They spent long hours working, and at last it was real work. The ship had to be partially disassembled. The main body would be eventually parked in orbit near Phobos, and used as an emergency return vehicle. But twelve tanks from the outer lengths of the hub shaft had only to be disconnected from the Ares and prepped to become planetary landing vehicles, which would take the colonists down in groups of ten. The first lander was scheduled to descend as soon as it was decoupled and prepped; so they worked in round-the-clock shifts, spending a lot of time in EVA. They pulled in to the dining halls tired and ravenous, and conversations were loud; the ennui of the voyage seemed forgotten. One night Maya floated in the bathroom getting ready for bed, feeling stiffened muscles that she hadn’t heard from in months. Around her Nadia and Sasha and Yeli Zudov were chattering away, and in the warm wash of voluble Russian it suddenly occurred to her that everyone was happy — they were in the last moment of their anticipation, an anticipation that had lain in their hearts for half a lifetime, or ever since childhood — and now suddenly it had bloomed below them like a child’s crayon drawing of Mars, growing huge then small, huge then small, and as it yo-yoed back and forth it loomed before them in all its immense potential: tabula rasa, blank slate. A blank red slate. Anything was possible, anything could happen — in that sense they were, in just these last few days, perfectly free. Free of the past, free of the future, weightless in their own warm air, floating like spirits about to invest a material world… In the mirror Maya caught sight of the toothbrush-distorted grin on her face, and grabbed a railing to hold her position. It occurred to her that they might never be so happy again. Beauty was the promise of happiness, not happiness itself; and the anticipated world was often more rich than anything real. But this time who could say? This time might be the golden one at last.
She released the railing and spit toothpaste into a wastewater bag, then floated backwards into the hallway. Come what may, they had reached their goal. They had earned at least the chance to try.
Disassembling the Ares made a lot of them feel odd. It was, as John remarked, like dismantling a town and flinging the houses in different directions. And this was the only town they had. Under the giant eye of Mars, all their disagreements became taut; clearly it was critical now, there was little time left. People argued, in the open or under the surface. So many little groups now, keeping their own council… What had happened to that brief moment of happiness? Maya blamed it mostly on Arkady. He had opened Pandora’s box; if not for him and his talk, would the farm group have drawn so close around Hiroko? Would the medical team have kept such close council? She didn’t think so.
She and Frank worked hard to reconcile differences and forge a consensus, to give them the feeling they were still a single team. It involved long conferences with Phyllis and Arkady, Ann and Sax, Houston and Baikonur. In the process a relationship developed between the two leaders that was even more complex than their early encounters in the park; though that was part of it; Maya saw now, in Frank’s occasional flashes of sarcasm, of resentment, that he had been bothered by the incident more than she had thought at the time. But there was nothing to be done about it now.
In the end the Phobos mission was indeed given to Arkady and his friends, mainly because no one else wanted it. Everyone was promised a spot on a geological survey if they wanted one; and Phyllis and Mary and the rest of the “Houston crowd” were given assurances that the construction of base camp would go according to the plans made in Houston. They intended to work at the base to see that it happened that way. “Fine, fine,” Frank snarled at the end of one of these meetings. “We’re all going to be on Mars, do we really have to fight like this over what we’re going to do there?”
“That’s life,” Arkady said cheerfully. “On Mars or not, life goes on.”
Frank’s jaw was clenched. “I came here to get away from this kind of thing!”
Arkady shook his head. “You certainly did not! This is your life, Frank. What would you do without it?”
One night shortly before the descent, they gathered and had a formal dinner for the entire hundred. Most of the food was farm-grown: pasta, salad, and bread, with red wine from storage, saved for a special occasion.
Over a dessert of strawberries, Arkady floated up to propose a toast. “To the new world we now create!”
A chorus of groans and cheers; by now they all knew what he meant. Phyllis threw down a strawberry and said, “Look, Arkady, this settlement is a scientific station. Your ideas are irrelevant to it. Maybe in fifty or a hundred years. But for now, it’s going to be like the stations in Antarctica.”
“That’s true,” Arkady said. “But in fact Antarctic stations are very political. Most of them were built so that countries that built them would have a say in the revision of the Antarctic treaty. And now the stations are governed by laws set by that treaty, which was made by a very political process! So you see, you cannot just stick your head in sand crying ‘I am a scientist, I am a scientist!’ “ He put a hand to his forehead, in the universal mocking gesture of the prima donna. “No. When you say that, you are only saying, ‘I do not wish to think about complex systems!’ Which is not really worthy of true scientists, is it?”
“The Antarctic is governed by a treaty because no one lives there except in scientific stations,” Maya said irritably. To have their final dinner, their last moment of freedom, disrupted like this!
“True,” Arkady said. “But think of the result. In Antarctica, no one can own land. No one country or organization can exploit the continent’s natural resources, without the consent of every other country. No one can claim to own those resources, or take them and sell them to other people, so that some profit from them while others pay for their use. Don’t you see how radically different that is from the way the rest of the world is run? And this is the last area on Earth to be organized, to be given a set of laws. It represents what all governments working together feel instinctively is fair, revealed on land free from claims of sovereignty, or really from any history at all. It is, to say it plainly, Earth’s best attempt to create just property laws! Do you see? This is the way entire world should be run, if only we could free it from the straitjacket of history!”
Sax Russell, blinking mildly, said, “But Arkady, since Mars is going to be ruled by a treaty based on the old Antarctic one, what are you objecting to? The Outer Space Treaty states that no country can claim land on Mars, no military activities are allowed, and all bases are open to inspection by any country. Also no martian resources can become the property of a single nation — the UN is supposed to establish an international regime to govern any mining or other exploitation. If anything is ever done along that line, which I doubt will happen, then it is to be shared among all the nations of the world.” He turned a palm upward. “Isn’t that what you’re agitating for, already achieved?”
“It’s a start,” Arkady said. “But there are aspects of that treaty you haven’t mentioned. Bases built on Mars will belong to the countries that build them, for instance. We will be building American and Russian bases, according to this provision of the law. And that puts us right back into the nightmare of Terran law and Terran history. American and Russian businesses will have the right to exploit Mars, as long as the profits are somehow shared by all the nations signing the treaty. This may only involve some sort of percentage paid to UN, in effect no more than bribe. I don’t believe we should acknowledge these provisions for even a moment!”