“Cailetet is keeping its options open,” Crown Niger said, tapping his index finger on the top of the desk. He offered more tea, and I accepted. “Frankly, the plan proposed by Persoff BM seems more attractive. A limited number of BMs participate, to eliminate organizational clutter… A central financial authority, allocating district resources, working directly with Earth and the Triple. Very attractive. Not very different from Majumdar’s position before your visit to Earth.”

He seemed curious as to how I might react to that. I smiled wryly and said, “That approach is thin on the rights of individuals once the BMs are dissolved. Some districts would have little say.”

“There are drawbacks,” Crown Niger said. “But then, there are drawbacks in your proposal.”

“We’re organizing a process, not yet making a specific proposal.”

Crown Niger shook his head almost pityingly. “Come and go, Miss Majumdar, the bias toward a constitution modeled along the lines of old Terrestrial democracies… That’s a kind of proposal.”

“We hope to avoid the abuses of government without accountability.”

“Very Federalist. I frankly trust the more powerful institutions on Mars,” Crown Niger said. “They have no reason to lace up hobnailed boots and grind faces all day.”

“We prefer direct accountability.”

“You advocate radical changes. I wonder why so many BMs have agreed to their own deballing.”

The vulgarity irritated me. “Because they’re tired of Martian indecision and weakness,” I said.

“And I concur. Mars needs central planning and authority, just as we propose.”

“No doubt,” I said, “but — ”

“We could talk hours longer, Miss Majumdar. Actually, I’m bound by decisions made by my own advocates. I could arrange meetings between you and them, individually.”

“I’d enjoy the opportunity,” I said.

“Our thinker can arrange the details,” Crown Niger said.

“Fine. I’d like to go off-record now,” I said.

“I do not conduct interviews in this office off-record,” Crown Niger said, unruffled. “I owe Cailetet’s family members that much.”

“There are accusations you may not wish them to hear.”

“They hear everything I hear,” Crown Niger said, putting me in my place.

“Some of the smaller BMs tell us Cailetet withdrew important contracts just after they agreed to send advocates to our assembly.”

“It’s possible,” Crown Niger said. “We have a lot of contracts.”

“The numbers are interesting,” I said. “One hundred percent.”

“Severance following agreement?” He seemed concerned and shook his head wonderingly.

“Can you explain the perfect score?” I asked.

“Not immediately,” Crown Niger said, uninterested.

I left the office empty-handed and chilled to the bone.

By the end of the winter of M.Y. 57, seventy-four out of ninety BMs had agreed to send representatives to a constitutional assembly. Twelve out of fourteen district governors planned to attend personally; the thirteenth and fourteenth would send aides. The momentum was with us. The population’s opinions flowed like some vast amoeba. Mars was ready, Cailetet or no.

I was at the center, and the center was moving.

The constitutional assembly convened in the debating chamber of the University of Mars Sinai , on the 23rd of Aries, the thirteenth month of the Martian year. The Martian calendar would be used, sanctioning for the first time the formal use of eleven additional months, named after constellations.

The debate room was a large amphitheater, capable of holding a thousand people. In the arena, an adjustable circular table could seat as many as one hundred.

Detailed studies of the constitutional assembly have been published elsewhere. I am bound by oath not to give many more details of the process, but I can say that it was difficult. The BMs were reluctant to give up their powers and authority, even while recognizing they must. We all walked a tortuous path, preserving privileges here, removing them elsewhere, listening patiently to anguished appeals, working compromise after compromise, yet never — we hoped — compromising the core of a workable democratic constitution.

The birth cries of the new age were the voices of dozens of women and men, talking until they were hoarse, late into the night and early in the morning, arguing, cajoling, persuading, taking impassioned positions and then abandoning them to take others, wearing each other down, screaming, almost coming to blows, stopping to eat at the round table, relaxing with arms around the shoulders of what minutes before might have seemed sworn enemies, staring in stone-faced silence as views were voted down, smiling and clenching hands in victory, sitting in stymied exhaustion… for days and weeks.

Delegates constantly briefed the members of their BMs about progress, sometimes soliciting input on crucial questions. Ti Sandra sent me to Argyre and Hellas to chair public meetings and answer questions about the assembly. And from all across Mars, suggestions and papers and vid reports poured in, some from individuals, others from ad hoc committees. Mars, once politically moribund, was hardly recognizable.

Above it all, providing a constant sense of urgency, Earth. We knew there were people within the assembly reporting to Earth, even beholden to Earth. We had no illusions that we lay beyond Earth’s power. If the assembly were scuttled, Earth would not be served; but no government that weakened Mars would be accepted, either.

We hoped for the best.

For two days, delegates examined constitutional models, as analyzed by human scholars and thinkers during the 2050s. The Earth Society of Social and Political Patterns had developed a language called Legal Logic, with three thousand base concepts derived from international and interplanetary laws. This language was specially designed for fixed analysis; interpretation became less an art, and more a science.

Using Legal Logic, the delegates spent a week examining the broad flow of the history of nations, studying three-dimensional slices through five- and six-dimensional charts, searching for the most flexible and enduring governmental structure. The slices resembled body scans, but reflected histories, not anatomy. Not surprisingly, the two systems that fared best were democratic, parliamentary — as with the United Kingdom, now part of Eurocon — and federal, as with Canada, Australia, the United States, and Switzerland. We traced the legal histories of these countries, studying extreme deviations from stated principles — expressed as compound statements in Legal Logic — the ensuing crises, and how the systems changed thereafter.

The broad outlines of the proposed Martian constitution were decided next. The most flexible and enduring of our examples was the constitution of the United States of America , but most delegates agreed that major modifications would be necessary to fit Mars’s peculiar circumstances.

For six days, the assembly roughed out the branches of the central Martian government. There would be four branches: the executive, the legislative, the judicial, and the extraplanetary. The latter two would be subsidiary to the legislative, as would the executive in most cases. The role of the executive would be greatly reduced from eighteenth-century models, with the executive largely serving as an advocate for major issues; that is, a debater and persuader. The President would be backed up by a Vice President, who would serve as Speaker to the House of the People.

The legislature or congress would be bicameral, the House of the People and the House of Governors. The House of the People would take representatives from districts based on population; the governors, two for each district, would convene separately. Acting in tandem, they would decide the laws of Mars.

The extraplanetary branch would represent Mars in dealings with the Triple, and would answer directly to the executive, but would be appointed by the legislature. (This later proved unworkable, and was revised severely — but that’s outside the scope of my story…)