Michel woke her up some other night: on the other side of the planet Armscor security units supposedly integrated into Subarashii had taken control of the elevator from regular Subarashii police, and in the hour of uncertainty a group of Marsfirsters had tried to seize the new Socket outside Sheffield. The attempt had failed, and most of the assault group had been killed, and Subarashii had ended up back in control of Sheffield and Clarke and everything in between, and most of Tharsis as well. Now it was late afternoon there, and a huge crowd had appeared on the streets of Sheffield to demonstrate against the violence, or the takeover, it was impossible to say; it had no purpose; groggily Maya watched with Michel as police units in walkers and helmets cut the demonstrating groups into segments, and drove them off with tear gas and rubber batons. “Fools!” Maya cried. “Why are they doing this! They’ll bring down the whole Terran military on our heads!”

“It looks like they’re dispersing,” Michel said as he stared into the little screen. “Who knows, Maya. Images like this may galvanize people. They win this battle, but they lose support everywhere.”

Maya splayed out over a couch in front of the screen, not yet awake enough to think. “Maybe,” she said. “But it’s going to be harder than ever to hold people back as long as Sax wants.”

Michel waved this off, face to the screen. “How long can he expect you to manage that?”

“I don’t know.”

They watched as the Mangalavid reporters described the riots as terrorist-sponsored violence. Maya groaned. Spencer was at another AI screen, talking to Nanao in Sabishii. “Oxygen is rising so fast, there has to be something out there without suicide genes. Carbon dioxide levels? Yeah, dropping fast as well. . . . A bunch of really good carbon-fixing bacteria out there, proliferating like a weed. I’ve asked Sax about it and he just blinks. . . . Yeah, he’s as out of control as Ann. And she’s out there sabotaging every project she can get her hands on.”

When Spencer got off, Maya said to him, “Just how long is Sax going to want us to hold out?”

Spencer shrugged. “Until we get something he thinks is a trigger, I guess. Or a coherent strategy. But if we can’t stop the Reds and the Marsfirsters, it won’t matter what Sax wants.”

• • •