“Maybe so, but I still hate it.”

“Think of it as meta-architecture. Building the culture that allows architecture to exist. Then it’ll be less frustrating for you.”

Nadia snorted.

“This one should be a clear case,” Charlotte said. “The judgment has been made, they only have to abide by it.”

“What if they don’t?”

“Time for the police.”

“Civil war, in other words!”

“They won’t push it that far. They signed the constitution just like everyone else, and if everyone else is abiding by it, then they become outlaws, like the Red ecoteurs. I don’t think they’ll go that far. They’re just testing the limits.”

She did not seem annoyed by this. That was the way people were, her expression seemed to say. She did not blame anyone, she was not frustrated. A very calm woman, this Charlotte — relaxed, confident, capable. With her coordinating it, the executive council’s work had so far.been well organized, if not easy. If that competence was what growing up in a matriarchy like Dorsa Brevia did for you, Nadia thought, then more power to them. She couldn’t help but compare Charlotte to Maya, with all Maya’s mood shifts, her angst and self-dramatization. Well, it was probably an individual thing in any culture. But it was going to be interesting to have more Dorsa Brevia women around to take on these jobs.

At the next morning’s meeting Nadia stood and said, “An order against dumping water in Marineris has been issued already. If you persist in the dumping, the new police powers of the global community will be exerted. I don’t think anyone wants that.”

“I don’t think you can speak for the executive council,” Jackie said.

“I can,” Nadia said shortly.

“No you can’t,” Jackie said. “You’re only one of seven. And this isn’t a council matter anyway.”

“We’ll see about that,” Nadia said.

The meeting dragged on. The Cairenes were stonewalling. The more Nadia understood what they were doing the less she liked it. Their leaders were important in Free Mars; and even if this challenge failed, it might result in concessions to Free Mars in other areas; so the party would have gained more power. Charlotte agreed that this could be their ultimate motive. The cynicism of this disgusted Nadia, and she found it very hard to be civil to Jackie when Jackie spoke to her, with her easy cheerfulness, the pregnant queen cruising around among her minions like a battleship among row-boats: “Aunt Nadia, so sorry you felt you needed to take time for such a thing as this…”

That night Nadia said to Charlotte, “I want a ruling where Free Mars gets nothing at all out of this.”

Charlotte laughed briefly. “Been talking to Jackie, have you?”

“Yes. Why is she so popular? I don’t understand it, but she is!”

“She’s nice to a lot of people. She thinks she’s nice to everyone.”

“She reminds me of Phyllis,” Nadia said. The First Hundred again…“Maybe not. Anyway, isn’t there some sort of penalty we can invoke against frivolous suits and challenges?”

“Court costs, in some cases.”

“See if you can lay that on her then.”

“First let’s see if we can win.”

The meetings went on for another week. Nadia left the talking to Charlotte and Art. She spent the meetings looking out the windows at the canyon below, and in rubbing the stump of her finger, which now had a noticeable new bump on it. So strange; despite paying close attention, she could not recall when the bump had first appeared. It was warm and pink, a delicate pink, like a child’s lips. There seemed to be a bone in the middle of it; she was afraid to squeeze it very hard. Surely lobsters didn’t pinch their returning limbs. All that cell proliferation was disturbing — like a cancer, only controlled, directed — the miracle of DNA’s instructional abilities made manifest. Life itself, flourishing in all its emergent complexity. And a little finger was nothing compared to an eye, or an embryo. It was a strange business. With that going on, the political meetings looked really dreadful. Nadia walked out of one having heard almost none of it, though she was sure nothing significant had happened, and she went for a long walk, out to an overlook bulging out of the western end of the tent wall. She called Sax. The four travelers were getting closer to Mars; transmission delays were down to a few minutes. Nirgal appeared to be healthy again. He was in good spirits. Michel actually looked more drained than Nirgal; it seemed that the visit to Earth had been hard on him. Nadia held up her finger to the screen to cheer him up, and it worked. “A pinky, don’t they call it that?” “I guess so.”

“You don’t seem to believe it’s going to work.” “No. I guess I don’t.”

“We’re in a transitional period, I think,” Michel said. “At our age we can’t really believe that we’re still alive, so we act as if it will end at any minute.”

“Which it could.” Thinking of Simon. Or Tatiana Durova. Or Arkady.

“Of course. But then again it might go on for decades more, or even centuries. After a while we’ll have to start believing in it.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as her. “You’ll look at your whole hand and then you’ll believe it. And that will be very interesting.” Nadia wiggled the pink nub at the end of her hand. No fingerprint yet in the fresh translucent skin. No doubt when it came it would be the same fingerprint as the one on the other little finger. Very strange.

Art came back from one meeting looking concerned. “I’ve been asking around about this,” he said, “trying to figure out why they’re doing it. I put some Praxis operatives on the case, down in the canyon and back on Earth, and inside the Free Mars leadership.”

Spies, Nadia thought. Now we have spies.

“ — appears that they are making private arrangements with Terran governments concerning immigration. Building settlements and giving places to people from Egypt, definitely, and probably China too. It’s got to be a quid pro quo, but we don’t know what they’re getting in return from these countries. Money, possibly.”

Nadia growled.

In the next couple of days she met on-screen or in person with all the other members of the executive council. Marion was of course against pumping any more water into Mari-neris, and so Nadia needed only two more votes. But Mik-hail and Ariadne and Peter were unwilling to bring the police to bear if it could be avoided in any other way; and Nadia suspected they were not much happier than Jackie at the relative weakness of the council. They seemed willing to make concessions, to avoid an awkward enforcement of a court judgment they weren’t adamantly behind.

Zeyk clearly wanted to vote against Jackie, but felt constrained by the Arab constituency in Cairo, and the eyes of the Arab community on him; control of land and water were both important to them. But the Bedouin were nomadic, and besides, Zeyk was a strong supporter of the constitution. Nadia thought he would support her. That left one more to be convinced.

The relationship with Mikhail had never improved, it was as if he wanted to be closer to Arkady’s memory than she was. Peter she didn’t feel she understood. Ariadne she didn’t like, but in a way that made it easier; and Ariadne had come to Cairo as well. So Nadia decided to work on her first.

Ariadne was as committed to the constitution as most of the Dorsa Brevians, but they were localists as well, and were no doubt thinking about keeping some independence of their own from the global government. And they too were far from any water supply. So Ariadne had been wavering.

“Look,” Nadia said to her in a little room across the plaza from the city offices, “You’ve got to forget about Dorsa Brevia and think about Mars.” “I am, of course.”

She was irritated that this meeting was taking place; she would rather have dismissed Nadia out of hand. The merits of the case weren’t what mattered to her, it was just a matter of precedence, of not having to listen to any issei. It was power politics and hierarchy to these people now, they had forgotten the real issues involved. And in this damned city; suddenly Nadia lost her patience, and she almost shouted, “You’re not! You’re not thinking at all! This is the first challenge to the constitution, and you’re looking around for what you can get out of it! I won’t have it!” She waved a finger under Ariadne’s surprised face: “If you don’t vote to enforce the court ruling, then the next time something you really want comes up for a council vote you’ll see reprisals, from me. Do you understand?”