There at dinner, smiling, nodding, joking, sharing both families bounties, he stewed over the question nagging at him. He knew he could find no answers then, but things were beginning to make sense to him. Between what he had learned the night before and what he was learning there at the Waters family's happy table, he was beginning to fit some of the pieces together.
Now, he thought, if I can just live through the next few days, maybe I can shed some light on what's really going on around here.
20
THE NEXT FEW DAYS' NEGOTIATIONS WERE MORE OF THE same. Hawkes presided over the different factions, maintaining order between them, listening to them squabble, barely able to keep his patience. It was not that the ambassador had lost any of his skills. Hawkes was as much in command as ever. He simply could not believe how little there was for the concerned parties to debate, and yet how many times they could go around in the same circles.
After a week of getting absolutely nowhere, Benton Hawkes had had enough.
On the fifth day of negotiations, the ambassador came to the meeting room ready for blood. The attempts on his life were coming a little too often for him. He was beginning to feel as if even his luck could not hold out much longer. He had not taken to walking with a bodyguard yet. It was no sense of false bravado, he simply knew how many points a show of fear would cost him, and how little good armed escorts ever did anyone.
Besides, he thought, his fingers edging their way toward his gavel, if I have to listen to this bunch much longer, I think I might welcome a good fight.
Across the table from him, Ace Goth was covering the same ground he had the last fifteen times he had been given the floor.
"To hell with your proposals. I'm telling you right now, the workers of Mars aren't going to put up with much more." As everyone groaned he brushed his long sandy hair back behind his ears, then raised his voice, claiming, "Hey! I don't want to hear it. The corpor/na-tionals haven't lived up to their contract—any part of it— and everyone knows it."
"Mr. Ambassador," started Herbert Marrow, head of the Earth League delegation, "once again I have to state the obvious . . . so what? These people"—his hand waved in Goth's direction—"don't even have a legal right to be represented at this table—Red Planet's charter invalidates the creation of any unions. We all know this."
"I'll tell you what I don't know," growled Goth. "I'm not sure what you're so hot under the collar for, Marrow, bein' how this is supposed to be between us and Red Planet. But just in case the League has some stake in this I ain't been imprinted with yet, let me remind you that there is no union. You're the one that keeps talkin' about a union." Goth allowed his statement to undercut the League head's anger, then added coolly, "Of course, the failure of your management company to meet the points of your contract, those're the kinds of things that just might get some people to start up some unionlike activity."
"Like strikes?" demanded Marrow.
As Sam Waters tried to intercede, reminding everyone that no one had mentioned a strike, Goth roared back, "Maybe someone should mention strikes. Maybe that's just what we need around here."
"Strikes?" thundered Marrow. "Strikes are illegal, and you know it."
"Then maybe we'll just settle for a mass walkout."
"Do it," dared the league head, "and I promise that anyone who leaves his job will be fired . . . cut off without pay and without access to company housing or benefits." Hawkes shut his eyes, tired of the never-ending circles. As he began to lift his head, Marrow snarled, "You people want to live on the surface of Mars so bad, go ahead . . . walk out. That'll be the only place you'll be able to afford to live."
"Genocide," cried Goth. "That's their answer. Work our fathers and us and our children into the ground—then kill us off." The angry workman stood up so suddenly he sent his chair flying. "Genocide!"
"Not genocide, simply union busting." "But there is no union, you bastard." "That's what you'd like us to think.. We're supposed to be idiots who can't interpret talk of walkouts." "And we're not supposed to recognize the fact you don't intend to do anything on Mars except cultivate a race of slaves—"
"That's enough!" All heads turned toward Hawkes. "That is all, absolutely all I want to hear from the lot of you." The ambassador stood, staring at both Goth and Marrow. It took only a moment for them both to slide back down into their seats.
"I've had enough of this. Enough—do you hear? Ace? Herbert? Do you? This is it. This is the end. We've heard this same sloshing round robin day after day. Well, not tomorrow. Let me tell you about tomorrow."
Hawkes sat back down. His back ramrod straight, his hands on the desk before him, his arms looking as tense and strong as hydraulic lifts, he said, "Tomorrow everyone comes back here in the morning, ready to negotiate.
Negotiate. Understand? Not argue, bitch, complain, moan, bicker, quibble, quarrel, rant, boil, or brawl. Negotiate. And . . ." turning his attention squarely on Marrow, he added, "I'd like you to understand that I don't appreciate your team's stalling tactics. True, it makes sense—as long as the workers keep working, who cares what happens? But, no matter, I want it stopped." When their team leader assumed the properly wounded expression, Hawkes told him, "Nice reaction. A little insincere around the eyes, but eyes are tricky, aren't they? There isn't a
