And the careers of the twins, now in their fifties, had, at last, diverged. While, thanks to King and Earthshine, Penny had been gradually drawn into long-term diplomatic efforts to avert war in an increasingly polarised solar system, Stef was down on Mercury working on more studies of the Hatch. Right now the sisters were separated by something like two hundred million kilometres. It was scarcely possible for two human beings to be further apart, short of shipping one of them out to Proxima Centauri.
The bus rolled smoothly up to an airlock set in one dome’s curving wall. The uniformed staff, all smiling, ushered the guests off the bus.
Penny followed the crowd into the dome. The interior was crowded with low secondary buildings, but the dome roof itself was visible overhead, its brick and concrete reminding Penny of some great Roman ruin. Big strip lights hung from the roof, and there were screens with scrolling slogans in a Chinese script Penny couldn’t read. Meanwhile the surface space was evidently only part of this installation. Massive staircases, escalators and elevator towers invited the newcomers to descend to wide, brightly lit underground galleries, which looked like hives of industry and habitation. The design of the place, like a cross between a classical pantheon, a shopping mall, and some tremendous high-tech factory, was clearly constrained by the environment of Mars, but it seemed to have been achieved with a sense of vision that was lacking in too many offworld UN installations Penny had visited. She was hugely impressed, as she was no doubt meant to be.
Just inside the entrance plaza, an official party lined up in neat rows to meet the UN delegates. Military stood on guard, wearing Mars-colour-camouflage lightweight pressure suits. There was even a rank of children dressed in some traditional costume, swirling ribbons in fantastic low-gravity transitory sculptures that seemed to hang in the air. Drone cameras hovered overhead, capturing the moment.
The focus was on the seniors, of course. Sir Michael King as CEO of UEI, now eighty-two years old, had been a major facilitator of this conference, and he and his equally elderly colleagues were greeted individually by Chinese officials. But more Chinese came forward, some in military uniform, many in civilian clothes, closing in on the visitors. Penny saw that at least one guide had been assigned to every member of the visiting party.
Sure enough, one young man broke from the rest and approached her. ‘Colonel Kalinski?’
Penny tried not to flinch; even now, aged fifty-three, she tended to recoil from individual attention. ‘That’s me.’
‘My name is Jiang Youwei.’ He offered a hand, and she shook it. He was tall, slim, dark, composed. He wore a one-piece jumpsuit, utilitarian but smart, even elegant. She thought it made her own sparkly ISF uniform seem kind of obvious, gaudy. ‘I am twenty-four years old; I am a graduate student in theoretical physics here at our university, and I have been assigned as your personal guide during your stay here.’
His English was flawless, with a trace of an Australian accent, she thought, maybe tutored by natives of a nation now firmly embedded within the Greater Economic Framework back on Earth. And – for God’s sake – he was nearly thirty years younger than Penny.
‘Thanks, but I’m kind of self-reliant. I don’t really need—’
‘You are free to choose another companion, though I would be personally disappointed. In fact I volunteered. I have studied your and your sister’s work and career path, as much as has been made available to us. I am afraid the option of no companion at all is not available. There are, after all, security issues.’ He smiled easily. ‘Sooner me than one of those fellows with the guns, Colonel.’
She had to laugh, and gave in. ‘All right. So what’s on the agenda?’
‘We have twenty-four hours before the formal sessions begin. There are dinners later, and so forth. Some of your party are required for preliminary press conferences—’
‘Not me, thank the Great Galactic Ghoul,’ Penny said. King had warned her off; the public events would be formal dances of protocol and etiquette with no serious content, and as a mere science adviser she wouldn’t be needed.
‘Then you are free.’
‘Do I need to go and unpack?’
‘If you wish. Your bags are being transferred to your rooms, in the Cao Xi Obelisk itself, in fact. I can take you there if—’
‘Believe me, I’m fine. We flew out on a hulk ship like a fancy hotel. Not exactly what I’m used to. They even served coffee on the shuttle. I guess I’ve had enough pampering for now.’
He nodded. ‘Then would you like the guided tour?’
She patted his arm. ‘If I can’t get rid of you, I may as well make use of you.’
He laughed, and she decided, tentatively, that she liked him.
Jiang led her down an escalator into an underground level. From here, more walkways and cargo ramps descended even deeper into the Martian ground.
This seemed to be basically an industrial area; through glass walls she saw gleaming manufactories where robots and white-suited humans worked side by side to assemble impressive-looking machinery. People walked everywhere, bright, busy, or they rode smart-looking robot carts, and the halls were noisy with their chatter. There were few residences on this level, no dormitories or schools or hospitals, though she did spot a few shops and restaurants, and noodle bars where workers lined up patiently. She saw no obvious signs of security.
Jiang Youwei discreetly observed her. ‘You walk easily, though you are new to Mars.’
‘You say you know about me.’
He smiled. ‘I know you are a seasoned interplanetary traveller. That much is public knowledge. You have visited the moon, Mercury, and now Mars. I myself was born and raised on Mars, here in this city in fact, though my parents were originally from New Beijing. I have never left this planet.’
‘Well, you learn to adapt to the gravity, wherever you go. On the moon, you don’t so much run as bounce kangaroo style.’
‘Children discover these things for themselves, as I did. The human frame instinctively reaches for a minimal-energy solution to each mode of ambulation, though these solutions are quite different on each world.’
‘ “Minimal energy”, huh. I guess you really are a physicist.’
They paused by a window where robots and humans laboured to assemble a gadget, a long, heavy tube plastered with warning labels, like a finless missile.
‘An aquifer bomb,’ Jiang said. ‘Or at least the delivery system. The fissile material will be loaded into it away from the public areas.’
‘I should hope so. Part of your terraforming programme, right? The extraction of water from the aquifers.’
‘Indeed. No detonations are scheduled for the period of your stay. And in any event, none are allowed close enough to cause any risk to the monument.’
She peered in through the glass. ‘Golly gosh. All this heavy stuff right in the shop window – and right where dignitaries like me are going to come rolling in off the bus to see it! What a coincidence.’
He laughed. ‘One must put on a show. In fact the city’s primary product is more abstract.’
‘You mean the software and AI technology you export to Earth . . .’
They walked on.
‘You must understand this is a deliberate strategy. It was once a truism that interplanetary trade would forever be impractical because of the cost of transport. Not so. Our miners in the asteroid belt are already selling raw materials to UN nations on Earth, as well as to your colonies on the moon, as you know. But here at Obelisk we have created a hub of excellence in software and AI development. Of course, the transport costs to ship such products off-planet are minimal, merely a question of data transfer.
‘This was planned. Despite the priorities of survival, resilience and protection, from the beginning the city was built on a top-quality information technology infrastructure. Excellence in the education of the young was a priority; we have a system of rewarding achievement which – well . . .’ He smiled modestly. ‘You might call it social engineering, although I understand that term has negative connotations in the West. I can only say that it benefited me hugely, and this community, which has grown rich in intellectual capital.’