Vlad and Marina sent over frequent reports from their workshop on finances, each report sharpening and expanding their evolving concept of eco-economics. “It’s very interesting,” Nadia reported to Nirgal and Art in their nightly gathering on the knob patio. “A lot of people are critiquing Vlad and Marina’s original system, including the Swiss and the Bolognese, and they’re basically coming around to the conclusion that the gift system that we first used in the underground is not sufficient by itself, because it’s too hard to keep balanced. There are problems of scarcity and hoarding, and when you start to set standards it’s like compelling gifts from people, which is a contradiction. This is what Coyote always said, and why he set up his barter network. So they’re working toward a more rationalized system, in which basic necessities are distributed in a regulated hydrogen peroxide economy, where things are priced by calculations of their caloric value. Then when you get past the necessities, the gift economy comes into play, using a nitrogen standard. So there are two planes, the need and the gift, or what the Sufis in the workshop call the animal and the human, expressed by the different standards.”

“The green and the white,” Nirgal said to himself.

“And are the Sufis pleased with this dual system?” Art asked.

Nadia nodded. “Today after Marina described the relationship of the two planes, Dhu el-Nun said to her, ‘The Mevlana could not have put it any better.’ ”

“A good sign,” Art said cheerfully.

Other workshops were less specific, and therefore less fruitful. One, working on a prospective bill of rights, was surprisingly ill-natured; but Nadia quickly saw that this topic tapped into a huge well of cultural concerns. Many obviously considered the topic an opportunity for one culture to dominate the rest. “I’ve said it ever since Boone,” Zeyk exclaimed. “An attempt to impose one set of values on all of us is nothing but Ataturkism. Everyone must be allowed their own way.”

“But this can only be true up to a point,” said Ariadne. “What if one group here asserts its right to own slaves?”

Zeyk shrugged. “This would be beyond the pale.”

“So you agree there should be some basic bill of human rights?”

“This is obvious,” Zeyk replied coldly.

Mikhail spoke for the Bogdanovists: “All social hierarchy is a kind of slavery,” he said. “Everyone should be completely equal under the law.”

“Hierarchy is a natural fact,” Zeyk said. “It cannot be avoided.”

“Spoken like an Arab man,” Ariadne said. “But we are not natural here, we are Martian. And where hierarchy leads to oppression, it must be abolished.”

“The hierarchy of the right-minded,” Zeyk said.

“Or the primacy of equality and freedom.”

“Enforced if necessary.”

“Yes!”

“Enforced freedom, then.” Zeyk waved a hand, disgusted.