“What happened to the others?” I pursued.
He ignored me. “That’s serious stuff. You’re going to need advocates.” He turned to the sympathizer and barked, “Damn it, get these people something to wear.” He looked back at us and his ingratiating smile returned. “It’s tough being legal in front of naked people.”
Thirty armed men and women, as many LitVid agents, Chancellor Connor, and Governor Dauble herself stood in the dining hall, Connor and Dauble and their entourage well away from the offending students. We clustered in bathrobes near the serving gates, the twenty-eight who had gone out with Sean and Gretyl, criminals caught in the act of sabotage. Those left behind in the trench domes had been collected as well. Dauble and Connor were about to celebrate their victory on LitVid across the Triple.
Medias and Pressians, my father called them: the hordes of LitVid reporters that seemed rise out of the ground at the merest hint of a stink. On Mars reporters were a hearty breed; they learned early to get around the tight lips of BM families. Ten of the quickest and hardiest — several familiar to me — stood with arbeiter attendants near the Statist cluster, ear loops recording all they saw, images edited hot for transmission to the satcoms.
Diane stood in a group across the hall. She waved to me surreptitiously. I did not see Sean. Charles was five or six meters from me in our pack and did not appear injured. He saw me and nodded. Some from his group had sustained bruises and even broken bones. Blue boneknits graced three.
We said nothing, stood meek and pitiful. This was our time to be victims of the oppressive state.
Dauble came forward flanked by two advisors. A louder curled on her shoulder like a thin snake. “Folks, this has gone much too far. Chancellor Connor has been courteous enough to supply the families of these students — ”
“Banned students!” Oliver Peskin shouted next to me. Others took up the cry, and another chorus followed on with, “Contract rights! Obligations!”
Dauble listened, face fixed in gentle disapproval. The cries died down.
“To supply all of their families with information on their whereabouts, and their status as arrested saboteurs,” she finished.
“Where’s Gretyl?” I shouted, hardly aware I’d opened my mouth.
“Where’s Sean?” someone else called. “Where’s Gretyl?”
“Family advocates are flying in now. The train service has been cut, thanks to these students, and our ability to up-link on broadband has been severely curtailed. These acts of sabotage — “
“Illegal voiding!” another student shouted.
“Constitute high felonies under the district book and United Martian codes — ”
“Where’s SEAN? Where’s GRETYL?” Oliver shouted, hair awry, flinging up his hand, fingers splayed.
Guards moved in, shoving through us none too gently, and grabbed him. Connor stepped forward and raised her arm. Achmed Crown Niger ordered the guards to release him. Oliver shrugged their arms away and smiled back at us triumphantly.
Dauble seemed unaffected by the confusion. ‘These acts will be fully prosecuted.”
“Where’s SEAN? Where’s GRETYL?” several students yelled again.
“Sean’s dead! Gretyl’s dead!” shouted one high, shrill voice. The effect was electric.
“Who says? Who knows?” others called. The students cried out and milled like sheep.
“Nobody has been killed,” Dauble said, her composure suddenly less solid.
“Bring SEAN!”
Dauble conferred with her advisors, then turned back to us. “Sean Dickinson is in the university infirmary with self-inflicted wounds. Everything possible is being done to help him. Gretyl Laughton is in the infirmary as well, with injuries from self-exposure.”
The reporters hadn’t heard this yet; their interest was immediate, and all focused on Dauble.
“How were the students injured?” asked one reporter, her pickup pointed at Dauble.
“There have been several small injuries — ”
“Inflicted by the guards?”
“No,” Connor said.
“Is it true the guards have been armed all along? Even before the sabotage?” another reporter asked.
“We anticipated trouble from the beginning,” Dauble said. “These students have proven us correct.”
“But the guards aren’t authorized police or regulars — how do you justify that under district charter?”
“Justify all of it!” Diane shouted.
“I don’t understand your attitude,” Dauble said to us after a few moments of careful consideration in the full gaze of hot LitVid. “You sabotage life-support equipment — ”
“That’s a lie!” a student shouted.
“Disrupt the lawful conduct of this university, and now you resort to attempted suicide. What kind of Martians are you? Do your parents approve of this treachery?”
Dauble screwed her face into an expression between parental exasperation and deep concern. “What in the hell is wrong with you? Who raised you — thugs?"
The meeting came to an abrupt end. Dauble and her entourage departed, followed by the reporters. When several reporters tried to talk to us, they were unceremoniously ejected from the dining hall.
How very, very stupid, I thought.
I felt a bit faint from hunger; we hadn’t eaten in twenty hours. A few university staff, clearly uncomfortable, served us bowls of quick paste from trays. The nutritional nana was tasteless but still seemed heaven-sent. We had been provided with sleeping pads and blankets and were told winds were up and dust was blowing, grounding shuttles. No advocates or parents had yet come in to see us.
While being fed, we had been divided into groups of six, each assigned two guards. The guards actively discouraged talk between the groups, moving us farther and farther apart until we spread out through the hall. Oliver, considered a loudmouth activist, was prodded into a selected group of other loudmouths that included Diane. Charles sat with five others across the hall, about twenty meters away.
When we still tried to talk, the dining hall sound system blared out loud pioneer music, old-fashioned soul-stirring crap I had enjoyed as a kid, but found bitterly inappropriate now.
When I was free to speak with the Medias and Pressians, I thought, what a story I’d tell… I had seen and done things in the past few days that my entire life had not prepared me for, and I had felt emotions unknown to me: righteous anger, political confraternity and solidarity, deep fear.
I worried for Sean. All our information came through Achmed Crown Niger , who visited every few hours to hand out scraps of generally useless news. I took a real dislike to him: professional, collected, he was every gram the guvvie man. I focused on his pale, fine-featured face for a time, blaming him for all our troubles. He must have advised the chancellor and governor… He must have outlined their strategy, maybe even planned the banning and voiding of students…
I thought dreamily about a possible life with Sean, if he paid any attention to me after his recovery.
Nothing to do. Nothing to think. The lights in the dining hall went out. The music stopped.
I slept on the floor, nestled like a puppy against Felicia’s back.
Someone touched my shoulder. I opened my eyes from a light doze. Charles leaned over me, his face thinner and older, but his smile the same: too calm, somehow, like a young Buddha. His cheeks had pinked as if smirched with poorly applied makeup: a mild case of vacuum rose. Most of the students around us still slept.