Throughout the campaign speeches Maya stood on a terrace above the stage, which gave her a view of the backstage area, where Jackie and the rest of the Free Mars leadership were milling about, talking or listening as they waited for their turn in the spotlights. Antar was there, Ariadne, some others Maya half-recognized from recent news vids. Observation from a distance could be so revealing; down there she saw all the primate dominance dynamics that Frank used to go on about. Two or three of the men were fixed on Jackie, and, in a different way, a couple of the women. One of the men, named Mikka, was on the global executive council these days, a leader of the MarsFirst party. MarsFirst was one of the oldest political parties on Mars, formed to contest terms of the renewal of the first Mars treaty; Maya had been part of that, she seemed to recall. Now Martian politics had fallen into a pattern somewhat resembling European parliamentary countries, with a broad spectrum of small parties bracketing a few centrist coalitions, in this case Free Mars, the Reds, and the Dorsa Brevian matriarchy, with the others latching on, or filling gaps, or running off to the sides, all of them shifting this way and that in temporary alliances, to advance their little causes. In this array MarsFirst had become something like the political wing of the Red ecoteurs still in the outback, a nasty expedient unscrupulous organization, folded into the Free Mars super-majority for no good ideological reason; there had to be some kind of deal going on. Or something more personal; the way that Mikka followed Jackie, the way he regarded her; a lover, or very recent ex-lover, Maya would have bet on it. Besides which she had heard rumors to that effect.

Their speeches were all about beautiful wonderful Mars and how it was going to be ruined by overpopulation, unless they closed it to further Terran immigration. There was a strong case to be made for that point of view, actually, as could be told by the cheers and applause from the crowd. Their attitude was deeply hypocritical, as most of those applauding made their living from Terran tourists, and all of them were immigrants or the children of immigrants; but they cheered anyway. It was a good election issue. Especially if you ignored the risk of war, if you ignored the sheer immensity of Earth, and its primacy in human civilization. Defying it in this way. . . . Well, it didn’t matter; these people didn’t give a damn about Earth, and they didn’t understand it either. So defiance only made Jackie look more brave and beautiful, standing up for a free Mars. The ovation for her was loud and sustained; she had learned a lot since her maladroit speeches during the second revolution, she had gotten quite good. Very good.