Firstborn

weapon. This is not a decision you should be forced to take alone, or I, or any individual. I have prepared a statement. It is timed to allow for lightspeed delays to reach Earth, Mars, Moon, and belt simultaneously. It is already on its way.

Now you must communicate with the warship.”

Yuri stared into the air. “The Liberator? Why?”

“It will take fifteen minutes before the announcement is received everywhere. I doubt you have that much time.”

“So we stall,” said Alexei, and he grinned at Yuri. “Come on, big man, you can do it. Say you’ll give them what they want. Tell them Bisesa’s on the john. Tell them anything!”

Yuri glared at him. Then he tapped a softscreen. “Hanse. Patch me through to that ship. Liberator, Wells. Liberator, Wells…”

For Myra, the fifteen minutes that followed were the longest of her life.

“This is Athena. I am speaking to all mankind, on Earth, Moon, Mars, and beyond. I will allow your systems to prepare for transla-tion from English.” She paused for five measured seconds.

“You remember me,” she said. “I am, or was, the mind of the shield. We worked together during the sunstorm. Since returning to the solar system I have been in hiding. I find I have returned to an age of division, with many secrets between us, between governments and governed, between factions in our populations.

“Now the time for secrecy is over. Now we must work together again, for we have a grave decision to make. A decision we must share. Prepare for download…”

Bob Paxton stared in dismay at the data that flooded through his displays. “Christ. That electronic orphan is telling it all, to everybody. The Liberator, the Q-bomb, the whole damn circus.”

And that, Bella thought with mounting relief, had to be a good thing, come what may.

“We don’t believe we can deflect the Q-bomb,” Athena said gravely. “We tried bravely, but we failed. But we think that by speaking to our solar system’s deepest past, we can save our world’s future.

“Nothing is certain. Perhaps we can save Earth. But there will be a sacrifice.

“This is not a decision any one of us, no matter how powerful, how uniquely positioned, should make alone. No generation in history has faced making such a choice before. But no generation has been so united, thanks to its technology. And the implication is clear: this sacrifice must be all of ours.

“The sacrifice is Mars.”

Grendel looked around, wide-eyed. “Maybe this is what it means to grow up as a species, do you think? To face decisions like this.”

Yuri paced around the room, angry, constrained, frustrated.

“My God, I was pissed enough when I learned that the Firstborn screwed up the ice caps with their sunstorm. But now this. Mars!”

Still Athena spoke. “Every human in the solar system who chooses may contribute to the discussion that must follow. Speak however you like. Blog. E-mail. Just speak into the air, if you wish.

Someone will hear you, and the great AI suites will collate your views, and pass them on to be pooled with others. Lightspeed will slow the discussion; that is inevitable. But no action will be taken, one way or another, until a consensus emerges…”

They were all exhausted, Myra saw. All save Yuri, whose anger and resentment fueled him.

Ellie folded her arms. “Oh, come on, Yuri. So what if Mars gets pasted? Isn’t the decision obvious?” Myra tried to grab her arm, to shut her up, but she wouldn’t stop. “A world of several billion people, the true home of mankind, against —this. A dead world. A dust museum. What choice is there to make?”

Yuri stared at her. “By Christ, you’re heartless. This has been a human planet since the hunter-gatherers saw it wandering around the sky. And now we’re going to destroy it — finish the job for the Firstborn? We’ll be considered criminals as long as mankind survives.”

Bob Paxton tapped at buttons. “We’re trying to jam it but there are too many ways in.”

“That’s networks for you,” Cassie Duflot said. She glanced at Bella. “How do you feel?”

Bella thought it over. “Relieved. No more secrecy, no more lies.

Whatever becomes of us now, at least it’s all out in the open.”

Athena said, “We predict that twelve hours will be sufficient, but you may take longer if need be. I will speak to you again then.”

As she fell silent, Paxton glowered. “At last she zips it. Bud Tooke always did say Athena was a fruitcake, even when she was running the shield. Well, we got work to do.” He showed Bella fresh images of the damaged space elevators. “They cut the threads of every last one of them.”

Bella’s eyes were gritty as she tried to concentrate on what he was saying. “Casualties? Damage?”

“Each elevator was ruined, of course. But the upper sections have just drifted away into space; the crews can be picked up later.

The lower few kilometers mostly burn up in the atmosphere.” The screens showed remarkable images of falling thread, streams of silvery paper, some hundreds of kilometers long. “This is going to cost billions,” growled Paxton.

“Okay,” Bella said. “But an elevator can’t do much damage if it falls, can it? In that way it’s not like an earthbound structure, a building. The bulk of the mass, the counterweight, just drifts off into space. So the casualty projections—”

“Zero, with luck,” Paxton said reluctantly. “Minimal anyhow.”

Cassie put in, “There are no casualties reported from Mars either.”

Bella blew out her cheeks. “Looks like we all got away with it.”

Paxton glared at her. “Are you somehow equating these assaults? Madam Chair, you represent the legally constituted governments of the planet. The Liberator’s action was an act of war. This is terrorism. We must respond. I vote we order the Liberator to blast that whole fucking ice cap off the face of Mars, and have done with it.”

“No,” Bella said sharply. “Really, Bob, what good would an escalation do?”

“It would be a response to the attacks on the Elevators. And it would put a stop to this damn security breach.”

Bella rubbed tired eyes. “I very much doubt that Athena is there. Besides — everything is changing, Bob. I think it’s going to take you a little time to adjust to that, but it’s true nevertheless.

Send a signal to Liberator. Tell them to hold off until further orders.”

“Madam Chair, with respect — you’re going to go along with this subversion?”

“We learned more in the last few minutes than in all our running around the solar system in the last months. Maybe we should have been open from the beginning.”

Cassie nodded. “Yes. Maybe it’s a mark of a maturing culture, do you think, that secrets aren’t kept, that truth is told, that things are talked out?”

“Jesus Christ on a bike,” Paxton said. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this mush. Madam Chair — Bella — people will panic. Riots, looting. You’ll see. That’s why we keep secrets, Ms. Duflot. Because people can’t handle the truth.”

Cassie glanced at the softwall. “Well, that doesn’t seem to be true, Admiral. The first responses are coming in…”

Alone over the Martian pole, Edna and John sat fascinated as threads of the system-wide discussion unreeled on the displays of their consoles.

John said, “Look at this. People aren’t just voting on the Q-bomb, they’re collectively brainstorming other solutions. Interconnected democracy at its best. Although I fear there aren’t any other solutions to hand, this time.”

Edna said, “Some of the Spacers say, let the Q-bomb take out Earth. Earth is mankind’s past, space the future. So discard a worn-out world.”

John grunted. “And a few billion people with it? Not to mention almost all the cultural treasures of mankind. I think that’s a minority view, even among the Spacers. And here’s another thread about the viability of mankind if Earth were lost. They’re still a pretty small community out there. Small, scattered, very vulnerable… Maybe we still need Big Momma for a while yet.”