Uranium Fist | Page 6

with
Omar Nkruma and didn't notice me until I sat down and pulled the

ashtray towards me. He smiled half-heartedly, and then turned back to
his conversation.
Angela looked up from whatever private thoughts were occupying her
mind. "Hello, Sue," she said quietly. There was little enthusiasm in her
voice. I wondered if she was having second thoughts about the
interview.
Nkruma played with his lighter and watched me with his unfathomable
dark eyes. His were the most inexpressive features I have ever seen.
Quite unlike Carter, dwarfed by Nkruma's bear-like frame, who had an
animated - if gaunt - face when he got going. With David, a recorder
was essential - no journalist's shorthand was ever designed to keep up
with him in full flow.
Today he was not so expressive. His conversation with Nkruma was
low and half-hearted. They all seemed reticent to talk. The atmosphere
around the table was subdued as they all explored memories, some
joyful, others they preferred to forget. Seeing me to talk about their
experiences was difficult. I appreciated their pain, but I don't think I
ever really told them how grateful I was that they agreed to see me.
Their presence in that quiet little cafe in Mars Central was a testimony
to the inner strength that took them through a difficult period. That
same strength enabled them to face the memories, and share them.
Some of them - David and Angela for instance - I knew from my time
on Greyermede. That helped them to take me into their confidence.
Others I'd met while researching this book, but they extended the same
trust as the others. To look at, they didn't seem like people who once
shook the stars to their cores, or gripped by the throat a system that had
wrought the iron chains of capitalism across interstellar distances. They
look like ordinary people, because that's exactly what they are.
Ordinary people, however, that have seen - and sometimes participated
in - terrible things. None of them were keen to talk about what they
have seen and done. In that, they share something in common with
soldiers down the ages. A kind of modesty, perhaps, or a reluctance to

dwell on things that the human mind was never truly built to
comprehend.
I found plenty of boasters while researching this book. Or more
accurately, they found me. They'd been there, done that, seen this. But
there was nothing very convincing about their ebullience, and it quickly
became apparent that these people were just living a dream, some
fantasy to bolster their own inconsequential lives. Eventually, I could
spot these time wasters before they even opened their mouths.
The people in the cafe were different. It took me months to gain their
trust.
When it all started, I was another jobbing hack, earning my keep by
writing about the strange and the unusual on the colonies. I was a
planet-hopper, moving from one world to the next in search of a story. I
worked for the liberal Martian Chronicle, a vaguely left-leaning
publication that had a reputation for pissing off the rich and powerful.
Like most reputations, it was overblown, but its pages had room for the
radical. It made it a good home for my work, and I owe it a lot.
Not least, I owe it for sending me to Greyermede when the story really
exploded and nobody could fail to hear about a world that was once an
unheard of backwater outside of the trade papers.
I went as a reporter, excited by a great story - a career maker for sure -
but no more. I left with much more. For one thing, I was no longer that
distant hack, aloof and unconcerned about the lives I touched. The
people and the events I went to witness as a passive bystander moved
me more than anything else I ever witnessed. The drama drew me in,
until I became one with the hopes and aspirations of the human race.
No longer was I the wandering dilettante. I found a metaphorical home.
It's a hard lesson for a reporter to learn; that we touch and affect the
lives that we record. To say we are not involved is a cop out. We are
involved. Our capacity to shape perceptions is powerful, and we bear a
terrible duty to dig out the truth. This is our self-proclaimed conviction,
our honour and our prestige. We have made the truth our raison d'tre -

but how many of us really practice what we preach?
Truth is not a neutral force. Objectivity and a lack of bias mean dealing
with the truth, sifting out those trails and following them wherever they
lead. Once we reach that goal, or as close to it as we can possibly