CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE DELEGATION

High Mars, late 1980

The first high-level political delegation to Mars never reached the surface.

Dust closed the spaceport.

Three ministers, two deputy ministers, a Soviet general, an American senator and enough advisers to populate a small village spent forty-eight hours at High Mars looking down at the planet they had come to inspect.

Sokolov was not sympathetic.

“We cannot land.”

The senator looked through the station window.

“It looks clear.”

“From two hundred kilometres.”

“Our schedule—”

“Mars has not read it.”

The delegation conducted its meetings in orbit.

Shaw appeared by video from Camp One.

The surface-to-orbit link allowed conversation. Questions came through the speaker; Shaw answered while the officials studied the images transmitted from Camp One. The awkward pauses belonged to the meeting, not to the distance between them.

A French minister asked about civilian governance.

Shaw answered carefully.

“We can manage another hundred military and technical personnel under the present system. Civilians change the problem.”

“How?”

“They are not here under orders.”

The minister waited for the rest.

“That is the point,” Shaw said.

The Soviet general asked about security.

“The settlement is secure.”

“Against what?”

Shaw almost smiled.

“Mostly Mars.”

The American senator asked about industrial potential.

Li joined the call.

He held up a machined bracket.

“This was made from partially local material.”

“When can you export?”

Li stared at the screen.

“We are importing food and asking when we can export?”

The senator leaned back.

“I’m asking when this becomes economically useful.”

“It is economically useful every time we do not ship a kilogram from Earth.”

That answer appeared in newspapers within a week.

The delegation returned to Earth without touching Mars.

It nevertheless approved expanded funding.

Sometimes the colony benefited from weather.