Orianna had skipped ahead of me. She hunched her shoulders. “Gives me the willies,” she said. She called the elevator, which arrived immediately.

The elevator stopped. Orianna took my hand and led me down a hallway that might have belonged in a plush hotel, retro early twentieth. Flowers filled cloisonné vases on wooden tables; we walked on non-metabolic carpet, probably real wool, deep green with white floral insets.

Orianna found the door she wanted. She knocked lightly and the door opened. We entered a small white room with three Empire chairs and a table. The room smelled of roses. The wall before the chairs brightened. A high-res virtual image presented itself to us, as if we looked through glass at a scene beyond. A black-haired, severely handsome woman of late middle years sat on a white cast-iron chair in the middle of a beautiful garden, trees shading her, rows of bushes covered with lovely roses red and blue and yellow marching in perspective off to a grand Victorian greenhouse. Tall clouds billowed on the horizon. It looked like a hot, humid, thundery day.

“Hello, Miss Muir,” Orianna greeted the woman. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her face.

“Hello, Ori! How nice to have visitors.” She smiled sunnily.

“Miss Muir, this is my friend, Casseia Majumdar of Mars.”

“Pleased to meet you,” the woman said.

“Do you know Miss Muir, Casseia?”

“I’m sorry, no.”

Orianna shook her head and pursed her lips. “No enhancements. Always leaves you at a disadvantage. This is President Danielle Muir.”

That name I had heard.

“President of the United States ?” I asked, my face betraying how impressed I was.

“Forty years ago,” Muir said, cocking her head to one side. “Practically forgotten, except by friends, and by my goddaughter. How are you, Ori?”

“I’m high pleased, ma’am. I apologize for not coming sooner… You know we’ve been away.”

“To Mars. You returned on the same ship with Miss Majumdar?”

“I did. And I confess I’ve come here with a motive.”

“Something interesting, I hope.”

“Casseia’s being jammed, ma’am. I’m too ignorant to speck what’s happening.”

Ex-President Muir leaned forward. “Do tell.”

Orianna raised her hand. “May I?”

“Certainly,” Muir said. A port thrust from the wall, and Orianna touched her finger to the pad, transferring information to Muir.

I specked the former President lying in warm sleep behind the screen, bathed in swirling currents of red and white medical nano like strawberry juice and cream.

Muir smiled and adjusted her chair to face us. The effect startled me — even ambient sound told us we were with her, outdoors. The walls of the cubicle gradually faded into scenery. Soon we, too, were in the shade of the large tree, surrounded by warm moist air. I smelled roses, fresh-cut grass, and something that raised the hair on my arms. Electricity… thunderstorms.

“You work for a big financial Binding Multiple. Rather, you’re part of the family, right, Casseia?“ Her voice, colored by a melodious southern accent, drifted warm and concerned in the thick air.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“You’re under pressure… You’ve been summoned to testify before Congress, but for one reason or another, you’ve been shunted to another rail.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“Why?”

I looked at Ori. “I really can’t reveal family matters here, ma’am. Ori — Orianna brought me here without telling me why. I’m honored to meet you, but…” I trailed off, embarrassed.

Muir tilted her head back. “Someone in the alliances has decided Mars is an irritant, and I can’t guess why. You simply don’t mean that much to the United States , or to GEWA or GSHA or Eurocom or any of the other alliances.”

Orianna frowned at me and looked back at Muir’s image. “My father says there isn’t a politician on Earth you can trust, except Danielle Muir,” Orianna said.

My level of skepticism rose enormously; I’ve always bristled when people ask for, much less demand, trust. Face to face with a ghost, an illusory representative of someone I had never met in person, I simply would not let myself bestow trust it was not my right or station to give.

On the other hand, much of what we were doing was public knowledge — and there was no reason not to carry on a conversation at that level.

“Martians have stood apart from Solar System unification,” I said.

“Good for you,” Muir said, smiling foxily. “Not everybody should knuckle under to the alliances.”

“Well, it’s not entirely good,” I said. “We’re not sure we know how to unify. Earth expects full participation from coherent partners. We seem to be unable to meet their expectations.”

“The Big Push,” Muir said.

“Right,” Orianna said.

“That seems to be part of it.”

Muir shook her head sadly. “My experience with Martians when I was President was that Mars had great potential. But this Big Push could get along nicely without you. You’d hardly be missed.”

I felt another burn. “We think we might have a lot to contribute, actually.”

“Unwilling to participate, but proud to be asked, proud to have pressure applied, is that it?” Muir said.

“Not exactly, ma’am,” I said.

Her face — the face of her image — hardened almost imperceptibly. Despite her warm tone and friendly demeanor, I sensed a chill of negative judgment.

“Casseia, Ori tells me you’re very smart, very capable, but you’re missing something. Your raw materials and economic force count for little in any Big Push. Mars is small in the Solar System scheme of things. What can you contribute, that would be worth the effort Earth seems to be willing to expend on you?”

I was at a loss for an answer. Bithras, I remembered, had been wary of this explanation, but I had swallowed it uncritically.

“Maybe you know something you can’t tell me, and I don’t expect you to tell me, considering your responsibilities and loyalties. But take it from an old, old politician, who helped plant — much to my regret — some of the trees now bearing ripe fruit. The much-ballyhooed Big Push is only a cover. Earth is deeply concerned about something you have, or can do, or might be able to do. Since you can’t mount an effective military operation, and your economic strength is negligible, what could Mars possibly have, Casseia, that Earth might fear?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Something the small and weak can do as well as the large and the strong, something that will mean strategic changes.

Surely you can think of what that might be. How could Mars possibly threaten Earth?“

“We can’t,” I said. “As you’ve told me, we’re weak, insignificant.”

“Do you think politics is a clean, fair game played by rational humans?”

“At its best,” I said lamely.

“But in your experience…”

“Martian politics has been pretty primitive,” I admitted.

“Your uncle Bithras… Is he politically sophisticated?”

“I think so,” I said.

“You mean, compared to you, he seems to be.”

My discomfort ramped. I did not like being grilled, even by my social superiors. “I suppose,” I said.

“Well, politics is not all muck, and not always corrupting, but it is never easy. Getting even rational people from similar backgrounds to agree is difficult. Getting planets to agree, with separate histories, widely different perspectives, is a political nightmare. I would hesitate to accept the task, and yet your uncle seems to have jumped in with both feet.”

“He’s cautious,” I said.

“He’s a child playing in the big leagues,” Muir said.

“I disagree,” I said.

Muir smiled. “What does he think is really going on here?”

“For the moment, we accept that Earth needs Mars… prepared for some large-scale operation. The Big Push seems as likely as anything.”

“You truly believe that?”

“I can’t think of any other reason.”