No one knew, and there was no good way to calculate it scientifically. Estimates of Terra’s human carrying capacity had ranged from one hundred million to two hundred tril-. lion, and even the seriously defensible estimates ranged from two to thirty billion. In truth carrying capacity was a very fuzzy abstract concept, depending on an entire recom-binant host of complexities such as soil biochemistry, ecology, human culture. So it was almost impossible to say how many people Mars could handle. Meanwhile Earth’s population was over fifteen billion, while Mars, with almost as much land surface, had a population a thousand times as small, at right around fifteen million. The disparity was clear. Something would have to be done.
Mass transfer of people from Earth to Mars was certainly one possibility; but the speed of the transfer was limited by the size of the transport system, and the ability of Mars to absorb the immigrants. Now the Chinese, and indeed the UN generally, were arguing that as a beginning step in a process of intensified immigration, they could build up the transport system very substantially. A second space elevator on Mars would be the first step in this multistage project.
Reaction on Mars to this plan was mostly negative. The Reds of course opposed further immigration, and while conceding that some would have to happen, they opposed any specific development of the transfer system just to try to keep the process slowed down as much as possible. That position fit their overall philosphy, and made sense to Nadia. The Free Mars position, however, while more important, was not so clear. Nirgal had come out of Free Mars, and had gone to Earth and issued a general invitation to Terrans to shift as many people over as they could. And historically Free Mars had always argued for strong ties with Earth, to attempt the so-called tail-wagging-dog strategy. The current party leadership, however, no longer seemed very fond of this position. And Jackie was in the middle of this new group. They had been shifting toward a more isolationist stance even during the constitutional congress, Nadia recalled, arguing always for more independence from Earth. On the other hand, they had been apparently cutting deals in private with certain Terran countries. So the Free Mars position was ambiguous, perhaps hypocritical; and seemed designed mainly to increase its own power on the Martian scene.
Even setting aside Free Mars, though, there was a lot of isolationist sentiment out there besides the Reds — anarchists, some Bogdanovists, the Dorsa Brevian matriarchs, the MarsFirsters — all tended to side with the Reds on this issue. If millions and millions of Terrans began to pour up onto Mars, they all argued, what then of Mars — not just of the landscape itself, but of the Martian culture that had been forming over the m-years? Wouldn’t that be drowned in the old ways brought up by the new influx, which might quickly outnumber the native population? Birth rates were dropping everywhere, after all, and childlessness and one-child families were as common on Mars as on Earth — so there wouldn’t be any great multiplication in the native population to look forward to. They would soon be overwhelmed.
So Jackie argued, at least in public, and the Dorsa Brevians and many others agreed with her. Nirgal, just back from Earth, seemed not to be having much effect on that stance. And while Nadia could see the point of her opponents’ arguments, she also felt that given the situation on Earth, they were being unrealistic to think they could close Mars down. Mars could not save Earth, as Nirgal had sometimes seemed to say during his visit there; but an agreement with the UN had been made and ratified, and they were committed to letting up at least as many Terrans as the treaty specified. So the bridge between the worlds had to be expanded if they were to meet that obligation, and keep the treaty viable. If they didn’t stick to the treaty, Nadia thought, anything might happen.
So in the debate over allowing a second cable, Nadia argued for it. It increased the capacity of the transport system, as they had promised to do, if only indirectly. And it would also take some of the pressure off the towns on Tharsis, and that side of Mars generally; population density maps showed that Pavonis was like the bull’s-eye of a target, with people radiating outward from it and settling as near to it as was convenient. Having a cable on the other side of the world would help to equalize things.
But this was a dubious value to the cable’s opponents. They wanted the population localized, contained, slowed. The treaty didn’t matter to them. So when it came to a council vote, which was only an advisory to the legislature in any case, only Zeyk voted with Nadia. It was Jackie’s biggest victory so far, and put her in a temporary alliance with Irishka and the rest of the environmental courts, which were on principle resistant to all forms of swift development.
Nadia went home to her apartment that day, discouraged and worried. “We’ve promised Earth we’ll take lots of immigrants, then pulled up the drawbridge. It’s going to lead to trouble.”
Art nodded. “We’ll have to work something out.”
Nadia blew out her breath in disgust. “Work. We won’t work anything out. Work isn’t the word for it. We will bicker and dicker and argue and natter.” She sighed a big sigh. “It will go on and on. I thought Nirgal being back would help, but it won’t if he doesn’t join in.”
“He doesn’t have a position,” Art said.
“He could if he wanted one, though.”
“True.”
Nadia thought about it, her mind wandering as her spirits dropped. “You know I’ve only gotten through ten months of my term. There’s over two and a half m-years to go.”
“I know.”
“M-years are so damned long.”
“Yes. But the months are short.”
She made a noise at him. Stared out the window of her apartment, down into Pavonis caldera. “The trouble is that work isn’t work anymore. You know, we go out there and join these projects, and the work on them still isn’t work. I mean I never get to go out and do things. I remember when I was young, in Siberia, work was really work.”
“You might be romanticizing that a bit.”
“Yeah, sure, but even on Mars. I remember putting together Underbill. That was really fun. And one day on our trip to the north pole, installing a permafrost gallery…” She sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for work like that again.”
“There’s still a lot of construction going on,” Art pointed out.
“By robots.”
“Maybe you could go back to something more human. Build something yourself. A house in the country, or a development. Or one of the new harbor towns, hand-built to try out different things, designs, methods, whatever. It would slow the construction process down, the GEC would go for that.”
“Maybe. After my term is over, you mean.”
“Or even before. On breaks, like these other trips. They’ve all been analogs to construction, they haven’t been construction itself. Building actual things. You have to try that, then go back and forth between the two.”
“Conflict of interest.”
“Not if it was a public-works project. What about that proposal to build a global capital down at sea level?”