Firstborn

the first time he had spoken since coming aboard.

Bella laid her hand flat on the table, a gentle gesture that nevertheless commanded their attention. “Because this is neutral ground for Earthborn and Spacers, or as near as I could come up with.

Somehow we seem to have gotten through the Q-bomb crisis, though we fought like cats in a sack in the process. Well, now we need a new way of getting along.”

Alexei said, “I heard you’re standing down after Christmas.”

“More than that,” Paxton growled. “Madam Chair here is probably going to face a war crimes tribunal. As, in fact, am I.”

Lyla frowned. “But what of the attacks on the elevators? Who’s going to be held responsible for that?”

“I am happy to stand trial,” Athena said firmly, “if it will protect those whose actions I influenced.”

Alexei laughed. “They can’t put an AI on trial.”

“Of course they can,” Bella said. “Athena has rights. She is a Legal Person (Non-Human). But with rights come responsibilities.

She can be tried, just as much as I can be. Though I don’t think anybody has worked out what her sentence might be, if she’s found guilty…”

Athena said, “These trials will be played out in full public view, before courts representing both Earth and Spacer communities.

Whatever the outcome I hope it will be part of the reconciliation process. The healing.”

Bella said, “We all did what we thought we had to do. But that’s all in the past. The Q-bomb changed everything. It’s all different now.”

Lyla studied her curiously. “Different how?”

“For one thing, the politics…”

The species-wide debate forced by Athena on the decision to deflect the bomb had been a brief, traumatic shock to the political system. Perhaps it was a culmination of tensions that had been building up for decades among an increasingly interconnected mankind. Afterward, it hadn’t proven possible to shut down the debate.

“Everything is fluid, since the vote. There are new factions, new interest and protest groups, new sorts of lobbies. On Earth the last barriers between the old nations are being kicked down. Across the system people are ignoring the old categories, and are uniting with others with whom they find common cause, whichever world they happen to live on. An interconnected democracy is taking over, a mass, self-correcting wisdom, whether we like it or not.

Maybe it was good that our first great exercise in using our collective voice was over something we could pretty much unite around — in the end, perhaps, the Firstborn have done us a favor.

But that voice hasn’t been stilled.”

Alexei faced his father. “Look, Dad. Things have got to change in space, too. I mean the relationship between Spacers and Earth.”

“Between you and me, you mean,” said Bill Carel.

“That too. The idea that Earth can impose its will on space is a fantasy, no matter how many antimatter warships you build.”

In December 2070, there had been no declaration of independence; there were no Spacer nations, and at present all Spacers were colonists, formally owing their allegiance to one of Earth’s old nations or another. The Spacers had their own internal rivalries, of course. But as they looked back to an Earth reduced to a blue lamp in the sky, if they could see it at all, it was increasingly difficult for them to think of themselves as American Spacers versus Albanian, British Spacers versus Belgian…

“ ‘Spacer’ is an absurd label, really. A negative one that actually means ‘not of Earth.’ We’re all different, and we all have our own opinions.”

“You got that right,” Bob Paxton growled. “More opinions than fucking Spacers.”

“My point is, you can’t control us anymore. We can’t even control ourselves — and wouldn’t want to. We’re on a new road, Dad, and even we don’t know where it will lead.”

“Or what you will become,” said Carel. “But I have to let you go come what may, don’t I?”

Alexei smiled. “I’m afraid so.”

And there, Bella knew, was the subtext in the conversation between Earth and Spacers. If the mother world released her grip, she would lose her children forever.

Bob Paxton grunted. “Christ, I feel like blubbing.”

“All right, Bob,” Bella said. “Look, it’s a serious point. One of my last executive orders will be to initiate a new constitutional convention for all of us — Earth and the whole solar system—

based on recognized human rights precedents. We do not want a world government, I don’t think. What we do need are new mechanisms, new political forms to recognize the new fluidity. No more power centers,” she said. “No more secrets. We still need mechanisms to unify us, to ensure justice and equality of resource and opportunity — and fast-response agencies when crises hit.”

“Such as when the Firstborn take another swipe,” Paxton said.

“Yes. But we need ways to cope with threats without sacrificing our liberties.” She looked around at their faces, open or cynical.

“We have no precedent for how a civilization spanning several worlds is supposed to run itself. Maybe the Firstborn know; if they do they aren’t telling. I like to think that this is the next stage in our maturity as a culture.”

“Maturity? That sounds utopian,” Bill Carel said cautiously.

Bob Paxton grunted. “Yeah. And let’s just remember that however many heads you Spacer mutants grow, we’re all going to continue to be united by one thing.”

“The Firstborn,” Lyla said.

“Damn right,” Paxton said.

“Yes,” said Bella. “So take us through the new proposals, Bob.

The next phase of Fortress Sol.”

He looked at her, alarmed. “You sure about that, Madam Chair?”

“Openness, Bob. That’s the watchword now.” She smiled at the others. “Bob and his Committee of Patriots have been working on priorities. Even though their own legal status is under review, following events.”

Alexei smiled. “Can’t keep you old sky warriors down, eh, Admiral Paxton?”

Paxton looked ready to murder him. Bella laid a hand on his arm until he had calmed.

“Very well. Priority one. We need to act now. Between the sunstorm and the Q- bomb we had a generation to prepare. Granted we didn’t know what was coming. But in retrospect we didn’t do enough, and we can’t make that mistake again. The one good thing about the Q-bomb is the way it’s going to mobilize public opinion and support for such measures.

“Priority two. Earth. A lot of us were shaken up when you ragged-ass Spacers snipped the space elevators. We always knew how vulnerable you were in your domes and butterfly spaceships.

We didn’t know how vulnerable Earth was, though. The fact is we’re interconnected to a spaceborne economy. So we’re talking about robustifying Earth.”

Lyla grinned. “Nice word.”

“Homes like bunkers. Ground-based power sources, comms links, via secure optic-fiber cables. That kind of thing. Enough to withstand a planetary siege. Parameters to be defined.

“Priority three. And here’s the key,” Paxton said now, leaning forward, intent. “We got to disperse. We’ve got significant colonies off Earth already. But the wargamers say that if Earth had been taken out by the Q-bomb, it’s unlikely the Spacer colonies could have survived into the long term. Just too few of you, a gene pool too small, your fake ecologies too fragile, all of that.

“So we have to beef you up. Make the species invulnerable even to the loss of Earth.” He grinned at the young Spacers. “I’m talking massive, aggressive migration. To the Moon, the outer planet moons, space habs if we can put them up fast enough. Even Venus, which was so fucked over by the sunstorm it might be possible to live there. Maybe we can even start flinging a few ships to the stars, go chase those Chinese.”

“But it won’t work,” Alexei said. “Not even if you have a million people on Venus, say, under domes, and breathing machine air.

They’ll be just as vulnerable as we are now.”