But before the crowd dispersed, Hiroko stood at the back of the Zygote crowd, and walked slowly into the center of the circle. She wore a bamboo-green jumper, and no jewelry— a tall slight figure, white-haired, unprepossessing— and yet every eye there was locked onto her. And when she lifted her hands, everyone seated got to their feet. In the silence that followed, Nadia’s breath caught in her throat. We should stop now, she thought. No meetings— this is it right here, our presence together, our shared reverence for this single person.

“We are children of Earth,” Hiroko said, loud enough for all to hear. “And yet here we stand, in a lava tunnel on the planet Mars. We should not forget how strange a fate that is. Life anywhere is an enigma and a precious miracle, but here we see even better its sacred power. Let’s remember that now, and make our work our worship.”

She spread her hands wide, and her closest associates walked humming into the center of the circle. Others followed suit, until the space around the Swiss was full of a milling horde of friends, acquaintances, strangers.

• • •

The workshops were held in gazebos scattered through the parks, or in three-walled rooms in the public buildings that edged these parks. The Swiss had assigned small groups to run the workshops, and the rest of the conferees attended whichever meetings interested them the most, so that some involved five people, others fifty.

Nadia spent the first day wandering from workshop to workshop, up and down the four southernmost segments of the tunnel. She found that quite a few people were doing the same, none more so than Art, who appeared to be trying to observe all the workshops, so that he caught only a sentence or two at each site.

She dropped in on a workshop discussing the events of 2061. She was interested, although not surprised, to find in attendance Maya, Ann, Sax, Spencer, and even Coyote, as well as Jackie Boone and Nirgal, and many others. The room was packed. First things first, she supposed, and there were so many nagging questions about ‘61: What had happened? What had gone wrong, and why?

Ten minutes’ listening, however, and her heart sank. People were upset, their recriminations heartfelt and bitter. Nadia’s stomach knotted in a way it hadn’t in years, as memories of the failed revolt flooded into her.

She looked around the room, trying to concentrate on the faces, to distract herself from the ghosts within. Sax was watching birdlike as he sat next to Spencer; he nodded as Spencer asserted that 2061 taught them that they needed a complete assessment of all the military forces in the Martian system. “This is a necessary precondition for any successful action,” Spencer said.