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made no effort to communicate with us or respond to our transmissions. Nor did the Pro-serpinans reply
to our inquiries. We still have not learned more. In view of the tensions, instabilities, and false-hoods that
have become so prevalent, the judgment was that an announcement at this stage would be premature and
might well have unfortunate consequences. This may have been a mistake. When the news escaped
regardless, it heightened unfounded suspicions of the whole social-guidance system."
"Like your secrecy about the solar lenses."
Chuan frowned. "That is not the same thing at all."
"Maybe not. It's provoked something worse than the ship has or ever could."
Chuan's tone flattened. "To say an action was pro-voked is to imply it had some justice, some degree
of validity. What brought on the tragedy at Pavonis Mons was a cynical manipulation."
"That's one of the things I'm supposed to find out about."
"I can show you scenes. You will not enjoy them."
"I wouldn't expect to."
"They were taken unobtrusively or invisibly, not by humans, but by impersonal machines and
sensors."
Yes, Fenn thought, telemonitors, monitors hidden or disguised, monitors too small to be seen without
a mi-croscope. How many of them, throughout the Solar Sys-tem and even beyond? He quelled an
inward shiver.
"They have been edited, merely for clarity," Chuan said. "If you doubt that unbiased reporting is
possible, let me point out that the mind behind those observers and this editing is not human. It may have
missed something significant, on that account or by chance, but it has no more misrepresented or
suppressed data than any other scientist would."
Unsure how to argue with that, Fenn waited.
"Let us proceed chronologically," Chuan proposed. "Before coming to the terrible event, you should
have a little of the background, of what led up to it." He took a control pad from beneath his robe and
fingered a com-mand. A service table relied in bearing a multiceiver. "Audiovisual should suffice for the
present. You can have full vivifer later if you wish, and many more re-cordings. Here are only a few
typical occurrences in the Threedom and its hinterlands."
The screen came awake with a Lunarian town dusty pavement, buildings of rough-hewn stone
rising gaunt to observation balconies and high, steep roofs, airlocks marked with the emblems of phyles
and seldom opened to outsiders. Fenn recognized Daunan; Kinna had shown him images. A troop of
constabulary passed through, newly arrived, vehicles rolling along at a bare six kilo-meters per hour,
skinsuited men flanking them with weapons ready, everyone Terran. Everyone. The streets were empty
of inhabitants; the occupiers moved as if among tombs. Whoever watched from the houses, in rage as
cold as the oncoming night, gave no sign of them-selves.
Afterward, life perforce resumed. A pair of young con-stables with some free time ventured into the
market hall, where most everyday business took place. Arcades lined the interior with graceful pillars and
doorways. The ceil-ing displayed animations of flying things, fantastical birds, dragons, comets, flowers
that used their petals for wings. People moved about, buying, selling, eating, drinking, gambling, creating,
a changeable human spec-trum. When the Terrans appeared, faces froze for an in-stant. Then, one by
one, the Lunarians recommenced what they had been at. It was if no newcomers existed. When they
tried to purchase an object or two, souvenirs, the shopkeepers stared through them and made no reply.
But the background music had changed from a lilt to a throbbing and snarling. The young men.soon gave
up and left.
"This treatment has been virtually unanimous and spontaneous, from the outset," Chuan remarked.
"It could not have happened quite like this with our race."
"What about Lunarians elsewhere?" Fenn asked.
"None who are in the constabulary were ordered to join the occupation force, and none volunteered.
Never-theless, you probably know Mars is in no danger of civil war. The ordinary Lunarian has no
special ties to anyone in the Threedom and is not greatly concerned, except for an innate suspiciousness
about the Republic in general. S/he is much less tribal by nature" than the average Ter-ran. Some,
including a sufficient number in the House of Ethnoi, agreed that the occupation had become an
unfor-tunate necessity. They are more wary of that unknown quantity, Proserpina.
"But the dwellers in the Threedom are without mercy."
The view moved to a car lying wrecked in the desert. Out on patrol through country unfamiliar to
them, the two men aboard had not recognized the hillside down which they started for what it was. Dust
below a solid-seeming thin layer of rock and packed sand abruptly avalanched. Smashed open, the car
barely stuck out of a new red dune. The Terrans had of course been skinsuited and hel-meted, but one
was unconscious and his comrade, who had dragged him clear, had broken a leg. A Lunarian on a
groundcycle had seen from a distance. He approached. The constable waved to him. He drove off. The
constable screamed.
Either the car had managed to call for help or the un-seen observer did. A flitter from Arainn got
there in time.
"A limited amount of discussion and cooperation is unavoidable," Chuan said.
Now Fenn saw brief samples of talks between officers of the Republic and seigneurs of the
Threedom. It was polite; the Terrans attempted amicability. They repeated promises made at the outset.
The occupation had been ordered reluctantly, after no choice remained. Its forces respected individual
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