The networks of communication set up by amateurs in the preceding days were charted, formalized, organized, made ready for further duties. We would not be caught so vulnerable again. In stations across Mars, engineers rigged simpler, more secure dataflow systems, setting us back fifty years or more, but guaranteeing that we would breathe, drink clean water, see no more the vivid horror of vacuum rose in blown-out tunnels.

Mars began counting its dead, and every horror was broadcast around the Triple. Earth’s tactics had backfired — for the time being.

Alice One and Two were among the casualties. Half of the high-level thinkers could not be reactivated. Their memory stores were salvaged, and portions of personality could be recorded for use in other thinkers, but the essence — the soul of the thinker — was gone. I could not mourn her; there was too much to mourn. If I began to mourn, it would never stop; and I still waited for word of Ilya and Ti Sandra.

For two days, shuttles and trains coursed into the new capital, bringing legislators, jurists, eager to re-confirm the Republic’s independence, its very existence; bringing fresh equipment, experts determined to sweep again and clean out the pollution of Earth.

For two days, I coordinated as President, knowing my position was temporary — believing but not knowing for sure that Ti Sandra was alive somewhere. I worried that she did not present herself now. It wasn’t like her not to take the slight risk. Politics demanded that she return, if only to reassure the citizens of Mars.

I did not sleep, barely had time to eat, and I moved from station to station around Arabia Terra by train and shuttle, spending no more than a few hours in one place at any time. We did not trust Earth’s statements. Once betrayed, a hundred times shy.

Five days after the Phobos transfer, I was invited to observe its return from an observation dome in Paschel Station near Cassini Basin . The governor of Arabia Terra, Lexis Caer Cameron, three of her top aides, Dandy Breaker, and Lieh Walker stood beside me under a broad plastic dome. We lifted glasses of champagne, looking east this time.

“I wish to hell I knew what this all means,” Governor Cameron said.

“So do I,” I said.

Lieh ventured a rare opinion. “It means we never have to knuckle under again.”

I smiled but could not share her optimism. Our triumph would be short-lived.

“Thirty seconds,” Lieh said.

We waited. I could barely think through my accumulated exhaustion. I needed a full body cleanse; hell, I felt as if I could use a whole new body.

Phobos winked into existence, a crescent rising nine or ten degrees above the horizon. After a few measurements by Lieh, we confirmed that Phobos was back in its proper orbit.

The scary dog was home, apparently none the worse for its journey.

I did not drink my champagne. Thanking the governor, I handed her my glass, and Dandy escorted me quickly from the center. No time to linger…

Lieh made connections with new satcoms and showed me LitVid reaction throughout the Triple. I watched and listened silently, beyond numbness and into frozen isolation.

I hadn’t heard of Ilya since the Freeze — the name assigned by Martian LitVids to the brief war.

Around the Triple, the sense of outrage against Earth had flared, subsided, and flared anew, into a call for general boycotts by all space resource providers. That wasn’t practical — Earth had stockpiled resources for several years, as a hedge against market fluctuations. But the political repercussions would be serious.

Engineers in asteroid cities descended in close floating ranks on Terrie consulates, demanding explanations for the aggression.

The Moon, predictably, tried to keep a low profile. But even on the Moon, independent nets bristled with fearful, angry calls for resignations, investigations, recall plebiscites. A few independent Lunar BMs expressed solidarity with the beleaguered Federal Republic of Mars. I could feel the fear echoing across the Solar System, especially in the vulnerable Belts. Nobody in the Triple could trust the old Mother now.

Finally, the President of the United States of the Western Hemisphere asked for an investigation into the causes of the conflict. “We must understand what happened here, and discover who took it upon themselves to give these orders, and do these things,” he concluded, “in order to avoid even worse disasters in the future.”

“Look to your own house,” I murmured. I trusted nothing spoken by Terrie politicians.

“This is very interesting,” Lieh said, placing her slate before me. She had worked her way through several layers to a small and exclusive Terrie advisement net called Lumen. She didn’t tell me how she’d accessed such a subscription — Mars had its penetrators and seekers after forbidden knowledge, and no doubt Point One had recruited many of the best. “This went out to subscribers about six hours ago.”

A handsome elderly woman with weary, wrinkled features and an immaculately tailored green suit sat stiffly in flat image, talking and calling up text reports from around Earth. At first glance, the program seemed dull and old-fashioned even by Martian standards. But I forced myself to listen to what was being said.

“No nation or alliance has taken responsibility for starting the action against Mars, and no pundit has given an adequate explanation for why any authority would do so. The calls for plebiscite judgment, absent any clear perpetrators, worries this observer a great deal… I think we are dealing, yet again, with gray eminences who have sealed themselves away from plebiscites, above even the alliances, and I look for them in the merged minds who ride the greatest and most secure Thinkers, those which oversee Earth’s estate and financial situation. Arising from the old system of national surveillance established in the United States over a century and a half ago, once limited to oversight alone, these merged minds — rumored but never confirmed — have become the greatest processors of data in human history.

“With the transfer of space defense to the alliances, they may not be limited to advisement now; they may have decided to wield power. If so, then our subscribers may wish to withdraw from all dataflux markets for the next few months or even years. Something is moving bigger than mere individuals can withstand.”

Even in the exhaustion, I shivered. “Have you heard of them?” I asked Lieh.

“Only as silly rumors,” Lieh said. “But this is an expensive advisement net. Maybe thirty thousand legal subscribers. Supposedly, rash or silly statements are never made here.“

“A small group mind,” I said softly. “Above the common herd. Sending orders down through alliances, through nations. Who, most likely?”

“Heads of GEWA,” Lieh suggested. “They have control of Solar System defense.”

Dandy shifted in his seat. “I’ve seen and heard enough scary stuff for one lifetime,” he said.

Unofficially, Mars was on wartime footing, and by the rules of the constitution, acting as President until Ti Sandra’s return, I had extraordinary powers…

But even my extraordinary powers could not extend to Cailetet. We had to treat it as a sovereign foreign nation; we could declare war, of sorts, and we would, but it would be a war of finance. I worried about Stan and hoped that he was using all of his considerable intelligence to keep himself and his family safe.

Damage reports came rapidly now. Station by station, region by region, lists of dead, missing, accounts of damages, requests for emergency aid, all crowded the restored channels. Point One transferred the calls to the government net, and Lieh drew them from the legislative and presidential channel, condensing and editing.

So little was known about some regions, still. Dataflow had not been re-established everywhere; some thinkers in key positions had apparently “died” and could not be brought up again.