Of course it was apparent to any thinking person, and Laura White, like most Martians, certainly fit that category, what the real reason for the war was. If EastHem began gathering and refining their own fuel from Jupiter's atmosphere, Standard Fuel and Jovian Gasses and the other industries that relied upon gas refining and shipping would lose more than half of their business. The WestHem government, which imposed export taxes upon those sales, would lose all of that income from its yearly budget. In addition to the loss of revenue, WestHem would lose one of its trump cards in any future conflict. It would never again be able to threaten EastHem with a fuel embargo. That could simply not be allowed. And so, even though there was enough hydrogen in the atmosphere of Jupiter to supply both halves of the Earth and all of their colonies for thousands of generations, a vicious war erupted over the issue.

But Laura, above all, was a politician. She could not show, could not say how she really felt about the subject. She could not even say what the people she served wanted her to say or feel. She said and felt, in public anyway, what her sponsors — those who had contributed to her campaigns, who had bankrolled her election — wanted her to say and feel. That was how you stayed in the game. There had been a time when she had not wanted to stay in the game anymore, when she had not wanted to be a part of the perverse and sickening process that was modern government. That time had not been so long before. But now that Martian cities were having holes blasted in them, that Martian citizens were being killed because those corporate sponsors didn't want to lose their profit margins, she had decided it was her duty to stay in the game. She did not like the game but she would play it and she would play it well. She would kiss every ass, would spout every company line, would do whatever she needed to do to advance her political career. And hopefully one day, years from now, when she was in a position much higher than a mere Eden city council member, she would change the game.