AVs! Eberly could hardly keep himself from whooping with glee. He’s showing audiovisuals, as if this was a scientific meeting. The audience will go to sleep on him!

Holly felt distinctly uncomfortable sitting next to Gaeta, but Eberly had told her to bring the stuntman to the meeting and she had followed his orders.

Gaeta had smiled his best when Holly called him. “Go to the rally with you? I’m not much for listening to speeches.”

“Dr. Eberly has asked specially that you come,” Holly had said to his image, from the safety of her office. “It would be a favor to him.”

“Eberly, huh?” Gaeta mulled it over for a moment. “Okay, why not? Then we can have dinner together afterward. Okay?”

Despite everything she knew about Gaeta, Holly wanted to say yes. Instead, “I’m sure Dr. Eberly would like to have dinner with you.”

“No, I meant you, Holly.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to.”

“Why not?”

She wanted to say, Because you’ve bedded every woman who’s been able to help you. Because you just think of me as a convenience, because you’re an insensitive macho bastard. Because I want you to care for me and all you care about is getting laid.

But she heard herself say, “Well, maybe. We’ll see.”

From his seat on the stage, Eberly saw Urbain’s audiovisuals in a weird foreshortening as they hovered in the air behind the speaker’s podium. Urbain was explaining them in a flat, unemotional monotone.

An organization chart. Then some quick telescope images of Titan that showed a blurry orange sphere. Urbain used a laser pointer to emphasize details that had no interest for Eberly. Or the rest of the audience, Eberly thought.

“And the final holo,” said Urbain. Eberly wanted to break into applause.

What appeared in three dimensions above the stage looked like a silver-gray tank.

“This is Alpha,” said Urbain, his voice taking on a glow of pride. “She will descend to the surface of Titan and begin the detailed exploration of that world, directed in real time by my staff of scientists and technicians.”

The tank lurched into motion, trundling back and forth on caterpillar treads, extending mechanical arms that ended in pincers or shovel-like scoops. Urbain stood to one side of the podium watching the machine, looking like a proud father gazing fondly at his child as it takes its first steps.

Wilmot, who had been sitting in the first row, climbed the steps onto the stage and advanced to the podium.

“A very impressive demonstration, Dr. Urbain, but I’m afraid your five minutes are up,” he said, his voice amplified for everyone to hear by the pin mike clipped to the lapel of his jacket.

A grimace of disappointment flashed across Urbain’s face, but he immediately turned off his palm-sized projector and made a smile for the audience.

“Thank you for your patience,” he said, then turned and took his seat on Eberly’s left. Not one person clapped his hands.

Wilmot, at the podium, said, “And now we have Mr. Ilya Timoshenko, from the Engineering Department. Mr. Timoshenko was born in Orel, Russia, and took his degree in electrical engineering…”

Eberly tuned out Wilmot’s drone and watched the crowd. There were lots of men and women out there who had also dressed in gray coveralls. My God, he realized: It’s like a team uniform. And almost half the crowd is wearing gray coveralls!

Timoshenko ambled up to the podium, nodding his thanks to Wilmot and then looking out at the audience. He tried to smile, but on his dour face it looked more like a grimace.

“I won’t need five minutes,” he said, his voice rough, gravelly. “What I have to say is very simple. Dr. Urbain says you should vote for him because he’s a scientist. Dr. Eberly is going to tell you to vote for him because he’s not a scientist.”

A few people laughed.

“I ask you to vote for me because I’m a working stiff, just as most of you are. I’m not a department head. I’m not a boss. But I know how to get people to work together and I’m one of you. I’ll look out for your interests because I’m one of you. Remember that when you vote. Thank you.”

And he turned and went back to his seat. No applause. The audience was too surprised at the abruptness of his presentation.

Wilmot looked startled for a moment, but then he rose and went purposefully to the podium.

“Thank you, Mr. Timoshenko,” Wilmot said, looking over his shoulder at the engineer. Turning back to the audience he said, “I think we should give Mr. Timoshenko a hearty round of applause, for being so brief, if for no other reason.”

Wilmot started clapping his meaty hands together and the crowd quickly joined in. The applause was perfunctory, Eberly thought, and it quickly faded away.

“Our final candidate,” said Wilmot, “is Dr. Malcolm Eberly, head of the Human Resources section and chief architect of the proposed constitution that we will vote on, come election day.”

Without a further word of introduction, he turned halfway toward Eberly and said simply, “Dr. Eberly.”

Several dozen people scattered through the audience got to their feet, applauding loudly, as Eberly rose and stepped to the podium. Others looked around and slowly, almost reluctantly, got up from their seats, too, and began to clap. By the time Eberly gripped the edges of the podium half the audience was on their feet applauding. Sheep, thought Eberly. Most people are nothing better than stupid sheep. Even Wilmot was standing and clapping halfheartedly, too polite to do otherwise.

Eberly gestured for silence and everyone sat down.

“I suppose I should say that I’m not a politician, either,” he began. “Or at least, I wasn’t one until I came into this habitat.

“But if there is one thing that I’ve learned during our long months of travel together, it is this: Our society here must not be divided into classes. We must be united. Otherwise we will fragment into chaos.”

He turned slightly to glance at Urbain. Then, looking squarely at his audience again, Eberly said, “Do you want to be divided into scientists and non-scientists? Do you want a small, self-important elite to run your government? What makes these scientists believe that they should be in charge? Why should you have to take orders from an elite group that puts its own goals and its own needs ahead of yours?”

The audience stirred.

Raising his voice slightly, Eberly said, “Did the scientists help to draft the constitution that you will vote on? No. There was not a single scientist on the drafting committee. They were all too busy with their experiments and observations to bother about the way we’re going to live.”

Urbain began to protest, “But we were not asked—”

Wilmot turned off Urbain’s lapel mike. “Rebuttals will come after the first position statements,” he said firmly.

Urbain’s face went red.

Suppressing a satisfied grin, Eberly said, “Our new government must be managed by people from every section of our population. Not only scientists. Not only engineers or technicians. We need the factory laborers and farmers, the office workers and maintenance technicians, butchers and bakers and candlestick makers. Everyone should have a chance to serve in the new government. Everyone should share in the authority and responsibility of power. Not just one tiny group of specialists. Everyone.”

They got to their feet with a roar of approval and applauded like thunder. Eberly smiled at them glowingly.

Wilmot stood up and motioned for them to stop. “Your applause is eating into Dr. Eberly’s allotted time,” he shouted over their clapping.

The applause petered out and everyone sat down.

Eberly lowered his head for a moment, waiting for them to focus their complete attention on him. Then he resumed:

“I’ll tell you one other thing we need in our new government. A person at its head who understands that we must be united, that we must never allow one elite group to gain power over the rest of us. We need a leader who understands the people, a leader who will work tirelessly for everyone, and not merely the scientists.”