every inhabitant of Mars, simply to avoid a showdown with Earth. That seemed incredibly cowardly to me now. I tried to imagine the journey to the new system, across thousands of light-years that did not really exist, and even with the enhancement providing all of its sophistication, in my deep gut, I knew it had to have been a dream, and a bad dream at that.

I squinted at the western horizon. Phobos would rise soon, and shortly after, Deimos. I squatted on the rough ground, drooped my head, and stared at the dirt between my legs.

Casseia, Cassie, woman, daughter, wife, no longer existed. I had had my roots torn out too many times. I could not just dig my hand into this soil and grow some new consciousness, some new center to my being — Mars itself was not ours, not mine. We had come from places very far away. We were invaders, dug into the surface like chiggers in skin. Mars belonged to a stillborn biosphere.

I could not find anything at my center — no emotion, no enthusiasm. Nothing but duty.

My arms trembled. I willed them to stop but they did not. I was not cold. My legs began to shiver next, and my toes curled in their boots. My suit voice inquired, “Are you feeling well?”

“No,” I murmured.

“This suit does not monitor a medical emergency, but it will send out a distress signal if you speak aloud the word ‘Yes,’ or curl your right hand into a loose fist.“

“No,” I said.

“This question will be repeated in two minutes if your symptoms have not improved.”

“No,” I said.

I looked up. There were people standing on the sand and pebbles, not wearing suits. They regarded me curiously.

My mother approached first and kneeled before me. Behind her came Orianna from Earth and my brother Stan. Stan carried his young son. Orianna’s face was blank, but I sensed some resentment. If Phobos had ever fallen on Earth, she would have died. Particular and immediate recognition of the enormity of my guilt.

I’m having a problem, I thought. I’m having a nervous breakdown.

My mother touched my arm but I felt nothing. Stan came forward. His little boy dropped to the ground as Stan released him. The boy wobbled from leg to leg, learning to walk. Infants learned to walk sooner on Mars.

I heard Stan’s voice but did not understand anything he said. His tone seemed reassuring.

After a few minutes of watching the phantoms, alive and dead, I numbly got to my feet, brushed dust from my suit bottom and legs, and turned slowly to survey all of Kaibab.

“It isn’t over,” I said. “I can’t afford this luxury. I have to hold on.”

Stan nodded, and my mother assumed an expression of understanding sadness. They behaved like mimes; a little exaggerated. “Mother, I’m very glad to see you again, looking so good,” I told her. “I wish you could talk to me.”