I saw no reason to argue the point further. “Present your proposals and let’s get this over with.”

“The parties involved in this preemptive action will deactivate all blocks on Martian dataflow, if the people listed on this slate…” He pushed his own slate forward and I spun it around to view the screen. “Are delivered into my hands within seventy-two hours. I will receive them here in Many Hills and transport them elsewhere. Eventually they will go to Earth.”

I read the list: all of the Olympians, Zenger, Casares, and nineteen others — among them, the finest scientists on Mars.

“What will this accomplish?” I asked.

“Peace,” Dickinson said. “Return to normal dataflow. Lives saved.”

“No locusts?” I asked.

“Locusts?”

“Warbeiters. Nano armies,” I said.

He seemed puzzled.

“Your puppet masters don’t tell you everything. Either that or you’re willfully ignorant.”

Dickinson shrugged.

“What Earth is doing to Mars right now will alter the balance of the Triple,” I said, voice cracking. “Nobody will feel safe.”

“Please don’t lecture me,” Dickinson said.

Gretyl stepped forward. “We understand the delicate balances better than you.”

“Yes, and your youthful ideals — my God, Sean, you’re working with Crown Niger !” I shut myself up, but my body trembled with suppressed rage. Three days. “The Republic has no authority to kidnap citizens.”

“What it comes down to, I think, is Earth considers its own safety paramount, and does not trust Martian intentions,” Dickinson concluded. “Ninety-eight percent of all humanity still lives on Earth. Knowing what I know about this government, I wouldn’t trust you, either.”

“We’ve never shown Earth any hostility. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“Mars should have kept its innocence,” Dickinson said. “No world state, stay out of the big leagues, peace and comparative prosperity. I’ve fought against this all my life. All states resort to force in the end.”

“I assume there are other conditions?”

Dickinson referred to his slate. “Return to BM economic structure for a minimum of twenty years. Earth monitors to be installed at all research centers, and regular visits of inspection teams at any facility of any kind on Mars.”

They had given up on us. They wanted us weak, locked in our own past, stripped of our new powers. Someone had calculated that the technological situation would get out of hand before any peaceful negotiations could be concluded. “Occupation by Earth,” I said. “Absolutely incredible. How can anyone believe that will be workable?”

“Not my problem,” Dickinson said.

“And what do you get, personally?”

“Exile, I suppose,” Dickinson said. “No Martian will tolerate Gretyl and me now. No doubt we’ll be dead in a few months if we stay here. We’ll go to Earth.”

“You’re happy with that?”

“For the end of a Martian state, I’d gladly accept my own death, and Gretyl’s,” Dickinson said. “I am true to my ideals. I haven’t changed, Casseia.”

“Every history has its traitors,” I said.

Dickinson dismissed that with a subtle toss of his head and flicker of his eyelids. “I’ll need your answer soon.”

“How soon?”

“Within one hour.”

“We don’t have a quorum. If you could bring the rest of the government together — ”

“Please don’t try to stall. We’re all here to avert an even greater catastrophe. If we fail, stronger measures will be taken.”

“Locusts.”

“I truly don’t know. As President, you are allowed, by your constitution, to negotiate foreign treaties.”

“But not to negotiate surrender during wartime,” I said.

“This is not war,” Dickinson said.

“What is it, for God’s sake?”

“Clever, devastating disruption imposed by a vastly superior power,” Dickinson said. “Why mince words? I don’t think you’re stupid. We have one hour. I understand that if Earth does not receive a reply by then, the knot will tighten.”

These were not negotiations; they were ultimatums. Mars would strangle if I did not agree to everything. I felt lightheaded, almost giddy with suppressed rage.

“Have you any human heart whatsoever?” I asked Dickinson . “Have you any feelings for what your planet is suffering?”

“I was not the one who made this situation,” he answered briskly.

“We are honorable Martians,” Gretyl said.

No choice. No way out. Selling out the Republic’s future, all we had worked for; I would be branded the traitor. A kind of delirium smoothed itself around me with seductive insistence. Die, but do not do this. I could not listen.

Lieh had been monitoring her slate closely for several minutes. Now, she stood up from the gallery and approached me like a delicate crab, eyes full of hatred turned on Dickinson . She bent over and whispered in my ear, “Madam President, we’ve established contact with the Olympians. I’m told that you are not to sell the farm, and that you are to leave this meeting and come with me to the surface. Charles says he has to go see a man about a scary dog.”

I looked at her, baffled. Lieh straightened and backed away.

“I’d like to discuss this with the people I’ve assembled here,“ I said to Dickinson. He nodded, appearing faintly bored. ”You’ll have your answer,“ I said.

I left the table and gestured for Smith and Ely to follow me out of the chamber. We met Firkazzie in the governors’ cloakroom. “What’s going on?” I asked Lieh and Firkazzie, my nerves shot, all confidence fled.

Lieh deferred to Firkazzie.

“We’re to take you Up in the next ten minutes. There’s an observation deck on the top of the main capitol building, but it isn’t pressurized yet.”

“By whose orders?”

“It was not an order, Ma’am,” Firkazzie said. “Charles Franklin requested your presence, and said it was very important.”

I started to laugh and caught myself before it turned into a hysterical bray. “What in hell is more important than negotiating with Earth?”

“I only carry the message,” Lieh said, stiffening and looking me firmly in the eye. I felt adequately chastened.

“Let’s go, then,” I said.

“We don’t have much time,” Firkazzie said. “We have to suit up and climb past the construction barriers.”

Dandy, Firkazzie, and Lieh accompanied me; all the others, senators and aides, were left behind, not essential to this task.

We took an elevator to the upper levels, two stories above the surface. I was too numb and confused to be concerned with politics and protocol. I felt the bleak threat of Mars devastated by Terrie power, by armies in the sands; I could not get over the thought that this pollution, this disruption had caused deaths already, and must end soon, or else. Dickinson had given me an unacceptable ultimatum — and I had no choice but to accept. What could anyone do or say that would change that?

I stood in a dim cold room while Dandy and Lieh dragged out suits, tested them and found them secure. We put them on and attached cyclers. The seals activated. My suit adjusted to my body automatically.

Lieh, Dandy, and an architect whose name I did not catch took me through a short maze of nutritional vats and construction slurry tanks. Beyond the safety barriers, the dark, silent hall opened onto a short, curved corridor, an open hatch with a blinking red low-pressure light, a glimpse of dark brown sky and scattered clouds reddening in the dawn.

We stood on a parapet overlooking Many Hills, surrounded by Schiaparelli Basin , twenty meters above the reddish-brown surface. Smooth scrubbed lava streaked with pockets of smear stretched for kilometers all around. The air was cold and still, the quiet profound. We had not turned on our suit radios for fear of attracting attention from assassins. Terrie ships could spot us from thousands of klicks and do whatever they wished to us.