“If we leave, it must be to venture closer to the sun, no?” Abdi asked.

“We haven’t decided,” I said.

“If that is so, there would be much greater effects than I have calculated. And my results already point to resumption of tectonics.”

“What would that mean? For all of us living here?” Wachsler asked.

“More marsquakes. Substantial activity along the old plate boundaries, perhaps. Volcanoes. There is no way to predict the long-term effects.”

“Short-term?” Wachsler asked.

“Several major marsquakes, but it would take decades before volcanism became widespread along new arcs of fire.”

“Would it be reversible?” Wachsler.asked.

“How do you mean?”

“Once we jiggled it, could we expect Mars to become stable again?”

“Not for perhaps tens of millions of years,” Abdi said. “Stability is stability. Instability is not.”

“Aelita?” Leander asked, patting his new offspring on its arbeiter carriage.

Aelita’s voice was smooth and huskily feminine. Its image, a long-faced, classically featured female with black hair cut in a short shag, reminded me of a Disney wicked queen. “Dr. Abdi’s conclusions seem reasonable. My libraries do not provide complete information about Mars’s interior.”

“You have all that’s available,” Leander said.

“Then I suggest we learn more,” Aelita said.

Abdi glanced around the table. He smiled.

“We will,” I said. “Dr. Abdi, we’ll need more information about Mars’s interior within twenty days.”

“Yes, Madam Vice President,” Abdi said happily. “Am I to understand — I will do a survey, on the quick, larger than that of Dr. Wegda himself?”

“Please,” I said. “It’s very important. You understand security requirements?”

“I do,” said Dr. Abdi solemnly.

“Doctor Wachsler, every station should make a structural report. How well can they withstand quakes? Do any stations lie directly over old plate boundaries?”

“A few.” Wachsler frowned and shook his head. “We’ve never designed stations to withstand heavy areologic activity.”

“Can they be strengthened?” I asked.

“Some stations sit on old alluvial soils. If there’s a major marsquake, every seam will be torn out, tunnels breached… You name it.”

“Those we’ll have to evacuate, won’t we?” I said. “We’ll meet with the folks in charge of civil preparations and discuss, that tomorrow. Dr. Wachsler, Dr. Abdi, I authorize you to draw funds from government accounting, tagged Black, Preamble. Aelita will monitor your experiments, and you will report every week to this committee.”

Wachsler stared at us as if we were all out of our minds. “I understand we’re dealing with some spectacular technologies here, but have you thought about the human impact?”

His note of condescension rankled me. “That’s almost all I’ve thought about, Doctor.”

“What could Earth possibly do to us that would be worse than what you’re contemplating? We’ve all seen the destruction at Melas Dorsa — but that’s nothing compared to hundreds of stations facing quakes.”

Charles raised his hand like a student in class. “May I answer?”

“Certainly,” I said.

“The locusts are just the beginning. In a few more months, they can turn Mars into a burnt cinder. If that isn’t enough, they can drop us into the sun, or shoot us out into space.”

Wachsler’s face went pale, but his dander was up. He obviously could not comprehend what Charles was saying, and was going to treat it as high exaggeration. He crinkled his eyes dubiously. “You truly believe this?”

Abdi said, “My dear doctor, was it trivial that a moon was shifted from its orbit, and moved instantly to the vicinity of Earth?”

“I only know what I was told,” Wachsler said stubbornly.

“I was there,” Leander said. “So was Charles.”

Wachsler shrugged. “All right,” he said. “Madam Vice President, I know my duty. But I must express my dismay that so much disruption and even destruction is contemplated, yet nobody is going to ask Martians what they want.”

“I wish there were time, and that we had the means,” I said.

“No, you don’t,” Wachsler said. “Not really. If Martians decided to vote this idea down, to stay where we are…”

“That could be suicide,” Charles said.

“Do we have the right to choose our fate?” Wachsler asked heatedly. “Or do you believe you can choose for us, because you are so much better informed?”

To this there was no good answer. Wachsler had expressed the dilemma admirably. “I hope we are judged less harshly, Doctor Wachsler,” I said quietly.

“Don’t count on it, Madam Vice President,” he said.

Charles stayed behind after the meeting ended. Aelita stayed as well. “We haven’t talked about Ilya,” he said.

“I’d rather not,” I said.

“Doctor Abdi reminded me… I’d like to express my sorrow. He was a wonderful man.”

“Please,” I said, looking away. It was all the more unbearable coming from Charles.

“Do you blame me for his death?” Charles asked, his voice plaintive.

“No,” I said. “How could I?”

“If I had died ten years ago, none of this would have happened… Not this way.”

“What kind of megalomania is that?” I asked.

“Without my contribution, we wouldn’t have built a tweaker for another five or ten years. Earth might have built it first.”

I stared at him, wondering whether I could maintain my careful mask of neutral efficiency. “I’m as much to blame as you are.”

“I need to know. Because if you blame me for that, I don’t think I could stand it. Really.”

Tears welled in his eyes. I turned away, absolutely unwilling to join him in a display of emotion. “Get yourself together,” I said, a little harshly.

“I’ve never felt more together and clear-headed in my entire life.”

“My head is not clear and I’m not at the top of my form. Please. Please.” I pounded the table with my fist. “Just please don’t.”

“I won’t,” he said,

“I spoke to Ti Sandra a few hours ago,” I said, swallowing and regaining my composure. “We have to choose where we’ll take Mars when the time comes. If it comes. And we’ll have to make a test run with Phobos.”

“I’ve been planning that,” Charles said. “We can take the Mercury and the original tweaker to Phobos within a few days. The larger tweakers should stay here.”

“We need to disperse the tweakers and thinkers, in case Earth makes another, more directed attempt to stop us.”

Charles looked away. “We could destroy all of our equipment,” he said. “Provide proof to Earth.”

“I’d do that in an instant,” I said, “if Earth could possibly believe us. They can’t. The stakes are too high. Politics and survival drive everything now.”

“I thought I’d make the suggestion. I would kill myself if I thought it would change the situation. If I thought I could stop your grieving.”

I glared at him. “I’d kill all of you, myself, if…” The admission startled me, and the last few words came out weakly, with a sudden decrease of breath. Charles did not seem startled or shocked.

“I envied Ilya. I remember you years ago,” he said after a pause of many seconds. “I’ve been with a fair number of women since, and none has had your strength of purpose, your conviction.”

“Purpose?” I asked. “Conviction?”

“I said to myself, ‘She’s as crazy as you are.’ ”

“Jesus,” I said, forcing a laugh.

“I believed I could rock the century-long status quo, discover how the universe worked. And you… I said you’d become President of Mars. Remember?”

“I’ll go back through my diaries and check it out,” I said. “Maybe you can read tarot after all this is settled.”

“It will never be settled,” Charles said. “Events this large never finish. You’ve never asked about my wife.”

“It’s none of my business.”

“She was a sweet woman, a true Martian. She stood by me for three years. She had a strong sense of duty, and she really tried. But eventually she left. She said she never knew where I was — what I was thinking.”