“We’re not trying to.”
“Then why are you trying to cut me out of the talks!”
“I’m not!” John looked injured. “Relax, Frank. We’ll hammer it out together just like we always have. Relax.”
Frank stared at his old friend, nonplussed. What to believe? He had never known how to think of John – the way he had used Frank as a springboard, the way he was so friendly … hadn’t they begun as allies, as friends?
It occurred to him that John was looking for Maya. “So where is she?”
“Around somewhere,” Boone said shortly.
It had been years since they had been able to talk about Maya. Now Boone gave him a sharp look, as if to say it was none of his business. As if everything of importance to Boone had become, over the years, none of Frank’s business.
Frank left him without a word.
The sky was now a deep violet, streaked by yellow cirrus clouds. Frank passed two figures wearing white ceramic dominoes, the old Comedy and Tragedy personas, handcuffed together. The city’s streets had gone dark and windows blazed, silhouettes partying in them. Big eyes darted in every blurry mask, looking to find the source of the tension in the air. Under the tidal sloshing of the crowd there was a low tearing sound.
He shouldn’t have been surprised, he shouldn’t. He knew John as well as one could know another person; but it had never been any of his business. Into the trees of the park, under the hand-sized leaves of the sycamores. When had it been any different! All that time together, those years of friendship; and none of it had mattered. Diplomacy by other means.
He looked at his watch. Nearly eleven. He had an appointment with Selim. Another appointment. A lifetime of days divided into quarter hours had made him used to running from one appointment to the next, changing masks, dealing with crisis after crisis, managing, manipulating, doing business in a hectic rush that never ended; and here it was a celebration, Mardi Gras, Fassnacht! and he was still doing it. He couldn’t remember any other way.
He came on a construction site, skeletal magnesium framing surrounded by piles of bricks and sand and paving stones. Careless of them to leave such things around. He stuffed his coat pockets with fragments of brick just big enough to hold. Straightening up, he noticed someone watching him from the other side of the site – a little man with a thin face under spiky black dreadlocks, watching him intently. Something in the look was disconcerting, it was as if the stranger saw through all his masks and was observing him so closely because he was aware of his thoughts, his plans.
Spooked, Chalmers beat a quick retreat into the bottom fringe of the park. When he was sure he had lost the man, and that no one else was watching, he began throwing stones and bricks down into the lower town, hurling them as hard as he could. And one for that stranger too, right in the face! Overhead the tent framework was visible only as a faint pattern of occluded stars; it seemed they stood free, in a chill night wind. Air circulation was high tonight, of course. Broken glass, shouts. A scream. It really was loud, people were going crazy. One last paving stone, heaved at a big lit picture window across the grass. It missed. He slipped further into the trees.
Near the southern wall he saw someone under a sycamore – Selim, circling nervously. “Selim,” Frank called quietly, sweating. He reached into his jumper pocket, carefully felt in the bag and palmed the trio of stem patches. Synergy could be so powerful, for good or ill. He walked forward and roughly embraced the young Arab. The patches hit and penetrated Selim’s light cotton shirt. Frank pulled back.
Now Selim had about six hours. “Did you speak with Boone?” he asked.
“I tried,” Chalmers said. “He didn’t listen. He lied to me.” It was so easy to feign distress: “Twenty-five years of friendship, and he lied to me!” He struck a tree trunk with his palm, and the patches flew away in the dark. He controlled himself. “His coalition is going to recommend that all Martian settlements originate in the countries that signed the first treaty.” It was possible; and it was certainly plausible.
“He hates us!” Selim cried.
“He hates everything that gets in his way. And he can see that Islam is still a real force in people’s lives. It shapes the way people think, and he can’t stand that.”
Selim shuddered. In the gloom the whites of his eyes were bright. “He has to be stopped.”
Frank turned aside, leaned against a tree. “I – don’t know.”
“You said it yourself. Talk means nothing.”
Frank circled the tree, feeling dizzy. You fool, he thought, talk means everything. We are nothing but information exchange, talk is all we have!
He came on Selim again and said, “How?”
“The planet. It is our way.”
“The city gates are locked tonight.”
That stopped him. His hands started to twist.
Frank said, “But the gate to the farm is still open.”
“But the farm’s outer gates will be locked.”
Frank shrugged, let him figure it out.
And quickly enough Selim blinked, and said “Ah.” Then he was gone.
Frank sat between trees, on the ground. It was a sandy damp brown dirt, product of a great deal of engineering. Nothing in the city was natural, nothing.
After a time he got to his feet. He walked through the park, looking at people. If I find one good city I will spare the man. But in an open area masked figures darted together to grapple and fight, surrounded by watchers who smelled blood. Frank went back to the construction site to get more bricks. He threw them and some people saw him, and he had to run. Into the trees again, into the little tented wilderness, escaping predators while high on adrenalin, the greatest drug of all. He laughed wildly.
Suddenly he caught sight of Maya, standing alone by the temporary platform up at the apex. She wore a white domino, but it was certainly her: the proportions of the figure, the hair, the stance itself, all unmistakably Maya Toitovna. The first hundred, the little band; they were the only ones truly alive to him any more, the rest were ghosts. Frank hurried toward her, tripping over uneven ground. He squeezed a rock buried deep in one coat pocket, thinking Come on, you bitch. Say something to save him. Say something that will make me run the length of the city to save him!
She heard his approach and turned. She wore a phosphorescent white domino, with metallic blue sequins. It was hard to see her eyes.
“Hello, Frank,” she said, as if he wore no mask. He almost turned and ran. Mere recognition was almost enough to do it …
But he stayed. He said, “Hello, Maya. Nice sunset, wasn’t it?”
“Spectacular. Nature has no taste. It’s just a city inauguration, but it looked like Judgement Day.”
They were under a streetlight, standing on their shadows. She said, “Have you enjoyed yourself?”
“Very much. And you?”
“It’s getting a little wild.”
“It’s understandable, don’t you think? We’re out of our holes, Maya, we’re on the surface at last! And what a surface! You only get these kind of long views on Tharsis.”
“It’s a good location,” she agreed.
“It will be a great city,” Frank predicted. “But where do you live these days, Maya?”
“In Underhill, Frank, just as always. You know that.”