There was a groan, and Phyllis said, “Do we have to get political, Arkady?”

At the very mention of the word, the cloud of listeners ruptured. Mary Dunkel and a couple of others pushed out and headed for the other end of the room.

“Everything is political,” Arkady said at their backs. “Nothing more so than this voyage of ours. We are beginning a new society, how could it help but be political?”

“We’re a scientific station,” Sax said. “It doesn’t necessarily have much politics to it.”

“It certainly didn’t last time I was there,” John said, looking thoughtfully at Arkady.

“It did,” Arkady said, “but it was simpler. You were an all-American crew, there on a temporary mission, doing what your superiors told you to do. But now we are an international crew, establishing a permanent colony. It’s completely different.”

Slowly people were drifting through the air toward the conversation, to hear better what was being said. Rya Jimenez said, “I’m not interested in politics,” and Mary Dunkel agreed from the other end of the room: “That’s one of the things I’m here to get away from!”

Several Russians replied at once. “That itself is a political position!” and the like. Alex exclaimed, “You Americans would like to end politics and history, so you can stay in a world you dominate!”

A couple of Americans tried to protest, but Alex overrode them. “It’s true! The whole world has changed in the last thirty years, every country looking at its function, making enormous changes to solve problems— all but the United States. You have become the most reactionary country in the world.”

Sax said, “The countries that changed had to because they were rigid before, and almost broke. The United States already had flex in its system, and so it didn’t have to change as drastically. I say the American way is superior because it’s smoother. It’s better engineering.”