He placed the document on the table. "If you undertake this project, Ares will not only assist you in the engineering of the elevator and all associated infrastructure, but will also contract with you to construct a similar elevator for Mars itself. They are very much in need of launch capacity themselves, and so, Madame Speaker, they may also be considered to be a customer as well as an ally." The committee seemed nearly convinced; a faint murmuring of intense conversation began. Ganeshan's smile, however, was wintry. "I will agree that you have supplied the allies in specific, and sufficiently so for now, but let us not attempt a magician's trick in making one appear to be simultaneously the other. I cannot speak for my learned colleagues, but I have been following Ares' activities quite closely in the past few months. They are essentially bankrupt, are they not? Oh, if they somehow manage to establish themselves and survive the next ten years, they may amount to something, but is it not true that it would be quite ludicrous for us to consider them a significant customer at the present time?" "Madame Speaker, you are entirely correct." The murmurs turned to a hush. "I do believe that in the future you will find them excellent customers, but it is undoubtedly, undoubtedly true that you need another customer, one in the here and now. One which has considerable monetary resources, yet no space capability of its own.

One which has pressing reason to enter space in a wide and diverse capacity but which at the present time cannot do so itself." He saw her eyebrows rise as the thought struck her an instant before he spoke his next words.