Climbing (Two Kinds)

May 8-12, m00039

Over the next few days, the team return to routine work as Liapchev recovers in hospital. The team check his progress periodically; Florence. who knows something about tradition, considers taking him grapes, but given the cost, ends up taking a bio-engineered Martian product that grows on a cactus and resembles a kiwis fruit. Talking to him confirms that he is (or sees himself as) an adventurer out of his time. He spends some time chatting with Florence about places they've been, as their wanderings around the Solar System have covered some of the same territory.

He mentions, as advanced medicine completes its work, that he would like to go climbing on the upper Marineris-Noctis Labyrinthus cliffs, and both Florence and Charles find this interesting, and declare that they'll join him. Vajra, curious about such activities, decides to come along in a rented spider-shell, and Jianwei decides to come on the trip to keep the team together - although he says that he'll only drive the rover and watch the others. This is technically off-duty activity, but Ambassador Schmidt doesn't mind at all when she hears about it - she thinks that it might serve as the basis for a bit of good public relations work.

May 9, m0039

And so the group take a monorail to the (relatively) old Chinese town of Guxiang, where they rent a rover, and head south to Ge'gyai, a town at the centre of the developing Chinese agricultural system. There, they sample the new local wines briefly before driving on up narrow canyons with greenery. By the end of the day, Florence, Charles, and Liapchev are climbing happily while Vajra discourses on weird organic concepts of "fun". Back at their camp, Jianwei cooks an indifferent meal - but at least he is able to suggest an interesting climb for the next day from his observation of the cliffs.

Over dinner, perhaps now that they are less likely to be under significant surveillance, Liapchev tells a story regarding his commercial slink-logging work. His publishers are a Peruvian enterprise, and it seems that they very subtly but carefully edited his work. Curious, Jianwei asks for sight of "before" and "after" versions of the slog, and confirms this looks like deliberate memetic tinkering - the aim seems to be to promote ideals of Martian cultural diversity, with a little subtle Free Mars attitude thrown in for good measure. He pulls more from the same publisher off the Web to review the next day.

May 10, m0039

The others take up Jianwei's suggestion for cliffs to tackle next. Florence, confident as ever, takes the most difficult route, but manages fine, indeed thanking Jianwei for finding such a good climb. She and Liapchev both slog this. She then becomes wildly overconfident on the way back down; she manages the climb, but her psychiatrists will be having words later. Also, she left her filter mask off, and so despite the peculiar persistent mediocrity of Jianwei's cooking (even on a hasty second attempt), she devours all the food that is put in front of her. Meanwhile, Jianwei has been wading through masses of slogs, but is uncertain of his conclusions.

May 11, m0039

Through careless observation, Jianwei suggests an over-tough climb the next day. Fortunately, Charles demonstrates his keen eye for Martian scenery, and warns them of its problems. The group quickly locates an easier climb across the valley, and even Jianwei is persuaded to join them.

On getting back to the rover with its long-range communications capability, the team (and also Liapchev) receive an invitation from Mahmud as-Sulaymi, relayed to them by the embassy. He is giving a small party off in the wilderness to mark some local event or another - he's vague on the subject. This looks like a good chance to cultivate some contacts. So the team transmit an acceptance and start planning.

With some thought, social skills, and Florence's keen fashion sense, they choose a wardrobe. The humans in the party go for robes, while Vajra extends the hire period on the spider-shell, which should rate as tactfully non-humanoid in Muslim company, paying a small surcharge for it to be given a temporary metallic paint job on the way. Liapchev  will join them; the Embassy protocol AIs note flatly that, while Danteng might monitor the event, Woju's presence would not be a good idea.

May 12-14, m0039

Two days of travel return the group to Guxiang, from where they can take an overnight monorail. Florence's video records go to her psychologists over a fast comms link, while the party gets package of clothes from Quentin. A rented hopper is waiting for them at the monorail stop in the morning. They change clothes at the airfield, and head south to the party location.

As they approach, Charles looks down and comments that he can see some really interesting geology - he's unsure about the quality of the soil hereabouts. They should land on the field marked out by as-Sulaymi, and not anywhere else, he says. They do so, spruce up before disembarking, and are politely and slightly effusively greeted by their host. They note that his bioroid camels are tethered off at a distance.

Charles wanders off to chat with Hassan, but the rest of the team get talking to various unfamiliar Saudis. Vajra gets a strong sense of politics once again here - this is obviously an event for that radical/progressive faction in Saudi society. Some of them are visibly unsure about Florence the exotic bioroid, who would have severe problems in terrestrial Caliphate areas, but they are all conspicuously polite.

At sunset, Mahmud claps politely for attention, and clears his throat to speak - and at that point, some of the insolation mirrors visible in the sky above turn to focus full daylight and more on the location. The team quickly realise what is happening; this action will trigger melting of a local aquifer. (Landing on the wrong spot would have left the hopper in a distinctly unhealthy position, especially at this point in time.) The plan - part of the whole great terraforming process - turns out to be to start liquid flows to what will eventually become a river comples downhill to the south. Mahmud doesn't claim full credit for this operation, but it is all part of his domain of interest, and he performed some of the related survey work. Getting his pictures on the Web in association with this will reflect well on him and his political faction - and having European representatives around at the time will also add effect.

Jianwei recognises this, becomes somewhat distracted, and hastily files a short report with embassy - "We've found the hook inside the bait".

Florence, meanwhile, goes off with the women to their private tent, and ends up dancing quite a lot. She does make one error, by mentioning sensory uplinks, which are not a respectable topic among any sort of good Muslims... She also notes that most but not all of the women have Andraste biomods - come to think of it, the same probably goes for the menfolk.

Vajra, taking a detached view of all this socialising, fires off a message to Danteng - a request that the AI sociologist should check the semiotics of this set-up for Peruvian elements.

Also, both Jianwei and Vajra note another encampment across the valley. It seems, when they mention this to their host, that a rival faction may be on the scene, observing events.

Diplomacy, Jealousy, and Wrath

Scorpius 27, m0039, continued

While Florence arranges her four-day climb, from a tunnel exit to the rim of the great volcano's caldera, Jianwei and Vajra take the maglev back to Port Lowell - where Ambassador Schmidt would like a conference with them at their first convenience. She likes some element of face-to-face conversation in her work, sometimes.

April 1, m0039

Schmidt has been in conference with Brussels about this latest case, and one of her assisting LAIs, April Thetis, has been prepared with a persona overlay to represent the E.U. authorities' position. (It's designed for such flexibility.) Hence, it too has an avatar "present" at the meeting, adopting the image of a human female in sternly Hellenic-classical garb. It expresses a clear position; that state-level conflicts on Mars aren't the E.U.'s business, but that it is evidently impossible for E.U. citizens to avoid becoming caught in the crossfire from time to time - in which cases, de-escalation should be the standard objective, Also, the E.U. seeks especially to remain on good terms with the Nix Olympica community, on the basis that it recognises certain common interests.

One issue now arising from the latest incident is how to word a travel advisory. The meeting agrees that they can't avoid making a public statement referring to "severe memetic conflict", and also to things (literally) exploding "accidentally" - but Jianwei will try to assist in designing something that won't overly discourage E.U. visiting.

It is also noted that, although the team is and should seek to remain on good terms with the US Marshalls service, they could not but observe the speed and weight of the Marshalls' intervention on Olympia, when given an excuse. That relationship may need careful handling, if the Marshalls are sometimes going to act as agents of US state power...

Anyway, for now, the embassy's resident memetics specialist LAI is to be given special interrupt access to the team's communications - because it's going to be looking out for Quipu operations, and flagging any possibilities it detects for the team's attention. It apologetically seeks permission to take an attitude towards Peruvian Martians that might almost be interpreted as obnoxious ethnic stereotyping; they may have to be assumed to be planning something...

April 5, m0039

As Florence has ascended the extinct volcano, she has noticed at least one of her human companions has clearly been treating her as a rival. He's an American, of course, and on Mars, Americans do have issues with bioroids... But she thinks little of the matter - until she awakes on the last day of the trip, to discover that this individual has finessed the psychology of the guide AIs and set out on his own, ahead of the rest. This isn't in accord with safety rules, obviously, but he is obviously suffering from an excess of competitiveness, aiming to reach the top well ahead of the group. He has gone offline, but at least he has taken an adequate amount of kit with him, and he can be tracked by satellite imagery if necessary.

So the main group sets out, following their planned route. The competitive singleton, on the other hand, has evidently tried to plot a faster, riskier path. Well, it's certainly riskier - it involves heading up under what is actually an impossible overhang. After a while, the lone climber stops, and then comes sheepishly back on line. He's got himself wedged. He's also a little low on air and supplies - after all, he was trying not to weigh himself down...

Florence assesses the situation, and decides that she can manage a solo recovery climb. (Of course she does.) The climbing company are torn between the danger of losing one customer, and that of losing two... So after a few minutes, they place a call with Jianwei and explain the situation. (They're American too, and regard Jianwei as Florence's responsible adult.) Jianwei ponders for a moment, then gives his assent. Vajra joins the conversation, and suggests that the company sends a guide cybershell with support gear, but Florence is being overconfident enough to push ahead of that. (Vajra also tries to talk the tour company into paying her for all this, but sadly fails.) Florence and Jianwei have settled an optimum load for her to take, and she makes good progress up the rock face, and gets the sheepish American out of his problem. This leaves them some way ahead of the main party, even after some very necessary back-tracking, and Florence decides to move on forward, for the look of the thing; she and the American are waiting at the top of the slope when the others arrive.

The image of this looks good on the press release that Jianwei crafts, with assistance from Vajra on the memetics. It never hurts to make the E.U. look good.

April 6, m0039

The next day, Florence arrives back in Nix Olympica, and is disappointed to find that DD isn't available for lunch. She's still chasing that story, and saying it looks very interesting. Florence advises her not to get herself killed.

Meanwhile, Jianwei and Vajra get a call to handle a routine-looking commercial dispute resolution. A European tourist, Pierre Marchand (a typical Eloi type, to judge by available data), hired a local guide, one Xiang Gao, and is now complaining that Gao has reneged on his guide contract. A brief check shows that Gao is a Chinese citizen, and ex-military - well, there's a lot of those about. He is also quite easy to trace to an ecoforming station a little way out of Port Lowell.

The pair rent a light rover and set off to contact this individual. Arriving at the station - which is basically a hamlet with some high-tech installations and a bar - they are promptly directed to the latter, where they find Gao, clearly enjoying the place's wares. The most notable thing about him is that he is wearing a sword on his back. Jianwei approaches the bar while Vajra quietly takes a seat and watches events.

Jianwei buys Gao a drink (the human barman serves him a beer), and then mentions Marchand, which elicits a response. "...Boring round-eyed Eloi snob..." is perhaps the essence of it, embedded in a lot of what can best be described as Street Mandarin. Then Gao demands another drink. But the barman, noting that this customer is looking dangerously well-served already, turns difficult. Gao attempts to vault the bar, but fails (the ceiling is a little low for real Martian acrobatics), and somehow ends up yelling abuse at Jianwei, making himself angry enough to wind up for a swing at him. So Vajra, who has been watching all this with AI impassiveness, shoots him with his vortex pistol. The burst of advanced tranquiliser gas drops Gao on the spot, and Vajra lobs Jianwei a reel of cufftape.

The pair make a few calls, and then load the cuffed Gao into their rover and tow him back to the Chinese authorities in Port Lowell. This case can now be handed off to the legal system.