That uncertainty would delay any GECO on the south, Nadia thought; in essence the court had to try to correlate all the current data, and evaluate the models, and then prescribe a sea level, and approve all watersheds accordingly. The fate of Argyre Basin in particular seemed impossible to decide at this point, before there was a northern plan; some plans called for pumping water up into Argyre from the northern sea if the northern sea got too full, to avoid flooding the Marineris canyons, South Fossa, and the new harbor towns being built. Radical Reds were already threatening to build “west-bank settlements” all over Argyre to forestall any such move.

So the GEC had yet another big issue to solve. Clearly it was becoming the most important political body on Mars; with the constitution and its own previous rulings to guide it, it was ruling on almost every aspect of their future. Nadia thought that was probably as it should be; or at least that there was nothing wrong with it. They needed decisions with global ramifications reviewed globally, that was what it came down to.

But come what may in the courts, a provisional plan for the southern hemisphere had at least been formulated. And to everyone’s surprise, the GEC gave the plan a positive preliminary judgment very soon after it was submitted— because, their ruling said, it could be activated in stages as water fell on the south, and it proceeded in much the same fashion through its first stages no matter what the eventual sea level in the north became. So there was no reason to delay beginning.

Art came in beaming with the news. “We can begin plumbing,” he said.

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