The meeting ran smoothly enough. No major problems outside of the usual disputes over water allocations and proposals to enlarge the underground city so that still more refugees from Earth could become citizens of Selene.
“We have enough of these refugees,” one of the councilwomen complained. “The more we let in, the more they influence our politics.”
“Well, that’s only fair, isn’t it?” said another woman, sitting on the other side of the table. “If they’re citizens they ought to influence our politics.”
“It’s time to shut the door,” the first councilwoman said, looking squarely at Stavenger.
He straightened up in his chair. “It’s hard to refuse people who’ve lost their homes on Earth.”
“It’s their own damned fault! They sat on their hands for years and years and let the greenhouse overwhelm them. Now they want to run away from it and come here.”
The debate grew hot, with some council members insisting that no more refugees be accepted for citizenship.
As their voices rose, Stavenger held up his hand and asked the chairman to recognize him. The angry arguing stopped and all eyes turned to him.
“Do you think it would be possible,” Stavenger asked mildly, “to have newcomers go through a waiting period before they’re allowed to apply for citizenship?”
“They have to wait six months,” said the chairman. “That’s in our constitution.”
“Could we stretch it to a few years? Give them enough time to learn how our community works? Let them integrate themselves into our society?”
The debate growled on for another half hour, but much more politely. Stavenger watched and listened, content that he had sucked the venom out of the argument. In the end, the council voted to extend the waiting period for citizenship to five years. And then immediately voted to enlarge the city’s underground living area by twenty percent.
The chairman nodded happily, then said, “That leaves only one item on the agenda: Mars.”
Again they all turned to Stavenger.
Clasping his hands together on the table, Stavenger said, “The explorers on Mars need our help. Funding from national governments Earthside has been cut to zero, and private donations to the Mars Foundation are running dry.”
“What can we do about it? We can’t spend billions on Mars, for god’s sake.”
“It won’t take billions,” Stavenger said, with a soft smile. “Basically, they need help with two things: transportation and supplies.”
“How many people are we talking about?”
“At the moment there’s just over two hundred people, all at one base in the Grand Canyon.”
“We’re supposed to feed two hundred people?”
“On Mars?”
“They grow some of their own food,” Stavenger replied. “Two of our people are there right now, studying—”
“Who sent two people to Mars?”
“They volunteered. One’s an agro-engineer and the other a logistics specialist—”
“A glorified accountant,” somebody said in a stage whisper.
Stavenger waited for the snickering laughter to die out, then admitted, “He does have a CPA ticket, in addition to his engineering degrees.”
“And he went to Mars?” asked the chairman, trying to move the discussion forward.
“Yes. He and the agro man want to see how the Mars base might be made self-sufficient, food-wise.”
“And we paid for their transportation?”
“They went on a fusion torch ship that the Mars Foundation paid for.”
“Hitchhikers, huh?”
A few council members laughed again.
“You might say that,” Stavenger replied.
The chairman asked, “Just what does the Mars team need? And how much of it can we afford to give them?”
Stavenger hesitated a heartbeat. Then, “I don’t think of it as giving them anything. I think we’d be investing in the exploration of a new world.”
“Damned expensive investment.”
“With no return.”
“No return?” Stavenger snapped. “They’ve found the remains of intelligent life! They’re uncovering villages and finding a whole ecology of living organisms! Isn’t that return enough?”
“It doesn’t buy any bread.”
With a shake of his head, Stavenger replied, “It wasn’t that long ago that we were the ones who needed help. This community of ours began as a collection of aluminum cans scattered across Alphonsus’s floor. We needed help from Earth in those days. Now the people on Mars need help from us.”
“That’s all well and good,” said one of the older men, “but the question remains: what’s in it for us? We can’t afford to run a charity operation.”
“We’re already doing that with the damned refugees,” grumbled one of the other councilmen.
For several heartbeats Stavenger didn’t reply. He looked up at the acoustic tiles of the ceiling, then broke into a grin as a teenaged girl flew past the window on colorful plastic wings. How to answer them? he was asking himself. How to make them see?
“Look,” he said at last. “We’re in a battle against the armies of ignorance.”
The other council members stirred with curiosity. Even the chairman’s perpetual grin faded into a puzzled, almost worried expression.
“Back on Earth most people are governed by those who are using religion to suppress freedom. They’re the ones who ignored the warnings about the greenhouse, who denied that the Earth’s climate was changing. They’re the ones who allowed this catastrophe to overwhelm the Earth.”
“What’s that got to do with Mars?”
“Hear me out, please. Those people tried to rule us. They sent troops here to force us to bend to their authority. They killed our citizens. If and when they feel strong enough, they’ll try it again.”
“No!”
“I can’t believe that!”
“Believe it,” Stavenger said firmly. “All through history human civilization has been a struggle between individual liberty and the power of the state. Whenever a religious movement has gained the reins of governmental power, individual liberties are strangled. That’s what’s happening on Earth today. Now.”
Several council members glanced uneasily at one another, but no one contradicted him.
“Why do you think so many refugees want to live here?” Stavenger continued. “If they’re wealthy enough to come to Selene they’re wealthy enough to take their pick of safe residences on Earth. They’re coming here for freedom! Not because they want to live in cramped underground quarters. Not because they want to worry about water allocations and air pressure regulations. They want to be free: socially, intellectually, even religiously free.”
The chairman said slowly, “Doug, I still don’t understand what this has to do with Mars.”
“It’s part of the battle. Part of the long war for human freedom. Oppression thrives on ignorance. The explorers on Mars are finding new facts, new ideas, that challenge the ideas of the oppressors. That’s why the fundamentalists are working so hard to end the exploration of Mars. That’s why we’ve got to do everything we can to support that exploration.”
For long moments the conference room was so silent that Stavenger could hear the faint whisper of the air circulation fans buried behind the ceiling’s panels.
Then the youngest member of the council, a molecular biologist who had come to Selene University to study genetic engineering, asked, “How much can we do?”
“Not much,” the chairman answered immediately. “But if I sense the feeling around this table, we’ll do whatever we can. Right?”
One by one, the other council members nodded agreement.
“Very well, then,” said the chairman. “In that case, we should listen to a proposal from one of our citizens who’s just returned from Mars.”